Page 86 of Mountain Shadow

She needed to hear him say it.

“Please stay. I know I’m asking you to uproot your life. I know this isn’t London. We don’t have a radio station that—”

The sadness in his eyes, as if he didn’t believe for a second that she would do it, broke her. Before she could second-guess herself, she leaped off the armchair and into his arms. “I love you too, Jens. As terrifying as the last weeks have been, they’ve helped me realize what’s truly important. And it’s not my job.”

His arms went around her, squeezing tightly.

“I’ll stay,” she confirmed, then thought for a second. “But I have to go now, or I’m going to miss my flight.”

“You’re still leaving?” he asked, and it was all Sarah could do not to laugh, he looked so crestfallen.

“I have a life in London. If we’re serious about this, then I’ll need to leave my apartment, ship my things, quit my job—and that’s just off the top of my head.” Her expression sobered. “The police also want to speak with me, about what happened.”

He squeezed her harder.

“And then you’ll come back? To stay?”

“I promise.”

It was an easy promise to give. She couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else that wasn’t by his side.

EPILOGUE

Sarah

She slipped her feet into a new pair of ballet flats. She’d done the same thing when she started at her last job, so many years earlier, and that had turned out well, so when she’d seen the dainty sky blue shoes in the shoe store a couple days earlier, she hadn’t been able to resist. They also happened to look great with the dark blue jeans she was wearing.

She left her hair loose, instead of tying it back in a ponytail. The new her was, at least for now, all about enjoying life, rather than looking for efficiencies.

“Are you ready?” Jens asked. She realized he’d been standing by the door for a couple of minutes now.

She nodded.

Ready as I’ll ever be.

She’d missed this feeling—the butterflies in her stomach before going live on the show, the feeling that anything could happen and that she would have to think on her feet to find solutions to the problems.

By the time she closed the front door, Jens already had the passenger door open for her.

“Come on, you’re going to be late on your first day.”

“You’re really planning on driving me?”

“It’s your first day. I want to celebrate it with you.”

“You know I’m going to work, not to my first day in kindergarten, right?” she asked, laughing.

The move to Chamonix had been surprisingly easy. Even her parents had been positive about it, perhaps because they could now visit two daughters in the same place.

Or because they knew you were missing something, and they can see you’ve found it.

Though quitting her job had been hard, the radio station executives had decided to promote one of her friends, who currently hosted one of the late night shows, and given her the morning program. Sarah knew Lori would take care of her team, and that was what mattered most.

The best news was, Joshua was going to make a full recovery. Though he still needed a cane, he was back at work already, and had promised to come out to Chamonix with his family in the fall to visit.

The conversations with the police had led nowhere. They had been unable to figure out why the man had fixated on her. It troubled Sarah, but she knew she had to let it go. She couldn’t let Elliot poison her life—and that’s exactly what she would be doing if she kept digging, looking for an answer where maybe there was none to be found. She shivered as she remembered the man’s vacuous blue stare.

He won’t ever hurt anyone again.