On the Edge (Blue Spruce Lodge Book 1)

by Dani Collins

  *

  BLESSED WINTER – Chapter Five (cont’d)

  Page 45, word count = 11,041

  Pandora had read a million words on labor and delivery, trying to prepare herself. None had described it accurately. It was more pain than she expected. It was also relentless. Fear took hold in her at how intense it was, which made her both defensive and aggressive.

  “You’re supposed to lie down with a pillow under your left hip,” Brock said.

  She snarled and glared at him, pacing in the tight confines of her too small bedroom, naked and too crazed by anxiety to care. There was no escaping this force that gripped her.

  “Okay. That’s okay. Whenever you’re ready is fine.”

  She could tell he was lying. This wasn’t okay. She had honestly believed he would go through that door, rather than unlock it for the paramedics who weren’t even here yet. Instead, he was hurriedly setting out towels across the bed. He had a clean sheet handy and kept talking to that disembodied voice on the speakerphone who sounded like Morgan Freeman, both reassuring and unnerving at the same time.

  Another contraction hit and she paused to brace her hands on the night table, certain she would tear the top off the little wooden cabinet as she gritted her way through the contraction. She really couldn’t take fighting it anymore—

  It changed.

  For a moment, she felt incredible relief. Suddenly the pain felt productive. This was it.

  She sank onto her knees, suffering a growing stretch, a burning. She could feel—

  “Pandora? Oh, God.”

  She touched the top of the baby’s head and was dimly aware of Brock’s voice and another one, but someone was screaming too loud for her to hear.

  The baby was crowning. She couldn’t stop it. It had to happen. She wanted it to happen. She pushed through the pain, pushed and pushed, making it happen.

  “That’s the head. Oh, my God. Good job, sweetheart.” Brock’s voice was shaken, but gentle and, reassuringly, right behind her, crammed into this little stall between the wall and the edge of the bed. “I just need to see if the cord—It’s okay. You’re okay. Good job, Pandora. Do it again. I’m right here. I’m going to catch it.”

  “I can’t,” she moaned. Shoulders. This kid was a linebacker, she was sure of it. She couldn’t… But here came another contraction and she had to.

  She screamed again, gripping into the wood with all her strength while the shoulders passed. She felt her baby falling then, but her teeth were locked and she couldn’t tell Brock—

  “I’ve got him, I’ve got him,” Brock was yelling, as if he was the freaking football hero. “It’s a boy!”

  A boy who let out a cranky little wail that grew into lusty unhappiness at being cold and wet and forced into the light of day.

  Brock laughed in relief. “That’s good, right? When she stops screaming and he starts?”

  “That’s perfect,” the deep voice from the speakerphone said, sounding amused. “Nice job, Mama. You too, Brock. Make sure you dry him and keep them both warm. Put him on her chest, skin to skin. See if he wants to suckle.”

  Pandora was shaking, in shock maybe.

  Brock had the baby in a loose towel and looped an arm under her wilted ones. He gently shoved her onto the towel-covered bed. It wasn’t elegant, but it did the trick. She was still trembling and panting, exhausted, but finally began to relax. He opened the towel and set the baby on her, taking care to dry him with gentle strokes of the towel, hands shaking. Then he tucked a clean one around the boy before he draped a clean sheet over both of them. Finally, a warmer blanket.

  She followed the dispatcher’s instructions on how to clear the baby’s nose, then coaxed him to latch while Brock played orderly, tidying up the towels from the floor.

  By the time the paramedics tromped their heavy feet up her stairs, her son had latched and she had passed the placenta. They took care of cutting the cord, checked her vitals along with the baby’s, and shook Brock’s hand.

  “I don’t know how you guys do this. I was sure I was going to faint. Twice,” Brock admitted, making them laugh.

  One of the EMTs, a new father himself, showed Brock how to diaper and swaddle the boy, obviously mistaking him for the baby’s father, which made Pandora’s heart pang.

  “Do I have to go to the hospital?” she asked as they began talking transport. “It’s Christmas. We didn’t even finish opening our presents.”

  Brock tugged his earlobe and glanced at the paramedics. Honestly, the hard part was done. He was kind of siding with her. “What should we watch for?”

  They wrote out a list of signs that would necessitate a visit to the hospital and made her promise to get checked out as soon as possible. But, since her delivery seemed to have been straightforward and she hadn’t even torn, and the baby was already nursing, they wished them a Merry Christmas and went home to their own families.

  *

  Glory’s head was still very much in Tahoe as her feet climbed her up the service stairs of Blue Spruce Lodge, then down the hall to her room.

  She would have to research the rules on home births in California, to see if it was plausible that Pandora was allowed to stay home. Part of her wanted to just say, Screw it. Artistic license. It would risk alienating readers who were sticklers for believability, but she wanted to keep the story in Pandora’s apartment, maintaining the intimacy between Pandora and Brock as they greeted Pandora’s unnamed son and reacted to the birth.

  What would happen with their relationship now? What name would Pandora give the boy?

  The clink of glass penetrated her thoughts. Someone had come up the main stairs after she had passed them. No one occupied the top floor except her and Rolf. She glanced back, tense as she reached her door, expecting to see him.

  Ilke was coming toward her with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  Lovely. Just fucking lovely. Glory had stayed in Haven all afternoon, burying her head in Pandora’s agony so she wouldn’t dwell on her own. She had even brought back one of Suzanne’s take-away meals so she wouldn’t have to see Rolf or his guests by going down to the dining room.

  But wasn’t that nice. Ilke delivered, just like she had.

  And, in case Glory wasn’t sure if Rolf was the target, Ilke smiled and asked, “Am I going the right way? I understood Rolf’s room was up here.”

  It was a total punch in the gut.

  “Yeah.” She looked across at his closed door, thinking, You piece of shit.

  *

  Rolf had been watching for Glory’s car and saw her go into the back of the lodge as he was dressing after his shower.

  When he heard voices in the hall, he snapped the door open to see Glory lobbing a contemptuous look his direction. It hit like a cannon ball, right in the middle of his chest.

  She turned her head and narrowed her eyes. “Did my dad give you that bottle?”

  Ilke had stopped halfway to his room and looked disconcerted for probably the first time in her life. She was a seriously tough, competitive, bright woman. Beautiful, too, for that matter. She took care of herself and no one else. Rolf knew her in passing and once, very briefly, in a more intimate sense. Until this moment, he’d never had reason to dislike her.

  “From his private reserve, he said,” Ilke answered Glory, recovering with a cool smile. “I’m sensing it would be better to leave it for you two, though.” Very bright.

  “Oh, fuck no.” Glory huffed out a noise of disgust and pushed into her room, slamming the door.

  The top of Rolf’s head nearly came off. He didn’t understand why this felt like a career-ending rip of a ligament, but fuck did it ever. He snapped a furious look at Ilke.

  She held out the glasses and bottle. “Peace offering. You’re not happy I brought Vivien—”

  He wasn’t happy about a lot of things, including that flash in the corner of his eye that told him Glory was escaping through her exterior door, past the window at the end of the hall, and trying to duck down th
e exterior stairs.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” He pushed through his own room and out his side door, catching her before she got her foot on the first step.

  She wasn’t having it and tried to shake him off, nearly falling down the stairs in the process.

  He lost it. He grabbed her, heaved her over his shoulder, and carried her like he was a Neanderthal taking his mate back into his cave. Her bag knocked into his kidney and she called him some really nasty things along with whacking of her fist against his spine. He set her on her feet when they were inside his room.

  As he reached to slam the door, she went through the inside door and shot across to her own room again.

  He was right on her heels, entering her room in time to see her opening her exterior door.

  “If you run out that door, I will tie you up. I swear to God. We are going to stand here and talk like grown-ups.”

  “Is that how grown-ups act, you BDSM freak?”

  “Shut the fucking door.”

  She slammed it. “Happy, you fucking animal?”

  “No!” He slammed the interior one. “But I am not having you take off when we’ve had a fight, then you wind up dead and I’m throwing up because I have such a shitty last memory on my conscience. You stay where I can see you until we’ve sorted this out.” He pointed at the floor, shaking, damn it. His chest was heaving and his arteries were carrying more adrenaline than blood. He rubbed a hand down his face, trying to get himself back under control.

  She made a noise through gritted teeth as if she was beyond words. She showed him her finger instead. Held it out so hard her hand shook.

  “If I had a nickel, hitzkopf, I’d be twice as rich as I already am.”

  She narrowed her eyes, maybe suspecting that wasn’t exactly an endearment. Hothead.

  “Where were you today?” he demanded. He’d been worried sick even before this cock-up in the hall with Ilke and a second attempt at running away from home.

  “Haven.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Living my life.”

  “Stop it, all right? We’re not doing this.”

  “Agreed. So kindly…” She waved at her inside door. “Go drink my mother’s wine with your little friend.”

  “I didn’t invite her. Do you understand that? I didn’t ask her to come here, or invite her to my room.”

  “I genuinely don’t care beyond the fact that she’s drinking my mother’s wine. That happens to be special to me and my father is giving it away like—Fuck it. You don’t give a shit. I know you don’t, so…” She waved at her door again, lips white.

  “Where am I right now? Hmm? Across the hall getting laid? Or in here, enjoying your warm fucking personality? What does that tell you about where my give-a-shit lies?”

  “Cut me a break. You’re here to tell me you’re right and I’m wrong. The only thing that ever matters to you is winning. Champion.”

  He hung his hands off his hips and looked away from her, laughing in disbelief at how brutal she was. At how badly he was not winning. Why was he even bothering?

  “I should have spoken to you, all right?” He had concluded that much while waiting for her to come back today. “I don’t answer to anyone. Haven’t for years. It wasn’t even on my radar that I should check in with you.” And here came the part that was rubbing like a blister wanting to burst. “But I don’t like you taking off. You didn’t answer my text. If you were trying to show me how the silent treatment feels, message received. Don’t do it again.”

  “Did you text? I didn’t see it.” She lied right to his face, boldly staring directly into his eyes.

  “It’s always the hard way with you, isn’t it?” He drew a breath, gathering his patience. “Ilke skis. I was in my last year as she was coming up. When you’re competing at that level, the pressure is intense. Healthy, peak-performing athletes are crammed together and wound up tight. When you actually get through your events, when you’ve done all you can, but you have to wait and see if it was good enough, that energy needs a release valve. We gave each other a quarter-turn. That’s all it was.”

  “Charming.”

  “Truth. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “You must be anxious to get reacquainted then.” She dropped her bag onto the chair by her desk, hair falling forward to hide her expression. She kicked off her shoes beside the exterior door and flicked the bolt to lock it, keeping her back to him.

  “What do you want, Glory? I’m being honest, trying to clear the air.”

  “I want my father to quit giving my mother’s wine to strangers who don’t care why she bought it.” She swung around, color high. “But it’s his. Everything is his, so I can lump it, even when he gets into bed with your brother and sells our home and drags me here so some a-hole who doesn’t like what you’re doing can try to burn down everything my mother worked so hard to earn. I want Dad to have an income into his retirement so I don’t have to worry about him, but haha, he’s never going to be in a secure position because he lives in a dream world, not reality.”

  She collapsed in a lean against her desk, pushing the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.

  “I want to figure out my own life and go live it and I don’t want to get worked over by you in the process. I don’t want a boyfriend, Rolf. You keep accusing me of having designs on you, but I really don’t. I can’t afford this kind of angst and distraction. I sure as hell don’t want to be the daily entertainment for everyone downstairs while I try to make something work with a man who, frankly, sucks at being a neighbor, let alone something more intimate.”

  Boiling oil and flaming fucking arrows. Every word was stabbing and burning.

  “You don’t even say, ‘Good morning.’” Her head came up. “You know what the first thing you said to me was, when you saw me today? ‘Stay.’ Like I’m the fucking dog.”

  He closed his eyes. “That wasn’t what I meant by it.”

  “Fine, but I don’t want to spend a week trying to dissect what you did mean, or how you really feel, only to find out you feel nothing. I get it. I’m convenient. I have no regrets. You made it worth my while. Thanks,” she added with a flat smile that hit like a penalty kick between the thighs. “But at the end of the day, you’re high risk and no reward. That is not me asking for commitment or any other considerations. I am well aware of your limitations. But I’m not like you. I don’t compartmentalize. It cuts me to the bone every time you act like I don’t exist so I’d rather not expect to exist. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen and go back to whatever passes for civility between us. Okay?”

  Had he heard variations of this speech in the past? So many times. But never with a look like that. Resentment and frustration were the tones he usually heard when he was reminded of his shortcomings. Not red eyes and a hollow husk of resignation and a sadness around her mouth that made him want to gather her up and squeeze her into himself so she could feel what the hell she was doing to him. How could he put it into words? The depth and breadth of it made his lungs hurt.

  “I don’t like it when you act ‘civil,’” he admitted, squeezing the back of his neck in a hard grip. “It’s a cold shoulder and I hate it.”

  She sighed and looked to the ceiling.

  “That is not my fucking ego saying that. I can’t stand it when you pull back from me.” He clenched his hands into fists, mirroring the knot that tightened in his gut. He never talked like this to anyone.

  “I’m not trying to make myself into a challenge or something. I just don’t want to get hurt, Rolf. I already am hurt.” She flinched and looked away.

  “I know. I’m not good at this. I know that. I’ve never even tried, okay? Relationships are work. I’ve always preferred to direct my energy elsewhere.”

  She snorted and she shook her head. “I’m work. Do you realize that? I’m not any easier than you are.”

  “So aware. I still don’t want to walk away.” The willingness to apply himself was settling into his psyche. He was here,
wasn’t he?

  “You want to walk across the hall whenever it suits you.” She met his gaze for one of those heart-stopping seconds where he glimpsed into her soul and saw nothing but agony. “I can’t, Rolf. I won’t.”

  “You better believe I want the right to walk in here.” An uncomfortable truth clawed its way up his sternum and into his throat. “Because I don’t want to sleep with anyone else. All right? I had a couple of texts from women I used to see while I was in Germany. I didn’t answer. I had it in my head I’m with you now.” He flexed his hands, so frustrated by her. By the fact she had him digging into the back of the closet where he stored emotions he had convinced himself he’d outgrown decades ago. “I wanted to focus on getting things wrapped up so I could get back here.”

  “To work on the hill.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t make me think I’m more important than I am.”

  “Fine,” he bit out, tone so hard her head came up and her eyes blinked warily. “You need your full pound of flesh? Fine. That—” he pointed toward his room “—was more than I was sure I was up for. I knew sleeping with you would complicate things, which is why I tried to avoid it. I wanted to believe we could be a one-off. I used a perfectly valid excuse to push some space between us and discovered that, as it turns out, no. This is not a one-off. You’re in my head and we have to see where it goes.”

  “Is that what Emperor Rolf has decided and decrees?”

  “I enjoy the sarcasm almost as much as the sex, so yes, that is what is happening.”

  “You’re astonishing.”

  “Thanks. I thought you were fantastic, too.”

  She looked away again, cheeks red.

  He sighed. “I fucked up by not talking to you. I’ll own that. Full disclosure, I’ll probably fuck up again. But we’re still going to see where this goes.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll review your request and get back to you. If you don’t hear from me in two weeks, assume I’ve declined your generous offer.”

  “Now you’re just flirting. I’m not someone who gives up. You understand that, right? I know what kind of pig-headed single-mindedness it takes to get something I want. That’s why I pick and choose what I go after.”