From the Top

by Dani Collins

  “Thanks. I was going to ask if there was anything I could do here this morning, but maybe I’ll run the car back, if I can figure out how to get back here.”

  “Oh, Nate will probably go to Haven later.” Glory twisted. “Are you dropping Aiden this afternoon? Could you run to—Where do you have to drop the car?”

  Ilke opened her mouth, but a bubble of panic kept her words trapped in her throat.

  “Airport,” Rolf provided between bites of food.

  “I’ll have to check,” Ilke said, but already knew Rolf was right.

  “In Kalispell? That’s only forty minutes from Haven. Could you do that, Nate? I will, if you can’t.”

  “I usually take Aiden back for bedtime, but I’ll call Wanda, see if I can drop him early.”

  If he looked at her, Ilke missed it. She only dared one brief glance in his direction, though. Should she say something about what a bad idea it was? Why didn’t he?

  “Done. And good, because I don’t want you to work weekends. I told you that.” Glory’s gaze swept over Ilke’s face with something that almost resembled concern.

  This pallid complexion was more than morning sickness. She was going cold inside at the thought of being trapped in a vehicle with Nate.

  “Are you working here?” Trigg asked her. “Why?”

  “Because your tomcatting left me without a manager,” Glory shot at him with blistering accusation. “Again.”

  “So you recruited a world-class athlete to answer phones? Who’s shoveling the parking lot? The NHL? She needs to be working on her skills. You’re supporting this?” Trigg swiveled in his chair to confront his brother.

  “I asked Vivien to hire someone.” Rolf didn’t lift his gaze from his phone. “Ilke is filling in until that happens.”

  “Your mom left me a couple of résumés to look over,” Glory said, affecting sweetness as she batted her lashes at Trigg. “Do you want to look at their qualifications? Give me a one-to-ten scale on your sexual interest so I don’t have to do this ever again?”

  “You don’t have to do it now,” Rolf said, eating with one hand, still reading the phone he held in the other.

  “Maybe not, if I hire a guy. Or is even that too much for your libido to resist?”

  “You know what I mean,” Rolf said before Trigg could reply. He sounded bored, as if he was barely half-listening to her.

  Glory scowled at him. “You want it to be that simple, but it’s not. You—” she said to Trigg “—need to control yourself. I can’t drop everything and run this place every time you’re too lazy to drive into town for some action.”

  “She asked me to show her how Tinder works. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Set her parameters beyond a five-inch radius!”

  “Eight inches. Please,” Trigg said with a pained look.

  “Size doesn’t matter. Take it off property.”

  “Glory.” Rolf looked up from his phone. “Do you want to manage this lodge? If you do, do it. Otherwise leave it alone. I’ll support you either way, but shit or get off the pot.”

  “Mr. Rolf said a bad word,” Aiden told Nate at the other table.

  “I’ll talk to him later,” Nate said.

  Glory narrowed her eyes and set down her fork.

  “Uh-oh. Honeymoon’s over. Look for me when you’re ready to move on,” Trigg told Glory. “My handle is RUboard.”

  Glory wasn’t acknowledging him, too busy staring down her husband-to-be. She kept her voice low, so it didn’t go much further than their table.

  “You want it to be that easy, but it’s not. I’m already impacting Dad’s income by writing under my own name. If the lodge fails—”

  “If the lodge runs into trouble, I’ll bail out your father and blame him.” Rolf jerked his thumb toward Trigg. “For partnering with someone who wasn’t up to the task.”

  “Marvin is not going to fail. You guys never give him enough credit,” Trigg argued.

  “Says the guy who keeps sleeping with Dad’s managers, setting him up for failure.” Glory picked up her fork and eyed Rolf. “I’m not marrying you for your money.”

  “Is it his charm?” Trigg asked, expression deeply skeptical.

  “The sex, if you want the truth. In a minute, he’s going to offer an erotic spanking. Hopefully to me, but we’ll see.”

  Rolf sighed, lifting a gaze of exasperated affection. “You’re worse than him.”

  “I love you,” she said with tender vehemence. “I don’t want this place to come between us.”

  “Are you listening? I won’t let it.”

  They shared a super-sexy look that was so full of promise and soul connection, Ilke had to look into her fruit cup, but her weak appetite was gone. It was so dumb to be jealous of that. Teasing and intimacy and even the spat they were having over which one of them would help her father.

  Then, breaking one of those lulls of conversation that sometimes hit a room, Aiden asked with supreme innocence, “What’s a neh-rotic spanking?”

  “Oh my God.” Glory face-palmed and hung her head while the whole room lost it. Trigg nearly laughed himself out of his chair.

  Nate offered a deeply sarcastic, “Thanks a bunch,” while even Rolf let amusement crack a smirk into his hard face.

  Ilke wanted to laugh, too, but kind of wanted to cry at the same time. It was so nice.

  “I’ll go call the rental company,” she murmured, and slithered behind Glory’s chair, throat tight. She avoided Nate’s gaze as she left the dining room.

  *

  Two hours later, Ilke turned in her car at the Kalispell airport, used the first bathroom she could find, then glanced at the board to see where the next available flight might take her. She was willing to go just about anywhere, rather than stick around to meet up with Nate in a few hours like they’d planned—with the briefest possible exchange of texts.

  Spokane? Where was that?

  Of course, she’d only brought her purse, not her luggage, and half her clothes were beginning to feel, maybe not tight, but not right. She was continuing to work out, mostly walking on the treadmill and yoga, cutting her weight load in half when she lifted. She threw up most of what she ate, and hadn’t really gained anything, but she felt bloated and soft. Her breasts hurt all the time. She wanted to unbutton her jeans as she climbed into the Uber that took her to the nearest big-box store and how did even her socks feel like the elastic in them was too strong?

  She wasn’t ready for maternity wear, but browsed it anyway. She was generally a picky shopper, buying classic, top-quality pieces that would last. The department store selection was affordable and boring as hell but not awful. Just a limited selection of tented tops and jersey dresses in purple, khaki, black, or red. She found some black jeans with an elastic waistband that would stretch all the way up to her ribs. Was she really going to have a giant belly to fill that out?

  She didn’t have a lot in this life, but her looks and her skill on skis had always been there for her, providing confidence. She had lost one and wasn’t ready to lose the other. She enjoyed feeling attractive and sexy. When she had slept with Nate, she had needed every advantage she possessed. He had completely disarmed her, making her crave his touch by kissing and caressing her all over until she was so sensitized and ready, she had thought she would catch fire.

  She had never experienced anything like it. Sex for her was like dessert. Mostly she avoided empty calories, but sometimes she was in the mood for a crème brûlée and indulged herself. That’s what her night with Nate was supposed to have been. Sweet, momentary indulgence.

  It had been that and so much more. She kept blaming her hormones for her powerful response, but Nate was different from other men in her sphere. Most people she knew were as self-involved as she was, which was fine. After her first boyfriend threw her completely off her game, she had veered toward partners who didn’t impact her emotions. She couldn’t afford the hand-wringing that was consuming her right now.

  Dancing wit
h Nate, seeing the heat of attraction in his eyes, she had thought he was like all the rest. He wasn’t, though. Once alone and kissing, she’d discovered he wasn’t a taker. He was a giver. His focus on her had been incredibly seductive, completely different from the times where she happened to orgasm beneath someone while his penis was inside her.

  With Nate, the goal had been pleasure, not peak—which only caused the peaks to be that much higher and sharper and more breathtakingly satisfying. They hadn’t talked much, but he hadn’t been shy about exploring and asking if she liked something, as if learning her body was important to him. As if he would need to know it for future reference.

  He had kissed her a lot, everywhere, which had made her feel adored and worshipped, overcoming her ingrained reserve. When he had looked into her eyes as he pressed inside her, it had felt incredibly intimate, making her so vulnerable she hurt, but it was the sting of a muscle when it was stretched. A good, necessary pain that allowed for growth.

  She kept trying to dismiss that night as the same old sex, but the act itself, fierce and fast, lazy and slow… No matter the different ways they’d done it, it had all felt like lovemaking.

  She hadn’t been able to put him out of her mind afterward. She’d found herself thinking about him, looking him up on social media, tempted to send a friend request.

  Why? They occupied two different worlds. She had known they didn’t have a future. She barely knew him. He was a father with responsibilities and a job he couldn’t leave. She hadn’t had any intention of becoming a mother. She had goals she needed to pursue elsewhere.

  Which was why her brain couldn’t comprehend that she was standing at a sale rack in small-town America looking at nursing bras, wondering if her baby’s skin would be the color of hers or Nate’s or somewhere in between. When she tried to picture him holding their infant in his big hands, a lump formed in her throat.

  She took some items into a change room just for the privacy to pull herself together.

  Part of her had thought a day of browsing and taking herself out to lunch was exactly what she needed. At the lodge, she was continually on guard, ready to be exposed any second. She was always holding her breath for Nate to walk by, anxious for what he might say to her—or that he would ignore her altogether, which was somehow far worse.

  This was why she didn’t have relationships! She hated obsessing over a man. She mostly loathed and resented them for their power and the way they always seemed to objectify her.

  She had thought time away today would help her relax, but now she was way too deep in her head, hating herself for counting the minutes until she met up with Nate, dreading the drive at the same time. She hated the wave of censure she felt coming off him every time she was near him, as if this was all her fault.

  She used to feel that way with her stepfather and she damned well knew who the victim had been in that instance.

  After choking down a big salad and a cup of soup, she found a movie theater with a romcom on matinee and gratefully lost herself in the antics of a free-spirited California girl pretending to be the fiancée of an uptight English lord.

  She left a bright summer’s day on a Malibu beach to hunch against a biting wind that was scraping drifts from the hard-packed snow through the dusk. As she clicked on her phone, she saw Nate had texted several times. The first was an hour ago. He was early, he said, but was grabbing some things for Aiden at the supercenter where they had arranged to meet. More texts followed, growing closer in intervals.

  Are you here?

  I’m ready when you are.

  Where are you? Drop me a pin if you’re lost.

  Are you okay?

  She had missed two calls from him. He called again as she was trying to share her location.

  “Hi,” she said breathlessly, walking fast to get back to the supercenter. “I was in a movie. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “It’s icy. Stay at the theater. I’ll come get you.” He hung up, not giving her any choice but to turn and walk back toward the entrance to the cinema where he would be able to find her.

  His first words when he pulled up at the sidewalk and came around to open the door were, “You saw a movie alone?”

  She did everything alone. And no man had ever, in her life, taken her shopping bag out of her hand and tried to help her into a vehicle. It was one of those oversized pickup trucks that could drag a yacht, so yeah, it was a climb, but she was five-ten and her thigh muscles were strong as a thoroughbred’s. She didn’t need help.

  He set a bracing hand under her elbow anyway.

  She shivered as she settled on the seat, even though it was pretty warm in here, heater running on high. The imprint of Nate’s touch lingered as a tingle under her skin. It was exhausting to be this attuned to him, it really was.

  He set the bag at her feet and closed her door, coming around to climb behind the wheel and look at her, clearly expecting an answer.

  “I wasn’t on a date, if that’s what you’re asking.” Pregnant, remember?

  “What did you see?”

  “Duchess of Malibu.”

  He made a noise, pointed out the button to start her seat warmer, then buckled in and put the truck into gear. He started weaving his way out of the parking lot.

  “Aiden wants to see Otter Be Home Soon. If I’d known you were going to see a movie, I would have brought him.”

  “I saw the preview for that one.” The lost young otter swept away by a current who had to find his way home had seemed cute, but she didn’t do cartoons as a rule. Also, she had found herself ridiculously anxious for the completely fictional baby otter who was lost and afraid, and his mother, who was anxious and teary, but couldn’t leave her other cubs to go find him.

  She couldn’t sit through ninety minutes of that heart-punching torture.

  “I didn’t know I was going to the cinema. I finished shopping and…” She sighed, hearing herself trying to make excuses. “Do I really owe you explanations for how I fill my days?”

  What were the rules here?

  The ensuing silence seemed to have layers of grit and gray, matching the dull light fading on the landscape, the pale glow of the dash on the charcoal interior of his truck.

  “No.” His hand worked the steering wheel. “Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think when you didn’t answer my texts.”

  Had he been worried? For her? Or the baby he didn’t want?

  “I should have asked this already, but how is everything going? With the pregnancy, I mean. My ex was sick as a dog with Aiden.”

  “Two for two on that.” She dug in her purse for the digestive biscuits that helped settle her stomach between meals. “I read it might be the prenatal vitamins I was taking. I bought some different ones today.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I have an appointment in Haven this week.” Did he want to come? She didn’t have the nerve to ask. When had she become a full fledged coward?

  He clicked on his headlights as he turned onto the main highway toward Haven and the lodge.

  “So, you’re planning to stay here until the baby is born? Why don’t you go back to Sweden? Do you even have health coverage here?”

  “I travel so much I have a plan that covers me almost anywhere.” She looked out her side window so he wouldn’t see how much it hurt that he wanted her to leave. “What part of my being here bothers you? Because people are going to find out eventually.”

  “I just don’t know why you would want to stay. What do you expect from me? I can’t—My job is very demanding. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable around your family? Where are your parents?”

  And didn’t that say everything about how little they knew each other.

  “My father died when I was five. My mother lives in New Zealand and isn’t the maternal type. Bit of a child herself, actually.” Ilke had been thinking about telling her and lost her nerve every time she so much as glanced for her phone. “She’d prefer a cancer diagn
osis than to hear she’ll be a grandmother.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She shrugged. “My father wanted kids so she got pregnant, but hated how her body changed.” The few occasions when her mother talked about Ilke’s father, and how he had doted on Ilke, she always sounded resentful. Jealous, even. “Mostly I had nannies growing up. It was fine. She hated when I turned into a teenager, though. That made her feel old.”

  The part where Ilke had looked like a twenty-three-year-old supermodel at fourteen had made her livid. It had been a particularly confusing time because Ilke had looked to her mother for guidance on handling the sudden attention from not just boys, but grown men. Her mother not only didn’t have sympathy, she’d also been bitter that Ilke garnered that attention at all. Blamed her and made her feel like a harlot.

  “No brothers and sisters?”

  “Two cousins who ask me for tickets to events sometimes. That’s the only time I hear from them. Maybe I’ll ask one of them to rub my feet while I gestate your baby.”

  Silence.

  She bit back a sigh. “Do you have siblings?”

  “One sister.”

  “Are you close?”

  “Yeah.” He said it like that should be obvious because it was totally common to have a sibling and be friends with them. “She’s in Sacramento. I see her when I go back to visit our grandparents. We try to get our kids together as much as possible.”

  Would he take their child to integrate into that snug family dynamic? Ilke picked at the zipper tab on her purse. “Have you told her—”

  “No.” Blunt and unequivocal. “Have you told anyone?”

  “Vivien guessed. Rolf and Glory know.”

  “Since when?” He shot her a look.

  “Since he asked if I broke into a container and stole a bunch of skis. I had to explain my presence here. No one knows you’re the father.”

  He took his time pondering that. She let her gaze follow the ribbon of highway before them as it snaked into the mountains. The peaks grew higher in front of the truck’s nose while his profile stayed sharp and unreadable.