Chapter Nineteen
Glory was a tiny bit hungover the next morning after the lively dinner last night. Her father knew how to entertain, as did Vivien and Trigg. At one point, she had put up with the usual grilling about her role with her mom’s books, but other than that, she’d found herself relaxing and laughing a lot.
Rolf was pretty quiet and well, Rolf. He looked bored half the time, but he didn’t miss a thing. He wasn’t all about staking a claim with PDA, but he stayed by her side, kissed her twice, and wasn’t above easing the hem of her dress up a few inches to draw circles on the inside of her knee beneath the cover of the table.
Her being so tipsy when they went to bed was probably the reason she’d been uninhibited enough to take playing doctor to a new level. He’d seemed to enjoy himself and she was still tingling with sexual satisfaction, so she couldn’t really complain.
The end result, however, was that she wasn’t at a hundred percent when her father called her on the carpet in her office and confronted her about her life choices.
“Are you serious right now?” She flopped into the chair across the desk from him, scowling at the way he’d taken the power position in Rolf’s ergonomic chair. “I’m twenty-six, Dad. I can sleep with Vivien if I want to. If she was up for it, of course. Consent and all that,” she allowed with a roll of her eyes. “Point is, I don’t need to inform you when I feel like being sexually active or ask your permission. Put away your rapier and stand down from your dawn appointment. My honor is fine.”
“This isn’t like you.”
“You don’t know what I’m like!”
“Whose fault is that?” he shot back, folding his arms on the desk in front of him. The caterpillars above his eyes reared to fight.
“Trim your eyebrows,” she muttered. “They’re out of control.” The stern gray of his irises was the real issue, of course. He was giving her the dad look and it was making her squirm. Should she tell him that he had started this fracture in their relationship when he had looked at her like this—with disappointment—when she had got her period for the first time? Like it was her fault or something?
“Why am I learning from Rolf that you don’t like my serving your mother’s wine?”
“He told you that?” Her heart clattered onto the floor. “What else did he say?” If he had spilled her secret about that stupid thing with her journal…
“Why? What else are you not telling me?”
“Nothing.” Her pulse settled a bit, but her headache was now an acute hammer behind her eyes.
“What are you even doing with him?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, is this serious? It must be if you’re telling him things you aren’t telling me.”
“It’s not—Dad. Please don’t blow this up.” She pinched her own eyebrow. “This is just…” What? We’re just fucking around because we can. “We’re adults, Dad. This is none of your business.”
“See, that’s not actually true, is it? It complicates my business.”
She slouched lower in her chair and leaned her head on the back, staring at the ceiling. “You are not seriously going to lecture me on complications when you’re the one who bought this lodge in the first place.”
“I don’t understand why him, Glory. He’s not your type. He’s—”
She brought her head up, heart sinking fast again. “Out of my league?” She knew that.
“You’re a sensitive girl.”
“I’m a grown woman.”
“He’s a worldly man. I’ve always worried that…” He drew a breath and exhaled, gathering himself to make his case. “These stories of your mother’s are not true to life, Glory.”
“Oh my God.” She shot to her feet, which made her stomach roll and her head pound, but Oh. My. God. “Give me credit, Dad. I know the difference between real life and fiction.”
“Do you? Because your expectations are not realistic. You had a perfectly good relationship with Stephen—”
“Oh my God. We are so done.” She headed for the door.
“Glory,” he said sharply.
“Dad.” She spun and marched back to slap her hands on the desk. “I am not the one having trouble with reality. Look at the books. For the lodge. Quit expecting Mom’s income to carry you. Would you do that for me, please? Because I don’t want to be here. I sure as hell don’t want to spend the rest of our lives wondering if this place is going to stay afloat or whether I’m going to have to support you by working in a coffee shop. That is a true fact.”
She walked out.
*
Glory didn’t answer his text, so Rolf went across the hall as soon as he’d brushed his teeth.
She slapped her laptop closed. “What?”
“You didn’t answer me.”
She looked at her phone. “Well, you’re here now so I guess my place.”
“That’s a warm welcome.”
“I’m mad at you.” She pushed to her feet and plugged in her phone. “Don’t talk to my dad about me.”
Ah. He folded his arms, not regretting what he’d said, but it might not have been completely altruistic. He hadn’t liked the way Marvin had set him on his back foot. Nevertheless: “He needed to hear it, Glory.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll just go tell Vivien how much she drives you bananas, then, shall I?” Chin down, brows up.
The bane of an intelligent woman. “Point taken.”
She went to brush her hair and wash her face, body language still moody and hostile. “Where’s Murphy?”
“Nate’s got him.”
“Wow.” She came to the archway holding her toothbrush. “At what point did sleeping with me become part of the project that he needs to manage?” She stuffed her toothbrush in her mouth.
“I’ll owe him a favor.” Rolf had offered to pay him, but Nate was no dummy. He had been surprised, asking if Rolf was going out of town.
I thought Glory usually takes him if—Right. Sure, I’ll take him. No problem.
Rolf figured it would bite him on the ass later, but needs must.
“What are we doing, Rolf?” She spit and rinsed. “Now Nate has to babysit your brother’s dog so we can have sex? Dad rightly pointed out that this is complicating things.”
“We’ve been over this.” If they’d been able to stay out of each other’s beds, they would have.
“I’m just saying, I don’t want things to get weird.” She pulled a nightgown from a drawer and draped it on the bed, then opened her jeans and peeled them off, taking her socks with them.
“Weird how?” He balled up the nightgown and shoved it back in the drawer, then skimmed his shirt up and off, turning to see her gesturing at the drawer.
“Really?”
“I want to feel you, not something lumberjacks wear to chop logs.” He caught her hands and made her stand in front of him. “What’s really going on? Cold feet? Dad made you feel dirty? You want the dog to watch? What?”
“You probably do, you pervert.” Her mouth quirked, before she sighed, shoulders softening. “It’s probably PMS. That always makes me high-strung.”
He didn’t ask how he would tell the difference. He was no dummy.
Besides, she was stepping in to him, letting the weight of her head rest on his shoulder. He ran his hands down her back, relearning her shape, finding the edge of her shirt where it draped over her buttocks. He followed the line of her thong, savoring the feel of her smooth skin. She ran her own hands over his back, making his scalp tingle.
Even so, when he tilted up her chin to kiss her, she didn’t meet his eyes.
He hesitated, thumb grazing her bottom lip where it was pouted out with unhappiness.
“What is it really? Tell me,” he insisted.
“Nothing,” she lied, and went on tiptoe to press her mouth to his.
She still didn’t trust him. It was disturbing enough to put an ache in his throat as he kissed her. It put something into their kiss that went beyond passion. He was trying to reassure her, but pull something from her. Reliance. Belief in him. Surrender, maybe, because he knew she was fighting him. Withholding herself.
It shook him. Made him face a side of himself he kept turned away, into the dark. He didn’t need anyone, but right now, she felt out of reach and he didn’t like it.
His natural need to dominate dug in, refusing to accept any obstacle, but he was a man of discipline, not a brute. He’d never felt so possessive and urgent, yet aggression wouldn’t work in this instance. The tension drew him taut, making him shake internally as he plundered her mouth. With care. Until she began to shake, too.
“What are you doing?” she drew back to whisper. She sounded afraid.
He was, but he tightened his arms on her anyway. He dragged his hand through her hair so her eyes blinked open, wide and vulnerable, shadowed with uncertainty, but clouded with the melting response that made him crazy.
Words swelled his throat, unfamiliar, complicated ones that didn’t stick long enough to make sense.
He went back for another kiss. Another long journey through the carnal textures and sweet danger she offered up every time white-hot passion took them over. That race for the win, for her cries of triumph and loss, were addictive. They were his fucking jam.
But he’d cheated both of them, he realized. A slow build built. It bound.
He had never wanted a woman like this. Like he needed all of her. Like he would combust if he didn’t have everything she was.
He slowed right down, determined not to miss a single breath this time. Not an inch of skin or a tremor of pleasure, even as his own body pulsed in one hard beat after another of intensifying arousal.
For long minutes, there was just her. Lithe heat pressed to his, silken mouth wallowing in the devouring movement of his own. His hands roamed to her ass again, tracing the lace, peeling them down just enough that he could fondle her soft, round cheeks freely. He couldn’t get enough of those delicious handfuls, downy and warm, pressing into his touch while he kept his palms wide and light. He drew leisurely circles and traced the cleft until she shivered and gasped against his lips.
Her arms wrapped around his neck so her breasts flattened to his chest. Her nipples were so hard he felt their scrape through the fabric of her shirt, hard as her buttons against his bare skin. Her weight hung off him, pliant as melted wax while her breaths hissed unevenly along with his.
She tried to pull his head down, to incite a more urgent kiss, but though he kept his mouth fused to hers, sumptuous and thorough, he didn’t let her push him into the blind need that was urging him to drive into her. He stood there and drowned in the taste of her. Endless and sultry.
“Rolf.” Her head fell back and the pang of need in her voice nearly undid him. All the hairs lifted on the back of his neck.
He carefully unhooked her wrists and braceleted them behind her back. She sucked in a breath, arching, irises exploding with excitement even as her lashes quivered with vulnerability.
“Do we need a safe word?” Her lips were red and swollen, parted and shiny, her eyelids heavy over glazed eyes. “How kinky are you planning to get?”
So glib. It was her defense, he realized, and wanted to nip at that mouth she used to fire warning shots in the air.
Tonight, he was busting through her fences and coming right up to the house.
He started opening her shirt buttons, pausing when he could brush it off her shoulder. He touched her collarbone with his lips, then the smooth ball of her shoulder.
“I intend to kiss you from here—” He lifted his head to nuzzle his lips at her temple, where her frizzy hair tickled his nose, smelling like roses and pine and her own special heat. “To your ankles. And everywhere in between.” He blew softly on her ear, feeling her shudder in reaction and smiling. “I’m going to seduce you.”
Her breath rushed out and for a moment, she was positively virginal, shyly ducking her head.
“I don’t need…” She threw back her head, cheekbones flushed in the way he was learning was both arousal and protective confrontation. She made a half-hearted struggle against his hold on her wrists. “I’m there. Put a condom on and let’s get to it.” Her mound nudged into his hard cock and he nearly went cross-eyed, but the tension around her eyes intrigued him, so wary and fearful.
Of what? He was being so terribly, painfully gentle.
He held on to her and opened the rest of her buttons, lightly, lightly spreading her shirt to take in her pale breasts, high and firm with nipples so contracted and tight, his mouth watered. Her thong was askew from his earlier attentions, cutting under her ass cheeks and barely covering her mound.
Her breasts quivered while the rest of her held very still under his leisurely stroke of the backs of his fingers. He went beneath and around her lovely shape, grazing her nipples so her throat flexed on a helpless noise, then he spanned her abdomen with his hand. Her stomach muscles tightened and she pressed into his touch as he followed her waist, crept up to her ribcage, and smoothly cruised down to her hip.
Then, with only his fingertip, he eased the front of her thong down, watching her thighs tremble.
“Rolf.”
He barely touched the groomed patch of hair covering her lips. It wasn’t even a pet, but she sucked in a breath and locked her thighs together. A moan issued from deep in her throat, the sexiest noise he’d ever heard in his life.
“Like that?”
“Quit teasing.”
“Are you aching?”
“Yes.”
She sounded resentful, seemingly unaware he was barely holding himself in check. Dying. He was a wolf scenting his mate in heat, but she was miles away.
He caressed her again, enjoying the ragged sound that was nearly pain as he demonstrated that he’d been paying attention last night. He gently delved, carefully parting, then sawed into the abundant moisture he found.
“How does that feel?” His voice was nearly impossible to find, buried so deep in his chest under the weight of arousal.
“Like I’m floating,” she whispered. “Kiss me.”
He did, slow, slow, slow and deep. She sighed into his mouth as he gave her one finger, then two. As he moved easily in and out of her molten heat, her teeth latched on to his bottom lip. A keening cry grew in her throat.
Patience, he reminded himself, and withdrew his hand to ease her panties down another inch, then another, until they slid down her thighs to sit around her ankles.
“You’re killing me. I can’t…” Her head drooped onto his chest. “I can’t even breathe.”
He released her wrists to skim her shirt away, catching at her elbows to steady her when she couldn’t even seem to step out of her underwear without staggering.
He wavered between omnipotence and devastation. This was changing things. Them. He knew it, but at a distance, not caring that he was being pried open as surely as she was.
“Lie down. No, on your stomach.”
She dragged herself onto her hands and knees and shot him a fierce look over her shoulder as she balanced on one hand and roamed her other down to her core. Defiant in her need for release.
“That’s mine,” he told her through his teeth, damned near creaming his jeans as he covered and flattened her beneath him.
She squirmed and tried to get her arms under her, but he easily pinned her legs between his own and got her arms above her head. He wanted to tear open his fly and drive into her like this, but he swept her hair aside and scraped light teeth against her nape. He rubbed his beard against her spine, licked the soft sheen of arousal from between her shoulder blades, and stroked the sides of her breasts until her ass was moving with abandon under the weight of his hips.
“All of you is mine. No one else will ever make you feel like this.”
Her next breath was a sob and he barely heard her when she said, “I know.”
It was a punch in the gut, but that was it. What she was afraid of.
He opened his mouth on the small of her back, used his teeth to threaten a bite into the juicy fruit of her ass cheek, licked the smooth backs of her knees, asserting his right to all of her. Imprinting himself. Wallowing in her.
Even as his body screamed at him to mount and bury himself in her, begging for release, he kept his focus on her. On each twitch and shudder, each lightning strike of acute sensation.
When he rolled her over, she was barely able to lick her lips. “It’s too much.” Her eyes looked wet with tears.
No, it wasn’t enough. He feared it would never be enough.
He opened her thighs and laved his tongue into her center, savoring and pleasuring, lost with her in this labyrinth of passion. When she was lifting her silken flesh into his open mouth, trying to press back cries with her wrist, he slid away to strip his jeans. He was shaking so much, he struggled to get the condom on.
She opened her knee in invitation as he came back. He kissed each peaked nipple, so she bowed her spine in offering. Her hand reached to guide him, but he made her work for it. Made her lift her hips to take in half an inch then a little more.
“Rolf, I need you inside me.”
He sank into her then, easy and deep, the sensation so profound it was a homecoming. Her legs climbed to grip his hips and her heels dug into his ass, urging him to bury himself even deeper.
He got his hands under her ass and gathered his knees beneath him, then picked her up so she was on his lap, gravity pushing her onto him so thoroughly, her eyes fluttered open and her parted lips trembled. She folded her arms behind his neck, clinging to him with all her trembling strength.
“I’m so close.” Her sheath clenched on him, rippling and stimulating, but not enough to send him over the edge. “Please.”
“Me, too.” It was fucking tantric, holding her damp body against his, both of them on the edge.
He couldn’t caress her, needing both hands to hold her in place. She couldn’t move except to run her fingers through his hair and lick into his mouth as they kissed.
But each infinitesimal shift caused a shock wave of sensation where they were joined. She squeezed him with her internal muscles, taking them closer and closer with each breath. Each heartbeat.
And even though he was near begging for the kind of explosive release that tore his dick off, he waited for the velvet fist that held him to begin to quake.
Finally, with soft cries of agonized ecstasy, she dissolved around him in shivers of orgasm that went on and on, the sensations so acute they triggered his own release.
It came in a detonation that was so much more debilitating than an explosion, gripping his entire body in a paroxysm. He bound his arms around her like she was the only thing anchoring him to this world while his abdomen contracted and his hips bucked and his entire being poured into her.
*
BLESSED WINTER – Chapter Seven
Page 58, word count = 14,292
The phone woke Pandora at half-past three in the afternoon. She had a vague recollection of Brock wrapping his arm around her shoulders and drawing her in to his side, but she didn’t remember falling asleep with her baby cradled half on her, half on Brock’s stomach, her head on his shoulder, both of them gently toppled to the side on the sofa.
Disoriented, she let him take Nick and staggered around until she found her phone. It was her doctor. After a game of twenty questions, during which Pandora sat down on the couch again, her doctor told her to come into the clinic first thing in the morning, then wished her a Merry Christmas.
“You, too,” Pandora murmured, ending the call.
“Everything okay?” Brock asked, letting her take Nick.
“She wants us both checked over first thing tomorrow. She’s away, but her colleague will make room for us.” Pandora didn’t mention that her doctor had specifically asked if she had someone with her. She’d given a neutral, Uh-huh, but wondered if it was a fib.
The light beyond the window was fading, the fire was crackling on the television, and the Christmas tree glowed with promise. It was the kind of day made for hibernating, doing as little as possible while bonding with a newborn.
Nick did a little stretch of his neck, chin coming up out of the bundle of blankets, but his eyes didn’t open. She kissed his soft cheek, compelled to keep doing that like any other mammal momma who needed to sniff and nuzzle her new cub. She was utterly, completely, irreversibly in love with this bundle of hers.
And dangerously close to falling in love with the grown male who gathered his sprawled limbs and stood to stretch and yawn.
Her heart did a little leap of alarm. Was he preparing to leave? She wouldn’t blame him. Part of her wanted the goodbye over with, but the rest of her was already panicking. How was she going to manage? Through the weeks of her pregnancy, she had been focused on getting herself to delivery—saving enough to take a few weeks off without starving and taking care of practicalities like hunting down a gently used change table and car seat, buying diapers on sale. She hadn’t thought through to the reality of a new life relying on her for everything.
It was terrifying. Overwhelming. And Nick had barely made a squeak so far.
As she screwed up her courage to ask if Brock was leaving, he scratched his chest and said, “Chicken for dinner. That’s what you said earlier, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that was before—” She had her hands full.
“I’ll throw it in the oven. Make some coffee, too, before I slip into a coma. Man, that was a deep sleep for a nap.”
“You don’t have to,” she said to his back.
“You should keep your feet up.”
“I meant, um, you don’t have to stay. If you have somewhere to be…” She trailed off.
“You don’t want me here?” He kept his back to her, but she could see his fingers stall in trying to separate one coffee filter from the stack. His back seemed to stiffen as though bracing for a lash.
“I do want you here.” It scared her how much she wanted that. “But I’ve learned the hard way that relying on someone can backfire. You’re not going to be here forever.”
Brock didn’t answer right away. He gave the coffee carafe a thorough rinse. It was probably covered in dust since she hadn’t been drinking coffee at all during her pregnancy. Then he started the pot before turning to pull the bird out of the fridge.
“I’m here right now. There’s nowhere else I want to be,” he finally said, simply, yet profoundly. The distance between them, the width of her kitchen table and the area rug behind the back of her couch, seemed to shrink.
Not even Hawaii? She was afraid to ask.
He found her little roasting pan and efficiently washed and seasoned the bird. Then he scrubbed potatoes and carrots, beginning to peel them.
“You’re very domesticated.” She moved to sit across the kitchen table from him, Nick in her arms.
“Mom worked. We took turns cooking.”
“Your family seems really close.”
“We are. Terry and I used to tease our parents for still being married. Such an embarrassment when all of our ‘cool’ friends had parents who were divorced. I’m proud of them, though. They weathered some tough times. Mom’s income was all they had at one point because Dad had health problems. It’s the kind of thing that makes or breaks a marriage and they made it.”
“And they were always proud of you, no matter what you did?”
“Ridiculously supportive. They let me and my friends practice our grunge band in the garage. We were terrible. For three years.”
“I wish I’d had that.” She didn’t know much about parenting yet, but knew she wanted to give that kind of unconditional support to her son. Desperately.
“Even with my ex—Never mind.”
“No, tell me.” She wanted to know everything about him.
He shrugged. “She’s a great person, she really is. But she didn’t mesh with the family. Not the way Amber did. Her and Terry have a lot of history, so it’s not fair to compare, but I’ve felt for years like Amber is my sister. But my ex didn’t really fit. I could see Terry trying to find common ground with her. Even Amber struggled and they both love to shop. But my parents were so determined to welcome her with open arms. I was feeling this pressure to keep pace with Terry so I let it happen, I suppose. He and Amber were settling into the next stage so I guess I figured I should, too.”
Oh, no.
She drew subtle breaths, deep and slow, modifying the same pattern that had kept her conscious through labor despite the agony that had threatened to tear her in two.
“Pandora.” He sounded so grave, she had to lift her gaze. He stood with his hands braced on either side of the cutting board, paring knife in one hand, half-peeled potato in the other. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it? We spent a weekend together nine months ago. Not even a full forty-eight hours. Now this? I’m so grateful you’ve been here today. You’ll never know how much. But… All those reasons I stopped answering your texts still apply.”
“They don’t, actually. You didn’t want to ask me to take on a child that wasn’t mine. Well, maybe I didn’t make him, but I caught him. That made him mine in a different way. I’m invested now. One way or another, I’m in Nick’s life. I want to be in yours, too.”
“You want to date a woman with a newborn? How? You don’t even live here. I was serious about not upending my life for a man again.”
He started to peel the potato, stopped. “Would you do it for your son? If it meant you could stay home with him until it felt right to go back to work, and not because you had no choice financially?”
“Oh, don’t do that. That’s not fair!” She stood and walked away to the sofa, circling to put space between them. As she came around, she saw her last gift open on the coffee table. He’d bought it for his mom. It was one of those electronic picture frames engraved with the words, ‘Family is a gift that lasts forever.’
Brock had already taken a photo of her with Nick and transferred it into the memory card. He had bought it for his mom. His perfect mom in his perfect family. The one his brother was replicating and making him feel as though he had to replicate, too.
“You don’t even know what you’re signing on for. What about two months from now, when neither of us has had any sleep? You think you’re going to be feeling all rosy about Nick and me then?”
“Or sex,” he interjected. “Believe me, I’m not oblivious to how much a baby interrupts lives. I’ve heard all the gory details from my brother.”
She shook her head. “If you want to call me when you happen to be in town next—”
He let out a bark of laughter and turned to cover the potatoes with water. “That really would set us up for failure. No,” he said firmly, setting the pot on the stovetop with a punctuating clunk. “I was really disappointed when you stopped answering my texts. I thought we had something, Pandora.”
“We might have, but…” She waved a helpless hand over the bundle in her arm.
“Not the way I thought things would go, either. I never once pictured myself playing Joseph to some rock god’s baby.”
“Oh, don’t give him that much credit. Your garage band probably had more talent,” she muttered.
“But Nick is so far from being a deal-breaker.”
“No, he is the deal. Your brother had a baby so you feel like you—”
“That is not why I want to keep seeing you.” He sounded so firm on that, but she couldn’t let herself believe him. “I came to Tahoe last night because I wanted to see you.”
“Yesterday. Now you want us to move in together and play picket-fence family? Brock, this is crazy talk.”
He pinched his mouth into a tight line. With a curt move, he said, “Let’s table it for now. I don’t want to ruin a really good day. But I’m staying here.” He pointed at the floor, voice so firm she felt it like a force that cemented his presence in the tiny apartment. “Because I want to be sure you and Nick are okay. I need to know that. It’s not about promising doctors or having nowhere else to go. Got it?”
*
Glory was frustrated, trying to figure out how to end the book, but things were a constant madhouse at the lodge and the rest of her time was filled with Rolf.
He continued to take her apart and leave her dismantled. She had almost told him three times about the book. She had even come ‘this close’ to telling Ilke as the blonde had gazed on Glory’s shrine to her mother.
“I’ve read all of these. More than once,” Ilke bemoaned. “It really is a tragedy she’s gone.”
For that sincere comment, Glory had very nearly handed over her unfinished manuscript. Ilke had gone away mollified by a signed copy of one of her favorite titles from the stockpile Glory’s mother had autographed in the months before her death.
Glory was feeling caught in such a catch twenty-two. On the one hand, she was bursting with pride and excitement. The moment she thought of telling anyone, however, such angst and insecurity came over her, her entire being clammed up.
She couldn’t sit on the secret forever, though. Not when her father had given Devon the okay to bring in a fresh crew to work on the staff quarters. They looked like a basketball team, all six-foot-something, muscled and lanky. The young men nudged and jostled, talking trash while knocking together forms for the foundation against a soundtrack of hip-hop and rap.
Glory was out there counting safety vests and conferring with Devon to make sure they had enough first aid tickets and insurance for everyone on site when a crappy hatchback pulled into the parking lot. It was so rusty, she couldn’t say for sure it was blue. The windows were open, the radio blasting a reggae beat. It skidded into the spot next to Glory’s car, kicking up dust and making her own piece of shit look like a Cadillac by comparison.
Eden got out and slammed the door. She lifted her gaze to take in the lodge, the mountains, then turned her head to where Glory and Devon stood next to the hive of activity. She lifted a hand in greeting.
Glory finished up with Devon and met Eden halfway. As she got closer, she noticed her lack of makeup. Dark shadows of sleeplessness made her eyes look deeply inset. The corners of her mouth were weighted.
Glory’s heart stopped. “What’s wrong?” Please not Suzanne.
“Nothing. I just needed a drive. Thought I’d come see what all the buzz is about.” She sounded tired.
Glory let out a breath, but had a feeling it was a stay of execution at best. “We get a dozen people a day coming up here, looking for the ten-cent tour. I should charge at least that, right? Might be able to keep the lights on with that alone.”
Eden dug into her pocket and only came up with a bobby pin that had a ceramic daisy on it. “Not even mine. Belongs to Zuzu.” Her phone rang, dragging her hand to her back pocket. She glanced at the screen, then clicked to ignore and returned the phone to her pocket. “Fucking asshole.”
“Ah. Man trouble.” Glory walked with her around to the front parking lot.
“More trouble than man, and not in a good way.” Eden sighed, then paused to take in the arched doorway of the front entrance.
The yellow glass was dated, yes, but once cleaned up and repaired, it had a quaint and reassuring glow to it. Glory had become rather fond of it.
“Coffee?” Glory offered as they entered the lobby and the aroma of espresso hung in the air.
“Kind of a conscientious objector, given my current vocation. Fuck, people are horrible. No offense.”
Glory laughed big at that one. “I didn’t drink coffee for three years after my first foray into that line of work. I hate dealing with the public. Which is why, of course, I would want to run a lodge, where customer expectations go far beyond a desire for non-fat milk.”
“I knew this was where the bad-decisions club meets.”
“Probably should meet more often in a better location, but I’ll let the rest of the joke write itself.”
Eden grinned, already distracted by the refurbished lobby.
“It’s so weird to see it coming back to life like this.” She wandered through open archway where broken French doors had once bracketed the fireplace, then went through the lounge onto the deck where she gazed across the pond.
“Did you come here as a kid, when it was operating as a ski lodge?”
“I did. We had school trips out here, learning to ski as part of gym class. Weird, huh? And…” She made a face as she leaned her elbows on the rail, looking up, up, up, then across to the corner where Glory’s room was situated. “We came up here to party in high school. I became a woman in room three-ten.”
“I hope you mean you got your period because that’s my room.”
“Sure.” Eden scratched the tip of her nose and turned back to the pond. She was trying so hard to act nonchalant and lighthearted, but Glory could feel the pain coming off of her in waves.
Folding her arms on the rail, so they were elbow to elbow, both facing the backdrop of nature that recovered itself no matter what mankind threw at it, Glory gathered her courage.
“I like your mom. A lot. I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask what’s going on with her health because—”
“Your mom. I know. I saw it on your website.” Eden dropped the mask and let all her agony and helplessness dig into her features, ruthless and unforgiving as it was. Her voice cracked. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t know what to do.”
Glory nodded slowly, feeling the tears way in the backs of her eyes where they sat in a giant well, always there. Always and forever. They weren’t helpful, those hapless, endless tears. Just there.
“I don’t know either,” she said heavily. “And I’m sorry, but I’m not the hugging type, full of platitudes and wisdom. I’m the pour a big glass of wine and wallow in self-pity type.”
“Please can we do that?” Eden sounded like her niece.
“Hell, yes, we can. Red or white?”
“Uh-huh.”