by Katy Paige
Katrin closed her bedroom door with a short chuckle then turned back to the mirror to take one last look at herself.
Her light blonde hair was shiny and straight, curled into a cute flip at the ends, held away from her face with a coffee-colored grosgrain hairband the same color of her dress. Her face was made up with a bit of eyeliner, mascara, a touch of bronzing powder and high-gloss lip goop in a very pale pinkish-copper color called Hot Spell. The size-four dress fit like a glove over her now-curvier chest and bottom, and the cream ribbon at the middle accentuated her tiny waist. She slipped her pedicured feet into her peep-toed heels, and turned around once, smiling at herself.
She could hear the din of conversation downstairs. Paca’s voice, low and musical, then José’s lightly accented tone…she held her breath and goose bumps rose up on her arm as she heard the rumble of Erik’s voice mixing with theirs. Her breath came out in a rush and she closed her eyes, feeling nervous, really excited but nervous, like a teenager going on her first date, her well-intentioned parents entertaining her suitor until she made her way downstairs.
Gabrielle poked her head back into Katrin’s room. “I got sometin’ for you, dumplin’.” With a flourish, she produced a bouquet of white roses.
Katrin’s eyes widened as a chill sluiced down her spine. She stared at the bouquet with undisguised revulsion. White roses. Wade. She tried to rationalize with her herself. No, Kat. No. They couldn’t possibly be from Wade; he was in rehab. Safely locked away at a rehab where he couldn’t hurt her. She concentrated on slowing down the pounding of her heart, rubbing her suddenly-icy hands together. “Erik brought them?”
“He walk in with them, yeah.” She’d been grinning at the blossoms, but now she looked at Katrin, cocking her head to the side as she noticed Katrin’s worried face. “What’s wrong? They so pretty, dumplin’!”
Katrin took a deep breath and smiled, forcing sour memories out of her head. She’d have to find a way to tell Erik she loved any flowers—all flowers—except for white roses.
“Will you put them in water for me, Paca? They’d look lovely on the reception desk downstairs. I’ll be down in two minutes.”
Gabrielle winked at her, taking the bouquet to the kitchen, and Katrin was happy to see them go. She couldn’t shake her leftover jitters, though. Were the white roses a bad sign? She saw Wade’s twisted, angry face in her mind. I’ll kill you first!
She took a deep breath then looked at herself in the mirror. Stop it, Katrin. They were from Erik. From Erik. Not Wade. Get a hold of yourself.
Looking at herself one last time in the mirror, she raised her chin in defiance of her fears, realizing that while they were still real and frightening, it was time to start letting go of them. Wade was in rehab. She lived far away from him, hidden in Skidoo Bay. And she had Erik—burly, protective Erik Lindstrom, her Viking King—keeping an eye on her. It was time to start living a life without fear.
“Well, Kat…it’s now or never. Time to go.” Her reflection smiled back more confidently than she felt, but she nodded at herself with determination, picked up her cream wrap from the bed and went to find Erik.
***
Katrin hadn’t told him a whole lot about her co-workers, but Gabrielle—um, Paca—wasn’t exactly what he had expected. With her wildly colorful headband, riotous black curls, and wide, open smile, he felt immediately comfortable with her.
When he arrived, he had handed her the bouquet of flowers he’d obtained in an awkward exchange out front, and she beamed at him, running upstairs to tell Katrin he was here, before he could admit they weren’t from him.
As Erik had approached the front door of the clinic, he’d seen a man standing at the front door, shifting his weight from side to side, looking in the window.
The man had turned at the sound of Erik’s footsteps, his eyes widening before he looked down quickly.
“Now those are pretty,” said Erik, amicably. “Who’re they for?”
“Uh…the nurse…the nurses,” the man had muttered, keeping his head down. The brief glimpse Erik had of his face indicated he was several years younger than Erik, shorter, and well-built under his jeans and hoodie sweatshirt. Maybe a local high school quarterback. One thing was for certain; he was feeling shy about dropping off flowers for a pretty nurse.
“Grateful patient or…?”
“Umm, yeah.”
Erik grinned at the younger man’s nerves. Offering flowers to a pretty girl could knock a guy sideways, just about. Erik wondered if they were intended for Katrin or Gabrielle or both. Hmm, he mused smiling to himself, I wonder how often someone makes a pass at my girl?
He reached in front of the man to twist the doorknob and pushed the door partway open.
“Well, you were here first…”
The man turned and thrust the bouquet of white roses at Erik.
“You give ‘em,” he mumbled, turning to hurry down the steps.
Erik watched in surprise as the young man quickly crossed the street to his car and peeled off, tires screeching as he sped away.
Still cradling the bouquet of white roses in his arms, Erik turned back to the clinic door to find a young black woman approaching him from a back room of the clinic.
“I guess he doesn’t need a check-up, after all!” Gabrielle put her hand out in greeting, offering Erik a warm smile. “You must be Erik, and these pretty flowers must be for Katrin! I’ll be right back!”
She had taken them from him and hurried up the stairs before Erik could explain that they were actually from the bizarre character who had just sped away.
José came out of the back room as she disappeared upstairs. “Erik.”
“José.”
“Glad you could make it tonight.”
“That right?”
“Sure.” José’s eyes were cool and he crossed his arms. “The more the merrier.”
Gabrielle came back down the stairs a moment later, smiling up and down at Erik and then turning to José. “You wearin’ a proper suit tonight?”
José smiled at her and Erik couldn’t help but notice the warmth in his smile, the way he moved to stand beside her as she joined them. They didn’t stand in an equilateral triangle. José planted his shoulder slightly in front of Gabrielle’s, standing directly beside her, subtly placing himself between her and Erik.
Erik couldn’t be sure, but maybe his fears about José holding a torch for Katrin had been wrong; his body language said he was interested in Gabrielle.
Erik nodded and smiled politely at Gabrielle as she showed him the almost-finished waiting room where patients would wait, and where she and Katrin would each work shifts welcoming new patients and taking their vitals before they were admitted to see the doctor.
“So, dumplin’ and me, we be here, and then—” She stopped speaking, and her face tilted to the side tenderly as she broke into a beaming smile directed at the stairs behind Erik. “Dumplin’!”
Erik twisted his neck to see Katrin coming down the stairs.
Erik had been fortunate enough to see a lot of stunning things in his life, but they hadn’t robbed him of speech, hadn’t knocked the wind out of his lungs, making him feel edgy and lost. This was different. In his life, this was singular. He had no frame of reference for how he felt seeing Katrin Svenson dressed to the nines.
Prettiest thing I ever seen.
“Come wit me, José…things to do…” Gabrielle pulled on José’s shirt, leading him to the back room, leaving Erik and Katrin alone. “See you there, dumplin’.”
Katrin paused on the stairs. “Hey.”
“Heya,” he managed, but the simple word felt thick in his throat, and he cleared it awkwardly. “You look…”
“Yeah. It’s been a long time since I—you know, dressed up a little.”
“You didn’t forget how.”
She looked surprised and laughed lightly, walking over to him, all bright blue eyes and dimpled sweetness. “Thank you.”
“You make it hard on me
, Ӓlskling.” She was so close to him he could smell her. Some kind of fresh shampoo or light perfume.
“Make what hard?”
His eyes widened as he tilted his head to the side, looking at her with barely suppressed laughter. “I’m not going to answer that.”
She gasped in understanding and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean! Oh, my gosh, you know I didn’t mean—”
He chuckled at her and nodded, cutting her a break and grateful to her for inadvertently breaking the tension between them. “I know.”
Katrin shook her head in embarrassment, her cheeks flushed with rosy color.
“You look really beautiful.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. He pressed his lips on the dimple closest to him, as he had wanted to do that first afternoon in the car as she slept. She leaned her neck to the side, which gave him access to the pulse point in her neck that had teased and tortured him on the same ride. He brushed his lips from her cheek to her neck, finally resting his lips on the soft, warm skin of her pulse, feeling the wild beating under his lips. Putting his hands on her hips, he pulled her closer to him. He wanted to kiss her—really kiss her—but she was so pretty, he didn’t want to mess her up. When he finally leaned back, she grinned at him.
“Ready to go?” he asked. He took her wrap from her arm, carefully placing it around her shoulders, and then he took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, leading her out the door.
Chapter 11
She noticed with particular pleasure that he played “Ashokan Farewell” again, which she was quickly considering “their” song, and she wondered if he was too. There was a single pink rose on her seat too, which was a perfect surprise.
“More flowers!” she said, smiling at him.
“Just one.” He shrugged as if giving a girl flowers was uncomfortable for him, but she noticed he grinned at her as she brought the blush petals to her nose.
“I love pink! This is enough. Just this.”
“I did good then.”
She didn’t want to hurt his feelings about the lovely white rose bouquet, so she just nodded, and enjoyed the extra single pink flower in her hands.
She kept peeking over at him during the short car ride to the Mountain Lake Lodge, and although she got the feeling he’d be embarrassed for her to tell him how handsome he looked, she admitted to herself that he cleaned up pretty good. A crisp blue dress shirt under a suit jacket set off his blue eyes, unbuttoned to reveal a patch of tan skin under his neck. He was in good shape; in such good shape it made her wonder what he did to stay so fit.
He smiled mischievously, glancing at her with a twinkle in his eye when she asked. “I take a run every morning. And I work out a few times a week. There’s a gym where I work. I mean, there’s a whole training facility. You have to stay on top of it. A gut’s not going to help you in a foot chase.”
“How likely is a foot chase for you?”
“You never know. I mean, most of my job isn’t hands-on like that. But, from time to time, I’ll have to go to a scene or assist on a bust.”
“That sounds dangerous.” She hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to the perils of his job, but she turned her attention to it now. “I don’t like it.”
“I’m an officer, Kat. That’s what I do.”
“How often does an officer get hurt?”
“You mean shot?”
She nodded, staring at his profile, which looked so strong and so young.
“In Montana? There’ve been surprisingly few. Eight fatalities in forty-six years. And that’s troopers. For me? Even less.”
Those statistics were relieving, but she still didn’t like it. She didn’t like the thought of Erik in any danger at any time. “How much less?”
He glanced at her. “Hey. Are you worried about me?”
She breathed deeply and sighed, considering her response. The simple answer was Yes, of course I am. I care about you. You’re more and more important to me every day. But, Katrin knew how Erik felt about women fixing on him, so she shrugged lightly.
“I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’m really in a low-risk division…not to mention, I’m careful and I’ve got good reflexes. Erik the Blond, the young Viking King of Law Enforcement.”
“Sounds like Ing and Kris could have used their own personal Viking King of Law Enforcement this week.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t talked to them?” He shook his head no. “Oh, well, I guess Wade showed up there yelling and making a scene on Tuesday night. Kris called the police and had him arrested, and they decided to press charges and file for a restraining order.”
“Good! It’s about damn time!”
Katrin sighed. “Well, but then he came by to apologize, and I guess the long and short is that he’s headed to rehab. Ing and Kris agreed to drop the charges if he enrolled in a sixty-day program, so…”
“So that’s it?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Why not? Don’t you think he deserves a chance to get clean and sober?”
“I don’t begrudge him that, really, but, some of those places are really lenient. What stops him from leaving?”
“Oh, well, it sounds like he’s taking it seriously. Ing felt okay about it.”
“You girls are too nice. What’d Kristian say?”
“Didn’t talk to him.”
“Hmm.”
She knitted her brows. First the roses, now this. She wished she hadn’t brought up Wade.
“Erik? Can we talk about something else? I feel like Wade Doyle’s gotten enough of me already. I’m sorry I brought him up. I don’t want him here tonight.”
Erik reached for her hand and she clasped his, bringing it to her lips, then using her finger to rub the lip goop into his skin, in a little, sparkly circle.
She looked out the window as they drove in comfortable silence for a little while. It was a beautiful evening for a drive and nothing obstructed Katrin’s view of glistening, sky-blue Flathead Lake except for a low guardrail outside her window. Dark green pine trees dotted the hills that flanked the lake so densely they almost looked like carpets of deep green rising up out of the blue water. She rolled down her window just enough to smell the crisp, fresh air off the lake, feeling content—more than content, excited, and—finally, after so long—happy.
“How about you? How’s work going?” Erik asked, putting his hand back on the wheel.
“It’s good. It’s been amazing to see this project from the beginning. I mean, we got there and the building was disgusting. Solid, but trashed. We cleaned it out, the workers came, and voila—two weeks later we’re just about ready to open. José has really perfected this process. And I guess he already has two more towns who are asking him to come and do clinic start-ups. He’s headed back to Texas in eight weeks for the next one.”
“Word of the good doctor’s skills are spreading all the way to Texas, huh?”
“Well, he’s from Texas so it makes sense he’d end up there. But, he’s good at this, Erik. Truly. He has it down to a science. He orders everything he needs far in advance. Keeps costs low by cleaning out the buildings himself and contracting local day workers for the labor. In the blink of an eye, you look around and there’s fresh paint, new carpet, shiny light fixtures and clean running water. He does all the legwork months in advance so the project itself runs really smoothly.”
“You sound impressed.”
If she was listening more carefully, she would have heard the edge in his voice.
“I am! He’s young to have nailed down this process so efficiently. And he’s good to work for. He’s been kind to me.” She knew that Erik wasn’t José’s biggest fan, but she was hoping Erik would be able to see José as her boss and as a good businessman, and not as a rival. Especially before having dinner together.
“You like him.”
“Of course,” he muttered.
She glanced over and he was grinding his teeth again; she could see his jaw working.
“Not like that, Erik. I don’t like him like that.”
He pulled into the parking lot at the Mountain Lake Lodge and found a parking space, cutting the engine and turning to her.
“No?” His eyes searched hers.
“No.” She shook her head, smiling at him tenderly. Someone else’s got his teeth on my heart for now.
Erik stared at her in the quiet of the car, then winced, turning away from her and leaning his head back against the headrest, sighing.
“Ӓlskling. I like you like that.” He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, his shoulders slumping in defeat, before murmuring, maybe more to himself than to her, “I like you too much.”
Katrin knew how much it cost him to admit it. She reached out to stroke his cheek with the back of her hand, and he leaned into her, opening his eyes. She wanted to look away, to ensure he wouldn’t see the extent to which her feelings for him had grown, but she couldn’t.
“I know, Minste,” she whispered. “Me too.”
***
They strolled around the grounds of the hotel, which included a resort-style swimming pool landscaped with rocks and flowers around its border, a small rustic fountain that bubbled cheerfully, manicured walking paths, a perennial garden, and a bright green rolling lawn where they found two Adirondack chairs affording a great view of Flathead Lake as they sat side by side.
Erik reached over to take her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, feeling her palm press against his. His heart leapt, as it always did when he touched her, an uncomfortable reminder that his feelings for her were growing every time he saw her, and all the time in between.
He was trapped between his feelings for Katrin on one side, which compelled him to see and pursue her, and his feelings about relationships on the other side, which pleaded with him not to leave himself open to that kind of weakness.
As if on the breeze, he heard his mother’s voice in his head, weak and feverish. Carl…Why won’t you come? Why won’t you come to me? Instantly, he pushed the memory away, forcefully, angrily, before it could seep in and take over, before he’d be forced to think about it or process it. He didn’t realize he had dropped her hand until she turned to him.