“Daniel, I’m sorry. I know this is incredibly rude of me...”
“I don’t know that there is etiquette regarding dealing with a husband back from the dead.”
Max gave the guy some credit. He was smooth. Freshly shaven, expensive suit. He looked and acted like money. No doubt a fish out of water in Hartsville, Nebraska. Still, he’d come to the sticks for Eleanor, which showed she meant something to him.
Daniel was a man in pursuit of Max’s wife.
It was something Max simply could not stand for.
“I need some time alone with Max. I don’t want you to feel like I’m ignoring you...”
“But of course you need to ignore me right now. You and Max obviously have things to work out. I understand completely. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll head back to Denver tonight rather than stay at the B and B.”
“So late?”
“It’s only after nine, and with no traffic I should be home in three hours.”
She nodded. “You’ll text me to let me know you arrived home safely.”
Daniel flashed a smile in Max’s direction. “See how she cares about me?”
Max prevented himself from tackling the asshole, deciding violence wouldn’t get him anywhere. Certainly not with Eleanor.
“I do,” Max answered. “But wouldn’t anyone, given they were asking you to leave in the first place?”
Another shut-it look from Nor. Max wanted to tilt his head back and shout to the world. For years he’d been lost, for weeks he’d been devastated by the knowledge of his parents’ death. But now, finally, things were starting to make sense. Eleanor was telling him to shut his mouth with the power of a look.
He was here. With Nor. And regardless of Daniel and whatever it was they had between them, Max was still legally her husband. His plan was to hold on to that, if nothing else, with both hands.
Daniel flashed another smile, then very deliberately kissed Eleanor on the cheek. “Good night, my dear. You’ll pass on my regrets to your mother and tell her I hope to see her at the wedding?”
“Of course.”
Douchebag, Max thought. But he supposed he had to feel some sympathy for the guy. If the situation were reversed, he would also fight like hell to keep a woman like Eleanor.
Daniel left, and Max waited until the door was closed.
“He’ll see her at the wedding? Didn’t they just get engaged? And the wedding’s not for a while? Pretty ballsy move if you ask me.”
“Yes, well...I don’t want to talk about Daniel.”
“That’s unfortunate because I do want to talk about him. He says you two have a burgeoning relationship. Can you quantify what that means?”
Eleanor opened her mouth, then snapped it closed. “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“None of my business? My wife is dating someone and that’s none of my business?”
“Oh, please, Max. Let’s not pretend here. I’m glad you are alive... I’m, well, the truth is, in a way I feel sort of redeemed because I never truly believed you were dead. I thought I would feel differently if you were dead...and I didn’t...but then I had to accept it. So I did. But just because you are back doesn’t mean anything has changed between us.”
“You’re right about that,” he said.
She nodded. “Good. It’s important that we are on the same page here.”
“I agree. Can I eat?” He pointed to the plate of food.
“Sure. Sorry. I know you said you were hungry. You’ve obviously lost weight.”
He smiled at that. “I’ve been back in the States for a few weeks, Nor. It’s not like I haven’t eaten since being rescued.”
“I asked you not to call me that.”
Max sat on the sofa. He set his drink down and picked up the plate of food. Steak tenderloin, mashed potatoes, a corn cake—Marilyn’s special recipe. And some broccoli, which Nor knew he wouldn’t eat, but she put it on his plate because she thought it was important he eat more vegetables.
“Looks good. All my favorites. You remembered.”
“Don’t,” she warned him. “Don’t try to read anything into that. It’s food.”
Max held up his hands as if in surrender, then reached for the corn cake and took a bite. Savoring the flavors in this mouth.
“God, that’s good. You can’t know what it’s like to eat nothing but fish for years.”
Cautiously, like she was in the room with a caged beast, she sat in the chair across from him.
“I guess it’s time you told me your long story.”
* * *
ELEANOR ALMOST DIDN’T want to hear his story. It seemed like it would make her too invested in him again. It would be better to simply to tell him to leave now. They could handle everything—the divorce, his parents’ affairs—all by mail, then that would be the end of their story.
Nothing so dramatic as a lost ship, a story of survival and returning from the dead.
But she supposed she had to know.
He shrugged after eating the last of her mother’s famous corn cake, literally licking the crumbs off his fingers.
“We ran into a storm. Not sure why the captain didn’t have more notice. But it was a bad one. Waves coming over the bow, we just took on too much water. The ship was going down. We took to the life rafts with not much hope. I broke my leg in the effort. The pain was... I don’t like to think about it. We drifted for days. The two crewmen with me died. I thought I was going to, as well. I don’t know if I passed out or slept. The next thing I knew, I was on a fishing boat and someone was giving me water. We landed on a small island off the coast of Iceland. Completely isolated from any kind of civilization. The best I can equate it to would be like an Amish community here in the States.
“A small village, not more than a few hundred people. Living off the land. Good people, but they spoke a Nordic language I didn’t understand. They had absolutely no English. My femur was broken. Their version of a doctor set it, but I couldn’t put any pressure on it for months. Then I was sick with pneumonia. I didn’t think I was going to survive that either without antibiotics. I pulled through it eventually with their natural treatments. It was months before I could walk, months after that to get my strength back. Then it was just a matter of waiting for a commercial fishing boat to pass by, one with the ability to communicate to the people of the village and me to explain I needed to get on it somehow. There were months I thought I would be stuck there for the rest of my life. I fished with them. I ate with them. Then, finally, a commercial fishing boat appeared. I was able to talk to the captain, convince him I needed to leave. The crew sailed me out to the ship, and eventually I made my way to Iceland.”
That was also typical Max, she thought. She’d counted no less than three near-death experiences, but he brushed over all of that like they were just facts in some other person’s story. As if none of it touched him.
“And when you got back to Iceland?”
“It was difficult. I wasn’t...used to people. It took me time to assimilate again. Eventually, I made my way to the U.S. consulate. Told them who I was and what happened. They reached out to the university to tell them I was alive. I kept trying to call my parents... It wasn’t until I got to the States that I learned what happened. Someone from the university met me at the airport. Told me about the accident. Told me what you had done for them. Now here I