Chapter 9 Margot
9 MARGOT
A lot can happen in one week. In my case, I’ve added ten thousand angst-fueled words to my manuscript, gone through a whole relationship life cycle with my crutches (we’ve parted as friends), spent six awkward dinners elbow to elbow with Forrest, and exchanged exactly five words with him (“Can you pass the wine?”). Now, as I climb the porch of the lodge with my laptop bag and morning coffee in tow, I glance around and approach the front door with the stealth of a panther. Or as stealthily as I can in an ankle-length parka that makes zippy swishing sounds with every faintest movement. For the last six mornings, this has been my routine, carefully timing my arrival at the lodge before the breakfast buffet is cleared but after Forrest has eaten. Because despite a week of telling myself it wasn’t a big deal, his rejection is still echoing through my mind as if he shouted it into the Grand Canyon. “ I’m not interested… interested… interested! ”
Maybe if I’d been able to maintain my anger, I wouldn’t be sneaking around like this, but in the week since that night, all my outrage has slowly deflated into humiliation with a steaming hot side of disappointment in myself. I can’t even be mad at him about the Internet thing anymore. Having Internet access period is too much of a relief, even if all I’ve gotten from Savannah in response to my frantic emails is a two-sentence response: “This is an out-of-office reply from the department of Your Perfectly Fine Sister. Stop emailing me, Margot!”
Without anger to bolster me, avoiding Forrest as much as possible has become my new strategy. It’s not that hard to spot him. He’s approximately six-foot-forever, so whenever I see his large frame coming toward me, I simply turn in the opposite direction and try to resist swan-diving into the nearest snowbank. Avoidance seems to be his new goal as well, if the new lack of morning Scout visits is anything to go by. Last week, I’d started looking forward to hearing the gentle giant scratch and whine at my door, and not at all because Scout was always with a sweaty midrun Forrest decked out in clinging thermal gear. But not seeing Forrest is definitely for the best, even if he can’t be avoided completely.
I still eat dinner next to him every night because apparently, the seating assignments from our first night together were cast in stone. On top of that, the IV drip of Google I require to function forces me to work in the lodge, where Forrest is constantly coming and going. Which is why I’m currently hiding behind the front door and peeking through the edge of a flanking window to see if he’s inside.
My eyes sweep the room, looking for any sign of movement, but all is still. Cautiously, I open the front door and step inside the warmth. A cozy fire crackles in the giant stone hearth, and as I pass by, I see with satisfaction that breakfast is still laid out on the dining table. After setting my things down at the desk, I decide to make myself a plate.
As usual, Jo, Trapper, and Forrest have outdone themselves on the food front. Perfect breakfast sandwiches on homemade sourdough sit in a warming tray next to wild-blueberry muffins. There’s hot coffee, along with my favorite oat milk and honey, and big glass jars of maple yogurt with all the fixings. The spread has been a little different every morning, and I can’t help thinking of Forrest carefully preparing it, the way he cooked for me in his cabin.
I try shooing the memory away, but it doesn’t work. As though my thoughts have accidentally summoned him, I hear the distinctive sound of heavy boots, and my head jerks up. Forrest is coming out of the kitchen, carrying a large empty tray. When he sees me, his step hitches for a second, as if he’s also considering a hasty retreat. But then he continues on, and I look down at my plate, loading it as quickly as I can.
“Good morning, Margot,” he says cordially.
“Good morning, Forrest,” I respond even more cordially. Because when you’ve been shut down by someone after suggesting they have their way with you, competitive politeness becomes the only available communication style.
“Do you have everything you need?” he asks like the world’s hottest butler.
“In life?” I take a piece of bacon. “I guess that depends on if you’d consider a private jet back to L.A. a need or a want.”
“I’d consider it a gross misuse of fossil fuels, but I actually meant breakfast. Do you have everything you need?” he repeats, and my mind hops right on an escalator descending into the gutter.
“The breakfast is fine,” I say, clearing my throat.
“Just fine?”
“Yes, fine, unless you’re hiding a platter of lightly salted avocado slices behind your back. In which case, it would be perfect.”
He snorts, loading the tray with empty plates. “Avocados? Here? Are they being shipped on the private jet?”
I grab a piece of toast and glare up at him. “You’re telling me there isn’t something you desperately crave from California?”
His gaze lifts to mine, and as I replay my words, something like a crank turns slowly in my lower abdomen, tightening everything. I swallow, his eyes go dark, and I’m brought right back to his cabin, one warm inch away from knowing if his full, sulky mouth feels as soft as it looks. Therein lies the other reason for needing to avoid him at all costs. Ever since we nearly fell into the Just One Time trope, my body has been like a light switch. Perpetually and safely in the off position until the second he’s brushing my elbow at dinner or looking at me like this. And then I’m on . Lit up and hot enough to melt the filament in a light bulb.
A greenhouse strawberry rolls off the plate that has gone slack in my hand and lands with a small thud on the table. Hastily, I look down to pick it up. “Like food, I mean,” I clarify.
Forrest makes a dry sound in the back of his throat and continues stacking glasses on his tray. “Good coffee. That’s what I miss.”
“Right. That,” I say, like I’ve never heard of coffee before or, frankly, liquids in general. My libido is too busy doing a choreographed cheer complete with pom-poms and high kicks for my brain to process words. Instead, I try to remember everything I’ve been telling myself for the last week. That he lost his chance at a fling with me for good . That thick waves the precise shade of my favorite 72% dark chocolate and eyes the color of sun-dappled evergreens aren’t even that attractive. But then his lashes lift to look at me again, and my libido lands a perfect back handspring.
“Anyway, I’ve got to get writing,” I say, ducking my head in case my libido also somehow manages to clap out the letters H-O-R-N-Y! across my face.
“Right,” he rumbles like a semi, picking up the loaded tray. “Good luck today.”
“Thanks,” I say over my shoulder as I hightail it to the desk. If I’m actually lucky today, I won’t have to see him again until dinner.
I sit down at the desk while cramming my mouth with a conciliatory bite of blueberry muffin, ready to brush off my run-in with Forrest and get to work. Finally being able to do book research has been like attaching jumper cables to my manuscript, and I’m already flying through chapter five. I take a sip of coffee as I wake up the old desktop PC. But instead of the usual desktop photo of Denali, a browser is open.
My coffee mug pauses on the way to my lips as I realize someone has left an email open. I don’t mean to read it, but it’s short, and by the time my eyes have skimmed the first line, curiosity makes it impossible to stop.
Dear Dr. Wakefield,
A more formal letter will be reaching you soon, but I wanted to be the first to inform you that the Bauer-Hinckley Grant has been awarded to you in the amount of $2.5 million. You and your team have been selected to continue your visionary work on detecting changes in precancerous lesions in TNBC patients at the molecular level. On behalf of the Bauer-Hinckley Grant Selection Committee, I want to congratulate you and your entire team. I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Warmly,
Amy Kohanski, DrPH, MD
I stare at the email after reading it again to make sure I haven’t misunderstood. I haven’t. My coffee remains suspended in midmotion, and I finally take a sip before carefully placing the mug down. Forrest has just been awarded a $2.5 million research grant. Two and a half million dollars. He knows this, and yet he’s spending his morning clearing jam-smeared plates in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, thousands of miles away from where he should be—popping champagne with his research team in California.
I sit back in the chair as a wave of dizziness spirals through me. I can only imagine how Forrest must be feeling, but nothing in his behavior this morning hinted at the life-altering decision he’s facing. As always, he keeps everything locked beneath that sculpted surface, and I can’t help but wonder—what the hell does lie beneath?
Will he consider going back to California? Could he leave if he wanted to? In the past week, I’ve witnessed his unwavering dedication to his father’s health. Trapper lives in the rooms above where I currently sit, and Forrest is constantly going up and down the stairs, bringing meals, helping with his physical therapy exercises, and administering medication. As someone who takes care of a sometimes physically disabled family member, I know that Trapper wouldn’t be able to live as comfortably without Forrest.
Unexpectedly, my heart aches for him. Despite our awkwardness, tension, and constant bickering, I understand how impossible the choice must feel for him. Whenever Savannah goes through one of her flare-ups, my world comes to a standstill. Work takes a back seat, and all my energy focuses on my sister. But Savannah also has stretches of good days, and the nature of my job allows me to work from home and drop everything if need be. Forrest doesn’t have such luxuries.
The motorized sound of Trapper’s chairlift interrupts my thoughts, and I quickly close Forrest’s email. Not that I need to rush—Trapper often jokes that he used to climb mountains faster than his lift takes to traverse a single flight of stairs. Scout reaches the bottom of the steps first and beelines for me, his bushy tail wagging.
“Hey, boy,” I say when he reaches me, ruffling his fluffy black and white fur before sneaking him a thick piece of bacon off my breakfast sandwich. He swallows it whole, then puts his heavy head in my lap like he’d be happy to melt there.
“Thought it might be Forrest who’d miss you the most when you leave, but now I’m not so sure.”
I look up to see a smiling Jo, who’s waiting for Trapper at the bottom of the stairs. I take another sip of coffee and try not to look like I’ve been reading someone else’s highly sensitive private messages. “Morning!”
“Good morning, Margot,” she says, chuckling a little. “How’s the book coming?”
Good question . Technically, I’ve been meeting my word-count goals, but unfortunately, I keep running into a different challenge. Despite all my efforts to keep it from happening, a romantic subplot is brewing between my main character and the grumpy local detective she’s been forced to team up with. I didn’t originally plan to make him such an eligible bachelor, but somehow he’s become a handsome single father with a heart of gold. My saving grace is that I’ve managed to maintain my protagonist’s tough-as-nails exterior. She’s the anti-romance heroine, and in a way, it’s been satisfying for me to write a character who makes target practice out of every trope that comes her way. Honestly, she could probably teach me a thing or two.
I realize Jo is waiting on my answer, and I shake off my self-doubt. “It’s going great!”
Trapper finally reaches the bottom, and Jo rolls the wheelchair downstairs into position before hitting the brake. With a familiarity that can come only from endless repetition, she grasps Trapper around his middle and helps him up before easing him into the new chair. He makes a muffled sound of discomfort but gives her hand a grateful squeeze as she releases him. Jo smiles down at him, and I wonder, not for the first time, if something other than friendship exists between them.
“Hey there, Margot,” Trapper calls as he powers his chair closer to my desk with Jo walking beside him. “Hope Scout’s not bothering you. He thinks he’s quite the lady’s man.”
I smile. “Seems more like a bacon man to me.” I look down at Scout, who has lain beside my chair, glacier-blue eyes pointed up at me. “But you’re not bothering me, are you?” I ask in the voice I use for all babies, furred or otherwise.
Trapper chuckles. “How’s everything? You ready for tomorrow’s excursion?”
My face must say everything, because he laughs.
“Don’t tease her, you old badger,” Jo says, swatting his shoulder.
I pop a bite of muffin into my mouth. “Any idea what we’re doing? Just in case I need to send my lawyer a last will and testament?”
Trapper waves away my words with his functional hand. “You don’t need to worry. Forrest won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Besides a sprained ankle?”
“Anything serious,” Trapper amends with a smile. “How is it, by the way?”
“All better,” I say, flexing it below the desk. “If there’s any hiking tomorrow, I should be fine.”
“There’s always hiking,” Jo deadpans before putting a hand on Trapper’s shoulder. “I’m headed to the greenhouse, but I’ll be back soon. Don’t keep her from her work, Trap.”
She walks off with a swish of her long braid, and I take another drink of coffee, studying Trapper over the rim. This isn’t our first one-on-one moment, but I’m still not fully at ease around him. Not because I don’t enjoy his company—on the contrary, he’s warm, interesting, and genuinely seems to care about my well-being. In fact, he’s exactly what I used to wish my own father was like. But it’s been a long time since all my wishing hardened into believing that good dads don’t exist. A cold comfort, maybe, but one that I’ve relied on, and one that Trapper challenges at every turn.
“I won’t keep you long,” he says. Clever brown eyes twinkle out from deep crow’s-feet I imagine were earned from years of squinting at snow-bright landscapes. They make me wonder if Forrest inherited his green eyes from his mother and where she might be now. “But I wanted to ask if you’ve ever read any Jude Devereaux.”
My eyes widen, surprise nearly knocking me sideways. “Jude Devereaux?” I repeat. “Of course I have. Historical romance isn’t my genre, but she’s a classic. Are you a fan?”
Trapper chuckles and nods. “Well, my wife was, before she passed, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t read one or a dozen. Only thought I’d mention it because I still have her whole collection upstairs if you’re ever looking for reading material.”
“Oh,” I say as his words stop my mind like a stick shoved through bike spokes. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He nods. “Thank you, dear. We’ve had time to adjust. It’s been, what… going on eight years now, I believe.”
I’m silent as some ill-defined emotion wells up inside me. I remember Forrest’s firelit face that night in his cabin as he told me about his mother teaching him to cook. How I’d sensed something as fragile as tissue paper stretching between us, barely concealing this piece of himself. I hadn’t wanted to see it, but now…
Trapper gives me a small, reassuring smile before answering the unasked question in my eyes. “Triple-negative breast cancer. Happened just like this,” he says, snapping his fingers. Old pain deepens the weathered lines of his face. “It’s the most aggressive type. Forrest can tell you all about it.”
“Forrest?” I repeat, slow on the uptake.
Trapper nods once. “It’s his area of expertise.”
And just like that, the pieces fall into place like bricks dropped on my chest. Forrest already told me on the hike that he was a breast cancer researcher. He told me and I… I rolled my eyes.
Nausea grips me. When did I become so jaded? No wonder he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’ve been trying so hard to fit him into a neat little romance hero box, but this is his very real, very messy life. I think of the grant and everything he’s giving up to care for Trapper, and admiration and sympathy gather around my heart like soft cotton wool. It’s the last thing I need to be feeling for him, because this is exactly the sort of crisis that happens to all my romance heroines. I even have a name for it: the Melting Point.
My formerly independent leading lady finds out that the annoyingly attractive jerk she’s been forced into proximity with is a secret cinnamon roll: crusty on the outside with a warm, gooey interior. She discovers that he’s starting a nonprofit for blind animals, or has a weekly standing date to watch telenovelas with his grandmother, or (just another hypothetical example) is dedicating his life’s work to curing the disease he lost his mother to. I see all the caution tape. I understand how this plays out. But it doesn’t mean I can fully control what’s happening inside my chest. Because Forrest isn’t a romance hero with a simple character arc, safely trapped and untouchable within his pages. He’s complicated, roaming around freely, and highly touchable. Above all, he’s off-limits.
“And he is the expert,” Trapper goes on, as if he hasn’t noticed the nuclear reactor meltdown happening inside me. “No one as highly regarded in the field. If you only knew how many institutions have been fighting over him since he was sixteen. The technology he and his team were developing before I—” Trapper stops himself with a frustrated sigh. It’s not the first or, I’m sure, the last time I’ve heard him and Jo sing Forrest’s praises, but this tidbit is new.
“Sixteen?” I repeat. “Seems pretty young. Did he win a science fair or something?”
Trapper chuckles, a mixture of pride and sorrow pulling at his features. “Not exactly. He got headhunted by Stanford after he wrote a letter to the editor of a well-known science journal and corrected one of their papers. He criticized them for ‘lack of rigor,’ I believe.”
“Jesus,” I say faintly. “Pretty sure I was just slinging french fries and kissing boys when I was sixteen.”
Trapper smiles, but it dies quickly. “He was always too brilliant for this place. It’s why I keep telling him he has to go back.”
“You want him to go back?” I ask, bypassing polite interest and gunning straight for an insider scoop.
“Of course I do,” Trapper says quietly, looking down at his hands. “I’d give anything for things to go back to the way they were. I tell him every damn day he needs to return to Caltech—that Jo and I’d be fine on our own—but he doesn’t even respond.”
“Did you just say Caltech?” I ask, making sure I haven’t misheard him.
“That’s the one. Does it mean something to you?”
I sit back in my chair and rub a hand across my forehead, more unnerved by this conversation with every passing second. “No, no. It’s just… I live in Silver Lake. It’s a fifteen-minute drive from Caltech.”
Trapper’s mustache broadens with his smile. “Another reason I’m so darn happy you’re staying with us, Margot Bradley from Silver Lake. I’ve got a hunch that you remind Forrest something awful of home.”
“I doubt I’m going to be the one to convince him, Trapper,” I warn him. “You might have noticed that we’re not exactly swapping friendship bracelets.”
Trapper chuckles. “What I’ve noticed is that my son, who managed to graduate high school two years ahead of schedule, is late for our morning walk for the third time this week. Any idea what might be making him so uncharacteristically scatterbrained these days, Margot?”
At his thinly veiled question, a hot flush creeps up my neck, and like a coward, I raise my coffee mug to hide behind. “Beats me,” I mumble before taking a long sip.
Trapper only chuckles again and begins maneuvering his chair away from the desk. “Good luck writing today, dear. Come on, Scout. Time for our walk. Let’s go find Forrest and get my skis on,” he says referring to the ingenious detachable wheelchair skis that help him get around in the snow. He whistles, and Scout immediately gets up, trotting after him.
“Say hi to Bullwinkle for me,” I say, waving goodbye.
“Will do. And if I don’t see you before you all leave tomorrow, happy camping!”
I gulp down the burning-hot coffee as all thoughts of Forrest, Caltech, the grant, and his decision vanish.
“Camping?”