Bjarne had changed into civvies, the first pair of jeans I’d seen him in, cowboy boots, and a red fleece pullover. He stood at the bar, his damp forelock dropping over his forehead as Carter Reineking clapped him on the back. They were laughing, both red in the face, as I tapped Bjarne on the shoulder. I couldn’t help smiling at the happiness on the skier’s face.
“Alix, you came!” He set his mug down on the bar and hugged me hard, picking my feet off the floor and spinning me around. How could you not like this guy? I thought, pushing away as he set me on the floor again. “Did you see it? I knew there was some Thorssen luck on me today.”
“I saw the end,” I said. “You almost caught him.”
“If only I had a kiss from you at the start,” he said, pulling me close. “Then I would have made it all the way.” He kissed me hard and quick, making the color rise to my face as tables of skiers around us stared.
“With that leg it’s a damn miracle you came in second,” Carter put in, leaning his back against the bar. “God, it’s good to have the races done.” He took a long gulp of beer, then peered at me. “How’s Maggie? I need to—”
I waited for him to finish, but he let the thought slip away. “Yes, you need to call her,” I said.
Bjarne bounced on his toes, grabbing my hand, then winced. “This leg is killing me, all right. But I’m so glad you came.”
He looked like he might kiss me again, so I ordered a beer from the bartender. When it came, I waited for a pause in the victory celebration before drawing Bjarne aside.
“I guess the runes were right about when you needed power, and all that,” I said. Bjarne smiled, sipped beer. “Did you need another consultation with Mistress Isa for luck?”
He frowned and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw her at the finish of the race. She gave you a kiss.”
Bjarne squinted into my face, too close, then smiled. His voice was low, an intimate whisper. “Are you jealous? Could that be, my sweet?” He moved closer until I could feel the heat coming off him, masculine and dense. “I could fix that, I could.”
This time the kiss was much longer. My head filled with nonsense and snow flurries that wouldn’t clear as long as his lips touched mine. I gasped for air, and the spell was broken. Bjarne ran his hand through his hair, turned toward the bar, and took a long drink of beer. I stood motionless, stunned. All around us the prattle of chitchat rose again in my ears, the squeals, guffaws, low rumbles of conversation, until when I swallowed at last, I was back in the Edelweiss, here, now.
Carter said something, nudged me. He was pointing at the TV screen, where a pink-haired skier was doing a somersault off a cliff. A collective groan crossed the room, then faded as the skier sank into deep powder, emerging victorious.
I looked at Bjarne. He glanced at me, nervous, then away.
“But what about Isa?” I croaked. My voice sounded like someone else’s, someone who couldn’t stop obsessing when it was obvious the earth had shifted under her feet.
“I haven’t seen her since she read my fortune,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The woman in the hooded coat? Navy blue. You kissed her after the race.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t recognize her. Was that her?” He turned back to me, touching my hair with his fingertips. “I have to go soak this leg. Come back to my room with me, yes?”
I closed my eyes for a second, feeling his hand on my cheek. He rubbed his thumb on my lower lip, then gave me a quick kiss and moved his lips to my ear. “Come back to my room, my sweet.”
“I—I can’t .The, um, ice sculpture judging starts in half an hour. I have—”
He hadn’t moved his lips, his cheek warm against mine. “Let someone else do it. I need you, my sweet. Come celebrate the races with me. I will be all alone in my room without you.”
My body was on fire. I thought about his room, so dingy and depressing. And yet it didn’t feel that way. It beckoned me, he beckoned me. His heat could melt me: me, an icicle dripping from his warmth. I felt myself draining, drawing down, down into his heat.
I stepped back quickly. He set his beer mug on the bar and took my hand. I let him pull me through the crowd, all the time telling myself I was crazy, I was nuts, I had to be back in town. And all the time not listening to myself.
Bjarne unlocked a room in the adjoining hotel. It was strewn with literature about the Nordic ski races, a desk pulled out into the room. The bed was covered with sign-up sheets, ribbons, badges, numbers. Bjarne swept a hand across the bedspread, sending it all onto the floor in a heap.
I felt dizzy. I leaned against the wall by the bed as he came up to me, took my hand. “Wait a minute,” I squeaked as he kissed me hard. Pressing me against the wall, his hands pulled out my shirttail and felt cold against my burning skin. Oh, shit, this was too much. I kissed him hard, then gasped for air.
“Wait, wait, I—”
He silenced me again, finding the zipper on my pants. As they dropped to my knees, as I felt him hard against me, as my mind slipped a gear and let instincts take over, voices came in the direction of the hallway. I kept one ear on them; all else was engaged. Bjarne pulled back my hair and kissed my neck.
Carter Reineking opened the door, still talking. I jumped an inch. Bjarne looked at his friend, then at my khakis on the floor, and stepped between us. I bent over, cursing with my eyes closed, and pulled up my pants.
A young woman with a cardboard box full of badges and numbers peeked around Carter’s shoulder. Carter himself smiled benevolently.
“Excuse us.” He smirked.
“We were just leaving,” Bjarne said, reaching behind him to grab my hand as I stuck my shirttail in under my sweater. My face felt hot and red. At least I didn’t know the woman, I thought. Bjarne pulled me past them, out into the overheated hallway. Carter closed the door behind us, shaking his head.
“Come, we’ll go to my place,” Bjarne said, his breath still short. He moved closer to me as I walked down the hall, trying to stop me. I pushed him gently. “Alix, come on.”
I couldn’t talk. I was embarrassed and flushed and feeling light-headed and very, very alive. I wished I could tell him that. He pleaded with me down the stairs to the parking lot, all the way to my car. I kissed him quickly as I got in the Saab. I rolled down the window, listening to him still trying to cajole me as I drove away, winter air on my face.
Fresh air, fresh, cold air. That was what I needed. Maybe a faceful of wet snow. Even a slushy mud puddle.
Something to bring me to my senses.
Maggie was waiting in the gallery when I dragged myself through the back door, yanking off the pac boots on the mat and breathing heavily. The drive back from Teton Village had been adequate to cool my jets, but the pit of my stomach might never be the same. I wasn’t exactly sorry about what had happened, but I wasn’t exactly proud either. I couldn’t remember any man ever talking to me that way, and Bjarne’s words kept running over and over in my mind. But as much as I was attracted to him—hell, I’d probably have to tattoo his name on my ass before this was over—as much as I wanted him, there was something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“There you are,” Maggie said, smirking in the doorway to my office, arms crossed.
“Am I late?”
“Does the bear shit in the woods?”
That only raised a half-smile on my lips. I dumped my backpack on my office chair and stared at the pile of pink messages that Artie had placed on my desk. I couldn’t bring myself to read them, so staring would have to do.
“What’s the matter? Is it your mom?” Maggie touched my shoulder.
“No, no. It’s just, um, this festival. There is way too much going on. Next year I’m out.” I heaved another sigh and looked around the floor for my clogs.
“Tired? I shouldn’t have taken you out dancing last night. But it sure was fun, huh?”
I looked up at Maggie’s smiling face at l
ast: tanned, happy, glittering eyes, mischievous eyebrows, shining hair. I smiled. “It was a lot of fun, Mags. I wouldn’t have missed it. I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now.”
“Well, the drag queen hasn’t arrived yet. She’s supposed to meet us here for the judging, right?”
“Yeah.” I poked my head out my office door, past Maggie, and saw a flash of purple satin on the boardwalk. “Here she comes.”
Gloria Worster, the Chamber of Commerce drag queen— a white-bread-and-mustard gal masquerading as a flat-chested Dolly Parton—gave Artie a big howdy as she sashayed into the gallery. The violet satin shirt had rows of white fringe and pearl buttons, her skintight black jeans tucked inside red and white cowboy boots that really should have been wearing those cute pointy galoshes today. Gloria had done something new with her hair, more Dolly-ish, bigger and blonder.
“Let’s do it,” I said, grabbing a yellow legal pad and a pen from my desk drawer. I still had my down coat on, even though the weather was now mid-thirties. It had been too warm at the ski races in the sun, but now the mountains had the town in their shadow. The day was almost done.
“Hey, Gloria,” I said, nodding unenthusiastically at the Chamber of Commerce exec. “Are you ready?”
“Sure thing.” Gloria and Maggie were not legendary pals. No doubt Maggie’s remarks about Gloria’s snazzy wardrobe had gotten back to her. Something about the set of Gloria’s jaw when she nodded to Maggie told me this was true.
“A couple of the sculptors called me today, Alix. Even though I told them this was really your gig,” Gloria said pointedly. “They told me they couldn’t get ahold of you.”
The pile of pink messages seemed bigger suddenly. “I’ve been busy. What did they want?”
She put her red-polished nails on her hips. “I think they want to have one more day. They couldn’t do much today because of the thaw, you know?” She was snapping her gum, honest to God. “So I told them to call that Dieter guy who set up all the chefs.”
I peered out the front window. Some of the sculptures had huge golf umbrellas shading them; others were draped with canvas to keep the sun off. I saw Dieter Moritz on the far side of the square, talking to a sculptor in coveralls.
“Well, let’s go talk to Dieter, then,” Maggie said, plowing toward the door.
“There’s no use all of us going. The street’s a mess.” I looked at Gloria’s boots, then at Maggie’s feet .She wore her low-top hiking shoes. “I’ve got my pac boots right here. You guys wait here.”
Dieter’s forehead was beaded with sweat. He confirmed, unhappily, that four sculptors had asked for extra time because of the weather. Suggesting that it was partially my fault because I had relayed (and thus reinforced) the weather prediction for a thaw, he had to agree with the sculptors. Cold weather is best. Warm weather is death to ice sculpting. So it was agreed. A twenty-four-hour delay. A prayer to Skadi for her mountain-cold weather.
With a sigh of relief, I trudged back to the gallery, vowing never to wear the stupid, heavy pac boots again as long as I live. Or until the next blizzard. I informed Maggie and Gloria of the decision and made appointments with them for four tomorrow. Gloria breezed off, all of us watching her well-defined swagger on the boardwalk as she waved a toodle-oo to passersby.
Just before Maggie and I slipped off upstairs, I looked back at Artie with his elbows on the counter, chin in palms, a wistful look in his eyes. “How’s it going?”
“Okay,” he said. “A couple good sales.”
I nodded. “Give it half an hour, then go home.” I made a silent pledge to give him a day off later in the week, come hell or high water. If I didn’t, he was likely to quit on me. And that was the last thing I needed.
Maggie pronounced herself beat and flopped onto the sofa upstairs. I headed for the kitchen, thinking of a snack. Maybe some of that cheese was left from the reception. Now it seemed like food left over from a wake, nibbled on mournfully for weeks. I was just grateful it wasn’t tuna noodle casserole with potato chip topping.
As I stuck my head into the fridge, Maggie yelled: “Light’s blinking on your answering machine.”
“Probably my mother.” I found the cheese, only slightly dried out, and hacked off the bad stuff with a large knife on the cutting board. “You want to hit it?”
Unable to contain her curiosity, beat or not, Maggie leaped to action. In a second, clicks and beeps, and the mechanical voice of my answering machine (I called him Sigmund; he sounded a lot like my conscience) proclaimed robotically: ‘You have three new messages. First message left today at two-oh-seven-p.m.” The voice of my mother came on. “Alix, this is your mother. Hank called, he was worried. I wish you’d let me tell him about the stone, but I do understand. I just wish … oh, honey, I wish all this hadn’t happened, you know? I wish I’d never found that stupid stone. I—” She growled a little, which was her way of being annoyed and sad. “Call me later,” she finished.
“What stone? What’s she talking about?” Maggie piped up between Sigmund’s pronouncements. I waved her off, mouth full of cheese.
“Alix, this is Bjarne.” Maggie raised her eyebrows at the throaty, low tone of his voice. “I just wanted to talk to you again. No, that’s not true. I want to see you again. Can I come by tonight? I hope you’re not busy, because I have a bottle of wine and this time we will really celebrate. No more interruptions, I promise. Okay? I’ll call you later, sweetheart.” He gave me the number of his motel and whispered good-bye.
Maggie was fanning herself with both hands. “Sweetheart?” she asked pointedly. I felt myself redden, then grinned back at her as the last message began.
“Alix, this is Earl Simms. We met last night at the Stagecoach over in Wilson? Listen, I want to apologize again for my friend Lucinda. She really overreacted. I was hoping you’d let us make it up to you. There’s a cocktail party tonight”—Maggie stepped right up to the machine on the kitchen counter like she was trying to eat the words—“at a neighbor of Harrison’s. It’s a fund-raiser for something, wolves or clean air or something. Anyway, can you come? Bring your friend too, if you want. About seven-thirty.” He gave an address in Moose, in the ritzy part where you couldn’t see the houses from the winding lanes. Then he just about begged me—or rather Maggie— to come.
Sigmund signed off. Maggie was holding her sides like she might burst, a dumbstruck smile on her face.
“He is hot for you, girl,” I said across the counter from her. “Too bad he’s a foot too short.”
Maggie threw her arms wide. “I like short guys. In fact, I just realized short guys turn me on!”
“Short, rich guys with movie star friends.”
“Well, I never considered that” She twirled around the sofa like a woman in love in a romance movie.
“So when are you going to tell him your real name?”
She pulled her black hair up, twisting it and prancing a bit like she was Cinderella off to the ball to meet Prince Charming. “Oh, later. It’s just a cocktail party. We can pretend for one measly cocktail party, can’t we? You are coming, Alix.”
“If Alix Thorssen is coming, why do I have to?”
She let her hair drop. “I can’t go into a big celebrity party by myself. Are you crazy?”
I busied myself with cheese. The way I was feeling, it wouldn’t be good to stay home and wait for Bjarne. I had no faith in my ability to act rationally around him. “So am I Maggie Barlow tonight? Or can I be anyone I want?”
Maggie rushed around the counter and hugged me. “You can be anybody you want except yourself. Just for tonight, please?”
“I’ve always had a secret fantasy where I’m an insurance agent.”
Maggie stuck out her tongue at me. “Nobody ever wants to talk to me at parties anyway. Don’t tell them you’re in insurance. I never do.”
“Now that’s settled, the big question remains: What are you going to wear?”
Maggie threw up her hands. “Oh, God, I have to think about this.
Something arty, maybe floaty and bright, purple or blue. Yellow! Do you ever wear yellow?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, who cares what you wear? You don’t dress like an art dealer.”
“I don’t?”
“Of course not. You aren’t trying to make an impression with your clothes. Now, Paolo, he dressed like an art dealer. Those silk shirts and flannel slacks that hugged his gorgeous bod… those peasant blouses he used to wear? Where did he get those? Never in my life have I seen a man who oozed machismo in a peasant blouse like Paolo.” She paused and looked up at me. “Oh, shit I’m sorry. I thought—”
She hugged me again, and I realized a hard spot in my chest had formed when she spoke about Paolo. It even hardened around the spot of desire for Bjarne that remained. I took a deep breath and tried to ease it away.
“It’s okay,” I said, stepping back. “It’s time to let him go. I never thought it would be so hard.”
Maggie slapped herself in the forehead. “What about Bjarne? He wanted to come over tonight. And here I made you promise to go to the party with me.” She paced out into the living room “I’ll just not go. Forget it. What was I thinking, passing myself off as you with a bunch of movie stars?”
I walked over and took her hand, made her stop pacing. “I don’t think I want Bjarne to come over. He’s going home in a couple days, and I’ll never see him again. I want to go to the cocktail party.”
“You’re sure?” she asked. I nodded. “Okay, what are we going to wear?”
Chapter 15
All hail to the givers!
A guest hath come say, where shall he sit?
In haste is he to the hall who cometh,
to find a place by the fire.
The sub sandwich dripped into the napkin in my lap as I idled past the Squirrel’s Nest Motel in the Saab Sister. It was five o’clock, and I was starved, biting into the fat meatball sandwich as if I hadn’t eaten in days. The light was fading, a purple twilight etching the high clouds as the color drained from the sky. I turned the steering wheel awkwardly with one hand as meatball juices plopped onto my jeans. Pointed back toward Pearl Street now, I slowed to a stop across from the motel.
Nordic Nights (The Alix Thorssen Mysteries) Page 17