What Were You Expecting? (36 page)

“You look better than…better.”

Maggie couldn’t help the smile that took over her face. “I feel like myself again.”

He nodded, giving her a curious look. “Guess we’re not playing euchre tonight. Even if Beck would play, both Nils and Lars are in the park.”

“Assumin’ we could even drag you away from your laptop for a few hours!”

A few weeks ago, while Maggie had been nursing her own broken heart and spending time with Beck, she’d taken a specific interest in Paul’s love life and opened an internet dating account for him. It turned out that the girl Maggie chose for him—a girl from Mystic, Connecticut, named Holly—had been a good choice. Paul had been corresponding with her regularly ever since.

“She’s something,” said Paul, a dopey smile—probably the twin to Maggie’s—spread across his face as he took a sip of coffee. He finally looked up, giving her a cock-eyed, sheepish look. “Have I said thank you yet? For setting me up with her?”

“Aye. Somewhere between ‘You’re crazy, Maggie,’ and ‘Stay outta my love life, Maggie,’ I believe you did.” She pursed her lips, but she couldn’t hold onto a perturbed expression and burst into giggles. “Aw, I’m glad it’s workin’ out. You deserve someone nice.”

“You too.” He sipped his coffee as she filled a to-go order. “Speaking of you, I haven’t seen Beck around much lately.”

“Ah. Was wonderin’ when you’d pry. You’re just as bad as I am.”

“And you’re avoiding the question.”

“Was there a question?” she asked innocently.

“What happened with Beck?”

Maggie shrugged. There was so much that Paul didn’t know about her and Nils, but they’d agreed not to share anything about their relationship with friends or family until after the interview. Even then, they’d have to decide on a story. Still, she didn’t want to lie outright.

“Nils came home.”

“You have it bad for him.”

“Aye,” said Maggie, giving him a small smile. “Always have.”

“Think it’ll work out? Never seen him get serious with anyone.”

Maggie took a deep breath and sighed. “I heard this in a movie once: ‘I have no talent for certainty.’ That’s true. I canna say for sure. I only know what’s in my heart. I only know what I want.”

Paul nodded, his smile slightly concerned as he slid off the barstool and picked up his coffee cup. “Good luck, Mags. See you tomorrow.”

She waved good-bye as he ducked out the door into a mid-morning rain storm, her words roosting in her head and bothering her. After what she and Nils had shared last night, shouldn’t she be surer about where they were headed? And yet, she wasn’t. The last time she’d shared a meaningful physical milestone with Nils, he’d left for the park for a month, and even though she trusted that things were different this time, she wouldn’t feel secure until he was home again. Only then could she gauge if he was regretting their decision to sleep together, and the wait from Thursday to Sunday suddenly seemed interminable.

***

Rationally, he knew the right thing to do would be to park the van in the lot behind the office, walk home, shower and shave, send Maggie a quick text to be sure she was up for company and then head over to her place. But the second he saw the Welcome to Gardiner sign, there was only one place he wanted to go, only one place he needed to be, and almost as if he had no control over the decision he drove right by the office and parked in the lot behind the Prairie Dawn instead. Four days without her had been enough. He wasn’t interested in spending another goddamned second without her now that he was back in town.

The sun was setting on the horizon as he took a quick look at himself in the rearview mirror. Tanned and gritty from summer sun and trail dust, he was a sight to behold. For a moment, he thought about running home real quick, at least to shave the four days of stubble that was already shaping into a light beard. He ran his hand over his jaw, clenching it as he grew impatient with himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the ambient light of her television through an upstairs window, and he threw open the van door, his decision made. His whole body was taut with impatience as he approached her door, wanting her, hoping that after four days she hadn’t second-guessed or reconsidered their decision to sleep together, hoping that she was falling as much in love with him as he was with her.

As he unlocked the ground-level door, his adrenaline skyrocketed, making his heart drum like mad, as he took the steps two at a time. Just as he reached the hallway at the top of the stairs, he heard a deadbolt click and then suddenly, there she was, standing in her doorway in those skimpy little pajamas with her light red hair in two braids. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the small space between them as he drank her in, clocking the three seconds it took for him to harden in anticipation of the sweetness that waited for him in her bed.

“You’re back!” she said, flashing him a beaming smile.

So overcome by the very sight of her, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his body in happiness and relief as he bent his head to find her lips with his.

As she backed them into the apartment, he kicked the door shut, reaching for her sweatshirt, lifting it over her head and letting it drop to the floor. Her hands grappled with his shirt, yanking it out of his jeans and pushing it up his chest until he grabbed it and tossed it over his head. His hands skimmed down to her hips and he lifted her effortlessly as she locked her legs around his waist. Pushing her up against the vestibule wall he ravaged her mouth, reaching up to cup her cheeks with his hands, his fingertips brushing over the smooth hair pulled back at her temples.

Finally he drew back and rested his forehead against hers, panting, feeling the hard tips of her breasts brushing his chest with every forceful breath.

“I fucking missed you,” he murmured. He shook his head, trying to catch his breath. “I’m filthy.”

“You’re my fantasy,” she replied in a breathy voice, laced with sexy humor…and something else—happiness. He could hear it and it mirrored everything he felt holding her in his arms again. Happiness. Joy. Requited longing.

“You’re certainly mine.”

Her fingers were laced behind his neck and her thumbs played with the short hairs on his nape as she bit her lower lip. He drew back to see the pink skin around her mouth and winced.

“I should have shaved first. I should have showered and—”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head back and forth gently and leaning down to lick and nip lightly on his bare shoulder, her breath hot on his skin. “I’m glad you came straight here. I’m glad you couldn’t wait.”

“It felt like dying to be away from you. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t—”

“Me neither,” she confessed, and then leaned back to catch his eyes in the dim light offered by the TV in the living room. She caressed his cheek gently and he closed his eyes for a moment, leaning into her touch. “You
do
need a shower,
mo muirnín
.”

“I do.”

She swallowed, looking slightly nervous, before lifting her chin a touch and holding his eyes with a fierce heat. “Me too.”

His breath hitched as he realized what she was suggesting. He’d never showered with a woman before. Never. Not in his whole life.

“You’re going to give me a heart attack, Maggie May.”

“Nope,” she said, smiling at him. “There are other things I’d much prefer to give you.”

She unlocked her legs from his waist, rubbing her chest against his as she slid down his front and sidled away from the wall. She reached out her hand to him and as the rest of his life flashed before his eyes, he knew that forever, until the end of his days, when she reached for him, he would follow her. Anywhere. Anytime. Anywhere. Anytime. Until the end of his days.

Chapter 17

A week later, as Maggie watered the violets on her bedroom windowsill on Sunday evening, Nils came up behind her, pushing her hair aside to plant a gentle kiss on the back of her neck. This is the way it was, now; after holding himself back for so long, he reached for her all the time. And like her violets that soaked up the water and stretched toward the sun, she soaked up Nils’s tenderness and basked in his warmth. With each passing day, she settled into a secret life with him that had been heretofore only a fantasy. But here, in her little apartment, away from their families and work and any other reminders of life except the growing love they bore one another…here, it was real.
They
were real and she wanted to trust that he belonged to her as surely as she belonged to him.

She placed the little watering can on her bureau and leaned back against him as he wrapped his arms around her and she caught their reflection in the dresser mirror. When she looked at them together, her heart flooded with happiness because she didn’t see two unconnected people, or even two friends anymore; she saw a couple. Being with him felt as natural as breathing, as sleeping, as waking up to feel his legs entwined with hers or see his face beside her, as she did every morning.

And yet, questions about their future lingered at the edges of her happiness. For all of their growing comfort with one another, they still hadn’t broached the most important topic of all: what happens next?

After the interview, would they leave the safe cocoon of her apartment and face the world as a couple? Would they tell their families that they were married? Dating? Would they ever have a “real” wedding ceremony in a church with friends and family looking on? They hadn’t actually addressed any solid plans for the future, and though Maggie felt increasingly certain that their love for one another was a forever kind of love, they hadn’t said “I love you” yet either.

He’d agreed to join her—somewhat grudgingly—for Little Café on the Prairie story time on Wednesday night, but he’d changed the subject quickly when she asked if he’d be willing to read to the children. She noted this with frustration, but it hadn’t daunted her plan: come hell or high water, they were discussing children on Wednesday night.

When he’d asked if she was on the pill last week, it had confirmed her suspicions that he was capable of having children, which led Maggie to believe it wasn’t a matter of
can’t
, but
won’t
. And that made no sense to her since he so clearly loved his big family and his tiny nieces. Nils Lindstrom was a man practically built to be a father with his gruff voice and caring ways. She was desperate to understand his opposition to having a family of his own, and whether he wanted to discuss it or not, they didn’t have the luxury of sitting on their secrets anymore. With the interview only a week away and questions about their plans to start a family almost guaranteed, they needed to discuss it.

“You’re scowling,” he whispered into her ear before resting his chin on her shoulder, covered with only the thin strap of her cami. He lifted the strap and pressed his lips to her skin, sending a deluge of shivers down her arm, and she adjusted her hands, lacing her fingers through his, under her breasts.

“What’re you thinking about?” he asked.

She relaxed her face in the mirror, smiling into his eyes. “Us.”

“Why is ‘us’ making you scowl?”

“Because I don’t know what happens next.”

Now he scowled. “What do you mean?”

She turned in his arms to look up at him. “The interview’s a week from Thursday.”

“And we’ll be ready. Don’t you think so?”

“Aye. I do.”

“So, don’t be worried. What happens next? You get your green card.”

“Then what?”

“We come home.”

She chuckled lightly, but it wasn’t a light-hearted sound. “Home? Where’s that?”

“Here.”

“Here in my wee apartment? Or yours? Or neither?”

He tilted his head, furrowing his brows at her, worry seeping into his eyes. “What does
that
mean?”

She swallowed and licked her lips nervously. “I don’t know our plans. Do you move in here? Do I move in with you? Or do we have to take it slower than that and not move in together at all? Do we spring the happy news on your pop? ‘Guess what, Mr. L! You’ve got a new daughter-in-law! The weddin’? Oh, no. Nobody was invited. It was a green-card weddin’ that happened to turn into somethin’ more after we got flagged by immigration services.’ How’s that goin’ to go over? I mean, have you even thought this out? Do we stay married?” She paused and her final words came out in a strangled whisper. “Do we stay together?”

“Maggie!” he exclaimed, his brows furrowing in worry and confusion. “Stop.”

“I canna. We’ll finish the questionnaires by Thursday, but there are so many more questions, Nils. And they swim around in my head and I have no answers for them, and I fear you dinna either.”

“I do. I do have answers. Lie down with me,” he said gently, pulling her down on the bed. He kicked off his shoes and scooted back until he was sitting against the headboard and Maggie crawled up the bed to join him, resting her head on his chest, over his heart. It beat strong and true under her ear. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. It was hers. He had given it to her. She could listen to it forever. She
wanted
to listen to it forever.