What Were You Expecting? (14 page)

Paul and Lars were already in conversation, so Nils nodded coolly to Beck. “Heya.”

“Nils. Been a while.”

Yeah
, thought Nils,
since I married the girl you’re dating, you dickhead.

“Got all my forms?”

“Yep. Sent ’em in weeks ago. Hopefully she’ll hear something soon.”

Maggie turned around then and Nils stared at her face from where he stood behind Beck, but she didn’t look up and wouldn’t acknowledge him. Not even to say hello. She gestured to an open table in the back of the café and directed her comments to Lars and Paul. “Why dinna you all get started? Bethany isn’t here to take over yet. I’ll join you once she gets here.”

Look at me. Look at me and let me know you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.

She didn’t. Her arms were flat on the bar and she looked straight ahead at Beck instead, clenching her jaw, before resetting her expression and offering him a wink and a bright, intimate smile. Nils knew the one, damn it. She’d offered it to him often enough.

Beck reached out and put a hand on her arm. “I don’t open my office until noon on Saturdays. How about I help out until Bethany gets here? And after your little pow-wow, I’ll take you out to lunch, Maggie Leslie.”

Paul and Lars stopped speaking, turning in unison with wide eyes and gaping jaws to stare at Beck and Maggie.

Beck didn’t look at either of them or at Nils behind him. He kept his eyes trained on Maggie. “What do you say?”

I say…if you don’t take your hand off my wife, I’m going to be tempted to break it.
Nils could practically feel the steam coming out of his ears as he watched Beck making a move on Maggie right in front of him. He seethed quietly, staring at Maggie’s face until she finally lifted her eyes to his, holding them fast.

“I’d just love that, Beck,” she said softly, her eyes flat and angry as she stared at Nils for the first time since he’d walked into the café. After a beat she looked back down at Beck, sitting in front of her, and smiled.

Nils took a step forward, reaching up to pull Beck off the stool and smash his fist in the lawyer’s face, but he suddenly felt Lars’s hand firmly on his arm. Lars moved himself quickly between Nils and Beck, putting his other arm around Nils’s shoulder and ushering him in the direction of the table.

“Why don’t we get started, huh, Nils?”

Beck turned his neck and scoffed lightly, looking at Nils with a mocking half smile before sliding off the bar stool and walking slowly around the bar. Lars tugged Nils forward and he was pretty sure he heard Paul mutter, “Guy has a goddamn death wish” as he followed closely behind them.

“Get off me, Lars,” growled Nils between clenched teeth.

“You stay cool, brother. It’s not your business who she dates.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I may not have all the pieces to this puzzle, but here’s what I know…that guy’s a lawyer. You clock him? Oh, I’ll back you up. You know I will. But we’ll both be arrested and charged with assault.”

“It’d be worth it.”

“Stanna
,
Største
,” Lars said in a low, direct tone. “
Jag vet att du är arg. Ta det lungt
.”
Stop…I know you’re angry, but take it easy.

Nils shrugged off his brother’s arm around his shoulder as he lowered himself into a bright yellow chair, never once taking his eyes off Maggie, who giggled at something Beck said as she pointed out the various coffee-making apparatuses.

“Stop managing me.”

“Stop acting like someone who needs to be managed.” Lars rolled his eyes at Paul. “This is going to be real fun.”

“Do you all want anythin’?” Maggie called to them from the bar.

Nils glanced over at her sardonically.
Yeah. For you to stop encouraging that dickhead. How about that?

“Coffees?” she asked again, the slightest challenging smile on her lips as she checked out Nils, then looked back and forth at Paul and Lars. They both nodded at her, so she filled up two mugs and, balancing three in her hands, hers included, made her way to the table to join them. She set theirs down in front of them and without sparing a glance at Nils, folded her hands on the table and turned her body toward Lars to her left.

Nils, sitting to her right, could barely stand it anymore. He banged his elbows on the table and cleared his voice. Nothing. Not even a glance.

“So,” she said pleasantly. “I talked to Jenny this mornin’.”

“Oh?” asked Nils.

“Mmm,” confirmed Maggie, her body still facing Lars. “And she asked for us to split up the duties a little bit. She said she’d take care of the guest list and invitations. I’ll handle the food and get Bethany to help out servin’. Lars, she asked if you could keep your father busy on the day of the party…take him into the park or somethin’. Bring him here on time for the surprise.”

“No problem,” said Lars.

“Paul, are you willin’ to buy the liquor and help me set up a bar that afternoon?”

“Sure.”

“Jenny and Sam’ll reimburse you whatever you spend.”

“Aw, I don’t mind. I’m glad to help do something for Mr. Lindstrom.”

She bent her arm at the elbow and cupped her face with her hand, smiling at Lars. Nils stared at the gentle curve of her neck as her fingers thrummed lightly against her cheek. “And someone needs to do the slideshow.”

Lars looked across the table at Nils. “Maybe you could do that part?”

Nils dropped his eyes from Maggie’s neck—which he was torn between wanting to kiss and wanting to wring—and nodded at Lars. “Wish Jen was here to help me, though. Girls have a better eye for that sort of—”

“Maggie will help you,” Lars blurted out. “Won’t you Mags?”

“Oh. I…” She dropped her elbow and straightened in her chair a little, casting a brief, annoyed glance at Nils. “I’m sure that Nils is perfectly capable of—”

“Nah. He’s right,” said Lars. “It’ll need a woman’s touch. I guess we could ask Jenny to come down a few days early to give a hand, but with baby Erin and all…” He let his voice trail off.

“Fine,” said Maggie, bristling. She turned her head and caught Nils’s eyes and he tried to keep the hurt off his face, but he was pretty sure he didn’t succeed. In her eyes, he saw plenty of hurt of her own and he hated himself for putting it there. “I’ll help. For your
Pappa’s
sake.”

“Great,” said Lars. “Come over tomorrow for Sunday Supper. I’ll keep Pop busy making the meatballs and watching the game while you and Nils root around in the attic. We’ll come up with some reason you two should be up there.”

While you and Nils root around in the attic.
After a month away from her, he was going to be all alone with her in his parents’ attic looking at old photos. Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough. And while he should have told her no, or at least told Lars to knock it off, he couldn’t. After a month of going through the motions in his stagnant life, he felt alive again. He needed her in his life. He had to figure out a way to have her there.

“Well, I guess it’s a date, then,” he said quietly, staring down at his hands and trying to conceal the wild leaping in his heart.

Maggie raised her coffee to her lips and agreed sourly, “I guess it is.”

Chapter 8

As Maggie pulled into Mr. Lindstrom’s driveway, she tried to calm the fierce flurry in her stomach. For heaven’s sake, she’d been to the Lindstroms’ house a thousand times before.
Just never when you were married to one of his sons.
And never when she was about to spend time alone with that son after a month-long cold freeze and the most awkward party planning meeting ever.

His words to Tess on their wedding day had been so incredibly painful to her, so embarrassing, she could barely think about them without cringing. But, then he walked into her café yesterday morning and those ice-blue eyes may as well have been as green a spring grass. He was jealous. Spitting mad, ready-to-hit-Beck style jealous. And she’d never admit it to a soul, but she loved it, because just like that, the game wasn’t over. As far as Maggie knew, jealousy only came about if you wanted what somebody else had, which made her question what he’d said to Tess because it didn’t add up. If he wasn’t interested at all in Maggie, if touching her and kissing her and playing the bagpipes for her was all just an act, he wouldn’t care if Beck was interested in her, right?

She’d purposely batted her eyes at Beck and made a show of accepting his lunch invitation. She’d directed all of her attention to Lars, despite Nils clearing his throat and shifting in his seat to get her attention. It was pure weakness to agree to Lars’s suggestion that she help Nils, but if she was honest, she was spoiling for a fight. Nils had hurt her with the things he’d said to Tess—really, really
hurt
her—and if nothing else, she intended to tell him so today to his handsome face.

She parked her car and took the little plaid tin of shortbread off the passenger seat, glancing at her face in the rearview mirror. She’d put on a little eyeliner and mascara, though she wore neither very often, and a little bit of lip gloss too. She pursed her lips, watching them glisten. She’d spruced up for Nils’s benefit, of course. When a woman’s about to tell off a man, it’s in her best interest to look good.

She swung her legs out of the car, the frayed cuffs of her jean-clad legs brushing the top of her western-style boots. She adjusted her long-sleeved, black, scooped-neck t-shirt that rode the line between casual and sexy, tugging it down a touch until it revealed her modest cleavage. Then she pushed up the sleeves to her elbows and bared her heavily freckled, toned forearms. It had taken her over an hour to wash and blow-dry her thick strawberry-blonde hair, but damn if it didn’t bounce around her shoulders like a shampoo commercial—a nice change from the bun she always wore, that always had two or three pencils sticking out like spikes.

She climbed up the porch steps. The front door opened before she could knock, and suddenly Lars was standing there grinning at her.

“Heya, Mags,” he whispered.

“Heya, Lars. I brought shortbread. Why’re we whisperin’?”

He took the tin from her and bussed her on the cheek. “Pop fell asleep in front of the TV. You know how to get up to the attic, right? Nils is already up there.”

She nodded. More than once she’d opened the attic door by mistake en route to the bathroom in the early days when she’d been a new guest to Mr. Lindstrom’s house.

“Go on up.” He put a finger to his lips. “And shhhhhh.”

She winked at Lars and tiptoed through the living room that had picture windows looking out at the park and mountains beyond, past Mr. Lindstrom snoring in his recliner and through the dining room to the back stairs.

“Hey, Mags!” hissed Lars, coming up behind her. “Don’t kill each other.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “No promises.”

“What happened between you two?” he asked, placing the tin on the kitchen counter. The smell of Swedish meatballs in brown sauce drifted out into the hallway and made her mouth water. It was Mrs. Lindstrom’s recipe and the Lindstroms kept it heavily guarded. She had a fleeting thought that she was a Lindstrom now, too, and she should ask for it. She shook her head at such silliness.

“It’s complicated.”

“You dating Beck? Like, for real?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah. It matters to him. A lot.”

Maggie gave Lars and sad smile and shrugged. “Would you hate me if I asked you stay out of it, Lars?”

Lars took a step back, brows furrowing as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Hurt
him
? Yeah, right!” she said, Nils’s words to Tess flitting through her head. She wondered if it was a bad idea to come over here today. She thought about turning around, getting in her car, and going home.

“I know he’s gruff,” said Lars, hands on his hips, eyes concerned. “But he’d do anything for someone he cares about and it’s a short list. You’re on that list. You know that, Mags?”

Maggie dropped his glance, looking down at the tips of her scuffed boots. She’d bought them two months after she’d arrived in Gardiner. A few days after meeting Nils and the rest of the Lindstroms. Years ago.

The Lindstroms had been like family to her ever since. Right down to one of them offering her his name when she needed it. Her face flushed and colored with shame. Yes, Nils had hurt her feelings, but he’d never promised her anything. All he’d ever been was good to her, and her attitude was ungrateful.

Lars’s words softened the edge she’d arrived with. She twisted her Claddagh ring. She hadn’t taken it off since the day Nils had put it on. Even on the mornings her eyes were red and puffy from crying, she’d left it on.

“I know I’m on that list,” she answered quietly.