Midsummer Sweetheart (3 page)

“I remember you, but…You were with, um—?”

“Wade,” she finished for him, her shoulders slumping.

“Wade,” he repeated and his voice hardened appreciably as those light eyes narrowed into shards of ice. It sent a shiver down Katrin’s spine. She sure wouldn’t like to be on Erik Lindstrom’s bad side.

“Thanks for giving Kat a ride today, Erik,” Ingrid interjected, ending their awkward hello. “We all appreciate it.”

“Yes, thanks,” added Katrin.

“Glad to help get you somewhere safe,” said Erik, still staring at her thoughtfully.

“Sorry to put you out.”

“It’s fine,” he answered, his eyes flicking to her lips quickly, then returning to her eyes.

She didn’t sense that the gesture was deliberate, but it made her cheeks feel hot. Lord, but Erik Lindstrom was handsome. It had been a long time since she’d met a man to whom she’d felt so instantly attracted. She looked away from him, catching her reflection in the mirror across the room and suppressing a groan: rumpled sweats, askew glasses, crimson cheeks and greasy hair. She cringed with embarrassment, wondering if she could squeeze in a quick shower before they left for Skidoo. She wasn’t a supermodel, but she could certainly look better than this. She
wanted
to look better than this. For the first time in months it actually mattered to her what she looked like.

“Well, should we get going?” he asked. “You have your stuff together?”

Katrin shot a look to Ingrid.

“I only got all of my ducks in a row this morning,” said Ingrid. “Can you take Kat home to put a bag together? And maybe stop by the police station and file a restraining order before you head north?”

Erik gave Ingrid a look that read,
I thought I was just giving her a ride
, and it made Katrin’s stomach flutter with embarrassment. This veritable god was driving her dumpy butt to safety. She couldn’t bear to inconvenience him any more than she already had.

“I don’t need to file the restraining order,” she blurted out. For a moment she was relieved her cheeks were already blazing so no one would see the lying flush spread over her face. “I already did it.”

Kristian’s eyes whipped to find hers. “I had no idea! Why didn’t you tell us?”

Katrin shrugged, looking down. “Slipped my mind.”

“That’s great, Kat. As soon as it’s processed we’ll have more leverage if he bothers you. I’m so relieved you did that. I’m sure they’ll serve him while they’re holding him and you’ll probably have a temporary order by the end of this week.”

She tried not to feel terrible for deceiving her worried brother. She was leaving, wasn’t she? And the police had issued an Emergency Protective Order when they hauled Wade away on Friday night. Between that and leaving, it was enough. Or she hoped so, anyway.

Ingrid gave Katrin a bright smile. “Well then, all you have to do is pack a bag and go. E-mail and tell me whatever you want me to ship up there and I’ll arrange it.”

Katrin nodded at Ingrid, feeling overwhelmed and grateful. Her eyes filled with tears and Ingrid reached out, pulling her sister-in-law in her arms. Kristian mumbled something about the men waiting outside as the women said their good-byes.

“I’m so glad you’re getting away. It was pure luck that you and Erik are both going north to start new jobs tomorrow. Or grace. Or fate,” said Ingrid.

Fate.
Erik and fate
. Katrin’s heart galloped as she hugged Ingrid back, but she tried to reason with herself. She was escaping an unhinged ex-fiancé, not embarking on a new romance for heaven’s sake! She had no business putting Erik Lindstrom and the word fate in the same sentence, despite the fact that she sort of liked the way they sounded together.

Ingrid pulled back to look into Katrin’s eyes with a firm gentleness.

“Just so you know, Kat…I’d trust Erik Lindstrom with my life. You can trust him with yours. That’s partially why I want him involved. I wanted you to have someone up there who you could turn to if you ever felt threatened.” She paused, leaning back and crossing her arms. “But, one thing about Erik. He’s such a good man, but he doesn’t really—I mean, he’s not looking for anything, um,
romantic
. He’s dated plenty of girls, but I have yet to see him get
serious
about anyone. Put nicely? He’s kind of a, um, a
player
, you know? So—”

“Ingrid!” Kat put her hands up, shaking her head as her cheeks colored again. It was like Ingrid could see all the insta-fantasies that had started playing out in Katrin’s head the minute she’d touched Erik’s hand. “I’m hardly looking for—”

“Oh, I know!” Ingrid rushed to smooth over the awkwardness that suddenly hovered in the air. “I just felt like I should say something, you know, since you don’t know him very well and he has sort of a reputation—”

“I get it. Duly warned.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Ingrid.

Katrin sensed she was trying to keep her voice light, despite the message she wanted Katrin to receive.

“Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

“No worries,” she told her sister-in-law, looking back at Ingrid to catch her worried eyes, and give her a confident, reassuring smile. “Nothing’s going to happen between me and Erik Lindstrom, so don’t worry.”

As Ingrid put her arm around Katrin’s waist and they walked through the front door, Katrin tried to convince herself that it was only the sadness of saying good-bye, not disappointment over Erik, that made her heart feel so heavy.

CHAPTER 3

The drive to Katrin’s apartment was quiet and Erik was grateful. His head was all turned around and he needed to straighten it out.

Now.

Right now.

But, man, he was incredibly distracted by his introduction to Katrin Svenson.

When Jenny had shared Katrin’s sad story of woe, in his mind he had pictured someone used up and beaten down by life’s hard times. Some pathetic, battered girl that a man could risk losing. Someone from whom a man could easily walk away.

His first impression of Katrin Svenson was that any man who actually wanted to be tied down would be crazy to let her go.

She was a little thing: no more than five-foot-four. Petite, like a gymnast or ballerina, her spare build emphasized by a shapeless sweatshirt and clingy yoga pants that hugged her pert little ass like a glove. Her bright blue eyes were magnified, instead of hidden, behind her unfashionable glasses, and her blonde hair severely slicked back into a prim bun at the base of her long, graceful neck only enhanced the illusion of a dancer.

She might have been grubby, but she was neither used up nor beaten down. She held herself with a quiet dignity that belied everything she had endured at the hands of Wade Doyle, and made Erik’s breath catch with admiration for her courage. If he felt vaguely protective
before
meeting Katrin, his natural instincts had amplified considerably after being introduced to her. He felt downright defensive now, like it’d be a tremendous pleasure to smash his fist through Wade Doyle’s face.

He glanced over at her quickly as she gestured to him to turn right. Her eyes were clear and blue, and she seemed bright. Whether that was due to actual smarts, he wouldn’t know until he got to know her better. He did note that her eyes had dark circles underneath, and he could see the exhaustion and wariness behind them.

He looked back at the road, dissecting their meeting. Her eyes had distracted him initially, but Erik had still been respectfully in control of his actions until he took her hand in his.

There was that brief zap before the heat of her skin melted into his, followed by the almost-otherworldly feeling that a life force was exchanged between them.

He had never felt anything so intense upon meeting another person in his entire life. She must have noticed it too: the sudden and fierce connection between them, the way his heart started thumping like he’d never touched a girl before.

Erik was so surprised by his reaction to her, so utterly stunned by the sudden intensity of it, he had stared back at her mutely until she had politely asked for her squished hand back. He had no context or explanation for what had happened between them. But, his head was completely turned around, and for a man who was accustomed to being in absolute control of himself, it made him incredibly uncomfortable.

To make matters worse, her smile caught him totally off guard, making him almost dizzy as her face was transformed by two crater-sized dimples that caved in both cheeks, giving her previously dignified demeanor an unexpectedly impish, playful quality, a glimpse of how she would look when she was teasing. And he liked it. A lot. A lot more than he should.

For whatever reason—likely owing to the well-established fact that most men are latent Neanderthals—as he held her hand, bewildered by her eyes and undone by her smile, he had a quick mental fantasy of her leaping into his arms. She was so small, he could easily hold her, and she would wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and he would press his lips to hers, claiming her, so that no man would ever try to hurt her or take her away from him or—

Whoa, Erik!
He glanced over at her again, almost worried that she could hear the thoughts ricocheting around in his brain, but she stared out the windshield impassively. The brief image was so real and so developed, he could almost feel the imprint of her legs around his waist, and his cheeks flushed.

You only have one job to do, Erik. Drive her to Skidoo Bay. Don’t get distracted by a pair of dimples, goddamnit.

She told him to turn left and his body warmed up further from the lilting tone of her voice, soft and gentle, almost musical. He pulled into the driveway she pointed to and cut the engine of his car.

“This is it,” she said with a small, polite smile, and it bugged him that it was nothing like the unguarded one she’d given him at Ingrid’s. He wanted to see that one again. “Do you want to come up for a few minutes?”

He looked at the two-car garage in front of him that had a staircase along the right side, presumably leading to her apartment. “Sure.”

She preceded him up the stairs and when her sweatshirt rode up a little he got another peek at her perfect, adorable backside in tight yoga pants, briefly wondering again if Wade Doyle was the stupidest man who’d ever lived.

***

Katrin winced at the cardboard and silver duct tape that Kristian had used to cover the gaping hole in the door window. It brought back such strong memories of Friday night, Katrin’s stomach flipped over and she paused at the door, placing her hand over her belly and trying to take a deep breath as the keys rattled in her trembling hand.

She didn’t expect to feel Erik’s warm hand on her shoulder, but it comforted and grounded her for a second before her stomach flipped over again for an entirely different reason.

“You okay?” he asked, reaching around her for the hand that held her keys and gently pulling them away.

His chest felt solid as it brushed against her back and for an instant she forgot about Friday night and Wade and Skidoo Bay and closed her eyes, inhaling the clean-laundry smell of Erik Lindstrom around her.

“Uh-huh,” she murmured.

His voice was low behind her. “You haven’t been back here since Friday?”

“No.”

“It can be pretty traumatic to return to the scene of—”

“Wade didn’t actually attack me,” she blurted out. She didn’t want Erik to think of her only as a victim.

“Just because he didn’t touch you, doesn’t mean he didn’t attack you. You must have been terrified.”

Katrin swallowed painfully, remembering the crunching of broken glass under Wade’s boots, the metal of the knife in her hands glinting as it shook in her trembling fingers.

“He’d never done anything like that before.”

“He’s escalating.”

Erik’s fingers flexed on her shoulder once, then twice, and Katrin’s face flushed with heat, grateful for the distraction from her frightening memories. He leaned forward to fit the key into the lock and pushed the door open, leaning away from her so she could enter first.

She took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Either Ingrid or Kristian had cleaned up the glass, and aside from the depressing cardboard and tape over the window, you’d hardly know something dreadful had happened here. The living room to her left was just as she had left it—puffy floral couch and apothecary coffee table invitingly situated across from her flat-screen TV. Bookshelves lining the far left wall.

She peeked to her right and her kitchen was similarly tidy, two chairs pushed into a small table that stood next to the windows and was covered with a cheerful pink and yellow plaid tablecloth. Her eyes flicked to the knife block beside the microwave and a chill passed through her to see all six knives neatly sheathed in the light wood.

“Hey,” said Erik. “Want me to wait for you in the car? Give you a minute?”

She turned to face him and found him hovering in the doorway, his massive body taking up every inch of space. Lord, he was big.

“Please stay,” she said softly, clasping her trembling hands together in an effort to hide the panic she felt at being alone. “I—I’d prefer it.”

Erik’s face hardened, but he nodded, stepping into the room and pulling the door shut behind him.

She turned and faced him. “What you said, about Wade escalating. He’s been getting worse for a while now.”

“Must have made him mad when you broke up with him.”

“Yes,” she said, crossing to the kitchen and taking two glasses out of the cupboard over the sink. She filled them with water then turned and handed one to him.

When Wade hadn’t showed up at their wedding back in December, Katrin, in a moment of long-overdue clarity, had realized it was her last chance to escape Wade, and she’d broken up with him, once and for all, the following day.

He had come to her apartment to apologize, pores reeking, eyes red and raw, burst blood vessels angry on his cheeks as he thrust a crushed bouquet of white roses at her in a pathetic offering.

“It’ll never happen again, Kitty-Kat,” he had promised, beads of sweat on his forehead, despite the sub-zero January weather. He shrugged. “It was an early Christmas party.”