by Dani Collins
“I’ll do it,” he said, coming up behind her.
“It’s fine. I do this all the—”
The idea of her doing this at all struck terror into his heart. He took the broom and carefully moved around her so he could clear the steps for her slow climb behind him. At least she had one hand on the rail now. He cleared the landing so she could open the screen door and get her key in the lock.
They brushed the snow off each other and stomped their boots beneath the overhang, then stepped inside to set them on the tray beside the door.
As he turned from hanging his jacket, he saw she had decorated for Christmas. A tree stood where the guitars had been last spring. It was a fake tree, tiny, with a handful of ornaments and two unwrapped gifts on the red skirt beneath.
The light over the sink was on, but Pandora didn’t turn on any other lights. She crossed to plug in the tree so it glowed with pink and purple and blue bulbs. Then she plugged in the string of white pin lights that framed the window.
“Do you mind? I like these better,” she said with a sheepish shrug.
“Of course.” It was pretty. Soothing. “How else will Santa find you?”
She made a noise in her throat and said, “Must be on his naughty list. He never shows, no matter how many cookies I leave for him.”
“Do you have plans for tomorrow?” How had that not occurred to him? He hadn’t wanted to intrude on the family time of neighbors and old friends, but had blithely inserted himself into her home on Christmas Eve.
Because he wanted to know whether that was his child, even though she maintained it wasn’t.
“My plans are to sleep in.” She smiled and rubbed her back, then the side of her belly, profile glowing in the muted light. “Then watch Christmas movies and knit.”
“You’re a knitter?” That didn’t fit at all with who she had become in his mind. “What about dinner? Friends? Family?”
“One of the girls at work invited me to her orphan’s lunch, but they’ll all be drinking and I’m peopled out. It’s been crazy at work and I’ve been taking extra shifts to pad my time off. Do you want tea? I like an herbal one before bed.”
“Sure. Whatever you’re having. But what about your mom?” He moved out of the way so she could move into the kitchen. “You’re not going to see her?” She had said something in the spring about not seeing much of her mother, but it was Christmas.
“Not an option,” she said cryptically, filling the kettle and pressing the button. “Why didn’t you go away with your family?”
“My—She’s my ex-girlfriend now. I was supposed to go to Mexico with her family.” He scratched his hair. “My parents are coming back for New Year’s Eve. I thought I’d come up and ski until they get here. Forgot the house was rented, though.”
“You’re fresh off a breakup?” She moved to a linen closet next to her bedroom door.
“More like we finally ended things officially after a slow start and a long wind-down. We weren’t really…”
The spark had been absent. If he hadn’t known what that spark was, he probably wouldn’t have noticed, but he knew. He was feeling it right now. Something in him was bright and alive, but relaxed at the same time. At ease after a nameless tension had gripped him for months.
“The fact I’m not nursing a broken heart is the reason it’s better we ended it.” He’d been more worked up over the way Pandora had stopped answering his texts. “You could have said something, you know. I called your work to make sure nothing had happened to you.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you, but this is literally about me, not you,” she said dryly, pulling blankets from a shelf and hugging them. “What was I going to say? Ask if you wanted to give things a go anyway? We barely know each other. I didn’t want to put such a heavy decision on you and I didn’t want to hear that you weren’t interested in my problems when it’s a huge life-changer for me. This is a lot to process.” She circled her belly with her finger. “Even without bringing a man’s feelings into it, a man who didn’t even make this happen. I didn’t know what to say. By the time I could even think, it was too late to ask you if you wanted to be part of it.” She left the blankets on the arm of the sofa. “I’m going to have a quick shower. I always feel sticky after work.”
He poured the tea while she was in the bathroom and glanced at the gifts beneath the tree. One was a pre-packaged collection of baby product samples, the kind of gift acquaintances bought when they wanted to make a gesture, but didn’t know the person well. The other was European cookies in a fancy tin. It was another gesture, since the business card taped to the lid had the same logo as the garage below this apartment.
A swerving sensation hit his chest as he stared at those two measly, impersonal gifts. What had she said about Santa? The old fart still managed to track him down. His mother had gone to the trouble of mailing gifts, even though he had planned to leave them in his apartment until he got back from Mexico. He had shoved them in his duffel on his way out the door to come here along with a few things he’d picked up for his own family, thinking they could have a belated exchange on New Year’s Eve.
Now he was wondering if he would still be here in Tahoe. Pandora was right. This was a lot to process. At no time in his life had he consciously imagined taking up with a woman who had a kid by another man. That was something his divorced friends did, not that there was anything wrong with it, but he came from a nuclear family. He gravitated to thinking that’s how his own life should look.
Which meant it wasn’t fair to lead Pandora on for even a minute if he couldn’t countenance that baby not being his.
He rubbed his face, not one to spend a lot of time soul-searching, exploring his feelings, but he had liked her. He’d been more than peeved at her rejection. He’d been hurt. He had thought they had something. The way she had cut him off had contributed to him starting a poorly thought through affair with his co-worker.
He combed his fingers through his hair, impatient with himself as he realized how juvenile that had been. He’d been young and stupid once, but liked to think he’d grown up in the last few years. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
Maybe that’s why Pandora hadn’t seen him as father material. She hadn’t been sparing him so much as herself.
She was clean-faced and dewy when she came out of the bathroom, hair in a towel, a thick robe knotted over her bulging middle. The yellow neckline of a nightgown showed between the lapels.
He brought her tea over to her as she curled into the corner of the sofa with a sigh. “Thank you.” She cupped the warm mug and stared at the tree.
They sat in companionable silence while snow fell beyond the window.
“I love Christmas lights. I had them in my room when I was little, all year.”
“Before your dad died?”
“Mmm.” She sipped, then smiled. “Nostalgia trigger, I guess. Happier times.” She gave a surprised little wince and touched her belly.
“Are you going into labor?” He went from zero to panic in a heartbeat.
“No.” She chuckled. “Just a kick. Do you want to feel?” she asked tentatively. “You don’t have to. Some people like it. Some think it’s gross.”
“It’s not gross. It’s cool.” He reached across and she moved his hand over the terry of her robe until he felt the nudge against his palm. It made the hairs stand up on his forearm. “My sister-in-law was pregnant last year. My brother has always been super possessive of her, but all of a sudden he was like, ‘Dude. Come touch my wife.’ Made me laugh. She was a sport about it.”
Amber’s delivery had turned into an emergency caesarian, Brock recalled. He sobered. “Are you worried about the labor?”
“Terrified,” Pandora said with self-deprecation, but an underlying honesty that made protectiveness well within him. Helpless protectiveness. What the hell could he do about it?
“I’m sure it will be fine,” he lied.
“Other women do it every day,” she agreed. “Then go back to work
ing in the rice paddies, right? As if.” She interrupted herself with a big yawn. “I’m sorry. I have to go to bed or I’ll pass out right here.” She rose and took his empty mug to the sink with her own. “Good night, Brock. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
Chapter Seven
“No. You’re not coming in.”
Rolf set down the electric razor he’d been using to clean up the edges of his beard, cocking his head as he heard Glory in the hall.
“I said no. You’re not getting any. Get lost.”
If that asshat dirt scientist was trying to—
He strode across his room and snapped open his door.
Glory had a coffee mug in one hand, a plate in the other, and was trying to keep Trigg’s dog from following her into her room. She wore pajamas beneath one of her oversized cardigans. It had fallen open so he could see the snug leggings in shades of blue and gray with white snowflakes. They clung across her hips and down her lithe thighs to outline the curve of her calves. Her matching top had three buttons that drew the eye to where the ribbed material cupped the soft mounds of her braless breasts. Her hair was out of its clip more than in, her feet stuffed into sheepskin boots.
“Can you grab him?”
He snapped his fingers and pointed at the floor beside his door. Then he swallowed. His mouth was watering. His morning wood returned with a vengeance, protesting the restriction of his jeans.
The dopey dog turned a few circles, trying to decide if he wanted to obey Rolf or beg from Glory. Her gaze tracked the dog as he paced toward Rolf, struck Rolf’s crotch, then swung away.
Her eyes bulged and she blushed bright red.
“Thanks.” She started to turn and elbow her door closed, but the dog quickly followed, goosing her with his nose. “Oh, come on,” she muttered, jerking back from the coffee that sloshed as she reacted with a jolt.
“Sit.” Rolf crossed to make the dog do as he said, which put him in the aroma of fresh coffee and cinnamon toast surrounding Glory. Good coffee along with an earthy, feminine scent that made him think of waking up in tangled sheets that weren’t his own.
What the hell was this woman doing to him?
“How do you have coffee?” He heard a gruff strain in his tone as he tried to ignore his body’s reaction. “The machine is electric.” And the coffee from it vile.
“I boiled water on the camp stove and ran it through the filter on my drip brewer. I’d hurry if I were you. It was going fast.” She avoided his gaze, cheeks still pink beneath the red-gold ripples of her hair.
He noticed her nipples were standing up beneath the fabric of her top. His cock strained harder.
“You have a personal coffeemaker?” He knew he had smelled coffee up here in the mornings. It had made that swamp water downstairs even less tolerable.
“Yeah. Thanks.” She nodded at the dog and used her knee to close her door on them.
The dog whined and pawed at the crack.
Rolf crossed to shut his own door, then urged the dog to come with him downstairs. He could already hear typing coming from Glory’s room. He often heard her doing that in the mornings. She’d been typing last night, when she had said she was coming up to read.
Last night, Marvin had made it sound like Glory spent a lot of time in chat rooms, flogging her mother’s books. No wonder the old man was trying to get her working a real job.
It wasn’t his place to interfere, obviously, but Rolf had a lot of requests he’d held off making because he’d thought the two of them had their hands full. If she had nothing but time, however, he’d be happy to fill it.
*
“Rolf is bringing in weights and other equipment from Wikinger. He’s supplying it no charge, but wants a gym sooner than later. I said we could swing Devon’s crew from the laundry to fixing up storage room downstairs. Apparently, it needs a special floor.”
“No. Dad. I need a washer and dryer on site.” She had lugged bedding and linens to the laundromat in Haven twice now. She wasn’t doing it again.
“The road will be open tomorrow. You’ll be able to get your car all the way up here. It won’t be such a chore to take everything into town.”
“It won’t be a chore at all if Rolf does his workouts in Haven and Devon finishes the laundry room.”
“He wants to work out here. He’s the customer,” he reminded her. “And this way we have an amenity that costs us next to nothing to put in.”
How could she argue when her father was getting a ‘deal’?
That was Monday. On Tuesday, Rolf sent her an email that said, “My room needs attention.”
She shot back a response that she was hoping to hire a housekeeper to start this weekend. He went to her father with his request to have the dog hair vacuumed off his floor and his sink rinsed.
“Can you give his room a spit-polish?” her father said with a pained frown when she tried to put him off. “We’re going to have another six rooms filled once that road opens. That’ll pay for the housekeeper and the cook. Keep him happy, would you?”
That was the problem. No matter what she did, Rolf wasn’t happy. She imagined that all her little stresses were nothing compared to the money he was throwing away on generators and flying in people who couldn’t work because snow fell as often as it started to melt. The weather was downright bipolar and she’d heard him growling at someone about something that was backordered, so maybe he was entitled to be owly.
He didn’t have to take it out on her, though.
She was taking it personally because she had thought—oh, hell, she didn’t know what she thought. Trigg had made that stupid remark about Rolf looking at her butt and put ideas into her head. Then Rolf had had a giant Woodrow the morning after the power outage. She wasn’t all about huge dicks, but had to admit she’d been more intrigued than offended, if embarrassed as hell for noticing.
She was attracted to Rolf. Couldn’t help it. He was a bear of a man. A lion with a thorn. An arrogant alpha male who acted like he owned the place, but she found that kind of fascinating. The writer in her did. She kept trying to tell herself that’s all it was—a character study.
But for some stupid reason, she kind of wanted him to notice her. To respect her. In her mind, they were, if not equals, at least walking parallel paths. They were both trying to eat an elephant one bite at a time. She was willing to do what she could to support him in his big project. She wanted that same regard from him. Appreciation. A shred of acknowledgment.
He barely noticed her. When he did speak to her, he treated her like the hired help. “Do you have bags for personal laundry? I want to add mine to the bedding going to the laundromat.”
He really expected her to fold his shorts?
He’s our guest, she could hear her father saying, and forced her warmest smile. “I’ll find you one.”
‘Kill him with kindness’ became her motto. Maybe it bordered on passive-aggressive, but more flies with honey and all that. She set aside his favorite sandwich and drew a happy face on the sticky note that said, “Please approve these expenses.” She also fed and walked the dog now that Trigg was gone, keeping an eye on him more often than Rolf did. He only took Murphy at night, or when he went to the base of the mountain where, rumor had it, they were trying to clear out debris and burn down the slash.
She cleaned his room herself and left a chocolate on his freaking pillow.
All the while, she tracked the ever-increasing expenses on the lodge renovation as well as issued payroll to the ever-increasing staff. She hired kitchen and housekeeping help only to have the cook quit so she could start the process all over again. She answered Devon’s hourly, “What do you want to do here?” inquiries and forced a smile whenever her father said, “Glory can help you with that.”
She drove into Haven every second day, it seemed, picking up whatever was needed.
In between all of that, she ran a promotion on two of her mother’s books, one of which didn’t move the dial, which dishear
tened her. She also updated three books with fresh back matter, then revised the drip campaign and scheduled some blog posts and other social media.
The momentum on sales and income had plateaued after her mother’s death and was now officially declining. That worried her, especially since she wasn’t making much progress on a fresh title. The one morning she felt caught up and thought she could finally settle into writing for a few hours, the frigging espresso maker arrived.
She almost screamed. Especially when Rolf stood over her as she put it together, reading the instructions and telling her what to do seconds before she started to do it. She bit her tongue, got it operating, then made six crappy cups of coffee before she got the hang of it.
He had walked away by that time, grumbling over the ‘swamp water’ she had given him.
The busy days began to take a toll. She knew she was getting burned out, not sleeping enough. She kept thinking things would settle down soon, but more people kept arriving on site, especially now the road was open. People showed up just to look around. They expected lunch in the dining room and it wasn’t even licensed. It was operating as a camp kitchen for staff, with buffet-style meals and punch cards.
She was brittle as an autumn leaf when she woke to a dreary day of low skies. Her period arrived and yes, that was more freaking snow. People from across the country were posting lilacs and apple blossoms. College kids in Florida were already home from Spring Break, tans fading. How was it still snowing here?
“That’s why this is the perfect location for a ski hill, Glory dear,” her father said when she knocked on his door, hoping to catch him before he went into the dining room. His room was a mini apartment on the ground floor, past the manager’s office and across from the kitchen. His kitchenette was torn out, his private living room an empty space of bare subfloor. He sat on the edge of his bed to tug on his black socks. “Otherwise this would be a water skiing resort.”