“You’re right,” he said, laughing. “In fact, I’d be willing to bet that paying me would only add to your frustration.”
She almost wished she hadn’t so successfully ignored this breed of arrogant man all her life. At least she’d be more adept at handling Henrik right now.
“Okay, boss,” she said, “tell me what we’re doing here.”
He looked back into the drawer and ran his hand through his hair.
“There’s no way I can translate all of these fast enough to meet your deadline. So here’s what I’ve come up with: I’ll look through each of these books and develop a chronology for where he was during each of these years. This should only take a couple of hours, and I can start right away. Then you can decide which ones you want to read first and which ones you don’t need as urgently.”
Mel had to admit this was a good plan. Better than hers, in fact.
“Okay, let’s do that,” she said, getting up from her chair.
He smiled again. “Well, that was easy.”
“Did I have a choice?”
She brushed past him as she spoke. Henrik stood up too, but before she could walk out of the room, he caught her gently by the arm.
“I’ve been told I’m a pain in the ass to work with,” he said.
The feeling of his hand on her bare skin was distracting, and Mel tried to ignore it. She was sure he could feel her pulse racing under his fingers, but he didn’t let go. The biting responses that waited on the tip of her tongue began to fade. She took a slow breath.
“Sounds like we’ll be a good match,” she said. Her voice was steadier than she felt.
He gave a little laugh.
“We’ll see.”
His voice was soft now, and a wrinkle appeared between his dark eyebrows. For a moment, he also seemed nervous, vulnerable.
Then his hand was gone from her arm. Mel tore away her gaze and walked out of the office, closing the door behind her. Before she could think to stop herself, she brought her fingers to the spot where his hands had touched her skin.
FOR THE FIRST time since she had set foot on this island, something had gone the way she planned. The tweaks to her bread recipe seemed to have worked. At least the sumptuous smell that wafted through the cabin suggested that they had.
Mel put down her book and walked over to the oven. Finally, she thought as she peeked in. The mouth-watering smell was even stronger with the oven door open, and the golden-brown crust made her stomach growl.
She was growing restless. She had spent the afternoon trying to lose herself in a book. It usually worked. But Mel wasn’t sure what was more distracting—Henrik’s presence or the knowledge that she couldn’t forget about him. Something about having him in the cabin put her on edge, though no sound had come from her father’s office in hours. This wasn’t going to work. No matter how much she wanted to let her guard down, she wasn’t going to spend her summer days waiting for a man.
As she set the hot pans onto the stove top, she heard the door open.
“Well, that wasn’t—” Henrik began, but he stopped, mid-sentence.
Mel turned to watch as he closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of freshly baked bread. A quiet sigh escaped from his mouth before his eyes snapped back open. He gave Mel an unguarded smile.
“I guess you figured out how to use the yeast after all.”
“And just think—without help, too,” she said, letting her own smile spread. “Does that mean you no longer regret taking me grocery shopping?”
“I didn’t regret it,” he said, his eyes a little darker, “though you do tend to make things complicated.”
“Very diplomatic of you,” said Mel, raising an eyebrow.
His whole face brightened, and he let out a little laugh.
“Now’s the time I should probably stop talking,” he said, walking over to take the plates out of the cabinets.
Henrik set the table while she pulled various sandwich items out of the refrigerator. As Mel sat down, Henrik surveyed the table and then returned to the refrigerator to pick out his own additions, including ketchup and mayonnaise. Ketchup on freshly baked bread? Time to keep my mouth shut, again.
“I met another North American,” said Mel, resting her chin on her hand.
“Here? On this island?”
“I can’t get much further than that.”
He smiled. “Right. I guess I knew that.”
“She’s next door. I think I might have found a friend.”
“Did she want to know what an American was doing out here on the island, alone?”
“She thought you…” Mel’s face flushed as she tried to rephrase Alice’s interpretation. “She thought you were staying here, too.”
Henrik raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
Mel’s face burned hotter, so she added, “I told her you came with the house.”
Henrik chuckled.
“Sort of like a butler?”
Mel snorted.
“Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure you’ve never taken an order in your life.”
Henrik leaned back in his chair, laughing.
“Isn’t there a saying in English,” he said, “something about the pot calling the kettle black?”
Mel lay her head on the table and laughed, too.
“I deserve that,” she finally said.
She straightened up and uncovered the bread from the tea towel she had placed over it.
“How far into the journals did you get?” she asked.
The loaf was still warm from the oven, and Mel closed her eyes to take in the scent. When she opened them, Henrik was watching her, his lips parted. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on the bread.
“We’ve established that translating all those books will take more time than you have,” he said. “I have another approach.”
She wanted to protest—once again, he was taking over the project. She wanted to snap back, to establish that she was the one who would be making that kind of decision. But in her moment of hesitation, she thought about the times in these last days she had bitten back remarks she usually would have made. Was she always so defensive? Mel took a deep breath.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll translate them by reading them aloud, and when we get to something you think is specifically important, I’ll write it down, too,” he said. When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “It’ll go much faster, and you’ll be able to start now instead of waiting for me.”
Mel leaned back in her chair. His plan made sense. The research side of this project was already dragging out longer than it should, and her book still didn’t have direction. Besides, if he read the journals to her, it meant that she wouldn’t spend afternoons like she did today, occupying herself, trying to ignore the fact that Henrik was only a room away.
Of course, this meant she would be sitting in the same room with him all summer instead. Mel’s heart gave a little jump at the idea before her mind could catch up. It was a really bad idea. Their conversation just a few minutes ago was so easy, so fun. And when they weren’t laughing? Well, she could barely concentrate when he was this close. But as he had so delicately pointed out earlier, what other choice did she have?
“Okay,” she said. “We can do it that way.”
Henrik raised his eyebrows.
“No ‘but’?”
Mel shook her head.
“You’re getting better at this compromise thing,” he said, straight-faced.
Was he serious? She glared at him until he broke into a wide grin.
“Joking, joking,” he chuckled.
Mel buried her hands in her face and laughed, the tension leaving her shoulders. Maybe, just maybe this could work. She shook her head and sat up again.
“Where were we?”
“The journals,” he said.
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket and smoothed it o
ut in front of her.
“I skimmed the beginnings of each book to figure out where he was or what he was doing each of those years. Here’s a rough chronology, though, as you can see, some years are missing.”
“Yes, the years he was in the U.S. with us,” she said, glancing at the paper.
“Not just those,” he said, pointing further down. “There’s a year missing a while after that. It seems odd that a man who kept journals for most of his adult life would suddenly stop one year, then resume the next, but I double-checked. It’s not there. Who knows, maybe he lost it?”
“Or maybe something else happened,” she said softly, “something that made him stop writing.”
Henrik seemed to consider this idea. He took a bite of his sandwich, and all traces of his contemplations disappeared as a look of joy crossed his face.
“Whoa, this is good.”
“Despite the ketchup?” she asked.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like ketchup,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re American. This is from your people!”
“So I should have been spoon-fed this stuff since birth?”
He laughed and took another bite. The mid-day sun glittered on the water, through the kitchen window. Henrik reached across the table and undid the latch on the frame, and the window swung out like a door, letting in the cool, salty air.
Mel looked out at the islands that dotted the horizon.
“I meant it yesterday when I asked for your help. I want to be able to live independently here on the island,” she said. “Or at least a little closer to independence.”
She felt Henrik’s gaze rest on her, but she didn’t look.
“And I meant it when I said you don’t have to worry about it. I’ll help out with anything you need.”
Mel shook her head.
“Thanks, but I don’t like depending on anyone. Especially not…”
She stopped herself before she completed that thought: especially not a man that I can barely think around. There was no need to take the conversation in that direction. But Henrik finished her sentence for her.
“Especially not someone male?”
Mel sighed. “Exactly.”
“So yesterday was pretty much your worst nightmare.”
“Yep.”
He looked out the window.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Lucky guess,” he said, chuckling. “How about we take a look around the island tomorrow?”
Chapter 6
Mel knocked on the door of Alice’s cabin. Actually, “cabin” was the last word she’d use to describe this modern two-story structure, though the wooden exterior blended surprisingly well with the rocks and trees. Alice’s face lit up with a wide smile when she answered the door.
“I’ll get my shoes,” she said.
Alice led the way down to the rocky shore, heading away from the ferry docking. They followed the narrow foot trail along the water, over boulders and through stands of pine trees.
“You’ve never been here before?” asked Alice.
Mel shook her head.
“I barely knew my father.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mel shook her head.
“I hadn’t seen him since I was four,” she said, waving away Alice’s sympathetic smile. Then she laughed. “It’s complicated.”
Alice’s smile got bigger.
“And the neighbor from yesterday? Henrik, right?”
Mel sighed.
“Yes, complicated, too. My father’s friend. Henrik translated my father’s poetry. Now he’s working with me on another project.”
“Sounds intimate,” said Alice, winking at her.
Mel laughed, shaking her head.
“This whole trip has been a deluge of one complicated feeling after another. None of them easy. Especially not with Henrik.”
Alice nodded.
“But aren’t those the things that end up feeling the best—the things that don’t come easily?”
Mel looked out at the water and considered her statement.
“I hope you’re right,” she finally said.
MEL SET HER novel down and yawned. She glanced over to the tiny stack of books teetering next to her suitcase. The stack was supposed to last all summer, but she only had a couple left. Her father’s poetry books were the only other English options this cabin had to offer. Or maybe her mother could ship her new books? Not likely, she thought with a twinge of bitterness.
The seething anger that the topic of her father always brought out in her normally placid mother still surprised her, even after all these years. The biography project added fuel to the fire, and Mel’s trip to Sweden stoked it higher.
“Don’t dig those things up again. Wasn’t it enough that he left?” her mother had snapped. “Now he’s taking you away, too.”
It didn’t help to point out that her father was dead. He could hardly take her away now. But who was this man who had thrown off her mother’s life so completely that even after more than 20 years, even after his death, she still hadn’t let go? There was only so much her mother would say about it, even now, and none of it was very helpful.
And what the hell did her father do with all his time in this empty cabin? Sit by the window and think poetry thoughts? Mel snorted at the idea. I probably would have hated him.
She had slept in the living room again, still not willing to take over his bed, to immerse herself so completely in her father’s world. The daybed was surprisingly comfortable, and it offered her a sparkling glimpse of the sea in the morning. Maybe she wouldn’t ever move into her father’s bedroom. It was her cabin, after all. She could do whatever she wanted.
Mel gave one more lazy stretch and then stood up, making a mental schedule for the day. She reached lunch and stopped. For the second day in a row, parts of her schedule depended on Henrik. As would be true the next day and the next. How much time would she spend waiting for Henrik? This part of letting go sure as hell wasn’t coming naturally.
Deep breaths.
Damn, where was he? Even if she wanted to go out and find him, she didn’t even know which cabin was his.
Thump, thump, thump.
At least he arrived at a decent time today. Their schedule would be the first topic of discussion, she decided. She took another deep breath and opened the door. And promptly forgot scheduling.
Henrik was leaning against her door frame with a dish covered in foil in his hand. It looked as though he had just emerged from the water—his hair, wet, and a few locks falling over his forehead. His white t-shirt stretched across the muscles of his chest and came to an end at his thick, tanned arms. Inexplicably Mel found herself thinking about Henrik’s eyelashes, long and thick around his bright green eyes. Which she shouldn’t be doing.
“I made a pie,” he said, handing it to her. “Ham and cheese.”
Mel peeked under the foil.
Quiche, she silently corrected. And it looked delicious.
The dish was warm in her hands, and when she looked up, he was watching her carefully. She was still in spandex pants and an exercise tank top, sweaty from her walk and suddenly self-conscious.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Come in.”
She set the quiche on the table and walked over to the cabinets to get plates, glasses and utensils. When she turned back around, Henrik was still watching her, now from the table. She sat down across from him and leaned forward. Just looking at him across the little kitchen table softened something inside her, a part Mel wasn’t quite ready to let go soft.
“I want to ask you something,” she said, pulling at a stray curl.
He nodded.
“Why do you want to help with this project, Henrik?”
She had asked the question before, but his evasive answer had left Mel feeling like she was still missing some important piece of his story—a piece that was wielding control over her project.
Henrik leaned back in his chair and looked out the window.
“He probably didn’t need a translator, you know. His English was a little outdated but certainly good enough to work with his poems. But he didn’t let on that he knew so much until later in the project.”
“Why do you think he asked you to help him?” Mel asked. “I’d think he’d want to decide what words to use in his own poems.”
Henrik nodded.
“When I found out just how good his English really was, I asked him. He said that it was a favor to me. This was his sense of humor—you were never quite sure about the line between sarcasm and seriousness, and he delivered each comment with a straight face,” he chuckled. “I laughed and told him I thought I was the one doing the favor here, but he shook his head. He said this was his way of convincing me to write again.”
“What did he mean?” she asked.
“After my divorce, I moved out here to get away from everything, including writing.”
His expression hardened, and she sensed that even this much discussion on the topic was a stretch. There was a rawness about his hurt, as if he had simply shut it away in its younger form. It was still there, festering just below the surface. Not so much different than her mother, she suspected.
The biographer in her had the urge to pry more into Henrik’s life. But another part of her wasn’t sure she wanted to know about the relationship that had caused a wound so deep. So she simply waited, and finally he continued.
“After years of watching my parents’ miserable struggle, I swore my marriage would be different. But the only difference turned out to be the fact that I actually divorced.”
Henrik stared out the window, and the lines on his face grew deeper.
“Both my parents tried to convince me to go back to London, to try to work things out with her. But by then, I knew I was too fucked up to make any relationship work, let alone a marriage.”
He looked right at her now, his mouth in a tight, grim line, giving that last sentence extra meaning. Or maybe she just imagined it. Then the hardness on his face eased.
“Your father convinced me that writing would make life a little more bearable. And he was right. I owe him this book,” said Henrik, still looking at Mel. “I owe it to him to make sure his story—”
Stockholm Diaries, Melanie Page 7