“Oh, gosh,” she said, getting inside and shrinking into the corner.
She looked up ahead, her eyes round with worry.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No. I love them. It’s a natural thing for human beings to love heights. What with how we are capable of gliding down safely if we fall from them.”
“You’re hysterical,” he said, noting the genuine fear in her eyes.
He might have pitied her. But he knew her now.
“Thank you. I do try to keep some humor in these situations.”
“No. That is not the kind of hysterical that I meant.”
She looked up at him. “Really?”
“Do you see me laughing?”
“No. But then. I never have.”
“Physically incapable,” he said.
“Must be the Viking.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Though Vikings had a particular affinity for me too. And I imagine if you get enough of it flowing through your veins a bit of pillaging seems amusing.”
The car gave a jerk, and the cable began to carry them up the hill, up, up toward the mountain home.
And Olive became more and more agitated. The tram flew over the tops of the snowcapped trees, past rocky crags and waterfalls. And it was clear that at a certain point in spite of herself, Olive became too fascinated by the view to hide.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here. Of all the places in the world that I have been, I just... It’s so strange...”
“Because the kind of business we do isn’t done here. It’s different. That’s why it’s my refuge.”
“I don’t have a refuge,” she said. “New York born and raised. Unless we were in London. Or Tokyo. Or Berlin. Or Stockholm.”
“It was a transient childhood for us both, I think.”
“I consider myself lucky,” she said. “Very few people have had the kind of on-the-job training that I had the opportunity to receive. Coupled with my experiences traveling... It doesn’t get much better, I don’t think.”
He could remember time he’d spent in a small house. With a woman who had cared for him. A man who taught him about life, and not just business meetings.
He could remember real birthday parties. Evenings spent reading by the fire.
Olive had never had that. It made him almost find that pity for her again.
Almost.
One thing he knew, their child would not have an identical experience to them. And he would be sure of it. Their child would have a mother and a father.
He would marry Olive, and ensure that they had...
He thought again of the small cabin he had spent the first twelve years of his life in.
No. They would not have that.
But they would have something. They could not be people they weren’t. And he had concerns about Olive and what she would teach a child.