by Dani Collins
Have at her, he almost said, but bit it back, not sure why.
“This is a workplace. Use your inside words.” That was why. He didn’t need the complication of an affair with someone he saw every day and sure as hell didn’t need his brother shitting where they lived.
“Be honest.” Trigg folded his arms and leaned on the doorjamb. “Was it bothering you that I was starting to win? Is that why you had to jump all over this and start acting like my boss? Keep me in my place?”
That took him by surprise. Rolf set down his pen and leaned back. “I want you to win. It makes Wikinger look good.”
Trigg choked on a humorless laugh. “So you’re doing this—” he nodded at Rolf’s desk “—because you don’t trust me to do it right? And by ‘right,’ I mean ‘your way?’”
“You’re not even here. You’re training and competing.” And Rolf needed something more meaningful in his life. That particular truth sat crookedly inside him, causing him to add in a mutter, “And yes, my way is the right way.”
Trigg snorted again. “You know what Devon just said? That you take brutal honesty to a new level.”
“Champions don’t stop at good enough,” he drawled.
…a prick who goes out of his way to make me feel shitty about myself.
He ignored the graveled sensation inside his chest. “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to build a world-class ski resort. What are you here for?”
“To spend quality time with my big bro. Obviously. Is this allowed in the workplace?” He flipped Rolf the bird. “One? Two?” He turned the finger on each hand up and down like needles on a volume knob.
“Check how much dog food is left. Make sure you buy the good kind. He damned near asphyxiated us all the other day.” Rolf picked up his pen in deliberate dismissal.
Chapter Nine
BLESSED WINTER – Chapter Two
Page 26, word count = 6334
Brock was two feet too long for the sofa, so he wasn’t sleeping very deeply when he realized Pandora was tiptoeing around him to the end table.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
“I didn’t mean to wake you. Sorry.” She picked up a book.
“Can’t sleep ’cause it’s Christmas?” he teased.
“No, I—I might be in labor. I wanted to read—”
“What?” He sat up, throwing his blanket off and clicking the lamp above him.
Nothing happened.
“I unplugged it so I could plug in the Christmas lights. It’s okay,” she whispered, sounding just like a mom. “Go back to sleep. I’ll take this to my room.
“Did your water break?” He rose and bent to fill the room with the glow of pink and blue by plugging in the tree. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. Was it the colored lights? Or did she look pale and anxious?
Adrenaline put him on high alert, the way he got when he was playing paintball. Only this was worse. Way worse. There was no way to tell which direction the shot might come or how much it might sting. His hands were clammy and cold, his chest tight.
“No. I just have this weird backache coming and going. I thought it might be the start of contractions.” She bit the corner of her lip and looked to him like he should be able to tell her, one way or the other.
He touched her elbow and sat down with her. “So, your water didn’t break.” It was the only sign of labor he knew and came from every sitcom he’d ever watched. That, and the guy was supposed to time the contractions. Why? Three minutes apart was a thing, wasn’t it?
Was he seriously panicking like every twit in front of a live audience? Get a grip, tool. He had taken basic first aid. Assess the situation.
Actually, the first step was to ensure no danger to himself. Good Samaritans were supposed to avoid killing themselves while trying to pull strangers free of burning cars and gas leaks in confined spaces.
There was no risk of electrocution or suffocation here, but threat hovered. What if he had to deliver her baby? What if it didn’t go well? Neither of them would recover from that.
“I’m just going to see what it says.” She looked at him like she wanted his permission.
“Yeah. ’Course.” Great idea. Fuck. Grab a brain, he told himself.
She nodded and opened the book.
He slid close to read at the same time. His sister-in-law had had a book like this. There’d been a single page of bullet points for the expectant father, very telling of a man’s inability to read more than two pages unless it related to repairs on something expensive. Terrance had summed it up as, It tells you to shut up and do as you’re told. Like I didn’t learn that while planning the wedding. Amber had yelled, Hey, from the kitchen.
Things had gone awry for Amber. She had needed an emergency caesarian section and his brother still grew tense when he talked about the delivery.
Brock rubbed his face, trying to dissolve any reflection of worry so Pandora wouldn’t see it. Looking down, he read that, yes, three to five minutes apart meant it was time to go to the hospital.
“Sharp pains?” he read.
“No. Dull. Like a period. You know what that feels like?” She sent a weak smile his way.
“Totally. What about…?” Some of the other symptoms were kind of personal. “Um, blood?”
“No.”
“But you’re shivering,” he noted, and gathered the blanket he’d been sleeping under. He draped it around her shoulders. “Do you want me to get your robe?” Her nightgown left her arms and collarbone bare. He had been sleeping in his boxers, which left him half-naked, but he was plenty warm and tried to transfer some of that heat into her by snuggling her into his side. It wasn’t meant to be a pass and he begged the twitch between his legs to stay at a sleepy shift and not decide it was time to get up.
“I don’t feel cold. Just…keyed up.” She leaned her head into the hollow of his shoulder, as if she needed the comfort. Scared, maybe. Probably. He was. He rubbed her arm as he reviewed the rest of the symptoms.
“How often do you think they’ve been happening. How long are they?”
“I don’t know. My back always gets tired by the end of the night. I just woke up and realized this feeling has been coming and going all evening, but it wasn’t this strong. I haven’t had one since I’ve been out here, though.”
“No pain right now?”
“Right.” Her gaze tracked the room from the bookshelf to the ceiling to the far wall as her concentration turned inward. “Nothing,” she said more firmly.
“False labor?”
“Maybe.” She brightened, latching on to that idea. Tension returned quickly to her eyes. She bit her lip and her brow pulled. “But delivery can’t be put off indefinitely, can it?”
“Maybe we should go to the hospital, get you checked out.”
“It’s Christmas. I don’t want to call out my doctor unless I’m sure.” She gave him a helpless look. “I don’t want to get dressed and go out in that—” she nodded at where the snow was thick against the corner of the window “—unless I’m sure.”
“Fair enough, but my sister-in-law’s friend delivered really fast. Barely made it to the hospital.” That was why Terrance had been so blindsided by Amber’s complications. They’d both believed it would be textbook. “What if—”
“I think one is starting. Check the time.”
He glanced at the time on his phone, then switched to the timer function.
After less than a minute, she said, “Okay, it’s gone.”
“Maybe we should write these down.”
She moved to get a notepad and pen and made neat headings for time and duration.
It occurred to him this could go on for hours. He’d got the first text that Amber was going to the hospital in mid-morning and it had been after dinner the next day before she had delivered. Pandora was probably right to spend as much time as she could at home where she was comfortable.
He thought about calling his brother for advice, but what would Terrance even say? Go
to the hospital, most likely.
“Where’s the midwife for the midwife?” he asked facetiously.
She snickered and turned to the section for expectant fathers.
“Okay. Helpful.” He scanned the list. “Should I call your doctor? Your mom?”
“She doesn’t know I’m pregnant,” she admitted in a low voice.
Wow. That wasn’t a strained relationship. It was estranged. “What about the, uh, baby’s father?”
“I told him I was doing this myself. He’s probably performing or partying. He wouldn’t care anyway.”
“Pandora—”
“I’m sorry, Brock. It’s not yours. If it was, I would tell you.” She looked sincere and, even more troubling, apologetic. Like she wished it was.
He didn’t want to believe her. His mother was a retired grief counselor and always said the stages of loss weren’t reserved for death. Any loss could do it, if the expectations had been high enough.
That’s why he’d been sitting in that pub all evening, stewing, doing math, trying to work out—bargain—his way into being the father of this baby. He didn’t want to accept that it wasn’t his.
Why not? He wasn’t prepared to be a dad. Not mentally. Financially he could probably swing it, but he didn’t feel mature enough to sit with her while she was in labor, let alone coach her through delivery then twenty years of child rearing.
As she had pointed out earlier, they barely knew each other. There was no reason he should be so conflicted about this.
“If you want to leave, I’ll understand.” She pulled the blanket tighter around her, brow scrunching.
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. “What are you going to do if this is real labor?”
“Go to the hospital.”
“Drive yourself?” He thought about the heavy snow he had swept off her back steps. “I wouldn’t even trust myself to drive you. No. You want ambulance attendants to come so they’re right there if you don’t get to the hospital in time.”
“Cheery,” she muttered.
“I didn’t mean—”
*
“You should have told me!”
The female voice, raised in anger, dragged Glory out of her story. She was at Lazy Suzanne’s in Haven, not in Pandora’s cozy but modest apartment in Tahoe. Was it an apartment? She hadn’t decided exactly where her heroine was living. Apartment buildings meant at least a few helpful neighbors. She wanted her to be more isolated, so she would have to depend on Brock.
“It’s not the sort of news you deliver over the phone, is it? That’s why I told you to come home,” another woman hissed.
They were in the back of the bakery. Suzanne had been here when Glory arrived, greeting her by name and bringing her a coffee and a scone. Another woman had been behind the counter, a blonde. She looked so much like Suzanne, Glory had assumed she was the wayward daughter.
“I would have come sooner if you had told me the truth, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you?” Oh, that was some bitter disdain, served over ice.
Glory glanced around. The handful of other patrons were further away and maybe couldn’t hear. A couple of seniors were chatting quilting squares and a fifty-ish man was sipping coffee, reading what Glory now knew was Haven’s weekly Gazette.
“I can’t even look at you right now.”
“What does that mean? That you’re not going to help with these dishes? Or that this is all too much for your free spirit to handle and you’re going to have to run away and find yourself again? There’s a surprise.”
“I have to find a place to live, don’t I? And go back to Austin to pack my stuff.”
“You didn’t bring it with you? I knew it! Dad practically begs you to come home—”
“Ordered.”
“But you thought you could dance in here for a weekend, show your pretty face and G.T.F.O. again.”
“Mom’s not here. You can say, ‘fuck.’”
“Yeah, don’t worry about the early talker over there. Thanks.”
“Oh. Sorry, Zuzu.”
“Can I have another cookie?” a sweet young voice asked.
“Not right n—”
“Sure, honey.” The voices overrode each other.
“Oh, by all means. Let Auntie Eden ruin your dinner.”
“That means, ‘yes,’ but that we have to share it.”
A blistering silence commenced while a gorgeous little girl appeared behind the glass counter. She jabbed her finger into the icing on a cupcake and licked it while glancing back toward the kitchen. Then she used two hands to gather up a cookie the size of a dinner plate, covered with white icing and colored sprinkles.
“Are you staying with Mom and Dad or…?” the voice in the kitchen prompted.
“Ha. You’re cute. No. I’m having a sleepover with Zuzu tonight. Can I? Pleeeze, Zubitty-zu? I missed you so much!” A young woman with blue streaks in her choppy, brunette bob rushed out from the kitchen to gather up the little girl. The young woman had a pierced eyebrow, a tattoo on the side of her neck, and wore a sleeveless jean vest over a white tank top.
“Yes!” the girl cried, letting her head bobble all silly like a ragdoll. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“We’ll go visit Nana and Pop so your mom and dad can have some alone time. I think they need it,” she said, making a goggle-eyed face at the little girl.
“Would you like me to tell you who I think needs to get f—?” The other woman cut herself off as she came out to give her sister a smile ripe with the curse she’d skipped.
“And you blame me for the language she picks up? Bite, please.”
The little girl offered the edge of the cookie to her aunt.
Glory flicked to her ‘ideas’ folder and wrote, woman who gave her baby to her sister. Then she made a note to go back and put blue streaks in Pandora’s hair. She would think about the tattoo and piercings.
The girl offered the cookie to her mom and the blonde took a bite, too. They all chewed, smiling at each other. The blonde sobered as she looked at her sister.
“I’m not happy, either,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “Dex is very unthrilled about moving back here, but…” She flicked a hand to indicate the girl.
The little girl curled her arm trustingly around her aunt’s neck and rested her head on her shoulder. She blinked big blue eyes up at her mom. “I love Auntie Eden.”
“I know, baby. That’s why we’re all moving back to Haven: ’cause we love each other and want to be together.”
An uncomfortable squiggle of premonition went through Glory’s middle, but the bells on the door jangled. She glanced over to see the mechanic, Jimmy, who had been working on her car coming into the shop.
Her hatchback was due for a service, so she’d had him check the battery as well. He came highly recommended by a couple of locals who worked at the lodge, but he was about six foot six, three hundred pounds, and scary as hell with that unsmiling face. Although, he seemed to be missing a few teeth, so maybe that’s why he didn’t smile.
“Your car is ready,” he told Glory. “Let me grab a coffee, then you can come over and settle up.”
“Thanks.” Glory started to pack up.
“Hey, Eden. I didn’t know you were in town,” he said as she put down the little girl and straightened to take his order.
“Just got here, but hey—talk about good timing. Is anyone renting your mom’s old flat above your garage?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Me.”
“If it’s you, then it’s available. Lotta weirdos in town lately, speaking German and shit. Double-shot, please, Candy.”
“She’s not a weirdo?” the blonde asked. “With the hair and the tats and piercings?”
“At least I know what kind of weirdo I’m getting. I thought you were marrying some music producer? That’s what your mom said.”
“Mom is starting rumors about me before I’ve even moved back here. No, I was living with a guy who manages a couple o
f bands. He did ask me to marry him right before he went on the road. I said, ‘no,’ and we broke up.”
“Dex will be bummed,” Candy said over her shoulder. “He likes Pryce.”
“Dex likes free tickets.”
“Dex is not a complicated man.”
“Amen to that,” Eden said, earning a narrow-eyed glare from her sister.
Glory liked the idea of a boyfriend on the road. A musician might work better, though. They had groupies and a reputation for being horn-dogs. She made another note then packed up and followed the mechanic across the road.
She had to keep herself from skipping with happiness as she went. All in all, a really productive writing session.
*
Rolf didn’t care how many sideways looks he got. People could stare and catcall and insult him and he could still focus on not dying while hurtling himself down a slope at a hundred miles an hour.
When you consistently won, which he had, people grew resentful and jealous. They talked smack behind your back and refused to speak to your face. He’d seen it all and none of it got inside his head.
So the way Glory was acting shouldn’t even be hitting his radar.
But he noticed. Which bothered him almost as much as her reaction itself.
She wasn’t rude, but she avoided him. If he came into the fitness room when she was mid-pose, she quietly exhaled, turned off her music, and walked out. She sent emails rather than speak to him face to face. Any communication from her stayed very much on point. If he asked her a direct question, she responded in the shortest number of syllables possible, usually “’kay.” If a more complex discussion was required, she got her father involved, leaving Marvin to work out the fine points while she moved on to other things.
At one point, Rolf tried to clear the air by saying, “If you want an apology—”
“I don’t.” She had met his gaze for one grim second. “You were being honest. So was I.”
Right. Fuck you and your brother’s dog, too.
He shouldn’t expect her to still smile at him after that and she didn’t. In fact, if she happened to be laughing with someone when he walked into a room, her smile grew forced as she wrapped up her conversation and made an excuse to walk away. No matter what she was doing when he came anywhere near her, the light died from her eyes.