by Katy Paige
“Huh. Was I Minste last night? This morning?”
He tugged on her waist and she lay back, resting the back of her head on his washboard stomach while his hand wandered over her chest, up and down her arm, fingers finally resting lightly on the warm, soft plane of flat skin between her neck and her breasts.
“You were perfect. This was perfect. But, they’ll be waiting for me,” she said, picking up his hand and bringing it to her lips. She pressed a kiss to each fingertip before turning around, pressing her breasts against his chest, and smiling at his beautiful face that she loved so much. “I have to go to Paradise.”
He gazed at her, so steadily, so tenderly, it was like he was memorizing her; it was like he’d never seen anything as precious as Katrin.
Finally, he murmured back, “We’re already there, Älskling. We’re already there.”
Chapter 16
While he showered, she made them a simple breakfast consisting of waffles she found abandoned in her freezer, and fruit cocktail from a can, distributed into two small bowls.
She hummed as she prepared two plates, wishing she had more to offer him. Her kitchen smelled like strong coffee that would be, unfortunately, black, but she found some sugar, so it could be as sweet as he liked. As sweet as he was.
She set the table, then looked out the window from the kitchen when something glistening in the sunshine caught her eye: out by the woodpile behind the garage was—what was it? Glass? She squinted. The sun was sure bouncing off of it, making it sparkle, whatever it was. It looked almost like ice, but that made no sense in June. She slipped her flip-flops on, and headed down the stairs, a foreboding feeling chasing her steps as she made her way around the garage.
She peeked around the side of the building and gasped, confronted with a veritable mountain of clear bottles. Some completely empty, some with a good swallow left at the bottom, all of them with jaunty red, gold and silver metallic labels identifying them as vodka. Katrin wrapped her arms around herself, turning to look at the woods about ten feet away, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.
She turned back to the bottles and counted. There must have been fifteen or twenty, some broken glass, some plastic, all thrown haphazardly behind the garage, next to the woodpile. Now, Wade didn’t drink more than a bottle a day, unless things had gotten much worse, which meant this represented about twenty nights of Wade coming to her apartment and drinking in her back yard. She tried to remember if she’d checked this woodpile before she left, and remembered there had been a cold snap in mid-May and she’d borrowed logs for her mother’s fireplace. So, this was new. This was all left here since Katrin moved to Skidoo.
She rubbed her arms, wondering how this played out. Did Wade come here to drink every night while she was gone? Did he drink somewhere else then finish up the night here? Was he quietly sneaking through the woods to drink back here on his own—some misguided attempt to feel closer to her? Creepy, Wade. What’ve you been up to?
She headed back up to her apartment for a plastic garbage bag. Erik was standing in her bedroom doorway as she walked in, a towel around his waist, rubbing his wet head with another. And what a marvelous sight to see: her half-naked Viking King.
“Wondered if you’d left me,” he said lightly, grinning.
“No chance of that.” She crossed the small living room to plant a kiss on his lips. “Morning.”
“Morning, Kärlek.” Love. The noun, not the verb, but it still made her heart skip a beat.
“Haven’t heard that word in a million years.”
“Get used to it.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded, and she looked back at him with an impish grin. Oh, my, God, how is he this hot?
“You better get dressed, or it’ll be later all over again.” Her tongue flicked out across her lips, teasing him, before she sprinted to the kitchen. As she got a plastic bag out from under the sink, she heard him humming in the bedroom as he got dressed.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” she called, anxious to deal with the remnants of Wade’s pow-wows before it cast a shadow over their day. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself!”
The big, unbroken glass bottles and plastic bottles were easy. She placed them in the plastic bag carefully so they wouldn’t clink together loudly, nervously flicking her eyes upstairs to her kitchen window. The shards were tougher. There was so much. She was wrong about fifteen or twenty bottles. It was more like thirty. And scattered throughout the bottles were dead white roses, muddy cellophane and filthy, drooping, once-white ribbon. It made a chill pass through her. Wade had been here a lot. Maybe every night since she’d been gone.
“Want some help?
She looked up to see Erik standing at the corner of the garage, hands in his pockets, looking down at her with concern in his eyes.
Her shoulders drooped. “Just wanted to get it all cleaned up before breakfast.”
Erik squatted down, arranging large shards in his hand. “Old habit? Cleaning up after Wade?”
She nodded. “I guess.”
“We need to tell the local police about this, Kat. Being here at all is in violation of the restraining order.”
She cringed and he noticed.
“You didn’t file a restraining order?”
She shrugged. “I was leaving for Skidoo. I didn’t want you to have to make the stop.”
He took the bag from her hands and pulled her into his arms. “Listen to me good, Katrin Svenson. Nothing’s more important to me than you and your safety. Understand? We’re going to file that order. Today.”
She nodded and he leaned down to brush his lips across hers, her heart swelling with love for him. They were standing in the middle of Wade’s mess, but they were standing together, and for that, she was grateful.
Erik let her go and picked up a pile of broken glass, placing it gently in the bag before holding up a bouquet of dead flowers. “White roses?”
She nodded and he shook his head, murmuring a curse word as he stared at the wilted blooms.
“Kat, did Wade always give you white roses?” She sensed he was trying to put something together.
“Mm-hm,” she whispered, frightened by the look in Erik’s eyes.
“What does he look like? How tall is he? What’s his build?”
“Why? Umm. He’s a few inches shorter than you. Not as big. Early-twenties, like me.”
“Dark hair.”
“Yeah. Dark brown.”
“Shorter than me, but built like a quarterback.”
“Yeah. Why? Erik, you’re scaring me.”
“That night? Before dinner with José and Gabrielle? I didn’t bring those white roses, Kat. The ones I handed to Gabrielle that she brought to your room? Those weren’t from me. I didn’t have enough time to tell her, and then you looked so pretty and…I forgot to say anything. But, there was a man at the clinic door when I got there. Real nervous. He was wearing a hoodie and seemed a little shifty. His eyes widened when he saw me and after that he tucked his chin down and didn’t look up again. But, he shoved the flowers in my hands and left in a hurry. At the time I chalked it up to a high school kid with a crush on a nurse, but it was bizarre. I think it could have been Wade.”
Kat gasped and the plastic bag fell from her hands. “H-He knew where I was?”
Erik jumped up and pulled her back into his arms. “I don’t know. Calm down. It’s okay, sweetheart. Let’s try to put this together.”
She relaxed in his arms as he continued: “You know what’s been bothering me? My car getting keyed. I checked and there were no other reported instances of vandalism on an off-duty officer’s car that weekend. Plus, it wasn’t just a key being lightly dragged along the paint to screw with a cop—it was overkill, it was anger, all those scratches and dents. Didn’t you say when he showed up at Ingrid’s he was rambling about horses? We spent that day on Wild Horse Island. I don’t know, Kat. Maybe these things are connected…”
“Oh, my God.”
“Kat? What is
it?”
“Something his mother said to Ingrid. The weekend we went to Wild Horse. The weekend your car was keyed. She said Wade was up north hunting, and he came home in a foul mood. I didn’t put it together. It didn’t even occur to me at the time.”
“Okay, first, did Flathead mean anything to him? Like, was it a favorite place?”
Katrin nodded. “I don’t know about favorite, but he had a friend in college who had a fishing cabin on Flathead Lake. He went up a few times to fish and hunt.”
“Okay…so, if he was up there, it’s possible he saw you.”
“No, Erik.” She thought of the angry key marks on her side of Erik’s car. “I think he saw us.”
“Right. And that would get him good and mad.” Erik nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. So, let’s see. You’ve left Choteau. He’s frustrated. He goes up to Flathead Lake to do some hunting with a college buddy and he sees us together in the parking lot. Sees us kissing, right? So, he waits until we get on the boat and he keys my car. Then he probably notices the DOJ sticker, gets freaked out and speeds home, afraid he might have been seen by someone and he’ll get caught.”
Katrin nodded. “It totally makes sense. Wade’s leery of cops. He’s been arrested enough times, mostly for misdemeanors, but he always knew if he was charged with a felony he wouldn’t be able to teach again. So, he would have been freaked out when he realized you were a cop.”
“Okay. So, he leaves Flathead, but he’s pissed now. He gets home and goes on a bender, ending up a day later—Monday night, right?—on Ingrid’s lawn yelling about horses, probably because he wanted to know where you were, but he was too drunk to make any sense. Anyway, Ing and Kris have him arrested, where he stews in jail for several days before getting out, still wanting to know where you were. That’s what I don’t get. How did he find out where you were?”
“I have no id—oh, wait. Oh, no,” Katrin murmured, her face collapsing. “I sent my mother a postcard. It had a picture of Skidoo Bay on the front. She never got it.”
Erik inhaled, then blew out through his mouth, nodding. “That had to be it. He intercepted it. Okay. So, you sent your mom a postcard. After Flathead?”
“I put it in my mailbox for pick-up the same day. Sunday.” She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“No, stop. No, Kat, don’t do that to yourself. You were just being a normal person. Normal people don’t over-think sending a postcard. Stop.” He leaned down and kissed her gently as tears spilled over her eyes and he used his knuckles to swipe them softly away.
“So, you sent a postcard to your mom, he intercepted it, and then he knew where you were. But, he was running out of time. He had to be back in Choteau to go to rehab on Monday, or Ing and Kris wouldn’t drop the charges. So, he went up to see you on Sunday probably, right? What were you doing that Sunday before I picked you up? He was parked across the street. You didn’t see him?”
“I wasn’t at home. I was barely home all day. Paca and I went to church, then out for crepes and coffee. Then I got my hair and nails done. I was gone all day. I got home twenty minutes before you picked me up.”
“So Wade finally sees you come home from the beauty salon and decides to make his move. He’s standing in front of the clinic, about to knock on the door, and then I show up and ruin it for him. He knew who I was. He had seen me at Flathead Lake and knew I was a cop. So, he shoved the flowers at me and drove home to go to rehab in the morning. I ruined his only chance to see you.”
“It all makes sense, Erik. It fits together.”
“He probably waited for you for hours across the street while you were out getting your hair done. Must have been pretty frustrated to miss seeing you.”
“How did he seem?”
“Like a nervous kid about to give a girl flowers.”
“Wade’s pretty disarming. He has a baby face.”
“He didn’t wait for us to come home,” Erik mused.
“He couldn’t. For all he knew, I was going to be with you all night, and he couldn’t risk seeing us together. You didn’t know who he was, but if he confronted me in front of you, you would have arrested him.”
“So, he waited all that time, then turned around and went home?”
Katrin shrugged, shaking her head, tears of fear and frustration burning her eyes. “He didn’t have another choice. Erik, you’re the only reason he didn’t…you’re the only reason he didn’t get to me…he said he’d kill me if I moved on…”
She was breathing so fast, she felt dizzy, even standing in Erik’s strong arms. Her body felt so cold, trembling, realizing how close she came to being confronted by Wade. Erik was the only reason Wade had run home.
She rubbed her forehead, feeling frightened and despairing. “This isn’t over yet. It’s not. I know it. What am I going to do?”
Erik looked down at her, the tenderness in his eyes balanced by the no-nonsense rigidity of his jaw, and then pulled her into the safe embrace of his arms. “We’re going to make sure this ends. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t come for you again.”
***
They finished cleaning up the bottles and Erik tied up the garbage bags while Katrin showered and got dressed. She wore a traditional white, Swedish peasant blouse with delicate floral embroidery and a traditional lace-up bodice over the blouse. To complete the costume, she would have worn an apron over a long striped or patterned skirt. But, the revelations about Wade had taken the shine off the morning, and she didn’t feel like wearing the full, cheerful costume. She tugged on jeans and black ballet flats instead.
While she got dressed, she heard Erik on the phone, first with the local police, whom he updated on Wade’s nightly sojourns in Katrin’s back yard and his suspected trips up to Skidoo Bay. The police cautioned that they would note Erik’s suspicions, but without actual proof of Wade’s trespassing, they couldn’t do much of anything. Erik assured them that he and Kat would be in to file the paperwork for a restraining order that morning. Erik called Ingrid next, and explained what they’d found behind Katrin’s apartment. She gave Erik the name of the rehab center where Wade was getting treatment in Great Falls. Next he called the rehab center, and Katrin overheard him confirm that yes, Wade was there, and yes, they were keeping a close eye on him.
For now, there was nothing to worry about and nothing else they could do.
With that news, Katrin finally started to feel the tension ebbing out of her as she sat on her messy bed, which smelled of her and Erik, and last night. It made her happy and made her feel safe and sexy, and she tried to let go of her fears and discomfiture. Erik was here. He would keep her safe. She braided her long blonde hair into two, intricate Swedish braids from her crown to the nape of her neck, where she joined them into a long braid that trailed down her back. When she finished braiding, she looked up to see Erik watching her from the doorway.
“I could watch you do that forever,” he said simply, gesturing to her braids.
I love you, Erik. I love you so much. This morning would have been unbearable without you here.
“Det är dags för Midsommardagen, Katrin Svenson.” It’s time for Midsummer.
“Ja, Kärlek,” she replied to her love, standing up and taking his hand. “Let’s go.”
***
After a stop at the police station in Choteau to file the restraining order against Wade, Erik dropped her off at Paradise, where her mother and aunt would weave tiny spring flowers into her braids. He made his way to the porch off the main lodge where Lisabet told him he could find his father, brothers, Sam, Sam’s father, Sean, and Kristian. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. It was time to settle things with Katrin’s brother.
He parked in the main parking lot and made his way through the great room of the lodge, which was decorated for the holiday: there were wreaths and garlands everywhere he looked, festooning every possible surface. His eyes followed a garland of yellow and blue blossoms up the main stairs, and he smiled at
the yellow, blue, and white flowered wreath settled carefully around the neck of an elk head over the massive fieldstone fireplace. Traditional Swedish folk tunes were being piped in through the main speaker system, and Erik hummed along softly, grabbing a Kringla cookie from a platter as he opened the door that led to the porch balcony where his father and Uncle Sean rocked in rocking chairs, and the younger men leaned on the banister, catching up with one another.
“Erik!” Nils raised his massive hand in greeting. “Wondering when you’d get here!”
“Had to drop off Kat at Paradise.”
He shook his brothers’ hands, and smiled warmly at Katrin’s uncle Sean, whom he had met several times when the Kelleys visited Jenny and Sam in Great Falls.
“Good to see you again, Erik.”
“When’d you get back from Egg Mountain, Sean?”
“Ah. It was good and dark by the time I came down. I caught hell from Margaret.”
“I bet,” chortled Carl, giving his daughter’s father-in-law a sympathetic smile. “You missed the big news at dinner.”
Sean looked at Sam, smiling with approval. “I heard this morning. Couldn’t be happier.”
“That makes two happy grandfathers,” agreed Carl beside him, slapping him on the back.
Erik noticed Kristian leaning against the thick wood railing at the edge of the group, arms crossed, face cold. His eyes said it all: You’re sleeping with my sister and I have no idea if I can trust you.
Erik could only imagine how he would feel if it were Jenny.
“I need to talk to you,” Erik said.
Kristian rubbed his jaw with his thumb and forefinger and nodded.
“Want us to come with you?” Lars asked at Erik’s elbow.
“This is between me and Kristian.”
Lars backed off, but he didn’t look happy. Nor did Nils, who stood shoulder to shoulder with his middle brother, eyeing Kristian with menace.
Erik led the way, down the length of the porch, turning around the building to an empty side porch where he faced Kristian.
“You better speak fast, Erik, because my fist is dying to—”
