“I could get in trouble.”
“No one will know except me. Please.”
The young nurse took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll get him. Five minutes, okay? Don’t get me in trouble.”
Katrin tried to smile back but grimaced from her efforts. Better not to move those facial muscles until the painkillers had kicked in all the way.
A moment later the nurse peeked her head back into Katrin’s room. “Your description wasn’t very helpful. About five men out there are tall and blond. Hope I got the right one.”
She moved to the side, and Erik stepped through the doorway. Impossibly big. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Her Viking King. Tears slid out of her eyes, and she reached her unbandaged hand out to him.
He sat down in the chair beside her, pulling her hand to his lips, resting it there. A tear made its way down his face, but he ignored it. He kept his head bent over her hand.
“Erik?” she whispered.
He looked up and she saw the agony in his eyes as he searched her face. “What did he do to you? Oh, Kat. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I left you alone. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there in time. You were all alone with him, Kat. I’m so sorry…” His voice trailed off as he released her hand, clasping his own together helplessly.
“Erik. Look at me.” She put her fingers under his chin until he raised his head and looked at her with watery eyes. “You saved my life.”
He shook his head, trying to look down, but she lifted his chin again, seizing his eyes with hers. “Erik, you saved my life. Stop shaking your head at me. You did. You saved me.”
“I was so scared, Kat. Kristian called me, and I knew you were in danger, and I had to get to you, I had to—when I saw him with that knife over your head, I don’t even know what happened. I snapped. I started choking him. I wanted to kill him.”
She moved her fingers to his cheek, cupping it with her palm. “I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you don’t have that burden on your heart.”
He reached up and covered her hand with his, inspecting her face. She hadn’t asked for a mirror yet, but aside from the way she felt, she could tell from the way Erik looked at her that she probably looked pretty bad.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“My arm hurts.”
“It’s not broken.”
“I know. My face hurts.”
“Nothing’s broken there either.”
“I know. My heart—”
“Hurts? Aw, Kat, I can’t tell you how sorry—”
“—is yours. Erik the Blond, my Viking King. Min Älskling. Min Kärlek. I was sure he was going to kill me. So I closed my eyes. And all I could see was you. Your face, your voice, your words. You loving me. All I wanted was you. And then…there you were.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for not getting there in time. Do you know I’d do anything for you? Do you know that? Anything. Anything to keep you safe. Anything to make you happy. I’m not safe unless you’re safe. I’m not happy unless you’re happy. My life doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s yours, because without you, it’s nothing.”
She closed her eyes against more tears springing from the sweetness of his words, feeling overwhelmed by the extent of his feelings and the strength and depth of her own. The threat of Wade was gone, and Katrin belonged to Erik as irrevocably as Erik belonged to her. He leaned over to touch her lips with his, then sat back down, laying his head gently on the bed beside her, and with the peace that comes from knowing you are loved with the same measure and force that you love, she gently stroked his hair until her hand stilled and she was asleep.
Chapter 18
Katrin pushed back and forth on the swing with the tip of her sneaker, enjoying one of the last warm days of summer. Warm being a relative term. Lately the winds coming down from the north were cooler and most nights didn’t get much above fifty degrees. She pulled her cardigan more tightly around her, checking her watch: 5:30 p.m. Erik would be home soon.
Home was another relative word lately. Erik claimed that home was wherever Katrin was, and true to his word, he hadn’t spent more than a night or two away from her since they returned from Midsommardagen two months ago. For a week they had shared her ridiculously small twin bed like sardines. The following weekend, he’d brought the mattress and box spring from his full-sized bed down from Kalispell. Little by little, all of Erik’s things had ended up at her little apartment in Skidoo Bay, although they agreed that it was just about time to find a more suitable home for co-habitation.
Erik had to wake up very early every morning to get to work on time, but he didn’t seem to mind, and Katrin loved waking up beside him every day. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d ever been happier.
Speaking of happiness, the same weekend that Katrin and Erik had made their relationship official over Midsommardagen, José and Gabrielle had rekindled theirs. Although Katrin feared she would never find out the whole story of what happened between them in Germany, she sensed the shift between them as soon as she returned from Choteau that Tuesday. Gabrielle started spending her nights in José’s rented apartment down the street, affording each of the young couples a little more privacy.
Over crepes one Sunday afternoon, about two weeks after Midsummer, Katrin had pumped Gabrielle for information.
“What happened between you two?”
“What should have happen years ago, dumplin’. We just a little late getting it along.”
“Well, I knew something was
