Page 99 of The Winter Princess

Impossible Shot

FREJA

Freddie tools the Mercedes through the heart of Handsel, and I peer up at the winter sky, keeping the ugly cry at bay. The snow is holding off, but the wind has picked up, rattling the windows. By this evening, we will be cloaked in snow, each household closed tightly against the storm.

My heart sinks when I enter the gallery. There are few visitors on Christmas Eve, and my presence is unnoticed as I skip up the administrative steps. The paper temperature gauge mocks me. Twenty-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven visitors until our goal.

I put my head around the director’s door. “Did the prime minister call?” I ask.

Marie, sitting at her desk, runs her ringed hands through her short crop of hair and looks up. “Yes. We’ll meet at the end of the day to vote.”

Not the answer I want to hear.

“So soon? Hold on to him until January. Surely—”

“The terms were crystal clear. With no fanfare, we are to push him out today—”

“Christmas Eve?”

“If we do it today,” Marie repeats, “we move forward unscathed. If not—” She makes a face and exhales a great breath. “Can you believe I voted for thatvailys? His office called. It wasn’t even him but one of those chinless weasels he employs. He didn’t even have the courage to knife Oskar in the back himself.”

My mind replays the heated exchanges in our staff meetings. “Oskar will lose if you put it to a vote.”

Marie lifts her shoulder. “Erik was ferocious when he heard. Said we’d be”—her fingers make air quotes—“‘banana-crackers insane’ to get rid of ‘the best thing that’s happened to Sondmark since the invention of plastic interlocking bricks.’”

As bad as things are, I smile. Erik is an unexpected treasure.

“Will Oskar make his case before the board?”

She shakes her head. “He’s packing up.”

I make a noise at the back of my throat and race out of the office and across the gallery, running so fast I almost fall through the door of the restoration studio. I skid to a stop to find Oskar filling a cardboard box with brushes and papers, each laid out meticulously on a worktable. His hand stills, and he holds my gaze. We were supposed to pick up where we left off on Saturday night, looking at each other past the turned figure of Uncle Timo.

He glances down, runs a tapping hand along a row of brushes, and crouches in front of a drawer, digging out a tool.

No. I can fix this. My heart is so high I can feel it pounding in my brain.

He straightens and I’m reminded of that first time I came here, hating him, hardly willing to acknowledge an attraction to a man I was certain would eat me alive if he got the chance. I liked his looks, against my better judgment. That’s all I would admit. I like every part of him now.

His thumb flicks the bristles of the brush back and forth and then he sets it down with a snap, bracing his arms on two tables, bridging them.

“It’s been good working with you,” he says. Is this the opening line of a final goodbye? He lifts his head, half-smiling, eyes tracing the perimeter of the ceiling.

I’m too upset for politeness. “Do you think I made that deal with Torbald?”

His eyes travel over me–artist’s eyes. He’s seen every side of me in the last months. Can he see that I would never do this?

“No,” he says, quiet, firm. “You wouldn’t trade me.”

Though the wind is whipping the trees beyond the window, within we are still.

I slot between the narrow channel of his worktables, relief squeezing out of me like glue from a canvas. I wouldn’t trade him—not for all the art in Europe. Not for a thousand exhibits. Not for my mother’s supporting hand.

“Never.”

Though he says he knew it, he’s pleased by my answer, his lower lip tightening a fraction.

“I’ll have to take a raincheck for that date,” he says.