In Too Deep

by Dani Collins

  He pulled out the chair beside her and sent Quinn a look that made his friend sit back, eyebrows lifting. Yeah, that’s how it is, he let Quinn know, holding his gaze.

  “Oh, um, Sky’s there.” Wren didn’t catch the exchange, too busy shoving her hands into her lap after nearly getting one caught under his ass as he sat. “She ran up to ask Vivien if she could have one of the baby drones from the swag bags. Quinn said he would show her how to pair it to her phone.”

  Her eyes were big and still sparkly with laughter.

  “Cool.” Trigg moved the cola with the straw to the setting beside Quinn and set his elbow on the back of Wren’s chair. “What were you two talking about?”

  A beat of silence, then Quinn said, “Crazy fixes we’ve had to do on the fly.”

  “I, um, was saying that one time the wheel came off of Sky’s stroller. It was right after she came to live with us. She was screaming blue murder. I didn’t know yet that I should have water and snacks on hand at all times.”

  She was laughing at herself, but Trigg didn’t think it was funny. He was suddenly picturing an overwhelmed teenager out of her depth. “Where was your mom?”

  “Oh, she was always at church,” she dismissed. “Or sleeping.”

  “She MacGyvered it with the tape off a disposable diaper,” Quinn chuckled. “That’s genius. Especially under high-pressure conditions.”

  “I didn’t even have the benefit of having watched that show. We didn’t have a TV. That was all me.” She tapped her temple.

  “Why didn’t you have a TV?” Quinn frowned, perplexed.

  “Why didn’t you call your dad to pick you up?” Trigg interjected. “Where were you? At the mall?”

  “No. It was half a mile down a dirt road from where the bus let us off. Even if I’d had a cell phone, we didn’t have coverage that far out of town. I limped that poor stroller up and down that road for months. I was so happy when she was out of diapers and I could piggy back her if she got tired.”

  “Why did you live so remote?” Quinn asked. “Are you Amish or something?”

  “Or something,” Wren dismissed lightly. She smiled as Sky returned.

  “I was sitting there.” Sky gave Trigg a disgruntled look and took the chair across from him, but quickly brightened as Quinn nodded and assured her it was the right kind of drone.

  As the two peeled open the box and started unwinding twist-ties, Trigg looked at Wren. She was straightening her cutlery, making sure her setting was neat and tidy.

  “How was your day?” he asked, trying not to betray how irritated he was.

  “Good,” she replied with surprise, as if she hadn’t expected him to ask. “Yours?”

  “Good.”

  She reached for her menu and said, “Do you mind if we order? I’m helping in the bar tonight. I should eat and get over there.”

  “I’ll have the steak,” he said without opening his menu.

  He caught Quinn watching them and silently asked his friend what he thought he was doing, getting to know things about Wren that she hadn’t shared with him?

  That was his lizard brain. The civilized lobe knew that Wren could talk to whomever she wanted about whatever she wanted and if she was into Quinn, that was her choice. Trigg had no claim on her and couldn’t make one.

  Even so, he really wanted his good buddy Quinn to fuck the hell off.

  Quinn also ordered the steak. Sky and Wren had Cobb salads. The rest of the meal was comfortable and entertaining. Sky’s social pH was coming up from acidic to something more balanced. She kept things lively. Wren tended to let the rest of them banter, but she got around to asking how he and Quinn had met.

  Trigg winced. “You tell it, darling. You tell it better.”

  Quinn curled his lip. “I gave him mouth-to-mouth at a surf competition in Sydney. Saved his useless life.”

  Sky and Wren widened their eyes in shock, then burst out laughing.

  “Wait. Are you gay?” Sky asked Quinn.

  “No.”

  “Nor is he a gentleman. He didn’t even buy me dinner first. In fact, he made me buy the beer after,” Trigg said.

  “Did you win at least?” Wren turned her head. Her expression was amused and relaxed. She was so utterly stunning, it took him a second to process what she’d asked.

  “Not even close,” he managed to say. “I still surf, but humbly. I got into it thinking that falling in water would be softer than snow, but it turns out you can drown. Who knew?”

  “It’s as if the word ‘lifeguard’ means they’re guarding actual lives.”

  “I know. I thought it was all riding Jet Skis and babe-watching.”

  “Ew. Grow up,” Sky said with a sneer of disgust, making them all laugh.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go.” Wren touched Trigg’s shoulder, sending a tingle up his neck. She quickly tucked her hand back into her lap. “I’ll put this on my card.”

  “I’ll use mine.” He was mildly insulted by her suggestion and highly reluctant to let her go. “We’ll come in for a beer after we’ve tried the drone.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He stood and pushed in his chair so she could come through the space, but at the last second, a server came toward them with a loaded tray and a tray stand. Trigg had to corral Wren back into the space behind his chair.

  Wren was looking the other way and wasn’t expecting it. She bumped flush into him, then took a startled step back. She looked at the floor, hair falling to curtain her cheeks as she blushed. Hard.

  He had caught a few glances from her at different times. He had suspected she found him attractive. Most women did. He had liked the way she looked from the minute he had seen her, before he knew who she was.

  But this was the first time he realized exactly how disconcerted she was by her attraction to him—which meant it was more intense than she was comfortable with.

  Talk about fuel to the fire. That bump had shaken something loose in him. An ember rolled out from its containment to catch with more determination on all the fuel she provided.

  Trigg heard an exhaled, “Thank you,” as the server whisked by.

  He pulled himself together and stepped back into the aisle.

  Wren flickered a nervous smile at him as she left, but her gaze dodged meeting his.

  He could hardly breathe. He still felt the light press of her body against his front. She had smelled like girl shampoo and something earthy and fine that he intrinsically knew was her. It was erotic enough to pulse heat behind his fly as he sat again. He had to splay his thighs under the table to give himself room.

  “Can I get Murphy?” Sky asked.

  “Do you want him to eat your drone?”

  “No. Can I be excused to go try it, then? Or do you want me to wait for you?”

  “We’ll finish our beer and be right out.”

  She nodded, thanked him for dinner, and left.

  “She’s great,” Quinn said.

  Trigg jerked his attention from signaling for their check. “Sky? Thanks. I can’t take much credit, though.”

  “Wren gets that?” Quinn tilted the dregs of his beer, tongue touching his bottom lip. “She’s great, too. Smart. Funny.”

  “She doesn’t need ‘here for a good time, not a long time,’” Trigg warned.

  “You don’t know what I want.” Quinn got real serious real fast, shedding the easygoing façade he typically wore to reveal the man who had the grit to get what he wanted in subzero weather, wearing gloves, and carrying a hundred pounds of equipment on his back for twenty miles.

  “So long as I’ve made it clear what I want.” Trigg smiled to keep it light, but it was like trying to put on a coat that was too small. It pulled tension across his shoulders.

  The arrival of their bill ended the conversation.

  *

  She missed him. What was wrong with her that she actually missed Trigg when the men disappeared Friday morning? The lodge shouldn’t have felt so empty. They all went down to the ba
se every day, but this was a different quiet. Wren knew he had climbed on a plane. There was no chance of glancing up or turning a corner and accidentally running into him.

  Why did she want to? If she had a legitimate reason to talk to him, she texted or emailed a quick note. Sky needs to see the dentist. Do you want to drive her or should I? They had arrived at having civilized conversations broken up by a few dumb jokes. It was the rapport every divorced couple wanted.

  Except they had never had sex and she was starting to obsess about what it would be like if they did. It had started with physical attraction that had worsened after they played Ping-Pong, bumping into each other as they fought to return the ball. It was being whipped into a frenzy by his being nice to her, acting as if they were partners where Sky was concerned.

  Then there’d been that strange evening with Quinn.

  Over dinner, she had thought Quinn might be hitting on her, which had been a nice boost for her ego. Then Trigg showed up and acted… Had he been possessive? It had been hard to read his mood. And equally difficult to figure out how she felt about his behavior. He had seemed to sit beside her deliberately and his knee had nudged the side of her thigh beneath the table more than once.

  She had already been tingling and fighting to hide it when she had stood to leave and walked right into the wall of his chest—which was a work of art. It really was. If she hadn’t curled her fist into her own shoulder, she would have tested the hard muscles of his pecs with her fingertips and followed the contours into the dip of his sternum. The compulsion to press the side of her face against that firm warmth, and splay her hand across the drum-taut skin of his abdomen, had been nearly overwhelming.

  She should have had herself under control by the time they came into the bar an hour later. Maybe she would have been able to stop thinking about him if Trigg and Quinn had taken one of the empty tables, but they had sat on the stools and watched her practice bartending. They had teased her when she goofed a pour, but had included her in their conversations when she was nearby and could spare her attention.

  She had felt pleased to the point of giddy.

  It was so silly. She was acting Sky’s age, wondering if Trigg liked her. She was used to making herself indispensible, working hard to be appreciated and valued as an employee, but she didn’t think of herself as particularly interesting or fun to be around. She was comfortable as an observer of life and preferred to keep her expectations low. Less room for disappointment.

  So thinking of Trigg as anything but the father of her niece was dumb.

  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  She tried to push him from her mind, busying herself with inspecting the last of the renovated rooms, signing off on Devon’s invoice so Marvin could approve her final payment, then working with Glory and Sky to put swag bags and other welcome gifts in them. Some of the guests were getting extra special treatment. Plush robes with the lodge logo that they could take home, bottles of forty-year-old scotch whiskey with a ‘compliments of Whiskey Jack’ tag, or a bottle of wine with the wedding label that Glory had ordered from a vineyard in California. Books, chocolates, fruit and flowers went into all the rooms with a printed program for the week.

  Somehow she wound up having drinks with Glory and Vivien and a handful of their friends and relatives on Saturday night. Sky joined them, pretty much the only person serious about folding cloth napkins into swans, despite everyone agreeing that many hands would make light work.

  Wren didn’t drink much, but she stayed up late, which was why she was so foggy Sunday morning when Glory and Ilke showed up at her door.

  “Almost ready?” Glory asked.

  “Hmm? Sky,” she called toward the bathroom, yawning and still in her pajamas. “She’ll be right out.”

  “You’re coming, too, aren’t you?”

  “It’s a family thing. Isn’t that what you were saying last night? I was going to help Vivien with the high tea.”

  “I meant a bunch of Rolf’s relatives are meeting us there. No, Vivien knows you’re coming with us.”

  Sky came out of the bathroom in her shorts and T-shirt, bathing suit straps visible where they tied behind her neck. She faltered as she heard Glory.

  “You’re not coming?” Sky asked with dismay.

  “I’m not really into—” being dragged behind a boat; Wren hesitated to diss what everyone seemed to think sounded awesome “—water-skiing.”

  “Wakeboarding,” Glory said. “I’m not doing it either. I’m going to lie under the shade and ask my future husband to bring me mimosas. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “You have to come,” Sky said, slowing down on stuffing things into her daypack. “I don’t know anyone. What if they all speak German?” Sky gave her a look between scared puppy and rabid wolf. She was meeting her cousins, including the fourteen-year-old who would escort her at the wedding.

  “I only have my one-piece,” Wren reminded Sky. “The one I use for water aerobics. It’s awful.”

  “Wear your swim shorts. The ones you wore at the water slides.”

  “Here,” Ilke said, pulling a pink and turquoise bathing suit from the beach bag slung over her shoulder. “I brought it to have a dry one, but you use it.”

  Wren did not have Ilke’s figure, but the suit tied at the hips and behind her neck and back. She easily customized it in the bathroom, then pulled on her swim shorts over the bottoms. When she came out, she drew on a button blouse and left it open, kicked into flip-flops, grabbed her sunglasses and reluctantly followed them out to the car.

  “Wren, you take the front seat,” Ilke said. “Unless you like dog breath.”

  Murphy leapt into the back of Glory’s SUV and turned a few circles of excitement.

  “So the men are going straight there from the flight from Vegas?” Wren asked as Glory pulled away.

  “They landed an hour ago.” Ilke scratched under Murphy’s chin as he hung his head over the back of the seat between her and Sky.

  “Has Nate been texting you the whole time? So much for ‘what happens in Vegas.’” Glory snickered.

  “Nothing happened in Vegas. Rolf walked straight back out of the strip club. Some of the men stayed, but Nate and Trigg and Quinn went zip-lining on Freemont Street with Rolf. Then they sat at a bar, gambled a little, drank ’til two and called it a night. The indoor skydiving on Saturday was a hit, though. And the climbing wall.”

  “Poor Trigg. He was really looking forward to making history. I guess now that he’s a dad, he can’t party like he used to.” Glory tilted a smile into the rearview mirror.

  “I don’t get bachelor parties,” Sky said. “I mean, it’s like a funeral for being single, right? But if you want to be single, why get married? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Amen, sister,” Glory said, twisting her arm to offer her palm for a low-five.

  “Even so, will they be in any shape for waterskiing?” Wren asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re doing it,” Glory said. “There’s method to the madness. This is a long way for guests to come. We had to make it worth their spending a few days here. It’s also a PR stunt for the skeptics in Haven. We keep telling them the resort will bring more business to town. They’ve been hurting a long time and don’t want to invest in painting their storefronts and bringing in new stock only to see the town die again. So we organized the boats and baseball tourney and other stuff to put Haven on the map as a fun place to visit.”

  Wren didn’t want to ask how much that was costing, but Sky partially answered that question by piping up from the back. “The board lost it on Rolf the other day when they found out about him ordering wet suits and life jackets and everything.”

  “Oh, the board,” Glory muttered. “They keep threatening to fire him, but he offered all the shareholders a choice between a transferrable season pass or the dollar value. Almost everyone chose the pass.”

  “With accommodation?” Wren asked, instantly alarmed. She’d seen the reservations and the lodge was booked pretty so
lid into spring.

  “They’ll have to find something in Haven. Most of them will use it for a week here and there because they’re coming from so far away. The cost to the hill is actually pretty low, but the shareholders are happy and the board can’t use the resort as an excuse to fire Rolf.”

  Super sneaky.

  “They’re mad he keeps offering passes for wedding stuff, too,” Glory continued. “Like the boats, today. He’s giving passes to the four guys who own them. He still has to pay their fuel and travel, but they’re operating them, which means we don’t have to stress about licensing and liability. He’s trading passes and equipment for a ton of stuff, but it’s like me giving away free books. People can try it once and if they like it, they’ll probably come back or tell their friends. The board doesn’t seem to get that.”

  They arrived at the marina to find three dozen people milling around. Glory parked and went to find Rolf. Ilke went in search of Nate. Sky leashed Murphy to go looking for Trigg.

  Wren used the excuse of reading the information map on a bulletin board to hang back. It looked pretty new, possibly erected by the local tourism office in response to all the claims Rolf was making about drawing more visitors to Haven.

  Clearwater Lake was used mostly by fishermen, the bulletin board claimed. It was thought to be too cold for summer sports, but its glacial water was warmed by a fissure that leaked hot spring waters into the far end, which accounted for the abundance of fish. The undeveloped shoreline belonged to a reserve.

  The next section offered a history lesson on early copper mining and how a proposal to harness the power of the thermal energy had almost reinvigorated the copper mine twenty years ago. It would have gouged into the ski resort, a proposal that had divided the town at the time, pitting skiers and nature lovers against family men who wanted good paying jobs. Ultimately, the amount of copper had been deemed too low for the venture to be profitable.

  A sharp whistle pulled Wren’s attention to the group.

  *

  “Where’s your aunt?” Trigg asked as soon as Sky appeared.