The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  The daycare was small and sat right on the edge of the Snowmass Resort. It had been specifically tailored as the place to leave your little ones while you spend the day—or days—on the slopes. Of course, we had a year-round program that we ran for locals as well, and around this time of the year, that’s what our classes were dwindling down to—about ten kids whose parents lived and worked locally.

  “You… haven’t heard anything, have you?” I asked, coming to stand on my side of the partner’s desk that we shared. Our office was small—littered with fake floral arrangements that Becca liked to make in her spare time. My side of the space had two shelves, one stacked with books (mostly the classics) and one lined with various types of tea.

  She gave me a sad smile. “Hun, I told you that I would let you know the second I heard from Sofia or anything about Lila.”

  My heart sank—just like it did every day she gave me the same answer and we continued to hear nothing about the little girl that had captured a special piece of my heart.

  A few weeks ago, Lila’s nanny, Sofia, had come to Open Hearts completely flustered and pulled Lila out of daycare before the day was over. Lila had had a meltdown because that’s what six-year-olds do when you change plans on them. I hadn’t had such a good excuse.

  Traumatized, I’d called Sofia later who insisted that everything was fine and hung up.

  Lila hadn’t been back since. And my boss insisted that I leave it alone.

  I loved all the kids that we watched over but Lila was special. I told myself that I wasn’t a parent and so it wasn’t morally reprehensible to pick a favorite out of all of them.

  Lila had come to us two years ago when she was four. At first, Becca and I had almost filed a report to child services, the way she exhibited behavioral signs of having been abused even though there was no physical evidence on her tiny person that we could see. We gave it to the end of that week before we would decide if that heavy accusation was warranted.

  But in that week, she bloomed. At least with us in the daycare.

  She was quiet and skittish until she stepped into the building at which point her face lit up, always searching me out in the crowd for a hug. She was still shy with the other kids and when she left, some of her exuberance and excitement retreated. But she was markedly different from that first day and I couldn’t find any reason for continued concern.

  Until she was pulled from the daycare without explanation. Now, I was more than concerned.

  “I know. I’m just so worried. I wish Jane would just give me their information,” I murmured familiar words under my breath.

  The crux of the problem was that we didn’t know who Lila’s parents were. Her application had been submitted directly to Cindy, the owner of Open Hearts, and that’s where it had stayed—in the office next door under lock and key.

  “Sofia loves that little girl just as much as we do. Trust me, Tammy, there is no way anything is going to happen to Lila. I’m sure she is fine,” Becca insisted even as her eyes returned to the papers in front of her. “The season ended not that long ago; maybe her parents decided to go somewhere for the summer.”

  But they’d never gone anywhere before. And why did they have to leave in the middle of the morning? Why bother sending Lila in that day at all?

  I just nodded, clasping my hands in front of my mouth for a second before jerking them across my body to rub the outsides of my arms, a poor comfort for how I was feeling. What Becca said echoed Jessa’s words to me. In a rare moment of weakness, I’d crumbled completely into tears over Lila’s leaving and she’d suggested something similar, ‘There could have been a death in the family or another family emergency. I’m sure she is fine, Tammy.’

  Maybe it was the initial fear in those light-blue eyes of hers or her heartbreaking shyness that had drawn me to her from the start—my only goal to make her smile. Or maybe it was that she’d always called me ‘Mammy’ instead of ‘Tammy’ and it was the closest thing I’d ever get to being called ‘Mom.’ Either way, my heart worried for my little girl.

  Tammy…

  Okay, she wasn’t mine.

  Hanging my jacket neatly on the coat rack behind my desk, I reached inside my desk drawer for the lint roller I kept stashed inside, cleaning the few fuzzies off of my leggings left by my sweater.

  “Is Cindy coming in today, do you know?” I asked. I just couldn’t let it go. I had to talk to my boss and beg her if necessary for the family’s contact information.

  “Oh,” Becca exclaimed, remembering something that she clearly had forgotten to tell me. “Well, one, I forgot you were at the doctor’s when she stopped in last week. She said she was going to be out in Denver at some seminar all this week and not back in until the middle of next.”

  I nodded, swallowing another lump of disappointment. Nowadays, disappointment was a pill that I seemed to be taking daily. In fact, the dosage on it seemed to be increasing, too.

  “Also,” she continued, “there are a few requests here to have extended hours on Wednesday and Thursday because of the Snowmass Bash. I already made plans on Wednesday, but I can cover Thursday…”

  “S-sure. I can do Wednesday.” The Snowmass Bash was the end of the season party held at the resort—drinks, DJs, and dancing out on the mostly bare slopes. Fire pits would litter the ground, S’mores kits handed out like candy.

  As if the medical gods were watching, my phone buzzed—an automatic text reminder of my doctor’s appointment Wednesday afternoon. Guess I was going to have to call them and move it back two hours.

  “Alright, let’s let these rugrats in.” Becca smiled as she walked by me to open up for the day.

  I put on my brave mom-mask—the one that made it look like everything was fine even when I saw it all beginning to crumble.

  Great. One more couple cleared out of Cup of Joe, leaving the cozy coffee shop to only myself and another girl who was sitting on the opposite side of the coffee bar.

  With the ski season over, by this point in the afternoon, the place was pretty dead. I told myself that I came here out of habit—needing a chai tea before heading home. But really it was because Jessa had moved out and even though I’d kept to myself while she was there, with her gone and moving in with her no longer ex-boyfriend, Chance, the empty apartment was just another ominous premonition for my potential future.

  Alone. With no one to care for.

  So, I’d gotten in the habit of bringing my book with me to work and then coming straight over here afterwards for a few hours to keep from worrying.

  I was an island surrounded by a sea of concerns, the waves slowly pulling apart my edges into the depths of the unknown.

  The doctors still had no answers. ‘Hopefully by next week we should have your test results back from the lab in Denver;’ that was the last communication I’d had from them.

  I’d always had pain because of my endometriosis; that was a fact of my life. But lately, the pain was different. It was deeper and more sinister. But it kept hiding—whatever the cause was—coming and going like relatives around the holidays. The descriptor ‘inconclusive’ had become as obnoxiously overused as the idea of marriage to a Kardashian.

  Absentmindedly, I stood from the comfy armchair by the window, setting my copy of Sense and Sensibility down on the seat and walked over to the table that had just been abandoned by the younger couple; they’d left their cups, their garbage… they’d left a mess and I couldn’t let it sit.

  The sound of the coffee grinder humming, the hiss of the steamer going off, the ding of the bell as the door opened—all white noise to drown out my thoughts. I focused on cleaning.

  Cleanliness is next to godliness.

  I quietly set the stack of mugs and plates on the counter, grabbing a small stack of napkins and walking back over to the table to wipe it down.

  My body began to burn and I was afraid that it was the onslaught of another attack of crippling cramps that would send me hobbling out to my car in tears. But then I heard the voic
e of the only other malady I suffered from—an inexplicably painful attraction to Nick Frost.

  “Are you really cleaning up after a date?” His words were as smooth as ice. Cold slid down my spine and sent a shiver straight to the deepest part of me.

  I spun only to find myself face-to-face with him; I hadn’t realized he was that close. But my body had. I shifted my weight, trying to shift my yoga pants that pressed on areas that… shouldn’t feel pressure right now.

  He made yoga pants uncomfortable. The man should be arrested for that alone.

  “Yes.” Wait. I shook my head. “Well, no.” He just stood there, inappropriately close, waiting for further explanation. “There was a date that happened at this table.” I sighed. “But it wasn’t mine. They left a mess, so I was just cleaning it.”

  “You cleaned up after someone else’s date?”

  It did sound a little ridiculous and a lot OCD when he put it like that.

  “Well, it was dirty,” I said quietly, taking a second to find my backbone from where it had pooled into a puddle at the bottom of my back. “Is there something I can help you with?” I wanted the words to come out with an edge, just like Jessa would say them—coated with a sarcastic glaze. But nope. My question sounded like I literally wanted to know if there was something I could do for him, like I was the cold Casanova’s personal concierge.

  Fail.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, the fabric of my usually-comfy sweater abrading my skin.

  “Unless you can make hot chocolates as well as you clean,” he smirked. “Then no.”

  “I didn’t take you for a hot chocolate man,” I replied. As I turned to slide out of the small space he’d trapped me in between his body and the table, I almost missed the twitch in his eye—like I’d noticed a mistake that he hadn’t realized he’d made.

  Walking back from the trash can where I’d thrown away the dirty napkins, I paused when I saw him standing above the chair I’d been sitting in—holding my book.

  “I didn’t take you for a Jane Austen reader,” I said, moving behind the chair. The more barriers between us the better; I didn’t like the chaos he brought on my faulty, but ordered body.

  The book slammed shut. Frosted eyes met mine. “I’m not,” he said, setting the book down. “Just trying to get a better read on you.”

  My heart tripped. I’d have to add it to the list of pre-existing conditions the next time I saw my doctor. Frost-induced Arrhythmias.

  “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m an open book.” Aside from the whole no-baby thing, I really wasn’t that interesting; I couldn’t understand why he was even still standing there when his drink was waiting on the bar for him.

  He stepped closer—the chair barely a barrier between us. “So, which are you? Sense or Sensibility?”

  My eyes widened. “Sense. Of course,” I blurted out, shaking my head like the other option was a complete impossibility. “Did you really think anything different?”

  We’d gone to high school together. Our group of friends ran similarly and—recently—had pretty much merged into one. I wouldn’t say that Nick Frost knew much of anything about me, but I wasn’t kidding: I was an open book—split exactly to the middle, a bookmark aligned perfectly down my center, with not a scrap of dust or dirt anywhere. Precisely ordered. Perfectly pristine.

  My eyes widened as his hand came up in front of my face, paralyzed as he pulled a strand of hair loose from my French braid. Braids were the only practical way to keep my hair controlled and out of the grubby hands of Derek, a rambunctious four-year-old who like to pull at it when it hung loose.

  “Most days, all sense. Right now? More sensibility,” he rasped. “But what you really want,” —he leaned in—“is for me to make you completely senseless.”

  The emergency valve (also known as my mouth) opened to let air into my lungs. He shot me a smirk of success and then walked away, grabbing his very small drink from the counter and stalking back outside. I couldn’t move, staring out the window until I couldn’t see him anymore—and the hold he had on my body finally relaxed.

  I stared at the book resting on the chair, feeling betrayed by my beloved Jane Austen. I could only imagine what she would have to say to describe a man like Nick Frost…

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that this man in possession of good fortune and even better figure, must always be in search of a good f—

  I gasped loud enough at my own thought that even the only other person who sat on the other side of the room was now looking at me curiously.

  I grabbed the book and shoved it in my bag, hoping the contents of my mom-purse would wipe off any trace of Nick’s touch, and pulled out my phone. With a few quick taps, I made the phone call I’d been avoiding.

  “Hello,” I said, propping my phone between my shoulder and ear as I gathered up my stuff to leave. “My name is Tammy—Tamsin Lucas. I have an appointment on Wednesday at five-thirty. I just found out that I have to work late. Would it be possible for me to move that back an hour?”

  I held while the receptionist checked, setting my purse on the passenger seat and climbing into my car.

  “That… should be fine, Ms. Lucas. Thank you for calling.”

  “Thank you.” I hung up.

  She sounded sad. I hated when they sounded sad.

  WHEN ONE FINDS ONESELF IN a hole, one should stop digging.

  But I wasn’t in a hole. I was in a fucking crater—a crater that I’d dug myself. And one that my dick kept shoveling away at.

  For years, I’d seen her, watched her, noticed her. Even during my asshole addict phase when I couldn’t tell you what day of the week it was, let alone my own name, I still noticed her. And that was what intrigued and irritated me about Tamsin Lucas—the fact that she hadn’t caught my gaze on purpose, she’d slowly woven a fucking web around it until one day I realized it was impossible to see anyone else but her.

  Tall, like a Victoria’s Secret model but curvier. She was gorgeous, but that’s not what drew me to her; I noticed her because she tried to hide it with long braids to mask the thick waves of chestnut hair, no makeup to accentuate her warm eyes or full lips, and loose layers of clothes to cover up the curves beneath. She hid herself and I was always fucking fascinated by people who tried to hide. I liked finding out their secrets because that meant they would never be looking for mine.

  What pissed me off the most was that she came off as picture-fucking-perfect—perfect grades, perfect student, perfect employee, perfect friend, and probably a perfect fucking virgin, too. She’d put Mr. Clean out of a job and make Mary Poppins look like some second-rate, umbrella-wielding sideshow. There was nothing about Tamsin Lucas that wasn’t perfectly organized into one neat little compartment or another and wrapped with a very unostentatious bow. So, I burned to find her secret and leave my mark by dulling her picture-perfect shine.

  Picture perfect. Just like the image of my life—a rich kid with looks most would kill for, no responsibilities, popular with everyone, and a cell phone full of women just waiting to be called upon and used.

  My life was a lie. And no one cared to find the truth.

  She was a lie, too. And I wanted to fuck her until she was in shambles and bleeding with the truth.

  I don’t know what set it off—what turned my desire for her into needing her like she was the only cure for its cancer. Maybe it was because everyone else—all of our friends—were living these fucking fairy tales. All perfect and happy, just like she pretended to be. Meanwhile, I was miserable. Caged in this house for the next few months while the mother of my daughter was plotting her damnedest to take Lila away from me.

  Lila was my only light, my own little walking, talking piece of happiness. I glanced out of the window watching her with Sofia on the trampoline that sat back behind the guest house that adjoined my parents’ mansion.

  “Mr. Frost.” The woman from child services, Ms. Vane, addressed me with a voice completely devoid of emotion. I turned my face slo
wly back to her as she stepped farther into the kitchen where I was standing. Tall and so thin—probably because she ate souls to survive, I wanted to ask her if she realized that she looked like the grim-reaper—all dressed in black to complement that sickle-like nose of hers. But I held my tongue, knowing that she held my fate—and my daughter’s in her hand.

  “Ms. Vane,” I returned in kind.

  “I see nothing… wrong… with the living circumstances here,” she continued, scratching something onto the sheet of paper attached to the clipboard in front of her. “However, I see that you’ve taken the child out of daycare.”

  Shit.

  Yeah, I did. Because I didn’t put it past her crackhead mother to show up there and take her away.

  “Why is that?”

  I grimaced, knowing the truth wasn’t an option here. “I felt that it wasn’t the right environment for her at this time.”

  “She’s six years old, Mr. Frost. She should be enrolled in a preschool of some sort.” Several harsher scratches on the paper, furiously signing my death sentence.

  “She is.” The lie slipped easily from my lips. When it comes to protecting your kid—I found that anything came easily. Murdering the grim reaper probably would have come easily if I felt it necessary.

  The pen stopped mid-word and black eyes rose to mine. “Where? I have no record.”

  “Here,” I replied, calmly. “I’m in the process of hiring a private tutor to homeschool her.”

  Skepticism bled over her face. “And what are this person’s credentials? I will need all of his or her information.” She slammed the pen down on the clipboard. “These are some very serious allegations that Ms. Blackman is leveling against you, Mr. Frost. I would hate to think that you are lying about this.”

  “Of course not, Ms. Vane.” I topped the lie off with a sickly-sweet smile. “Like you, I just want to make sure that my daughter is in the best hands. I’m interviewing several candidates this week to start as soon as possible. I will be sure to send you all the information as soon as I have it.”