by Katy Paige
“So you can check up on me and Dr. Joe? I don’t need another big brother, Erik. I already have one.” She started back down the stairs, but he reached out and took her hand, stopping her.
Her little hand felt so tiny in his, so right clasped flush against his. He massaged her palm with his thumb in gentle strokes until her fingers curled down. She tried to pull away half-heartedly, but he wouldn’t let her. He finally stilled his thumb, holding her hand firmly, pulling her back to him. He leaned forward, whispering from behind her, his lips as close to her neck as he dared. “Please, Miss Svenson, let me take you out for dinner next Sunday.”
It felt like a long wait until she turned her head and looked at their hands first, then moved her eyes back up to smash into his. Her cheeks were flushed and her dimple caved in, betraying her, before she nodded with pursed lips. “Okay. Sunday supper. Text me and we’ll figure it out.”
His whole body tightened and he fought the urge to bring her hand to his lips and kiss it as she had kissed his cheek in the car. His heart beat faster, leaping in his chest. Not happy, exactly, but relieved.
“Söndag,” he said. Sunday.
“Söndag.” Katrin nodded again, then wiggled her hand away from his, giving him a pert grin that just dared him to contradict her when she added: “It’s a date, Minste.”
He stood motionless on the stairs and watched her go. It took him a full minute to realize that she had not only used his hated childhood nickname, but she had also called Sunday a “date.”
It shocked the hell out of him to realize that in no way did he object to either.
***
After a short twenty-five-minute drive north, Erik turned into a parking space at the Montana Highway Patrol District VI office, which would be the home base for his training from now until September. He picked up his phone, checking for messages, and her words flitted through his head: Text me and we’ll figure it out. He stared at the phone for a second, then opened a new text box, feeling an adolescent eagerness at what he was about to do. His fingers typed quickly, and he grinned at the words before hitting send.
It wasn’t a slip, Älskling. –Minste
A moment later his phone buzzed and he turned it over with anticipation.
Watch out, Minste. Picket fences can start with pet names. –Älskling.
He grinned at the phone. Damn, but she’s fun.
I highly doubt it. –M
PS, no playing doctor.
A moment later, it buzzed again.
See you Sunday. –Ӓ
PS, don’t tell me what to do.
PPS, what kind of a girl do you think I am anyway?
He chuckled softly, staring at her words for a moment before writing back:
The kind every man wants to play doctor with. –M
Erik put the phone down beside him, first smiling like an idiot, then regretting he had started the conversation in the first place. What was he doing? Asking her out on dates? Flirting with her? No, no, no. This was no good.
He had driven to Kalispell on autopilot, practically in a daze, thinking about her standing on the front porch next to José, waving goodbye. He could read the subtext in her cheerful smirk, as she’d edged her body just an inch closer to José’s: We’re just friends, right?
Today sure hadn’t gone according to plan. He was supposed to pick her up, have a quiet drive to Skidoo Bay, drop her off, wave goodbye and never think about her again. Instead, he was battling the attraction of his life and couldn’t help the bewildering feeling that he was losing. Damn, damn, damn it anyway. What was it about this girl?
She was pretty, but not a knockout, which was totally irrelevant because whatever she was, he was more attracted to her than he had ever been to another woman, anytime, anywhere. He’d known her for all of five hours, yet he felt like he knew her, telling her intimate things about his life. He felt protective of her whenever Wade’s name came up. He felt possessive of her when he thought about José…but at all moments he felt confused around her, his body doing things and his mouth saying things that his brain did not sanction. Being around her was like having a constant out-of-body experience; he never knew what sudden, insane thing he was going to say or do next. Share his feelings. (His feelings, for God’s sake!) Almost kiss her. Ask her out on a date. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. Not to mention Ing would be livid if she knew the thoughts running through his mind. But none of it mattered. He couldn’t seem to control himself.
He looked at the clock on the dashboard. 4:45. He had about fifteen minutes before his meeting. He sat back, catching his reflection in the rearview mirror.
You’re the tool. That guy was Doctor Smooth, and you were like a hyper fourteen-year-old with a body full of crazy hormones, and a mouth to match. What’s the matter with you, Erik Lindstrom?
Speaking of bodies and doctors, no part of Erik’s body was anxious to leave her there with that medical lothario, big, happy smile on his stupid, tan, handsome face as Erik drove away. Well, if her tastes run more to that look, I never would have had a chance anyway, he thought, tilting his head and watching his blond hair pick up the light.
Which is just fine, unless…
Did you want a chance with her, Erik?
The question lodged firmly in his head before he could sidestep it.
The resounding answer should have been “Hell no!” but a firm negative wasn’t forthcoming. Frankly, he didn’t have an answer. The best he could come up with was an indecisive, infuriating, “I don’t know,” which made him feel uneasy and annoyed, because he wasn’t looking for a romantic entanglement. Not to mention, with so many family connections between him and Katrin, the situation was extra sticky.
He didn’t want to feel attached to anyone; he didn’t want to feel drawn to anyone. But the simple fact was that Kat Svenson had gotten into his head in a very short amount of time, and keeping her out of his head—as he’d tidily managed to do with every other woman with whom he’d been briefly involved—somehow didn’t seem as possible. Not that it mattered anyway, since he had firmly placed himself, idiotically, prematurely, in the friend zone with her, when his whole body was hungry for a lot more than friendship from her. What a mess. What a damned mess.
He hit the steering wheel once in frustration, opening his door and swinging his legs out of the car. He tucked the phone in his back pocket and shut the door behind him, trudging into the squat, brick public building.
As if on cue, his ass vibrated to tell him a new text had come in. He stopped in his tracks and reached for his phone, feeling like an eighth grader being passed a message in study hall from the prettiest girl in school, and turned his phone over to read her text:.
Clearly not every man. See you Sunday, kamrat-Ӓ
Kamrat. Comrade. Pal. Chum. Friend. Erik huffed once before shoving his phone back into his pocket, his shoulders slumping in disappointment, then headed into the district office for his initial briefing.
***
Katrin checked her phone again, but she had a feeling there wouldn’t be any more texts for now. She threw it down on the bed, annoyed and confused.
Today had just been one surprise after another, and meeting Erik Lindstrom definitely hadn’t been on her radar. From the moment he’d appeared in her brother’s front doorway, her body had come alive, but learning that he was the most resolute bachelor who ever lived didn’t bode very well for her chances with him. Then again, the way he’d looked at her said something else entirely, and the way he’d asked her out to dinner hadn’t exactly felt…friendly.
She forced Erik Lindstrom out of her mind and finished unpacking, then lay down on her new bed, feeling weary, looking up at a ceiling fan that had seen better days. Out of nowhere, her eyes filled with fat tears, and she let them spill at will.
The relief she felt at being away from Choteau—from Wade—was bewildering and liberating, and as her shredded nerves began repairing themselves, she recognized the full breadth of her fear and exhaustion.
&
nbsp; “Oh, thank God I’m here,” she sighed, rolling onto her side and tucking her knees up to her chest. Count your blessings; your family figured this out for you.
An interesting job, a lovely little town, a bright apartment, a new roommate who could become a friend, and a warm, welcoming boss. José. Hmm. Not too hard on the eyes, either, although truth be told, José wasn’t at all her type.
So, who is your type, Katrin? Certainly not Wade. And no, not José, for all of his tan, masculine charm. And heck, she didn’t want to date someone who was better looking than she was, for heaven’s sake. Anyway, he was her boss, and dating the boss was a recipe for disaster.
You didn’t answer the question. Who’s your type?
Oh, Katrin…Just admit it.
She turned to her other side, facing the window where Erik stood not long ago muttering that José was a tool, his body taut and annoyed. She smiled, thinking of his grin when he had insisted, “A little bit, he is.”
Erik Lindstrom. Katrin sighed. Yes, okay, I admit it. Erik Lindstrom is exactly my type.
Some women might complain about the military shortness of his blond hair, or the lightness of the color itself. They might find his eyes too cold, almost impossibly light in their silvery-blue. They might find his strong jaw and broad chest an annoying throwback to the blond Tarzans of black and white movies. But in Katrin’s eyes, Erik Lindstrom was achingly beautiful.
He had fumbled through his words after they met and shook hands at Kristian’s house, but she knew exactly what he was trying to say, because she felt the same sensation pass through her body: I know you. I must know you. It was visceral, deep and almost hidden, but unmistakable in nuance, in making her feel a certain way. And the way her heart leapt every time they touched…well, it simply couldn’t be ignored.
She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes, feeling the goose bumps rise up on her skin as she remembered him standing behind her in her new bedroom. When she had turned around, she was sure he was going to kiss her, despite his carefully erected boundaries. He had stared at her, and she was sure he had considered it then decided not to, which confused her.
After that long speech in the car about wanting to be friends, he’d almost kissed her. After making it clear he had no interest in a romantic relationship, he’d asked her out on a date. It didn’t make sense. His words said one thing, his actions said another. He said no commitment, no picket fences, no romance, nothing but friendship…but his eyes seemed to contradict his words, even in the short time they had gotten to know one another. His eyes didn’t read friendship and brotherly concern when she looked into them; they read something else altogether, something hot and hungry and possessive, and—she smiled—a little confused too. Hmm. A lot confused.
She thought of Erik’s eyes, yearning and intense, and Katrin felt sure that he had—at least—considered kissing her. And despite all of her misgivings about him, that made her feel happy. Happy. It’d been a long time since Katrin felt happy about a man.
After Wade had left her at the altar, her self-confidence had taken an inevitable hit, and as Wade’s behavior had gotten increasingly erratic, she’d been going out less and less. She’d essentially taken herself off the market, unable to consider a new relationship until things with Wade calmed down.
While she knew she must have been pretty enough to snare Wade, there had certainly been moments when she’d felt despair and real hopelessness about meeting someone new in Choteau where she was poor, jilted Katrin Svenson. It made her feel like her one big chance at love and happiness had turned out to be a big drunken mistake, and now that she’d lost that chance, she might be alone forever.
Erik. It’d been a long time since she’d looked at another man with interest, with the heart-pounding interest that Erik Lindstrom had awoken in her today. Come to think of it, it’d been a long time since a man looked at her the way Erik looked at her in her new apartment, sparks practically flying between them. She couldn’t ever remember her body feeling so hot, so aware, so finely tuned to someone else.
She grinned, feeling more confident, feeling young again after months of heaviness. Erik looked at her in a way that made her believe that maybe she was still pretty enough, sexy enough, good enough to find someone new. Thank you, Erik Lindstrom, for looking at me like I’m worth something, like someone might want me someday, even if he’s not you…
Her cell phone vibrated next to her on the bed, and she jumped, feeling around for it, gasping as her heartbeat picked up wildly.
I said play doctor, not play house.
Every man.
Söndag, Älskling
-M
Sunday. A little shiver of pleasure made the hairs on her arm stand up as she stared at the short, hot text.
…then again, never say never.
Chapter 5
The next Sunday, Katrin sat on the steps of the porch with the sunshine on her face and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, feeling content.
It wouldn’t be honest to say that she had shaken her fears entirely. The sound of a car driving past her window slowly in the darkness might still make her shiver for a moment, wondering if Wade had found her. She would wake up with a start if Gabrielle got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Dreams still plagued her, full of Wade’s anger and threats, and she’d wake up in a cold sweat, before she remembered where she was. As soon as she did, she felt better. Being in Skidoo Bay hadn’t erased her worries, but it had certainly helped her feel safer and more comfortable than she had in months.
The days had gone by quickly, filled to the brim with supply runs, learning the new office computer system and refreshing her basic triage nursing skills after two years spent exclusively working in maternity.
The contractor would start on the building interiors only after it was free of garbage, so José hired some migrant workers, but Katrin and Gabrielle also lent a hand, and he had been right, many hands made light work. What had seemed impossible on Monday was completed by Sunday; the old building was now a tidy, empty space ready for a build-in.
The builders would start tomorrow, and while they spent the upcoming weeks re-wiring, updating plumbing, carpeting, patching, and painting, Katrin and Gabrielle would continue familiarizing themselves with the clinic’s operating system, while José headed into Kalispell for start-up medical supplies and obtained the necessary permits for them to open their doors in about two weeks.
Gabrielle was nothing like Katrin had imagined. After hearing she had spent time in the service, she expected someone stern and older, but Gabrielle was a lot like Ingrid. Young and attractive, she had served her requisite ten years after nursing school and then retired from the Army Medical Corps last year when she turned thirty.
Tall and dark, with springy black hair and deep brown eyes, she spoke with the lilting Jamaican accent of her birth country and peppered her speech with patois. As they broke sweats of frustration helping to pull water-stained, filthy carpet out of every corner of every room, Gabrielle would call out “We a’steady working now, dumplin’.”
In her new life, Katrin was Dumplin’, and Gabrielle was Paca, a nickname bestowed upon her many years ago by José when they worked together in Germany. Katrin couldn’t help but feel, sometimes, that she was missing something between them; they spoke in a mixture of patois, Spanish and English, a personalized shorthand only they seemed to understand, and more than once, Katrin caught Gabrielle gazing at José before she would look away, as if fighting some internal battle.
After a few days, Katrin was too curious to keep her questions to herself, and she tried to ask Gabrielle casually about their history.
“Paca, were you and José ever…” She let the question dangle there suggestively while Gabrielle turned her head to Katrin, her expression severe.
“You don’t know half, dumplin’.”
“You two were together?”
Gabrielle had looked away, mumbling from across the room. “What you think you see between him and m
e?”
“I don’t know. It just feels like maybe there’s some…history there.”
“History. Mmm. I like that, dumplin’. Maybe a little history.”
“Bad timing?”
Gabrielle retied the bandana she wore over her head during work hours, which kept her riotous black springs under control. She called it her bandu. “No. It never happen for me and José, Katrin. Now, dat’s all ‘bout dat.”
For José’s part, he treated both of his employees with cheerful enthusiasm for their work. They were a good team, working long hours and swapping stories over beers on the porch at the end of fruitful days. Katrin greatly appreciated the camaraderie, a change from her previous hospital position where she’d been treated with nothing more than professional civility.
José would tease them each in turn, and occasionally tell a story about Gabrielle from their days in Germany, especially the early days when she was newly deployed and missing home.
“Paca, you remember the first Christmas? Oooo-eee, this Jamaican girl was missing Nueva York. And if me memba right, José, you was missing your fambly too.”
“Maybe I was, at that.”
“Maybe you was, at that.”
They almost never made physical contact, and Katrin came to realize that they both purposely avoided it, shifting sideways in doorways so they wouldn’t rub shoulders, and Gabrielle always took the back seat of the car when they went anywhere together, leaving Katrin up front beside José. They never said anything overtly flirtatious or inappropriate to each other. When they did make eye contact during work hours, it was professional and they ended it quickly.
While Katrin was sure that something had happened between them at one point or another, she couldn’t figure out what. Both were about as cagey as mountain cats, skittering away from one another the second she thought things might get interesting.
She dug her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and checked the time. 3:52 p.m. He’ll be here any minute.