Matter of Trust (Montana Rescue Book #3) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - May Warren Susan

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170 pages

English

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Description

Champion backcountry snowboarder Gage Watson has left the limelight behind after the death of one of his fans. After being sued for negligence and stripped of his sponsorships, he's remade his life as a ski patrol in Montana's rugged mountains, as well as serving on the PEAK Rescue team. But he can't seem to find his footing--or forget the woman he loved, who betrayed him. Senator and former attorney Ella Blair spends much of her time in the limelight as the second-youngest senator in the country. But she has a secret--one that cost Gage his career. More than anything, she wants to atone for her betrayal of him in the courtroom and find a way to help him put his career back on track. When Ella's brother goes missing on one of Glacier National Park's most dangerous peaks, Gage and his team are called in for the rescue. But Gage isn't so sure he wants to help the woman who destroyed his life. More, when she insists on joining the search, he'll have to keep her safe while finding her reckless brother, a recipe for disaster when a snowstorm hits the mountain. But old sparks relight as they search for the missing snowboarder--and suddenly, they are faced with emotions neither can deny. But when Ella's secret is revealed, can they learn to trust each other--even when disaster happens again?

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	04 juillet 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493407255
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2017 by Susan May Warren
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks .com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0725-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Published in association with The Steve Laube Agency, 5025 N. Central Ave., #635, Phoenix, AZ 85012
Endorsements
Praise for Wild Montana Skies
“Warren nails it again, with sweeping Montana scenery, wilderness suspense, and oh-so-relatable romance.”
— Booklist
“Exciting rescues and an old mystery offer a thrilling, roller-coaster plotline and plenty of drama to keep the pages turning.”
— Bookpage
“The redemption and resolution is what makes Warren’s stories shine, and there’s plenty of that offered in this novel.”
— RT Book Reviews
Praise for Rescue Me
“Warren has crafted a fast-moving, high-stakes romantic adventure set against the backdrop of Glacier National Park, which will leave longtime fans and new readers alike anticipating the next book in the series.”
— Publishers Weekly
“With action, adventure, romance, and a large, nuanced cast, Rescue Me is classic Susan May Warren. Pitting characters against nature—and themselves—in a rugged mountain setting, Warren pulls readers in on page one and never lets go.”
— Irene Hannon , bestselling author and three-time RITA Award winner
“ Rescue Me is the second book in the Montana Rescue series, and Susan May Warren has once again created characters that dig into your heart and latch on. Characters so real I missed them after the end.”
— Patricia Bradley , author of Silence in the Dark
Dedication
Soli Deo Gloria
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Endorsements
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Epilogue
A Sneak Peek of the Next Book in the Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Susan May Warren
Back Ads
Back Cover
1
G AGE W ATSON BLAMED THE TROUBLE on the bright, sunny day. A day when the sun arched high against a cloudless blue sky, and light gilded the snow-frosted, razorback mountain peaks with showers of gold.
Days like this lied to people, told them they could fly.
The air wasn’t so cold as to frighten the hordes of skiers into their condominiums or the après-ski bars, nor so warm as to turn the mountain into a river of slow-moving slush. Instead, a perfect day, rich with the fragrance of white pine and cedar, the powder dusting up behind him as he shredded the fields of untarnished snow, as his board carved through the white, soundless and free.
Dangerous. Because this kind of weather seeped into the bones of the extreme skiers who dared the back bowls and mogulled faces of Blackbear Mountain and turned them . . . well, as his father would describe it, reckless.
Or, more precisely, into idiots out to get themselves and others killed.
Like the kid dressed in an inflatable T. rex costume that Gage had chased down the mountain this morning.
Once upon a time, Gage had been that reckless T. rex. Maybe not wearing that ridiculous outfit—not when he had sponsor gear to display—but chin-deep in the lifestyle of the epic snowboarder, grinning for the cameras, basking in the limelight and cheers that came with the sport of backcountry skiing called freeriding.
Now he’d turned traitor, donning the red coat of a ski patrol and chasing down the renegades who sneaked past the roped-off areas for the run of their lives.
He stood at the edge of the perimeter of Timber Bowl, binoculars pointed to the tree-rutted, cliff-cut powder, scanning the undesignated area, just to make sure that hotshots like T. rex and his buddy hadn’t returned for a late-afternoon run.
The sun glistened off snowfall so deep it could bury a man, a condition unbearably tempting for a true powder hound. Gage could hear it calling to him, the vast, crystalline fields of white, feel his board cutting through the snowpack like it might be frosting.
Never mind the deadly, concealed ledges, drop-offs, and steel-edged boulders.
Or the threat of avalanche. No one thought about death chasing them down a hill as they attacked the powder, but with the five inches of fresh, heavy snow layering the snow pack, the cornice ached to break free and rush down the hill in a lethal wave.
And if tonight’s forecast was correct, he and the avalanche control team would be blasting another layer of powder off this slope come morning.
Gage had risen early with the rest of the Blackbear ski patrol, ridden the gondola up, and bombed the crust, the snow falling behind him, scarring the bowl. Then he’d skied through the layers, cutting into the pack to loosen it.
Still, it posed enough of a danger that they’d closed the slope and put up an orange safety line cordoning off the area from the early morning skiers sliding off the Timber Bowl express lift.
And that’s when T. rex showed up. Gage pegged the snow boarder at about nineteen or twenty. His buddy was attired with the appropriate GoPro, which made their intentions clear.
Gage had caught them just as they edged near the tape.
“Dude—the bowl is closed,” Gage said, keeping it easy.
T. rex gave him a face, like, C’mon, really , and Gage saw himself, not so long ago. So he put a growl into his reply and threatened to confiscate their tickets.
Which apparently meant nothing, because not fifteen minutes later, as he’d scanned the mountain, he’d spied the duo some two hundred feet downslope, cutting through the pristine powder, catching air off a cliff, then disappearing into the treed perimeter below.
The dinosaur had slipped out of his radar, but Gage promised himself that he’d hunt the two hotshots down and kick them off his mountain if it was the last thing he did today.
“Ski patrol, we have a downed snowboarder just below the Timber lift, tower 37.”
Gage lifted the radio attached to his jacket. “Ski patrol, Watson. I’m just below the lift, on Timber Bowl.”
“Roger, Watson. The lift stopped, and apparently he jumped for the pole and missed. Possible fracture. We have another hanging from the chair.”
Oh, for crying out loud. “I’m en route. Watson out.”
Gage clipped on his radio, then unsnapped his splitboard and pulled out his skins.
Faster to climb his way to the top and ride his board down through the trees.
He put oomph into his climb and in a few moments spied the tower through a scrim of pine trees.
“Ski patrol, Watson. I’m on slope and heading down to the victim.” Gage snapped his splitboard together and shoved the skins into his backpack.
Sheesh, he could have found the boys with his eyes closed, the way they were shouting. Keep it up and the Blackbear patrols wouldn’t have to set off charges to bring down the mountain.
Gage snapped into his bindings, then pushed off, cutting through the soft, albeit dangerous, treed terrain. He ducked under a branch and emerged into the free, catching air. No fancy stuff, just necessity, and he landed easily.
Two more turns and he’d reached the first victim.
The kid had fallen nearly forty feet. His screams echoed through the valley of the Timber Bowl, bouncing off the edges and back to the terrified passengers of the stalled lift who were witnesses to the carnage as he lay broken below his chair.
His buddy, clearly possessed with the same tankful of smarts, had probably tried to stop him, lunging forward and slipping off the chair. The hero now dangled half on, half off the chair, his arms wrapped around the bar, his leg hooked on the seat, his boot wedged in to the side rail to secure him. Still, the kid was perilously close to joining his buddy below in a pile of broken bones.
Gage snapped out of his gear in seconds, lifted off his goggles, and dropped beside the kid who writhed in pain in the snow, his leg brutally twisted under him.
“Ski patrol. I’m here to help,” Gage said. He didn’t want to move the kid or splint his leg until he could get a neck collar on him. However, blood already saturated his gray ski pants, and the protruding bulk of bone from above his knee suggested a compound fracture.
“What’s your name?” Gage pulled off the kid’s mitten and reached for a pulse.
“Hunter Corbin.” He wore a ski helmet, and blond hair trickled out the sides and back.
“How old are you?” Gage timed the beats. A little high and thready.
“Fifteen. It’s my first time out West.”
“Your parents around?” Gage kept his voice even, calm.
In the meantime, Hunter’s friend dangled, screaming, forty feet overhead.
Gage wanted to feel sorry for Hunter, but whatever had possessed the kid to—
“They’re at the bottom.” He groaned, tears filling his eyes. “My cell phone. It fell—I wanted to get it before it got lost. It’s a brand-new iPhone.”
Gage took out his radio. “Ski patrol, this is Watson. I have a fifteen-year-old male with what looks like a compound femur fracture. Possible neck injury. I need a dual sled, a neck collar, leg splint, and a lift rescue team.” He looked up. “And fast.”
“Copy, Watson. We have a team on the express lift en route.”
The express lift, on the other side of the mountain. Ten minutes, at least.
Gage glanced up at the dangling victim, assessing. “What’s your friend’s name, Hunter?”
“Adam. He was just trying to help me.”
“Right.” He got up, cupping his hands over his eyes. Overhead, spectators watched in silence, two or three to a chair, probably traumatized by the tragedy that had occurred