who had a cluster of blond curls and light blue eyes, smiled at Margret. “She offered to take them to the beach for an hour so Fjola and I could meet here and have an uninterrupted visit.” Her smile encompassed Luke. “Katrin’s such a lovely person. So kind. And the children adore her, they’d do anything for her.”
Anna, he could tell, was the sort of woman who’d grown up in a small place and trusted everyone, including himself. Striving for just the right touch of lightness, he said, “Then it’s to be hoped she has children of her own someday.”
Anna chuckled. “First she has to find a husband.”
Luke’s heart jolted in his chest. “She’s a pretty woman,” he said with deliberate understatement. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“But Katrin is very choosy, too choosy for a little village like Askja.” Anna shrugged. “She is talking of leaving here. That will be our loss, but no doubt her gain.” She gave Luke another of her generous smiles. “Now, if you will excuse me…”
She went back to her conversation with her friend Fjola. Luke said, “Margret, I’ve heard that a fisherman called Erik Sigurdson takes tourists out in his boat, is that right?”
“Erik? Yes, but only on weekends. He’s too old now to do it every day, he says.” Her smile had a touch of malice. “Too fond of the rum bottle if you ask me.”
“Too bad…I’ll be gone by the weekend.”
“Jonas takes out tourists every day, the resort would have his phone number.”
“Thanks,” Luke said. “I’ll probably look him up.”
Three more women came in the door and Margret left to show them to a table. Luke stared unseeingly at the newspaper. So Katrin was neither a married woman nor a mother.
She’d lied to him.
For her own protection? Because she was afraid of him, and put him in the same category as Guy? Or because he’d been reading her correctly all along, and Katrin wanted him as badly as he wanted her?
The latter couldn’t be true. She’d been doing her level best to discourage him ever since they’d met.
His initial assessment of her as deadly dull had been way off the mark. So maybe when it came to her sexuality he was misreading her again.
Luke gazed at his torte, discovering that he’d entirely lost his appetite. However, he had the feeling Margret would take it personally if he didn’t finish every morsel on his plate. He picked up his fork, his thoughts marching on. He now knew where Katrin lived and that she was thinking of leaving Askja.
He could invite her to San Francisco.
Sure, he jeered. You’re really into rejection, Luke MacRae. She’d laugh in your face. And if by any chance she did agree, she’d turn your life upside down, you can be sure of that. Is that what you want?
No. Definitely not. His life was fine as it was.
The torte was moist with chocolate, the strawberries slightly tart. Luke began to eat, trying simultaneously to make some sense out of the latest financial predictions; but when he left the tearoom twenty minutes later, after a serious overdose of chocolate, he realized he was in a foul mood. Oh, he’d been all very clever the last couple of hours. Chief Detective MacRae in action, ferreting out the truth about the marital status of a waitress in a little fishing village in Manitoba. But what good did his new knowledge do him?
Katrin Sigurdson spelled danger. And what was a sensible tactic when face-to-face with danger? Avoid it. He wasn’t a reckless eighteen-year-old anymore, he had no bent toward self-destruction; and he’d proved himself often enough in the past, he didn’t need to do so again. Not with a blue-eyed blonde who could tear apart everything he’d so carefully constructed.
Stay away from her. That was all he needed to do.
It was so simple.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR twenty-four hours Luke did stay away from Katrin. He got back to the lodge that afternoon late for a panel discussion, which did nothing to improve his state of mind. He then set up a private consultation with the Peruvian delegates in his suite, ordering room service for dinner. Afterward, he worked far into the night, fell into an exhausted sleep, and was also late for breakfast because he’d forgotten to set his alarm.
At least he hadn’t dreamed about her. He’d been spared that.
When he took his seat in the dining room, he soon discovered it was Katrin’s day off; a young man called Stan waited on them. Again Luke drove himself hard all day. But by four-thirty he’d done everything that needed to be done, and he was in no mood to drift to the bar and exchange small talk. He decided to go for a run instead.
He jogged for the better part of an hour, watching distant purple-edged clouds move closer and closer, until they merged into a dark mass that spread all the way to the horizon. When he passed the wharf below the resort, he noticed with an edge of unease that the daysailer was gone from its mooring.
The wind had come up in the last few minutes. A south wind, he realized, his unease growing. Hadn’t Katrin said that was the most dangerous wind on the lake?
It was her day off. Wasn’t it all too likely that she’d gone sailing?
What had she said? It kept her sanity?
When he needed a break from the pressures of work, he jogged, played tennis and skied. It was the same principle.
A sudden gust whipped through his hair. Fear lending wings to his feet, Luke ran back to the lodge, changed in his room into jeans and a T-shirt, and raced for his car. First he checked the resort wharf again, but there was still no daysailer. Then he drove fast to the village wharf. Again, no slim white boat with a furled scarlet sail. By now, waves were lashing the wharf, the spray driven against the thick boards.
An old man was climbing the metal ladder from his boat to the dock. Luke strode over to him, raising his voice over the gusts of wind. “I’m looking for Katrin Sigurdson—she uses a small boat with a red sail. Do you know if she’s out on the lake?”
The old man had red-veined cheeks and bleary blue eyes. “Katrin? That’s my niece…I’m Erik Sigurdson.”
“Luke MacRae,” Luke said, shaking hands. How it must have amused Katrin to posit her disreputable uncle as her husband. He repeated urgently, “I’m worried about her, surely she wouldn’t stay out in weather like this?”
“Katrin?” The old man gave an uncouth cackle. “Too smart for that. Although she likes pushing herself, I must say. I’ve said to her more than once, you’ll go too far one day, my girl, and then what’ll—”
“Then where is she?”
“You’re in a right state, young feller,” Erik said, spitting with careless accuracy into the churning water.
Luke said tightly, “Yes, I am. So why don’t you answer the question?”
“She ain’t interested in guys from the resort. Here today and gone tomorrow, that’s what she says.”
Each word dropping like a chip of ice, Luke said, “I may be staying at the resort, but even I can tell there’s a storm brewing on the lake. No one, but no one, should be out there in this kind of wind, especially in a skimpy little daysailer. So will you for God’s sake tell me if you know where she is?”
“If she’s not home and the boat’s gone, she likely docked on the far side of the island. In the lee.”
“How do I get there?”
Erik took a square of tobacco from one pocket of his flannel shirt, a jackknife from the other, and with its viciously sharp blade cut off a chunk of tobacco. “You got designs on my niece, Mr. Luke MacRae?”
“No. But I sure don’t want her drowning