No. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t possible. No, Erik. You can’t. He looked down, loosening his grip on her hand.
Katrin didn’t pull her hand back as he expected her to. She tightened her grip and squeezed his hand gently. He looked at her in surprise. She wasn’t smiling, but both dimples were caved in, which meant that she was holding one back.
“It’s okay, Minste.” Her voice was a whisper, a reassuring murmur.
Relief flooded through him, followed by something else; some new feeling that he couldn’t put his finger on. It was a good feeling, a little like gratitude, like he wasn’t losing ground, but maybe giving a little away because he wanted to. He grinned at her, curling his fingers back around her hand.
“Supper?” he asked.
“That is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
Among other things, he admitted to himself. “You know a place?”
“I know a place. Come on.”
She tugged on his hand, and he willingly followed.
***
There was no way Katrin was going to let go of his hand once she had taken it, because that thing that always happened between them when they touched had already happened, and it felt too good to let go of him. It was like their bodies recognized each other, in spite of their short acquaintance, like their bodies were magnets, drawn to one another with a fierce attraction.
They settled at an outdoor table in Katrin’s favorite spot in Skidoo Bay, an upscale bistro with an eclectic menu, called Collage. From where they sat, on a small deck adjacent to the main dining room, they had a terrific view of an inlet of Flathead Lake, and the bridge beyond that went over a byway connecting the inlet to the larger lake. Behind them was a large, fir-covered hill, and in the distance the snowcapped Rockies rose up into the still-blue late-afternoon sky.
“I haven’t had dinner here yet,” she confided, smiling. “But, I have come twice for a cup of coffee with Gabrielle. Once we just chatted and wrote postcards, and once we brought books and caught up on our reading. The view of the lake…it’s pretty, isn’t it?”
“Pretty. Yes.” He sipped his water, staring at her. “What’re you reading?”
“Re-reading, actually. My favorites are comforting. Persuasion the first half of the week and now I’m halfway through Mansfield Park.”
He nodded politely, and then turned his attention to the menu.
He’s probably never heard of Jane Austen. Katrin propped her elbow on the table, and rested her chin in her palm, looking out over the inlet, thoughts of England circling in her head. “It doesn’t feel as Montana-ish here.”
“As in Choteau?”
“Mmm.”
“You don’t like Montana?”
“I love Montana. It’s my home. But, it’s also good to get away. This feels like a holiday. It feels like Europe.”
“Have you been to Europe?”
“Yes. Ten years ago. When I was twelve. To England. I went for two weeks to visit my cousins. My uncle Sean…Sam’s father? He worked as the curator at a museum in Chicago, and one summer he did a three-month project at a museum in London. They invited me and Kristian over for two weeks when they went on ‘holiday.’ Kris didn’t want to go, so I went alone.”
“To England? Alone?”
Katrin nodded, more to herself than to him, remembering the excitement of traveling internationally on her own. “Mmm. I used to be braver, before…anyway, it was the best adventure of my life.”
“I think you’re still pretty brave,” he said. “Wait a minute now, you’re saying England was a better adventure than Skidoo Bay?”
She looked up at him, and smiled, warmed by his compliment about her bravery, glad that—despite everything he knew about her—he didn’t see her as a victim. “A close second.”
“Where did you go on holiday?” he asked in a credible British accent.
“This place called…um, the Lake District? In the northwest corner of England, near Scotland. My aunt was a big fan of Jane Austen.”
He nodded, then said, “More of a Dickens fan myself.”
Katrin’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”
“What? You don’t think a Swedish-Norwegian guy who spends his whole life in Montana and works in law enforcement reads books?”
She hesitated then cringed, offering him a weak half-smile, and shaking her head back and forth slowly.
“Oh, wow. Look at you, Miss Snobbypants. You don’t even try to deny it!”
She giggled, embarrassed. “Snobbypants? Come on. I’ve lived here my whole life too. Let’s just call a spade a spade. The Vikings? Yep. The Broncos? Absolutely. Ice fishing? Uh-huh. The parks, huntin’ and a good burger? Sure. But, cut me a break…you don’t meet a whole lot of guys into Dickens, Erik.”
“Alright. I’ll give you that. It’s not obvious.”
“Where did this come from? From high school? You just love reading? Did you always love it?”
He sighed, sort of smiling, sort of shaking his head in embarrassment. “Here’s the deal. My sister and I are both the product of a mother who, despite her Norwegian roots and strong attachment to them, loved English literature almost as much as she loved the BBC movie adaptations of them. She struck out with my older brothers, Nils and Lars, but held me and Jenny hostage, home-schooling us together for eight years, from second grade until tenth grade. We only went to public school for the last two years of high school.
“Austen, Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton. Those were her favorites. I mean, we had a fair smattering of all the greats…Shakespeare, of course. C. S. Lewis. He’s Jen’s favorite, I think.” He smiled, presumably thinking of Jenny. “And the modernists too…Hemingway and
