Stockholm Diaries, Melanie Page 3

  So much for careful planning.

  Mel took a deep breath and closed her eyes, if only to stop herself from throwing the journal across the empty room. Okay, this problem was not insurmountable.

  I’ll find someone in Sweden to translate these books, she told herself, glancing back at the pile of books in the drawer. At least some of them.

  Mel got up from the desk and began to search the house for signs of technology, signs that her father had hidden an internet connection among the relics from other ages. But aside from the lamps, nothing was plugged in.

  I should probably just be thankful this place has electricity.

  She rolled her eyes at the thought and continued her exploration of the living room walls. The only other cord she found attached the old telephone to its receiver, as if to punctuate her father’s apparent aversion to technological advances. Mel dug into her handbag and found her own phone, though she knew what she would find before she even looked at its screen: no signal. She’d have to walk around the island later to see if she could get reception anywhere.

  She put the phone back down and took one more look around the room. The daybed where she had napped looked warm and inviting, and she was surprised to find that she was tired again. The endless Swedish summer sunlight still glowed through the windows, but the cold evening air blew through the open one. She walked over to her father’s bedroom and rested her hand on the door handle. Something about the room pushed her away. Was she really going to sleep in there?

  Tomorrow I’ll move into the bedroom, she thought, eyeing the daybed across the room. It looked wider than her father’s bed, anyway. Tomorrow I’ll figure this out… along with everything else.

  She leaned against the bookshelves, swaying under the weight of the projects she had in front of her. She was too tired to read one of the precious few novels she had toted along, so instead she turned to the bookshelves, scanning for one of her father’s volumes of poems. Maybe the poems contained clues that she would finally see, now that she was here. At least these were translated into English.

  The connection her mind found startled her out of her grogginess. She walked across to the bookshelf and pulled out the slim volume of poetry she had looked at earlier.

  Endurance, by Björn Mikelsson. Translated by Per H. Högberg.

  Per Högberg. A translator, one who knew her father’s work. Someone she could trust with any secrets these journals might reveal. This was the person she needed.

  Now she just had to find him. Which, judging from her first day on this island, wouldn’t be easy.

  Chapter 3

  “Glad I got the two windows in yesterday,” Henrik said as he loosened the boat lines. “Might rain today. It always rains on Midsummer.”

  The water was glossy and still as Mel climbed into what looked like a good-sized fishing boat, older but clean and in good repair.

  “Sit on the other side,” Henrik ordered from the dock. “The boat will balance better.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  She had known this guy less than 24 hours, and he already seemed comfortable giving her orders. He was also doing her a big favor, so she should probably look grateful, maybe bat her eyelashes? She snorted at the idea.

  She hadn’t meant to be late this morning. When Henrik knocked on her door an hour before, she couldn’t even guess what time it was. The sun had shone from high in the sky, but her body begged her to roll over and bury her head in a pillow. Mel always thought herself a morning person, but the haziness of the time change played with that idea. Besides, she had just awakened from a dream that involved Henrik and the torn bathing suit and a whole different outcome of that scene. And then he appeared at her door.

  “Sorry,” she had mumbled at him. “I’ll get ready right away.”

  He wore a green t-shirt, a few shades darker than his eyes, untucked, sleeves tight around his muscular arms. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his long shorts. Not that I’m looking. She couldn’t tell if his face read irritation or amusement as she closed the door, but she was too groggy to think any further about it.

  “Careful not to dress too quickly,” he called through the door. “Wouldn’t want you ripping anything.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” she called back sweetly.

  At least the door was closed so he couldn’t see the shades of blush creeping up her neck. He had to go there?

  If she had felt any guilt that her jet-lag-induced exhaustion was holding him up a few minutes ago, his comment erased all of it. Okay, most of it. But this almost-stranger was willing to ferry her across to the mainland to fill the long shopping list she had neatly written out the night before. She was probably best off keeping her mouth shut as much as possible.

  The sense of resignation had set in sometime during the night. Back in Boston, she had imagined herself alone in the cabin as the sun shone in the windows, writing thousands of words a day. Brilliant words, of course. Just being inside the cabin where her father had lived would connect the missing pieces into a cohesive narrative that flowed from her fingertips. Was that really too much to ask for?

  But instead she found herself exhausted, without food and dependent on this handyman’s schedule. The same handyman whom she had pushed out of her mind the night before, only to have him appear in her dreams, staring again with surprise and even more lust at her naked body. Was this just her mind’s version of the previous day’s events, or was she remembering the look he had given her? Her face went hot again at the thought of where the dream took her next. Suddenly, he had been right in front of her, his lips hard and aching on hers. She ran her hands over the long muscles of his biceps, and they flexed and moved under her touch. His hands slowly traced the shape of her chest, her waist, settling on her hips. She felt his fingers press into her as he pulled her body into his hard, rigid… no, she wasn’t even going to let her mind go there again.

  Besides, real encounters weren’t nearly as hot as the one from her dream. Not in her experience, at least. Sex with her previous boyfriend had been fun, but she certainly didn’t think to miss it until Henrik showed up through that hole in her wall. Mutual respect, common interests, affection and a tolerance for being left alone a good deal—that’s what she looked for in a guy. Whatever had happened in that dream, that extremely vivid dream, afterward was a natural response to being alone.

  What did she actually know about him anyways? Mel studied Henrik as he untied the thick lines from the dock. His arms were long and tan under his t-shirt, and she watched his muscles flex and tighten as he pulled the boat along the dock and then hopped in. The same muscles that flexed under her fingers in that dream.

  Then she tried to stop watching him. Really, she did.

  Henrik paused while pulling in the buoys from the side of the boat and caught her staring. It took her a moment too long to turn away, and she could feel the heat spread through her cheeks. She considered letting him know that she was assessing his danger level, not checking him out, but she didn’t trust herself to speak right now. The kind of danger he was radiating was altogether different.

  He raised his eyebrows and then turned away before she could somehow spin her obvious gaping in another way. He was definitely hot, but the look he gave her suggested he knew it, and now she had added fuel to that fire. Some things were universal right? She was sure arrogance looked the same in Sweden as it did in the U.S. Well, pretty sure.

  “Put this on,” Henrik said, tossing her a life jacket from the cabin.

  She narrowed her eyes, still thrown off by the ease with which her thoughts seemed to take off in less than decent directions this morning. Yes, a life jacket was certainly the sensible choice, but she bristled at his order anyway. Why was he suddenly talking to her this way, after smiling at her clear gawking. Now he was ordering her around like he was in charge of her?

  The tone of his voice crawled under her skin enough to make her give in to her impulse. Against bett
er judgment, she was about to set aside her sensible plan of acting grateful and instead treat his order as a challenge.

  “I can swim,” she said, setting the life jacket next to her.

  “I know. You brought your swimsuit,” he said with a chuckle. She could feel herself redden at the reference to the very moment she was trying hard not to think about. Nice.

  “But how far do you think you’ll get in this cold?” he added.

  Neither of these comments helped Mel to reign in her increasing irritation. True, the Baltic Sea was probably a little chilly, but nothing she hadn’t experienced before. She put her hands on her hips and opened her mouth to respond, still not even sure what was about to come out.

  But before either of them could find out, he shook his head.

  “Suit yourself. Let’s hope you don’t end up in the water.”

  She couldn’t take a comment like that seriously.

  “Then you’ll have to try hard not to crash,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  She thought she saw a smile on his face as he turned away, and she couldn’t decide what to make of it. She had spent the last summer alone on a quiet New Hampshire lake, and she had never once considered putting on a life jacket while she swam or paddled around in the canoe. Was Henrik the kind of guy that liked to tell a woman what to do? The sooner she could stand on her own two feet here, the better.

  She had rushed out of the cabin this morning, and Mel knew the lack of coffee wasn’t helping the situation, which again suggested she was better off keeping her sarcasm to herself. Try to ease up on the attitude and concentrate on the practical aspects of this outing.

  “Is there a place with Internet access where we’re going? A café or something?” she asked. “There doesn’t seem to be any Internet or cell phone service on the island.”

  “Not really,” he said. “There’s a café on the mainland, but it may not be open on Midsummer.”

  “You don’t need the Internet for your building projects?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s just that people generally come out to the island to get away from that kind of thing.”

  “Not if your job includes research,” she said dryly.

  Mel watched as the mainland slowly came into focus. But out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of his gaze wandering down her body. His tone suggested distance, though it was hard to tell with his British accent. Still, she caught hints that her presence was throwing him off. He clenched and released his hand a couple times and then rubbed the back of his neck.

  “What are you researching?”

  “My father.”

  “As a biographer or as a daughter?”

  “Both, I guess,” she said, sighing. “I promised the publisher a personal feel to the book—‘the man behind the love poems’—but after three months of digging, I still don’t know enough about him.”

  Mel wasn’t expecting much of a reaction, so she was surprised to see the crease between his eyebrows. His voice was much softer when he spoke.

  “He was a very private man,” he said. “Warm, friendly, but still private. He never talked directly about his poems.”

  Mel stared at him, struck once again by the idea that this man knew her father, really knew him. Henrik must have been more than a handyman for her father. Despite how much younger Henrik was, he must have been her father’s friend.

  “Did you know him well?”

  Henrik was quiet for a while, but he seemed to be considering the question. The wind sent a spray of hair across her face as she watched him.

  “I guess I did. Probably as well as anyone else,” he said. “We both spent the summers here, and there were weeks where we were each other’s only company. But neither of us were much for late-night talks about our feelings, so we were a good match.”

  Mel smiled at the image of self-contained Henrik and her father, gossiping in their pajamas.

  Then he added, almost to himself, “My mother knew him pretty well many, many years ago, but as far as I know, she hasn’t seen Björn since the first summer we met him, when I was five. This summer will be the first time she’s visiting the island in years.”

  “When is she coming?” Mel asked. “Can I talk to her?”

  Henrik frowned and turned away again, but not before she caught deep creases in his forehead.

  “I don’t know if she’ll agree to that. She’s—” he stopped, and his face tightened. “She’s a very private person. In a different way than your father.”

  Henrik’s expression was strained. He clearly was ready for a change of topic, and the raw sadness that leaked through his words made her stop. Another idea came to her.

  “Do you know the guy who translated my father’s recent poems? Let me find the name…” she said, pulling a notebook out of her handbag and flipping to one of her lists. “Here it is: Per Högberg. Do you know anything about him?”

  Henrik stared at her again, his face unreadable. This apparently wasn’t the topic shift he was expecting.

  “Um, shouldn’t you be watching where we’re going?” she tried.

  Henrik raised his eyebrows and turned back to the front.

  “Tell me what you already know about this translator, and I’ll tell you what I know,” he finally said with a hint of amusement.

  “Nothing right now,” she said. Then she grumbled, “Thus, the need for the Internet.”

  “We’ll talk after you look him up,” he said gently.

  Apparently, that was the end of this conversation, too.

  The boat cut across the open water, weaving around small, rocky islands and passing just off the shore of the longer ones, filled with trees and studded with small red cabins. Always the red cabins, no matter how small the island, perched neatly up along the waterfront. On the shore of one island, a pair of blond, nymph-like children played in the shallow water while their parents watched from the rocks above. All four blond heads looked up in unison to watch as Henrik’s boat passed by.

  “These islands are beautiful,” said Mel softly. “Almost too idyllic to be real.”

  Henrik smiled. “Despite the lack of Internet connection?”

  Her laugh came before she could stop it.

  “The mind boggles.”

  “HERE WE ARE,” said Henrik as he held open the supermarket door for her, “Sweden’s finest.”

  Mel looked up at the red “ICA” sign above them and then down at the small cooler he held. The large mug of strong coffee she had just drunk at the café had significantly improved her mood. She had spoken quickly with her mother, who spent most of the conversation discussing how expensive the overseas call would be. Now it was time for shopping. She glanced down at the cooler Henrik handed to her.

  “A picnic in the grocery store?” she asked with a wry smile.

  “It’s so your food doesn’t spoil before you get it home,” he said with the same, teasing smile he had flashed earlier, the kind that probably had charmed many women before her. “We’re a long way from your refrigerator, you know. Unless you had another plan?”

  She rolled her eyes. Of course she didn’t. He was standing in the doorway, sizing her up, his face impassive. But everything else about him—his broad shoulders stretching at the seams of his shirt, as if resisting the confines of civilized life, one hand in the pocket of his shorts, and the overgrown locks of wavy brown hair that fell over his forehead—everything else suggested pure male temptation. It was probably a good thing he was so aloof most of the time; otherwise, she might have actually felt conflicted about his undeniable appeal. Which she would never let happen.

  Still, it was probably in her best interest not to keep staring at him, she thought as she slipped past him through the doorway—even if he was watching her, too.

  The store was tiny, just a little bigger than her corner grocery, but the place was a maze of narrow rows of shelves, all filled with… well, Mel wasn’t sure what all these things were. Or
how she’d match them up with the shopping list she had carefully constructed the night before.

  She turned to pull out a cart from the stack—even that was smaller—but when she placed her hand on the handle, Henrik’s came down and brushed over hers. They had never touched, and Mel was completely unprepared for her own reaction. Her breath skidded to a stop, and her heart stuttered to make up for it. She felt the hot trail of his fingers over her hand, soft, tempting her, sending signals through her body that seemed to short-circuit her brain. All she could think about was the heat of his body so close behind hers, almost touching it. Both of them froze.

  Then he abruptly pulled away and turned his head, but not before she caught a glimpse of his widened eyes on her. Yes, he definitely felt it, too.

  “Sorry,” he grumbled, taking a deliberate step back to give her room. “I was going to get that for you.”

  Mel nodded and reminded herself to breathe again. Slowly and quietly. She bit her lip and started for the first aisle.

  Just ignore it, she told herself. You’re here for groceries.

  If she couldn’t take her mind off her father’s handyman, she was going to come back from her only chance at shopping missing an entire food group. Like coffee. Mel pulled out her list and looked at the shelves, immersing herself in the foreignness of everything around her. Which was easy, considering the fact that she couldn’t read a word on the packages.

  Again, she’d need Henrik’s help.

  “Everything is so tiny,” she said, picking up a little paper package and turning it over in her hand. “What’s this?”

  “Rye flour,” said Henrik.

  “Do they have big bags of regular flour?” she asked, searching the shelves for something that looked familiar. “I think I need to bake my own bread if I’m going to make it on the island.”

  He picked up another, slightly bigger bag.

  “This is as big as flour bags come in this store,” said Henrik. “Supersize hasn’t made it to Sweden yet.”

  She didn’t even need to look. She could hear the smile in his voice. Supersize—is that what Americans were known for?