From the Top

by Dani Collins

  “Be right back,” he said, and disappeared down the stairs into the lodge basement. He was gone long enough for her to throw away the rest of her sandwich and put on her gloves, then zip her jacket.

  He came out with two pairs of snowshoes. Not old-fashioned tennis rackets, but sleek modern red things with sharp, bright green teeth on the underside.

  “What are you going to do? Walk me into the woods and leave me there to find my way back?” She should have kept that sandwich for a trail of crumbs. Although, getting lost and dying in the snow sounded fantastic. She wished she had thought of it sooner.

  He led her across the parking lot to where the snowmobiles were parked inside a locked enclosure. He started the sled and muscled it out, then locked up and sat down again. He looked at her.

  She sighed and threw her leg over, nestling in behind him. When he started forward, she instinctively clung around his waist.

  She had held on to this strapping man a week ago while her world caved in. Then he’d put her to bed and the void inside her had been growing bigger and bigger every day. The expanse of that nothing had her holding tighter and tighter as he circled the pond and climbed the slope behind it, until they were on the edge of the resort’s main bowl. She glanced back to see Blue Spruce Lodge nestled against the pond tracked by deer and cross-country ski tracks. It made such a quaint picture, she took a mental photograph before it was out of sight.

  He kept climbing, stopping at an old lift shed. He parked at the bottom of the stairs and kicked through the snow on the steps, then opened the little cage that protected the camera that was mounted under a corner against the stilts. He exchanged the battery and closed it back in again.

  Before she could decide if she was supposed to join him, he was back and taking off again. He went through the trees where the lack of sunlight made it extra cold. She huddled even closer against him to stay warm. He paused at the base of a tree and stood on the seat to do that camera, then brushed the snow off the seat and sat again.

  As they came out above the tree line, she rested her head between his shoulder blades, using him as a buffer against the wind while gazing on the view opening across the horizon.

  He ran along a ledge, eventually stopping near a neon-orange flag. He turned off the engine and the silence was absolute. Even the wind seemed to let up so it was utterly still and peaceful. Reluctantly, she released him and sat up.

  “I stopped here when I came with the heli-group in January.” She recognized the view of peaks jutting above pure wilderness, wisps of clouds caught like cotton in distant valleys. “I thought it looked like heaven.”

  Her heart jerked inside her chest. She pushed back so she wasn’t touching him at all. She refused to cry again. That’s pretty much all she’d done this week. He was right. Enough was enough.

  He indicated the snowshoes in the cargo basket. She handed him the bigger pair and they worked in silence to tighten the buckles over their boots.

  “That flag’s planted about ten feet this side of the cliff’s edge. The rest is cornice. Stay back.”

  She nodded and walked with him as far as they dared. They looked out on the view that was bleak and stunning and eternal.

  “It’s okay that you’re blue,” he said, setting his arm around her. “I’m barely keeping it together myself.” His hand pressed in at her waist as he looked down at her. “But you can’t let it eat you alive.”

  “I know.” Her chest ached with cold air and despondency. “But the only thing I’ve ever wanted that bad, or loved even close to that much, was skiing.” And even that was getting further and further away. “Wanting to go back to racing seems like a betrayal. Like I don’t care that I lost the baby. But I don’t know how to cope any other way and even at that—” Despite her best efforts, her voice caught.

  “Ah, babe.” His arm tightened. He used a gloved finger to brush at her cheek. “Don’t cry. You’ll chap.”

  The sting on her face barely penetrated past the ache in her heart.

  “I’m trying not to. I know you’re right. I have to make myself move forward, but…” It all seemed so big and impossible. Hopeless.

  “One step at a time. That’s all you need to do,” he promised, then bent and touched his lips to the half-numb skin on her cheekbone. It was a tender touch that was so sweet, she closed her eyes to savor it.

  His mouth moved to her temple in another comforting kiss. He drew her a little closer and pressed his cheek to hers, warming her skin. It wasn’t a sexual embrace, but as she slid her arms around his waist, hugging him back, her face tilted up, seeking more contact. More affection and soothing touch.

  His head only had to turn a little and his mouth touched hers.

  For a second, that’s all it was, the graze of lips. Then he settled with a little more pressure, testing. Achingly gentle. Comforting. Healing.

  It was the balm she needed. They rubbed their cold lips together like that a moment, warming, soothing. Then a hint of something more crept in. Something she barely tasted long enough to identify before he lifted away, but only so he could look into the eyes she blinked open.

  His eyes were dark and depthless and filled with turmoil. Conflict and pain and hunger. Desire firmly held in check.

  It was like looking directly into the uncertainty and longing that gripped her. In her head, she was thinking it was the wrong thing to do, but her soul yearned. She wanted to touch his. Needed to. It was the only way to close up the rends and tears in hers.

  A helpless noise escaped her throat. She lifted her parted lips in offering.

  His mouth crashed onto hers, this time open and without restraint. He kissed her deeply. Thoroughly. Ravenously. Like he’d been waiting eons to do it. His mouth lifted and returned, then did it again and again, as though he kept trying to pull away and couldn’t resist coming back.

  The greedy crush and pull of his lips filled up the chasm inside her. She reveled in the sweep of his tongue and the hard dig of his fingers through her jacket and into her back. She welcomed each savage rake of his mouth against hers with a clinging draw of her own, wanting to keep him kissing her forever. He was burning away all the hurt with delicious streaks of pleasure, building a bonfire inside her that might keep her alive after all. Light was pushing back the darkness. She wanted to meld herself into him through their insulated clothes and all the way inside his skin. She took a step to get as close as possible—

  —and remembered too late that they wore snowshoes.

  Hers went onto his as she pressed her weight into him. His shoe caught under hers as he tried to catch his balance, but that only threw off her balance. With a surprised cry, they began to tip, couldn’t untangle their feet, and went down in a tangle of kicking legs with nothing to grab on to but each other.

  The snow was so deep and dry, they plunged into a well that collapsed on top of them, half burying them as they landed. They both lay there in surprise, blanketed by clumps of snow, staring at the sky through powdered lashes.

  Hello, old friend, Ilke thought as she brushed the snow off her face and looked at the high, white walls around them. She inhaled the sweet, frosted scent and licked her lips, tasting tiny, pristine flakes that melted on contact with her tongue. Like sugar, but cold and clean and pure.

  “This is going to be fun,” Nate said, still not moving.

  “Maybe the baby wanted us to make an angel.” She rolled away enough to stretch out her arm and arc it through the snow, which was more like swimming than sweeping. Like one of those underground creatures that left a trail of disturbed soil on the surface without actually breaking through. Moving her feet was mostly impossible. Her snowshoe was caked. She gave it a try only to feel immediate resistance, like pressing her leg against concrete.

  She looked at Nate. He wore a bemused expression.

  “What?” she said sheepishly. “I like playing in snow.” She tried to sit up, but she was turtled on her back. This was going to be fun.

  “Oh!” His hands got
under her shoulder, then he cupped her butt and shoved her onto her feet.

  She staggered a little, blinking at the snow that cascaded off her hat and into her face. She brushed off her clothes and shook each of her shoes.

  She grinned at him sitting there in their deep depression, then offered a hand.

  He dropped back and gave a haphazard sweep of his arm through the snow first, forming the other wing on the angel before he sat up again and accepted her hand.

  She crouched low, pulling, pulling… Oh, shoot. He was going to drag her back in—

  He sprang onto his feet beside her and they both gave a little, “Ha!” of achievement.

  He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh while she brushed the snow from his shoulders and back.

  He put his hat back on and they looked at the impression they’d left in the snow. The lump returned to her throat. The angel was messy and broken and obviously the product of two people who’d landed there by accident.

  “I never even wanted a baby. I don’t know why I wanted ours so bad or why it’s killing me that I lost it. I think I just wanted…”

  He looked at her, waiting. Maybe the first person in the world who had ever looked at her with that much desire to understand her deepest agony.

  She swallowed and shrugged, self-conscious. “Someone.”

  Chapter Ten

  Nate’s lungs burned as he watched her scuff back to the snowmobile in steps that kicked up little clouds of snow.

  He should have brought her to Sacramento with him. She had made it sound like she preferred to go back to Sweden. He hadn’t been able to force her to come, but he had thought about her constantly, even telling his grandmother what had happened. She had known something was weighing on him and it had felt good to talk about it. He hadn’t been able to articulate why he was so disappointed she was going back to Sweden though.

  Then Vivien had astounded him by revealing that Ilke was still here. His heart had done a few somersaults of mixed emotion. She wasn’t gone, but she wasn’t even leaving her room. Vivien had been right to be worried. And yes, some depression was to be expected. Her hormones had to be out of whack, too, not that he was stupid enough to say anything to that effect to any woman.

  Still, he’d seen the beginning of a spiral into despair in that room full of unchanged bedsheets and caked-on dishes.

  Each time he had to face how shattered she was, he realized there were depths in her he hadn’t even suspected. She was like a tree covered in freezing rain and frosted snow. Pretty as hell to look at, but easily mistaken for dead beneath the glittering shell. Instead, there was a mysterious stir deep in her center that he thought might flourish if given the chance. Offered enough light and warmth.

  The only thing I’ve ever wanted that bad, or loved even close to that much, was skiing.

  Those words had made his heart swerve. He loved his job, but it was a distant second to his family. Love wasn’t a comfortable emotion, though. He still felt a form of it for his ex-wife and almost wished he didn’t because that relationship was nothing but potholes. One of the reasons he’d held Ilke off while she was pregnant was because he didn’t want her in his heart, bending it when their unborn baby was already an easy handle to grip and twist.

  Her heart wasn’t as stiff and narrow as he had imagined, though. In fact, he was coming to see it as broad, but so very thin-skinned. Easily torn open. He feared this miscarriage might leave that hollow look in her eyes forever.

  He followed her and they sat on the seat of the sled, side by side, facing opposite directions as they took off their snowshoes.

  “Why did you say you were going back to Sweden?”

  She paused briefly, then shrugged. “Because that’s where I should be, I guess. The problem is, I withdrew from everything. All my training camps and clubs. I thought I’d be out for a year.” She twisted to secure her snowshoes into the cargo basket, then put her gloves back on. “It’s an expensive sport at the best of times and I missed out on a bunch of money because I didn’t place, so it’s not like I can just jump back in. The group I usually travel with has filled my spot anyway and my coach—” She made a face.

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “I told him what happened and he said I should have felt like I could tell him what was going on. He said I didn’t trust him and I guess that’s true. So we’ve parted ways.”

  Nate took in that her life had been fully dismantled. No wonder she was hiding in her room. “What are you going to do?”

  “Plan A was to binge-watch garbage television while starving to death. I don’t have a Plan B.” She flicked him a baleful look.

  “I have a reputation for being a killjoy.” He touched the patch on the shoulder of his jacket. The top one read, ‘Project Manager,’ but beneath it was another that read, ‘Health and Safety Officer.’

  “Are those, like, merit badges? Were you a Boy Scout?”

  “I was.”

  “Did you get all their badges?”

  “They have over a hundred.” He had a streak of OCD, but it wasn’t that wide. “I got a couple dozen.”

  “For?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t remember. Animal studies, I think? That interested me.” He closed one eye. “Definitely one for home repair. Got that by helping my uncle retrofit the house for my grandfather’s wheelchair. Survival, shooting, things like that.”

  “Why is your grandfather in a wheelchair?”

  “Accident at work. He operated heavy machinery for the city. That’s where I got my bug for construction. Depending where he was working, sometimes I’d walk over and wait for him after school, watch him work. One day an embankment gave way. I wasn’t there. His excavator tipped and crushed his pelvis. He never got his legs back.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “It was a rough year. He’s okay now. I mean, still in a wheelchair, but fine other than that.”

  “And he turned eighty this weekend? Are they your mom’s parents or your dad’s?”

  “Mom’s.” He leaned his elbows on his knees, bemused by her sudden interest. “They’re pretty much my parents. I never knew my father or his family. I was a teen pregnancy and he went into the service straight out of high school, died in combat. Mom was killed when I was five.”

  “That’s sad. What happened? I’m sorry, is that too nosy?”

  “She went to a protest march during the L.A. riots. Got hit by a stray bullet.”

  “Oh. I’m really sorry.”

  “Me, too. And you’re not being too nosy, but you’re shivering.” Her lips were turning blue and he could feel the damp starting to penetrate his clothes from the snow they’d fallen into. “We should go.”

  She shifted so she straddled the seat, then hitched herself backward, making room for him to settle in front of her. Her arms curled around him and her splayed legs came alongside the outsides of his thighs. Her crotch nestled against his butt, warming him by stoking a heat that started in his balls and radiated outward.

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” she said, folding her gloved hands across his stomach. “Now, when I think about the baby, I’ll picture this and know it’s in a good place.”

  What was she trying to do to him? Break him wide open? He covered her hands with his own for one second, heart lodged sideways in his throat. Then he wordlessly started the engine and steered them down to the other two cameras he had to change out.

  When he got to the base, he stopped outside the office trailer and looked over his shoulder. “Do you know how to drive one of these? Can you get yourself back to the lodge?”

  She gave him a pithy look.

  “That’s what I thought.” He bit back a grin and climbed off.

  She slid up and set her hands on the grips.

  “You want to work out before or after dinner?” he asked.

  “What are you saying?” Her gaze came up from reading the gauges, eyes narrowed with enough insult he knew she was rallying.

 
He grinned. “I’m saying I haven’t worked out in a week. Thought you might be ready to hit the gym, too. That’s all.”

  Her expression turned sheepish, but kind of defensive, too. “I’ll shower when I get back. Eat. Ask Vivien if she has some work for me. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Oh, it was far too late for that. “I’ll text you when I’m finished here, see what you want to do.”

  “Suit yourself.” She released the hand brake and started forward, picked up speed fast and fishtailed.

  She caught back control as quickly as his heart leapt, then skidded again before his pulse had a chance to settle.

  She was doing it on purpose, he realized. She did like to play in the snow, the little nutcase.

  He climbed the half-dozen steps onto the porch, still grinning as he stomped his feet, and stepped into the stuffy interior of the base office.

  “What the actual fuck was that?” Trigg asked from his desk beside the window.

  “Check the footage on camera four. There were some tracks around it that looked like lynx. Quinn might want it for the documentary.”

  “Pretty sure there’s a cougar joke there, but I’m going to resist. Since when are you and Ilke a thing?”

  Nate hung his coat, planning to ignore Trigg unless he went for a pussy joke, at which point he’d put him through the window.

  “Come on, tiger,” Trigg coaxed, then shrugged off the pun with a cocky grin. “Couldn’t keep that one in.”

  Nate shook his head. He liked Trigg, but that man pushed and pushed. That’s why he was a champion—Nate understood that, but it still made Trigg a giant pain in the ass sometimes. He completely understood how Rolf had lost patience a decade ago.

  “How is she even still here? I haven’t seen her all week.” Trigg waited, then, when Nate didn’t respond, goaded, “Dude.”

  “What?”

  “The witness is being combative,” Trigg said, glancing toward Rolf, then making a surly face as he remembered they were on each other’s shit list.