by Vella Munn
How wise he’d been to insist she not wait to leave.
She tried to match her stride to his, but his legs were so much longer that she would have fallen behind if he hadn’t tightened his hold until he was practically pulling her along. She felt small and protected, almost as if she was flying. With him next to her, she was in no danger of getting cold let alone being assaulted by the elements. No matter how fierce the storm became, he’d protect her. Be what she’d never had.
All too soon she was within a couple of feet of her SUV. Instead of relaxing at the sight of dependable transportation and protection, she resented its presence. Because of how Shaw had parked, she’d have to lead the way out. That was fine since she wanted to show him what she was capable of. He continued to stand as buffer between her and the elements while she fished out her keys and wiped the side of the vehicle until she exposed the key hole.
“Don’t drop them. We’d have a devil of a time digging anything out of the snow.”
We. She liked the sound of that. Liked a lot about what was happening even if she didn’t understand.
“I’m glad I’m not responsible for keeping the roads plowed,” she said. Now that her door was unlocked, she should get out of the storm but it wasn’t that simple. Too bad they couldn’t travel together with their bodies’ heat keeping them warm. “Crazy hours and conditions.”
“The plow driver will have to work all night.” Shaw groaned. “I hope none of the guests decide to leave tonight. It might not turn out well.”
“Do you feel you have to make sure everyone’s safe and tucked in?”
“Right now, you’re my only responsibility.”
Was it her imagination or had his voice lowered with his last words? The answer shouldn’t matter but it did, a lot. Wishing she had control over the storm so she could draw out their time together, she reluctantly pulled on the door only to have the wind push it closed. Shaw reached around her, brushed her hand aside, and yanked.
“Hurry,” he said unnecessarily from inches away.
Despite his warning and her attempt to slide in as quickly as possible, countless flakes landed on the steering wheel. That was nothing compared to what was on her coat. She started the engine and windshield wipers but didn’t dare start moving until the defroster had done its job. Thank goodness for all-wheel drive.
A glance to her left reinforced what her nerve endings had already made clear. Shaw was still standing there, a civilized abominable snowman. If only she knew what to say.
He used his sleeve to wipe off the side window while she did the same to the inside of the windshield. When he was done, he smiled and wiggled his fingers. Feeling like a carefree child, she returned the gesture. Then he saluted her, lowered his head, and aimed himself at his rig. With his every step, he became more ghostlike.
Less real.
Feeling as if he’d taken a piece of her with him, she fastened her seat belt with unsteady fingers and shifted into the lowest gear. The tires crunched, the windshield wipers slapped back and forth, and her face grew hot from the defroster. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands and repeatedly checked the rearview mirror looking for him. When his headlights came to life, she relaxed followed by giving her escape route her full attention. No way would she get stuck. This was her chance to prove to Shaw that she was worthy of his respect, his admiration.
Fortunately the time she’d spent at the ski resort near the snowmobile business held her in good stead because her mind wasn’t keeping pace with her actions. She kept the pressure steady on the gas, alert for any indication the vehicle was losing traction, still proving herself to and for him.
When she reached the thankfully recently plowed paved road leading to the resort, she flexed her fingers. Shaw was right behind her, his lights low so they wouldn’t blind her. Was he focusing on staying on the road or was he thinking about her?
“Good night, boss,” she said even though he couldn’t hear her.
Chapter Six
“I knew you’d say that,” Shaw said to his uncle.
He shifted position in the recliner that had come with the apartment. The chair was too small for him and smelled faintly of wood smoke since the chimney for the lobby’s fireplace below ran up his north facing wall.
The outside lighting didn’t reach this high so it didn’t make sense for him to be staring at his window but that was what he was doing. He liked having the unseen night all around, the storm isolating and insulating the resort and not having to deal with winter. Simply letting it happen. Replaying this afternoon and early evening. Thinking of a small woman bundled against the elements and his arm around her.
“Say what?” his uncle demanded.
Concentrate. “I shouldn’t have to spell it out. Just once I’d like us to have a conversation that doesn’t revolve around you not wanting to spend another dime.”
“I have to,” Uncle Robert grumbled. “This darned resort’s going to put me in the poor house.”
Hardly, since his uncle was a millionaire many times over. Usually Shaw took it as a matter of course that he’d have his work cut out for him convincing the older man that Shaw wasn’t spending money for the heck of it. In fact he suspected Uncle Robert took the stance he did out of habit and not because he disagreed with his nephew’s priorities.
Tonight however, his shoulders ached, he was still cold, and his stomach kept rumbling. He wanted to end the conversation so he could head into his kitchen with its hodge-podge of cookware and heat up something for dinner.
If Haley had agreed to what he’d wanted to ask her, they’d be waiting for someone else to do the cooking. However, he hadn’t invited her to join him in the restaurant. Instead, he’d put work before spending more time with her.
Working endless hours kept him from sinking too deep into the past, but it also kept him alone.
“Professional trail grooming equipment is going to make us money.” He turned his attention from the dark window to the living room lit by a single lamp. Haley might take one look at the older, inexpensive furniture and know he didn’t see the place as his home, just somewhere to hang his hat. That might not be her only conclusion. “Not only won’t we be wasting manpower, the more trails we can offer, the more people we’ll get up here.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Can you really trust that woman?”
That woman? No, she was more. He just hadn’t figured out what. It would be easier if his life wasn’t so complicated—if he dared tell her what he’d once been and what he’d done.
What was he thinking? They barely knew each other. Even if they became more than co-workers, he couldn’t imagine telling her why he couldn’t remember what it meant to have a full night’s sleep.
“I’m not going to play this game tonight.” His words were clipped, but he didn’t care. “She has the most experience of the few applicants we had, which she continues to prove. She’s done things on her own with worn-out machines I doubt anyone else could.” He paused for effect. “If you won’t approve the grooming equipment, I’ll tell the dog racing organization we can’t accommodate them. They’ll take their twenty teams and hundreds of fans elsewhere.”
“Fine. Have your way.”
How many times had it come down to this with Uncle Robert ultimately putting everything on his shoulders? He’d known what he was getting into when his uncle asked him to run things here but as Uncle Robert had put it, “You have to do something or you’ll go crazy.”
What he hadn’t taken into enough consideration was how weary he’d become of this game. His uncle was doing what he believed he needed to in order to salvage his nephew, but the solution had serious flaws. For one, the complex relationship between them played a role in Shaw’s inability to fully embrace where he was living.
No, Uncle Robert wasn’t the villain. What it all came down to was knowing he’d never get over the day he’d taken a life.
And because he couldn’t, he had no business thinking of Haley Walters as anything other
than a valuable staff member.
*
“Do you wish you hadn’t taken the job?” Haley’s brother asked. “You were hoping for a smooth running operation, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what you got.”
“There’s incredible potential,” she told Mick.
“Hmm. Are you sure you aren’t trying to convince yourself?”
A couple of times a week she filled her slow cooker with whatever she had on hand. The stews and soups provided her with the majority of her dinners and made her trailer smell like someone cared about the domestic arts. Tonight’s meal could have used more seasoning but at least she’d filled her stomach and in the process had warmed up.
She’d intended to spend the rest of the evening watching TV or reading or a combination of the two since she liked having sound in the background. Then she’d looked at her cell phone and seen that Mick had called. Her first impulse had been to wait until she wasn’t wiped out from the day’s exertions, but the thought of being able to talk to her nieces was more than she could resist. Mostly the two teenagers had gossiped about boys.
Finally their father had wrestled the phone from them. In response to her hello, he’d said she sounded tired. That was when she’d told him about her day.
“Sounds like you weren’t bored,” he said. “I still wish you didn’t think you had to get so far away from—the girls miss Aunt Haley. So do I.”
“I miss you guys, too.” Despite the ache in her throat and burning eyes, she’d made the only decision she could. Remaining close to where her mother had died meant she might never stop blaming herself. “Where’s Carol? I was hoping to talk to her.”
“Didn’t my wife tell you about her night class? She’s there now, learning how to take quality photographs.”
Carol was one of the highest energy women Haley had ever known. Carol handled motherhood with one hand tied behind her back and held a full-time accounting job at a medical clinic.
“She wears me out,” she admitted. “What’s she going to do with her new knowledge?”
“She wants to explore the possibility of making a living taking pictures. You’ve seen the shots she’s taken of the girls over the years. She’s great at capturing what they’re about.”
“Yes, she is.” Haley looked around her living room, comparing it with the historic house her brother and his family lived in. Where their home radiated life and warmth, her trailer, although new, was bare bones.
“I’m all for Carol exploring her options,” Mick said. “She can’t advance at work and that frustrates her.”
Back when her brother first started dating Carol, their dad had insisted the relationship would never work. Their mother had told her husband to keep his opinion to himself. As a young teen, Haley’s overriding concern had been that big brother was striking out on his own, leaving her alone with their parents’ never-ending disagreements. Even realizing how much Mick loved Carol hadn’t stopped her from wanting to keep her brother to herself.
Then the worst had happened and Mick and Carol had become the only stability in her shattered world.
“Sorry, sis,” Mick said. “I have to cut this short. I have a sink to unclog.”
“The joys of home ownership. The girls would love it here. Shaw’s little niece was here the other day. She had the time of her life pelting her uncle with snowballs.”
“How’d he react?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me how serious and reserved the man is. Maybe being around a child brought out another side to him.”
She nearly told her brother that watching Shaw acknowledge the wilderness from a roof had revealed a contemplative side to him she hadn’t expected. Instead she focused on what Mick had just said.
“He let Alexa win. It’s clear she adores him, and he feels the same way about her.”
“Kids are pretty perceptive when it comes to grownups. Maybe he isn’t as bad as we thought.”
“I never said—”
“I’m talking about Carol and me. We decided the man couldn’t possibly be as stable and decent as you need. I’m not sure any boss could fulfill that role.”
That, in part, was why she’d left Oregon. Mick had done everything he could to protect her, but she was no longer the teen who couldn’t sleep without the lights on. Even though she hadn’t completely freed herself from her nightmares, she was doing a lot better.
“You haven’t met him so how can you—oh, never mind. Have Carol call after she gets home. I’d love to hear about her class.”
“We will. Take care, sis. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said and hung up.
Her shoulders aching, she got up intending to close the blinds to keep as much cold as possible out, but like the other nights since she’d come here, she wound up standing with her nose inches from the glass. She couldn’t see anything not that it mattered because she’d memorized her surroundings. Maybe she should be concerned that by morning there could be so much snow she wouldn’t be able to get to work, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that.
What was Shaw doing? Had he eaten in the restaurant or had he gone home and what did his apartment look like? Could he hear what was going on below him? Maybe he was so busy doing what she suspected was never-ending paperwork that the voices didn’t register.
Maybe he felt as isolated as she did.
She frowned. For the first time since she’d moved in, she didn’t have the TV on. Instead of silence allowing the past to intrude, she was enjoying the wind’s hiss and groan as it pushed against her trailer.
Echo, Kolina, and Alisha touted the benefits of living at or near a mountain resort. The women might pull back if they knew she’d initially seen Lake Serene as nothing more than a place where she could earn a living.
Tonight, however, she felt some of what she believed they did. Tonight the storm isolated and insulated her, talked to her. Nature was everything and everywhere. She wasn’t afraid of it. Quite the opposite, she embraced what she had no control over. Nature would decide what she accomplished tomorrow. The storm would permeate her nostrils and dictate what she could see. It might cut off the electricity and force her to burrow under a pile of blankets.
If she told Shaw what she was thinking, would Shaw understand? Maybe he’d look at her as if she’d lost her mind.
She reared back followed by again coming close to the window. “I’m pretty sure you aren’t out there,” she whispered, “but I’m going to talk to you anyway. Actually I want to ask you some questions. First, do you ever get uneasy on a night like this?”
She again paused followed by raking her fingers through her hair. “Of course you don’t. You probably don’t know the meaning of the word fear.”
Silence.
“I’m getting deep, but do you dream? Do you know the meaning of the word nightmare?”
Angry for letting her thinking take that turn, she planted both hands against the glass. Cold traveled through them and chilled her forearms. Despite that, she stayed where she was.
“I used to get them every night. I was stuck in one place and didn’t know how to move on. All that blood—desperate for it to go away, certain it never would because I deserved—you deal with blood all the time. It’s part of your life.” She briefly closed her eyes. “But it’s different for humans. I envy your acceptance of your role in what it takes to keep nature in balance. It doesn’t get any more complex than that for you, does it, no emotions involved, no tears.”
“They made me see a psychiatrist after it happened. The psychiatrist—he had small, pale hands and a grey mustache—tried a lot of things to get me to talk. When I couldn’t, he told me I was stuck. Stuck? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Familiar emotions threatened to take her into the past. She fought them.
“Are you and your mate, if you have one, out there? If the two of you are looking for an easier place to spend the winter, I understand.”
She started to lower h
er arms only to reach higher on the glass. A frozen winter night was all around her. She was becoming part of it. Maybe that was what it meant to belong to something.
“That’s how it is for you, isn’t it?” she continued. “Belonging. It’s different for people. At least it is for those like me who can’t get completely free of one damn moment in their lives. We have no business subjecting anyone to our screwed up psyches. It’s better to remain alone.”
Chapter Seven
Haley was wearing the same all-weather coat she’d had on yesterday evening. The hood was against her back which gave him a clear view of her face and windblown hair. Her not using the hood hadn’t been done with him in mind but that didn’t stop him from giving into a little unexpected fantasy. She’d wanted him to see her reddened cheeks and bright eyes, to notice her soft mouth. She’d part her lips in invitation and he’d covered hers with his, take her into his arms, press his body against hers, feel her do the same thing.
The teenager in his vehicle’s passenger’s seat whistled. “That’s a lot of snowmobiles,” Daron said.
Reality jolted him, and he shoved the stupid fantasy back where it belonged. “Only ten,” he made himself say. The double doors to the storage shed were open. Even though it wasn’t yet eight in the morning, Haley had brought a couple of them outside most likely in preparation for today’s riders.
Hard as it had been snowing when he’d gone to bed, he’d expected to find the resort buried under white this morning. Fortunately, the storm had spent itself before it could cause any serious trouble, and the snowplow driver had worked all night. Winter enthusiasts wouldn’t let new snow stop them. Haley had known that, which was why she’d probably gotten here before dawn. The storage building’s roof needed to be cleared again, but there wasn’t as much snow on it as there’d been when Rey, Haley, and he’d worked on it yesterday.
“Which one is the fastest?”
