From the Top

by Dani Collins

  She felt self-conscious beside Nate, not so much because people might infer they were together, but because she was so aware of him. He smelled good in the freshly showered way, with a hint of men’s shampoo and shaving cream fragrance still clinging to his skin. His beard was neatly trimmed and he wore a snug dark-blue shirt that molded to his shoulders and arms over black jeans that looked seldom worn, almost as if he’d made extra effort. Had he dressed up for her? Why did she find that so flattering?

  Physically, she was feeling better about herself after some cardio and a bath, then clean clothes and a touch of makeup just to prove to herself she could still do it. Her emotions remained a hot mess, though. Their kiss was confusing her.

  Nate wasn’t the type to take advantage of a woman when she was down. She knew that in her gut. He wasn’t trying to grope her now or stake any claims. He wasn’t trying to further things at all, which told her their kiss had just been something that had happened. It wasn’t the beginning—or continuation—of anything.

  Not that she wanted it to be.

  Did she?

  “But that’s what you want to do, isn’t it?” he asked. “Get back to training and…”

  She glanced up and saw he was giving her one thousand percent of his attention, dark brown eyes so warm and confident, she wanted to fall into them. But she read conflict there, too. He was guarded. It wasn’t an idle question. He wouldn’t see a future with her if she planned to chase gold again.

  Her heart bumped and skipped off its path.

  They entered the dining room, punched their cards, and began serving themselves from the buffet. Tonight’s fare was roasted chicken with rice and vegetables with the usual selection of salads. She’d been genuinely hungry for the first time in ages a moment ago, stomach growling at the aroma, but now she was so conflicted she barely looked at what she put on her plate.

  She led Nate to the first empty table she saw and they sat down across from one another.

  “Skiing is all I’ve ever wanted to do,” she said, not quite apologizing for it, aware it bordered on an obsession, but pleading for understanding. “I mean, I’ve done other jobs, but they were always whatever I had to do to pay for what I wanted to do.”

  “How did you get into it? How did you get as far as you did?”

  She sawed a morsel of chicken off the bone.

  “I told you my mom wasn’t really into mothering, right? Well, before he died, my father had started me in ski lessons. Mom realized that continuing them was a way to keep me busy and allowed her to hang around chalets. It’s not a cheap sport, so she found a lot of men with deep pockets there. I just liked the speed and the challenge of it. The technique. I liked learning the right way to do it and then winning because I did everything right.”

  “My ex thinks there’s something wrong with me because I’m a perfectionist. Do you want to drive across a bridge that was built by someone who doesn’t care if the numbers were right?”

  “Right? For that alone, you’re justified in divorcing her.” She flicked her glance up to his expression, wondering if she had crossed a line with that one.

  He was making a face that said, Damned straight.

  She let a smile twitch across her lips as she closed her mouth over a bite.

  “Is that how your mom met your stepfather? Trigg said he cheats on her.”

  She froze. “Why were you talking to him about them?”

  “I asked him how sponsorship deals work. He said your stepfather coaches and has money, but that you probably wouldn’t accept help from him because he steps out on your mother.”

  “He does.” She was quickly losing her appetite. “And I won’t. I quit taking anything from him when I was fifteen. That’s why I’m long in the tooth for being where I am. I’ve had to do it all on my own.”

  “Isn’t there government funding or something?”

  “Some. It’s usually concentrated around the games, though, which is only every four years. The rest of the time, it’s prize money and sponsorships. Plus, for a long time I wasn’t living in Sweden. And who was going to think I was disadvantaged and offer me funding when my mother is married to a man who has coached medalists?”

  “She knows he cheats? Why does she stay with him?”

  “She doesn’t know how to look after herself and, frankly, if she left him it would fall to me to support her. I’ve offered a couple of times to have her come live with me, when I’ve been in a position to feed us both. She could go back to Sweden, if she wanted to. But she likes her house in Queenstown with the pool and the parties. I visit a couple times a year and she’s always showing me jewelry he bought her or a new car. I guess the cheating works for her because she’s compensated? I don’t know.”

  “So when you say you were on your own at fifteen…”

  “I worked as a chalet girl so I had room and board and trained around that. But you have to treat the training as a full-time job or you don’t really improve and expenses are so high, I needed to work. I was stuck in ‘almost there’ for a long time.”

  “What kind of money are we talking about? Don’t you just need a pair of skis and a lift pass?”

  “A few dozen pairs. Different ones for different disciplines and conditions. Lift passes. Plural. Club fees. Travel.” She ticked things off on her fingers. “Trainers. Ski technicians.”

  “Okay. I have to say this. You’re gorgeous. How are you having trouble finding a sponsorship deal?”

  She glowed inside at the compliment, but had to shake her head at his naivety.

  “It’s called sexism. How often do you see women as the face of athletic equipment? Rolf and Trigg own the competition, and I’m certain they could get a full ride from any of the big names in skis and boards. But almost every woman I know in any sport at my level has a day job or parents taking out mortgages to support them, at least until they have some prize money under their belts. We’re so busy trying to make ends meet, we can’t build a following. We don’t have a following, so the media thinks we’re not interesting enough to cover. Corporations want a face with a higher profile and a sexier image, so they choose a pop star or a supermodel. Around it goes.”

  “And you think Rolf would dismiss you the same way? Because you’re not well-known enough?”

  Please don’t make me say this, she thought, but looked him in the eye and said it. “I think he’ll say it looks like favoritism. Especially to Glory.”

  Nate’s face stiffened and he dropped his gaze to his plate.

  They ate in silence for a few moments.

  “Part of me thinks I should quit. I can’t bear to start at the bottom again. I know what a climb it is and I don’t know if I have that kind of time. But I’ve already put that many years and sweat into it. I can’t stomach going out on that last race.” Her eyes grew hot. “I was nineteenth.”

  Her confidence had completely failed her by then and was shakier than ever now, given that her coach had quit and her training group had moved on without her. She couldn’t help thinking she was kidding herself. But if she didn’t ski, what would she do? That’s who she was.

  “Ilke!” Vivien came up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder, startling Ilke into sitting up straighter. Vivien held her evening glass of wine and a warm smile for both of them.

  Ilke choked slightly, suddenly remembering what she’d seen this afternoon, when she’d gone looking for Vivien and found her necking with Marvin. She touched her throat, then sipped some water to clear it.

  “Good work getting her out of her cave, Nate,” Vivien said with a wink at him.

  Really? Nate had been on assignment? That’s why he’d come looking for her?

  Whatever remained of her self-worth took another hit. She had an immediate urge to scurry back into hiding. Instead, she forced herself to say, “I can work tomorrow, if you have anything for me.”

  Vivien’s face blanked briefly, before she found a fresh smile, this one more manners than sincerity. “We have a few new bodies
starting tomorrow, but you could probably help with training. Let me talk to Marvin. See what we can find for you.” Vivien patted her shoulder and moved on.

  Covering the front desk had been a temporary thing, and a practical move on her part, not a career aspiration. Therefore, Ilke shouldn’t feel sick that the lodge was staffing up the way they had intended.

  Nevertheless, hearing they didn’t really need her was one more kick in the stomach.

  *

  Nate saw the flash of panic in Ilke’s eyes before she very quickly neutralized her expression into the aloof woman he’d thought incapable of feeling anything warm or genuine.

  She set her cutlery together on her plate. “I think I’ll go up.”

  And isolate herself again? He thought of her saying she had wanted their baby so she would have ‘someone.’ His heart lurched as she rose.

  “Ilke.”

  “Thank you for today.” She smiled faintly. “But Vivien worries too much. You can stand down from babysitting. I’m fine.”

  “I wasn’t—” His phone dinged with a text that he automatically glanced to read. Trigg was asking if he wanted to take Murphy now or if Trigg should bring him by when he left at four in the morning.

  Nate replied that he would come now, but when he glanced up, Ilke was gone.

  He scraped his plate and left his dishes on the cart, then went to Trigg’s room.

  “Thanks, man,” Trigg said. They shook hands and Nate snapped his fingers to get the dog to leave the room with him.

  Murphy was a mutt and a nut. He was friendly and energetic and came across as dumber than a sack of hammers—not unlike his owner—but he knew who had busted him out of the pound. With his tail low and tight, he cast a condemning look at Trigg, who was packing his duffel.

  “Dude, I am so sorry,” Trigg said to the animal. “Back in three weeks. Promise.”

  Nate thought Trigg should try that level of concern with a woman sometime, but kept it to himself.

  Murphy knew where he was going, but Nate only threw Murphy’s bed into his room before he coaxed him down the hall a couple of doors.

  When he knocked, Ilke called, “Who is it?”

  “Me.”

  A moment later, the lock turned and she started to open the door.

  Predictably, Murphy invited himself in with a poke of his head and a shove of his muscled shoulders.

  “What—?”

  “Thought you might like some company.”

  The dog got himself inside, gave her one nudge with his nose, then checked out the room, tail wind-milling.

  Nate stepped in and closed the door behind him. Her laptop was open on the bed where she’d likely been sitting when she got up to open the door. The rest of the room was spic and span, including all her clothes folded neatly into her suitcase.

  A cold claw seemed to take hold of his heart and gave it a squeeze.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “What?” She looked up from monitoring the dog sniffing in every corner. She followed Nate’s gaze to the suitcase. “There’s no dresser. He’s not going to pee on anything is he?”

  “No.” He hooked his thumbs in his back pockets, relaxing a hair. “Hey, listen, Vivien didn’t send me this morning. She told me she was worried and I was, too.”

  “Why? I’m fine. Oh, don’t—” She quick-stepped across to stop the dog from shoving his head in the wastebasket.

  “Murphy, take a chill pill. Come here.” Nate sat on the edge of the bed and snapped his fingers between his feet.

  Murphy came to sit, tail thumping and tongue lolling while Nate scrubbed his ears and under his collar.

  “Why do you have him?”

  “Trigg’s leaving. Technically Uncle Rolf is supposed to have custody, but that cramps his sex life, doesn’t it?” He got under the dog’s throat, starting Murphy’s foot tapping. “Which makes me a kiss-up for taking him, but I don’t mind. Aiden loves when I have him. It all works.”

  “And you don’t have a sex life?” She folded her arms, looking toward the closed curtains as if it was an idle question.

  He debated for a second, then figured he was here to cheer her up so he might as well go for it. “Despite a terrific start, my sex life has been a wasteland since the first of January.”

  Her fingers plucked at her sleeve while she frowned a little, as if she couldn’t decide whether to believe him or what that meant.

  “Sit down. I guarantee you can’t stay depressed while petting this dog.”

  “I’m kind of enjoying the wallowing,” she grumbled, but perched beside him and gave the dog’s ear a stroke.

  Sensing a fresh sucker, Murphy squiggled his ass over and set his chin on her thigh, eyes up in that adoring, heart-stealing way babies and animals perfected. Love me.

  He watched her fingers appreciate the silkiness of Murphy’s ear, smoothing it very gently.

  “You will get through this, you know. My life was an absolute shit-show a few years ago. Somehow, piece by piece, you figure it out.”

  “When you divorced, you mean? What happened with your wife?”

  “Exactly what it looks like.” He leaned his forearms on his thighs, hands linked between his knees, and watched the dog’s tail swish near his foot. “She prefers women. Didn’t mention it while we were dating and engaged, which would have been the courteous thing, in my opinion. She knew that losing my parents made me single-minded about Aiden having both of his parents in his life on a daily basis.”

  “Perfectionist,” she accused under her breath.

  “Yeah.” He absorbed that, not having seen it that way, but, “Yeah, I guess that’s what I thought, that I’d do it ‘right.’ And I can forgive mistakes, and recover from them, but she married me and had Aiden knowing that we were going to fall apart. Then decided to—Well, I’ll be fair and say she met Frankie and fell in love, which I suppose gave her the courage to be herself, but I’m still mad she cheated. I’m angry she made a family with me under false pretenses.”

  “I guess that explains why you were so angry when I said I wanted to leave the baby with you.” The way she lifted her lashes was every bit as winsome as the dog’s.

  “I guess it does.”

  “You really didn’t suspect she was a lesbian?”

  He drew a breath, able to see his own blinders now, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I probably should have. I guess I thought being a pastor’s daughter made her shy about sex. I thought we were good in the sack. When we were divorcing, I asked her point-blank if I’d been deluding myself all that time. She swears she wasn’t faking, but she lied about being straight so I don’t know.”

  He watched her pet the dog, hesitated, then poured out the rest, the part that sought forgiveness, but didn’t know from where or how to get it.

  “I feel like I was taking advantage of her or something, when it was supposed to be, you know, lovemaking. I thought she was my best friend. That we told each other everything. She’s the sweetest person. Not the type to deliberately hurt anyone, but I feel betrayed. Like she didn’t love me. Not the right way when I was all-in. It’s been tough to get over.”

  She skimmed her hand from the dog’s quirking eyebrows to his collar, absorbing that, saying quietly, “That’s why I don’t trust anyone. Even the people who are supposed to be there for you never are.”

  “Like…?” He thought about her being on her own at fifteen years old. “Your mom?” he guessed.

  She nodded, lips sealed.

  “What happened that made you leave home so young?”

  She wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips, shaking her head.

  The bottom of his heart tilted on its edge, sharp and unsteady. “You don’t want to talk about it? Or not to me?”

  “I don’t talk about it with anyone.”

  Trigg had told him his darkest secret. Nate was a vault. He was offended that she didn’t realize that.

  “Was it—” He stopped himself. Did he want to know if it was some kind of
abuse? Shit. No. He really didn’t. He rubbed his face, but was compelled to stress that: “You can tell me anything, you know. I know I didn’t react well when you showed up here. I should have been on board from the beginning. I know that. But I’m here now. Anything you need. Ever.”

  “Thanks,” she chirped.

  “That’s not an empty offer,” he insisted, turning his head to look at her. “Do you lean on anyone? For anything?”

  She jerked her shoulder defensively. “It’s easier if I don’t set myself up for disappointment.” She was trying to be blasé about it, but he saw the shadows of apprehension in her eyes and the tension in her cheeks.

  “That stings, you know. I’m the guy everyone feels safe confiding in.”

  “Oh, and you’re ready to entrust me with your deepest inner garbage?”

  “I just told you about my sex life with my lesbian ex-wife. What do you think?”

  She eyed him as she considered that. “Yeah, but who would I tell? I don’t have any friends.” Nevertheless, a small smile touched her lips as if she was pleased.

  “What about Vivien?” She seemed to take a personal, almost motherly interest in Ilke.

  Ilke’s gaze flashed up to his, alight with excited discovery. “Okay. Can I trust you? Because I saw something today that I probably wasn’t supposed to.”

  “What?” Was it something like what he had seen? “I won’t tell a soul. Cross my heart.” He drew on his chest, wanting to laugh at the sparkle in her eye.

  She leaned a little closer, making this feel as if they were cutting third period, sharing gossip under the bleachers.

  “Marvin kissed Vivien.” Her chin went down, her eyebrows up. “A real kiss. Not a peck. Like, maybe he even frenched her.”

  Nate slapped his hand on his knee. “I saw them the other night! What the fuck, right?”

  “Do you think Glory and Rolf know?”

  “Oh, I would love to lay that on Trigg. He’ll shit a brick—he really will.”

  “Don’t. They’re both so nice.” She got in behind Murphy’s ear, making the dog groan. “It’s sweet.”