by Dani Collins
Glory held her hat on with one hand and gritted her teeth against the chill, but it was a quick trip to a group of half a dozen men standing near a helicopter.
Ugh. Yes. Definitely all men. Terrific. She flashed back to her brief summer job at a software development company. Male engineers who spoke the language had barely earned the notice of the enclave at the top. An admin clerk hired to plug data entry records for payroll had been nothing more than a coffee dispenser with legs.
She looked forward to being ignored. Better than being hit on, she supposed, wondering what that was like.
One of the men was the pilot, she assumed, since he waved a greeting at their driver like he knew her. He wore Top Gun sunglasses and an aviator jacket with an official-looking patch on the arm that said Basco something. He slipped into the helicopter as if he’d been waiting on their arrival.
Two other men glanced up from their phones. They were her father’s age, clean-shaven with iron-colored hair that was precision trimmed into business cuts. The tips of their bare ears were bright red from the cold. They both wore puffy jackets, but ones that looked so new the tags might have been putting that uncomfortable tension in their posture. They were used to suits and the indoors, she suspected. Accountants, maybe.
The other three were taller, all easily over six feet. The African-American wore a yellow safety jacket with reflective stripes down the arms and ‘N. Hart’ embroidered above his chest pocket. His breath fogged as he spoke to the man with his back to them.
Another peeled from the group to come toward them as the cart slowed. She didn’t look at him, unable to take her gaze from the back of that Viking in the dark blue jacket. Tails of brown hair poked from his snug black cap. He was really big with broad shoulders and thickly muscled thighs. He had a really nice butt in black jeans that perfectly cupped his cheeks, not drooping one iota.
She might not get out much, but she had an eye for detail when she did.
He didn’t turn as their cart stopped, staying focused on his conversation with Mr. Safety. His profile was like granite, but it was a really handsome profile of even features half-covered in neatly trimmed dark stubble.
She was definitely a bit drunk if she was getting horny for a stranger. She stepped from the cart and yanked tight the belt on her coat, subtly trying to pull herself together behind the screen of the cart.
Her father climbed from the side where the men stood and she heard the one who had approached say, “Marvin.”
“Trigg.”
The cart buzzed away, revealing her father shaking hands with a man who was really good-looking in a late-twenties hipster sort of way. He wore a slouched beanie that hid his hair and accented the sleek height of his cheekbones above a scruff of dark brown beard. His puffy blue jacket brought out the sharp blue of his eyes.
She waited for a glimmer of interest in Trigg, but her inner slut seemed to have imprinted on the alpha male still ignoring them. She kind of wished she’d worn makeup.
Trigg looked genuinely happy to see her father. He pulled him in for one of those hand-shake-plus-one-armed hugs that included a chest bump and slap across the back of the shoulders. Her father was not nearly young enough, nor gangster enough, to know how to reciprocate.
Her father gave Trigg a laughing pat on the back. He was a good sport, outgoing, earnest, and ridiculously likable. Plus, his tufts of absent-minded-professor hair made him completely nonthreatening. Of course, Trigg liked him. Everyone did.
He drew away to swing an open arm toward her. “My daughter, Glory.”
It was actually Gloria, for her grandmother, which she had always thought made her sound like the busybody neighbor in a nineteen-fifties sitcom. She didn’t care for it, but ‘Glory’ was way more illustrious than she could back up. Using her middle name had never been an option, though. It was her mother’s first name. When she absolutely had to introduce herself, she usually said, “Call me G.”
She didn’t say anything today. They weren’t going to know each other long enough for it to matter. She hung back, arms folded, offering Trigg only a faint, tight smile. I’m not outgoing. I don’t want to be here. I blame you for all of this.
She searched her mind for the best way to tell him the sale was off.
He was like a dog, oblivious to her lack of desire to be friends. He surged forward with his hand outstretched.
“Great to meet you.” He shook with enthusiasm, crushing her hand and rattling her arm bones out of their sockets. “Nice hat.” He seemed to laugh at her, sending her into a flashback to freshman year high school.
She pulled her hand free and caught her bag before it slid off her shoulder.
“Rolf,” he turned away to bark.
He seemed to be trying to catch the attention of the Viking. She noted the Wikinger logo on Rolf’s jacket collar and the turned-up fold of his hat. N. Hart flicked a sideways glance at them, but Rolf acknowledged nothing.
Okay. They all knew where the biggest dick in this circle jerk was.
“Verner,” one of the older men said, shaking her father’s hand. “We spoke on the phone.” He was actually a lawyer, she learned. Torsten was the accountant.
The pilot came out of the helicopter and asked if they’d like to board.
Rolf turned his head and said a crisp, “Yes,” clearly picking and choosing where he directed his attention.
His voice was deep, his tone thick with power. His eyes were dark brown as he flicked his gaze over her like a stone skipping off water.
“Marvin.” He stepped forward to shake her father’s hand once. Decisively. “Let’s finalize this.”
She didn’t try to pin down the subtle accent in his clipped words. German, she thought, while a zing of alarm was searing all the way to the soles of her feet. He was the guy she had to talk to. Fight with. Oh yikes, he was intimidating as hell.
Wait, she drew a breath to say.
Rolf’s gaze came back to her, stalling her breath and leaving her mouth in a moue as she formed the ‘w’ sound, making her tingle all over. Oh God, she was going to blush. Was blushing. Nooo.
“Glory.” Her father nudged her, making her realize everyone was looking at her. “Ladies first.” Don’t embarrass me in front of my friends, his tone urged.
Self-conscious and hot, she reacted on instinct. She let the pilot help her into the helicopter as though she was some kind of incompetent damsel.
The interior was quite the baller’s lounge with its three pairs of comfy armchairs in white leather, separated by a center aisle. She moved to the front, right behind the cockpit, and stowed her bag in the compartment under her seat.
Then she counted, because it didn’t look like there were enough seats.
The suits came in behind her, taking the two seats in the middle. Her father came in, but rather than join her at the front, he sat in the back across from Trigg. Finally, Rolf and Safety-jacket Hart came in.
Awareness crawled over her as Rolf approached. He was the full romance hero package with his warrior physique, his chartered helicopter, and his stony expression.
He brushed by her without acknowledgment and had to duck and shift sideways to get through the narrow door into the aptly named cockpit. She watched him squish himself into the copilot’s seat and put on earmuffs.
The door shut hard at the back of the helicopter, rocking the craft. N. Hart sat down in the seat across from her, sending her a curt nod—polite, but distant.
The pilot moved to stand in the door, addressing all of them.
“Welcome. I’m Serge, your pilot. I’m going to lock in and prepare for takeoff. A safety video will start shortly on the screens in front of you. If you have any questions or concerns, please press the call button over your head. We should be at the hill in about an hour. I have refreshments I’ll set out when we get there. In the meantime, you’ll find snacks in the trays under your armrest.”
He disappeared into the cockpit and closed the narrow door, leaving them with a flashy blonde assuring them from
the screen that Dirk Basco’s charter company was dedicated to safety and customer service. As the video finished and the sunlight through the window flickered with the turn of the rotors, Glory glanced across the aisle.
“What happens if you push the call button? Does a genie appear? Because I don’t see a flight attendant.”
N. Hart’s mouth quirked and he shrugged. He was holding a rolled sheaf of papers and opened it to start reading.
Great. He thought she was coming on to him.
She noticed his papers had one of those little blue corners that notaries used to staple legal documents.
“What did you buy?” It came out of her champagne-lubricated mouth without a hint of filter.
He lifted his steady gaze to hers, not impolite or hostile, but not the least bit encouraging. “It’s a job offer. For project manager.” He reached across with his long arm for a brief one-pump shake. “Nathaniel Hart. Nate.”
“Glory—” Aaannd he’d already lost interest, sitting straight and offering no further conversation as he went back to reading.
She surreptitiously studied him. For research purposes. He was all kinds of intent and intense. Clean-shaven, but the way he smoothed the backs of his fingers under his jaw made her think he’d shaved for his job interview, which was kind of interesting and telling.
It was something Brock would do.
Who the hell was Brock? She didn’t know, but she inexplicably knew…
He didn’t give a damn how he looked, for the most part, but if he was trying to impress someone, especially a woman, his upbringing demanded he put his best foot forward. And his mother expected him to shave for family occasions, like Christmas.
Good thing he already had a shot of tequila in front of him, though. When Pandora finally appeared, she was undeniably pregnant. Fuck me. How pregnant? Easter-weekend pregnant?
*
What had Brock been doing in Tahoe at Easter? Spring skiing?
She would have to look up how long the season went. Maybe he was there for a family thing. Yeah, his parents had a cottage there. That would work, but he could also like to ski. Rangy, athletic heroes were sexy as hell. Maybe Tahoe was where his family had always gone while he was growing up. How old was he? How old was Pandora? Was that really the heroine? Kind of a ridiculous name, wasn’t it?
“—want to thank you for flying with us today,” the pilot’s voice cut into her thoughts. “I can see you’re all buckled up so we’ll take off. Please sit back and enjoy our tour of some of the prettiest peaks you’ll see in the Rockies…”
Glory clenched her fingers around the edge of her seat. Day drinking was starting to look like a great idea. Or, at least the source of some viable ideas.
She closed her eyes, trying not to push the process, but she needed to know. Who was Pandora?
*
Rolf glanced at the screen in the cockpit that showed the passengers. His brother was painting dreams with his hands to their new ‘partner.’ Marvin Cormer looked like a character from one of Grimm’s fairy tales, a book Trigg had begged Rolf to read him when he’d been young. Cormer’s daughter—it would be a stretch to call her Sleeping Beauty—appeared to have passed out.
What a scarecrow of a female with her electrified hair and unsmiling demeanor, following him with her eyes and giving off vibes of feminine interest.
He easily dismissed her. This was business and she wasn’t his type. She looked wholesome and needy, flat as an ironing board, and about as interesting.
Looks, money, and being a champion had earned him a lot of attention from an early age. He’d learned how to pick and choose his companions to avoid drama. He’d have to marry and have kids eventually, he supposed, since Trigg didn’t appear qualified to do either of those things, but he wasn’t in a hurry. He already had one failed marriage behind him, thanks to a focus on winning that made him a pathological asshole—or so he’d been informed on more than one occasion. But he was only thirty-six. There was time.
His gaze lingered on the woman again, unconvinced she and her father had the stamina to provide decent service to him and his workers while wrangling contractors and renovations, let alone stay in the black and come out the other end with a world-class lodging. His brief research online told him the old man taught something useless at a Seattle college. The woman sold her dead mother’s novels online. The books mostly had flowers and shirtless men on the covers.
To each his own, but it sounded like a niche market. He doubted there was much money in either of their careers.
Leave it to Trigg to find such an ill-equipped pair for the task. He’d given his kid brother one job, after he’d asked around a couple of years ago himself and discovered no one serious was willing to take the risk that Blue Spruce Lodge represented. Not until the ski hill was rebuilt and approved for service. If you build it, we will come, one smartass developer friend had said.
He didn’t want the risk. The hill was dicey enough that he’d kept putting Trigg off, but Trigg wouldn’t leave it alone. Rolf had finally told him that if he found someone to take on the lodge, he would get serious about rebuilding the hill.
Trigg had dropped the Cormers at his feet like a cat offering a half-chewed bird. Now he wouldn’t hear of anyone else but his buddy Marv running the place and Rolf wanted to wring the old man’s neck for winding Trigg up all over again. His kid brother was a loose cannon at the best of times and Rolf had a full plate running Wikinger.
Once his brother had had an accomplice in Cormer, however, he’d become the same obstinate little shit who had once said, “I hate skis. I want to board.”
In two years, Trigg would have full voting rights with his half of Wikinger, though. He could do an end-run with the board and start the redevelopment of Whiskey Jack without Rolf if he wanted to.
Rolf pinched his bottom lip, not sure if he wished this idiotic notion of his brother’s would fall through—he couldn’t believe he’d come this far as it was—or if he wanted it to succeed. Ski hills were as big a gamble as hotels. This one had been in financial trouble before the avalanche had wiped it out. That disaster had damned near taken Wikinger with it.
Rolf didn’t want to watch what he’d managed to pull back from the cornice tumble into the crevasse.
On the other hand, he was really fucking bored with boardrooms.
As they flew over untouched slopes above the tree line, his blood itched and his nostrils flared, already scenting the freezing air. He craved the burn in his muscles as he carved his way through that waist-deep powder. When was the last time he’d screwed around on the slopes for fun? Probably twenty years ago, before he’d won his first medal and decided he had to stay at the top. He visually picked his way through the alpine, hearing the shoosh of his skis in the otherwise silent world.
“In a moment, you’ll see the town of Haven,” Serge said over the P.A., talking to the passengers, but Rolf heard it through the radio in his earmuffs. Everyone on the screen looked out the windows to the ground below.
“Haven has a year-round population of about eight hundred. Before the closure of Whiskey Jack, it was closer to two thousand. A lot of the homes are empty now, or used as summer cottages. Some people still come for fishing and hunting season. Camping and hiking are popular, along with canoeing and ATVs, then cross-country skiing and snowmobiles in the winter, but it’s not what it was.”
The decay was evident in the weathered buildings, all tumbled together in the bottom of the valley with battered vehicles parked on the near-empty streets.
Serge clicked off the P.A. and spoke only to Rolf. “Still have a sled club, though. Mayor runs it. Stanley Heintz. He should be there when we land. Said he’d take a team up to clear the parking lot so I have a place to land.”
They left the village behind and continued up the valley, following the highway alongside the lake, then veering over what might have been a logging road or the original access road. It disappeared beneath a pile of debris and Serge climbed past it, veering in
the other direction, over a smaller peak to where a wide bowl opened.
“Locals call this Afternoon Delight. It’s in the mountain shadow all morning mid-winter. Takes about four hours to climb up. If you time it right, you’re skiing down as the sun hits. Champagne powder for half a mile, then you’re in the trees.”
This was one of the reasons Rolf’s father had been persuaded to buy the struggling hill. This bowl had been approved for development, but the previous owners ran out of money. With fresh blood and cash from Wikinger, and an expansion of offerings, this place could have attracted more visitors and recovered to thrive. The avalanche had taken out the lifts, though. Before his father could decide how to react, he’d been thrown off a treadmill, clutching his chest.
Rolf’s first decision as his father’s successor had been to take the insurance money to keep the rest of Wikinger’s interests from folding under the weight of taking on the debt of the now dead resort. It had been the right thing to do at the time. Now he wondered why he’d pushed back on Trigg about redeveloping it. Money, of course, and he’d still been competing, not having the time. But the idea of mapping out new runs, choosing his own personal cuts to make the most of the terrain, had his balls tingling.
Serge circled over another untouched bowl, pointing out the extent of the hill’s license to expand, much of it even approved for housing. Rolf could talk a lot of shit about his father, but the old man had known a potential gold mine when he’d seen it.
Finally, Serge took them over the original hill, which bore little resemblance to a ski resort. Along with the lift lines, the pistes had been erased by fifteen years of nature’s resilience. The forest had come back in swathes of trees in strips of similar sizes, thick and tall in some areas, smaller and sparser over the few old trails that remained, then barely finding a toe-hold where the avalanche had gone through.
The risk was always there for another snow slide, but the first one had been negligence. The previous owners hadn’t been keeping up with managing the conditions. They’d been cutting corners, laying off staff and closing mid-season, hoping for a buyer. Since they weren’t running, they hadn’t seen the point in setting off charges to mitigate disaster.