From the Top

by Dani Collins

  “Nate.” Rolf appeared in the hall behind her from the kitchen entrance, still in his ski suit.

  Nate brushed by her, aware of the pull it caused within him to walk past and away from her, but he followed Rolf into the manager’s office and shut the door behind them.

  “How’d it go with Kurt?” Rolf took the chair behind the desk, pulling off his cap. His hair was flattened by sweat. His cheeks were still ruddy with exertion.

  The chief of police had smelled hungover, but Nate kept that to himself. The man shouldn’t have had to work at all today.

  “He brought his deputy, made a bunch of notes. Aside from the turkeys and the paint, the ‘perps’—” Nate put air quotes around the word “—didn’t bother trying to get into the office to steal anything. They knew what they were after and came prepared. When we looked at the footage, we saw four sleds, each towing a moose tub. Everyone was in balaclavas. They were in and out and brought enough rope to keep the boxes secured. Kurt figures they knew everyone had the day off, including the security guard.”

  “And knew they would hear the tractor if it headed down.” That’s why Rolf had taken the chance of letting even the guard have the day off. He’d been sure the plowing patrols would be enough. No one was supposed to even know the shipment was there.

  “Or they made sure it wouldn’t run. Someone put gas in it.” The tractor was a diesel engine and it hadn’t taken long for the thing to start smoking.

  “Who the fuck did that?”

  “Operator logged that it needed fuel the night before and the kid who ran it first thing yesterday said it was full when he got in. I questioned everyone who touches it and they all looked genuinely shocked. Aside from a couple of jerry cans for emergencies, which are still full, we don’t even keep gasoline on site. Everything we run is either diesel, natural gas, or electric. Jimmy says the tractor needs a new engine.”

  “Of course, it does.” Rolf bared his teeth at the window.

  “Locks were cut off all the storage containers. They helped themselves to a few power tools, but that was pure opportunity. They went hard for the sports equipment and took everything they could carry. Came and went the back way, over the old gravel pit.”

  It was a well-worn route taken by Haven’s various ATV, snowmobiling, and hunting clubs. For the fifteen years the resort had been mothballed, the town had used these peaks and valleys as their personal playground. Eventually, Rolf hoped to buy up the gravel pit as a lower parking lot and build a gondola to the base village. His vision for the mountain was all people, minimal cars.

  Signs were posted there that this was private property and monitored with cameras. Locals had mostly stopped trespassing, but it was still a process of retraining out-of-towners to stay off the work site.

  “Kurt asked how many people knew that shipment was coming. It’s a pretty short list.” Nate had only been told because it had been scheduled to arrive while Rolf was in Korea, watching Trigg race. “I told him you’d get back to him with the heli-skiers and anyone at Wikinger who might be of interest.”

  “Yeah, the board is going to love this.”

  “Devon was very unthrilled that some of her crew was questioned. Three of her guys stayed back yesterday. She responded about as well as you can imagine to their being called in by Kurt.”

  Her team was working diligently on restoring the lodge and she had another crew coming back as soon as the snow melted, to continue building the staff quarters. The glare Devon had given Nate, for daring to think of accusing any of her team of wrongdoing, had nearly turned him to stone.

  “I expect she gave Marvin an earful today,” Nate added.

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  Good luck. Devon probably wouldn’t talk to any of them for days. Weeks, probably. Not that she was friendly as a rule. She checked in with Nate daily to share equipment and coordinate things like power outages, but otherwise they stuck to mowing their own lawns.

  “What was with the birds?” Rolf asked.

  “Kurt thought that was purely for cover, so they could claim to be hunters if anyone stopped them.”

  “While dragging moose tubs out of season.”

  “Yep.”

  “Can he get membership lists from the local clubs? I’d like to know who was at the service and who wasn’t.”

  “Long shot and we don’t know it was locals.”

  “Fuck,” Rolf muttered under his breath.

  “I can’t help thinking the turkeys and the paint were meant to put off your investors. That this is another attempt to stop Whiskey Jack from coming back online, or at least slow it down.”

  “Same ‘perps’ as who started the fire last year?” A pair of locals had been fired from their jobs for that, arrested, released on bail, and hadn’t been seen since. “Or someone else?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  *

  Marvin moved into the position he loved even more than the front desk—behind the bar. In another lifetime, he would have been born an Irish pub owner. He would have had a dozen children, burly working-class boys who farmed potatoes and hammered horseshoes and girls who cooked hearty stews and sold eggs.

  A sexist vision, to be sure, but he would have had a few scholars in the bunch and all of them would have been happy slinging beer, contributing to the family fortunes.

  Instead, he had one daughter whom he loved as if she were a hundred offspring. Yet, as she came into the lounge and a little scowl pulled between her brows, making her look every inch her mother as she scanned his appearance, he worried that he was barely half the parent she wanted him to be.

  “That is not the cardigan I gave you?”

  “For Christmas a few years ago. Yes.” He smoothed it to ensure all the buttons were still on. They were, neatly fastened.

  “I was thirteen. There’s a moth hole in the shoulder.”

  “It hasn’t been that long,” he scoffed.

  “It most definitely has. When are you going to go shopping for new clothes? Nothing fits you these days. The pants you were wearing earlier looked like you were choking off a paper bag.”

  “These ones?” He lifted the cardigan to reveal he’d had resorted to drawing belt loops together and securing them with twine.

  “Seriously?”

  “I’ve been meaning to punch another hole in my belt, but I haven’t had time.” He’d been showing more underwear than a pubescent skateboarder. This jerry-rigging was a last resort, but perfectly effective.

  “I’m starting to worry about how much weight you’ve lost. Did you see the doctor?”

  “I did and I’m fine. He adjusted my blood pressure medication. Says the weight loss is because I’m more active.” And less inclined to snack, thanks to a more optimistic outlook and a lack of access to his wife’s medical marijuana. “I’ll pick up some new pants when I rent my tux for the wedding.”

  “Vivien has a tailor coming to measure all of you for wedding suits once Trigg gets back. I want you to order at least three extra suits. Maybe five. Lots of extra shirts. You’re a proprietor now.”

  “That doesn’t mean I should look like a dandy.” He had never been a debonair sort of man. Certainly not a ladies’ man and never one to live up to the hype of being the husband of a romance author.

  How he’d wound up with Glory’s mother remained a mystery. She had been a student, a mature one for the time, but their getting together was more an indication of her willingness to experiment than his looks or prowess at seduction. He knew full well she never would’ve married him if she hadn’t become pregnant.

  Once they’d tied the knot, he had been prepared to have his dozen children. Kathleen had found one to be overwhelming and her interest in him had waned very quickly. Their initial passion had quickly become a routine appointment once a week then once a month and eventually, off the calendar completely.

  He hadn’t bemoaned it too much. His young daughter had kept him busy and she lavished him with affection. Being loved i
n the purest, most unconditional way had been new for him and filled him up for years. Slowly, however, Glory had grown up and apart from him. He knew it was natural for a young woman to need her mother more than her father, but as the two women grew closer, he had been edged out.

  He was still trying to recover that distance.

  “You look nice,” he told her. Glory knew how to turn herself out pretty as a picture, not that she made the effort unless she had to. Tonight, she had dolled up with something that turned her frizzy hair into ringlets and accented her eyes with a smudge of greenish blue. “You look like your mother.”

  “Oh, Dad.” She grew soft at the compliment. “Thank you.”

  It was true. She had Kathleen’s lovely skin, quick wit, and terrific laugh. She had her mother’s drive, too. He was incredibly proud of her, even if she was pushing forward on her own path, not the one he would have chosen for her.

  “This is what I’m serving tonight.” He showed her the label on the wine he had ordered in for the investors. “I can open something else for you, though.”

  “That will do, thanks.” She craned her neck to look toward the lobby as Rolf strode through, heading upstairs to dress for dinner.

  Marvin suffered mixed feelings every time he saw the way she followed that man with such unguarded adoration in her eyes. He was happy for her, finding a man she loved so deeply, but he worried. Rolf was not an easy man. At least his aggression was always turned outward in protection of Glory, never against her.

  In fact, he’d never seen anything like their close and passionate connection, and he’d watched a constant parade of mating rituals when he’d been a college professor.

  The entire procedure had always baffled him. He couldn’t even remember what romantic love felt like. For two and a half decades, he’d been a married man surrounded by young students who were off-limits. The few women in his age bracket, mostly on the faculty, were not the type to fool around with a married man or even a recent widower. He wasn’t the type to do it either.

  He had stopped thinking of himself as an eligible man long ago. Even in the first year after Kathleen was gone, it hadn’t occurred to him that he could seek comfort of the physical kind. It wasn’t until very, very recently that he began to imagine finding companionship again.

  “Vivien will class the place up,” Glory said as Vivien walked in with her usual flair for making an elegant entrance. She wore a flowing pantsuit along with her many rings, all winking diamonds. Her frosted hair was just so, her makeup perfect. She was one of those lovely winter models for women’s calcium ads.

  Heat kindled in the pit of his belly every time he saw her, much to his chagrin.

  “Thank you, Marvin, dear,” she said with sultry appreciation as he poured a second glass of wine.

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t dealt with his share of women who laid on the charm to get what they wanted. Young female students had been notorious for low necklines and hair flips when they came to his office to discuss a less-than-stellar grade. He’d always taken that sort of flirtation with a grain of salt, but Vivien’s efforts had lately begun eliciting a visceral response in him.

  Part of him was thrilled to discover the wire still had a few jolts of electricity in it. But he shouldn’t be responding to her. It was especially annoying when she had spent the day asking probing questions about his finances and what the staff did, as if he and his employees weren’t working hard enough by her standards. She acted like an old hand with running a business, which made him feel like an idiot for not knowing as much as she did.

  “I asked Eden to do the cake,” Glory told Vivien. “She said she would give you a call. Thanks for getting Ilke set up this morning.” They put their heads together with wedding plans.

  And that was another thing. Vivien seemed to be filling the role of mother-of-the-bride very easily for his daughter, edging him out of all the spaces that might have been open to him. But what could he do about it? Nothing.

  Disgruntled, he smiled at Nate as he arrived and poured the man a beer that was gratefully accepted.

  *

  Vivien roped Ilke into agreeing to join the investors for dinner after the heli-skiing. “You need to eat and Rolf needs some extra shine on this event after the difficult start this morning.”

  Ilke choked on that. Her vivacity had been flushed down the toilet twice today and might still again before she finished putting on her makeup, but okay. She put on the best clothes she had with her, which was only a pair of black velvet pants and a turquoise top of eyelet lace that looked pretty over a black tube-top.

  She’d been training so much leading up to the games, tying up her hair and shoving it under a hat, she hadn’t had a haircut in ages. Her last proper cut had been last year, when Vivien had treated her to a spa day in Queenstown. Ilke had opted for a sleek bob that had turned out to be subtle extortion. A few days later, she had found herself renting a car in Billings, playing chauffeur for Vivien who was headed here.

  What if that hadn’t happened? She wouldn’t have come back in December, and wouldn’t be here now, which made her heart teeter to think about.

  Vivien had only been providing Ilke an excuse to get away from her mother last year, first with the spa day, then by cutting short Ilke’s stay altogether.

  Ilke had gone to New Zealand to train, then wound up at her mother’s purely out of guilt—and a latent, unrealistic desire to believe her mother was under some kind of spell that would magically break. She always thought, This time will be different. If I just give her one more chance.

  The end of December was another time when a flickering hope for miracles always got the better of her. She told herself she was only seeking the sun on her mother’s pool, despite the fact it forced her into her stepfather’s orbit. The truth was, she was always jealous of the rest of the world as they gathered with family.

  Her mother was her family. Why didn’t she feel like it?

  Maybe Vivien knew how lonely that time was for Ilke because she had invited Ilke to come here through those days after Christmas. Ilke had leapt on the invitation because, skiing. She needed to ski. That’s where she belonged.

  Had she somehow willed this baby into existence to give herself an anchor here, though? She spent half her year on airplanes and in cramped hotel rooms, but after this, she would know where she was supposed to return to. It was such a profound, reassuring thought, her hand went to her abdomen.

  Oh, don’t get syrupy, she quickly chided herself, reaching for her brush to stroke it through her hair until the blonde waves crackled. She flipped her hair behind her shoulders and reminded herself that, like every other choice she made, settling here would be a practical choice.

  She dashed on mascara and pink gloss, then went downstairs to the lounge.

  Glory was already in the lounge, looking about as happy to be wearing heels as Ilke was, which was to say her expression resembled the dog’s when Nate’s little boy had put a hat on him last summer.

  “Thanks for doing this,” Glory said in greeting. “I never know what to say to these guys.”

  A group of people stood with Nate across the room, but Glory was hanging back near the bar. She wore a really cute dress with an ivory bodice and a flared skirt in panels of ivory and midnight blue. She was usually very down-to-earth, minimal makeup and frizzy hair in a fat braid down the back of her neck. Tonight, loose red-gold ringlets framed her oval face. Diamonds winked from her ears and the rock in her engagement ring had to weigh two carats.

  And Ilke was supposed to be the sparkling conversationalist? She found people draining at the best of times and was still coming to terms with her pregnancy. She kept trying to envision how her life would look and couldn’t see it, which made her anxious. Nate’s enmity when he’d caught her working—gasp!—as though she ought to take her shunned self into her room and close the blinds, left her raw and at more of a loss. The fact she’d had to reveal her unplanned pregnancy to Glory and Rolf put her totally on the def
ensive.

  Had Nate talked to Rolf about it, she wondered?

  She was trying not to look at Nate, but he was ultra-sexy in a dark gray cardigan buttoned over a white shirt and silver tie. Casual, yet the knit clung across the bulk of his muscled shoulders, accenting the taper of his back and his insanely nice ass in black trousers.

  She couldn’t help listening as he described the phases of the plan.

  “We have the budget for two buildings this year: the operations office, which will have guest services, and the ski patrol which is also first aid. With additional capital, we could get the other two buildings started this summer. Obviously, our first season would attract more users if the day lodge with the restaurant and bar were open. There’s space for retail under this end. That side will be change rooms and lockers. This fourth building is trickier. These three sections are for the rental shop, the winter sports school, and the fitness and day spa.”

  The way Nate quietly commanded the guests as he pointed to the poster on the wall was enthralling. The drawing was an illustration of the finished resort super-imposed on an aerial photograph of the hill. He didn’t come across as conducting a class or demanding attention. His subtle power came from something else. His voice, maybe. His tone was like velvet, soothing, yet stimulating. Like cocoa holding a shot of liqueur, sliding through her, warming her blood, making her feel lazy and horny at once.

  Vivien slid her a soda water before taking a highball to some overweight businessman listening intently to Nate. Ilke picked up the glass so no one would notice she wasn’t drinking.

  “Does Vivien know?” Glory asked, burying her voice in her glass of wine.

  “Yes, but please don’t mention it to anyone else.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Have you and Rolf talked about having kids?” Ilke didn’t know why she asked. Maybe because she felt so isolated and wanted company in this weird limbo state of putting her life on hold while knowing it was pushing forward in a way that was beyond comprehending or controlling.