Her mentor laughed. “It’s okay. I’ll handle Gordo. That’s why I get paid the really big bucks.”
Still, he made no move to answer the phone. “You’re going to dodge his calls,” she guessed.
“You bet your ass. For as long as possible. I don’t have anything to say to him until I speak with my client, and I don’t know when that will be, as I haven’t heard a word from him. I don’t suppose you know when that’s likely to change?”
Her heart clutched as she shook her head. “I-I asked him to talk to a couple people who I felt had information material to his decision, and he said he would speak to both of them, but I don’t know his timeline, or even if he’ll wait to reach out to you until after he’s done as I asked.”
She could only hope.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Trace tracked Bridget’s progress back to the airfield via the laptop in his office, though Lenna responded to all communications from her console behind the ticket desk. He remained in his office, hiding, until the Mounties deplaned and the chaos of five tired, happy climbers and their gear passed through the building and out to the van with Canadian plates parked in the lot. He was in no mood to deal with people. Not even Canadians. His life—the one he’d thought was finally coming together after months of grief, regret, and uncertainty—felt completely out of control.
The woman he loved had called him out for breaking her trust and left, and he was still at a loss as to how to fix things. The deal that represented freedom to him stood between them, and he didn’t know what to do about that, either. His dead brother had a baby on the way, which might have been miraculous under different circumstances. Correction. It was miraculous, regardless of the circumstances, but he could see a train wreck setting up between Lilah and Rose, and he could do nothing to avoid it since he was sworn to secrecy.
The only thing he could do, right now, was follow through on the commitment he’d made to Izzy and talk to Bridget. A conversation that promised to be a fun trip down memory lane. Hey, Bridge, wanna talk about why you left college with one year to go? Figuring there was no time like the present to rehash old disappointments, and more to the point, his week couldn’t get any more twisted up, he walked out to the main room in search of his sister.
He didn’t find her there, but when he asked Lenna, she jerked a thumb toward the parking lot. He watched from the door as Bridge helped the Canadians load their gear into the van. She gave one of the guys a shoulder-bump as a farewell, and the man pulled her into a dramatic clinch and planted an exaggerated kiss on her, while the rest of the group hooted and hollered. When the guy released her, one of the girls stepped up and did the same. His sister laughed and then proceeded to accept similar shows of appreciation from the rest of the group.
Jesus, Bridget. He scrubbed a hand over his face. Fun and games. Life was just fun and games to her. That’s why she’d left school. She and Shay shared the live-for-thrills philosophy. Why stick with something as staid and prudent as academics? Where was the fun in studying? Especially when good old Trace handled all the tedious bullshit. Well, that was going to end soon. Maybe with someone else in the picture, she’d step up. Or maybe not. Totally her choice.
“New friends?” he asked as she approached him. He couldn’t quite keep the tone out of his voice.
She raised her eyebrows but kept her relaxed, loose-limbed pace. “What’s up your butt?”
He held the door and followed her inside. “I need to talk to you.”
She shrugged, still not breaking stride to the coffee station “So, talk.”
“In private. My office.” Exerting a small power play of his own, he walked past her and down the hall to his door. He sat in his desk chair, accidentally kicking Izzy’s space heater in the process. He hadn’t shoved it into a closet yet, on the grounds that when she returned, she’d need it. Hope sprang eternal. Or he excelled at denial. He chose to think it was too soon to say.
Bridget came in holding a cup of coffee. “What?”
“Close the door. Take a seat.”
She let out a loud breath and shoved a hand through her hair. “Look, I just spent two days on a mountain. I’m tired. I’m dirty. I’m unreasonably excited at the prospect of using a toilet that flushes. Can you maybe just tell me what it is you want?”
Okay, it wasn’t all fun and games. Private charters involved work. Hucking up Big Kat with a group of noobs meant shouldering responsibility for their welfare. “This is important. We have to talk. If you need to take five first, go ahead. Then come back, shut the door, and have a seat.”
Well, great. Now worry overtook the annoyance in her expression. “I can wait.” She drew the door closed and dropped into one of the guest chairs. Leveling eyes brimming with apprehension on him, she asked, “What’s happened?”
“Nothing like what you’re thinking. Relax, Bridget. Everybody’s fine. This is important, but it’s not life or death.” At least, he didn’t think so. “Izzy told me I needed to talk to you. Specifically, I needed to ask you why you left college.”
She stared at him blankly for a long moment, then her lips twisted into a frown. “Why? What is this about?”
“I don’t know, exactly, but I think you do. I think there’s something I need to know about that skinny, hollow-eyed kid who came home from Stanford after her third year, moped around like a ghost for months, refused to go back, and then threw herself into living for the day and not giving a damn.”
“Oh. Okay, Izzy, Lilah, and I had a chat during girls’ night last week, and it sort of came out that maybe, according to something Shay told Lilah, you thought I came home because I had an eating disorder. I never had an eating disorder. You can stop trying to feed me all the goddamn time.”
“You had something,” he insisted, picturing her how she’d been those early months home. Listless. Solitary. Not the adventurous, energetic ass pain of a sister she’d been from birth ’til the time she’d left for school, and not the adventurous, energetic ass pain of a sister she was today. For that weird space of time, she’d been…different. Depressed. And then, thank God, she’d slowly shaken it off, along with all her ambition and most of her caution. “Whatever baggage you brought home from school that year weighed more than second thoughts about your major or anything along those lines.”
Bridget put the coffee aside and narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you curious about this now?”
“I told you. Izzy said I should ask.”
“No. I mean, why didn’t you ask me back in the day?”
“Because Shay told me you had an eating disorder, and I should back off. I didn’t want to put any undue pressure on you. I wanted you to get better. And then go back to school.”