Coming In From the Cold(15)

Dane put cash into his check folder and shrugged on his coat.

"Where you been, Danger?" Travis asked suddenly. "I'd gotten used to  seeing you parked at my bar." He bussed the empty burger plate.

"Austria." He drained his Corona, the lime stinging his lips.

"Did you make it onto the podium?"

"What do you think?" Dane zipped his jacket. "Good night, Travis," he  said. He picked up his newspaper and then hesitated, "Good night,  Willow."

She looked up, giving him a tiny nod. Then she ducked under the bar and maneuvered past the bowlers toward her friend.

Dane headed outside alone. The way he always did.





* * *



As soon as Willow went to sit with Callie, her friend grabbed her arm. "That was the Jeep guy? Oh, my GOD!"

"Shh … " Willow cautioned. "How mortifying."

"He's an Olympic champion, Wills. And so cocky, no?"

"You ladies know Dane?" Travis asked, removing Callie's empty beer glass.

"Not really," Willow said quickly.

"Good," Travis said, setting another beer in front of Callie. "That one is trouble."

"Why?" Callie asked, even though Willow kicked her foot under the bar.

Travis shook his head. "We went to high school together in Little Creek.  The family is stark raving mad. Every last one of them.  Like … institutionalized." He swept the bar mop across the pitted wood and  moved away.

"He didn't look crazy," Callie whispered. "He looked hot." She giggled. "I thought you said he was just passing through?"

"Well he just did, didn't he?" Willow asked.

Callie whipped out her phone. "Let's look him up on Google."

"Let's not."                       
       
           



       

"Oh, come on, Wills! Maybe you'll see him again. You could wear that ski team jacket over your naked body."

Willow laughed. "It's not happening, okay? He made that very clear. If I try to imagine otherwise, it just makes me pathetic."

"You are not pathetic, Willow."

"Thanks, Callie."

Actually, there was something interesting about Dane's team jacket. Her  new tenant had the same one. There must be some connection. If Dane had  sent the coach her way, it really was a solid thing to have done.

Not that he seemed to want any credit.





Ten





Romantic failures aside, Willow began to feel as if life was on an  upswing. Now that her finances weren't so tight, she took care of all  the little things that had gone slack. She got her truck's oil changed  and stocked up on groceries. In the pharmacy, she treated herself to a  new bottle of moisturizer-Vermont winters were shockingly drying. Then  she went to the pharmacy counter and refilled her birth control  prescription.

It was while she waited for the young woman in the white lab coat to  staple the little white paper bag together that Willow began to worry.  By her calculations, she ought to be having her period right now.

She went outside with her purchase and sat behind the wheel of her  truck, her mind in a whirl. She'd forgotten to refill her last pack  until a few days after what should have been the starting date. So,  she'd skipped a few pills. With her long-term boyfriend gone from her  life, it hadn't seemed important. Then she'd refilled it and taken the  whole pack in the usual manner.

And some time in the middle there, she'd met Dane.

Willow began to sweat. She went back into the store and-for the first  time in her life-bought a pregnancy test. With shaking fingers, she  fumbled her way through the self-checkout kiosk instructions.

It was probably nothing, she reasoned on the drive home. The delay might have convinced her body to start her period late.

But ten minutes later, Willow was sitting on her toilet, staring at a positive pregnancy test.

There was only one person to call. "Callie?"

"Willow?"

"Please tell me you're not on call tonight."

"Why, sweetie? You sound upset."

"Can you come over? I need to see you."

"You're scaring me. Is this a problem that can be solved with ice cream? Or tequila?"

Willow blew out a breath. "Ice cream, I guess." Definitely not tequila.

"I'll come after work."





* * *



She and Callie sat on Willow's sofa, tears drying on both their faces.

"Oh, Willow. You have to stop beating yourself up over this."

"If there were anyone else to blame, I'd happily share," she said. "But this one is really on me."

"But blaming yourself just won't help. Besides, maybe the dude has special ski sperm. It made a beeline for your cervix."

When Willow laughed, a few more tears spilled from her eyes. "Just think  what an excellent school psychologist I'll be some day. They can send  all the knocked-up teenagers to my office door. And I'll know just what  they're going through."

Callie laughed, wiping her eyes. "Oh, Willow."

"I'm going to leave a bowl of condoms out on my desk, the way some people offer candy."

"After everything else … I can't believe this is happening to you."

"It's my fault, Callie. Just like everything else that's gone wrong."

"I'm not going to ask you what you've decided to do. Because I hope you haven't decided yet."

Willow shook her head. "I have to sit with it for a little while, don't I?"

"Are you going to tell him?"

She blew out a breath. "I probably have to, right? But he won't take it  well. I never met anybody less interested in commitment than this guy."

Callie groaned. "So that won't be a fun conversation."

"No," Willow sighed. "It won't be."

"You always said you wanted children, Willow."

"I do," she said softly. "Absolutely."

Callie's voice was small. "But the circumstances stink. This is a tough one, isn't it?"

"The toughest," Willow agreed.

"You'd be a great mother," Callie said as she stepped outside. "I just know it."





* * *



After Callie left, the last words her friend had said to her echoed  through her brain. You'd be a great mother, Willow. At any other point  in her life, she would have agreed. In fact, she'd always looked forward  to having a chance to prove it. Her own parents had given her up in  favor of drugs and alcohol. Willow had gone into foster care at age  four, and then spent her elementary school years wondering what she'd  done to make them abandon her. It had turned her into the world's most  conscientious girl, the sort who was careful to get an A on every  spelling test and to always wash the dishes before her foster mom could  get to them.                       
       
           



       

It wasn't until college that Willow was able to put any of it in  perspective. Once she discovered psychology courses, she was hooked.  Right there inside her weighty hardcover textbooks she began to  understand that her childhood behavior was a classic case of  overcompensation. It was a relief to learn that there were simple  explanations for the choices she made, and for the compulsion she always  felt toward pleasing people.

Willow had looked forward to motherhood, to loving a child so much  better than her own parents had done. But now she wondered if she was  just overcompensating again. Would it be fair to the child to be born  like this-to someone who had managed her life so badly that keeping food  on the table would be a struggle?

She just didn't know. And now she had to sort it out herself, without  the help of the loving partner she'd always imagined would go along with  the fantasy of becoming someone's mom.

And soon.





Eleven





Dane wiped the sweat off his forehead with the arm of his jacket.

"I moved the seventh gate," Coach said. "The new combination is hairpins into flush. Can you see it from here?"

"Sure," Dane answered, pulling his goggles down. "I'll have to trim my line to the left in order to make the eighth one."

"Exactly. Whenever you're ready," Coach said, planting his poles in the  snow. Then he skied down the side of the course, arriving at the finish  line with a wave.

Slalom was not Dane's favorite. It was too fiddly, too technical for his  taste. But a couple of times a season, he made it onto the podium in  slalom nonetheless. Dane stood there at the top of the course, mapping  it out one more time with his eyes. Then he launched himself forward,  picking up speed into the first combination.

Even though slalom wasn't as fast and furious as his favorite events, he  still enjoyed the swish-swish of his skis on the course and the  click-click of the gates as he swatted past them. And there was nothing  like a slalom run for emptying your mind of everything but the course  and the moment. A distracted skier will clip a gate faster than you can  say "disqualified."