She turned to Koskinen with a bemused smile. “In their underwear?”

  “Yes, the word is in Finnish kalsarikännit, and this translates to ‘pants-drunk.’” He moved to another bank of windows.

  “Pants drunk?” Mrs. Sutton followed behind. “Huh. That sounds like something someone would do when they were depressed. Unless, of course, this is a party situation?” Mrs. Sutton frowned with her whole face but quickly smoothed out those lines, offering an interested smile instead, as Koskinen turned to her.

  “Something we do alone.” Koskinen continued matter-of-factly. “It is lovely to sit around and get drunk in one’s underpants. It is quite done here.”

  “Interesting.” By her tone, Halo surmised that Mrs. Sutton wasn’t one to sit around in her panties by herself, getting drunk.

  The sarcastic note of her reply seemed to have been lost on Koskinen. He pointed at the new section of the window. “Here, do you see this? The Ferris wheel?” He looked back to see that Mrs. Sutton was focused in the right direction. “It is interesting because—can you see that one brown car on the wheel?”

  Mrs. Sutton squinted. “Yes. It’s different from the others.”

  “It is a sauna.” He pronounced it SOW-nah, and since it was a Finnish invention, Halo noted the proper pronunciation and would use it from then on.

  She blinked.

  “Yes, this is true,” Koskinen said. “You get on, and as the wheel takes you around, you and your friends enjoy the sauna.”

  “But if you’re in a sauna, and it’s steamy, how do you see the view?”

  Good question.

  Koskinen skipped forward with his information. “Sauna is very important to the Finnish peoples. We have saunas everywhere. We have more saunas than we have cars. As a matter of fact, here in Helsinki, there is an American burger chain restaurant with a sauna. Many public saunas. It is a place to socialize. We do this because it is good for the physical and mental health especially in the dark months of the year. And, having shown you this,” he checked his watch, “I have a lovely surprise.” He focused back on Mrs. Sutton. “The executives of my department have arranged a welcoming sauna for you. This is a traditional greeting to a new business alignment, and we wish to extend this welcome to you.”

  Koskinen looked pleased.

  Mrs. Sutton did not.

  “How very kind.” She put her hand to her chest. “Sadly, I will be on the ferry by lunch.”

  “This is fine.” Koskinen bladed a hand toward the door, stepping forward. “We go right now.”

  “To the sauna? Now?” She turned to Halo, her eyelids blinking in a staccato pattern that made him think she was sending an SOS in Morse code.

  Halo had received orders that he was there for Mrs. Sutton’s protection and was in no way to inject himself into any situation. He stood stoically against the pleading in her eyes. It felt wrong. But he was honestly at a loss.

  With a nervous laugh, Mrs. Sutton turned back to Koskinen. “What a delightful idea. I’m sorry, I don’t have a bathing suit with me.”

  “This is a private sauna.” Koskinen brushed his hand through the air, indicating that they should walk.

  “For women?” Mrs. Sutton stepped forward. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Bathing suits are only worn for public saunas like at the burger restaurant.” The two walked side by side, and Halo stayed a step behind at Mrs. Sutton’s left elbow.

  “In private, so at our office spaces,” Koskinen continued. “Finnish people do not cover themselves. Neither do we segregate saunas male to female. This wouldn’t be egalitarian, especially for work.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Sutton’s voice sounded tight in her throat. “Since saunas aren’t part of the typical American culture, can I just check and see if I understand where we’re going and what we’re doing?” They’d stopped in front of the elevator. “Your team is honoring me with a department welcoming party in a sauna. We will be men and women together, and we will all—all of us—be unclothed.”

  “This is a wonderful way to get to know each other.” Koskinen nodded to her, then turned to press the call button.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Sutton glanced over her shoulder at Halo. That look screamed, “Get me out of this.”

  Halo couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would keep her out of this situation, barring some claim to a medical issue. But then, he didn’t know if such a claim would bring her difficulties down the line.

  She licked her lips. “My security.” She vaguely gestured Halo’s way.

  “Is welcome, of course,” Koskinen said as he tipped his head back at the sound of the elevator car descending to their floor.

  Here, perhaps, was the way out. “Sir, my duty is to stay beside Mrs. Sutton for the duration of her trip to Helsinki. And I am required to remain in uniform. If I cannot enter the sauna, I’m afraid that I cannot allow Mrs. Sutton to enter the sauna.”

  Mrs. Sutton sent a look of profound gratitude his way.

  “Well, it won’t be very comfortable for you,” Koskinen said as the elevator doors slid open, “but I can’t imagine anyone objecting to your requirements.” He blocked the door from shutting prematurely with an extended arm and gestured for them to enter, sending Halo a smile. “Of course, you can remain dressed in the sauna as you provide security for Mrs. Sutton.”

  Chapter Five

  September Third

  Haute Nendaz, Switzerland

  Tapping on her blinker, Deidre turned into the ski chalet’s parking area. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Deer.” Mary looked into the tree line, where the slope was covered with snow. It was hard to fathom the change from two days ago when she’d gone shopping in shorts and flip-flops.

  “Okay. Random.” Deidre slowed to maneuver into a parking spot.

  “These two juvenile deer were eating grass by the electrical lines the other day. On a whim, I called out to them in that kind of high-pitched voice I use for coaxing dogs.”

  “Yeah?” Deidre threw the gear into park and turned in Mary’s direction.

  “They took a few steps toward me, then looked at each other and stopped. So I kept doing it.” Mary pitched her voice higher. “Hi, babies. Aren’t you beautiful? Are you such sweet deer?”

  “Yeah?”

  Mary was back to her normal speaking voice. “And they kept coming toward me. Tentative. Unsure about what was going on, I thought, Mary, what the heck are you doing? You can’t teach deer that humans are safe. So then I told them to go on about their day.”

  “Interesting. Why were you thinking about that?”

  “Just that they acted like stray dogs. I want a dog in my life.” Mary looked down to unbuckle. “I need a dog in my life.” Mary looked up to catch Deidre’s gaze. “Instead, I’m out there calling wild deer to my side. Ridiculous.”

  “What’s stopping you? The shelters are full of needy pups. You’re already fostering that terrible cat.”

  “My job.” Mary sighed. “I can’t figure out how to have a dog in my life since I’ll be doing twenty-four-hour shifts when I start my job as a flight nurse.”

  “Maybe you could find someone who wanted to co-parent with you? You could share custody.” Deidre put her hand to her chest. “Not me. I’m a goldfish person. That’s about all the care I want to give outside of work. But someone. Maybe even a nice single guy kind of someone?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Mary opened her door and climbed out. The air was brisk. And while Mary had layered on the warmest clothes she’d packed. When she put her things in her suitcase, she hadn’t contemplated being on a ski slope in summer.

  Walking toward the cute little ski lodge on the other side of the lot, Mary thought wistfully that what she’d like to do this morning was sit in the window and quietly sip on a cup of hot cocoa. But she had already convinced herself that this ski trip would be different from her other attempts. And that if she wanted to break down the barriers that made her afraid to build new competencies, she would have to get used to that space of discomfort that came with trying new things.

  She’d spent most of the drive up the mountain encouraging herself.

  Deidre reached out, swatted Mary’s arm, and pointed at a guy parachuting directly over the mountain's peak. As he descended, the women could make out the skis strapped to his feet.

  “Wow,” Deidre said. “Talk about extreme sports. Can you imagine jumping out of a plane in order to find a patch of virgin snow to ski?”

  “Hardcore.” Mary shielded her eyes with the blade of her hand.

  “What happens if you crash and burn on the landing?” Deidre asked. “Who would go up there to save you? How long would it take?”

  “Not the rescue crew I’ll be working with. That’s some high-tech, specialized shit. You’d have to be equally ready to just risk it all to effect a rescue like that.” Crashing and burning wasn’t really what Mary wanted to talk about right now.

  Mary had been on skis twice in her life. Once, she’d gone cross-country skiing as a teen in West Virginia and, within view of the lodge, had moved over a patch of snow that hid a pit. She went straight down so the skis didn’t release. The snow had filled over her, and she was effectively buried up to her neck. A group of scouts came over, laid on the ground, and used their mess kit skillets to dig her out. So that was a treat, Mary thought sarcastically. The second time she went skiing was a Christmas gift from Deidre. Deidre loved to ski and wanted Mary to be able to join her. So there she was, taking private lessons from a very patient ski instructor.

  Mary hadn’t been able to get her legs to cooperate even as the instructor called out instructions and encouragement. She hadn’t mastered even the basics required to get on the ski lift—the uphill sidestep and pizza-wedge stop. Finally, Mary had told the guy there was something physically wrong with her, and she needed to head in from the “Potato Patch.” The instructor seemed relieved.

  Mary went to the clinic and discovered she had double pneumonia.

  So, her experiences on the slopes didn’t set her up for a delightful day.

  This trip was about Deidre, though, so Mary was determined to suck it up and to try very hard not to be a killjoy.

  Deidre was glowing with excitement.

  In they went. They rented what they could, including (Thankfully!) parkas and goggles. And they bought the things that weren’t available for rent—hats and gloves. The guy had looked down at Mary’s yoga pants. “You don’t have ski pants with you?”

  “Sorry.” There weren’t any for rental or sale there, so it would have to do. She’d be on the baby slope anyway. “I’ll be skiing with the toddlers. It should be fine.” Mary noticed the guy hadn’t said anything skeptical or paternalistic to Deidre. Of course, she looked and acted like the practiced hand she was.

  “When you are on the baby slope. Please to keep yourself to the left. This is safer place.”

  “Left,” Mary repeated with a nod. He probably wanted to keep her out of the path of the children who would be on the right. Right?

  Deidre decided to skip the expert slope; she was still jet-lagged and had a restless, anxious sleep the previous night. “I’ll go down the one marked ‘advanced’ a few times, then I’ll meet you in the restaurant.”

  Mary moved past the blue slope for people who had a clue what they were doing, walking past the beginner green slope and all the way over to where Mary saw children clumping together. Mary would guess they were a kindergarten-aged group, maybe still preschoolers, who gathered around adults with whistles that they’d toot from time to time. Mary wondered if this was designated only for tots and if she’d be allowed.

  In her bulky ski boots, Mary stomped up and looked over the area. “Very potato-patchy,” Mary said as she laid the skis on the ground. “Basically flat.” She poked her sticks into the ground to balance herself as she clipped her boots into the skis. “Nice and easy. It’s okay to take baby steps next to the babies. It’s okay to be a beginner,” she coaxed herself as she moved forward. “Okay, bit more of a slope than it looked. Going a bit faster than I’m comfortable with.” She was just talking to herself like she’d do with her boys when they were trying something new. “It’s okay to suck. Just learn one takeaway today. One thing that will inform you the next time you try.”

  And that was when Mary—arms windmilling through the air for balance—slicked right past the trees on her left where she had tried to dutifully follow the shop person’s counsel.

  And then she was on her hip, desperately digging into the slick white surface, watching the three-year-olds with their teddy bear-eared hats swish joyfully past down the highest, longest slope that Mary had ever seen.

  The toddlers were laughing at her.

  Laughing.

  Mary most certainly didn’t belong on this slope. What was she thinking signing up for skiing on a glacier in summer? If Mary could get off this darned mountain with only a broken ego, she was going to take it as a win.

  She’d gotten herself to a stop, braced against her poles that dug into the crust of glittering snow. Overheated from the exertion, Mary melted the ice beneath her, and she was sure that her thigh and butt cheek were at risk of frostbite. She couldn’t feel her fingers.

  How am I going to save myself here? Mary wondered as she scanned for a solution. Looking backward, she focused on the last tree she’d passed. If she could somehow get up to it, she could move from tree to tree back off this mountain.

  Just head to the restaurant.

  Just get that pot of hot cocoa and nurse her wounded pride.

  But with a shriek, she was slipping again, skidding toward the right side of the mountain. The side that the shopkeeper said was the dangerous side.

  The babies were swishing and swooshing as they evaded her almost parallel path from one side of the ski trail to the other. She had no business being on this slope. No business being covered in ice and snow at the end of the freaking summer.

  Wet and cold, bruised and cut, Mary hit stretches of sheer abandon where she just let herself hip slide without any measure of dignity. Into this, Mary peppered moments of terror that had her flailing her limbs with the attached skis. She was desperate for control as she panicked in the face of the inevitability of gravity when there was a dearth of anything, even vaguely resembling friction, to slow her descent.

  All the while, there was happy laughter and calling back and forth between the toddlers—"Weee! Isn’t this fun?” their giggles implied.

  It seemed like taunting. “It feels cruel, to be honest,” she grumbled. And now that the kiddos were out of sight, Mary raised a fist. “Screw you. Screw you all,” she yelled, angry at her pain and the cold, wondering if maybe she had chipped the bone in her elbow and would need a cast. She felt like an old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. Only, in retrospect, maybe she was on theirs.

  Well, cussing made her feel a little better.

  Inappropriate, but better.

  That and just giving up.

  There was a certain peace to lying back—her legs spread eagle, her skis a tangle—letting herself body surf the damned mountain.

  Tucking her chin, Mary could see that she was fast approaching the shed that was part of the ski lift system. Why things were set up catawampus like this with the lodge at the top and the lift taking you from bottom to top instead of top to bottom probably had to do with the geography and rock structures. Mary didn’t care. She just wanted to hand in her equipment and find a corner to lick her wounds.

  Using her abs to get her torso upright again, Mary mumbled, “All hail to whoever invented Pilates.”

  The last bit was sheer ice, and Mary was picking up speed and wasn’t sure what to do about it other than to lift her poles in the air to get big and yell, “Incoming!” to protect the innocent bystanders.

  Some laughing guy stood wide-legged in front of her and stuck out his hands at the last moment, pressing back on her shoulders and bringing her to a stop.

  Mary was panting. She did it. She was down the darned slope. “Merci,” she mustered.

  “American, right?” he asked in a nearly perfect U.S. accent.

  He could tell that from my shitty ski performance? Mary nodded in stunned and exhausted defeat. “How did you know?”

  “Bunch of clues. Your clothes. Your technique.” He grinned. “Mostly the cuss words that were echoing down from the slope.”

  “Ah.” She looked around at the children gathering in what looked like school groups with teachers counting heads. “Sorry, kids.” Mary accepted the hand extended out to her.

  Wincing, she pressed into her heels and got herself upright. “Thank you.” She looked toward the T-bar lift that was taking people up. Coffee was at the top of the mountain, and that contraption was going to take her there. She angled her skis in that direction.

  “Ho, there. Wait just a moment. The dogs are coming.”

  Dogs …

  For the first time, Mary really looked at the guy and realized he was wearing a red rescue coat. He must be like a lifeguard for the kiddie pool. Here to help out if one of the toddlers took a tumble.

  No kid took a tumble. Not a single child. Not anywhere along the trail.

  Mary pulled the goggles onto her forehead to see the guy clearly, without all the scratches she’d put into the lenses. She realized she would have to pay for them and briefly wondered how much that would cost her. “Dogs?”

  “The dog sled team is harnessed up. They’ll be here in a minute to get you to the lodge. We have a first aid station with a nurse to look you over there.”

  “Sled.” Mary was a nurse. So first, she could probably check herself over.

  Second, since Mary had decided that she wanted a little less hospital in her nursing life and a little more challenge, so she’d been training for—and had just passed her test to become—a flight nurse on a medivac copter.