Chapter Twenty-Six
NIKKI CAME BUSTLING into the room carrying two blankets and two glasses of water.
She put the water down on the side table nearest to where Summer was sitting on the couch and then proceeded to flap around with a blanket, placing it gently over Summer’s lap.
Then she did the same to M?rten, who was ensconced in the single armchair next to her.
“Is there anything else I can get you?”
“You’ve done more than enough, thank you,” Summer said with a genuine smile.
Jacob came to stand in the doorway, a big grin on his face. “Look at the pair of you, like an old married couple of invalids,” he joked, but Summer could see the affection hovering behind his eyes. It was his way of telling them he was glad they’d both survived.
Nikki was still flitting around them, repositioning Summer’s blanket and opening the window a crack to ‘let in some fresh air’.
“Come on, we’re going out. These two will cope for a while on their own. They need some space,” he added, gently taking Nikki by the arm and leading her out of the room.
M?rten and Summer sat in silence as they listened to the other couple fuss about getting shoes on and grabbing handbags in the hallway, before Nikki called out, “See you in a couple of hours. Text us if you need anything.”
“Will do,” M?rten replied. Then the front door clicked shut and they were finally alone together.
“It was so lovely of Nikki to let us stay for a few days,” Summer commented into the silence.
“I’m not sure we had any choice in the matter,” M?rten replied, tilting one corner of his lips up in a sardonic grin. “I think if you’d insisted on living at your place, she would’ve just come around and kidnapped you in the middle of the night.”
“Either that, or she would’ve moved in and slept on my couch,” Summer agreed, also with a twitch of her lips.
Nikki’s heart was in the right place, she hadn’t wanted Summer to spend her first few days out of hospital alone in her little flat.
And so she had presented the idea that the spare bedroom Summer had used earlier was still vacant, and she would be nursing M?rten with his bandaged hands anyway, so she may as well look after both of them at the same time.
Jacob had backed her up, agreeing that the best place for Summer while she was recuperating would be at their house.
Summer was still struggling to get around with both legs bandaged, and she was also taking some powerful painkillers. Who knew burns could be so painful?
Summer could barely walk from one end of the house to the other, and she certainly wouldn’t be jogging or riding a bike any time soon.
But it could’ve been much, much worse. M?rten was nearly as badly off as she was; he had very limited use of both hands.
Nikki had demanded that he stay in Seattle with her and Jacob for the next few weeks.
Until he could prove that he was mostly independent and could handle everyday tasks, like getting dressed by himself, or even the simple task of using eating utensils.
So they were both spending their invalid days being pampered while Nikki waited on them hand and foot.
While Nikki was doing this out of the goodness of her heart, sometimes Summer wondered if the other woman didn’t also have an ulterior motive. Such as keeping M?rten and Summer under the same roof for as long as possible. Summer suspected that Nikki was still playing matchmaker, even now.
“How are you feeling?” M?rten asked, rising from his chair and coming to sit on the couch next to her. His leg brushed hers as he sat, and the little hairs along her arms and on the top of her thighs rose to attention. His touch still caused an electric charge to run through her every single time.
“Better today,” she consented. “The nurse said I’m healing well.
She said I might start using the waterproof bandages in a day or two.
” Which would be great, because it meant she could at last shower herself.
Having to take a bowl bath every day to get clean was not Summer’s idea of fun.
Nikki had arranged for a nurse to visit once a day to check their wounds and make sure they were on the path toward healing quickly.
“How about you?” She pointed to M?rten’s hands.
It was still a struggle to see his poor hands and not feel terribly guilty; he’d been burned trying to save her.
If she’d just listened to him in the first place and stayed in Sweden, none of this would’ve happened.
M?rten had never once said I told you so, however, and she was grateful for his lack of righteousness.
He’d also re-opened his fresh stab wound in his rescue attempt, and it had to be stitched again, with the doctor giving firm instructions not to exert himself in any way for at least two weeks.
M?rten had given the doctor a rueful smile and made the promise, but Summer had her doubts about whether he would keep it. The man was infuriating sometimes.
M?rten lifted his left hand. “This one is good,” he said and flexed his fingers to show her the movement he now had in that hand. Only two of his fingers remained bandaged, with a thin white swathe still covering the flashy parts of his upper palm.
“This one is going to take a little longer.” He grimaced. M?rten was right-handed, which made his injury all the worse.
Summer hadn’t viewed the damage to his hands since Saturday, four days ago, when they’d been blistered and an angry red. If they were anything like her burns, the blistered areas would still be weeping, and the red areas would be peeling as new layers of skin were laid down.
They’d been kept apart in separate rooms at the hospital and had only seen each other fleetingly over the past few days.
She’d given her statement to the police, and that was the end of it, but M?rten had been inundated with interviews from both the FBI and the local police, defending his actions.
A Swedish cop shooting an American citizen—even if he was a wanted felon—on American soil was a tangled web of legal and operational hurdles that they had to unpick very carefully to make sure M?rten wasn’t charged with any offenses.
It’d been a tense few days, and for a while, Summer had been petrified that M?rten was going to be thrown in jail for his actions—all because he’d come to save her life.
But Jacob and his partner Miller had been instrumental in making sure M?rten had been cleared of any wrongdoing, and as of yesterday, the FBI had declared M?rten was free to go home to Sweden.
M?rten reached over and took her hand in his less damaged one. She tried to withdraw it, afraid she was going to hurt him. “No.” He shook his head. “I need to feel you, to touch you. I’ve missed you.”
“Me too,” Summer admitted, raising her gaze to meet his. She’d been craving his touch the whole time she’d been cooped up in hospital, dreaming of his powerful arms around her, like they’d been all too briefly after he rescued her from the flames.
“Actually, I’ve more than missed you,” he amended.
“I’m in love with you.” He let the words hang in the air, fixing her with his steady ice-blue gaze.
His abrupt declaration hit her hard in the middle of her chest. Oh, blast. She wasn’t ready for this conversation, not just yet.
Of course she’d considered where this relationship would go next while she’d been ensconced in a hospital bed—it’d been just about the only thing she’d thought about.
And she was sure she loved him too. But there was so much at stake here.
If she revealed she was in love with him, what did that mean for her?
Her carefully crafted, safe life would be in jeopardy.
Was she ready to throw that all away? M?rten deserved to know the truth about how she was feeling.
“I’m scared,” she admitted at last, her voice coming out in a croak.
“So am I,” he conceded. “But I’ll do anything to make this work.
I’ll even move to America if that’s what it takes.
If Jacob can do it, so can I.” His silver eyes fixed intently on her face, and she knew he meant every word.
Wow, M?rten was prepared to uproot his life and move.
For her. That was big. Huge. He had a career and a life over there. As did she here in Seattle.
She gave a weak laugh, and suddenly her mind went to images of her and M?rten living in the house next door, with the white picket fence and the wide veranda out the back, waving to Nikki and Jacob from their front garden.
They could be friends, go on double dates.
But something about it felt wrong, and the image was quickly replaced by her and M?rten sitting on his small porch sipping red wine and contemplating the birch forest full of birdsong.
She suddenly realized she’d been at her happiest when she’d been with him in Sweden.
Could she do it? Could she move to another country for M?rten? For Love? If she didn’t do it now, she knew she’d most likely end up miserable and alone. She wanted M?rten in her life. Needed him like she needed air to breathe. Her answer had to be a resounding yes.
“Well, I’ve been thinking.” She raised an eyebrow and looked at him from below lowered lashes. “I don’t need to stay in. Seattle,” she mused. “I mean, I could easily run my business from anywhere else in the world.”