Travelling Light

As the silence stretched out, she realised something else. Her survey of his external features could almost have been a defence mechanism. What she was striving to ignore was an intense and potentially devastating masculinity, focused at the moment entirely on her. To say he was attractive was to use that word only too literally.

She pulled her hand free. ‘I...thank you for coming to my rescue.’

In disconcerting contrast to the stormy eyes, his face was expressionless. He said, ‘I think you were managing just fine without me.’

He spoke English with almost no accent. ‘I—I thought they were coming after me,’ Kristine stammered, and realised dimly that she was still trembling.

‘Who were they?’

‘They were after my purse. They were dressed as clowns.’ She grimaced. ‘It was horrible, like a bad dream.’

‘I would gather you’re a visitor here—don’t you know enough not to wander around alone at night? Even though Oslo has a low crime rate compared to most European cities, pickpockets and drug addicts are everywhere.’

Some of the turbulence in his eyes was anger, she realised belatedly, although it was an anger held in check and completely under his control. Yet because of his intervention he deserved an honest reply. ‘I’m not normally so careless,’ she confessed. ‘It was stupid of me.’

‘More than stupid. Criminally negligent...you’re a very attractive young woman; it’s entirely possible they wouldn’t have stopped at theft.’

Kristine lifted her chin. ‘Yet you yourself have just admitted that I got away from them on my own.’

‘So you are high-spirited,’ he said slowly. ‘Besides being very foolish.’

‘I’m not usually foolish!’

‘Then why were you tonight?’ he demanded.

‘That’s scarcely your business,’ she fumed, clenching her fists at her sides. As she did so, the cold metal of her Swiss army knife bit into her palm, and in sudden horror she remembered how she had dragged it down her rescuer’s arm. She reached out and took him by the wrist, saying in consternation, ‘I must have hurt you—let me see your arm.’

His shirt-sleeves were rolled up. From his elbow halfway to the base of his thumb there was a long jagged gouge in his flesh, blood seeping from either side of it. She cried incoherently, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, or at least I did because I thought you were one of them, and then of course you weren’t...’

Her fingers were slender, and bare of rings. He said, a note in his voice she could not have placed, ‘Did you do the same to them?’

She looked up, sudden mischief lighting her face and driving away the last remnants of fear. ‘I was also carrying a pair of nail scissors,’ she said. ‘I used them to very good effect.’

He gave a reluctant laugh, his gaze trained on her face. ‘Do you carry a first-aid kit, too? To minister to the trail of wounded in your wake?’

He was breathtaking when he laughed. Unconsciously Kristine’s fingers tightened around his wrist. Under her thumb she felt the heat of his flesh, under her fingertips a supple shift of bone and tendon—intricate and indelible impressions as ruthless in their way as the anger in his steel-blue eyes had been.

She let his arm fall to his side and heard herself say, ‘The apartment where I’m staying is only five minutes from here and I do keep a first-aid kit there. Will you let me wash that cut and put some antibiotic cream on it? It’s the least I can do by way of reparation.’

One by one her words repeated themselves in her head. You’re crazy, Kristine, she thought. You should be running away from this man much faster than you ran from the clowns.

With a formal inclination of his head he said, ‘Thank you... My name, by the way, is Lars Bronstad.’

‘Kristine Kleiven.’

‘A Norwegian name, surely?’

‘I was born here,’ she said crisply. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Yet you speak no Norwegian?’

She did not want to tell anyone, let alone this handsome and disturbing stranger, the story of her upbringing. ‘I’ve lived in Canada ever since I was two,’ she said repressively. ‘Do you live in Oslo, Mr Bronstad?’

‘High-spirited, foolish, and a woman of secrets,’ he said, setting off down the street at her side.

‘Everyone has secrets!’

There was an answering grimness in his tone. ‘True enough.’

She did not ask what his secrets were. ‘So do you live in Oslo?’ she persisted.

‘On my grandmother’s estate, north of the city. Asgard, it’s called—my great-grandfather had more than his share of self-esteem.’

Her brow wrinkled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

‘Asgard is the old name for the home of the gods.’

She chuckled. ‘And they didn’t call you Thor?’

‘Thor was full of brute strength and not very bright—not exactly a compliment, Miss Kleiven.’

‘Kristine, please.’

‘And I am Lars. Are you staying long in Oslo?’

‘I’m not sure what my plans are,’ she said evasively. ‘But while I’m here I have the use of my cousin Harald’s apartment; I’m very lucky.’

They talked about the high prices of accommodation and food until they came to the elegant stone building where Harald had a fourth-floor flat. Kristine unlocked the security door and together they climbed the stairs. Now that she was here with Lars Bronstad, she was regretting her hasty invitation; Oslo seemed to be having a most peculiar effect on her, for it was not characteristic of her to invite a strange man to her room. Particularly a man as compelling as Lars. She hesitated outside the door, and said clumsily and untruthfully, ‘My cousin will be home later.’

Lars said drily, ‘You can leave the door open into the hallway if that will make you feel safer.’

As she glanced back over her shoulder at him, the light fell strongly across the curve of her cheek. Anger hardening his voice, Lars demanded, ‘Did the men hit you?’ Then with one finger he traced the reddening weal on her skin.

His lashes were darker than his hair, and his eyes had an intensity that disturbed her. ‘It’s nothing—a tree branch when I was running away from them.’

‘I’ll put some ice on it for you.’

She turned away, unlocked the door and ushered him in, flipping on the light-switch. Then she let the door close behind them; she already sensed that her safety where Lars Bronstad was concerned had nothing to do with an open door.

Although Kristine had yet to meet her cousin Harald, she knew quite a bit about him from the contrasts in his six rooms. Because the flat with its high ceilings and oak floors was clearly expensive, and because he had several exquisite antiques, she was certain he had money. That he was untidy and did not believe in housework was self-evident. He also skied, played tennis, drank beer, and, judging by the delicious lace négligé hanging on the back of the bathroom door, had at least one girlfriend of equally extravagant tastes.

But Lars Bronstad quite effortlessly dominated Harald’s large living-room. He too looked expensive, she thought, noting his tailored summer trousers, well-fitting open-necked shirt, and crafted leather loafers. He did not look at all like Andreas, Bill or Philippe, young men with whom she had teamed up at various stages of her travels. It was not just that he was older, or that something in his bearing seemed to define the word masculine. There was something seasoned about him as well, as though his life had led him down some rough roads and the scars of travel were still visible. She said politely, ‘May I offer you a cold beer?’

He was examining the painting over the marble fireplace. ‘Thanks...your cousin has good taste.’

In the kitchen she poured the beer into sterling-silver mugs. Then she fetched her first-aid kit from the guest bedroom and said, using his name for the first time, ‘Lars, if you’ll come into the bathroom I’ll wash your cut.’

She was standing in the doorway. He said abruptly, ‘You look tired...did you just arrive in Norway today?’ She nodded. ‘And you haven’t been here since you were a little girl?’