Chapter Twenty-Three
The days were already getting shorter, especially in the mountains. Glory had lost an hour while traveling and it was starting to snow for real by the time she was making the last leg of the trip.
She wasn’t even sure what she was doing here, but somehow she’d found herself on the road first thing this morning, wearing way too much makeup, hair done, and a cocktail dress hanging from the hook in the back seat.
He wasn’t even going to want to see her.
She wanted to see him, though. She wanted to see all of this, she realized, as the lodge came into view and she felt a glow of homecoming warm her all the way through.
It looked so cute, with white Christmas lights strung along the roofline and balconies. Floodlights angled upward beneath the boughs of the blue spruces at the entrance, catching the fall of snowflakes.
Her father’s dream, coming to life. It was so ridiculously quaint. He really was a romantic. That was probably what had made her mother fall for him.
Glory entered the finished lobby where the stairs gleamed and the chandelier sparkled. The doors to the dining room were closed, the ugly folding doors replaced with ones that had pretty, etched glass.
The desk had been refinished and a stranger stood behind it, a pretty young woman with clear English skin and a short bob of black hair, ruby lips, and a midnight blue dress.
“Oh, Marvin’s daughter,” she said warmly when Glory offered her name. “I’m Macy. Took your job, I think. Your father wasn’t sure if you’d make it tonight. He’ll be so happy to see you. Don’t worry about changing. You look great. Go right in.”
Glory followed the noise into the lounge where—well, look at that: Eden did know how to play guitar. She could sing, too. She was on stage and the rest of Haven seemed to have turned out for the event.
People greeted Glory with smiles and waves while she made her way to the bar where her father was pouring with a steady hand, all bright-eyed and bushy eyebrows.
“Oh, my girl.” He took her off her feet when he came around to hug her.
“I missed you.” She squeezed him back, not wanting to let go. If she did, well, she would have to look for the other man she had missed and she wasn’t ready. What if—
Her heart stopped. There he was. Her knees almost collapsed as her father set her on her feet.
Rolf stood with Nate and some other people, beer in hand. He wore what she thought of as his semi-formal clothes, a button shirt open at the throat, suit pants, no tie. His air of omnipotence was firmly in place.
She had no air at all as they stared at one another. Stared and stared and stared. She couldn’t make her feet move. Didn’t know if she dared anyway.
“Glory.” It was Suzanne, touching her elbow, looking thin and pale, but smiling, head covered in a silk kerchief.
Glory hugged her gently and asked after her and the girls, the shop. Trigg found her a minute later, “Hey there, stranger.” He kissed her cheek and pressed a drink into her hand. Then Devon wanted to catch up. People and more people. Friends. She hadn’t realized how many friends she had here.
And all the while she was aware of Rolf over there, not approaching. Staring at her? Or not? She couldn’t look to find out. Not without lightning striking her heart again.
Eden finished her set and came to hug her. Even Nate came by to say hello, which made her glance over to where Rolf had been standing. He was gone. Her heart went into free fall. She scanned the room. Nope. Totally gone.
Without speaking to her.
And now she was going to cry.
“Glory, dear, did you see what your dad put in your office?”
“What? No.” Didn’t care, either. Because Rolf didn’t. Not for her. She was too big a dumbass.
She was going to cry so she let Vivien drag her past Macy’s curious look toward the office that belonged to that cute girl who was probably fucking Rolf’s brains out now that Glory had stupidly walked—
Oh. There he was, putting the phone into its cradle on the desk, looking up with confusion as they walked in.
“Marvin said I had a call, but—” He cut himself off as he saw her.
Vivien gave Glory a not-so-gentle shove so she could pull the door closed. She shut off the light as she did.
“Well, that was subtle,” Glory muttered, stumbling to a halt. She cleared her throat so her voice wouldn’t sound so pathetic.
“Do you want to turn the light on?”
“No.” She buried her head in her hands, heels of her palms pushing into her eye sockets to hold back the pressure there.
“How are you?” He didn’t sound like he had moved from behind the desk.
“Fine,” she lied. “You?”
“Fine.”
“Are you lying?”
“Yes.”
Hot tears leaked out enough she could feel the sting of her mascara smearing. “I put on all this makeup so I would look pretty for you, and now I’m going to look like a raccoon.”
“To make me jealous?”
“To make you not hate me.” She lifted her head and blinked. The light from beyond the windows was enough to turn the room into a black and white movie, his expression shadowed and unreadable, her emotions too raw for technicolor. “Maybe want me again.”
“I didn’t stop. I’m not the one who left.”
“But you let me go.”
“What else was I going to do?” His voice was so hard it was made of compressed ice. Glaciers. Diamonds. “How is it going?” That was a little gentler. Like he was genuinely curious.
“Okay. Really good, actually. I think I’m going to sign a three-book contract with a publisher.”
Silence, then: “I see. How long will that take? To write them, I mean.”
His hand was on the edge of the desk, thumb working against it, but otherwise he was very still. Something in his voice had her taking a step toward him, though. It almost sounded like he would wait for her, but she couldn’t ask that of him.
“Rolf—”
This was it, the moment where she would have to push off and navigate the turns no matter how gut-wrenchingly hard and terrifying it was. She might cross the finish line with a gold medal or crash and burn along the way and have to be carried off the course.
He might laugh at her if she did.
“I always thought Mom resented having to get married and raise a child when she had all these other things she wanted to do. I thought I was being smart, going after that before making promises to people I wouldn’t be able to keep.”
“You are. I’m not asking you for any promises.”
“I know you’re not.” Damn. One of those flag thingies had just slapped her in the face. It stung like hell. “But it wasn’t being married that held Mom back. It was choosing to stay in a loveless marriage. She tried to fill that emotional void with her career. I see that now, because that’s what I’m trying to do.”
She heard his breath draw in, kind of a protest, almost like he was girding himself.
“I’m trying to make sure I have something big enough to sustain me so I don’t have to risk falling in love. Because that’s scary and hard and if we fail I don’t know if I will survive that. But writing isn’t enough. I need you. I want you.”
She couldn’t read his expression. Was he staring at her like he couldn’t believe her gall? Like it was too little too late?
“Does that mean you want to come back here?”
“To be with you, yes. To see. To try. Properly this time.”
“Do you understand that I’m not letting you go again? Be sure, Glory. Because I’m not trying again. We’re fucking doing this.” His finger pointed to the desktop, which was very cryptic since she didn’t know what ‘this’ was. “Turns out it doesn’t matter how you part from someone you care about. If they don’t come back, and don’t talk to you, it fucking sucks regardless. You’re in my bed from now on.”
“My room is better.”
“I’m in your room. It is better.”
She bit her lips and looked at the floor. “You said ‘fuck’ twice, but you haven’t said anything about whether you think you could fall in love with me. That’s kind of—”
“Would you get over here?”
She swallowed and edged closer.
He took hold of her arm and dragged her close. Her hands automatically came between them, more to hold off the way he overwhelmed her just by being him.
“You asked me if I got the call today, saying I’m good to race again, would I go? No. I wouldn’t. Ten years ago, maybe. I don’t know, because I didn’t know you.” His thumb moved on her skin, restless. “I’m kind of glad I didn’t know you yet because that would have been a really hard decision. Today I can say easily that racing is not as important to me as you are. If I had to—and don’t ask me to do this because I would be really fucking pissed—but if I had to, I would walk away from all of this. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this place happen from Seattle, but haven’t come up with a solid enough plan to present it to you. And the board. Please tell me you can write from here.”
“Will you run interference between me and Dad if he goes mafia and tries to draw me back in?” She let her fingertip weasel between his buttons, seeking the fine hairs on his sternum.
“Will you teach Macy how to make a decent cup of coffee when she’s filling in?” His hands released her arms and went to the small of her back.
“I could teach you.” She tilted her hips into his.
“Such a wonderful imagination you have. But you’re definitely staying here to exercise it, right?” His hands went lower, taking possession of her butt.
“I have to go back to Seattle for my things. Do you want to come with me?” She rubbed her mound into the thickening flesh behind his fly.
“I do.” He kissed her, once, twice, hands hardening on her as he drew her even closer. “I missed you.” Another kiss. “I do love you.”
“I love you, too.” It hurt because it opened her wide. She was utterly without protection against him, but the way he held her, the way he slanted his mouth with such tender familiarity over hers, was reassuring and healing and sweet.
Sometimes it’s true, she thought. Sometimes romance novels got it right.
Then he backed her into the filing cabinet and something dug into her back. She ignored it and lifted her thigh against his hip, wishing she had changed into her dress so he could—
Light flashed across them as the door flew open.
“Fuck, dude. Learn to lock a door. It’s this button right here. Fuuuck.” Trigg twisted something on the knob then started to slam out. He paused. “You sticking around?”
“Not if you’re going to keep walking in on us,” Glory retorted. Rolf kept hold of her thigh, maybe to hide the fact he was tenting his fly.
“I’m leaving in a few days. Be gone a while. We’ll work out a system when I get back. As you were.” He closed the door on them.
“Your brother is an idiot.”
“Don’t talk about him when we’re making out. It’s weird.”
“Are we really doing this here? I quit taking the pill.”
“I don’t have a condom on me. Do you want to get pregnant?”
“Let’s save that for the epilogue and go upstairs.”
“Is that writer humor?”
“Trust me, it was hilarious.”