by Katy Paige
“Well, I could remedy that.” He squeezed her hand. Don’t overthink it. Don’t analyze it. Just for today, just enjoy her. “Your dad, though? Kristian? No hunting? No fishing?”
“Kris is seven years older than me. And yeah, he hunted a bit in high school, but he didn’t much want to drag his little sister around the woods with him, and then he enlisted after two years in college. I was only thirteen when he was deployed. And my dad? Well, he wasn’t much for the parks.”
“Huh. Tell me about your dad.” The path kept going around the bend of Skeeko Bay, but Erik pulled Katrin off the trail to the east. Another path wound through the woods, up the hill in front of them. At the top, there would be a flat space to picnic and if the maps were right, a great view of the lake and the mountains beyond.
“My dad. He was sweet. Kind. Gentle. Soft spoken. He wore glasses. Went to church every Sunday morning and took the collection.
“He was a real bookworm. Read a different book every evening, it seemed like. By the fire in winter or on the porch in the summer. Every night. That’s what I like remembering about him the most.” She sighed. “Hated his job, but did it for us.”
“What did he do?” He was surprised to find that he actually cared. He wasn’t trying to flatter her with attention by acting like he cared about her life. He was actually curious to know about her life, her parents, her life before he met her. This was new for him.
“Worked as a supervisor at the power plant in Choteau until my mom sold her share of the Triple Peak Lodge, and then he retired, but he died the following year. He always wished he’d gone to college, but his father died when he was young, and he had to go to work.” She paused before a larger boulder, leaves and twigs crackling under her feet as he helped her navigate it. Once around, she dropped his hand and he made a face, wanting it back.
“I respect his choices,” said Erik. “He took care of you. What else?”
“Ummm. I don’t know.” He looked at her to see if she was sad, but she didn’t seem sad. She smiled softly, remembering. “He made my mom laugh. He’d read something aloud to her, something silly or some bit of interesting trivia, and she’d chuckle and touch his hand. He’d pull her down to sit on his lap and his book would fall on the floor beside them, forgotten for a minute. I loved seeing them happy together. I miss him.”
Erik’s mind flashed back to her description of the perfect someday, and she had included someone to read with. He understood why now and was touched by his better understanding. He liked that the roots of her future were grounded in her past, and imagined her parents holding hands, happy together. Impulsively, he put his hand out to her again as she navigated another boulder, and she took it.
“How about your mom and dad?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“C’mon…”
“Well, I don’t know. They were my…”
“Mamma and Pappa…” she encouraged.
He nodded. “Sounds childish.”
“No! No, I love it. Sounds like old-timey Scandinavian. I love it.”
He nodded, biting the inside of his cheek, stalling. They were on flatter ground now making a lower grade ascent.
“So…” she prompted.
He breathed in, feeling a little uncomfortable with her insistence. He didn’t talk very much about his family to people who weren’t in his family, and his parent’s story was especially painful to him when he got to the end, so he guessed he better start at the beginning instead.
“He met her at Midsommardagen. He used to say…” He adopted his father’s accent, a mix of American West and Scandinavian. “‘Had flowers in her plaits. Prettiest thing I ever seen.’ Jenny told me that once he saw her, he said he would have followed her anywhere. Would have followed her to China. Would have followed her to hell. Said it wouldn’t have mattered where she went, he would have followed. Said he might as well just have up and died if he couldn’t be with her.”
Katrin had stopped walking. It took him a moment to realize that he was pulling her hand and she wasn’t moving. He turned to face her, couldn’t miss the tears shining in her eyes. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
He tilted his head to the side, staring at her, their arms stretched between them with their hands still linked together. Such a long distance seemed to separate them. “Kat. Don’t cry.”
She brushed under her eyes with her free knuckle, and he tugged at her hand, pulling her through a column of sunshine between two tall pines, anxious to get to the top.
“Yeah, they started off good, I guess,” he muttered, wishing they could talk about something else.
“What do you mean?”
“Auspicious beginnings don’t ensure happy endings.”
His mother’s cries passed through his head, and he winced. So much for following her anywhere. He didn’t know when his father stopped loving his mother, but it broke Erik’s heart that he did. Broke his heart and shattered his faith in true love, in forever. She was so alone as she died, and his father offered her no comfort, no love—
“Seriously, Erik, what does that mean?”
Erik didn’t say anything, shaking his head to scatter his thoughts. He pulled Katrin up around one last bend and over one last boulder, and they found themselves at the top of a flat hill looking out over the rest of the island and Flathead Lake, the Rockies majestic in the distance.
She gasped beside him.
“Oh, Erik!”
“Not bad, huh?”
“Amazing! Stunning!” Her eyes were bright as she twisted her head, taking in the stunning vistas from their perch atop Wild Horse Island. The sky was the same azure as the water below, the two blues only broken up by the mountains that rose up, dark and jagged on the horizon. Sunlight flooded the surrounding hills, turning pine trees into a vertical carpet of brilliant green. “How high are we?”
“Not very, really. About a thousand feet up.”
“It’s so beautiful.” She turned to look at him, eyes as blue as the sky, bright and hopeful. “Thank you for this. For planning this. For bringing me here.”
Then she turned from him, breeze in her blonde hair, smiling at the view before her.
And Erik stared at the view before him. With one hand on her hip, and the other holding his, looking with wonder over the lake, her eyes sparkled like sapphires.
His father’s words, which he had regarded as grand once, only to be intensely painful later in their falseness, were rolling around in his head. And he had a new layer of context to add to them as they finally made sense to him on a personal level.
Prettiest thing I ever seen. Would’ve followed her to China. Would’ve followed her to hell.
Erik’s heart galloped painfully watching Katrin Svenson. He was in trouble. He was in big trouble and it made his throat tighten with unfamiliar and unwelcome emotion.
Because he was sure in that moment—beyond any shadow of doubt—standing on that bluff at the top of Wild Horse Island, there was nothing in the mind-blowing beauty of the landscape surrounding them that could hold a candle to the view he had of her.
Erik was losing the battle.
He was falling for Katrin Svenson.
***
Erik asked if she minded some music on the ride home, and Katrin was surprised when the familiar strains of “Ashokan Farewell” filled the quiet of the car as he turned out of the parking lot, driving her home to Skidoo Bay.
She turned to him and smiled, touched that he had gone to the trouble of downloading the song to his iPhone after they’d heard it together at the park last weekend. He didn’t return her glance, but his lips twitched into a shy grin as he stared straight ahead out the window, purposely not meeting her eyes. Her heart filled. Fine. Have it your way. You don’t have to admit you downloaded this for me, but we both know you did.
Katrin had observed a dip in his mood after they reached the top of the hill on Wild Horse. He had dutifully laid out their picnic lunch, but the conver
sation had shifted from talk of families and serious matters to banality. He kept up a steady stream of amusing anecdotes about his co-workers and his new landlord, Terry, a middle-aged man hopelessly stuck in the fashions and colloquialisms of the 1970s. She giggled often, comfortable with him, enjoying his company, but noting that he didn’t try to hold her hand or otherwise touch her during the remainder of the afternoon.
He had laid out a beautiful lunch: wine, which she declined, and lovely cheeses, crackers, and grapes. At one point she had laid back on the blanket and he lay down beside her; she could practically feel the currents crackling back and forth between them, but he still didn’t reach for her, and it confused her. After his bold words about wanting her in his bed, his behavior seemed overly reserved. She could think of nothing she had said or done to make him want to retract his offer. It would be for the best, of course, for her and Erik to find their way as friends, but being friends would be totally at odds with her growing feelings for him.
She thought of his proposal in the car, and a shiver went up and down her spine. Your mouth. Your body. Your fingernails down my back. Your eyes rolled back in your head. Her insides went hot and tingly recalling his words, but it was his emotional admission later that she had rewarded with a kiss. I can’t stop thinking about you. I think about you all the time. She couldn’t deny it turned her on that he thought of her in such carnal terms, but that she might be touching his heart moved her in a far more meaningful way. It made her consider if her feelings for Erik, which were quickly progressing beyond attraction, had any chance of being returned, should she allow them to grow deeper.
Erik Lindstrom was an unsuitable choice for her on so many levels.
But, in the quiet of her mind, where she could push all reason and rational thoughts aside, she admitted she felt drawn to him with such a keen, intoxicating force, not considering him in her life seemed almost impossible.
At one point after lunch, she had dozed off, the warm sun lulling her to sleep. When she opened her eyes, she was on her side, and Erik’s face was a mere inch from hers, his eyes closed. She had propped herself up on an elbow and studied his face as he napped.
The Viking King in repose. Blond hair sparkling in the sunlight, blond eyelashes resting softly on his tanned skin. The stubble of his beard would scratch like sandpaper if she reached out to caress his strong jaw. His lips were pink and pillowed, slightly open in sleep, and high cheekbones created ridges that she wanted to lean over and kiss, first one, then the other. She didn’t, of course. She watched him in the quiet of the afternoon, trying not to over-think, trying not to think at all, just make the most of having him all to herself.
When he started to stir, she told herself to look away but she didn’t, of course. She lowered her elbow and laid her head back down on her arm so that when he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was her.
“Ӓlskling.”
“Minste.”
“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” he murmured, smiling at her sadly.
And they stared at each other, not touching, not saying a word, until it was time to go home.
***
It was six o’clock by the time Erik pulled into the parking lot in front of a ‘73 Hoyt. He cut the engine and turned to Katrin, a familiar melancholy taking root as the time came closer to saying goodbye. He hated that another week would pass before he saw her again, even as he knew he needed to get away from her. Being around her was poking holes in his carefully constructed logic about staying away from commitment, hobbling the strong stride of his bachelorhood.
“So…” he started.
“I had a great time.”
As he looked at her pretty face, his heart beat faster, letting loose butterflies in his chest.
“Me too. Thanks for coming.”
“We never saw the wild horses.”
Erik nodded, smiling back at her. “No napping next time and maybe we’ll find them.”
She returned his smile and seemed to be waiting for something, searching his face with her bright blue eyes. “Well, I guess I should…”
She reached for the door handle and he grabbed the hand closest to him before she could go. He was overwhelmed by his attraction to her and his—it was ridiculous to deny it anymore—growing feelings for her. He swallowed the uncomfortable lump in his throat.
“Katrin…”
She turned to face him, smiling like he knew she would, because she was actually that open, that trusting, that vulnerable. Because it didn’t matter that someone had shattered her life six months ago. She wasn’t afraid to open her heart again.
“Next Sunday?”
Her smile widened and she nodded, looking a little relieved. “I wasn’t sure if you—” Her expression changed suddenly and she looked down, frowning. “No, wait. I can’t. I have plans with José and…”
He stopped listening. It felt like she had punched him in the gut. No. A punch would have felt better. Of course. She had another date. She had said on the ferry today…not yet.
He dropped her hand, barely listening as she explained something about dinner with José. The pounding in his head was merciless. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You deserve this. You deserve it for letting your guard down. The blood rushing into his face was making his cheeks hot and he wished she’d just get out of the car. Just get out. Get out, Katrin. Please get out so I can drive away.
She was staring at his face, wide eyes and furrowed brows. “Erik!”
Had she said his name more than once?
He tried to look neutral, even though he felt like throwing up. His nostrils flared and he found he couldn’t meet her eyes, couldn’t bear for her to see the feelings behind them. José would try to kiss her at the end of their date. Put his hands on Katrin. He’d lean in all tan and smooth—would she let him? Would she—
“Erik! What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. I guess you have other plans, so I’m going to get going…”
She cocked her head to the side and took a deep breath looking sheepish. “So you don’t want to go?”
“Go where?” He was genuinely confused.
“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? To the dinner with José and Gabrielle. Next Sunday. To celebrate the clinic opening next Monday.”
Erik was still trying to get his head around the situation. “Wait. Gabrielle? You’re not going out to dinner with José?”
“I am. And Gabrielle. And…I was hoping, you.”
“As your date?”
Katrin’s shoulders slumped and she shook her head, her smile fading. “Forget it, Erik.”
“No! No, I mean, yes. Yes, Katrin, I’ll be your date to dinner.” Relief coursed through his veins, and he felt so happy, suddenly, so incredibly happy it should have scared him. But, it didn’t. He was too distracted by her pleased, lopsided smile.
“You’re being weird. Okay, then. It’s a…date.”
She got out of the car then tapped on the passenger side window again. He lowered it, still smiling at her. Back for a kiss?
“Really bad scratches over here.” She pointed to the car underneath the window. “Maybe when it was in the parking lot? Someone hit it?”
He got out and took a look, squatting down. “Wow. It’s been keyed. Badly.”
“Keyed?”
“Someone dragged their key all over this side of the car.” He touched it gingerly, frowning. What a mess. The jagged marks were everywhere in haphazard, furious scratches. Both doors would need to be repaired. “It’s dented too. Looks like someone was kicking it in.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just hit by another car? Maybe someone who parked too close?”
He glanced up at the windshield where a Montana Department of Justice sticker identified the car as a law enforcement vehicle. “Nah. But, I’ve heard about this. Some jokers think it’s funny to vandalize a cop’s car when he’s off duty.”
Katrin put her hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, Erik. Sour end to a great day.”
“It can be fixed.” He looked up at her. “Didn’t ruin anything for me.”
“See you next Sunday?” she asked, smiling, and he nodded.
“It’s a date.”
She gave him a short wave before skipping up the front steps and through the front door, looking back at him one last time before closing it behind her.
Erik stood up slowly, damage to his car forgotten. Since when were “It’s a date” the most amazing, relieving, comforting words he had ever spoken?
Since he met Katrin Svenson.
And that’s all Erik cared to think about that.
ENTR’ACT
Got all distracted with my car.
I wish I had kissed you goodnight.
–M
***
I wish you had too.
–Ӓ
***
Maybe I’ll come back.
***
Maybe you should.
Chapter 9
The wheels made a screeching noise as he turned the car around just north of town, but Erik was back at the clinic in three minutes flat.
Gravel flew and crunched noisily in front of her building as he braked sharply. He left the engine running and barely putting the gearshift in park before jumping out of the car and striding to the front door, a man on a mission.
It swung open and Katrin was halfway down the steps as he reached for her, seizing her hips and lifting her easily. She locked her legs around his waist, and he slammed his lips into hers in one fluid, hungry motion. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his mouth moved frantically, relentlessly over hers.
He hadn’t expected her to jump in his arms, but it set his body on fire for her to be so bold, so spontaneous, and for him to be holding her so intimately with her legs open and locked around his waist. He wanted to push her up against the nearest wall, discard the clothes between them and bury himself inside of her until they both cried out in release.
He boosted her up, holding her backside and she turned her face away, but Erik wasn’t ready to stop. He kissed a trail from her ear down her cheek back to her lips, demanding her mouth again, palms flat against her jeans, holding her intimately against him. She pulled him back to her and opened her mouth to him, stroking his tongue with hers, sucking on it until he thought he’d lose his mind. She ran her fingers through the stubble of his hair, moaning softly into his mouth.
