She turned back to the bottles and counted. There must have been fifteen or twenty, some broken glass, some plastic, all thrown haphazardly behind the garage, next 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 back yard. 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 later all over again.” Her tongue flicked out across her lips, teasing him, before she sprinted to the kitchen. As she got a plastic bag out from under the sink, 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?”
She nodded. “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 took the bag from her hands and pulled 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, her heart swelling with love for him. They were standing in the middle of Wade’s mess, but they were standing together, and for that, she was grateful.
Erik let her go and picked up a pile of broken glass, placing it gently in the bag before holding 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. Early-twenties, like me.”
“Dark hair.”
“Yeah. Dark brown.”
“Shorter than me, but 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 door 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 high school 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 as he continued: “You know what’s been bothering me? My car getting keyed. I checked and there were no
