Page 59 of Running to You

“You nearly killed me.” He laughed, the sound rumbly and gorgeous. “You and—I don’t know, one of the girls—had stopped to take pictures, so I beat you to the bottom. I’d looked back to watch you. You were always so…elegant.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he glanced away. Then his grin returned. “The moguls you handled like a pro, but then you lost control on the straightaway.”

She laughed with him. “It was icy.”

“Typical. Swooshing down the mountain, making the rest of us look bad. Then falling over in line.”

“Hey, I only did that once.”

His eyebrows hiked over that slow smile.

Okay, so she’d done the standing-still-fall more than once, but she wasn’t about to cop to it.

She remembered well trying to get to know Sam’s brothers’ dates. Sweet Christian girls who slipped in remarks about God between fashion and food as if He fit right there.

And though she hadn’t joined in the talk, had barely understood half of what they were talking about, they’d been kind to her. They’d laughed and joked and teased, but she remembered some deep conversations too. One of the women—Eliza thought she’d been Michael’s girlfriend—had exuded such a sense of peace that left Eliza longing for what she had.

“That was the place with the game room, right?” Sam asked.

“What I remember is you and Michael in an epic foosball battle. I thought you two were going to break that thing.”

“I beat him.”

“What was it, best of thirteen by the time you were done? You two were pretty evenly matched.” And competitive. And though it’d seemed all in good fun on the surface, something darker had hummed beneath.

“The point is, I won.” Sam grinned at the memory.

She reflected his expression, but another memory was nudging its way in.

“I remember the fire pit.” Humor no longer infused his words.

Maybe Sam was a mind reader because she’d gone to exactly the same place.

Michael had picked the condo and had ensured there were enough beds for everyone. Boys in one room, girls in the two others. She’d thought how silly it was that the couples weren’t sleeping together, but apparently, the other brothers didn’t do that.

At the time, she’d thought it was weird. But that wasn’t the sense she had of it now. Now, it seemed…sweet.

Late the second night in the condo, Sam had started a fire in the pit outside, and the two of them had escaped to be alone. They’d cuddled up on a bench together. The temperature had dipped into the low twenties, but between the subzero sleeping bag Sam had draped around them and the fire—and their closeness—she hadn’t been cold.

She could still see Sam’s face, glowing in the reflection, gazing at her.

She could still feel his arms around her, his lips on hers.

She could still hear his tender words of promise and forever.

The night hadn’t gone the way she’d expected. There’d been no physical intimacy beyond the kissing. Yet, they had been intimate. They’d been in love.

Her eyes burned.

She was surprised when she caught Sam watching her. Their eyes held, his reflecting her own sadness.

“What happened between us?”

He shook his head, looked away.

“I need to know.”

“You’ll remember soon enough.” He pushed to his feet and headed for the kitchen. “Think this is ready?”

She followed. “I need to know, Sam.”