His head cocked to the side, and his eyes filled with an emotion that looked like confusion. “Why do you keep calling me by my full name?”
I froze in place for a moment before I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s something I’ve come to do in my mind as a way to deal with who you’ve become.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “I didn’t mean to say it that bluntly. I’m sorry that your full name slipped out twice.”
“Three times, actually,” he said after thinking about it for a moment. “The first time was when you told me to get out of your life.”
“I was just upset.” I noted my defensive tone even though that wasn’t my intention. “I promise not to call you that if you’ll take a bedroom.”
He lifted a brow at me. “Does that mean you’re moving in?” His spine was ramrod straight, and his body twitched as he waited for my answer.
“No, it means I’ll think about it, but there’s no sense in you spending money on something that’s unnecessary.”
His shoulders deflated, and he searched my face to see if I was kidding. I wasn’t. “You don’t want to move in? I bought the house for you. It means nothing to me if you’re not in it.”
“I need some time, Mathias. I need to see your plans, decide if I’m even capable of doing what you want me to do, and to sort out my feelings about how this would change our lives.”
“It will change it for the better, Honey. If you give it a chance, I promise you it will.” He took my hand in his and held it loosely. As far as being capable, you got a degree while running my business full-time. That tells me more than anything else could. It might take you longer to process things, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable.”
“I know, I just mean that I need time to consider all of this before I jump in with both feet. I think that’s a fair thing to ask considering what happened just two days ago. My heart is already exhausted from the pain of working with you every day. I don’t know if I can live here with you too.”
His lips pulled together in a contrite grimace. “That’s fair. I deserve your distrust. I have to prove to you that I’ve changed.”
“Buying local businesses is a start, but not if you’re doing it just to manipulate me into continuing to work for you.”
“No,” he said instantly, his head shaking. “No, workingwithme. The difference between those two words must be understood. Let me be clear: I know you’ve always workedforme, but with these businesses, you’re workingwithme.”
“That’s nothing but talk until you prove it, Mathias.”
“I know,” he agreed, bobbing his head up and down. “Can I ask you for a favor?”
Here we go, I thought, but sighed and nodded. “Sure. What do you need?”
“A hug,” he whispered. “I just need a hug from my best friend. I don’t deserve it, but I’m still going to ask for it on the off chance she’ll say yes.”
I didn’t answer, just slipped my arms around his waist and let him pull me into his arms. “I don’t hate you, Mathias. I just don’t know how to feel anymore.”
“I know, and I promise from here forward things are going to be better, Honey Blois.”
I chuckled at the use of my full name and squeezed him tighter. If there was one thing that always made me feel better, it was hugging this man. “I hope you’re right, Mathias Jørgensen. I hope you’re right.”
CHAPTER 5
Birgitte and Theo lived in a beautiful home on Lake Superior. It was gorgeous there year-round, but summer was always green, lush, and relaxing. When I first met Mathias, they lived in a modest home in the middle of the city of Superior. The park separated my neighborhood from theirs, but they were never the kind of people to look down on others. As evidenced by the fact that they still took care of me twenty years later. When Mathias turned fifteen, Theo’s business gamble paid off, and his chain of ethnic grocery stores, something this area never had before, allowed them to buy a house on the lake and escape the city. When they left, I thought for sure I was going to die of pure heartbreak from the loss of the couple I had come to love as parents, not to mention my best friend.
Being thirteen and living with my parents had been tough, but Birgitte and Theo didn’t leave me hanging. Their home had a large guest suite, and I spent most of my time with them. I stayed at the mobile home park enough to be seen, but I rarely spent more than a night or two in a row there. When I was home, I spent before and after school cleaning up after my parents, and using the money Theo would give me before I’d leave his house to buy them groceries and to pay the lot rent. They spent their money on drugs and not much else, but I didn’t want them to get kicked out of the park. I was thirteen with major health issues, and I was still more responsible than my thirtysomething parents. They never questioned where I was, how the food magically appeared in the fridge, or when I was coming home. We all liked it that way.
Mathias graduated high school and started attending the University of Duluth for finance, leaving me alone for the first time in eight years. I was in high school, where I wasn’t doing well. I begged Birgitte to let me drop out, but each time I did, she’d insist I go one more day. I realize now she’d had no control over whether I stayed in school or not. I would say it was a good thing I didn’t know back then or else I wouldn’t be where I was today. When I graduated, the only people in the stands to watch me that night were Birgitte, Theo, and Mathias. My parents were busy working their minimum-wage jobs to pay for their advanced-wage drug habits. It honestly didn’t matter a bit to me. As far as I was concerned, the people who supported me like parents should were already there.
That was ten years ago, and while Theo had wanted to pay for me to attend college, I’d refused. Part of it was pride. He had done enough to take care of me over the years. I didn’t understand at the time that he took care of me because he loved me like a daughter. I was too hung up on the guilt of what I’d cost him. Theo and Birgitte took care of me because they wanted to, but growing up with parents who made me feel guilty for everything, that hadn’t been easy for me to understand. Eventually Theo and I compromised, and he paid for me to attend the local business college.
I finished my degree as an administrative assistant, and by that time my parents were on their road to recovery. They expected me to help them with the debt from all their bad decisions, but within weeks I’d had enough of their crap. I begged Mathias to let me help him get his business off the ground, and that was how our friendship, though some might call it a codependency, had continued all these years. He’d moved me around with him like luggage—or maybe it was more like baggage—ever since.
I sighed, and he glanced over at me as he drove. “We’ll get through this. We always do.” His promise filled the quiet car. “We’re going to get you on the insurance. I already talked to Gulliver.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he held a hand up. “No arguing. I know you’ve had your own plan for years, but it barely pays for more than routine care. You have to stop being stubborn and get on a group plan that will allow you to get the care you need. Especially considering this new situation.”
I closed my mouth again, and he turned left onto the road leading to his parents’ house. We’d left Duluth thirty minutes ago after a stop at the pharmacy for new medication. When I’d called to get an appointment with the neurologist this morning, he just happened to have one open this afternoon. I knew it was Birgitte’s doing, but I took the appointment, grateful to get in before I ran out of my migraine meds. I was climbing into my car to go when Mathias pulled up in front of the diner. Word traveled fast in the Jørgensen family, and he had arrived to drive me to Duluth. It was a bit of a haul from Plentiful, over an hour, but it was summer, and the sun was shining. I could have easily driven myself, but after our exchange at the house yesterday, I didn’t want to turn him down. Now I was glad I hadn’t.
“Hey,” I said, turning to face him as he drove. “Have you heard from the Coast Guard about Milas and his boat yet?”
His lips thinned out at my question. “No, they’re still keeping an eye out for him.”
