Page 134 of Top Shelf

“I can open doors,” I tell him.

“I know.” He smiles gently and waits until I get in.

The drive out of Stockholm starts with highway signs and greenery flashing past the windows. Then the city and houses thin, giving way to forest, which gathers in long bands of pine and birch, then eventually breaks open into fields and water glinting through trees. The light feels different here. Softer and somehow wider, spilling over everything without the hard glare of Colorado sun.

I try to stay awake because I want to see it all, but I fail twice, my head dipping forward before I jerk upright again.

Viktor glances over. “Sleep, min fru.”

“I’m absorbing your homeland.”

“My homeland will remain here if you close your eyes, I promise.”

His hand settles on my thigh, the warmth of it seeping through my leggings, and stays there as the road bends deeper into the countryside.

After a while, he starts telling me things without turning it into a lecture. That lake is not Båven, but close. Those red houses are that color because of old pigment from copper mines. That sign says Flen. Malmköping is smaller. His mother Astrid will overfeed me, his father Anders will pretend not to watch my reaction to the house, and his sister will speak too quickly if she’s excited. His nephew Hugo and nieces Vera and Alice will ask blunt questions, and his grandmother Ebba will probably decide within five minutes whether I have enough sense to deserve him.

“Do I?” I ask.

He glances over. “Have enough sense?”

“Deserve you.”

For a stupid second, I wish I could pull the question back. Make a joke and pretend I didn’t mean it.

“Yes, Heidi.” His hand tightens on my thigh, and a silence follows as he swallows, eyes darting to me and back to the road. “I have never worried about you deserving me… The opposite, maybe.”

“Well that’s bullshit.” I turn toward him with a frown, watching his mouth twitch. “For the record, Karlsson, I’m pretty sure I’m getting the better end of this deal.”

“No.” His expression remains clam, but his fingers flex back and forth. “You make my life better simply by being in it. If one of us is getting more than they deserve from this marriage, it is me.”

Well fuck. I look out the window, the Swedish countryside suddenly blurry.

By the time we turn off the larger road, I’m fully awake again. The gravel lane curves through trees, the tires crunching beneath us. Sunlight flickers through leaves, then the forest opens up without warning, and the house appears as if it has been waiting.

“Oh,” I whisper, sitting forward.

It’s not a castle, and somehow that makes it better. It’s an old timber country house painted a weathered white, broad and graceful beneath a dark roof, with red-trimmed windows and climbing roses near the entry. Red outbuildings stand beyond it, and an old barn and smaller cottages are tucked closer to the treeline.

A meadow spreads out on one side, wild with summer grass and flowers I can’t name. Beyond that, through a break in the trees, water twinkles silver-blue.

Solvik.

I understand before Viktor says anything more. This isn’t about money. It might be worth money—probably a lot of it. The land, the lake access, the old buildings, and the summer-rental possibilities are the kind of retreats that people pay ridiculous amounts to borrow for a weekend.

But money is too small a word for the way Viktor’s face softens as we roll slowly up the drive.

This is where his silence comes from. The calmness. The trees inked across his chest and the flowers tucked into his skin for women he loves. The man I’ve only known in Denver starts unfolding before me in pieces.

“This is where you grew up?” I ask softly.

“Yes.”

As we near the house, people are already spilling outside. A woman with gray-blonde hair and a blue linen dress comes down the steps with both hands pressed to her mouth. Behind her, a tall man with Viktor’s eyes and a gentle smile follows at a slower pace. A woman around Viktor’s age waves from the porch with a boy on her hip and two older children racing past her legs. An elderly woman with a cane stands just inside the open doorway, with the brightest smile I’ve ever seen. Ebba.

Viktor puts the car in park but does not move immediately.

I look at him quickly. “You okay?”