Midsummer Sweetheart (19 page)

“Why not? I seen him. I seen you both last Sunday, Tiki. That’s not jus’ some friend who’s a-comin’ to see you. Screeching his car up in here. You jumpin’ him like a monkey.”

“Paca! You were watching!” Katrin tsked her friend, turning red at that thought that she and Erik had an unexpected audience during their kiss last Sunday night. She shrugged. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

“You like him? Ah, you like him. I see it all over your face.” She poured more sugar into her coffee, and her bracelets jangled merrily.

“I like him.” Katrin nodded, then confided softly. “I like him so much. I’m falling hard. So much harder than…” She let her words trail off, and shook her head at her friend. “…I should.”

“Should! He like you too, a-comin’ here every Sunday. Why you worry, Tiki?”

“It’s complicated. Our families are totally intertwined. His childhood friend Ingrid is my brother’s wife. My cousin Sam is his sister’s husband. If things got messy it’d be bad, Paca. Anyway, he says he doesn’t want anything serious. He’s never had a long-term girlfriend. He doesn’t like commitment. He doesn’t want any emotional entanglements.” She shook her head ruefully. “That’s just not me. I was almost married, you know? I love being with someone, and I feel so safe when I’m with him, like I can be myself, and I don’t feel worried. I can’t get him out of my head, but I don’t actually know if there’s any hope.”

“Tiki, I tell you true. Every man alive think he don’t want forever.
Oh, kill me dead, I got to marry de girl, I got to be tied down.
But, truss me, Tiki, a true. They say dat until they meet de
right
girl. Then? Everything cook and curry.” She beamed at Katrin, perfect long, red-lacquered manicured fingernails splayed open as if to say “Voila!”

“You think so?”

“I think if you de right girl for de bredda? You just give him time. Sooner later, he see it too. Na worry ’bout it, Tiki. He see it too.”

***

Erik looked up the Mountain Lake Lodge on the internet to see what sort of place he was headed to this evening, and was surprised to see it wasn’t just nice. It was
really
nice. It was Sunday clothes nice. Checking his closet, he chose the simple navy suit he mostly saved for weddings and funerals, coupled with a light blue dress shirt. He stared at his three ties: one with Santa Claus, one purple with gold Vikings helmets, and a red-and-blue-striped number that served for any occasion that wasn’t Christmas or the Sunday after a Vikings victory at the Super Bowl. He closed the closet and left the ties. The suit was enough.

He took his black dress shoes out of his closet to shine them, thinking of seeing Katrin tonight.

During their week apart he’d had to admit to himself that the feelings he had for her went beyond just wanting to sleep with her. He certainly
wanted
to sleep with her, but he cared about her regardless of whether or not that actually happened. Ever since that first meeting in her brother’s house, she’d had a certain hold on him, and there was no use fighting it anymore. She was different from any other girl he’d ever met: strong, but soft. Hopeful, after everything she’d been though. Funny, well-read, interesting, beautiful. The way she looked at him melted his insides, made him feel like a god. So, okay. He had feelings for Katrin Svenson.

But, feelings or not, he was still
not
comfortable with the idea of being in a relationship. Not with her. Not with anyone. He didn’t want to leave his heart open like that, and he didn’t want to be responsible for hers, because, as she had correctly guessed, it scared him to death. Getting hurt, hurting her. It was all so damn messy.

That said, he wouldn’t be able to stand seeing her with someone else. Last Sunday, when he’d jumped to conclusions about her going out with José, he’d felt how visceral, how agonizing, it would be to lose her. Which left a pretty frustrating conundrum: He didn’t want to be her boyfriend, but he didn’t want her to be with anyone else either.

Frustrated. There were no good answers, and with them both heading home for
Midsommardagen
in two weeks, he knew she’d want the dreaded “status” conversation that always started with those terrible, awful five words that he hated more than any others: “Erik, we need to talk.” He couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to have that talk. He liked her, very much, but having feelings for her was bad enough; commitment and labels were daunting, impossible.

Damn
Midsommardagen
anyway! If they didn’t have to go home, they could just keep hanging out up in Kalispell, hidden from the prying eyes of their families, taking things one step at a time without the formality of labels. It would just add pressure to their situation and—
he felt sure
—would ruin the delicate simplicity of things between them.

He buffed one shoe and then the other, considering the situation as the brush whooshed back and forth across the stiff black leather.

Maybe they could suspend things during
Midsommardagen
, just until they got back north. Just act like friends in front of their families then pick things up when they got home. Sure. Why couldn’t they do that? They didn’t owe anyone explanations. They didn’t need to announce they were dating or boyfriend and girlfriend or in a relationship, all terms and conditions that made him genuinely shudder, and would complicate the family reunion.

They could promise not to touch each other, not to look for each other, not to give away their growing feelings. Keep their—whatever it was—private. Not a secret, per se, but private. It wasn’t anyone’s business but theirs, anyway. Maybe they could just act like nothing had happened between them. Nothing at all.

***

Katrin was still in her room getting ready when she heard the knock at the door downstairs. She stuck her head out of her room. “Paca! Can you let him in?”

Gabrielle peeked into Katrin’s room and beamed at her approvingly.

“
Cuu yaa
, Tiki!” Then, flicking her eyes to the stairs where Erik waited, “De poor lamb.”

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 hair band 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, Tiki.” 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 wit dem.” 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, Tiki!”

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 don’t need a check-up after all!” Gabrielle put her hand out in greeting, offering Erik a warm smile. “You mus’ be Erik, and dis pretty flowers mus’ be for Tiki! I 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 like dis bredda?”

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, Tiki 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. “Tiki!”

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, Tiki.”

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.