Midsummer Sweetheart (28 page)

Before he said the words, she’d had a fleeting fear that he would say
I can’t offer you my heart
. Relieved, she tilted her head, looking into his eyes, ice blue stars in the darkness of her bedroom. “I know. Me too.”

In one smooth move, he flipped her over so that he was on top of her. “You’re mine.”

“All yours,” she answered, reaching around his neck to pull his lips down to hers.

***

Her back was up against his warm chest, and his arms were around her, holding her close to him. In the darkness of the room, she heard the steadiness of his breathing and knew that he was sleeping.
I should sleep too.
She was going to be tired, and maybe a little sore, in the morning. That made her grin; there was something incredibly sexy about her body being used to aching by his.

The morning. Back to the Triple Peak in the morning. Back to their families, whom she loved. Back to Midsummer, which she loved. With Erik, whom she loved.

She gasped lightly.

With Erik, who I love.

She felt him stir in his sleep, tightening his arm around her, his fingers flexing lightly and then flattening against the skin under her breasts as his breathing deepened again.

I love Erik. Love him. Completely.

She searched her heart and found she wasn’t shocked or frightened by the force and finality of her feelings, by the easy name she had finally given them. She had probably felt this way for some time. He was a miracle to her. A reward after struggle. Safety after fear. Tenderness after disappointment. And ever since the first moment she’d met him, she felt as though Erik was the person the world had intended for her, for whom she was destined; the cool, doubting cynic whom she was somehow able to help transform into the warm, tender romantic who held her as he slept beside her.

Thoughts of him making love to her almost made her weep—the way he watched her face, making sure she found her release before he found his own. Her blond Viking King who was, one by one, vanquishing his fears. Who had—as if by magic or grace—finally made room to share his life with someone. And of all the women in the world who wanted to be an “us” with him, he had chosen her.

His palm was flat on her chest, under her breasts. She felt his chest rise and fall rhythmically behind her as he slept, and she put her hand over his, closing her eyes.
I love you, Erik Lindstrom. You’re mine.

***

It was dawn and the beginnings of sunlight filtered through the window into her room, dim and dreamlike, illuminating her hair like a halo. Her lashes fanned out on her cheek, and her lips looked bruised and red from so much loving. Erik loved that
. She’s mine.

He pillowed his head on his flat hands and stared at her. At one point, when they were at the height of their passion for each other last night, she had called out “Love me, Erik!” and while she meant that in the physical sense, the words that had answered her plea, in his mind, were, “I do.”

As he watched her, the words rose to the surface of his consciousness again, and he felt them resound with an astounding certainty:
I do. I do love you, Kat.
He breathed in deeply, confronted with the reality that had been creeping up on him for weeks, since the very first moment he met her; he wasn’t just attracted to Katrin. She wasn’t merely fun, or a passing infatuation, or anything impermanent in his life. The stark phenomenon of Erik’s life stared him in the face with undisputed clarity: he was in love with Katrin Svenson.

“Aw,
Älskling
,” he murmured, eyes burning, overcome with the strength and surety of his feelings for her.

Stirring lightly, her eyes fluttered opened, then closed again, and she moved closer to him, snuggling her breasts against his chest.

“
Är jag din Älskling?”
she breathed, the same words she had murmured in her sleep as she napped beside him on their first car ride to Skidoo.
Am I your sweetheart?

“
Ja. Du är min Älskling. Du tillhör mig.”
Yes. You are my sweetheart. You belong to me
.

It was the closest he dared come to telling her that he loved her. He watched her lips turn up in a half-asleep grin, and swallowed against the strength, the sheer purity, of his feelings for her. He trailed a finger down her side from under her arm, skimming her breasts, to her hip and back again.

She opened her eyes, heavy-lidded and dreamy. “Make love to me,
Minste
.”

His eyes dilated, his blood rushed, and he covered her body with his.

***

“You’re going to be sore, Kat. No more now. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” she frowned, pouting.

He chuckled, trapping her mischievous hands between his. “Wow. So
wanton
. Where’s the girl from the car yesterday who was so shy?”

“Too forward for
you
?” Katrin looked at him with wide eyes, incredulous, saucy. “Somehow I doubt that. I was there for the ‘I want you in my bed’ speech,
Minste
.”

He rolled on top of her, bracing himself on his elbows and peppered her face with little kisses.

“Too forward? Nah.” Kiss.

“Too…trusting?” Kiss.

“Too…sweet?” Kiss.

“Too…beautiful?” Kiss.

“Too good for me? Definitely.” He nudged her nose with his and smiled, his eyes shining with his feelings for her. “Took me a while to find my way, Kat, but I’m here now.”

She raised her eyebrows, naughty hands deployed, and murmured provocatively, “It’s tomorrow, Erik.”

Defeated, he kissed her swollen lips. Too much happiness.

***

“It’s time to get up,” she said, picking up the clock on her bedside table and showing it to him. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, her back to him.

“Stay.” He reached out and snaked a hand around her waist from where he lay next to her on his back.

She looked at him over her shoulder, smiling and scolding at once. “
Minste
.”

“Huh. Was I
Minste
last night? This morning?”

He tugged on her waist and she lay back, resting the back of her head on his washboard stomach while his hand wandered over her chest, up and down her arm, fingers finally resting lightly on the warm, soft plane of flat skin between her neck and her breasts.

“You were perfect. This was perfect. But, they’ll be waiting for me,” she said, picking up his hand and bringing it to her lips. She pressed a kiss to each fingertip before turning around, pressing her breasts against his chest, and smiling at his beautiful face that she loved so well. “I have to go to Paradise.”

He gazed at her, so steadily, so tenderly, it was like he was memorizing her; it was like he’d never seen anything as precious as Katrin.

Finally, he murmured back, “We’re already there,
Älskling.
We’re already there.”

CHAPTER 17

While he showered, she made them a simple breakfast consisting of waffles she found abandoned in her freezer, and fruit cocktail from a can distributed into two small bowls. She hummed as she prepared two plates, wishing she had more to offer him. Her kitchen smelled like strong coffee that would be, unfortunately, black, but she found some sugar, so it could be as sweet as he liked. As sweet as he
was.

She set the table, then looked out the window from the kitchen when something glistening in the sunshine caught her eye. Out by the woodpile behind the garage was— What was it? Glass? She squinted. The sun was sure bouncing off of it, making it sparkle, whatever it was. It looked almost like ice, but that made no sense in June. She slipped her flip-flops on, and headed down the stairs, a foreboding feeling chasing her steps as she made her way around the garage.

She peeked around the side of the building and gasped, confronted with a veritable mountain of clear bottles. Some completely empty, some with a good swallow left at the bottom, all of them with jaunty red, gold and silver metallic labels identifying them as Vodka. Katrin wrapped her arms around herself, turning to look at the woods about ten feet away, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.

She turned back to the bottles and counted. There must have been fifteen or twenty, some broken glass, some plastic, all empty thrown haphazardly in a pile adjacent to the woodpile. Now, Wade didn’t drink more than a bottle a day, unless things had gotten much worse, which meant this represented about twenty nights of Wade coming to her apartment and drinking in her backyard. She tried to remember if she’d checked this woodpile before she left, and remembered there had been a cold snap in mid-May and she’d borrowed logs for her mother’s fireplace. So, this was new. This was all left here since Katrin moved to Skidoo.

She rubbed her arms, wondering how this played out. Did Wade come here to drink every night while she was gone? Did he drink somewhere else then finish up the night here? Was he quietly sneaking through the woods to drink back here on his own—some misguided attempt to feel closer to her?
Creepy, Wade. What’ve you been up to?

She headed back up to her apartment for a plastic garbage bag. Erik was standing in her bedroom doorway as she walked in, a towel around his waist, rubbing his wet head with another. And what a marvelous sight to see: Her half-naked Viking King.

“Wondered if you’d left me,” he said lightly, grinning.

“No chance of that.” She crossed the small living room to plant a kiss on his lips. “Morning.”

“Morning,
Kärlek
.”
Love
. The noun, not the verb, but it still made her heart skip a beat.

“Haven’t heard that word in a million years.”

“Get used to it.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded, and she looked back at him with an impish grin.
Oh, my, God, how is he this hot?

“You better get dressed, or it’ll be
tomorrow
all over again.” Her tongue flicked out across her lips teasing him, and she sprinted to the kitchen, evading his arms. She got a plastic bag out from under the sink and she heard him humming in the bedroom as he got dressed.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” she called, anxious to deal with the remnants of Wade’s pow-wows before it cast a shadow over their day. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself!”

The big, unbroken glass bottles and plastic bottles were easy. She placed them in the plastic bag carefully so they wouldn’t clink together loudly, nervously flicking her eyes upstairs to her kitchen window. The shards were tougher. There was so much. She was wrong about fifteen or twenty bottles. It was more like thirty. And scattered throughout the bottles were dead white roses, muddy cellophane and filthy, drooping, once-white ribbon. It made a chill pass through her. Wade had been here a lot. Maybe every night since she’d been gone.

“Want some help?

She looked up to see Erik standing at the corner of the garage, hands in his pockets, looking down at her with concern in his eyes.

Her shoulders drooped. “Just wanted to get it all cleaned up before breakfast.”

Erik squatted down, arranging large shards in his hand. “Old habit?”

“Cleaning up after Wade? I guess.”

“We need to tell the local police about this, Kat. Being here at all is in violation of the restraining order.”

She cringed and he noticed.

“You didn’t file a restraining order?”

She shrugged. “I was leaving for Skidoo. I didn’t want you to have to make the stop.”

He winced, forcing the bag from her hands and pulling her into his arms. “Listen to me good, Katrin Svenson. Nothing’s more important to me than you and your safety. Understand? We’re going to file that order. Today.”

She nodded and he leaned down to brush his lips across hers and her heart swelled with love for him. They were standing in the middle of Wade’s mess, but they were standing together and she was grateful.

Erik let her go and picked up a pile of broken glass, placing it gently in the bag before picking up a bouquet of dead flowers. “White roses?”

She nodded and he shook his head, murmuring a curse word as he stared at the wilted blooms.

“Kat, did Wade
always
give you white roses?” She sensed he was trying to put something together.

“Mm-hm,” she whispered, frightened by the look in Erik’s eyes.

“What does he look like? How tall is he? What’s his build?”

“Why? Umm. He’s a few inches shorter than you. Not as big, but not small either. Younger.”

“Dark hair.”

“Yeah. Dark brown.”

“Built like a quarterback.”

“Yeah. Why? Erik, you’re scaring me.”

“That night? Before dinner with José and Gabrielle? I didn’t bring those white roses, Kat. The ones I handed to Gabrielle that she brought to your room? Those weren’t from me. I didn’t have enough time to tell her, and then you looked so pretty and…I forgot to say anything. But, there was a man at the clinic when I got there. Real nervous. He was wearing a hoodie and seemed a little shifty. His eyes widened when he saw me and after that he tucked his chin down and didn’t look up again. But, he shoved the flowers in my hands and left in a hurry. At the time I chalked it up to a kid with a crush on a nurse, but it was bizarre. I think it could have been Wade.”

Kat gasped and the plastic bag fell from her hands. “H-He knew where I was?”

Erik jumped up and pulled her back into his arms. “I don’t know. Calm down. It’s okay, sweetheart. Let’s try to put this together.”

She relaxed in his arms and he continued. “You know what’s been bothering me? My car getting keyed. I checked and there were no other reported instances of vandalism on an off-duty officer’s car that weekend. Plus, it wasn’t just a key being lightly dragged to screw with a cop—it was overkill, it was anger, all those scratches and dents. Didn’t you say when he showed up at Ingrid’s he was rambling about horses? We spent that day on Wild
Horse
Island. I don’t know, Kat. Maybe these things are connected…”

“Oh, my God.”

“Kat? What it is?”

“Something his mother said to Ingrid. The weekend we went to Wild Horse. The weekend your car was keyed. She said Wade was up north hunting, and he came home in a foul mood. I didn’t put it together. It didn’t even occur to me at the time.”