What Were You Expecting? (24 page)

But no matter how hard he tried, the old familiar sorrow would intrude when he thought of her final moments, of
their
final moments. The loss of Veronica and their tiny, infant son, Jens, had broken his heart, shattered his spirit and scarred his soul. Moreover, his culpability in her tragic end made him remember the promise he’d made to himself only hours after she’d gasped her last, terrified breath: no matter what, he would never, ever let it happen again.

He swiped at his eyes as a dark cloud passed over the sun. Was it possible to honor that promise but still make room for Maggie in his life? Damned if he could figure out how.

***

Maggie left Bethany in charge downstairs for the Saturday afternoon lull and trudged up to her apartment, heavyhearted. She needed to call Mr. Lindstrom. She needed to find out if Nils was definitely coming back today.

Last night, after Beck had told her they’d been flagged, she’d stared back at him in dumbfounded shock. In the weeks since she’d sent it in the forms, it had never occurred to her that they’d be flagged. It simply hadn’t crossed her mind.

“W-why? Do they—do they give a reason? What do you mean, flagged?”

“When you filled out the forms, you listed separate addresses…and worse, you signed your name ‘Maggie Campbell,’ not ‘Maggie Lindstrom.’ You’ve been called in for a Stokes interview.”

Maggie Lindstrom.
She wished that hearing him say it didn’t make her heart twist with longing, not when she’d come so far in placing distance between her feelings for Nils and her life. She hadn’t signed her name that way, because regardless of their sham marriage, that’s not who she was. Not really.

“What happens next?” she’d asked in a daze.

Beck turned the letter back around and scanned it. “You and Nils have to be in Billings on September fourth for an interview with USCIS.”

“S-so, you’ll make a list of questions for us and we’ll answer them and exchange them and memorize the answers. Then we’ll be all set. That can work, right?”

“It’s not a bad jumping off spot, but no, it won’t work.” He rubbed his jaw and sighed. “This is bad, Maggie. This is what I was worried about from the beginning.” He shook his head back and forth. “I’m going to be straight with you…I know how you feel about Nils. Hell, you know what I think of the guy. I’d like nothing better than for him to move to Timbuktu and never come back to Gardiner again.”

Maggie looked down at the counter to conceal her feelings from Beck. She knew that she should agree with everything Beck was saying, but through a thick layer of hurt and anger, the idea of never seeing Nils again sat like acid in her belly and she hated herself for her weakness. She should hate him for kissing her and leaving her, for giving her such hope, then hurting her so profoundly with his rejection. She wanted to hate him. She longed to hate him.

“But the people who will be interviewing you are psychologists. They’ve been trained to ferret out frauds. To pull this off, you’re going to have to appear married, Maggie. Like a real married couple. People who read each other’s expressions and know each other’s secrets. You have to know what kind of toothpaste he uses and he needs to know when you last had your period.” He cringed at her, tapping on the letter with his index finger, his face worried and serious. “I’m sorry to be crude, but those are the sorts of things they could ask. You’re going to need to know those things about each other and you’re going to need to appear as though you’re married.
Really
married, not fake married.”

“Oh, my God,” Maggie murmured.

“I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to spend a lot of time with him to pull this off.”

“How much?”

“A lot. Enough so that you can pass for married. Or you’ll be deported. And he’ll go to jail for fraud.”

“Oh, my God. This is such a bloody mess,” her stomach rolled over with nerves and fear. “I think I’m goin’ to be sick.”

She rushed to the little sink in the backroom and braced her hands on the basin as the realities of the situation sunk in. Nils, for whom one kiss was such a grave mistake he’d left town for a month, was now going to have to spend a month getting to know every detail about her. And Maggie, who’d been rejected, who’d just started accepting the reality that she and Nils could never be, was going to have to figure out how to
look
deeply in love with him while somehow keeping her true feelings out of the equation.

She ran the water and splashed her face, wondering if she should just get on a plane and return to Scotland.
There is no way this can possibly work. No way
.

She felt Beck’s hand on her shoulder and turned to meet his worried eyes. “I have an idea.”

She swallowed, blinking her watery eyes quickly to keep from crying. “An idea?”

He pulled her into his arms, and she tensed at first then allowed herself to relax against him.

“Let me help you, Maggie Leslie. Okay?”

* * *

Maggie stepped into her apartment, remembering the simple details of Beck’s plan. She would send Nils a text when he returned today telling him she needed to see him and asking him to meet her at Beck’s office. Beck had suggested that he coach them through the questions for a few days to set a businesslike tone, and that they could then continue to meet in the conference room at his office to both ensure privacy and guarantee a chaperone. The idea had immediately appealed to her. They may have to spend time together, but meeting at the law office with Beck within shouting distance made it feel safer, like informational exchange sessions, keeping the muddied waters of feelings and attraction at arm’s length.

Maggie picked up the phone and dialed
Lindstrom & Sons
.

“Lindstrom and Sons. Lars here.”

“Lars, it’s Maggie.”

“Maggie! Good to hear your voice! Haven’t seen you much lately.”

He was referring to their erstwhile Thursday euchre nights, which Maggie had canceled indefinitely after Nils kissed her and ran screaming for the hills. She wasn’t in the mood to spend much time with the Lindstroms. She’d been avoiding all of them, even in Nils’s absence.

“I know. I’ve been so…busy. And my cousin’s comin’ to visit in a few weeks. Been gettin’ ready for him.”

“Huh. I had no idea.”

There was an awkward silence that stretched between them for a minute before they spoke at the same time.

“I was wonderin’ when—” she started.

“So, Nils’ll be back by—” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Nils is coming back today. Don’t know when, but by nightfall, I reckon.”

“Is that right?” Maggie said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Longest tour he ever took,” said Lars. “Hey, I probably shouldn’t ask, but—”

“Don’t, Lars. Best if you don’t,” she said. She’d gotten the information she called for. “I have to go. Say heya to your Pop for me, aye?”

“Sure, Mags.”

She hung up the phone quickly before he could ask her anything else and sat back on her couch, sighing. It had taken her a week to be able to look at her couch without seeing herself on the floor in front of it straddling Nils’s lap, grinding herself against him as he kissed the daylights out of her. Her eyes burned suddenly and she bit her lip, forcing herself not to cry. She was going to have to spend time with him—a lot of concentrated time—and she couldn’t exactly dissolve into tears every time she recalled the hot sweetness of that kiss and how awkward it must have been for him afterward.

She took a deep breath and then stood up and went to her bathroom. She splashed her face with cold water and looked up at herself in the mirror, feeling the tears recede. Her jawline was severe and her eyes dull, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she needed to learn everything about Nils Lindstrom over the next five weeks, or she’d be deported and he’d go to jail. And although her lips turned up in a slight smirk at the prospect of Nils in handcuffs being led away, her amusement was fleeting when her traitorous insides went hot as the image developed in her head, complete with his gorgeous chest bared and lying on her bed while the handcuffs bound him to—

No. No, no, no. No more Nils Lindstrom fantasies. Absolutely not. No more.

To distract herself, she took her phone out of her back pocket, pulled up a text box and typed a quick message to Nils. Without overthinking her words, she pressed send and pushed the phone back into her pocket.

It didn’t matter that she’d loved him for years. It didn’t matter that he’d sent her years of conflicting messages. It didn’t matter that they’d held hands and even kissed. It didn’t matter that they were legally married. It didn’t even matter that while she might propel her life forward through sheer force of will, she might never actually leave her feelings for him behind. None of it mattered.

“Only one thing matters. If you don’t want to be deported, you’re just goin’ to have to figure out how to work together,” she told herself curtly, reminding herself to lean into her anger if she felt weak for him, to remember the scorching humiliation of his surprise departure. All they had to do was sit in a conference room for a couple of hours every night and learn everything they possibly could about each other. She wasn’t a good actress, but she could do this; her life depended on it. Anyway, it was only for five weeks, and then they’d never have to be in a room alone together ever again.

***

Nils’s belly fluttered with anticipation as the van lumbered along under the Roosevelt Arch, past the high school and around the bend toward Main Street. He was almost home. About fifteen minutes ago, his phone had started buzzing like crazy as it finally found a signal and emails and text messages started loading one by one. They were probably from his siblings and father, but he teased himself, played a game with himself as he got closer and closer to the Best Western where he would drop off the folks in his tour. Maybe one of the messages would be from Maggie.

She’d send him a breezy, flirty text letting him know the kiss was water under the bridge and they could go back to being friends. They could still play euchre every week; she’d still join his family for holidays. He could still orbit around her, still know her warmth and affection, still enjoy her teasing smiles…and friendship.

He passed the Prairie Dawn, staring out the window for a glimpse of her, and then took a deep breath as reality shut down his ridiculous fantasies. There was no way to go back. He’d killed their friendship a month ago when he left for Yellowstone.

No, he thought, even before that: when he’d pulled her onto his lap and shoved his tongue in her mouth and his hands under her shirt on the floor of her apartment.

No, he corrected himself. Earlier than that: the moment he kissed her at their wedding. That little kiss had changed the game.

Or maybe even before, when he insisted that she couldn’t marry Paul and he’d held her hand and insisted she marry him?

Nope. It was even before that…

And then he knew. He knew the exact moment his friendship with Maggie had died, and he was mortified to discover it had been his choice alone.

He pulled into the hotel parking lot and said good-bye to the McCarthy party, distractedly accepting hugs and tips and smiling numbly as his mind reeled. Once they’d taken their luggage and waved good-bye, he got back into the van, staring at his white-knuckled hands on the steering wheel as he finally took responsibility for what had happened between him and Maggie.

May Day. That night. He had pushed her hair softly away from her forehead after taking off her pants and putting warm socks on her feet. Then he’d bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead. That was the moment. That was the moment he’d crossed a line and turned a corner. And he could see clearly now, although he hadn’t realized it at the time, that every ensuing decision he’d made after that kiss on her forehead was actually a charge upon her heart. While he thought he was fighting
against
his feelings, his actions had actually been fighting
for
them. His words may have begged her for friendship, but his heart and his body kept crashing into her, right up until the moment he’d hauled her onto his lap and kissed her like his life was ending.

All this time he thought he’d been pushing her away, and maybe he had been, half-heartedly, with his words. But the undeniable truth was in his actions: he
wanted
her—to feel her lips under his, to touch her body, to love her, to be with her. He was desperate for her, and his feelings weren’t going away. Which begged the question again: Was it possible to make room for Maggie in his life?

Maybe. Maybe it was time for his brain to surrender to his heart and start figuring out a way for them to be together, despite his past and his hang-ups and his fear of hurting Maggie as he had Veronica. Maybe it was time to forgive himself, to figure out a way to give himself a second chance at love. There had to be a way to be with Maggie without breaking his promise to Veronica and baby Jens. There had to be.

His phone buzzed again and without thinking he picked it up, shocked to see Maggie’s name flash up on the oncoming texts banner. His heart leaped so hard, he raised a hand and pressed it against his chest as his thumb swiped at the screen to bring up her message.