“Somehow or other, Sam fell in love with you. We all saw it and knew. I guess you were so busy making her life miserable you failed to notice. Which doesn’t say much for you in my opinion.”

Kate turned on her heel. “You have a good life up here on this little ol’ mountain of yours. Maybe your next batch of fools will be able to deal with you better than we could.”

The words came out of nowhere, words Pappy didn’t expect to flow from his mouth. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I was jealous of her—we all were—but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like or respect her. She was more centered, more dedicated. She gave you a hundred ten percent. You still don’t get it, do you?” The door closed behind Kate with a loud bang. Minutes later he heard the cable car start up.

Pappy got up, looked around for Alpha, remembered that he wasn’t there, would never be there again. His eyes burned as he made his way back to his house. He had to reach out to his employers. He rehearsed in his mind how he would write out his resignation.

Sam settled herself on a bench at the base of the mountain. Alpha sat with her, licking her hand. Anger, hot and scorching, raced through her veins. When Alpha jerked to attention, she looked up. The cable car was coming back down. Alpha barked. When the car ground to a stop, her team barreled out and rushed to her.

“No, no, you have to go back. Don’t give it all up for me. I don’t want you throwing it all away, you worked too damn hard,” Sam said as she wiped at her tears.

“Yeah, and you worked even harder. Did it make a difference? Nope,” Slick said.

“We’re on your side, and that’s final,” Kayla said.

“So, what do we do now?” Zoe asked.

“Where are your envelopes?”

The others shrugged.

“Well, inside are instructions. What mine says is my bank accounts are active now. My condo is mine again, as are my credit cards. So for now, I can foot the bill to get us back to Washington if you really want to go with me. Supposedly, Donovan is going to come and take me to the airport. We can all go to my house and decide what our next move is. You guys okay with that?” The others nodded.

“Here comes the cable car again. Oh, jeez, it’s Team Five, and it looks like Kate is missing,” Hawkins said, his eyes almost popping out of his head. They watched as Team Five hit the ground. The car started back up.

Sam started to cry again when Team Five gathered around her. She couldn’t believe they were so solidly behind her. If anything, it made her feel worse.