What Were You Expecting? (40 page)

“That’s how I feel, too.”

Then he crushed her against him, burying his face in her hair, overcome by the love that seemed to unendingly multiply for the woman in his arms.

After a few moments, she pulled away from him, unlocking the door and taking his hand to lead him upstairs. “Tell me about your tour.”

He grinned, staring at her adorable backside as she preceded him up the stairs. “It was awful.”

“Awful! Why? They were awful? The tourists?”

“City folks. Three couples.”

“Rude? Demandin’?”

“Lonesome.”

“Who was lon—?”

She turned and faced him, tilting her head to the side like all of the Lindstroms and giving him that loving look that made him feel hot and tender and protective and fiercely grateful all at once.

“I can’t always go with you, you know.”

“I wish you could. My tent felt empty.”

Giving him a saucy look, she unlocked her door, flicking on the light as they stepped inside. “It better have been.”

“Not that one of the girls didn’t try…”

Maggie spun around at the speed of light, her eyes wide open and her cheeks flushing pink. “Try? Try for you?”

He shrugged, trying not to grin and failing.

As the door closed behind him she stepped forward, poking a finger into his chest. “You’re not available anymore, laddie.”

“But I am irresistible.” He snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her up against his chest, all the blood in his body funneling straight to one place. “Apparently.”

“And big-headed,” she said tartly.

“And big…” he teased glancing down at the bulge straining against his jeans.

“Aye. Yer big there too.” She arched her back to push her breasts flush against him and he leaned down to kiss her, but groaned when she turned her face away, grinding her pelvis into his, but denying him a kiss. He clasped her tighter and she bowed her back, leaning against his arms.

“So what did you say when the bloody tramp…
tried
for you?”

“I told her I had a wife,” he said, bending down to brush his lips against her forehead. “A beautiful, redheaded wife…” He felt her go slightly slack and pressed his advantage, taking her earlobe between his teeth and emitting a throaty chuckle when he heard her quiet gasp. “…who would not be happy…” His hands slid down to her backside and he squeezed, pushing her tightly against his erection. “…if I took up with another woman.”

“Good answer,” she murmured in a breathy voice as he trailed his lips along the curve of her neck. “And what did she say?”

“She said I didn’t need to tell you,” he said against her skin, stopping at the soft plane behind her ear, half mad with wanting her.

“And you…” Her voice trailed off in a breathy murmur. She trembled in his arms and he moved his hands to her hips, lifting her easily and trying not to kill them both as he walked back to her bedroom in the dark with her legs wrapped around his waist.

“Maggie May,” he said tenderly as he lowered her onto the bed and covered her body with his, kissing her forehead, “I told her I…,” and then her nose, “am with…,” and finally her lips, “you.”

She grabbed his face, threading her fingers through his hair, frantically kissing him as he trailed his fingers down her sides, pushing at her shorts. Her fingers moved to his waist, unbuckling and unzipping him before wiggling out of her own shorts beneath him. When they were both naked from the waist down, without asking, unable to wait another moment, he thrust forward, a strangled groan released from his throat as her fingernails raked across his lower back. He plunged his tongue into her mouth and she sucked on it eagerly as his strokes became deeper and more urgent.

When she cried out beneath him, calling his name, he thrust inside of her one final time as deeply as possible, pulsing, trembling, falling apart and finding himself put back together, surrounded in every possible way by the strength of her love.

***

They lay spooned together the next morning as the sun slowly rose, illuminating Maggie’s violet room with morning light. They hadn’t slept much, loving each other until the early hours of the morning, but feeling fully satisfied and sated physically didn’t mean they’d broached the topic of children, which lay unspoken and unresolved between them.

“Maggie May,” said Nils softly, running a hand soothingly along the ridge of her side to rest on her hip lightly.

“Mmm?”

“I thought about it.”

“About…”

“Kids. Having them. Our own.”

Her eyes widened and she turned slowly in his arms.

He swallowed, meeting her eyes before looking away. “I just…I wanted you to know I thought about it.”

“And what did you think?”

“I’d have to break promises.”

“Aye, you would.”

“It’d be terrifying.”

“Aye. You’d be worried.”

“You could be hurt.”

“Aye. There’s always a chance.”

“You’re not helping,” he said, brows furrowing as he bit his lower lip.

She felt her face soften as she gazed at him, at this man who wanted to give her everything. Could she live knowing she’d pressured him into something he didn’t really want? Would it slowly chip away at the fabric of their relationship? Would he resent that she’d pressured him into doing something he hadn’t wanted to do?

“I thought about adoption,” she said.

“You did?”

She nodded. “I remember what it felt like. At every age. At five and at ten and at sixteen. I’d always know what to say, how to make it better.”

“But the baby, the child, might not look like you.”

“That’s true.” She thought about the pictures she’d seen of the unwanted children who’d grown up at the Magdalene houses. “But I was chosen. You canna know what that means to me, the comfort it’s always given me. Someone chose me and gave me a home.”

“Not with a bunch of crazy Swedes.”

“A child could do far worse than to wear the Lindstrom name,
mo muírnin
.” She tilted her head, anxious not to break the fragility of the moment, but feeling overwhelmed by their exchange—by the possibility of it, the tenderness wrought from compromise. “Why don’t we both keep thinkin’ about it?”

“I can’t promise anything, Maggie. I wish I could.”

“I know.”

“You deserve—”

“You. You’re all I want.”

“Better,” he murmured, as though she hadn’t spoken. “You deserve better.”

Then he leaned forward to claim her lips with his, leaving words behind to show her, once again, that he was a man of action.

Chapter 19

The day of the interview dawned misty and murky, and Maggie couldn’t help but wonder if it was an omen of things to come. That, and the fact that everything that
could
go wrong seemed to be going wrong.

First, she misplaced the letter with the address for the USCIS office in Billings and they had to scramble around on Google, looking for the street address online. Her pantyhose—which she hated with the heat of a thousand fires, but felt were necessary for a polished appearance—ran after she snagged them on a splinter of wood sticking out from one of her kitchen cabinets, so she threw them away but felt uncomfortably casual without them. Nils forgot his suit jacket at home and had to run back for it, hoping not to run into Lars who’d have a million questions about why Nils was dressed for church on a random Thursday, and then the whole area was covered in a blanket of fog. When they finally did hit the road, Nils drove cautiously, worried about hitting elk, sheep, deer or other wildlife as they headed north toward Livingston.

In short, they were both frazzled at the very moment they needed to feel calm and connected, and their nerves weren’t exactly in check. While both felt the strong bond they’d forged over the course of the last month, defending their fledgling marriage to a trained immigration agent made them both feel edgy.

Maggie suggested that they drill each other with questions on the way north and Nils turned to her.

“Mother’s name?” he asked, adjusting and readjusting his hands on the steering wheel nervously.

“Britt Askeland.”

“Yup. Father?”

“Carl Lindstrom.”

“Born?”

“Here. To first generation Swedish immigrants.”

“Yup. Now you ask me.”

“How many windows in my bedroom?”

“Our
bedroom,” he reminded, giving her a look. Saying “my” and “mine” would be flagged. “Two.”

“Aye. What food gives me hives?”

“Strawberries.”

“Aye. And what kind of tampons do I use?”

His neck and cheeks flushed red as he answered softly. “Playtex.”

A feeling passed through Maggie as she watched his reaction—humor and affection, yes, but something else, something subtle and nagging that she didn’t have time to explore right now.

“Aye. Who woke up first this morning?”

“You did.”

“I didn’t, Nils. You did.”

“I
spoke
first,” he answered, looking over at her and grinning for the first time all morning. “But you were awake first. I could tell when I woke up. You feel different in my arms when you’re already awake.”

Maggie’s heart drummed with love for him. How could they fail when they could give answers like that?

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” he answered, reaching for her hand.

“How did you ask me to marry you?” she asked.

“At the Roosevelt Arch. With bagpipes playing on my iPhone and white frosted cupcakes.”

She squeezed his hand. Wherever possible, they’d agreed to use real bits of their own history to fill in the gaps.

“And when did you first see me?”

“Behind the counter of your aunt’s café. She was in a book club with my mother, and I already knew she was dying. And I was sorry for that. You were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen in my whole life. And I had no idea what to do about it.”

“And you were the handsomest,” she answered, trying to feel confident, trying to keep the impending melancholy at bay. She felt fragile and foolish, sure that the interviewers would see through their practiced answers and fail to see the real love that existed between them. “Why did we get married in a lawyer’s office?”

This was a tough one for them to fudge, so they’d decided to answer it with a half-truth. “We were already engaged, and then your visa ran out. We decided to accelerate the process of getting married.”

“Aye,” she said, squeezing his hand as butterflies whizzed furiously in her belly.

“When did you first tell me you loved me?”

“I told you with my eyes about a million times before I ever said the words,” she answered without thinking.

“Good answer,” he said quietly, flicking his glance to her before raising her hand to his lips for a kiss. “What are our plans for a family of our own?”

She took a deep breath. Since last week, they’d avoided the subject, but it had hovered between them—the unspoken elephant in the room, the one thing that kept them from truly lacing their lives completely together. “We’ve discussed it, but we aren’t sure what to do. We’ve discussed having our own and we’ve talked about adoption. Right now, we only know that we want a family someday. We don’t know how. Yet.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, and she could hear it in his voice—the regret, the apology, the conflict, the sorrow—in that one small syllable.

“What’s my favorite movie?” asked Maggie, trying to break the tension.

“The Quiet Man
,” answered Nils, releasing her hand and clenching his jaw before turning away to look out his window.

After that, they rode in silence.

***

As they walked hand in hand from the parking lot to the short, squat, brick federal building, Maggie looked up at him and Nils hated the worry on her lovely face. He stopped walking and leaned down to kiss her, drawing her into his arms and holding her close. When he leaned back she still looked worried, but her face had softened a little. For the thousandth time, he wished he’d done everything differently with her—dated and courted her, asked her to marry him, allowed himself to fall in love with her and trust that they could overcome whatever challenges befell them. He wished that she’d never gotten that initial letter from USCIS, or that when she did, they’d already been married for a year or two. What a lot of time he’d wasted, and yet despite his feelings for her, he still wasn’t totally convinced that he deserved her.

“It’ll be okay,” he said softly, pushing her hair off her face, and caressing her cheek lovingly. He wished he could ease her fears, but their reality—convincing immigration officers that their marriage was legal and legitimate—was too serious for sugar-coating. Besides, he knew her too well. Well-meaning platitudes would only make her more nervous.