Page 50 of Entwined in Norway

‘Well, you haven’t hiked a mountain or had to climb the stairs to my house today.’

‘True.’ He lay back on the towel and put his forearm across his eyes to shade them from the sun. ‘But I think it’s something else.’

‘Okay, let me guess.’ Ida lay back too, then propped herself up on an elbow so she was looking right at him.

‘Go ahead.’ He wanted to hear her theories and see if any of them matched his own.

‘It’s something in the Nordic water.’

‘It could be, but that’s not it.’ He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear so he could see her better.

‘Working with my brother is the distraction you never knew you needed.’

‘Close. But actually, you’re the distraction.’ It was so easy to say it out loud, and he loved that she grinned and lay back next to him, as if she were absorbing the feeling that she’d had that effect on him.

‘It’s nice to hear I’ve been good for you. Physically. Sorry, that sounds wrong.’ She giggled and reached for his hand.

‘Oh, you’re good for me in all the physical ways,’ he said, laughing. He rolled so that he was half-lying on top of her. ‘I’m going to put the food on the fire.’

She groaned as he stood up and arranged the foil parcels around the edge of the fire, using a driftwood stick to push them into the perfect place.

‘So, we have twenty minutes,’ he said.

‘But…’

‘I don’t think we’re going to see any passing traffic, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘I’m not worried about that.’

But he could tell she was.

‘We can wait until later,’ he said.

‘No. I don’t want to wait. How many people can say they’ve done it outside?’

Erik wasn’t sure what to say to that. Plenty of people got off on doing exactly that, but maybe less so in Norway, where you had to consider frostbite for much of the year.

‘It’s a bucket list thing for you?’ he teased, sitting down again and pulling her so she was straddling his lap.

‘This whole thing is a bucket list thing for me,’ she said, her eyes saying something to him he wasn’t sure of.

‘Me too,’ he murmured.

19

The food that Heidi had given them was delicious. They ate fresh, pink salmon, green leafy vegetables, and buttery slices of potato that had somehow all been baked to perfection in their foil parcels with no intervention at all. They divided the food into two and sat closer to the fire now that the sun had dipped behind the mountain. The lights under the ceiling of the old cabin came on by themselves once it was dark enough, thanks to a solar panel and a light sensor. Once that happened, it transformed the beach into something far more intimate.

‘I asked Emilie if she could cover me for the next couple of days and that’s fine,’ Ida said, once she’d finished her food and was topping up their wine glasses.

‘That’s great. I hope you don’t mind, but I ran it past Mats and he thinks we could take an extra day. He said he’d cover for you so we can have a full day in the middle without travelling.’

Her first reaction was to mind very much that he’d been making arrangements for her when she was quite capable of making them herself. But she hadn’t wanted to ask Emilie to cover more than a couple of days and if Mats was willing, what was there to be upset about?

‘That’s a good idea. Thanks.’

‘You’re sure?’

She nodded, glad that he recognised the fact that he may have overstepped because it was much harder to be cross with him now than it had been a few days ago. She knew now that when this happened, whether it was asking Mats to cover for her, or asking her to let him know when she got home, it came from a good place. Everything with him came from a good place, and she could use some of that in her life. Someone to look out for her for no other reason than that they wanted to make sure she was okay.