Chapter 43
Leif awakened with a fever and a fierce headache. There was no need to touch the sutures and lump on his forehead to know they existed. Plaster covered his forearm from his elbow to his knuckles, and an intravenous line stretched from his other arm to a fluid-filled bag hanging from a pole.
He drew back the sheets carefully. Sharp pains stabbed his ribs. He shrugged his shoulder, and it didn’t seem torn—nothing too serious—but he couldn’t remember how he ended up in the hospital. Some sort of accident?
As he searched his memory for answers, he looked out the window. The day was giving way to a murky dusk. Seeing the slice of coastline brought back the memory of Skadi flipping over and him hitting the water. His stomach clenched when he remembered Ella being thrown from the boat too.
A chill crept through him, and he looked at the ceiling and prayed. Please let Ella be alive and well. Give me more time with her.
He began looking around. The door to his room was ajar. Beyond it, a sheeted body lay flat on a wheeled stretcher. He shivered and touched his pendant. Please, I will never ever ask for anything else in this lifetime, if only I can hold her in my arms. Hear her voice in my ear . . . her laugh.
“Hello?” he croaked. “Is anyone there?” As he lifted his head from the pillow, the blood whooshed from his face. Heavy-headed, he focused on the door, but the room spun, and he fell back on the mattress. Everything went dark.
· · ·
Hours later, Leif stirred from sleep and felt the sting of the IV in his arm.
The headache kept him from opening his eyes, even when he caught a whiff of stale cigarillo smoke.
It must be Inger. But where was Ella? The image of her going overboard stomped on his chest. He pretended to be unconscious because he wasn’t ready to hear what Inger had come here to tell him—that Ella was gravely injured, or even gone.
He should have peeked but he was petrified. Someone cleared their throat and then hummed a soulful song, perhaps a country song . . . but it was definitely in the dulcet tones of the voice he loved.
Ella.
Thank gods. Thank Njord, and Odin, and Loki alike.
He opened his eyes and smiled. Ella sat near his bedside, close enough that he could reach out and touch her. She looked luminous, in that enchanting way of hers. She had a sparkly heart sticker on her cheek; likely Mia had been to visit.
The shadows beneath Ella’s eyes matched the blue wildflowers tucked behind her ear. The scrape along her jawline had turned into a scab and met the bruises on her chin. She was wearing Inger’s old coat for some reason.
He had so many questions, but before he could utter a single word, she grinned at him and began to sing: “Beautiful Boy Blue. Get well soon. We’ll kiss under the big blue moon. And barbecue fish.”
“Barbecue fish?” He laughed. For a moment the pain in his head, arm, and ribs, along with the pang in his heart, were forgotten.
“I just made up the lyrics as I went, but I meant every word.” She smiled at him again. Outside a big moon shone in the sky, so bright it cast shadows across Leif’s bed.
“I want you,” he said, his eyes roaming over her. “You look beautiful! Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m good. In fact I’ve never been better. What about you?” Her smile faltered as she gazed at his banged-up forehead and broken nose, and the cast on his arm. “Does it hurt?”
“Well, I wish I felt better, but how could I not be all right? I’ve never been this pleased to see anyone in my life!”
He wanted to touch her, to smell her, to hear the sexy hum of her breath in his ear.
“Take that thing off, will you? It smells like smoke.” He had intended to say more: Curl up next to me, let me feel your curves, your warmth.
“Inger’s coat has kept the chills at bay,” she said, tracing her fingers over the fur trim. “Mia brought me stickers and flowers, and Inger gave me breath mints.”
Leif was puzzled. “Breath mints?”
“In case I want to kiss you!” she said. She slipped one of her hands from the coat, touched it to her mouth and blew him a kiss.
He should have captured that longed-for kiss and put it to his mouth.
Instead he stared, speechless, at her hand.
Each of her fingers was taped up with gauze bandages; her hand was completely immobilized.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’ll heal,” she said as she wiggled out of the coat. “And my foot is fractured, but it’s a minor break, luckily.”
Leif gave her the once-over and saw that the fingers on her other hand were taped too. “I feel terrible.”
“Please—don’t.” She leaned forward in the chair and swept her fingers over his bicep. “As you can see, my fingers work fine. You shouldn’t feel terrible about any of this. You didn’t force me out there on the water. And—we’re alive.”
He frowned and the stitches pulled the skin on his forehead, reminding him of how close they had come to dying.
“No, but it’s my fault that we almost weren’t,” he said.
“Your engine failed, am I right? How’s that your fault?”
“I wasn’t prepared.”
“You brought my life vest.”
He had a sudden memory of them in the water. The way she propped up his head with her body, her arm snug around him, preventing him from going under.
“You, the one who’s nervous about the water, kept me afloat. You saved my life! That was brave . . . beyond brave. Just another one of the many reasons I love you.”
“You love me?”
“I love you madly,” he declared and smiled at her. Wet eyes be damned.
“I love you madly too,” she said through happy tears of her own.
With his plaster-bound forearm, he awkwardly reached out, beckoning her closer. Using the armrests for support, she stood from her chair and winced in pain, but she didn’t complain. She settled on the edge of the bed, her eyes sparkling with happiness.
He noticed. “You look lighter, excited, joyous. I guess that’s what being rescued from the sea will do for you.”
“There’s something else that I need to tell you . . .”
Ella paused, and he prompted. “You don’t want to tell me?”
“I do. I’m putting my words together.” She leaned in closer, her hair brushing him as she kissed him on the mouth.
Intoxicated, he let out a moan of desire, bundled up with longing. “Please never leave,” he said.
Her breath seemed to catch, and she gave him another slow, tender kiss. But as she pulled away and met his eyes, he saw apprehension there. Perhaps she still didn’t want to stay.
Before Leif could speak, she said, “If I had never come to Norway, your life wouldn’t have gone through this insane upheaval. You and Erik would still be as close as ever.”
“Are you kidding? I’m beyond glad that you came into my life.
You brighten my world. You make me want to step outside of my comfort zone and go after my dreams, my art.
I love the way you find inspiration in the little things, like the smallest petal, birch bark, the texture of seaweed.
Nothing seems small to me anymore when I look at things through your eyes.
” He touched her cheek, taking care to avoid her injuries.
“I don’t want to go back to how things were before you came into my life.
My house is just a house without you in it. I want a home.”
“Oh, that’s so lovely,” she said, eyes glistening. “But first there’s something I have to tell you. Something that you need to know.” She put her hand gently on his chest. “This is what I was gathering my words to tell you . . . Erik is my father.”
“Erik?” Leif jolted upright with such speed that he heard his broken ribs pop. “Could you repeat that?” he said as he winced with pain.
Ella told him about the birth certificate and her conversation with Erik, and Leif listened in awe. “Why didn’t you tell me this as soon as you knew?” he stammered.
“I was afraid to tell you. Plus, I didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Then he saved us, and you changed your mind?”
“Not even then. Not until he and I talked in my hospital room, and I saw how much Sara meant to him, how much he had wanted to be a father.”
“It’s good news, but . . . astonishing,” Leif said.
“For the last two days Erik and I have been here, waiting for you to recover.”
“Two days?”
“They sedated you in case you had brain swelling. You needed to be still.”
“I think I remember the doctor telling me that.”
“Do you think that you can forgive Erik, and that the two of you can work it out?”
At a loss for words, Leif was silent. He wondered if he and Erik could really mend their relationship. Even so, he was alive because of Erik—and Ella was too. He rested his hand on her lap, IV cord and all.
“Erik saved my life. In a week I’ll be back at the boatyard, working with one arm, and he and I will figure it out. We always do.”