by Dani Collins
“Fuck you, man. Marvin’s fine with it.”
“Great. Marvin gets a dog. Get it the hell out of my office.”
“You’re such a fucking asshole.”
“One with shit to do.”
Trigg didn’t move, only folded his arms. “Like meet with Nate and the geophysicist? I know. That’s why I’m here. To sit in.”
“There aren’t enough seats.” He sent a disgusted look to where the dog had jumped into one of the chairs and was turning circles, nudging at Trigg’s elbow.
Trigg didn’t order the dog onto the floor. He scratched behind the dog’s ears and under his collar, rewarding the bad behavior as he tried to stare Rolf down.
Exhibit one, ladies and gentlemen. Adulting was too much work for his kid brother.
“I’m sitting in.”
“Not with a dog.”
“Why the fuck don’t you want me to contribute to this?”
Rolf sighed. In the back of his brain, he recognized this pigheaded digging in as the sort of power struggle their father had forced upon him. The kind he had engaged in himself with the old man purely to assert his dominance and punish the bastard.
That’s what champions are made of, he thought sourly.
“Sit in,” he said, losing patience. “But leave the dog with what’s-her-name. She seemed to like him.” Whatever game she was playing, he could play, too.
Chapter Six
Glory was astonished by Trigg’s gall, asking her to watch his dog. She still wanted to wring his neck for landing her here at Blue Spruce Lodge at all. She almost said, “Ask Dad,” but her father was on the end of a shovel, helping the crew digging into the still half-frozen ground to expose the septic tank for inspection. Plus, she had already acted like she was excited to have a dog here.
Truth was, she didn’t mind. She was overdue for some unconditional love.
“No problem,” she said, but made sure to aim her smile at Murphy.
“Thanks. Rolf’s being a giant, uncircumcised dick about having him here.”
She choked on a laugh, biting back, I thought that was his natural personality. Damn him, she didn’t want to like Trigg, but he was literally the first person to ask her: “How’s it going anyway?”
“In what way? Sit.” She pushed Murphy’s butt down and held his chin up until he sat, then gave him lots of praise for it.
Trigg shrugged. “Every way. Do you like it here? Any problems?”
“Ha. A project like this is nothing but problems that demand a solution. I’ve been too busy putting out fires to figure out whether I like it.” She scratched down the dog’s back, thinking of how happy her father was, how she was writing again—mostly because they needed the money. “It’s a huge expense. Definitely not my first choice of things to do, but—”
“What was?”
Her heart gave a little skip of alarm. She kept her attention on the dog and her cards close to her chest. “I was still figuring that out. But Dad needs the help here and after…” She swallowed back the rest, surprised she’d almost gone there.
“Your mom?” Trigg asked with surprising gentleness. “Yeah, death sucks. I still miss Dad and it’s been twelve years. He was so excited when he bought this place. Being here brings it all back.”
Why did she find that so endearing?
“He bought it to build me a snow park. Now Rolf’s taking over like…” He glowered in the direction of the manager’s office. “He’s such a fucker.”
The open animosity startled her. “Is that because he’s so much older? What is he? Forty?” She knew he wasn’t, but earned a cocky grin from Trigg.
“I’m telling him you said that.”
“Fill your boots.” She had a dog to protect her now.
“He’s thirty-six. Eight years between us. Different moms.” He scratched under his unshaven chin. “Dad made me on the side while he was still married to Rolf’s mom. Then she died and he married my mom. Rolf wasn’t impressed.”
“Whoa,” she said before she could catch it back, but that was a lot of information in a few short statements.
“Yeah. You’d think he’d be over it, but nope. I’m still just that little shit he has to tolerate because Dad said so.”
And he was telling her this because…?
“He was looking at your ass, by the way.”
“What?” She straightened and the dog immediately leapt to his feet and began dancing around them, seeking fresh attention.
Her butt felt tingly and a hot sensation began rising from behind her navel along with a fresh blush up her throat.
Trigg smirked and shrugged off his abrupt announcement. “Thought you’d like to know. Thanks.” He nodded at the dog and walked away.
He wasn’t a little shit. He was an enormous shit disturber. She belatedly understood why he’d said it. The rivalry between the brothers went deep and she was a convenient pawn. The brothers definitely had one thing in common. They were both jerks.
Closing both pocket doors on her pantry office, she tried to type one-handed while scratching the furry head resting on her thigh, mind drifting to Rolf’s reaction to taking custody of a dog that wasn’t his.
BLESSED WINTER – Chapter One
Page 8, word count = 2006
Brock hated shaving, but his upbringing demanded he scrape the stubble from his face on certain occasions, like Christmas. He wasn’t even celebrating this year. Not on the day, anyway. His parents and brother had taken off for Hawaii. He was supposed to be in Mexico with his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.
They had accidentally slept together after a staff barbecue in July. Everyone seemed to think they would make a great couple, so they’d given it a go. They had failed spectacularly right out of the gate. Not fighting. The total opposite. It was kind of ridiculous, in retrospect, how polite and considerate they had been toward each other, both trying so hard to make their relationship work simply because they were friends and co-workers and didn’t want to ruin anything.
Chemistry had been lacking, though. Brock had known by the twist in his gut that agreeing to Christmas in Mexico with her family was taking things too far.
She’d expressed relief when he’d given her the it’s-not-you, it’s-me speech. It’s both of us, she’d said. There’s nothing here.
Ouch.
But he was glad it was settled. The shitty part was that it left him alone for Christmas. He hadn’t been able to find a flight on Christmas Eve to join his family and didn’t want to stick around L.A. by himself. He had come to Tahoe, sans beard, forgetting until he saw the strange car in the driveway that his parents had rented out the cottage since they wouldn’t be here to use it.
Terrific.
Three calls later, he realized the entire town was booked to the rafters.
He debated trying some of his parents’ neighbors. He had known many of them since he was a kid, but it was Christmas. They would have family in town. He didn’t want to intrude.
He went to Tate’s Tavern, expecting he’d either run into some friends or have a bite and drive back through the night to L.A.
It started to snow as he walked inside. Awesome. And the place was jumping. A live band had it packed with après-skiers and locals who finally had a night off. He scratched his bare cheek as he looked for a table and saw nothing.
Better and better.
Then, by some Christmas miracle, a couple rose as he was winding his way toward the bar. He sat down at the unwiped table, wished them a Merry Christmas, asked the people at the next table for their menu, and looked for a waitress.
The waitress.
Pandora.
Idiot. Was that really why he’d driven seven hours on Christmas Eve?
He debated getting on the road and eating chicken fingers from a truck stop.
Then he spotted her through the crowd.
Her short bobbed-off haircut with the blue streaks had grown out to a tail that she had twisted into a clip. The ends still held a faded blue tinge where the
y hung in a wilted bouquet of fine strands at her crown. Her white T-shirt with the pub logo stretched as she lifted a tray over her head, moving in an awkward pivot through the crowd.
He was so weirdly happy and relieved to see her, he almost laughed aloud.
She met his gaze at that second. Recognition struck. Astonishment and the biggest smile started to break across her face, so bright it was like sunlight pouring warmth all the way through him.
Then she faltered. Her jaw slackened and something wary quickly followed.
His own grin was pulling at the corners of his mouth, inviting her to come to him, but a tingle of premonition crackled through his elation even as his brain was taking in that her face seemed a little rounder.
Someone moved and he could see the rest of her. Her breasts were decidedly plumper than the delicious handful he had cupped last Easter. Her hips might have been a little wider, too, but it was hard to tell with the apron tied around what used to be her waist. Her beach ball of a belly was so perfectly round, with the rest of her beautiful figure just a little bit softer, but still quite slender, it looked fake. Cute enough to make him want to laugh.
Then he realized that pregnant meant she wasn’t single.
She wasn’t available. There was another man.
Wait. She was very pregnant. Like, nine months from Easter pregnant?
“Holy f—”
~ * ~
Pandora’s heart nearly leapt out her throat. Brock. She had tried not to think about him since ghosting him after their one-night stand.
Actually, it had been more of a one-weekend sex-fest of something that had felt like more than lovemaking. Affinity. They’d talked about everything, some of it superficial, some of it deep. They liked the same movies and music. He cooked. She figured out a setting on his phone. He’d recently been downsized and was sorting out his life, returning to L.A. after several years in Texas. She told him how sticking with that idiot ex of hers had seemed like the only option because she had such a lousy relationship with her mother.
She’d stopped short of telling him everything about her mother, but not because she had been afraid to. The timing just hadn’t been right.
He had asked for her phone number when he left Sunday morning. She hadn’t expected him to call and he hadn’t, but he had texted. Several times. The flirty banter had gone on for two days, keeping her smiling nonstop.
Until she got the call from her doctor’s office.
With such a lot to think about, it had seemed kinder to let things fizzle. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him, though.
Now, as a rush of excitement rose like a flock of birds inside her, she also felt a stab of guilt. Guilt for ignoring him. For not offering any explanations.
Most of all, she felt guilty for getting preg—
*
The power went out, plunging her into darkness.
Glory jumped in surprise, crying, “What—?!”
Murphy leapt to attention, barking wildly, then worried a paw at the crack of light in the door of the pantry.
Glory opened it so the light from the dining hall illuminated her ‘office,’ then glanced back at her desktop. She’d been working off her cloud account, but didn’t trust that old desktop. It was one of four redundant computers her father had brought home from the college last year. They’d been selling them off at a fire-sale price, but using it saved her filling up her laptop with lodge business.
If she had lost that scene, however, she was going to freak.
“Devon?” she called, following voices to the kitchen.
“That wasn’t me,” Devon said, systematically unplugging her tools and coiling the cords.
Nate came into the kitchen from the hall where the manager’s office was located. He touched the radio on his shoulder, informing someone the lodge had just lost power.
“Anything happen down there on the road?”
“Yeah, the boom on the long reach took out the line,” a crackling voice responded. “Pretty sure the transformer kicked out, but we’re evacuating just in case. Electric company will have to come out, inspect and reset it. The detour is blocked by the machine, so the snowcat is grounded.”
“Meaning we’re all stuck here? Without power?” Glory looked around, starting a mental head count. The building had gas, but the oven had been decommissioned, not that she had much to cook. The few of them living on site were eating whatever she could throw together on a handful of hot plates, usually pasta or something out of a can. “We have this morning’s delivery of sandwiches, but not much else. We don’t have enough beds.” Or bedding. Or heat.
“Lemme talk to Rolf.” Nate disappeared back toward the office.
“We have our sled. We’re fine,” Devon said. “We’ll do what we can until the light fades.” She nodded at her crew and they got back to reframing for the new walk-in refrigerator.
Nice to be you, Glory thought, and went to find her father.
*
This sort of incompetence would put them behind a week at least. Much as they needed the road, they needed electricity even more.
Incensed, Rolf went with Nate and Trigg to inspect the damage. The old, washed-out section of road was closer to the lodge than to the main road, about a third of the way down. The equipment to start excavating for the rebuild of the road had only arrived this morning and sure enough, the elbow on the arm was still caught in the electrical line it had taken out. The pole stood at an angle.
Hoofing it back to the lodge, Rolf saw everyone had stopped working to act like it was a Sunday social. There was nothing he hated more than paying people to stand around.
He called Devon into a meeting and cut a deal with her to bring up enough fuel to use the existing snowmobiles as a shuttle service. They only had to get people to the detour where they could walk around the washout and catch the cat below it.
The rest of the afternoon was spent evacuating the lodge until only he and Trigg, the Cormers, and the geophysicist, Gerald, remained on site.
And the dog.
Rolf also had a few essentials sent up and collected them when the last of the stragglers went down.
Given a choice, Rolf would have brooded in his room the rest of the night. He was not fit company after this cock-up, but Gerald was his guest. He changed into a clean pair of jeans, checked his phone, realized the internet was down because his router was without power, and nearly pitched the piece of shit across the room.
A knock at his door had him snapping out a terse: “What.”
“Do you know how to make the gas fireplace work?”
He opened his door. She wore an extra layer and a purple knitted cap jammed over her frizzy hair. The top of her head looked like the middle of a rust-colored daisy.
“The switch on the wall doesn’t work. I guess it’s electric. I heard Trigg say there’s a manual way, but I don’t see it. Do you know? Or should I go find him?”
He desperately wanted to tell her to find his brother, but he’d already started his own fire. It would take five seconds. He walked across the hall, opened the folding glass across her fireplace, lifted the rack that held the fake log, and pointed.
“You flick that to ‘on.’” He did it. “These are really old. You should have them replaced.”
“The gas inspector said they’re still approved for use. Replacing them would be cosmetic so it’s something we’ll save for later.”
Rolf was more of a Do It Right The First Time, but he was also the guy with a downed power line causing this shit. He kept his opinion to himself and glanced around, peeved all over again that he’d let her have the best room.
His was a mirror of this one, but one of his windows looked onto the parking lot where hers overlooked the pond. She had also done what women seemed to do with any living space and dolled it up. There was an area rug with autumn leaves all over it, bedding with similar earth tones, and a photo on her night table of her with Marvin and a woman he supposed was her mother.
He
spied gutted candles on the edge of the bathtub, visible through the archway. Scented ones, maybe, because a vanilla fragrance lingered on the air. Clean and light, not unpleasant. There was a book on the floor by the tub, one with a half-naked man on the cover. Huh. Looks like she did the same thing in the tub that he did in the shower.
Not that he cared. Everyone did it, but now he was thinking about her ass again and imagined stroking himself while he prepared to take her bent over that tub. Or the end of the bed. Or how about that hassock right there?
The fantasies rushed into the flesh behind his fly, threatening a seriously powerful boner. He dragged his gaze from the furniture to the houseplant struggling to bloom on her desk. Her laptop was open to a login screen, as if she’d just started it.
The minute he turned his head that way, she moved to close it.
“Thanks.” Her smile was flat and forced, so defensive it made him lift a brow.
She held his gaze, which was hot, even though there was something nervous and culpable in the way she swallowed. What was going on in that squirrelly brain of hers? Anything like what was going on in his?
He wished he could see her nipples, which was hypocritical. He really didn’t need her entertaining fantasies about him, thinking anything could happen, but he was growing wood for real now. For her. And his inner caveman wanted evidence it wasn’t one-sided.
She dropped her gaze, hiding the reflection the firelight had put in her eyes. She licked her lips, making him aware of their shine, of the way the warm glow of the fire cast yellowy-gold across her creamy cheeks and put shots of flame in her hair.
The sexual tension was as distinct and undeniable as the hiss of the fire.
Look at me, he thought. Then, No. Don’t.
Seriously, he reminded himself. Don’t.
He walked out.
*
Glory had an active imagination. She knew she did. It might have deserted her in a fit of depression over the last year, but it was back and she couldn’t discount that.
But what the heck had happened in her room with Rolf earlier? She was no hookup artist when it came to dating, but she was no idiot either. He’d stood there in her room for no reason. The whole time, she had been hearing Trigg say, He looked at your ass.