From the Top

by Dani Collins

  The security guard was outside when they arrived, waiting for them. He was training in avalanche control and preparing to telemark up with one of the contract technicians. Rolf stayed outside to talk with them while Nate stomped his feet on the grate and went inside.

  The heat and lights were on, but the coffeepot was empty. He started a fresh one and was hanging his jacket when Rolf came in.

  “You going to be grease or friction?” Rolf asked, point-blank.

  Nate didn’t play dumb. He was zombie-like, kind of holding off thinking about it because he already knew there was no workable solution. If there was, he would have found it.

  He flicked his desktop computer on. “I’ll get out of her way. I’d be a dick if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?”

  Instead of nodding and going into his office, Rolf folded his arms and stood there staring at him.

  Nate stayed on his feet, crossed his own arms and stared him down. “We playing poker here, man? What other cards you keeping against your chest?”

  Rolf snorted and leaned against the end of the desk Trigg used, ankles crossed.

  “Vivien put the bug in my ear last year, when she told me Wikinger should sponsor her. Ilke had just signed a silver sponsorship for some kind of yogurt and didn’t need Wikinger’s money. Even so, I knew she could have done better. Her agent should have done better, if she even has one. We weren’t anywhere near ready here, so I let it go. Things were complicated with Glory anyway. It was for the best.” He ran his tongue over his teeth.

  Nate was really fucking happy for him that things were so golden with Glory now, he was willing and able to ruin Nate’s love life.

  “Then Vivien invited her here over the new year.” Rolf chinned toward the top of the mountain. “I watched her ski and I was pissed right off, wishing I’d said something last summer because I could see I was too late. I figured she would sweep the games and write her own ticket. Instead, she fell apart. I was standing there with Trigg, watching her Super G. We just looked at each other afterward, trying to figure out how that car accident had unfolded. It didn’t make sense.”

  Nate looked away, still not clear if he was supposed to feel guilty or what.

  “I watched her the rest of the games and she was leaking confidence like oil. I came back here thinking about how to get her here without it being a topic of a bigger conversation with my future wife. Then Ilke showed up, told me she was pregnant. That was that, right? She couldn’t ski.”

  Nate sent a brooding look toward the floor.

  “And then, what? I was supposed to tell her the day she miscarried that I want her to become my personal project and make my baby look good?”

  “So you’ve been wanting this since last year.”

  “Yes. And it’s been hard, waiting until she was ready.”

  What a guy, biting his tongue all this time.

  Rolf wasn’t moved by Nate’s scowl of disgust. “You’re the one who pressed the button today,” he pointed out.

  Nate swore, shook his head. “I thought she might buckle to her stepfather. You know he’s a douche, right?”

  “Probably an even bigger one than I can confirm. I’ve used my influence as much as I can to limit the damage he does to our sport, but I can’t save the world. That’s not even on my top ten list of things I want to do. I want to train athletes. Influence the next generation in my world.”

  Nate’s gaze snagged on the poster showing the resort phases, thought of Ilke’s excitement for it. What an epic joke that he was building the thing that would take her away from him.

  “What exactly are you offering her?”

  “Anything she needs. I’m paving her way to the podium.” He skimmed his hand through the air. “Buying myself a ringer to put Whiskey Jack on the map.”

  Nate choked at Rolf’s shameless motive.

  “So it’s not about her.” Good to know.

  “Of course, it is. The whole point in sponsoring an athlete is to commodify their reputation into selling whatever you’re selling. Her sponsors scattered because they thought she’d lost her edge, that she couldn’t sell skis anymore, or a wholesome image for bulk buckets of yogurt. Whiskey Jack is selling champions and that’s what she is. Top-tier trainers and techs will want to work with her because she’ll make them look good. She’s that ready to win. I bring her on board and I can easily seed my training facility with the best—start up here, not down there.” He drew levels in the air with his hands.

  And all Nate had to do was step out of the way. He smoothed his hand down his beard. “Four-year commitment at least, right? Get her to the next games?”

  “That’s what I’m going to ask from her, yes.”

  This conversation was like taking a pummeling in the boxer’s ring. He was managing to stay on his feet, but his face felt split and swollen. His ears were ringing. His guts hurt like hell.

  “Thanks for making all her dreams come true in a way I couldn’t, by the way. You’re a real guy.” By ‘guy,’ he meant ‘asshole.’

  “You’re making my dreams come true. I’m paying it forward.”

  Nate chuckled dryly. Such an asshole.

  “I don’t know what to say to this, Rolf. You tell me. Is there going to be room in her life for anything but skiing? What happens when I want to watch her race? You giving me the day off? Hell, I know what working away does to a relationship and she’ll be gone for half the year.”

  “Afraid you’ll start fucking Orin? I’d be scared, too. Look.” He straightened off the desk and plucked a pen out of the cup on the corner of the desk, clicked it and threw it down. “I’m a self-centered prick. That’s a proven fact. I get what I want however I have to. I want Ilke to win. I’m gambling Whiskey Jack on her making a comeback that gives me an edge right out of the gate.”

  “And however bad you want her to win, she wants it ten times more. I get it. No room for me.” He wanted to throat-punch him, just to release some of this pent-up anger-pain.

  “But here’s the thing. Last year, when Glory left and went back to Seattle…” Rolf picked up the pen again and held it upside down, click-clicking it against the calendar that served as a desk blotter, clearly uncomfortable.

  Nate was standing here trying to be okay with his boss pulling the pin on his relationship with a woman who’d been Rolf’s one-off lover. It was awkward as hell without Rolf starting to act like it was feelings time in share circle.

  “Glory told me she wanted to write books and asked me what I would do, if the phone rang and the voice on the other end told me to come back and race. She said that’s what writing is to her. Her books are her gold medals. I had to respect that and I stepped out of the way.”

  Nate’s throat started to close. He nodded, feeling the walls caving in around him.

  “But she came back and we make it work and sometimes it sucks balls. She gets snappy if things aren’t working and she’s had a couple of reviews that…” He made a slow fist and looked like he wanted to use it. “Fucking trolls. Nothing I can do about it, except stand over her shoulder and tell her that shit doesn’t matter. And when people I already pay well bust open a container and fucking steal from me, Glory’s right there, putting up with my shitty mood.”

  “What are you saying? That I should keep seeing Ilke?” The darkness around him peeled back a layer.

  “I’m saying, think long and hard about which way you’ll jump. It will suck and if your level of commitment isn’t there, it’s going to hurt my athlete. I’ll protect her however I have to.”

  “Fuck that noise, Rolf. She’s mine.” He went there, yes he did. All the way into the primordial muck in the center of his soul, where bloodlust was candy and the alpha male only got to call himself that because Nate hadn’t ripped his throat out yet.

  Rolf didn’t move except to lift one brow. His mouth twitched. “Maybe you don’t have to think about it.”

  He really didn’t. Which took him aback. Nate ran a hand over his hair, trying to pull himself back into a sh
ell of civility.

  “I don’t know what you expect of me, though. Be her fucking cheerleader?”

  “Yes.” Rolf pushed his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. “She’s going to have to unload on someone about what a demanding dickhead I am. Who’s that going to be? Glory? Vivien? Who else does she have? You know her mother wasn’t there when she was losing, right?”

  Nate already knew what a pathetic excuse her mother was, but: “She was at the Olympics.”

  “Yeah. Vivien makes me crazy, but she never missed a race unless she needed emergency gallbladder surgery. I watch all of Trigg’s competitions even if it’s a shitty stream on my laptop. But there was Ilke, trying not to cry in front of the cameras. Vivien left to go find her.”

  Nate remembered seeing Ilke all tight-faced after a disappointing finish. He’d hurt for her. Now he knew her that much better and her pain was that much harder to bear. He swore and looked at the poster again.

  “You want me to build this fucking thing and make sure your star athlete keeps her chin up so you’ll look good.”

  “You got something better to do with the next four years of your life?”

  There was no guarantee Ilke wanted him in her life. Had Rolf thought of that?

  “I’m going back to the lodge,” Nate said, clicking off his desktop and reaching for his jacket.

  “Take your time. I’m gonna text Glory. Ask her to bring me lunch.”

  *

  Ilke lay on her bed dry-eyed, hugging a pillow. A steady drip was drumming outside her window as icicles melted in the spring sunshine, competing with the muted phone vibrating on her nightstand. Her phone was blowing up exactly as Rolf had warned her it would. She ignored it.

  Be happy, she told herself. This was what she wanted and needed. It was everything. A lottery win. An open road of golden bricks all the way to the castle at the end of the rainbow.

  Yet she was hollow inside.

  Footsteps sounded on the balcony and a knuckle rapped on her window.

  She rolled over to see Nate standing outside.

  She rolled back and pulled the pillow over her head, not ready to do this.

  “Babe, come on.”

  Men calling women ‘baby’ was dumb. She had always thought it suggested the woman had father issues, but when Nate called her ‘babe,’ she loved it. She was really starting to fear—

  She threw the pillow away, afraid she wouldn’t be able to get through this if she admitted to herself where her feelings were going.

  She let him in with a gust of wet, spring-scented air.

  He let his shoulders fall back on the door as it closed and he folded his arms. He glanced around the disarray of clothes she had started to fold, then threw in a bunch on the floor.

  “How’s the packing going?”

  She choked and waved an arm through the air. “I don’t know what I want! Do I go after the dream that has kept me sane my entire life and finally get there this time? At the cost of a relationship that—” It took a lot of courage and she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer, but she made herself ask, “Do you even want a relationship with me?”

  He grew so serious, she held her breath. He swallowed and his voice rasped.

  “I do.”

  Everything inside her went still, absorbing his steady voice and his steady look like it was the first rays of sun coming over a peak, warming her skin. So bright on her eyes it hurt to look, but her spirit went up, up, up with the promise of a beautiful day.

  Then she began to tremble. Because she couldn’t have both. The pull in each direction was so strong it was going to rip her in half. Her throat started to hurt, all the way from behind her breastbone, radiating an ache across her collarbone into her shoulders. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. She sank onto the bed, bony elbows on her thighs, cold fingers laced together and pressed to her lips.

  “What about you?” His tone was so careful and measured, scaring her because he was so strong and capable. He was bracing for rejection, but he could withstand it, whereas she had been lying here waiting for her last meal and a lethal injection.

  “I don’t know how to be in a relationship, Nate. What if I turn down Rolf’s offer and you and I crash and burn in a few weeks because I’m not what you wanted after all? Skiing is all I ever had. If choosing you costs me that, and it turns out we can’t make it work—”

  “You can have both, Ilke.”

  “No, I can’t.” She dismissed that on a dry laugh, not even daring to entertain the idea.

  “Why not?” He pushed off the door.

  “Because that’s not how my life works. I never get what I want. Not without tearing my fingernails out scratching for it.”

  “You’ve got me.” His palms turned up. “Your manicure is still intact, isn’t it?”

  “But, I don’t. You can’t say that. We’re not—” She didn’t know what they were. That was the problem. “You didn’t want me when I was pregnant with your baby.” She had to bite her lips, they began to tremble so hard. “This…” She glanced at the pillows. “I don’t even know what this is. Grief therapy?”

  He dragged in a breath and unzipped his jacket, hung it on the hook on the back of the door, then bent to unlace his boots. He left them on the boot mat, then straightened and pushed his fists into the front pockets of his jeans.

  “That’s fair,” he said. “I don’t know what we’ve been doing either, except trying to heal. But Rolf just dragged my ass down to the base to ask me if I was in or out. Seems he has a vested interest in protecting the mental health of his athletes. When he made it an ultimatum, I knew I was in. No contest.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, listen.” He grabbed the chair he’d brought to her room when they’d started sleeping together, so he’d have a place to hang his vest. He swung it to face where she sat on the bed and lowered into it, forearms on his thighs, hands taking hold of hers.

  “This is what I know: I want this for you.” He squeezed her hands as if he was impressing the words into her nervous system. Into her bloodstream. “Whether you and I are a thing or not, I want to see you win. I believe you can. If you need me to get out of the way, so you can do that, I will. But I don’t want to. I want to be with you every step of the way.”

  Her heart lurched. “Like, come to Europe with me? Because that’s where most of the races are.”

  “Yeah, that’s the catch.”

  “See?” She tried to pull her hands free, but he hung on to them.

  “I didn’t say it would be perfect. Which isn’t easy for me to accept. You know what I’m like. We’re not always going to be together when we want to be. I have a job and a kid. It’s going to be hard on Aiden, and I don’t like that, either. But what are we going to do? Throw away something with this much potential because it’s not easy?”

  She let her hands rest in his, looked at the strong fingers that held her narrow ones with such an easy, gentle yet implacable strength.

  “What…” She bit her lip, then screwed up her courage. “What kind of potential do you see in us? Like…marriage?”

  “Does that scare you?”

  “It does.” Her thumbs started working across the spot where his fate and life lines came together in the heels of his palms. “I’m kind of half in love with you.” She refused to look up as she made that confession. “Which is why I’m terrified to let this go on. It’ll only be worse if we have to end it later. For me, anyway. It would destroy me if I started to think we had a future and we didn’t.”

  “Then we won’t end it.”

  “I don’t have your confidence, Nate. I’m sorry, but I don’t.” She did look at him then, to let him read how scared she was. How she yearned to believe in him and them, but she had had to stop believing in nonsense to survive. Hell, she expected Rolf to come through the door and yank the rug on her sponsorship any second—that’s how little faith she had in her ability to get what her heart desired.

  He lifted one hand t
o cup her cheek. “I know trust is hard for you. I won’t pretend it doesn’t sting that you need time to see how solid I am. How good we can be. But you have to give me a chance to prove it, Ilke.”

  “Why? I mean…” She searched his dark eyes. They were tender and steady and… She refused to guess what those glints and lights were. “What about your feelings? Are you…”

  “I’m probably a little further in love than you are,” he said wryly.

  She pulled away from the hand on her cheek and narrowed her eyes.

  He chuckled. “Oh, did that rile the competitor in you? I can work with that. Let’s see which one of us is ready for marriage first. Hmm?”

  She wished she could laugh at that, wished she could bask in those words about him being in love with her, but her heart was fishtailing inside her chest.

  “I might never be. Do you realize that? And you would never aim for a half-assed relationship. I know you wouldn’t. When it comes to more kids, one miscarriage doesn’t mean I can’t have babies, but it’s a long way off before I try again. I can’t ask you to put your own life on hold for me. That kind of sacrifice is too much pressure.”

  He sobered. “This is a compromise, not a sacrifice.” His voice went desert dry. “And if having another baby was a priority for me, I could jack into a cup and hand it to my ex-wife.”

  “God in heaven,” she muttered, dropping her forehead into her palm. “I’ll be away a lot, you know. Jacking is very much in your future.”

  “Sex with you is worth waiting for,” he drawled.

  She lifted her head. “It’s pretty good,” she agreed. “I feel like I score more wins than you do, but…” It was a dumb joke. She was getting back at him for the love competition remark, but it worked.

  He said, “Yeah? That what you think?” and caught his hands behind her knees as he came off the chair. He dropped her neatly onto her back as he loomed over her and settled between her legs. “Let’s test that.”

  “I keep a close eye on the scoreboard. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”