December 4
Some things are so beautiful that they can’t be photographed without losing their essence. Thor Seter had had this thought
time and time again. The pale sun shining through the fog like a silver button. The spruce forest, dense and bewitching, branches
heavy with snow. The bare deciduous trees, brown at the base of the trunks and gradually lighter toward the tops where the
frost had covered them, their upper branches fully encased in a heavenly glaze.
The fact that he couldn’t quite capture the beauty with his camera lens was a source of eternal frustration for Thor, but
also inspiration to try again.
As a sheep farmer, he didn’t have much free time, but photography was a hobby that meant more and more to him over the years. It was as if he saw the nature around him differently after he started taking pictures. He noticed the changes in the light and where the shadows fell; he saw motifs everywhere—in the mountains and rivers and sky, in the interaction between animals and humans and the surrounding nature. Now he even saw his sheep as models as well—and he’d actually sold some pictures of them to tourists at an exhibition at the community center last summer. Sandra should have seen that. She’d always just scoffed at “those silly photos” of his. But when the exhibit opened, it was too late for Sandra to scoff, because she’d gone back to Oslo long ago.
Now, Thor was sitting perfectly still at the edge of Dalen River, aiming his camera at something he’d never seen in real life:
a kingfisher. These birds tended to favor warmer climes and were therefore rarely spotted in Norway. It was hard to grasp
that it was really here on the Dalen River in the middle of winter, but the river hadn’t frozen over yet, and the bird must
have found something to eat up here. It had flown across the water like a bolt of royal-blue lightning and was now perched
on a low-hanging branch above the river. Thor stayed as still as he could as he pointed the camera. He snapped a few times,
but the result wasn’t good enough. He pulled off a glove and turned one of the knobs on the camera. He wanted to try his luck
at burst mode to try to capture the bird’s movements. Now it had settled down over by the old bridge. This could be good.
But then— bang!
A sound echoed across the valley, and the bird was gone in a flash of blue. Dammit! Seriously? Right now? Another bang sounded.
It had to be Hallgrim “Muskox” Dalen or one of his sons out hunting.
Everyone in Dalen had grown up with hunting, and you’d have to look hard to find someone who was against it on principle. Thor wasn’t either. As a rural sheep farmer, he was used to animals having to be killed, recognizing that life and death were closely intertwined. Nothing to pout about. That was simply the way it was. But the Dalen family’s love of hunting was unusually strong. They hunted game birds until Christmas and grouse all winter. They shot hares, beavers, marten, badgers, deer, elk, and reindeer. No creature on four legs—and hardly anything on two, for that matter—was safe when the Muskox and his herd were out hunting. Whether the hunt was legal or not wasn’t of particular concern to them.
Hallgrim had to be around eighty now, but he was big and strong and still worked several days a week at the family business,
Muskox Machinery, which sold and repaired tractors and other machines. Thor was unsure whether it was Hallgrim’s nickname
that had inspired the company’s name or vice versa. Either way, it wasn’t difficult to understand the name when you saw the
man, enormous and bull-necked as he was. His sons Arthur, Bernt, and Cato had all joined the company, as well as his grandson
Karl, who was a mechanic and assistant of sorts.
Hallgrim was the great-grandson of the fabled Old Hallgrim, who, according to legend, had lived to be 112 and killed a bear
with his bare hands when he was 110. Thor had his own opinions about the tale, but there was no getting around the fact that
the younger Hallgrim was a prolific hunter.
The Dalen family’s enormous log house could be seen on the hill on the other side of the river. It was on one of the nicest plots of land in the village, and practically every square foot from basement to attic was filled with skins and antlers from animals that Hallgrim and his family had killed. Thor had been there often—and never without getting a bit scared—when he went to school with Karl Dalen. Back then, he’d seen the occasional glimpse of another side of Hallgrim Dalen. The Muskox, who otherwise had the social skills of a bulldozer, had a gruff affection for his grandchildren, the spindly little Karl in particular.
Thor listened attentively. It had been quiet for a while now; the two shots must have been enough. Perhaps luck wasn’t on
the hunter’s side today, or perhaps it had been a direct hit off the bat?
The kingfisher was nowhere to be seen, even though Thor stayed squatting on the riverbank until his feet fell asleep. Well,
he couldn’t spend any more time here anyway. He had to head back to the barn. It had been a snowless fall, and the sheep had
been able to graze until November, but now there was frost on the ground, and that meant indoor feeding for a few months to
come.
He strolled the few hundred feet along the gravel road back to the farm. Yesterday, he and Aunt Maja had spoken about making
deliveries to Glitter Peak. He’d already sent up a selection of the finest meats he had, and Maja thought there would be opportunities
to sell more. She wanted him to stop by with samples of other meats as well. Lamb steaks, for example, and maybe some of the
sausages he had made. Yes, he was more than willing to do that. If Glitter Peak was happy with what he had to offer, it could
be the start of bigger, more regular deliveries to the hotel. God knows he could use the money. Running a farm wasn’t easy
these days. As a farmer, he was his own little business, holding all the responsibility for everything from maintenance and
animal care to finances and paperwork. He could easily wind up working 70 to 80 hours a week. Practically no free time to
speak of. But in the few hours he allowed himself to take photos, he got a bit of a reprieve from his worries.
It wasn’t until Thor was approaching the yard at home that he saw a car parked there, a car that sent a pang of—was it nostalgia?—through him. The unmistakable shape, the bright blue color, so well maintained it almost hurt to look at it. There was only one person in the village who still drove a Volvo Amazon. Even the older men who once swore by the reliable classic had replaced it with newer models by now, but you could still find the occasional Amazon in the barns around the village. They were polished and waxed and given an airing for holidays and parades.
Thor didn’t even need to get close enough to read the license plate to know that the figure sitting on the steps of the farmhouse
was the Muskox Calf.
***
Karl was a simple man, but he had been a faithful friend to Thor throughout elementary school. A person didn’t have that many
friends to choose from in a small place like Dalen. Nowadays, the two of them mostly met only when Thor stopped by the workshop
to have some machines serviced or buy some parts. They always exchanged a few friendly words, but they didn’t have that much
in common anymore besides the machines and their childhood days.
Once Thor had brewed some coffee, they sat down at the old kitchen table, both with steaming hot mugs in front of them.
Karl squirmed in his chair and looked out the window at the bird feeder. “Blue tit,” he said.
“Huh?” Thor said, following his gaze.
There was indeed a tiny Eurasian blue tit sitting on the feeder.
“Aha. There’s quite a lot of great tits and blue tits around here right now,” Thor said.
Karl nodded. “They like lard.”
“Yes,” Thor replied. Then they sat in silence for a while.
“I saw a rare bird down by the river earlier,” Thor said. “A kingfisher. But it got scared off by gunshots before I could
get a good picture of it. Were you the one out hunting?”
Karl shook his head.
“Do you know who it was?” Thor asked.
Karl shook his head for a while longer before it gradually turned into a slow nod. “It was probably Uncle Bernt,” he said.
“He wanted to shoot a buck he saw over on the south side.”
Silence again.
“Was there anything you wanted to talk about?” Thor asked. “Since you stopped by?”
Karl shook his head again. “No...” Then he nodded. “Are you up at Glitter Peak much these days?”
Thor was a bit surprised by the question. “No... well, it depends on what you mean by much . I stop by every once in a while. Why?”
Karl fell silent and looked out the window again. The blue tit was gone. “I have to get back to the workshop,” he said suddenly,
standing up. “Gotta fix Mikalsen’s headlight and straighten out a dent in the fender.”
“But what did you mean about Glitter Peak, Karl?”
The Muskox Calf just shook his head again. “Nothing. Gotta head out now.”
Thor watched the blue Volvo as it turned onto the main road, following the oval taillights with his eyes until they were swallowed
up by the darkness. It wasn’t easy to make sense of Karl, but if he had something on his mind, he’d get it out eventually.
***
It had been a long day. Ingrid kicked off her shoes and hung her jacket in the closet. She opened the kitchen cabinet and
reached behind the bags of almonds and cartons of raisins. The plastic crackled as she pulled out the bag of caramels. She
didn’t know why she hid it; it was probably a remnant from her time with Preben, when caramels were a “guilty pleasure.” He
would have had something to say about carbs and saturated fats—but God , the way they melted in your mouth was pure heaven! She unwrapped a golden candy and popped it in her mouth. Mmmm . It was a taste she experienced only on Saturdays as a child, but now she could indulge herself whenever she wanted. Being
an adult involved a lot of hassle, but there were some advantages, too.
Her phone buzzed. Remember to rest! Vegard’s message read. It seemed he’d taken it upon himself to be her life coach now, too, in addition to acting as her financial
adviser and social media manager. But Vegard knew her, and he was right; she wasn’t good at taking breaks. Breaks were important,
she’d learned that much. Okay, then, maybe she should listen to him. Rest. How were you supposed to do that, though?
She hesitated a bit before taking a bottle of white wine out of the fridge. Yes, dammit. Now she was going to sink down on the sofa with a glass of wine and watch TV—before dinner! She’d never been much of a TV watcher; she’d always been too busy and found it strange how people could spend so much time on it. She thought TV was a poor substitute for real life. Soaking in hot springs on the way up Kilimanjaro or camping in a tent in the Arctic with a storm raging outside and the northern lights glittering above, she hadn’t needed that kind of entertainment. Life itself was more than enough.
Now, however, she saw things differently. She was neither in Africa nor the Arctic. She was in her apartment at Glitter Peak
Lodge in the middle of the Norwegian mountains, in the middle of the Norwegian winter. It had been a long day of work, and
she deserved a break.
Ingrid sat down on the sofa and lifted the glass of white burgundy. She still had a bit of caramel taste in her mouth, but
when she inhaled deeply, she could make out the fresh scent of apple mixed with something reminiscent of toast. She could
picture her old climbing partner, the Benedictine monk Giovanni Orlando, with his nose buried deep in the glass. Toast with a hint of wood, he would have said before taking a generous sip and letting it linger in his mouth. Creamy, minerally, fruity—and what a balanced freshness, Ingrid! She would have smiled at him and pretended to have recognized the same scents in the wine, but over the years, she actually
had learned quite a lot from the delightful, kindhearted food and wine lover.
She and Giovanni had met years ago in the climbing village of Arco on Lake Garda. She was surprised that a monk could also
be a mountain climber, but he’d said that he learned as much about God in nature as inside the monastery.
He’d also told her that he worked with Catholic charities in the places he went to climb. He tried to be a force for good everywhere he went. He was one of the few people she knew who could say something like that without sounding pompous. He’d been involved with so many things, things that might otherwise seem to be contradictory but that, with him, were natural parts of a complex personality. God and nature. Wine and asceticism. Living life to the fullest and caring for his fellow man. He’d encompassed all of these things.
And now he was gone. God, how she missed him.
Ingrid took a sip of wine, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV. She stretched out her legs and pulled a blanket over
her. Ahhh, this was pretty nice. The way people watched TV had also changed during the years she’d been abroad. Before, you had to take what you
could get from a handful of channels and watch at the right times if there was something you were interested in, but now,
you had all kinds of streaming services, and “bingeing” a show had become a phenomenon. Vegard was constantly enlightening
her about things she simply had to watch. A couple of years ago it was The Kardashians ; now it was a series about amateur chefs. There was probably something even newer than that, but she at least hadn’t had
to watch The Bachelor— even though there’d been a sly twinkle in Vegard’s eye when he’d suggested that Glitter Peak could be the perfect location
for the next season. She usually just laughed at him. When were people supposed to have the time to watch all of these programs?
She certainly didn’t have that luxury. But right now, at this moment, after hours of menu planning and staining the stairs
and setting mouse traps, a little relaxation was exactly what she needed. Some mindless entertainment might be just the trick
to silence the voice in the back of her head that kept nagging her about how much she had to do.
She took another sip of wine and flipped through the channels at random, landing on the celebrity edition of a popular outdoor reality competition show. The irony of sitting and relaxing with this show in particular struck her, but she decided to watch anyway. At first, she thought it was pretty boring—a group of people in colorful hiking clothes struggling up a steep hill. The camera zoomed in on a dark-haired woman sobbing about her fear of heights. Then it cut to a monologue with a young redhead complaining about how tired she was of hearing about the dark-haired woman’s fear of heights. The team spirit had clearly worn a bit thin here. Ingrid knew all about how that could happen, and how dangerous it could be—if the climb was for real, that is. These particular participants weren’t in any real danger. They were surrounded by invisible helpers and assistants, the climbing
gear would have been checked and double-checked, and the rescue helicopter wasn’t far away if anyone panicked or had an accident.
There was one team at the top. They were waving a red flag and producing tears of joy that the cameras skillfully captured.
But—
Ingrid flinched when she saw a familiar face, sloshing wine all over her lap. She set her glass down on the table and dabbed
at the spreading stain on the blanket as the narrator announced: “And at this stage, the participants get a surprise! The
judge of the summit competition isn’t just anyone... because when the participants reach the top of Frost Peak, they are
welcomed by Preben Wexelsen, international globe-trotter, expedition leader and adventurer, and regular on lists of Norway’s
sexiest men.”
Preben’s face came into focus.
Ingrid felt her heart beat faster. Preben looked into the camera with a crooked smile on his rugged face, a hint of wolf in
that smile. It somehow felt as if those green eyes under those dark brows were staring right out of the TV and straight at
her. Suddenly, he was there. The man she’d once loved.
This was unbelievable. She couldn’t even get five minutes of relaxation before her past appeared on the TV screen. What were the odds of that happening? Well, there he stood, so confident, arms crossed, welcoming the expedition members as they trudged to the top.
It’s not just the juries of the women’s magazines who think he’s one of Norway’s sexiest men , Ingrid thought. He thinks so himself, too. And Preben was nice to look at, no doubt about that. He also had charm. Charisma. Preben always knew what to say and do, how to get people
on board, to help them perform their best. He was tough and inspiring. But she also knew he wasn’t as invincible as he liked
to make himself out to be. Even Preben Wexelsen could make mistakes. He was a human being, with strengths and weaknesses.
But he was reluctant to admit that.
His competitive instinct, for example. He had needed it in order to achieve as much as he had, but sometimes it could overshadow
his judgment and cause him to make the wrong decisions. His stubbornness verged on childishness, and he had a hard time listening
to others and taking advice.
This stubbornness was what had brought misfortune upon them in the Himalayas. That was the bitter truth. That and the fact
that she had been so incomprehensibly dazzled by him that she hadn’t put her foot down when he wanted to start the ascent,
despite warnings from the Sherpas that the weather and snow conditions weren’t optimal. “There’s not going to be an avalanche,” he’d said firmly. She and the others had believed him, and they’d set out from base camp. A day
or two of waiting would have saved them. A day or two of Preben listening to the others and not being so unbearably self-righteous—then
everything could have been avoided. But they went out. Disaster struck. There was indeed an avalanche.
And now, here he was on TV, smiling that wolfish smile as if nothing had happened. She couldn’t believe he was able to do that—make entertainment out of climbing after what they’d been through, after the accident where they’d lost so much. They’d lost Brother Giovanni and barely escaped with their own lives. The local development projects they were involved in had come to a standstill. The tragedy and all of the media coverage in the aftermath had put an end to, or at least a strong brake on, her career as an expedition leader and had taken away her passion and joy for climbing—while Preben apparently just continued on as usual.
She turned down the volume on the TV. It had gotten harder to breathe. She could hear her breaths as though they were gusts
of wind. Was she crying? She didn’t know. Her hands were shaking when she picked up her phone and called Vegard.
“Hey, sweetie!” He picked up on the second ring. “What’s up?”
She couldn’t answer in the same upbeat way.
“Vegard!” she sobbed. “Preben. He’s on TV right now. I...”
“Oh no. Wait a sec, let me just go to the other room.”
She heard the sound of a door closing before he continued.
“Okay. You saw Preben on TV?”
“Yes!”
“Is it that reality show?”
“Yes, have you seen it, too?”
“No, but I’ve seen some commercials. Maybe I should’ve warned you. Are you okay?”
“No. Or—I don’t really know.”
She paused for a moment and tried to control her voice.
“I . . . Vegard, it makes me sick to look at him. He’s just like . . . moved on. ‘Norway’s sexiest man and globe-trotter and expedition leader,’ the presenter called him. Has everyone totally forgotten about the accident? I just don’t get it.” A terrible suspicion dawned on her. “Could it be that Preben has gotten even more interesting for TV producers after the accident? Like, the scandal made him exciting and sexy somehow?”
Vegard hesitated for a moment before answering. “I don’t think so. And I don’t think they’ve forgotten about the accident,
either. But they probably think that accidents happen and that you can’t blame people forever.”
“A year and a half. That’s not forever. We lost a friend in that accident. A good friend! And I lost my career, my network,
the life I built.”
She heard Vegard take a deep breath. They’d been through this before. Vegard also knew she’d lost more than just this. Shortly
after the accident, as soon as she’d gotten home and seen Vegard again, she’d told him about the loss that neither Preben
nor Nana Borghild had been informed of. But he also knew that it was too difficult for her to talk about.
“You haven’t lost your career, Ingrid. Or your life. You’re thirty-three years old! Life has only just begun! You have your
skills, your experience, tons of job offers. You have me and Nana Borghild. And of course, you have Glitter Peak Lodge.”
“Yes. But there are so many obstacles all the time. In the hotel business, too. Something is always coming up. I’m tired.
I don’t know how much more I can handle.”
“But isn’t that just like climbing, Ingrid?”
“Climbing?”
Vegard continued, “When you’ve been up on a difficult wall and encountered obstacles, you want nothing more than to try again
the next day, right?”
“Yes. Or... it was like that. It isn’t anymore.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Listen, Ingrid,” Vegard said after a moment. “I have to run, but we’ll talk again soon, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You’re never a bother, honey!”
She knew it wasn’t true; Vegard was simply too nice to say that it wasn’t a good time to talk. And she was grateful for that.
She blew her nose, suddenly embarrassed to be feeling so sorry for herself. This wasn’t her. She was alive, after all. And
fully aware that she had a lot to be grateful for.
She put down her phone and had just taken another sip of wine when there was a knock at the door.
***
Nana Borghild was standing with Thor Seter in the doorway. Now, the tall, fair-haired farmer towered more than a head over
Borghild.
“Hi! What are you doing here?” Ingrid exclaimed. Then she caught herself, hearing how rude it sounded. “Sorry, I mean, please
come in.”
They both stepped inside, and Thor shut the door behind him. He was holding a brown paper bag in one hand.
Of course someone comes by at this very moment , Ingrid thought. She scanned the scene as it must have appeared to the other two: the bottle on the kitchen counter, the
wineglass on the coffee table next to the sofa. The muted TV, still playing that damn show. And she probably looked like a
mess to boot. She felt her face grow warm and guessed her hair was probably sticking up in all directions. She instinctively
pushed her curls behind her ears as if that might help her make a somewhat more presentable general impression and quickly
picked the used tissues off the sofa.
Nana Borghild looked at Ingrid in surprise and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” she asked quietly.
Ingrid nodded, and her grandmother turned to the guest: “Thor here came with some more pinnekj?tt and a couple other things
from the farm. He wanted to hear what we might need in the future as well.”
Thor smiled. “Only if it’s a good time, of course. I don’t want to intrude.”
His voice was deep and solid. So different from Vegard’s.
“Of course,” Ingrid said quickly. “It’s no bother at all. I was just... relaxing. But come in,” she said again.
She located the remote between two sofa cushions and turned off the TV. “Have a seat. I just opened a bottle of wine. Would
you like a glass?”
“Thanks, but I’m driving,” Thor said.
It almost looked as if he was embarrassed to decline. He wasn’t at the hotel that often, and he’d never been here in “The
Residence,” at least not since Ingrid had moved in. She and Thor had been good friends throughout their childhood and adolescence,
even though their fifth-grade romance had been short-lived. She broke it off after a few weeks for reasons she no longer recalled,
and she didn’t remember how Thor had reacted, either. He wasn’t exactly the type to talk about feelings. Thor mostly stuck
to the practical, really—just as she did. But their friendship had lasted until she moved to Oslo for college. Or it had lasted
to some extent, even though they hadn’t had much contact after she left the village. Perhaps it had just been in some kind
of hibernation.
“Of course, sorry,” Ingrid said. “You can’t drink when you’re driving. I should’ve thought of that. Would you like a cup of coffee instead?”
“Yes, please,” Thor replied. “You can never go wrong with coffee.”
He did as she’d suggested and sat down on the sofa, placing the brown paper bag on the floor beside him before taking off
his blue jacket and hanging it over the armrest. His big, weathered hands opened and closed, and he put them on his knees.
“Well, I would like a glass of wine,” Nana Borghild said with a smile, settling down in one of the armchairs. She placed one leg neatly
over the other and wiggled her foot.
Ingrid slipped into the bathroom and splashed cold water over her face while the coffee brewed. She looked at herself in the
mirror. She didn’t look as bad as she felt, actually. A little tired, maybe. Bushy hair. No makeup. A hint of dark circles
under her eyes. Maybe she should start using something to cover them up—one of those products Vegard was always hinting at.
But she wasn’t too fond of that kind of thing. She’d always thought that natural was best.
She got a cup of coffee for Thor and a glass of wine for her grandmother and sat down on the sofa. Nana Borghild spoke eagerly
about the deliveries from Thor’s farm. She was really talking him up. Thor and Borghild could have discussed the deliveries
with Aisha or Maja. But Thor was of course welcome to come to her, by all means. It was nice that he was here, actually. It
gave her something to think about besides that damned Preben Wexelsen.
The meat from Seter Farm was always high quality, and if they could help Thor keep the farm up and running, nothing could be better. She knew that he—like so many farmers—worked a lot and still struggled to make ends meet.
“I have more pinnekj?tt in storage, and more sheep and lamb meat as well,” Thor explained. “And Aunt Maja has helped me make
cured sausage using the traditional methods. I brought some samples.”
He reached inside the bag he’d placed on the floor and took out a couple of plastic boxes.
“This one is pure sheep meat,” he said, taking the lid off one box. “The other is a mix of deer, pork, and sheep. Have a taste.”
He held the boxes out to her. Ingrid took a bite of the sheep sausage first. It was salty with a strong gamey flavor and was
slightly acidic. The mixed sausage was milder.
“Mmm! This is really good,” she said once she’d finished chewing. “But what do you mean by ‘traditional methods’?”
“It means that the minced meat is left to mature for several weeks before the sausages are stuffed,” Thor replied. “That helps
the pH values drop slowly so the lactic acid bacteria can develop. That’s what gives it that nice, cured taste.”
“Do you add any spices?”
“No, you can use pepper and garlic and wine if you want, but I don’t really think these sausages need it. The flavor is so
good on its own. We don’t use any other additives either.”
“And you can be sure that the meat will keep when you don’t add any preservatives?”
“Yeah, this is traditional knowledge. Salt and lactic acid bacteria keep bad bacteria away, and maturing takes place in airtight
packaging. After the sausages are stuffed, they’re dried and cold smoked. The method is even approved by the food safety department.”
“I’m glad that sheep meat is back in fashion,” Nana Borghild said. “So much has gone to waste because people only wanted to
eat lamb.”
“Yeah, there’s no point in making pinnekj?tt or sausage from lamb, in any case,” Thor said. “The meat is dryer and has less
flavor. Old ladies taste best.” He paused. “I mean ewes, of course.”
Ingrid had to laugh, and Thor turned bright red. Nana Borghild took a sip from her wineglass, her eyes sparkling with laughter.
“How’s the photography going, Thor?” Ingrid asked after a moment.
“It’s going well,” Thor said. “I’m hoping to set up an exhibition soon. Maybe in the summer.”
Thor told them a bit about his hobby and the kingfisher at Dalen River. Nana Borghild scoffed loudly when she heard about
the shots that had scared off the rare visitor.
“Yep, that’s typical of Hallgrim Dalen and his gang. They just bulldoze right through. No consideration for people or animals.”
The last traces of light disappeared as they chatted about food and sheep and life in the village. Ingrid stood to turn on
another lamp, but Thor got up as well.
“Well, I should get back home,” he said. “It’ll be pitch-black out soon.” He put on the blue jacket he’d hung over the armrest
of the sofa. “By the way, Aunt Maja says it’s Barbromesse today. Saint Barbara’s feast day. Legend says the sun disappears and won’t come back before Saint Lucia’s Day. Aunt Maja
knows all about these old holidays.”
“Yes, Maja knows a lot about many things,” Nana Borghild said. “Shall we stop by the kitchen before you head home?” She waited until Thor was at the door, then whispered to Ingrid, “Was that Preben Wexelsen on the television when we arrived?”
Ingrid just nodded silently and glanced at Thor; she didn’t want to talk about Preben while he was there. That conversation
could wait for later.
Then, remembering what Vegard had mentioned earlier, Ingrid held Thor back on his way out the door. “Hey, do you want to join
us for dinner on Friday? So you can make sure the pinnekj?tt has been prepared properly.”
She thought that he looked pleasantly surprised when he accepted the invitation; there was a twinkle in his blue eyes. She’d
almost forgotten how cute he was when he smiled.