"Is that right?" he asked.
She nodded, and briskly ushered him out of her office. She looked at her watch. She had meant to work for only an hour but it was almost two thirty and she hadn't eaten lunch yet. Freya had made her a tuna salad sandwich on wheat bread. Like everything Freya made it was usually delicious, but for some reason today it tasted like sand.
Oh, well. So I was wrong. He likes Caitlin. Who doesn't like Caitlin? Everyone in town liked Caitlin, who didn't take books seriously and didn't give lectures on missed library fines and proper care of manuscripts and bore people with talk about old houses and design. Caitlin didn't engender mean nicknames like "Frigid Ingrid," nor did people think she was aloof or strange for having a line of people clamoring for charms and spells. She was just a nice, normal girl, pretty if rather boring, the kind of girl whom Ingrid could never be, had never once been.
After her tasteless meal Ingrid went back to her documents, determined to give Matt Noble no more thought.
Chapter thirteen
Aftershocks
Come back here, woman," Bran growled, pulling Freya back into bed.
"I'm late for work already, stop." She laughed, trying to put her shoes on as he nuzzled her neck. His warm hands encircled her waist and she gave up, kicking off her sneakers and letting him pull her back under the covers.
She had refrained from his touch since that night by the fireplace, too shamed by her thoughts of Killian. She had faked headaches, begged off due to exhaustion. But she knew he would not be denied today. Bran was leaving again that afternoon. The separation would be brief - only a few days in Stockholm this time, for which Freya was glad. She didn't think she had it in her to be a foundation widow, and although she understood the good work he was promoting around the globe, she missed him.
He pulled off her T-shirt and kissed the valley between her br**sts, and she ran her fingers through his soft brown hair. "Don't go," she whispered, almost to herself.
Bran looked up at her worriedly. "I don't want to, believe me. I'd rather be here with you."
"I know. Don't mind me." She shook her head and looked away, toward the open window. Bran's room faced north, and she could just glimpse the dock where the boats were anchored below.
Bran sighed and leaned down to lick a pink nipple. She dutifully whimpered and clutched his hair, pulling him closer, and with her other hand she reached for him, finding him hard and ready, and guided him inside. He entered her then, and she clung to him fiercely; and as they bucked and panted together, he covered her face with kisses and she sucked on his tongue as hard as he pounded into her. But for once Freya's heart wasn't in it. Maybe it was because she was despondent that he was leaving again, or because she was trying very hard to make sure her mind did not wander off somewhere it should not, but she couldn't enjoy herself; she was just going through the motions. Killian had spoiled everything, but it wasn't Bran's fault, it was hers.
They dressed and left the house. As they were walking out the door, he stopped, almost tripping on the hallway rug. "I forgot something," he said, running back up the stairs.
"Your passport?" Freya called. She found it resting on a side table. "It's down here."
"And my ring." Bran nodded as he came back, holding up his gold crest ring and slipping it on his finger. He accepted his passport with a kiss.
"What's up with you and that ring, anyway?" she teased.
"It was Father's," he said. "It means a lot to me. It's the only thing I have left from him." Freya nodded, abashed. She knew Bran and Killian had been orphaned in their youth.
He dropped her off at work, and she was bursting with excuses and apologies when she arrived at the North Inn, knowing the Saturday-night crowd would be keeping everyone on their toes. But instead of the usual mayhem she was surprised to find the music silent and everyone crowded in front of the tiny television.
"What happened?" she asked Sal, as she stowed her purse underneath the counter. She squinted up at the screen, which showed a helicopter view of the Atlantic coast. There had been some kind of explosion, deep beneath the sea, not too far from the shore. An earthquake maybe, experts weren't sure yet, the local anchorwoman was saying. But now there were all these dead fish floating around, and some kind of silvery-gray gunk was seeping out into the water. Experts had ruled out an oil leak, as they were miles away from the nearest pipeline.
"Look at that," someone said, as the camera pulled away to show a dense mass growing in the blue-gray waters of the Atlantic. "That can't be good."
Now a scientist being interviewed on the local news was saying it was some kind of natural disaster, most likely an underground volcanic explosion that had released an oil-like toxin into the sea. He warned that the gray, tarry substance would not only threaten the surrounding wildlife and their habitat, but that it wasn't safe to fish or to eat fish or seafood of any kind that came from the North Hampton waters. Also, until further notice, no one should swim in any of the local beaches until the toxin was examined.
"Yikes," Freya said, to no one in particular, while the crowd in the bar began to murmur nervously among themselves.
"What I'm wondering is . . ." She heard a clear voice next to her, and was surprised to find Killian Gardiner sitting on a bar stool, watching the television and sipping his beer. He didn't seem to notice her either, as he only had eyes for the screen.
"You didn't finish your sentence," she prodded. It was the first time the two of them had spoken since the night of her engagement party, and she tried to keep her voice normal. She blushed to remember the other night - if he had truly seen her with Bran. And if he still thought about what had happened between them on Memorial Day.
"I'm wondering . . . how long has it been in the water?" He barely glanced at Freya as he gulped down the rest of his pint and left the bar without another word.
All weekend the disaster was all everyone in town talked about, and on Monday morning even Ingrid and her staff at the library were feeling jumpy about it. While North Hampton had its share of hurricanes, it was a lucky kind of place: no brushfires in the summer like in Malibu, no flash floods; it wasn't on a fault line. The underground earthquake and the resulting gray muck felt like an unlucky break, a jinx, a pox upon their little oasis. The library had one old television set in the back office, which they kept tuned to the news stations. They showed the grayish mass growing in the water, nearing the North Hampton shores. Whether the earthquake had kept clients away, Ingrid wasn't sure, but for once she was able to take her lunch hour outside the library. A familiar face was waiting for her when she returned.