“Not very, really. About a thousand feet up.”
“It’s so beautiful.” She turned to look at him, eyes as blue as the sky, bright and hopeful. “Thank you for this. For planning this. For bringing me here.”
Then she turned from him, breeze in her blonde hair, smiling at the view before her.
And Erik stared at the view before him. With one hand on her hip, and the other holding his, looking with wonder over the lake, her eyes sparkled like sapphires.
His father’s words, which he had regarded as grand once, only to be intensely painful later in their falseness, were rolling around in his head. And he had a new layer of context to add to them as they finally made sense to him on a personal level.
Prettiest thing I ever seen. Would’ve followed her to China. Would’ve followed her to hell.
Erik’s heart galloped painfully watching Katrin Svenson. He was in trouble. He was in big trouble and it made his throat tighten with unfamiliar and unwelcome emotion.
Because he was sure in that moment—beyond any shadow of doubt—standing on that bluff at the top of Wild Horse Island, there was nothing in the mind-blowing beauty of the landscape surrounding them that could hold a candle to the view he had of her.
Erik was losing the battle.
He was falling for Katrin Svenson.
***
Erik asked if she minded some music on the ride home, and Katrin was surprised when the familiar strains of “Ashokan Farewell” filled the quiet of the car as he turned out of the parking lot, driving her home to Skidoo Bay.
She turned to him and smiled, touched that he had gone to the trouble of downloading the song to his iPhone after they’d heard it together at the park last weekend. He didn’t return her glance, but his lips twitched into a shy grin as he stared straight ahead out the window, purposely not meeting her eyes. Her heart filled. Fine. Have it your way. You don’t have to admit you downloaded this for me, but we both know you did.
Katrin had observed a dip in his mood after they reached the top of the hill on Wild Horse. He had dutifully laid out their picnic lunch, but the conversation had shifted from talk of families and serious matters to banality. He kept up a steady stream of amusing anecdotes about his co-workers and his new landlord, Terry, a middle-aged man hopelessly stuck in the fashions and colloquialisms of the 1970s. She giggled often, comfortable with him, enjoying his company, but noting that he didn’t try to hold her hand or otherwise touch her during the remainder of the afternoon.
He had laid out a beautiful lunch: wine, which she declined, and lovely cheeses, crackers, and grapes. At one point she had laid back on the blanket and he lay down beside her; she could practically feel the currents crackling back and forth between them, but he still didn’t reach for her, and it confused her. After his bold words about wanting her in his bed, his behavior seemed overly reserved. She could think of nothing she had said or done to make him want to retract his offer. It would be for the best, of course, for her and Erik to find their way as friends, but being friends would be totally at odds with her growing feelings for him.
She thought of his proposal in the car, and a shiver went up and down her spine. Your mouth. Your body. Your fingernails down my back. Your eyes rolled back in your head. Her insides went hot and tingly recalling his words, but it was his emotional admission later that she had rewarded with a kiss. I can’t stop thinking about you. I think about you all the time. She couldn’t deny it turned her on that he thought of her in such carnal terms, but that she might be touching his heart moved her in a far more meaningful way. It made her consider if her feelings for Erik, which were quickly progressing beyond attraction, had any chance of being returned, should she allow them to grow deeper.
Erik Lindstrom was an unsuitable choice for her on so many levels.
But, in the quiet of her mind, where she could push all reason and rational thoughts aside, she admitted she felt drawn to him with such a keen, intoxicating force, not considering him in her life seemed almost impossible.
At one point after lunch, she had dozed off, the warm sun lulling her to sleep. When she opened her eyes, she was on her side, and Erik’s face was a mere inch from hers, his eyes closed. She had propped herself up on an elbow and studied his face as he napped.
The Viking King in repose. Blond hair sparkling in the sunlight, blond eyelashes resting softly on his tanned skin. The stubble of his beard would scratch like sandpaper if she reached out to caress his strong jaw. His lips were pink and pillowed, slightly open in sleep, and high cheekbones created ridges that she wanted to lean over and kiss, first one, then the other. She didn’t, of course. She watched him in the quiet of the afternoon, trying not to over-think, trying not to think at all, just make the most of having him all to herself.
When he started to stir, she told herself to look away but she didn’t, of course. She lowered her elbow and laid her head back down on her arm so that
