Page 143 of Top Shelf

“You should answer her,” she whispers. “Maybe tell her you have other plans for dessert. Or tell her you’d like a cold shower.”

I stare at my wife as she beams back, and I know I am in terrible, terrible trouble.

That night, in the blue guest room, Heidi tells me about her first impressions as she gets sleepy against my chest. The window is open a little, letting in cool air and the faint sound of insects from the meadow. I have slept in this room at twelve, sixteen, twenty-three. Alone, mostly. Once with Hugo as a baby in a travel cot because Freja and Johan needed a night of sleep, and I was arrogant enough to believe I could handle a teething baby.

But never with a woman. Never with my wife.

Heidi’s hand rests against my ribs, right where the treeline tattoo disappears into skin.

“Your mother is like a joyful sunshine witch,” she murmurs, eyes closed.

“She would enjoy that description.”

“And Freja is scary, but I like her.”

“Mm. She likes you, too.”

“Your nieces are flower children, and Ebba is pretending not to like me too quickly, but I think she does.”

My mouth curves. “Yes. I think she does, too.”

“And Hugo thinks I’m from the moon.”

I hum gently against her hair. “He is not fully wrong. But you are more beautiful than the moon.”

“Oh, please.” Her laugh brushes warm over my chest, then fades into a sleepy breath. “I think if you placed us side by side, everyone is looking at the moon.”

I look down at her in the thin darkness of summer. At the soft line of her cheek, and the ring on her finger resting over my heart. Outside, Solvik settles. For years, I thought bringing someone here would be a risk. Like letting a stranger walk through the most private room inside me.

Except with Heidi, the risk is she feels the opposite of a stranger. She feels like someone the house was waiting for.

Her hand flexes against my skin, and I cover it with mine. The will, the conditions, our marriage, and the future we have both pretended is simple—all of it waits beyond morning.

But tonight, Heidi sleeps curled against me in the first home I ever knew, and I hold her close, hoping she might stay.

Chapter twenty-one

Heidi

I’ve learned three vital things about Midsummer preparations at Solvik.

One, Astrid believes feeding people is both a love language and a competitive sport. Two, Freja can make a flower crown look effortless while barking instructions harsh enough to strip skin. And three, Viktor Karlsson’s hands have absolutely no business being this careful with wildflowers.

He sits across from me at the long table on the terrace, with his head bent and shoulders too broad for the delicate task in front of him. His forearms are bare, and the tattoos along his collar shift under golden summer light as he threads a thin stem through a ring of birch twigs.

There are flowers spread everywhere between us: blue cornflowers, daisies, tiny yellow blooms, clover, ferns, things I don’t know the names of yet but have already been told I must learn because Vera will quiz me.

Viktor holds up a pale pink flower between his fingers, twirling it tenderly as his eyes skate over it, and all I can do is stare because this feels like a damn hallucination.

“You’re very good at that,” I say.

His eyes lift. “At the flower crowns?”

“At looking like a tattooed Scandinavian woodland criminal making a craft project.”

Freja chokes on a laugh at the other end of the table, but Viktor ignores his sister, instead nodding back down at the mess of flowers in front of me. “You should focus on your own crown.”

“My crown has personality.”