Chapter 18
When they got to the hotel, Ida went back to the reception desk while Erik went up to his room for a shower to wash the sawdust out of his hair. The fjord was refreshing, but he wasn’t in there long enough to get clean.
He’d spent the day wondering what he could suggest he and Ida do over the next few days.
Being on the island was wonderful, but it was a little restrictive when it came to dating.
He wanted her in his bed tonight. Every night for as long as he was here, but he knew she wouldn’t want to eat in the restaurant every night with the guests.
That wasn’t a night off for her. In fact, in the week he’d been here, she hadn’t had a day off.
‘Are you due a day off?’ he asked her when he came downstairs. She was still waiting for Emilie to show up. Mats wasn’t running as reliable a boat shuttle as they usually had, so she was running late.
‘Yes, probably.’
‘You don’t have set days?’
‘I do, but because the hotel is still quite new, I like to be on hand unless I can’t be. I’d rather save my days off for helping out Fredrik.’
‘So could you take a couple of days off to help me?’ It seemed odd to him that there wasn’t more structure around this, but then, after Mats, she was the boss.
‘What do you need help with?’
‘I want to go somewhere with you, Ida. Somewhere that’s not here. Somewhere we can be alone.’
He watched her blush, and she smiled at him as if he’d come up with more than just the suggestion she take a couple of days off.
‘Let me check with Emilie and Magnus. I’m sure it will be okay. Mats might cover if there are any gaps.’
‘So, being the local expert, where should we go?’
‘Voss.’ She said it with no hesitation at all.
‘I went through there on the train from Oslo.’ He remembered it because it was an iconic winter sports town, firmly on his radar.
‘We have a winter cabin there. No one will be there.’
‘It sounds perfect. Can we go tomorrow?’
She laughed. ‘You don’t want to waste any time.’
‘Ida, I love this island, but I need to be somewhere with you where you don’t have to think about work.
And we can’t stay in that tiny room for the rest of my visit.
’ It almost hurt him to refer to the fact he would be leaving in a few days but he brushed the feeling aside in favour of the monumental high he was on after his icy dip and with the prospect of an evening with Ida still ahead of him.
‘Okay.’
At that moment, Heidi stuck her head around the door. ‘I thought I heard you two. Erik, could I have a word?’
Given what she was wearing, he had to assume this woman was the chef, but he had no idea why she would want to speak to him. ‘Sure.’ He raised his eyebrows at Ida, who also seemed surprised, and followed the chef into the kitchen.
‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying about needing to get Ida away from the island. I think I can help.’
Erik was torn between being annoyed that this woman had been eavesdropping on them and being intrigued to hear her idea. He crossed his arms and tipped his chin up. ‘Go ahead.’
‘You have a kayak.’
He nodded.
‘Take Ida on the kayak. Go further into the fjord from here, follow the water around, and you will come to a waterfall. It’s on the left-hand side. Paddle past it, then on the same side you will see a beach where you can land.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘My grandfather used to work on this farm. He built a cabin at the top of that beach and used to take the family there in the summer. They didn’t have much money, and it felt like a holiday even though it was so close to home.’
‘Wow, and it’s still there?’
‘Not exactly. But it’s a nice spot to have an evening off the island, and it is not as far as paddling to the mainland.’
‘Do you have a couple of sandwiches we could take?’
‘You can’t eat sandwiches on a date. Come back here in half an hour and I will have some food ready for you.’
‘Okay, thanks…?’
‘Heidi.’
‘Thank you, Heidi.’
He went back out into the hall.
‘What was that about?’ Ida asked.
‘She had a suggestion about dinner tonight.’
‘We’ll have to eat here anyway because there’s no boat service.’
‘Uh huh.’ He was going to keep the secret beach to himself until they got there. ‘I’m going up to the room. Be back in a few.’
He packed two clean towels in his backpack and pulled on a sweater, putting another cleaner hoodie in the bag for Ida in case it got chilly later on.
By the time he got back downstairs, Emilie had arrived, and she and Ida were doing a handover, so he went into the lounge to wait.
‘Hey, Erik. Thanks for today.’ Mats came in and sat on the chair opposite.
‘No problem. It was good to get that joist sized up.’
‘Ida says you two are heading to Voss tomorrow?’
‘Is that okay?’
‘Of course it is. We haven’t used the cabin in a while. In fact, my brother was the last one there, so it might not be pretty.’
Erik laughed. ‘Ida seemed pretty excited.’
‘I don’t think she’s had more than a day off here and there since we opened. It’ll be good for her to have a proper break.’
‘She’s asking Emilie to cover for a couple of days, but is there any chance we could make it three? Then we can have one whole day there with no travelling.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ said Mats. ‘I’ve tried to say to her before that she should have a holiday, but she’s always said no.’
Erik thought Ida probably struggled with the idea of having too much time on her hands. It was certainly the case for him. He’d have checked out of this place after two days if he hadn’t started working with Mats. If he hadn’t met Ida.
‘Erik!’ Heidi appeared from the door that led from the end of the lounge into the kitchen.
‘Excuse me,’ he said to Mats. ‘I have a food parcel to collect. I’m taking Ida on a picnic.’
‘That’s very inventive,’ Mats said, grinning.
‘It was Heidi’s idea.’
‘We certainly go the extra mile to make our guests happy.’
Heidi handed him a large bag. ‘Make a fire. Put the foil parcels in the edges of the fire for twenty minutes. That’s all.’
‘How am I going to light the fire?’
She rolled her eyes at him as if he were a fool for wondering. ‘I’ve put a lighter in the bag.’
‘Great, thank you.’ He assumed everything else he’d need for making a fire would be on hand, because it seemed like Heidi was on it.
As soon as Ida was ready, he led the way to the jetty where the kayak was still hidden behind the bush.
‘I thought we were staying here?’
‘Nope.’ He lifted the kayak into the water and held it for Ida to get on before handing her the bag. ‘No peeking.’
‘Okay.’ She was grinning at him. This girl liked surprises.
He got on himself and started paddling, turning right to head down the side of the island.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Wait and see.’
‘But… there’s nothing down here. We won’t be able to stop anywhere. It’s just rock.’
‘Have you been down here before?’
‘No.’
‘Uh huh.’
Ida was a person who liked to be in control; he knew that.
But that was the point of a surprise, and seeing the joy on her face before made him stay quiet about the destination.
He had no idea what to expect, but he knew Heidi liked Ida and had done this for her, so it was going to be more than a beach to pull up at.
The waterfall was right around the corner, out of sight from the end of the island, and Erik thought if the water wasn’t so cold, it would be possible to swim to it.
Then right after that, Heidi’s beach. He paddled so that the front of the kayak beached on the shore.
It wasn’t sandy, more like dark grey gravel, but where the water was shallow, it showed off the clarity of the water like nothing he’d ever seen before.
He dipped his hand in. It was cold, but nowhere near as cold as the deeper water he’d been dipping into.
‘How did you know this was here?’ Ida asked as she crawled to the front of the kayak while he held it still.
‘Heidi. Her grandfather built a cabin here.’
At the top of the beach was a wooden platform with open sides and a roof.
It had an eclectic assortment of chairs on it and a large chest. Stacked neatly on one side was a pile of logs.
Erik couldn’t help but think about the fact that someone had brought those around here in a boat.
In front of the old cabin was a fire pit, and as they got closer, they could see a string of lights criss-crossing the underside of the ceiling.
‘It’s a secret beach,’ Ida said in amazement.
Erik looked inside the chest and pulled out a couple of blankets and cushions, spreading them on the ground next to the fire pit.
‘Can I look in the bag now?’
‘Sure. Can you hand me the lighter?’
Ida pulled out four parcels of foil-wrapped food, then handed him the lighter and began to unfurl the foil.
‘You don’t need to open those. Heidi said put them on the fire like that.’
‘Really?’
‘You don’t want to cross her.’
‘No, that’s true.’
Next out of the bag were two napkins, two plastic wine glasses and a bottle of Ida’s favourite white wine with an ice jacket to keep it cold. There was also a big bottle of water in there.
‘Wow. This is amazing,’ Ida said, opening the wine while Erik got the fire going and went to fetch more logs.
With the fire roaring and the sun just high enough to shine on the beach until it dropped behind the top of the mountain, they pulled the cushions closer to the water’s edge and sat with their toes in the relatively warm shallows, sipping their wine.
‘To Heidi,’ Erik said, tapping his glass against Ida’s.
‘To Heidi.’
Erik absentmindedly rubbed his leg, enjoying, as always, the feeling of being stretched out.
‘Is it feeling better today?’
‘Yeah. Really good, actually.’ Now that he thought about it, he realised it might have been the first time he’d thought about it all day. When was the last time that had happened since he’d been in Norway? ‘I haven’t even noticed it today.’
‘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.