by Dani Collins
Her ass, along with the rest of her, was decent. Not porn star spank-bank material. Her boobs were too small for that, but she did yoga and loved the elliptical at the aquatic center because she could read while she was on it. Her ass was fine. Not throaty-voiced fiiine, but it would do. Her skin was good, her legs quite nice, and her hair an acquired taste.
But who cared? This self-consciousness as a result of Trigg’s stupid comment would not do. She was irritated with herself and taking it out on her dad.
“No one told me there was other food. I thought we were having sandwiches.” She started relaying the wrapped sandwiches back into the bar fridge. “Why wasn’t I invited to the meeting where all of this was decided?”
What had started as a peeve was growing into a serious problem. Rolf kept having meetings with her father where her father agreed to things that affected her. She was informed well after the fact, if at all. Half the time, like right now, she was doing things that were redundant because she was being kept in the dark.
That’s a pun about the power outage, Dad. Get it?
“You’ve been saved a lot of work, Glory. Why are you complaining?” Her father started the burner on the camp stove that would warm the stew from Lazy Suzanne’s.
She stared at him. “Remember that time I suggested you audit some gender studies courses?”
“We have been saved a lot of work,” he corrected with an eye roll. “Set the table.”
She rolled her own eyes, but lit some tea lights from her personal stash and set them floating in a bowl of water, then placed it on a tablecloth draped over a round table.
“Romantic,” Trigg said, coming in with a wriggling-with-happiness Murphy.
“I thought I heard Nate say something about a generator,” she said.
“He’ll bring it tomorrow. Devon has one, too, but they need it to run their trailers tonight. She’ll bring it up tomorrow so they can keep working.”
All nice information Glory wished someone had thought to tell her sooner.
“No jumping,” she told the dog, and made him sit.
“Nate has a son. Did you know that, Glory?” her father asked. “He was quite anxious to get back to Haven on time.”
“Nate’s so quiet, I barely know his name.” He epitomized the strong, silent type. He was always polite, greeting her when they crossed paths and thanking her on the few occasions he’d had to ask her for something, but he kept to himself and spent a lot of time down at the base. She hadn’t spoken to him much at all. “How old?”
“Three. Showed me a picture. Cute as toes on a toad.” Marvin’s grin brightened further as Rolf and the scientist guy, Gerald, came in. “Evening, gents.”
All her senses heightened, tracking Rolf to the bar as her father invited them to enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail.
“We’re not licensed so I’ve been keeping this in my room. Whiskey, beer, and…” He consulted the label. “Bordeaux.”
A protest rose in Glory’s throat. That was from her mom’s stash. She hadn’t drunk often, especially toward the end, but when she did, she drank really good wine. Really good. The kind from the back room of Seattle’s best wine broker. The best of it was still cellared there. She’d loved to buy vintages to commemorate particular events, like making the New York Times Bestseller list.
The cases her father had put in the back seat of the SUV were all high-end enough he’d put them in special boxes to cause as little shock to the bottles as possible. Glory had thought they would save them for special occasions, like her mother’s birthday, but he was going to waste a bottle on this crowd?
No use arguing. Her father had already popped the cork to let it breathe.
Rolf had a schnapps that he had brought down from his own stash and the rest of the men had beer.
“Food smells good,” Gerald said, turning to look at her.
Wasn’t that cute. The kind stranger was hitting on the little lady by complimenting her cooking.
“Rolf gets the credit along with a woman in town who caters for us. It’s bound to be good if Suzanne made it, though.” Fuck this Bordeaux was fantastic. Took the edge off a sucky night right quick.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you to get one of those proper coffeemakers,” Rolf said to her father. “Like Suzanne’s. The kind that makes espresso.”
“Of course,” her father said magnanimously. “Glory knows all about those. She worked in a coffee shop once.”
“Oh?” Gerald was thirty-something and reasonably fit and attractive. He did nothing for her.
Glory set her back teeth and said, “Summer job during high school. All the fry-cook vacancies were filled.”
“What did you do before this?” he asked.
Oh, no thank you. She was not encouraging that line of questioning. “Worked for my mom. I’ll set the food on the bar. We’ll eat buffet style?”
They all shrugged, not caring.
Gerald didn’t let up. “What did your mom do?”
“Author. But she died.” That usually shut people up.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” He looked to Marvin.
“It was a nice secondary income,” her father said, making Glory tense up. She hated when her father talked about her mother’s career, especially when he was so fucking dismissive of it. “Glory took an interest in the promotional side. Something to keep her busy and help my wife while she was sick. Now Kathleen’s gone and we’re both ready for a change. This was a good fit. She can design our website and do all that online fandangle that seems so important for a business these days. Blogging. Chatting on the Twitterbook.”
Don’t speak for me, Glory wanted to snarl. Her father didn’t know the half of what she had done for her mom. Or what she continued to do.
At the same time, she didn’t want to speak for herself. Her father had never understood and neither would these cretins.
“What kind of books did she write?” Gerald asked “Mystery? Or…?”
No one ever guessed ‘romance.’
“Romance. Who needs a refill?” Marvin had his own sensitivities about his wife’s career and here came one of the big ones. Three, two, one…
“Romance?” Gerald’s grin grew lascivious. “I guess you had fun helping her with her research, huh? He-he.”
Cretin.
“My family are academics,” her father said with a pained smile. “I always wished Kathleen would turn her hand to literary fiction. She certainly had the talent for it. She preferred commercial fiction.” He shrugged it off with a disdainful pinch of his mouth. What can you do. Women. Amiright?
“And where would you be right now, Dad, if she had?” Oh, he infuriated her. Every. Single. Time. Her mother’s lowly career in commercial fiction had paid for this place! Why couldn’t he be proud of what her mother had achieved? What she and Glory had achieved together? All he had to do was go online, or look at the fucking bank balance, but no. It was their girly little hobby that took up his wife’s time and ate up his little girl’s attention besides.
He gave her a scolding look that asked her not to air their dirty laundry in front of company. There was a familiar, flat weariness behind it, as well.
Her mother had always said her career was a bone of contention between the two of them, not something Glory should worry about or try to change, but her father’s attitude was one of the biggest reasons Glory felt this rift between them now, the one he was trying to bridge by dragging her into his big dream.
It was why she couldn’t tell him she had edited—contributed—huge chunks of her mother’s books. Her mother had always wanted to credit Glory and aside from a footnote here or there, she had always refused, terrified of another public shaming. Terrified her father would express fake pride and offer backhanded compliments the way he did with his wife.
That’s why she couldn’t tell him or anyone else that she was writing a fresh story she intended to publish under her mother’s name.
Even though the secret was burning a hole in her chest.
She let them talk around her, eating like it was a first date. She’d had loads more of those than second ones. Take small bites, smile politely on cue. It was a familiar dynamic, feeling left out no matter how many people she was with. Her parents had always been the only real friends she had, but now her mother was gone and her father was making new friends.
As everyone finished eating, she considered whether clearing the table and washing the dishes reinforced stereotypes if she genuinely wanted to do it. She needed a reason to get away from the heat coming off of Rolf. Maybe it was just her internal furnace fueled by red wine. She couldn’t tell. Either way it was distracting.
Before she could decide, Trigg absently started to lower his plate of scraps to the floor, keeping up with his story as he did.
“Oh, no,” she said firmly, shooting to her feet and around the table, grabbing the plate before the dog’s nose had touched it. “No,” she said again, looking Trigg in the eye while using the same tone she would use on the dog. “You are not teaching him to eat food in here, off of guest plates. Nope, nope, nope.”
Trigg sat back, tongue touching his bottom lip, expression lazily amused, but she could see he didn’t love being taken to task in front of everyone. She’d done the math earlier when he’d told her the age difference between him and Rolf. Trigg was two years older than her, twenty-eight. Mentally, he was an adolescent, though.
“Hear that, Murph? Mom said, ‘no.’” He shifted in his seat and sent a sidelong look at Rolf.
“I am saying, ‘no,’” she muttered, shooting Trigg a look of significant warning. It was embarrassing as hell and left silence at the table as she walked away, but she would be damned if she would let him get away with acting as though they were sleeping together. Nope, nope, nope.
After a moment, her father cleared his throat and said, “I think there was some kind of dessert. Do you see anything, Glory?”
She took the cheesecake to the table, collected the rest of the dirty dishes, and washed them alone behind the bar.
“I’m going up,” she said when there was a break in conversation and she was drying her hands.
“It’s early.” Her father looked at his watch. “What are you going to do?”
“Read,” she lied. Her tablet had a full charge, but so did her laptop. “Goodnight.”
BLESSED WINTER – Chapter One (Cont’d)
Page 19, word count = 4912
If it had been possible, Pandora would have asked a co-worker to take his order, but it was far too busy. Now they’d made eye contact, she had no choice. She approached his table and set down a blank coaster.
“Hi Brock. What can I get you?”
He parted his lips, but nothing came out for two of her strained heartbeats.
He waved at her belly. “Holy f—”
“No. But you’re not the first to suggest that.” She smirked as if she was fine with her pregnancy being treated as a joke. She wasn’t. She was terrified. So scared of becoming a mother, let alone a single one. What if she got desperate and turned out like her own? What if her baby loved her in a beleaguered, responsible sort of way, but didn’t particularly like her, the way she felt toward her own mother?
Every single day, she acted like she was this glowing epitome of motherhood, serene in her pregnancy. She desperately wished she could say she was happy about the baby. She knew she wanted it. She was quite convinced that, in the long term, she would never regret having it. She already loved her baby, but there was far too much uncertainty for her to call herself ‘happy.’ And there was far was too much judgment from co-workers and regulars to be honest about her fears and insecurities.
Heck, most people believed her boyfriend was just out of town, not kicked out of her life even before he said, “You’re not going to have it, are you?”
She had lied to him, saying, “No, I’m not. Don’t worry about it.” He had moved to Nashville and she had put him behind her. More or less.
So much subterfuge as she patted where her navel had become an outie and smiled brightly, saying, “I just swallowed one too many watermelon seeds. Beer? Or…?”
Brock rubbed the clean-shaven edge of his jaw. A wary tension twitched at the edges of his eyes. His gaze caught hers and locked her into a stare that made her stomach feel like it was doing somersaults.
“Did you get a new phone? Because you had my number.” His voice was a deep, dangerous growl.
Someone tried to squeeze past her, but with this rotunda for a waistline, she couldn’t go anywhere. She wound up pressing her belly into Brock’s side and felt him stiffen at the contact.
She straightened away as quickly as she could, casting a grimace over her shoulder before saying, “There was no need to contact you.”
Brock’s expression hardened. “I’m a computer engineer, Pandora. That means I’m a math whiz.” He held up his hand and counted off his fingers. “December, November, October…” When he got to nine fingers, he said, “April.” The month of their tryst.
“I was pregnant when I slept with you. I just didn’t know it yet.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“It’s true.” She could see his skepticism so she leaned in, tearing the rest of that bandage clean off, even though it took the protective shell from her heart with it, leaving her throbbing and raw. “When I found out he cheated, I wanted to be checked for, you know. Things. The pregnancy test was a routine part of that. It was the only thing that came back positive,” she added, figuring he’d like to know she was clean. At least she’d had that silver lining.
“You’re talking about your ex? The musician? The one—Are you two back together?”
“No,” she said flatly. “So, beer?”
“And the chicken burger.”
She nodded and felt his gaze on her back as she walked away.
~ * ~
Brock couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t sure if he should believe it.
He checked the time while he ate. He should get on the road if he wanted to make it back to L.A. without falling asleep at the wheel, but he couldn’t leave. Not until he’d talked this out more thoroughly with Pandora.
He nursed another beer while the band played another set. He wanted something stronger—wanted desperately to get hammered—but he might yet have to drive. He combed through some online apps, but found no vacancies, even when he looked for crap accommodation like airbeds and vans. Then he went through his contacts, looking for someone with a sofa he could surf. Nothing felt right.
He was too keyed up to talk to old friends anyway. His brain was popping like fireworks over Pandora’s pregnancy. There was no way he could act like he was excited to see anyone. Act happy that it was Christmas. He wasn’t happy. He was feeling boxed in the nuggets. If he talked to anyone, it would be his brother and even that didn’t feel right unless it was face to face, over a beer.
It struck him that he’d never been alone on Christmas. He had always spent it with his family. This year would have been his first with Karen and he’d only said yes to going away with her because…
He picked at the label on his beer bottle, aware that he was in danger of brooding.
He had wanted things to work with Karen because he was already feeling left behind. His big brother had married last year and they’d had a son three months ago.
What if he had a son? One Pandora didn’t even want him to know about?
That thought jabbed a burning streak of lightning through his chest, taking his breath before he pulled back from the ledge and made himself breathe again.
Finally, the tavern began to empty out. Pandora came by with weariness in her eyes. “Last call.”
He handed over his empty and said, “I
’m good. But I need a place to stay.”
“You’re not at your parents’?”
“They rented out the house and went to Hawaii.”
“Oh. Um, I don’t know.” She blew out a breath that wafted the fine hairs framing her cheekbones, looking around as though scanning for someone she could ask. “I’m pretty sure the whole town is at capacity, especially with it snowing. Did you try—Oh, no,” she said as she glanced back and read his expression. “Don’t look at me like that. Brock.” She waved at her front. “I’m not taking you home with me.”
“We need to talk, Pandora.”
“Do you honestly think I’m going to want to talk after a night like this? No, I’m going straight to bed. If you want to call me on Monday afternoon, I might have enough energy to repeat what I’ve already said, but not tonight. I’ll ask at the bar, see if anyone has a sofa you can crash on.”
Half an hour later, she hadn’t come back with any offers. The lights were up and the last of the empties were being collected. Pandora sat to cash out at the bar and the bartender called over, “Sorry, buddy. We gotta close up.”
Brock reluctantly stood, eyes stuck to Pandora’s falling hair and narrow back.
She looked over her shoulder at him.
“You hear of anything?” he asked her. “If not, I’m sleeping in my car.” He wasn’t playing for sympathy. It was the truth.
Her spine softened. “He’s with me,” she said heavily, then said to Brock, “I’ll be fifteen minutes.”
She split her tips, declined a nightcap with the staff, wished everyone a Merry Christmas and asked Brock, “Do you want to come in my car? Parking is the pits at my place right now with all the snow.”
Since he had been planning to stay at his parents’ cottage, he had luggage. He transferred it into her rattle-trap hatchback, but she didn’t want him moving her seat, so she drove.
It was snowing hard, making the short drive take a lot longer than it should have. She rolled into a spot thick with a foot of fresh snow next to the mechanic’s garage she lived above. By the time he got his duffel out of the back and onto his shoulder, she was knocking snow off the treads of the stairs with a broom. Flakes were collecting in a fine layer on the knitted hat she wore.