Chapter 5 #2
“Yes please. Would you mind carrying up a piece of furniture while you’re at it? It’s a sewing machine and it’s heavy.”
“No worries.” He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves in a way that suggested he could handle anything.
· · ·
In the kitchen, Ella unpacked the supplies from Mia’s shop and stole glances at Leif as he replaced the fuse on the water pump beneath the sink.
His jeans hugged his body in all the right places, without being tight.
He had what looked to be strong legs and a cute butt, probably from squatting when he worked on boats, or maybe cross-country skiing. Didn’t all Norwegians ski?
“Mia told me to get to work right away,” he said.
“Well,” she said. “Thank you, Mia.”
He worked in silence. She wiped down the stove and admired the view of him on his knees.
“Sink is fixed,” Leif announced and then pointed at the kitchen counter. “Is that yours?”
She followed his gaze to the sunflower seed packet that had somehow made it through airport customs. Next to the seeds lay a drawing of a magpie in the cottage garden.
“Yes, I just drew it,” she said. “And I packed the seeds for the trip and forgot to eat them, but now I think I’ll plant them in the garden.”
His brow twitched. “Are you staying?”
“No, but isn’t it better to leave a place nicer than when you found it? At least, I think so.”
He swept a hand over his mouth in answer, but she saw the twinkle in his eyes as he turned toward the middle of the kitchen and the sewing machine. “Where should I put this?” he asked.
“In the sitting room, please.”
He lifted the machine as if it weighed nothing, his shirt sleeves snug against thick forearms.
Ella stopped with him near the folksy cabinet. It hadn’t occurred to her that the only available free space was beneath the window that faced out to the choppy waters.
“Hmm. No, not there. I’d love to look out the window and see heather and evergreens. Could you do me a favor and switch that with the sewing machine?” Smiling at him, she pointed at the painted trunk that sat beneath the window overlooking the treed bluff.
He smiled back through gritted teeth. Grunting as he braced the machine against his body, he moved it to her liking. “Not keen on the water view?”
“Thanks. Not a big fan of the water.”
“What the devil are you doing here, then?” he asked in a friendly way.
“I was born in Norway. My mother died when I was a baby, and shortly after that, my mormor and I moved to America. She raised me.” She considered telling him about the portrait she’d found in the bedroom yesterday, but the pain of that discovery was still raw, and she might not be able to keep her tears in check.
That picture of the two of them was a homage to what might have been if Sara had lived.
It suddenly occurred to Ella that maybe Hilda wanted her to come to Ringpynten to learn the truth about her mom on her own.
“I came here because I need to sell the cottage. It’s too difficult to do from the States. Also, my mormor wanted me to spread her ashes in Lyng?r.”
“I see,” Leif said, and politely turned back to his work.
Ella didn’t want to miss her chance to ask some questions, though.
“Do you happen to know anything about my family, especially my mom, Sara Nilsen?” She clutched the sewing machine cord as she knelt on the floor to search for an electrical outlet. The sketchbook in her pocket dug into her thigh, so she slid it out and set it on the sewing cabinet.
“Nah, as far as I know, your family hasn’t visited for almost thirty years. I’m sorry about your mormor though.” That was almost exactly what Mia had said.
“Thanks. Mormor had a heart condition, so it wasn’t a huge surprise.
” Ella plugged in the cord. As she straightened, she looked up at Leif.
He held the sketchbook, his calloused fingers thumbing through the fragile pages.
She was shocked. How dare he. She wanted to be the first person to look at them.
She snatched the book from Leif. At the brief touch of their fingers, the air contracted and for a moment they stared at each other.
“I’ve got work to do,” he said, the shine leaving his eyes. He turned on his heel and walked out the front door.
She pushed the sketchbook back into her pocket and fell into step behind Leif. Well, OK, maybe she’d been a little rude, but that book was one of the only links she had to her mother.
In the yard, Ella sat down on the low stone wall near the dock. The brisk breeze coming in off the water matched the tension flowing between her and Leif. He frowned as he nudged his foot against the larger of the two boats that lay on her lawn.
Ella picked at the moss speckling the wall.
She’d done nothing wrong, she told herself.
Leif was full of himself. How could he not be, as good-looking as he was?
If anything, he owed her an apology for looking at her things without permission.
She itched to pore over the pages alone.
He’d better hurry up, get her boats in the water, and leave.
“How long will this take?” she asked.
“Ten days.”
“What! That long?” She’d hoped she could sell the boats immediately and then pay the rent on her apartment.
“Sanding and varnishing are time-consuming. The boats need to be submerged in water for a good five days.” He poked at another plank. “On land, over the winter, the wood dries out and cracks. After a proper soaking, the planks expand, and the cracks seal up.”
“Won’t they sink?”
“Does a stick sink?” He snatched a stubby branch from the lawn and sent it sailing over the wall and sea grasses and into the aqua waters, where it drifted in the current beyond the cabin cruiser parked at her dock.
A red dinghy hung off the back of the cruiser.
She noticed that the big wooden boat had ornate carvings on the railing and around the windshield, both intricate and fabulous.
She thought she saw wolves snarling between braided vines.
Her fingers longed for her pencil and sketchbook to replicate the designs.
As always, she saw inspiration everywhere.
She needed a closer look than from thirty feet away.
She grabbed her life preserver before she could change her mind or be chained in place by her fear of the water.
“What are you doing?” Leif raised an eyebrow at her.
“I need to see something. Just a moment!” she called over her shoulder, clipping on her vest as she descended the steps to the dock.
Waves hissed. She could taste the salt thick in the air, and her stomach rolled as if she were seasick.
Touching her aquamarine beads, she told herself to be brave.
She recalled her art teacher quoting Van Gogh: “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
Ella knew the world wouldn’t stop spinning if she turned back now, but she was too proud to show her fear.
On the dock, she closed her ears to the clapping waves and focused on the carved wolves, vines, and Viking runes on the boat railing.
She brushed her fingers over two ravens, wings adjoined, and imagined those birds on her next line of dresses.
With the artist’s permission, of course.
· · ·
Back on the lawn, she placed her preserver on the stone wall near Leif. “The carvings on your boat are stunning. I especially love ravens. I have a thing for birds.” She smiled at him. “Do ravens have a special meaning in Norway?”
“Yup, the Norse god Odin owned two ravens who could understand humans, so he sent them out to fly around the world and return in the evening to tell him everything they saw. Ravens really are extremely intelligent. Vikings kept them aboard, and when they were out at sea they set the birds free to scout. If the birds didn’t come back, that meant land was near. ”
“I love that. Do you happen to know the name of the artist who worked on your boat?”
“You’re looking at him. Except I’m not an artist. I’m just a boatbuilder and handyman at the boatyard.” He leaned over the larger of the two skiffs and stabbed at a rotten plank with the blade of his pocketknife.
“You’re an artist, same as me.” The realization tickled her belly and danced through her. “You’re an incredibly talented one. I’m impressed!”
“Thank you.” He stood a bit straighter.
As Leif carried on with inspecting the engines, Ella caught him stealing glances at her.
His eyes were Nordic blue. Had she combed her hair this morning?
She couldn’t remember. She had so much on her mind that she wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t: selling the house, navigating this unfamiliar place, finding a place to sprinkle Mormor’s ashes, and soft-launching Little Bird just two months from now.
Not to mention her questions about the oil painting of her and Sara, the drawing of her mom, and now the sketchbook.
The sun beat down on them. Leif shrugged off his Oxford shirt and tossed it on the low wall, revealing a Bob Dylan concert T-shirt.
She decided to draw him in a little bit. “Do you know where G?sholmen is?” she asked.
“Yes, but I don’t go there. It’s pretty touristy.
” As he spoke, he continued fiddling with one of the engines.
Ella detected something like distaste in his tone, so she pressed him and he told her about the tension between locals and tourists.
The tourists had money to spend, while the locals depended on that money.
Leif considered the tourists snobs—relying on the locals for manual labor and expertise, while coming and going as they pleased.
“I inherited Ringpynten. Does that make me a snob?”
He shrugged at her. “I don’t know. Does it?”
No one had ever called her a snob before. She thought it funny that he might see her like that.
“You can find me on the patio when you’re done,” she said, and as she brushed past Leif, he muttered under his breath.
She stopped to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”
He opened his mouth and closed it, and a flush crept up his neck. Had this wide-shouldered, Viking-like man just blushed at her?
A few heartbeats later he said, “Sunna. You’re different.”
“So I’ve been told.” She winked at him. “But what’s a Sunna?”
He grabbed the gunwale on the larger skiff and lifted it a couple of inches off the grass but said no more.
Evidently she was dismissed. She walked to the patio and didn’t look back.