by Dani Collins
Holy shit.
“She looks just like you,” Rolf muttered. “You see that, right?”
“I was going to say she looks like you. That grim reaper death glare—” Trigg cut himself off.
Comprehension dawned as Rolf said in dread-heavy German, “Oh, fuck.”
“Hell to the fuck. She’s Dad,” Trigg said, switching to English. “That’s why she’s such a pain in everyone’s ass. She’s one of us.”
Chapter Eight
Eden hadn’t batted an eyelash when Glory brought Wren into her apartment above a mechanic’s garage. Glory had pointed out the coffee shop across the street, saying it had belonged to Eden’s mom and Eden ran it with her sister, Candy, now.
Wren had had lunch there with Sky last weekend. She was really cursing the lack of buses and feeling guilty and wondering how she could get back to the lodge when Eden swept them into her cluttered, one-bedroom flat.
Glory introduced them, but Eden splayed her hands to show they weren’t fit for shaking, covered in streaks of rainbow colors. “I’ve been practicing my flowers for the cake. Come see.”
Her small kitchen table was a Technicolor murder scene with blobs of icing that might have been wilted pansies or disfigured roses. It was genuinely hard to tell. There were even fingerprints. Little ones.
“Those are Zuzu’s best efforts. Did I scare you?” Eden grinned at Glory.
“Play all the practical jokes on me you want. If you cross Vivien, that’s your life you’re taking into your hands.”
Eden pulled a cookie tray from her freezer. It held a dozen wildflowers. Wren recognized the buttercups and daisies. Maybe the blue ones were flax? There were little red petals in clusters and a purple thing that dipped down from a green stem. They all looked like the real deal with intricate shading and veins. One had tiny dewdrops clinging to it.
“Corn syrup. What do you think? I’m not sure I love it. Still playing with the colors. Did you bring the swatch from the dresses?”
“I did.” Glory went back to where she had dropped her purse by the door.
“You made all this?” Wren was agog. There were chains of scalloped icing that belonged in a fancy cake shop. Looking at the canvases stacked against the wall beneath the window in the lounge, she also realized, “You did the paintings at the lodge.”
“I have friends in high places.” Her shrug dismissed her own talent.
Glory came back with a square of blue silk. “I didn’t think the flowers were going to be 3-D.”
Eden waggled her brows and set the cookie tray beside the sink, then lifted a cover off a dish beside the toaster. She revealed what looked like a roll of toilet paper covered in a glossy layer of ivory fondant. Upon that canvas, she had painted the craggy backdrop of a mountain. Grass sprung up around the base along with wildflowers, ferns and, as she turned it, a bird.
“I was thinking it would go on the top layer. You guys are here.” Eden motioned setting a bride-and-groom topper on the cake. “The bottom layer is the grass and flowers, like we planned. The second one is mostly tree tops, and the mountain will come up along one side to the top layer, so you guys are on the peak, but I thought I should break up all that sky with, duh, a whiskey jack for the resort. Right?”
“I vote yes. It’s gorgeous.”
Wren could only stand there with her mouth hanging open.
“Take this back and show her.” Eden plopped the cover over it again and picked up the cookie tray. “And eat these. Zuzu and I had so much icing today, I’m vibrating, but I can’t leave them alone.”
Glory popped one into her mouth, then showed her purple tongue.
Wren ate one to be polite, but it was butter and sugar, far too rich to eat two.
Glory helped herself to glasses and opened the wine she’d brought while Eden continued the cleanup they had interrupted, filling the sink with soapy water.
Wren didn’t usually drink, but she accepted the glass Glory handed her.
“So, you’re the new manager at the lodge.” Eden held her glass stem in soapy fingers while they all clinked. “What do you think so far?”
“I like it.” What else would she say with the owner’s daughter listening?
“Dad loves you, by the way,” Glory said. “Even Vivien keeps saying, ‘She’s very organized.’”
“High praise.” Eden sounded impressed. “Vivien said to me, ‘You could make something of yourself if you would focus.’” She smirked at the barbed compliment. “Then she said, ‘But wait until after the wedding.’ Because I’m doing the cake and helping with the catering prep.”
“Also putting on a pretty blue dress and smiling in my wedding photos.”
“I might even sing a song. Are you getting nervous?” she asked Glory.
“I don’t know what I am. Between the book deadline and the wedding and…” She glanced briefly at Wren. “There’s so much going on, I can’t keep it straight in my head. I really need to decompress.” Glory tilted the wine in her glass.
Wren took a healthy gulp of hers. She had already heard from Trigg that Vivien was unhappy with Sky. Were all of them frustrated? It wasn’t a surprise, but it was incredibly demoralizing.
“Glory said you’re raising your niece.”
Wren flashed a panicked glance at Glory.
Eden caught the look and said, “What?”
“Nothing,” Glory said into her wine. “Just what I told you when we hired Wren, that she brought her niece with her. Sky is twelve.”
“How is that? Being mom instead of auntie?” Eden dried her hands on a tea towel and turned to lean against the edge of the sink. “I mean, I would kill or die for Zuzu and take her in a heartbeat if anything happened to Candy, but I love being auntie. Like today, we had a riot getting all messy and I got her jacked so high she was bouncing off the walls, then Candy picked her up and it’s her problem when Zuzu crashes. You don’t have that luxury, do you?”
“No. And we have our moments.” Wren found herself taking another sip. She didn’t particularly like wine and this red was really dry, but it loosened up her knots of tension. “We got into it today. That’s why Glory brought me along. To give us a break from each other.”
“It’ll be better once the ski hill opens,” Eden said. “When I was Sky’s age, we were at the ski hill all winter and at the lake all summer. Then the ski hill closed and, honestly, I was really awful. Cop’s daughter.” She gave a sheepish wince.
Wren was starting to doubt she and Sky would stay past next week. “I keep thinking I should have enrolled her in school. She doesn’t know anyone her age and being stuck at the lodge… I don’t know.”
“Is her father in the picture?”
Wren looked at Glory, not knowing how to answer that.
“Loaded question,” Glory said. “One for another day.”
Eden accepted that with a shrug and turned to rinse the sink.
Wren sipped her wine again, relaxing another notch. She didn’t know if she had expected Glory to spill her business, but it felt nice that she hadn’t. Maybe it was loyalty to Trigg and the family she was marrying into, but it was a badly needed balm against what felt like pure betrayal from Sky.
For one reason or another, Wren had always felt isolated. She was a misfit, always had been, but in this moment, she felt like she had a friend.
*
Sky wished Auntie Wren would walk in the door.
She had been upset and confused and feeling really guilty, but after a while she had started to wonder where the heck Auntie Wren had gotten to. She texted and heard Auntie Wren’s phone buzz on the counter, so she had figured she was somewhere in the lodge. Maybe talking to Glory or walking around the pond getting mauled by a wolf.
Sky had eaten a bar from the cupboard, not wanting to go to the dining room by herself. Besides, what if Auntie Wren came back while she was out?
It was really irresponsible of her to disappear like this. Did she realize that?
Especially when this happene
d. Two giant men pushed their way in and Rolf said Auntie Wren had gone to town and Trigg was now calling her a pain in everyone’s ass, saying, “She’s one of us.”
They both looked at her like she was one of those garbage vegetables, like kale.
She wasn’t one of them, though. She was her own person, thank you. They could fuck right off. She didn’t say it out loud, but made sure they read it in her face.
“Oh, that’s a beauty.” Trigg laughed right at her.
Rolf said, “Of all the dumbass shit you’ve pulled, this takes it. It really does.”
“Yeah, I thought Mom was pissed with me before.” Trigg scratched the stubble under his chin.
The way they were talking about her, like she was a thing, was annoying and insulting. Sky kept her chin up, wishing she was tall enough to properly look down her nose at them. They were so—Ugh.
“Do you know when Auntie Wren will be back?” she asked Rolf, making sure he knew he was the garbage vegetable.
“You think she’s coming back?” Trigg scanned the mess Sky had made. “I feel bad.” He looked at Rolf. “I had no idea. I thought she was raising Mandy’s kid and I just mailed in a few chromosomes, but now I genuinely feel bad.”
“You should,” Rolf agreed, folding his arms.
Sky felt like she should be scared. They were big and stood between her and the door, but she just felt judged and irritated. Their sarcasm was not required, thanks.
Auntie Wren, get back here.
“Can you find out when I should expect her?” Sky asked Rolf.
“I’ll leave for Haven soon. You have time to clean up.”
She squinted her eyes. You’re not the boss of me.
Rolf snorted and turned to Trigg. “I’ll leave you to clean up your mess.” He smacked Trigg on the shoulder as he crossed to the door. “Viel glück.”
“Good luck,” Trigg translated as Rolf left. “You’ll have to learn German.”
She snorted. Right.
“Yeah. You will,” Trigg said, sounding like he thought he was the boss of her. “Now start cleaning up or I’m taking those notebooks.”
Sky tightened her grip on them, genuinely scared. Auntie Wren would kill her.
Which had never bothered her before because her aunt loved to lecture and her being angry was a giant whatever.
This was different, though. Auntie Wren had been different.
I should only have to share it with someone I trust.
Auntie Wren wouldn’t be just angry or disappointed. She would be upset. Hurt.
“Don’t,” Sky said, glaring at him in a way that told him she would fight him.
Except that made her think about Auntie Wren trying to fight her own dad. That hadn’t worked out so well.
She didn’t want to believe Granddad had hit Auntie Wren with a belt. Every time she started to, the backs of her eyes got really hot and her throat closed up.
“Are you going to clean up?” Trigg asked, making it sound like an ultimatum.
Sky hadn’t thought about being able to hurt Auntie Wren. Not in a really deep-down way. She had always wanted her aunt to fight back when they argued. Really fight back. Maybe she had wanted to see how far she had to go to make her lose her temper. She wasn’t sure why she was so hard on her. It just bothered her that her aunt would take whatever Sky dished out. To Sky, it had felt like Auntie Wren didn’t really care what Sky said or did since it didn’t seem to do anything but annoy her a little bit.
Now she felt like maybe Auntie Wren had learned not to talk back or cry and always be polite and calm and reasonable because she would only have been smacked around and put in the pantry if she said what she really thought and felt.
“Sky.”
She threw the notebooks into her night table and went around to shove Auntie Wren’s mattress back into place with her knee. Her chest felt tight and anger made her push too hard. The mattress skewed off the other side. She had to charge around and knock it the other way.
He stood there watching while she screwed it up again.
“I’ll clean up,” she snarled. “Go.”
“I’ll stay and keep you on task.” He looked through the game cases by the TV. Then he picked one out and played it while she worked. Jerk.
*
Wren only had two glasses of wine and Eden had fed them an amazing leek soup with sourdough bread, but she was a lightweight when it came to alcohol. She felt clumsy and nauseous when Rolf arrived to take them home.
Maybe it was a resurgence of angst over her fight with Sky. No more pretending it hadn’t happened by talking movies and wedding plans and where to buy a decent bra.
Rolf opened the back door for her at the same time he opened the passenger door for Glory, which made her falter and mumble, “Thanks.” Queen of Sophistication over here. She climbed into the back of the SUV.
As Rolf settled behind the wheel, Glory said, “Oh! I forgot the cake to show Vivien.” She threw open her door and ran back up the stairs into Eden’s flat.
Wren already knew that Rolf didn’t talk much unless he had something to say. Everyone at the lodge seemed to jump to keep him happy. On the few occasions when he’d asked her for something, like fresh coffee, she had obliged as quickly and efficiently as possible.
It should have been a comfortable silence. She wasn’t a big talker herself. She was friendly and could make all manner of small talk across a reception desk, but always let others guide that. She didn’t have to fill a silence.
This one felt loaded, though. She got the feeling he was watching her in the mirror, which made her stomach tighten like she was in trouble.
On her side, she was dying to ask him about his brother. Really puerile stuff, too. Is he mad at me? Does he like me? She couldn’t waste brain space on Trigg. Not in any capacity but as Sky’s father.
She was relieved when Glory reappeared and he climbed out to hold her door again.
“Do you want me to take that?” Wren offered.
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
Moments later, they were off, but Wren’s sense of being on Rolf’s radar intensified. Even Glory asked him, “Everything okay?”
“Thinking,” he responded.
“Hey, you know what Eden mentioned? That some locals were in the coffee shop gossiping about you firing Basco Construction. One said it sounds like Dirk was up to his old tricks. He was part of the reason the original owners of the ski hill had to sell. It wasn’t just the recession. He sold them a snowcat that tied up their cash and he was on the town council when they voted to increase taxes.”
“Kurt already told me there were rumors back then that Basco had been trying to push them into receivership, but he didn’t have the money to buy them out. Not then. And we turned down his lowball offers three times in the last decade. What would he even want it for? Without a resort, there’s no draw for people to buy the houses he wants to build. None of this makes sense.”
They fell silent, forcing Wren to think about what she would say to Sky. She was hurt, damn it. Ashamed of herself for losing her temper, but genuinely, deeply hurt that Sky had turned on her. She had always tried to love her and shield her and give her everything Mandy would have wanted for her. Why didn’t Sky love her back? She desperately wanted a good relationship with her. She didn’t have anyone but Sky.
Which was her own fault. She knew that. She didn’t trust easily. Lydia and her mom had helped her at different times, but Wren always thought that was old loyalty toward Mandy, not about her. Wren was friendly with people she worked with, but never confided in them to any degree. No one except Mandy had ever cared that she was hurting or scared or worried or angry.
She missed Mandy so hard. Mandy had understood the heavy stuff without Wren having to talk about it. She just knew.
Now Sky knew some of it and did she care? Nope. Not one iota.
Wren swallowed the ache in her throat.
Rolf parked and said, “I’ll come around.”
She could o
pen her own door, but waited. He took the cake from Glory as she and Wren slid out.
“Thanks for tonight. It was fun,” Wren said, digging up a smile of gratitude for Glory. “And the lift,” she added toward Rolf. “Good night.”
“Wren.” His firm voice halted her.
She turned with unease. Here it came. She had known she was in trouble.
“Your hard work isn’t going unnoticed.”
It said something about how taken for granted she had been feeling that she almost cried at hearing him say that.
“If anything comes up that makes you think about leaving, talk to me first.”
Glory’s expression grew concerned. She tipped her face upward beneath the glow of the floodlight. “Like what?”
How much time did she have? Wren thought dryly.
“Like anything that would drag you back into lodge business.” Rolf took hold of Glory’s chin and planted a firm kiss on her lips. “Happy wife, happy life.”
Ah. So his offer wasn’t about her.
“Thanks,” Wren mumbled and went into the lodge through the kitchen entrance.
*
Finally, finally, Auntie Wren came back.
Sky had all the lights off and the TV turned to its lowest volume. She had told Trigg she was going to bed, but she was playing Crash Bandicoot. He had played it the whole time she was cleaning up, making her listen to him breaking boxes and collecting gems and completing levels. Super annoying, especially since she’d been stuck on level six since she got the game for Christmas—mostly because Auntie Wren took it away every time Sky skipped school. Sky had asked him if he had his own game player in his room and suggested he go use it, but he said he hadn’t played video games in years.
Now she could see he had unlocked a bunch of bonus levels. How? Everyone she talked to said it was a legit hard game. He hadn’t looked up any cheats on his phone and even if he knew how, you still had to be able to do it.
Auntie Wren didn’t say anything and didn’t look at her, just crossed in front of the glow of the TV and went into the bathroom.
Sky paused her game to listen. Auntie Wren never banged things around to let anyone know she was mad, but she might tell her to go to bed or say something else. Sky kind of wanted her to talk first, so she could figure out how mad she was.