The Near & Far Series

by Serena Clarke

  “Everyone is talking about the new volunteer at the lodge,” Stina was saying. “Karl-Olof texted me to ask who is the redhead he saw in town yesterday…I knew he must mean you. Now, introductions…”

  From there on, it was party mode. Zoe met a dozen or so people whose names she repeated carefully, but would surely never remember. She ate and drank, and drank a little more. Then quite a lot more. Whoever she talked to directly would speak English, but otherwise the conversation swirled around her in Swedish. Every now and then someone would yell “English! English for Zoe!” and there would be a burst of her own language before everyone forgot again and slipped back into Swedish. That was fine with her. She was warm, well-fed, and comfortably tipsy, joining in with toasts of skål! and clinking her glass with whoever offered. It was a welcome distraction from thinking about where the hell Claire could be, and how she’d get any Shark-busting info out of Jakob. She sent a photo of the akvavit bottle on the prettily-dressed table to Denise, who replied Whatever, where’s the man? She was tempted to sneak a shot of Jakob, but sent back emojis of a drink, a thumbs up, and a winky face instead. That’d keep her guessing.

  Then the singing started—drinking songs that they all apparently knew by heart. Although she had the skål mastered, she thought there was no hope of joining in with the songs. But after the fifth-sixth-seventh-whateverth time, she started to get the hang of the lyrics, even if she had no clue what the words meant.

  Helan går, sjung hopp faderallan lallan lej…

  Denise was right about one thing—there was nothing proper or haughty about this crowd once the drinks were flowing. No one seemed to care that it was a Wednesday, and they’d have to get up and go to work in the morning. Jakob was the only one not in full swing/sing, but then he was the only sober one. Ah, Jakob. She considered him from across the room in what she hoped was a surreptitious manner, but probably wasn’t. Damn, he was hot. But so bloody earnest. If he was any closer she would have given him a squeeze. Probably lucky he wasn’t though—that brief moment of hand-holding in the barn hadn’t exactly been a success. She laughed to herself and threw back another drink, feeling at one with the world, or with this part of it anyway.

  Some time later (she’d lost a grip on the minutes somewhere back around the time Malin brought out the bottle of Absolut), she was standing between Jakob and Stina, listening to a bunch of guys having a spirited argument that seemed to have something to do with ice hockey, when an older man came in. Immediately, she felt Jakob tense up next to her. And was it her imagination, or did a number of people glance in his direction? She looked at him, then at the new arrival. Older than everyone else here, was her first thought. Followed by her second thought: but still kind of attractive, in an off-beat way. Sort of had a look about him. Something familiar. Her akvavit-fuzzy brain struggled to get hold of it…

  Then it struck her. He looked like Jakob. She turned to say something to Jakob, but he’d disappeared. Weird. Also, turning like that made her head spin. She went over to the sofa and sat down, leaning back against the cool leather. The room was so warm, you’d never guess it was minus-iceberg outside. She closed her eyes for a second, stretching her legs out in front of her. God that felt good—how long had she been standing up? And when she opened her eyes again, the older man was sitting next to her.

  “Trevlig fest,” he said, smiling in her direction.

  “Oh,” she said. “I don’t actually…” She waved a hand and tried to remember the phrase Greta had taught her. “Jag talar inte svenska.” I don’t speak Swedish.

  “It seems like you speak some Swedish,” he replied, in beautifully accented British English.

  That was one funny thing she’d noticed. Most of the younger people she’d met spoke English with an American accent—apart from Jakob with his melodic Scottish-Swedish—while the older people spoke English so well-enunciated it was verging on plummy. It was the same everywhere, probably, around the world—the inexorable spread of American TV and movies and internet celebs and…everythingness. Even way back when, as a kid, she’d seen it in her international schools. Despite the teachers coming from every imaginable English-speaking country—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, England itself—the kids were determined to sound as California as possible. She didn’t care either way, herself, and her own accent was a gentle kind of trans-continental blend. She didn’t claim anywhere as home, and neither did her vowels.

  She looked more closely at the man next to her. Yes, he looked like Jakob. They must be related. But there was something else too…

  “I should have introduced myself,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Alvar.”

  She squinted at him, trying to figure it out. “Alvar?” Then, mid-handshake, she clicked. The torn-out magazine article from Claire’s room. “Oh! Alvar.”

  Alvar Lundberg. The provincial trucking operator who’d morphed into a tech entrepreneur, thanks to a team of whip-smart young coders. The very team that Claire had aspired to join.

  Eleven

  Here sat the person from Defrost Digital she should have asked about Claire in the first place. Maybe she had contacted him, but he’d never mentioned it to Fredrik. And maybe he’d suggested other places to work, that she might have gone. It was worth a try.

  He was looking gratified at her recognition. “Have we met?”

  “Uh, no. Well, I was at your offices today, but no. I’m Zoe Bailey.” Get your head straight, she told herself. Forty per cent now felt like the approximate operating level of her brain, as well as the akvavit’s alcohol content.

  “I’m sorry I missed you,” he said. “Why did you come to visit? Are you a game developer?”

  She snorted. “I’m not even a game player.”

  Seeing his bemused expression, she continued. “I was looking for a friend who was a game developer. Or who wanted to be one.”

  “Really? What is his name?”

  “Her name. Her name was—her name is—Claire Evans. But Fredrik said she hadn’t been there, not since he started working for you. Do you know of her?”

  She watched him for some sign of recognition, but he just laughed. “We don’t see many women in our offices. I wish we did.”

  “Claire talked about Defrost Digital. She dreamed about working for a company like yours. Except she didn’t just dream about it, she was studying and working towards it, practising all the time. Did she contact you?”

  “A lot of people want to work for me, Zoe.” His voice suddenly became very…patient. “They want me to look at their badly-coded games, or they want a job, or they want to know how to make millions with their app. I probably don’t remember half the people who have contacted me.”

  That sounded reasonable, even if she wasn’t in love with his mansplainy tone. She sighed, suddenly feeling tired. “I can see that.”

  At that moment, Jakob came over, wearing his coat and carrying hers. The look he gave her was impossible to misread. They were leaving. Without a word to Alvar, he passed over her coat.

  “I’ll see you at the car.”

  “Um, okay.” But she said it to his back, as he was already walking away.

  She got to her feet, swaying slightly, and started to put the coat on. The fur-trimmed hood got caught inside the back, and she twisted around trying to reach over her own shoulder and pull it out. She hadn’t done nearly enough yoga to flex that far, and she was aware of Alvar watching her struggle. But then she felt hands on her arms, holding her steady, and realised that Fredrik was turning her around. He pulled the hood out and lifted it onto her head.

  Then he looked behind her. “Alvar, you could have helped her. Too lazy to get up.” He shook his head.

  She heard Alvar laugh, but avoided his eye. “I have to go,” she said, feeling like a mouse between two cats. “I’ll just say thanks to Malin.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you again.”

  Fredrik leaned in, but with a reflex so quick she surprised her tipsy self, she twisted around to avoid his kiss. Hi
s lips landed somewhere in the fur of her hood, and she made her escape.

  “Lovely to see you,” she trilled over her shoulder, the sentiment as faux as the fur he was picking from his mouth. God, he must have been going for an open-mouther. Maybe the prized akvavit had actually sharpened her self-preservation skills.

  She called out goodbye to Stina and the room in general, then went and found Malin in the kitchen.

  “Thanks for a great night,” she said. “It was so much fun.” Fun enough that she needed a slight squint to get Malin in focus, not so fun that she was falling down. Perfect.

  Malin frowned. “You’re going already?”

  “Well, Jakob is leaving, so…”

  “Ah.” She pursed her lips. “Well. His father…”

  “Alvar is his father? I thought they looked similar.”

  “Yes.”

  So they were related—as related as you can get, even if they didn’t share the same surname. Maybe that fact revealed something about their relationship, or lack of. “They don’t seem very, um…friendly.”

  “No.” For a second, it looked like she might say something more, but then she tucked another plate in the dishwasher, and closed the door with a firm push. “Well, thank you for coming!”

  Zoe debated whether to ask what the deal between them was. There seemed to be more people in Lillavik Jakob wasn’t speaking to, than people he was. But there were other people in the kitchen, and also, she didn’t know if Malin was the person to pursue that conversation with. Better not. She plastered on a smile.

  “Okay, well, happy birthday!”

  “Grattis på födelsedag!” called out someone in the corner, raising a glass, and then the others in the room echoed him. “Grattis på födelsedag!”

  With jollity restored, Zoe waved and made her exit.

  Outside, the cold air stopped her in her tracks. Hell, it was freezing. Actually though, given that freezing point was officially zero degrees centigrade, that wasn’t anywhere near an accurate description of the temperature, way down in the negatives. Above, the clouds had cleared to reveal the wide northern sky. So much for her snowflake.

  She saw Jakob waiting by the car, and set off to join him. As she went, she plunged her hands into her coat pockets, looking for her gloves, but they weren’t there. For a brief moment, she considered going back in to find them, but then she looked at Jakob, standing in the dark with the car running. Jeez, why didn’t he just get in, if he was so impatient? It practically gave her frostbite just looking at him.

  She reached the car, and he opened the door for her. Oh. She’d automatically thought he was standing by the driver’s door waiting for her, but with the car being right-hand drive, he was standing on the passenger side. She got in and sat on the heated seat, and realised—he’d had the engine running so it would be warm for her.

  For someone so surly, he had surprisingly nice manners.

  He got in his own side, and they set off. Within a minute they were out amongst the trees and fields. The road was empty of other cars, but she tried to keep alert, watching for moose/elk/anything on four legs. Her squinting technique got tiring after a while though, and he drove like a granddad to her nana, so she started to relax.

  “What does grattis på födelsedag mean? Happy birthday?”

  She knew she must have mangled the words, but he understood her enough, and nodded.

  “Yes.”

  She leaned back against the headrest. “We sang all those other songs, but we never did Happy Birthday.” Then something occurred to her. “Do you sing the happy birthday song here? You know, Happy birthday to you…”

  She let her discordant solo fade away. The akvavit might have sharpened her kiss-dodging skills, but it hadn’t helped one bit with her tuneless singing voice. At least at the party her bung notes were drowned out by everyone else, who actually knew the words.

  “No. We have our own birthday song.”

  She might as well have implied they didn’t have their own prime minister, judging by his tone. Or was his pained expression because of her singing? She hoped for the first.

  “Well, yes, of course you have your own song. That makes sense.” She changed tack. “When’s your birthday?”

  He sighed. “December. The twenty-fifth.”

  “You’re a Christmas baby? But that’s so…festive.” And he was so…not.

  He looked sideways at her. Oops.

  “I mean, how fun! Although not so great sharing your birthday with the Christmas celebrations, maybe.”

  He shrugged. “Actually, we open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, so it wasn’t so bad.”

  “Really? Is that a Swedish thing, or just your family?”

  “A Swedish thing. But Christmas isn’t a big thing with my family. Not since my mother…”

  “Oh. Of course. I’m sorry.”

  Given his reaction to his father, which was frostier than hell frozen over, she guessed they didn’t enjoy heart-warming family Christmases together. What had happened between them? She couldn’t stop herself.

  “And your father? He seems…”

  Well, now she couldn’t come up with an adjective at all. Irritating? Superior?

  “Like a prick,” he supplied for her.

  She snorted with laughter, inappropriate but involuntary. “I didn’t think a Swede would know that word.”

  “I met a few in Scotland.”

  “Ah.” She bit her lip.

  She considered asking more, but they were arriving back at the lodge. It would keep. He parked the car in the big triple garage, then waited until she was out before hitting the switch to close the door. It was quiet at Bengt and Greta’s house—the little girls would be fast asleep—but as they walked down the path past the guesthouse, music and voices drifted from the big front room. The current batch of guests was from a university outdoors club, and they knew how to have a good time, day or night.

  Down the tree-lined path towards their own cabins, it was quiet again. She walked slightly ahead on the narrow way, the moonlight shining on the snow in front of her. The path glittered at her feet, tiny sparks of light echoing the pinpoints of stars above.

  As they came into the clearing, she paused. Sitting snug in the snow, the two cabins were twin refuges in the wilderness. She tipped her head back, letting her hood slip off, and looked up. If they raised their branches, the snow-kissed trees could surely reach that starry expanse of sky.

  She wanted to stay there, turning a slow circle in the snow, breathing out white puffs of air, and soak in the pale magic. But the tip of her nose was starting to numb, and although her puffy coat was warm, her bare fingers were becoming icicles in the pockets. She shivered, and they went on to her cabin. On the first low step, she stopped and turned back to him, their eyes almost level. Over his shoulder, the scene looked more like a painting than real life.

  Maybe it was the akvavit, but she felt a wave of emotion rise in her chest. “So pretty.” She waved a hand at the moon-drenched view, unable to come up with a better way to say it.

  But he didn’t turn to look at the trees, or the stars, or the moon. He was looking at her.

  “So pretty,” he repeated.

  She looked to the sky over his shoulder, then back at him.

  “Not the stars,” he said, his voice low.

  Oh. Not the stars.

  For a moment, everything hung in the balance as she looked at him, seeing possibility in his eyes. Was this going to happen, really? She searched in her foggy brain for a reason why not, and came up blank. Well, then. She leaned forward, only the barest millimetre…but it told him enough. He put one arm around her and pulled her close. It must be like embracing a huge doughnut, she thought vaguely…but then all thoughts were gone. His other hand cradled the back of her head, his fingers tangled in her hair, his dark eyes intense. That long-forgotten, about-to-be-kissed sensation washed over her—racing heart, heavy eyelids, heat rising…

  She wouldn’t be dodging this kiss.
>
  His cheeks were cold too, but his lips on hers were warm. Their breath mingled, creating a tiny hot zone between them that spread through her body, igniting parts of her that had been neglected for way too long. Oh, lord. Who knew that the poster boy for Scandinavian angst would be such a good kisser? On her step, she leaned further into him, hating the squashy barrier of their coats. He crushed her closer, obviously frustrated too, and she felt a laugh bubble up. This kind of angst was seriously sexy.

  Then a sound cut through the frigid air, and he pulled suddenly away, snapped to razor-sharp attention. The sound repeated, something so raw and primitive that she felt an instant, prickly-necked chill of fear.

  Wolves.

  The howling came again, from nearer the lake, and was echoed by a wolf somewhere in the trees on the other side of the cabins.

  He let her go, and turned to scan the surrounding forest.

  “I might just go inside,” she said, her voice casual but her heart pounding—not just from the kiss. She tried not to think about the next morning’s eagle run, when she’d be heading in exactly the direction of the answering howl.

  He turned back, but she was already halfway through the door.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I saw the tracks you and Greta found, but I’ve never heard them so close to the lodge.”

  “That’s okay.” For a second, she hesitated, the kiss still resonating in her body. She could invite him in. For…coffee. Or something else. Maybe. Even though she probably shouldn’t. “Unless you’d like to…?”

  He looked at her. The last unspoken words were a taut thread running between them. He only needed to follow them those few steps to the doorway, gathering them up as he went. She held her breath.

  But then the howl rang in the night again, and he looked over his shoulder, and she knew the wolves had won.