Midsummer Sweetheart (11 page)

He’d concentrated on how she’d looked when he met her at Ingrid’s house. She wasn’t really that pretty—she was unkempt, plain and skinny. More than skinny, her delicate frame had become so small and frail in his head that he could almost think of her as a wizened old lady, prematurely aged by the evil intentions of her dastardly fiancé, not unlike old Mrs. Havisham in his favorite novel,
Great Expectations
. He concentrated on those thick glasses and greasy hair, and tried to remember her in that sloppy sweatshirt. Whatever attraction or possessiveness he’d felt for her had been ultimately mashed and mangled in his head until it resembled no more than brotherly protectiveness for
Sam’s Plain Cousin, Poor Little Thing
.

Revising his opinion of Katrin didn’t mean he took his promise to Ing lightly. In fact, thinking of that piteous, frail little thing with a broken heart, so depressed and homely, he felt beholden to look after her as he would a shut-in aunt or an injured child.

He texted Katrin in the evenings to keep a cord of communication open with her, just in case she needed anything, even signing off with the benign and fatherly “Sweet Dreams” in Swedish to be sure she understood his interest in her was no more than familial. He thought of it as a way of patting her on the head daily, letting her know she had family nearby.

As he pulled into the driveway in front of the clinic, the first thing he noticed was the hot blonde sitting on the front steps. It took him an extra second to realize it was Katrin.

Poor Erik. Poor thing.

All that good, hard work was lost in the space of three seconds as inconvenient, unwanted feelings came rushing back, making his blood race hot and vibrant through his body, making his skin tingle and his cheeks turn pink, his eyes narrow with the force of his attraction to her. In three seconds, he was right back where he was when he left her a week ago.

Her hair was golden and shiny, falling around her shoulders in blonde waves, and she used her sunglasses as a hair band to pull it back from her face. The jeans she was wearing seemed a little more filled out than the last time he had seen her a week ago, making her luscious ass as pert and distracting as ever. And was it his imagination, or were her breasts a little fuller under that tight, white, v-neck sweater that just brushed the top of her jeans, teasing him with a brief peek at her flat, pale tummy when she jumped up from the stairs?

As she got closer, he could see her lips were light pink and glossy, and silver bracelets on her tiny wrist made a cheerful clinking sound as she moved, which she did, from the porch stairs to his car window in a graceful little sprint, until there she was, right beside him, peeking her not-at-all-plain face into his car, little fingers holding onto the window frame.

His whole body tightened in response to being near her again and he suppressed a groan.
Lord help me if Dr. Love has anything at all to do with your beautiful smile. Lord help
him
.

“
Älskling
,” he whispered, lowering his sunglasses slowly, taking in her pretty hair and bright cerulean eyes up close, trying to remember how to breathe.
My God, I am in trouble.

She smiled back, as if she could read his mind, “Erik.”

“Katrin.”
Those dimples.
His breath came out in a low whistle. “Skidoo Bay agrees with you.”

“I guess so,
Minste
.” She stepped away so he could get out of the car, pushing her hands into her back pockets, which drew her shoulders back and thrust her chest forward. He stared desperately at her eyes.
Oh, man. Please quit it with that, or I’m not going to be able to stay focused on your face.

He shook his head to clear it and got out of the car, leaning back against his door. She looked him up and down quickly then raised her eyebrows lightly with a teasing smile. “Looks like Kalispell agrees with you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm.”

“Well, we survived our first week apart, huh?”

Katrin looked a little surprised, and Erik stumbled to clarify his meaning. “Apart from our
families
. From home. From our
homes
.”

She gave him a cock-eyed grin, and he swallowed uncomfortably, looking up at the clinic building. “So…
Donde está Don Juan?”

“José? I don’t know. He’s around here somewhere. Want me to get him? So you can say hello?”

“No!” He blurted out.
Sassy little thing
. “I mean, no need to bother him. Maybe I’ll say hey later when I bring you home.”

“Sure,” she grinned. “So! What’s the plan?”

How about we go up to your room and spend the afternoon in your bed? How about
that
could be the plan?

“Take a stroll? Sunday supper?”

“Sounds good. I promised to meet José for the concert in the park at six.”

Ouch.
That stung. “Wow, really packing us in back-to-back, huh? Hope I’m not cramping your style, Kat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dinner with me, concert with him? Who’s your eight o’clock date, alley Kat?”

“You’re rude!” She slapped his arm playfully. “It’s not a
date
. Paca—er, Gabrielle will be there too, so it’s more like a work thing.”

Work thing. Yeah.
He pictured José in his white, muscle t-shirt from last week, and felt his jaw get tight
. Oh, I’m sure he’s
working
it.

She raised her eyebrows again and put her hands in her pockets. “Anyway, this isn’t a
date
, is it, Erik? Just family friends having a bite. Basically, your weekly reconnaissance mission for Ingrid, right?”

He looked down, kicking the dirt with a beat-up topsider.

I have no idea.

If she had asked him twenty minutes ago, he would have said
Yes, just checking on poor, plain little Katrin for Ingrid,
and it would have been the truth. But, looking at her now, so vibrant and pretty? The only certain truth was that he wanted to take her hand and spend the rest of the afternoon lost in her. Beyond that, he was lost.

Avoiding her eyes, Erik stared at her hand shoved in her pocket for a moment before reaching out, tentatively, gently brushing her hip with his knuckles as he pulled at her wrist, slipping his fingers through hers once her hand was free. She didn’t say anything or resist him, but he noticed it took a moment before her fingers relaxed and the tips folded over to meet his knuckles. Only then did he look up at her face.

Her eyes were serious at first but softened with a shy smile, tilting her head to the side, as if she were trying to figure him out.

“Can we just—?” he started, and then stopped.

Can we just
what
? Can we just hold hands and do anything else that comes naturally
without
any labels or promises or expectations? Can we forget that our families are connected through blood and marriage? Can we just absolutely not get involved romantically with one another even though I can barely think straight when I’m around you, I want you so much? Can we just
do
and not
think
?

No.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t possible.
No, Erik. You can’t.
He looked down, loosening his grip on her hand.

Katrin didn’t pull her hand back as he expected her to. She tightened her grip and squeezed his hand gently. He looked at her in surprise. She wasn’t smiling, but both dimples were caved in, which meant that she was holding one back.

“It’s okay,
Minste
.” Her voice was a whisper, a reassuring murmur.

Relief flooded through him, followed by something else; some new feeling that he couldn’t put his finger on. It was a good feeling, a little like gratitude, like he wasn’t losing ground, but maybe giving a little away because he wanted to. He grinned at her, curling his fingers back around her hand.

“Supper?”

“That
is
what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

Apparently among other things
, he admitted to himself. “You know a place?”

“I know a place. Come on.” She tugged on his hand, and he followed her lead.

***

There was no way Katrin was going to let go of his hand once she had taken it, because that
thing
that always happened between them when they touched had already happened, and it felt too good to let go of him. It was like their bodies recognized each other, in spite of their short acquaintance, like their bodies were magnets, drawn to one another with a fierce gravity.

They settled at an outdoor table in Katrin’s favorite spot in Skidoo Bay, an upscale bistro with an eclectic menu, called Collage. From where they sat, on a small deck adjacent to the main dining room through a sliding glass door, they had a terrific view of an inlet of Flathead Lake, and the bridge beyond that went over a byway connecting the inlet to the larger lake. Behind them was a large, fir-covered hill, and in the distance the snowcapped Rockies rose up into the still-blue late-afternoon sky.

“I haven’t had dinner here yet,” she confided, smiling. “But, I have come twice for a cup of coffee with Gabrielle. Once we just chatted and wrote postcards, and once we brought books. The view of the lake…it’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“Lovely. Yes.” He sipped his water, staring at her. “What’re you reading?”

“Re-reading, actually. My favorites are comforting
. Persuasion
the first half of the week and now I’m halfway through
Mansfield Park
.”

He nodded politely, and then turned his attention to the menu.

He’s probably never heard of Jane Austen.
Katrin propped her elbow on the table, and rested her chin in her palm, looking out over the inlet, thoughts of England circling in her head. “It doesn’t feel as Montana-ish here.”

“As in Choteau?”

“Mmm.”

“You don’t like Montana?”

“I love Montana. It’s my home. But, it’s also good to get away. This feels like a holiday. It feels like Europe.”

“Have you been to Europe?”

“Yes. Ten years ago. When I was twelve. To England. I went for two weeks to visit my cousins. My Uncle Sean…Sam’s father? He worked as the curator at a museum in Chicago, and one summer he did a three-month project at a museum in London. They invited me and Kristian over for two weeks when they went on ‘holiday.’ Kris didn’t want to go so I went alone.”

“To England? Alone?”

Katrin nodded, more to herself than to him, remembering the excitement of traveling internationally on her own. “Mmm. I used to be braver, before…anyway, it was the best adventure of my life.”

“I think you’re still pretty brave,” he said. “Wait a minute now, you’re saying England was a better adventure than Skidoo Bay?”

She looked up at him, and smiled, warmed by his compliment about her bravery, glad that—despite everything he knew about her—he didn’t see her as a victim. “A
close
second.”

“Where did you go on
holiday
?” he asked in a credible British accent.

“This place called…um, the Lake District? In the northwest corner of England, near Scotland. My aunt was a big fan of um, Jane Austen.” Her voice went up a little as if questioning whether or not he had ever heard of Jane Austen.

She chastised herself quickly for a snob, especially after he announced, “More of a Dickens fan myself.”

Katrin’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“What? You don’t think a Swedish-Norwegian guy who spends his whole life in Montana and works in law enforcement reads books?”

She hesitated then cringed, offering him a weak half-smile, shaking her head back and forth slowly.

“Oh, wow. Look at you, Miss Snobbypants. You don’t even try to deny it!”

She giggled, embarrassed. “Snobby? Come on. I’ve lived here my whole life too. Let’s just call a spade a spade. The Vikings? Yep. The Broncos? Absolutely. Ice fishing? Uh-huh. The parks, huntin’ and a good burger? Sure. But, cut me a break…you don’t meet a
whole
lot of Montana guys into Dickens, Erik.”

“Alright. I’ll give you that. It’s not obvious. It’s also not a real chick-pleaser.”

“Who have you been hanging out with?”

“What Montana girl wants a bookworm?”

Um. This one.
She smiled, wondering if there was more to the story.

“Where did this come from? From high school? You just love reading? Did you always love it?”

He sighed, sort of smiling, sort of shaking his head in embarrassment. “Here’s the deal…My sister and I are both the product of a mother who, despite her Norwegian roots and strong attachment to them, loved English literature almost as much as she loved the BBC movie adaptations of them. She struck out with my older brothers, Nils and Lars, but held me and Jenny hostage, home-schooling us together for
eight years
, from second grade until tenth grade. We only went to public school for the last two years of high school.

“Austen, Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton. Those were her favorites. But, we had a fair smattering of
all
the greats…Shakespeare, of course. C. S. Lewis. He’s Jen’s favorite, I think.” He smiled, presumably thinking of Jenny. “And the modernists too…Hemingway and Fitzgerald…Steinbeck. We probably read one a week. When we were little, she read them out loud to us. When we were older, we’d read them independently and discuss them later.

“I know she skimped on the math and science part of our education, but we made up for that with weekends in the park with my Pappa
.
We learned more than most kids about the natural sciences. Heck, Jenny
taught
science until she got married.

“I liked some books more than others. But, honestly, I didn’t mind reading any of them. Who doesn’t like a good story?”

Kat’s proverbial jaw had hit the floor ten minutes ago when he declared he preferred Dickens to Austen. Now? A man
this
hot,
this
well read? Her cheeks started flushing hot with her attraction to him, and she couldn’t stop staring.