Chapter Nine
BLESSED WINTER – Chapter Two
Page 26, word count = 6334
Brock was two feet too long for the sofa, so he wasn’t sleeping very deeply when he realized Pandora was tiptoeing around him to the end table.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
“I didn’t mean to wake you. Sorry.” She picked up a book.
“Can’t sleep ’cause it’s Christmas?” he teased.
“No, I—I might be in labor. I wanted to read—”
“What?” He sat up, throwing his blanket off and clicking the lamp above him.
Nothing happened.
“I unplugged it so I could plug in the Christmas lights. It’s okay,” she whispered, sounding just like a mom. “Go back to sleep. I’ll take this to my room.
“Did your water break?” He rose and bent to fill the room with the glow of pink and blue by plugging in the tree. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. Was it the colored lights? Or did she look pale and anxious?
Adrenaline put him on high alert, the way he got when he was playing paintball. Only this was worse. Way worse. There was no way to tell which direction the shot might come or how much it might sting. His hands were clammy and cold, his chest tight.
“No. I just have this weird backache coming and going. I thought it might be the start of contractions.” She bit the corner of her lip and looked to him like he should be able to tell her, one way or the other.
He touched her elbow and sat down with her. “So, your water didn’t break.” It was the only sign of labor he knew and came from every sitcom he’d ever watched. That, and the guy was supposed to time the contractions. Why? Three minutes apart was a thing, wasn’t it?
Was he seriously panicking like every twit in front of a live audience? Get a grip, tool. He had taken basic first aid. Assess the situation.
Actually, the first step was to ensure no danger to himself. Good Samaritans were supposed to avoid killing themselves while trying to pull strangers free of burning cars and gas leaks in confined spaces.
There was no risk of electrocution or suffocation here, but threat hovered. What if he had to deliver her baby? What if it didn’t go well? Neither of them would recover from that.
“I’m just going to see what it says.” She looked at him like she wanted his permission.
“Yeah. ’Course.” Great idea. Fuck. Grab a brain, he told himself.
She nodded and opened the book.
He slid close to read at the same time. His sister-in-law had had a book like this. There’d been a single page of bullet points for the expectant father, very telling of a man’s inability to read more than two pages unless it related to repairs on something expensive. Terrance had summed it up as, It tells you to shut up and do as you’re told. Like I didn’t learn that while planning the wedding. Amber had yelled, Hey, from the kitchen.
Things had gone awry for Amber. She had needed an emergency caesarian section and his brother still grew tense when he talked about the delivery.
Brock rubbed his face, trying to dissolve any reflection of worry so Pandora wouldn’t see it. Looking down, he read that, yes, three to five minutes apart meant it was time to go to the hospital.
“Sharp pains?” he read.
“No. Dull. Like a period. You know what that feels like?” She sent a weak smile his way.
“Totally. What about…?” Some of the other symptoms were kind of personal. “Um, blood?”
“No.”
“But you’re shivering,” he noted, and gathered the blanket he’d been sleeping under. He draped it around her shoulders. “Do you want me to get your robe?” Her nightgown left her arms and collarbone bare. He had been sleeping in his boxers, which left him half-naked, but he was plenty warm and tried to transfer some of that heat into her by snuggling her into his side. It wasn’t meant to be a pass and he begged the twitch between his legs to stay at a sleepy shift and not decide it was time to get up.
“I don’t feel cold. Just…keyed up.” She leaned her head into the hollow of his shoulder, as if she needed the comfort. Scared, maybe. Probably. He was. He rubbed her arm as he reviewed the rest of the symptoms.
“How often do you think they’ve been happening. How long are they?”
“I don’t know. My back always gets tired by the end of the night. I just woke up and realized this feeling has been coming and going all evening, but it wasn’t this strong. I haven’t had one since I’ve been out here, though.”
“No pain right now?”
“Right.” Her gaze tracked the room from the bookshelf to the ceiling to the far wall as her concentration turned inward. “Nothing,” she said more firmly.
“False labor?”
“Maybe.” She brightened, latching on to that idea. Tension returned quickly to her eyes. She bit her lip and her brow pulled. “But delivery can’t be put off indefinitely, can it?”
“Maybe we should go to the hospital, get you checked out.”
“It’s Christmas. I don’t want to call out my doctor unless I’m sure.” She gave him a helpless look. “I don’t want to get dressed and go out in that—” she nodded at where the snow was thick against the corner of the window “—unless I’m sure.”
“Fair enough, but my sister-in-law’s friend delivered really fast. Barely made it to the hospital.” That was why Terrance had been so blindsided by Amber’s complications. They’d both believed it would be textbook. “What if—”
“I think one is starting. Check the time.”
He glanced at the time on his phone, then switched to the timer function.
After less than a minute, she said, “Okay, it’s gone.”
“Maybe we should write these down.”
She moved to get a notepad and pen and made neat headings for time and duration.
It occurred to him this could go on for hours. He’d got the first text that Amber was going to the hospital in mid-morning and it had been after dinner the next day before she had delivered. Pandora was probably right to spend as much time as she could at home where she was comfortable.
He thought about calling his brother for advice, but what would Terrance even say? Go to the hospital, most likely.
“Where’s the midwife for the midwife?” he asked facetiously.
She snickered and turned to the section for expectant fathers.
“Okay. Helpful.” He scanned the list. “Should I call your doctor? Your mom?”
“She doesn’t know I’m pregnant,” she admitted in a low voice.
Wow. That wasn’t a strained relationship. It was estranged. “What about the, uh, baby’s father?”
“I told him I was doing this myself. He’s probably performing or partying. He wouldn’t care anyway.”
“Pandora—”
“I’m sorry, Brock. It’s not yours. If it was, I would tell you.” She looked sincere and, even more troubling, apologetic. Like she wished it was.
He didn’t want to believe her. His mother was a retired grief counselor and always said the stages of loss weren’t reserved for death. Any loss could do it, if the expectations had been high enough.
That’s why he’d been sitting in that pub all evening, stewing, doing math, trying to work out—bargain—his way into being the father of this baby. He didn’t want to accept that it wasn’t his.
Why not? He wasn’t prepared to be a dad. Not mentally. Financially he could probably swing it, but he didn’t feel mature enough to sit with her while she was in labor, let alone coach her through delivery then twenty years of child rearing.
As she had pointed out earlier, they barely knew each other. There was no reason he should be so conflicted about this.
“If you want to leave, I’ll understand.” She pulled the blanket tighter around her, brow scrunching.
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. “What are you going to do if this is real labor?”
“Go to the hospital.”
“Drive yourself?” He thought about the heavy snow he had swept off her back steps. “I wouldn’t even trust myself to drive you. No. You want ambulance attendants to come so they’re right there if you don’t get to the hospital in time.”
“Cheery,” she muttered.
“I didn’t mean—”
*
“You should have told me!”
The female voice, raised in anger, dragged Glory out of her story. She was at Lazy Suzanne’s in Haven, not in Pandora’s cozy but modest apartment in Tahoe. Was it an apartment? She hadn’t decided exactly where her heroine was living. Apartment buildings meant at least a few helpful neighbors. She wanted her to be more isolated, so she would have to depend on Brock.
“It’s not the sort of news you deliver over the phone, is it? That’s why I told you to come home,” another woman hissed.
They were in the back of the bakery. Suzanne had been here when Glory arrived, greeting her by name and bringing her a coffee and a scone. Another woman had been behind the counter, a blonde. She looked so much like Suzanne, Glory had assumed she was the wayward daughter.
“I would have come sooner if you had told me the truth, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you?” Oh, that was some bitter disdain, served over ice.
Glory glanced around. The handful of other patrons were further away and maybe couldn’t hear. A couple of seniors were chatting quilting squares and a fifty-ish man was sipping coffee, reading what Glory now knew was Haven’s weekly Gazette.
“I can’t even look at you right now.”
“What does that mean? That you’re not going to help with these dishes? Or that this is all too much for your free spirit to handle and you’re going to have to run away and find yourself again? There’s a surprise.”
“I have to find a place to live, don’t I? And go back to Austin to pack my stuff.”
“You didn’t bring it with you? I knew it! Dad practically begs you to come home—”
“Ordered.”
“But you thought you could dance in here for a weekend, show your pretty face and G.T.F.O. again.”
“Mom’s not here. You can say, ‘fuck.’”
“Yeah, don’t worry about the early talker over there. Thanks.”
“Oh. Sorry, Zuzu.”
“Can I have another cookie?” a sweet young voice asked.
“Not right n—”
“Sure, honey.” The voices overrode each other.
“Oh, by all means. Let Auntie Eden ruin your dinner.”
“That means, ‘yes,’ but that we have to share it.”
A blistering silence commenced while a gorgeous little girl appeared behind the glass counter. She jabbed her finger into the icing on a cupcake and licked it while glancing back toward the kitchen. Then she used two hands to gather up a cookie the size of a dinner plate, covered with white icing and colored sprinkles.
“Are you staying with Mom and Dad or…?” the voice in the kitchen prompted.
“Ha. You’re cute. No. I’m having a sleepover with Zuzu tonight. Can I? Pleeeze, Zubitty-zu? I missed you so much!” A young woman with blue streaks in her choppy, brunette bob rushed out from the kitchen to gather up the little girl. The young woman had a pierced eyebrow, a tattoo on the side of her neck, and wore a sleeveless jean vest over a white tank top.
“Yes!” the girl cried, letting her head bobble all silly like a ragdoll. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“We’ll go visit Nana and Pop so your mom and dad can have some alone time. I think they need it,” she said, making a goggle-eyed face at the little girl.
“Would you like me to tell you who I think needs to get f—?” The other woman cut herself off as she came out to give her sister a smile ripe with the curse she’d skipped.
“And you blame me for the language she picks up? Bite, please.”
The little girl offered the edge of the cookie to her aunt.
Glory flicked to her ‘ideas’ folder and wrote, woman who gave her baby to her sister. Then she made a note to go back and put blue streaks in Pandora’s hair. She would think about the tattoo and piercings.
The girl offered the cookie to her mom and the blonde took a bite, too. They all chewed, smiling at each other. The blonde sobered as she looked at her sister.
“I’m not happy, either,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “Dex is very unthrilled about moving back here, but…” She flicked a hand to indicate the girl.
The little girl curled her arm trustingly around her aunt’s neck and rested her head on her shoulder. She blinked big blue eyes up at her mom. “I love Auntie Eden.”
“I know, baby. That’s why we’re all moving back to Haven: ’cause we love each other and want to be together.”
An uncomfortable squiggle of premonition went through Glory’s middle, but the bells on the door jangled. She glanced over to see the mechanic, Jimmy, who had been working on her car coming into the shop.
Her hatchback was due for a service, so she’d had him check the battery as well. He came highly recommended by a couple of locals who worked at the lodge, but he was about six foot six, three hundred pounds, and scary as hell with that unsmiling face. Although, he seemed to be missing a few teeth, so maybe that’s why he didn’t smile.
“Your car is ready,” he told Glory. “Let me grab a coffee, then you can come over and settle up.”
“Thanks.” Glory started to pack up.
“Hey, Eden. I didn’t know you were in town,” he said as she put down the little girl and straightened to take his order.
“Just got here, but hey—talk about good timing. Is anyone renting your mom’s old flat above your garage?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Me.”
“If it’s you, then it’s available. Lotta weirdos in town lately, speaking German and shit. Double-shot, please, Candy.”
“She’s not a weirdo?” the blonde asked. “With the hair and the tats and piercings?”
“At least I know what kind of weirdo I’m getting. I thought you were marrying some music producer? That’s what your mom said.”
“Mom is starting rumors about me before I’ve even moved back here. No, I was living with a guy who manages a couple of bands. He did ask me to marry him right before he went on the road. I said, ‘no,’ and we broke up.”
“Dex will be bummed,” Candy said over her shoulder. “He likes Pryce.”
“Dex likes free tickets.”
“Dex is not a complicated man.”
“Amen to that,” Eden said, earning a narrow-eyed glare from her sister.
Glory liked the idea of a boyfriend on the road. A musician might work better, though. They had groupies and a reputation for being horn-dogs. She made another note then packed up and followed the mechanic across the road.
She had to keep herself from skipping with happiness as she went. All in all, a really productive writing session.
*
Rolf didn’t care how many sideways looks he got. People could stare and catcall and insult him and he could still focus on not dying while hurtling himself down a slope at a hundred miles an hour.
When you consistently won, which he had, people grew resentful and jealous. They talked smack behind your back and refused to speak to your face. He’d seen it all and none of it got inside his head.
So the way Glory was acting shouldn’t even be hitting his radar.
But he noticed. Which bothered him almost as much as her reaction itself.
She wasn’t rude, but she avoided him. If he came into the fitness room when she was mid-pose, she quietly exhaled, turned off her music, and walked out. She sent emails rather than speak to him face to face. Any communication from her stayed very much on point. If he asked her a direct question, she responded in the shortest number of syllables possible, usually “’kay.” If a more complex discussion was required, she got her father involved, leaving Marvin to work out the fine points while she moved on to other things.
At one point, Rolf tried to clear the air by saying, “If you want an apology—”
“I don’t.” She had met his gaze for one grim second. “You were being honest. So was I.”
Right. Fuck you and your brother’s dog, too.
He shouldn’t expect her to still smile at him after that and she didn’t. In fact, if she happened to be laughing with someone when he walked into a room, her smile grew forced as she wrapped up her conversation and made an excuse to walk away. No matter what she was doing when he came anywhere near her, the light died from her eyes.
At first, he thought she was carting a grudge over her head like it was a freaking tournament-winning silver cup. Her snit was tiresome and exactly the sort of drama he’d been trying to avoid by steering clear of romantic entanglements.
Two weeks in, however, he had to acknowledge she wasn’t being passive-aggressive or even aggressive-aggressive. She genuinely hated his guts.
Which should have earned exactly zero fucks from him. He still felt like a chump for worrying about her that day. When he had realized she’d been hiding in her car all that time, he’d been so furious with her for flashing him back to his mother’s accident, he hadn’t been able to speak. He would have taken her head off far more savagely than any of her charming comebacks about Valentines ever could.
He had also been relieved, though. Not just generic relief after generic concern, either. He hadn’t wanted to orchestrate a rescue in the dark, on a mountain, in a snowstorm, but he hadn’t wanted to be responsible for her disappearance. Her angry sadness at missing that chance with her mom had struck a chord in him that had prickled and itched for days.
Which pissed him off.
He didn’t do feelings. His were simple and middle of the road. Hot, cold, horny, hungry. Peeved or pleased. Bored or interested.
Far as he could tell, she was every color of the emotional rainbow. She laughed big and ran away from home when she was sad. They’d established that her temper could level a fucking building and her grudges ran a mile deep.
He didn’t have the patience to cover that much ground on a daily basis. Avoidance was his best bet and that was the only reason he should be tuning in to her whereabouts like she was a freaking radio signal.
Did he turn away when he knew she was around a corner, though? Not even once. Because he wasn’t a coward, that’s why.
He braced, though. His stomach tightened as he walked toward the open front doors of the lodge. Something about the way the dog trotted ahead of him, tail wagging and collar chain jangling, told him even before his eyes adjusted from the bright outdoors, that Glory was in the lobby.
“Glory will say I’m right,” Trigg said beside him as the dog found her by the reception desk.
“I’m right,” Glory announced with good-natured obedience. For once, her sloppy cardigan hung on a hook instead of off her shoulders. It was a pleasant spring day so she wore only a light turtleneck and jeans. The clothes showcased her round, pert breasts and round, pert ass. She was bent over to greet Murphy, scrubbing his ears, saying, “Glory is always right, isn’t she?”
Instead of her usual knot of frizzy hair, she had it scraped almost straight into a ponytail secured by silver band behind her neck. The tail flared out from the bottom like the end of a frayed rope.
Rolf had begun obsessing over how that kinky mass might feel. Silky? Coarse? Warm? Cool?
“Say, ‘Trigg is a sex god,’” his brother prompted, grating on Rolf’s nerves.
“That would contradict the part where I claim to always be right.” She straightened, grinning at her own comeback.
She saw Rolf. Her glance barely hit him and her expression didn’t change, but her smile became a stiff mask. The sparkle in her eye gutted.
Rolf took it on the chin and stayed on his feet.
“I can only take custody if he’s tired. I have a ton of payroll.” She thumbed toward the dining room and her pantry office, already mapping her retreat. It was a predictable, yet graceful refusal to breathe his same air.
“He’s knackered. We hiked him up to the old lift tower. Have you been up there?”
“Pssht. I hike in malls, like civilized folk.”
“It’s a really pretty view. I’ll take you up tomorrow.”
Rolf’s hackles rose. It was a purely instinctual reaction, one he didn’t understand. He and Trigg had never fought over a woman. The age difference between them had made it a non-issue until Trigg hit his mid-twenties. In the last few years, they might have seen women who overlapped the same age bracket, but they both had enough offers, and such different social circles, poaching or competing had never been a thing between them. It was probably the only area of their lives where they didn’t lock horns.
There was no way it should be an issue now.
But when Glory said, “I have to take my car into Haven for another tune-up tomorrow,” Rolf relaxed a fraction. She started gathering paperwork. “Come on, Murphy.”
“Wait. Settle an argument,” Trigg insisted.
She paused to side-swipe Rolf with her gaze. “No, thanks.”
“It affects you.”
That made her stiffen. “Doubt it.”
“We need a terrain park,” Trigg explained.
“I don’t know what that is.” She shrugged an apology and tried to leave again.
Rolf could have walked away himself, but he stuck around, wanting to know how much of his brother’s flirting was landing on target.
“It’s like a skate park for boarders and skiers, with jumps and rails. Good for off-season mountain biking, too. All the big resorts have them. Otherwise people are hot-dogging on the main runs and things get broken. Jaws. Femurs.”
“You need to decide on a color? Anything but blue. We called that one.”
“Location. Rolf wants it on the backside as a second-phase project. I say it should go on this side, where people drinking on the patio can watch the tricks. Better for you and your guests, right?”
“Sure,” she agreed without her usual drill for more information.
It was funny, but once he had stopped trying to shield himself from what he’d thought were her advances, he’d begun seeing how much other people liked and respected her. Marvin was a decent guy, a bit too chatty for Rolf’s tastes, but always willing to pitch in with both hands. He wasn’t a leader, though. He waffled and tried to please everyone. When he did make a decision, it was off-the-cuff, like Glory’s disinterested, ‘Sure.’
Glory wasn’t a leader, either, per se. She was more of a one-on-one counselor. She spelled things out to the point Rolf sometimes wanted to walk up and say, “He got it ten minutes ago.” But he’d been managing executives a few years now. He might personally find it expedient to address a room, say his piece once and carry on, but he’d learned the value in a style like hers, where she pulled a person aside, earned their confidence, and brought them on board as a team player.
So he did that. He spoke right to her, explaining, “Terrain parks aren’t for inexperienced skiers. They should only be accessible to people who have to ski our more challenging runs to get there. It also makes sense financially to build for the average skier first, before specializing for a niche like acrobats.”
He and Trigg had been hashing this out all morning.
“They’re still going to go over there, dude,” Trigg argued again. “You’re just moving them to a more remote location so it’s a pain in the ass to bring them out when they get themselves into trouble. And we’re targeting elite athletes.”
“The main bowl has to be for all levels. This is a ski-in, ski-out lodge. You want to put a terrain park in the path of a skier returning after a long day, when they’re tired and have no reflexes left? Just so the guests on the patio have a front-row seat on those broken femurs and necks? Is that the sort of entertainment you would like to provide?” He swung that last inquiry to Glory.
She pursed her lips, cheeks hollow. “What does your buddy Gerald say? He was all about slope grades and topography, wasn’t he? I invite you to ask him where you should stick it. Come on, Murph.” She walked away.
“Did she just tell us to stick it?” Trigg asked as they entered Rolf’s office. “That’s your fault. If you weren’t here, she would have agreed with me. She likes me.”
“Does she?” Rolf cocked his head with skepticism.
“More than she likes you. That sting?”
“No.”
Maybe.
Fuck it. Yes. He hated that Trigg made her chuckle and play verbal tennis.
“Maybe don’t come on so hard,” he advised his kid brother. “A sexual harassment suit is all I need.”
“Fuck you.”
“Better me than her. Send me those photos you took,” Rolf said, deliberately changing the subject. “I’m going into Haven tomorrow to talk to the cop.”
After Nate had spoken to Chief Kurt Adams, Rolf had also had a brief chat with him. Adams was willing to send an officer out to the lodge if there was a specific incident, but said documenting the ‘before’ was also an important piece.
He had recommended a few more precautionary measures, which was why Rolf and Trigg had hiked all morning, checking things out and putting up some hunting cameras and signage. Aside from bickering over design issues, it had been a comfortable few hours.
It had actually been a small déjà vu for Rolf, harking him back to when he’d been teaching his kid brother to ski. The two of them had often wound up more or less alone, weaving through a section of trees, Trigg as comfortable in the stillness as Rolf had always been.
There had been a handful of years in there when things had been pretty good. Rolf had finally accepted he had a brother and Trigg had been old enough to be more companion, less chore. Their camaraderie had lasted right up until Trigg had said, “I want to board.”
Rolf wasn’t a purist. He could board better than most, but he didn’t love it the way he loved the precision of skiing. Trigg was a fast, accomplished skier, but he had found his niche—his freedom—on the board. It had been the beginning of Trigg making his own decisions and, for that reason and a million others, they’d grown apart from that point on.
Today, as they’d squabbled and trash-talked, but literally climbed common ground, Rolf had figured there was hope for a mature friendship with his brother.
If not for Glory.
He twirled his pen between his fingers and thumbs.
It wasn’t just about Trigg exposing them to lawsuits if his advances were not welcomed. Glory was kind of… Hell, he didn’t think she was a virgin or anything, but there was a lot of lava under the brittle exterior, one that was still crushed she hadn’t been able to go to Paris with her mom.
Trigg wasn’t going to marry her and take her on a dream honeymoon to the City of Light. He was very much in the headspace of having a good time, then crowing about it to his brother on his way to his next stop on the circuit.
So no. Trigg wasn’t getting a shot at Glory. Not without going through Rolf.