She sighed. Her elderly neighbor was away this morning, and Lottie had meant to take the kids for a stroll in the beautiful sunshine, but Elise had other plans. Since the baby wasn’t showing any other symptoms and her fever wasn’t high, Lottie assumed she was teething.
Which was just perfect, since she’d forgotten the paracetamol syrup at the office in the village. The nearest pharmacy was a twenty-minute drive from here, so Lottie usually asked Dr. Teigland to bring her whatever she needed when he came for his shift. His route took him around several small communities, and he was happy to help her out. But her mind was about as reliable as a sieve these days—mama brain, she told herself,you can’t think of everything—so she began the lengthy process of changing and dressing the twins for a stroll to the clinic.
There was a knock on the door just when she was changing Aksel’s diaper. She barely heard it over Elise’s wailing.
“Coming,” she called, then picked up the pantless Aksel and carried him on her hip to the door.
Eiric stood there, illuminated by golden May sunshine, looking too handsome to be real. “Have I come at a bad time?”
Lottie peered over her shoulder. “Nah. It’s no big deal.”
But something in her face must have given away that she was, in fact, desperate for some help. He held out his arms for Aksel, who giggled happily and tried to grab the hair escaping Eiric’s man bun. Lottie ran inside and picked up the already dressed Elise. The girl calmed down immediately, comforted by her presence.
Lottie turned to find Eiric at the door to her bedroom. “I just need to rush to the clinic real fast,” she said. “Then we can all go for a walk.”
He considered her, running his gaze from the top of her head to her toes. She looked down at herself. The carrot puree from the twins’ lunch had left a stain on her top, and there was an unidentifiable blob of something white on her leggings. Charming.
Cheeks flaming, she lifted her chin a fraction. “Can you watch Aksel for a minute so I can change?”
Eiric glanced at her son, then back at her. “How about I take these two for a stroll while you…” He waved a hand in her direction, clearly indicating that there was an entiresituationgoing on beside the food stains. “You can go to the clinic, then meet us back here.”
She chewed her lip. “Elise’s fussy. She might not want to…”
But the baby girl in her arms had her eyes fixed on Eiric. She gave a happy gurgle, breaking out in her first smile of the day.
The big, handsome man grinned at Lottie. “I think we’ll manage.”
She tried giving him a thousand instructions—If you put them down on the grass, you need to watch them all the time or they’ll eat the dirt—but he merely waved at her, then disappeared around the corner of the house with the double pushchair. For a moment, Lottie was tempted to run after him and scream for her babies, so she sat on her bed, put her head between her knees, and gulped down several deep, calming breaths.
This was what you wanted.
Eiric was their uncle, and he was so good with them. They’d be fine, and she could complete her errand so much faster than if she had both twins with her.
The thought spurred her into action. Within minutes, she changed into respectable clothes, combed her hair, and despaired over the state of her kitchen. Then she was out the door and power-walking toward the clinic. The sun warmed her, so she turned her face to it and just enjoyed her moment of solitude. Her life was sorting itself out, finally, and summer was coming even to Norway, which meant holidays and more time to spend with her kiddos.
And maybe Eiric.
She tried not to think of him too much, but he was incredible. He showed up when she needed him the most, and took charge of the situation. It was dangerous, letting a man she knew almost nothing about fill such a big role in her life, but damn, it felt good to have someone to lean on. And she couldn’t help but notice how his gaze lingered on her sometimes, how he listened to her when she talked. If he was anyone other than her dead ex’s younger brother, and if she didn’t have two babies to worry about, she might have asked him out.Fine, she absolutely would have asked him out by now.
But things were already awkward enough as they were, so she didn’t want to complicate everything by throwing herself at Eiric. And if the thought of losing him had her heart constricting with a twinge of pain, she pushed the sensation deep down, out of her mind.
Her visit to the doctor’s office was short, and she picked up the pharmacy bag she’d left in her locker. Then she was on her way back to the house, already anticipating the morning outside with her kiddos if Elise remained in a good mood. Maybe Eiric would join them for an impromptu picnic lunch.
As she arrived at Mrs. Enstad’s house, however, she realized she had no idea where Eiric might have taken the twins. They hadn’t agreed on any plans, and he’d simply strolled away with them, going god knew where.
Without a phone.
Familiar claws of fear clenched around her heart—this was how she felt every time her babies were away from her, regardless of how well she knew their current babysitter. But now, she had no way of contacting Eiric.
“Stupid, stupid,” she muttered to herself and hurried down the road where she’d last seen him heading.
No matter how much time he’d spent with her little family, Eiric was an unknown man, and she shouldn’t have trusted him, shouldn’t have…
He stood on the shore, his back turned to her, one baby propped on each hip. The clumsy stroller was parked higher up on the beach, abandoned because it couldn’t navigate the rocky ground. The sea was restless despite the clear day, and wind whipped the waves into frothy peaks.
Lottie approached them, silent, and stopped several steps away from Eiric.
He sang in a clear, deep voice, a Norwegian tune with a mournful, lilting melody that seemed too old for this world. The breeze swallowed his words, but Lottie caught something about dragons and the sea. She couldn’t see his face, nor the twins’ expressions, but they remained completely silent and still, staring out over the water.