Chapter 8
In the dining hall they were served huge portions of steaming meatballs with creamy potatoes, which they ate from chipped canteen plates. It was no-frills—but Helena gamely scraped the final flecks of potato onto her fork, knowing it would be the last proper meal for the next four days.
When she was finished, she stood. “My round.”
She slipped through the crowd, making her way to the busy bar.
A group of young men swung in, fist-bumping a guy with a carabiner hanging from a loop on his shorts.
Central tables were being pushed against the walls to make space for a makeshift stage, where a man with a flaming red mountain logo on his T-shirt was plugging his guitar into an amp.
The barmaid, a middle-aged woman in a thick woolen cardigan, her hair in a single plait, was serving a crowd of hikers wearing Patagonia clothing.
Helena drummed her fingertips on the bar top, waiting.
Glancing around the room, she decided that everything in the lodge was so wholesome—the wooden floors, the storm lanterns hanging from the walls, even the people, she thought, looking around at their vital, windblown complexions and healthy smile lines.
Their fit, muscular bodies spoke of lives lived outdoors.
She doubted there was a Starbucks loyalty card among them.
These were not her people. Helena’s people were too busy texting while slurping takeaway coffees to notice a view.
Her people wore footwear that inhibited their natural gait and underwear that restricted their breathing.
Her people stayed late at the office, and even later at the bars, and only dragged themselves outdoors on a Saturday to forage for a place that served a killer brunch.
She tried—and failed—to catch the barmaid’s attention.
She sighed, folding her arms across her chest—then winced, dropping her arms. Her breasts felt tender.
She eyed her cleavage with suspicion, a flicker of anxiety pricking at her skin.
An image of the unused pregnancy test sprang unbidden into her thoughts.
She had shoved the test into her backpack before climbing into Liz’s car.
So now it was out here in Norway, a cloud lurking above the trip.
A man, her own age, with shaved white-blond hair, approached the bar. He wore a fisherman-knit sweater, sleeves pushed up. He rested his forearms on the bar as he waited, a silver watch caught in the weave of golden arm hair.
“Austin!” The barmaid greeted him with a smile. “How’s the boat?” she asked in English.
“All good. All good.”
“What are you drinking?”
He indicated Helena. “This lady was first.” His gaze traveled across Helena’s face, slipping briefly over her body.
Helena leaned across the bar as she said, “Bottle of merlot and three glasses, please.”
While the barmaid fetched the wine, the man turned his ice-blue eyes squarely onto her. His smile was boyish. “Are you here to climb or hike?”
“Never been asked that question at a bar before,” she said, turning more fully toward him. “Hike. We’re supposed to be doing the Svelle trail.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Supposed?”
“It’s a little ambitious.”
“All the best plans are. You are from England?”
She nodded.
“I’ve always wanted to visit. So much history. Buckingham Palace. The Houses of Parliament. Big Ben.” He listed the names of landmarks like he’d just finished a school project on the capital. “I want to travel one day,” he told her.
“What’s stopping you?”
He blinked as if he’d never considered his answer before. “Work. Money.” He looked over his shoulder. “My father.”
The barmaid returned with the bottle of merlot and uncorked it gracelessly. She set it in front of Helena.
The man pulled out a thick wad of notes. “I will buy this.” He was handsome; there was something confident, yet boyish, in the wide set of his features, the piercing blue of his eyes.
She tipped her head to one side. “I don’t accept drinks from strangers.”
He hesitated, then—realizing his cue—reached out his hand. “I’m Austin.”
“Helena,” she said, shaking it. “Now we’re not strangers.”
He grinned at her, his palm warm and dry around hers.
She thanked him for the wine, then picked up the bottle and slipped through the crowd back to her friends.