On the Edge (Blue Spruce Lodge Book 1)
On the Edge
A Blue Spruce Lodge Romance
Dani Collins
On the Edge
Copyright © 2018 Dani Collins
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-947636-89-7
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
The Blue Spruce Lodge series
Excerpt from From The Top
Other Romances from Dani Collins
About the Author
Dear Reader,
I’m so glad you’ve chosen to join Rolf and Glory at Blue Spruce Lodge!
When I began writing On The Edge, I knew I wanted Glory to be a romance writer, but in the closet about her aspiration. She’s the daughter of a famous romance author and manages her late mother’s literary estate to provide her father an income. However, along with family issues, she has personal baggage that makes her hesitant to show anyone her work. Worst of all, since her mother’s death, she’s been suffering writer’s block.
All of that changes when she arrives in Montana. She starts hearing voices again. It’s the first time her imaginary friends have spoken to her in a long while and becomes the path from grief toward the person she is meant to become.
If you’re wondering if this is how it is for a writer, I can only speak for myself, but yes. Sometimes characters show up out of the blue and it’s up to me to listen while they fill in the details that build out their story.
As I continued writing On The Edge, I realized it might be fun for readers to immerse themselves in Glory’s manuscript each time she sits down to write. I included what becomes her debut book, Blessed Winter, within the pages of On The Edge. It’s a book within a book. Kind of like a subplot, but it takes place in Tahoe with a hero she bases on Rolf.
Rolf is the iconic, romance alpha sitting arrogantly on his high horse, making her want him even as she hates him—exactly the sort of man a romance author loves to make fall hard for his heroine.
I hope you enjoy watching Rolf, the champion, go after a new type of ‘Glory,’ while Glory figures out how to write her own story, finding her hero in Rolf along the way.
Warmest regards,
Dani
Chapter One
Leave it to her father to be mysterious rather than give a straight answer.
As a child, Glory had thought Marvin Cormer was wonderfully exciting when he planned elaborate outings to surprise her. Riding in the car blindfolded had been a regular occurrence. He had loved to take her somewhere unexpected, like a sleepover at the aquarium. Other times, he veered off course for an impulsive tour of a cheese factory or insisted she try something unconventional off a menu, like sea anemone. Cost and time were never an issue if a unique experience was at hand.
As a grown woman, she understood why her mother had ground her teeth through those escapades. Glory empathized with every long-suffering moment that woman had gone through with him—she really did.
But she also knew it was futile to insist she was working and couldn’t accompany him on his latest adventure.
“You never used to be this way,” he argued.
“Uncomfortable with being kidnapped?”
“Obstinate. Withdrawn.”
“Are you serious?” She’d been so withdrawn as a child, her best friend had been her dad.
“You can’t bring her back by spending all your time on her career. Come. I’m giving you one of your own. Put your shoes on.”
All your time on her career. The remark put cracks in her molars, but also cramped her stomach with a combo of guilt and angst. She threw together a day bag, not bothering to ask where he was taking her, just gathered snack bars, some fruit and her water bottle. Then she made sure she had a toothbrush and moisturizer that doubled as sunscreen, added a scarf and a pair of mittens in case they went outside, then zipped her knee-high boots over her comfortably baggy cargo pants.
She brought her laptop, which she had slept with more times than was healthy, and took cues from the way her father layered up at the door. He was wearing one of his rumpled professor suits of wool pants and tweed blazer over a pale blue shirt and a paisley tie. He stepped into his ‘tramping’ boots and shrugged on a raincoat.
She grabbed her mother’s long raincoat and added the hat her mother had bought her online when it had become clear their dream of visiting Paris would not come to fruition. The hat was a half-size too big and slid down to Glory’s eyebrows, making her look extra frumpy with her kinky red hair sticking out around her shoulders like unraveled yarn.
She had showered this morning, but hadn’t worn makeup since the funeral. She’d rarely worn it since her first adolescent forays into blue eyeliner that had earned her snickers in the girls’ bathroom. The bereaved were allowed to look however hellish they wanted, she had decided. Besides, this field trip was being taken under duress. She refused to dress up for it like it was an occasion.
Her father’s coping strategy this last nine months had been the opposite. He was all about staying busy and finding reasons to leave the house. He had even attended Christmas parties with the faculty and old friends last month and had started taking an interest in the banking and her mother’s book sales, heading off to meetings with his accountant, which made Glory both nervous and defensive. She wanted him to look after his own checkbook, pay the bills and invest for his retirement, but she also liked feeling smart and necessary. Looking after her mother’s income, nurturing and massaging her backlist so it continued to earn, was her baby.
Her father thought she was hanging on to the past. Maybe there was some truth to that, but his nagging for her to ease up on work, to get out and cheer up, put her firmly in the place she’d occupied her entire life—divided loyalty. He didn’t want her feeling sad and missing her mother, but he couldn’t replace her. At the same time, she knew he loved her and she couldn’t break his heart by pulling away further than she already had.
So she relented. She got in the car with him and let him drive her to the airport.
“Please say we’re going somewhere hot.” Had she grabbed her bikini? She could use some sun.
He checked them in for a flight to Montana.
“No one goes to Montana for the day. In January.” This was a kidnapping.
Not to Billings or Helena or Bozeman, either. Glacier International Airport. Far as she could tell, the nearest town of any size was Kalispell. She looked it up on her phone while they waited to get through security.
Heli-tours seem to be a thing there, along with skiing and other winter sports. He knew better than to make her try ice fishing. A visit to some hot springs wouldn’t be terrible, though. She looked again for her bikini, but no dice. She’d have to buy one.
The weather report claimed it was sunny at the other end, if below freezing. Their flight would be able to land. She looked to the window. The planes were taking off just fine in Seattle’s January drizzle.
“Seems a long way to go for lunch.”
“All in good time, Glory, dear.” He knew she was nudging for clues.
They reached their gate and she sat down to petulantly open her laptop. He could drag her across state lines, but he couldn’t make her like it.
Her father began talking to the nearest person, as was his habit. In this case, it was a woman moving a stroller back and forth, trying to entertain her older son with the view of the planes.
Marvin soon learned she was taking her children to visit their grandparents. Glory smiled obediently when he waved at her in casual introduction, then tuned them out to stare at the blank page before her.
It was a metaphor for her life these days. Emptiness confronted her on so many levels. Her mother was gone. Her mother’s love, her voice, her advice, were all absent. The future was unwritten and it was up to Glory to write the next chapter. Would she write her own story? Or her mother’s?
Her mother had tried to talk to her a few times about what Glory would do after she was gone. Glory hadn’t wanted to think about it, let alone talk about it. She was running the business and that was enough for now.
Wasn’t it?
“—bought a lodge near Haven,” she heard her father say.
Glory’s brain did the skip and scrape of a needle on a vinyl record. She slapped her laptop closed. “What now?”
“Oh.” He turned with a rustle of his raincoat, mouth pursing sheepishly. Not in remorse for whatever insane thing he’d done—he’d bought a lodge?—but because he’d ruined the surprise. “I was saving that, wasn’t I?”
The P.A. announced boarding for passengers traveling with children. The woman took her leave, smiling awkwardly as she sensed clouds brewing. “See you at the other end, Marvin. Glory.”
Glory ignored her and said, “Dad.”
He tugged his earlobe while trying to eat his own smile. The rain had brought out the curl in his hair—the curl she had inherited, which was the bane of her existence. His gray frizz stuck out like silver clown fringe.
“I’m losing my touch, aren’t I?”
“You’re losing your mind. Why on earth are you thinking of buying a lodge? And please—” she held up her hand in a very real entreaty “—do not say you have already bought it.”
“We’re going to sign the papers today, then get a look at it.” His eyes were bright as a kid’s on Christmas morning.
The little whimper of agony her mother used to give emanated from Glory’s throat. “No, Dad. You look at it before you sign. That’s how things like this work.”
“Same, same.” His hands in his pockets lifted so the edges of his raincoat opened like a bird’s wings. It was the ruffle of settling in to hold steady on a precarious branch. “You’re going to love it.”
“I already hate it.” Vehemently. Questions were exploding in her head. “Is this supposed to be, like, a retirement investment? How are you even paying for it? How much is it?”
“Yes! It’s an investment. Exactly.” He pulled his hand from his pocket to point at her. “The accountant said I should invest your mother’s money. I’m going to dump it into this.”
“He meant buy stocks or mutual funds or something. Don’t throw Mom’s money away on a hotel. They’re like restaurants. They fail all the time.” She felt sick. Genuinely nauseous.
“Not if you run them properly.”
“What do you know about running a lodge? From Seattle? Why Montana? Why not find something local you can manage by driving down the street?”
He started to give her the patronizing look that claimed she was sounding like her mother, sweating the details. The P.A. announced the business class boarding.
He brightened. “That’s us. I booked us into the front, since we can write it off.”
“Against what?”
“Our new venture.”
“Your venture,” she corrected. “I’m not having anything to do with this.” Technically her mother’s fortune had been left to her husband. Glory was only a caretaker. A manager. The money belonged to her father and he could spend it any way he liked, which put a lot of pressure on her to make sure the books continued to sell because he loved to spend.
Her mother had worked really hard to build a career as a romance author, though. Glory knew how hard. She’d helped. No way did she want to see her father wipe out what could be a very nice retirement nest egg in one bird-brained swoop.
“This is for us, Glory. Something you and I will do.” Her father’s thick brows furrowed in confused hurt.
Guilt slithered through her. She knew her father hadn’t really understood how his daddy’s girl had grown out of his silly antics into a partnership with her mother. He hadn’t kicked up a fuss while her mother was so sick, but he wanted to reconnect. She knew that. And she loved him—she really did.
It wasn’t the same, though.
“Come along,” he said, jerking his head toward the preferred boarding line.
Glory could dig in her heels until she broke the earth’s crust, but it wouldn’t matter. He was going to Montana today and she already knew she was going, too. She was the responsible one in the relationship, same as her mother had been. If she let him go alone, for sure he would come back with a deed of title and an empty bank account.
She let herself be carried along like a leaf in a stream, only she was the babbling brook, hoping to dissuade him as they took their seats and he ordered champagne.
“It’s nine in the morning, Dad.”
“We’re celebrating.”
“I’m not. Explain exactly what you think is going to happen.”
“You hear the way she talks to me?” He tried engaging the flight attendant who only smiled patiently and reached to shuffle something in an overhead compartment.
“Start at the beginning. Where did you hear about this…” Glory’s throat flexed as she fought a scream “…opportunity?”
“Let’s see. I stopped for a coffee on the way home a few weeks before Christmas.”
“The shop by the campus or the one that sells weed?”
“Does it matter?”
“Kind of think it might.” Her mother had been using medicinal marijuana while she was in chemo. Marvin had begun using it for stress and was continuing out of boredom, as far as Glory could tell. Glory leaned in with sudden alarm. “You know that federally—You’re not carrying are you?”
He sniffed with offense. “I’m an educated man.”
“Do not think that being a middle-aged white guy will keep you out of jail if you do something stupid.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said to the flight attendant as their champagne was delivered. Then he offered to clink glasses with Glory. “To our new adventure.”
She held her glass back. “First tell me what it is. One of your colleagues wants you to go in on a fishing lodge?”
“No, no. I can’t think of anyone on the faculty with this sort of vision. No, this came through one of my students. Oh. Listen.” He made her sit through the safety talk as the plane taxied to the runway.
“Dad.” She nudged him when the flight attendant put away her props and buckled into her jump seat. “One of your students…?”
“Right. She had a young man with her. Trigg Johansson? Do you know the name? He’s a snowboarder. I’ve looked him up. He seems very talented, doing all the triple corks and what-not-all. I asked him if that means you need three bottles in you before you try one.”
“Hahaha.” Glory hated the trickster already. “And?” She sipped her champagne. She hadn’t intended to have any, but this escapade was starting to sound like something she would need to numb with heavy drinking.
“We talked for quite a long time. Very interesting young man. Travels all over the world. His father started Wikinger Sports.”
“Really?” Huh. She couldn’t tear that down. She wasn’t the type to swan around in over-priced name brand clothing, but she liked their yoga wear. Loved it, in fact. All of their clothing was really well engineered, if insanely expensive. She had tried on a teal running jacket last year from the sale rack, but had cheaped out, mostly because she didn’t intend to start running. Cardio made her barf, but she was still mad at herself for not snapping it up.
The clothing line was an afterthought, though. Wikinger had been founded on sports equipment from skis and skates to tennis rackets and hockey nets. Their balls were all certified for use by the various federations for world cup series and gold-medal matches. Their Viking-horned logo was on everything.
The plane quit bumping along and jerked to a halt, then pivoted.
“What was he doing in Seattle?” she asked.
“They’d been up to Whistler. He was heading back to Europe to see family and train. We got to talking about that. Where he trains, what’s involved.”
She wasn’t surprised in the least. Chatting up strangers, listening to their life history over a cup of coffee, was her father’s bliss point. The only thing better for him was telling her about someone new he had met and what he had learned. She was an animal behaviorist. Did you know bees can recognize human faces? So can crows.