Sam assembled a dirty martini for Gina, her head thumping with dull pain in time to the Tom Petty song blaring over the chatter in the bar. She’d had the headache ever since she’d opened her mail and it hadn’t responded to either a hot shower or painkillers.
Gina looked up from the letter from Kristine Toft, her eyebrows drawn together. “I don’t get it.”
“It has to be a mistake, that’s the only explanation that makes sense.” Sam set the glass down in front of her friend, who was leafing through the rest of the paperwork, none of which was in English.
“I can’t read this stuff.”
“Neither can I. My grandparents only taught me minimal Norwegian. I can say stuff like I love you and thank you, but that’s about it.”
Gina tapped her finger on her teeth, thinking. “Could it be a scam? Like, you’re going to have to fork something over to get the farm but then the farm’s not a farm but a fraud?”
Sam chewed her lip, thinking. “I don’t think a Norwegian lawyer is about to turn into a fictional Nigerian prince. I mean, they’re not asking for money. Besides, I’m a lousy target. I’m not exactly rolling in pennies, let alone dollars.”
“What are you going to do?” Gina sipped her drink, her eyes large and dark over the rim of the glass.
Sam rubbed her gritty eyes. “I have no idea. I’d ask my aunt Kari if she has any idea what’s going on, but she’s on a cruise. She’ll be out of the country for another few days and she made it clear to me before she left that she was going to turn her phone off and leave it off while she was gone.”
Gina re-folded the documents and slid them back into the envelope. “If it’s a mistake, how did this lawyer from another country happen to land on you as the person who is supposed to inherit this farm? And what does this farm produce? Are you supposed to move to Norway and…till fields now? Raise turnips or cows or something?”
Sam took the envelope. “I don’t know. I got a letter a while back asking me to confirm my identity, but I thought it was a mistake. I don’t know what any of this means or how a Norwegian lawyer got my name or address or anything.” She pressed a clenched fist to the surface of the bar. “I just know that my grandfather was Nils Halvorsen, not some guy named Einar Johannasen. I don’t know what…” She pulled the papers out and looked at them for what felt like the thousandth time in the last few hours. “…Åsetesrett means. Bestemor never mentioned a farm, never said I might inherit property in Norway. Literally none of this makes any sense.” Sam heard her own voice climb to a ridiculous pitch and she clamped her palm over her mouth.
A raised hand down the bar recalled her to her duties and she blinked and moved to fill an order, stuffing the papers into the envelope and shoving it into the back pocket of her jeans. The next few minutes she lost herself in the rhythm of taking and filling orders until she ended up in front of Gina again, who had alternated between sipping her cocktail and consulting her phone.
“Here,” Gina said, handing her phone to Sam. “Åsetesrett according to Wikipedia.”
Sam looked at the entry. Phrases like When the farmer dies, only lineal descendants have inheritance rights to agricultural property and If the father left no son, his eldest surviving daughter inherited flowed through her eyes and into her brain without leaving any impression.
“This makes no sense either.” Sam handed the phone back to Gina.
“It seems that someone thinks you’re the granddaughter of this…what was his name?”
“Einar. Einar Johannasen.” The name pushed out of her almost against her will. It had taken root in her brain and kept floating into her consciousness like a song she couldn’t drive out of her head. “I don’t know who this guy was. But he wasn’t my grandfather. I knew my grandfather. His name was Nils Halvorsen.” Her teeth clamped together hard enough to hurt.
“Are you sure your grandmother wasn’t married before?” Gina fished an olive out of her drink and bit it in half.
Sam shook her head. “Not possible. She and my grandfather were three hundred percent in love with each other. Besides, she was eighteen when she had my dad. When did she have time?”
Gina’s eyes softened with sympathy. “Sweetie. People in love can have pasts too.”
“I would have known. She would have told me.” She would have…wouldn’t she? The idea that there might be secrets buried under her family tree left Sam unsettled and nervous.
Gina took a deep breath. “What are you going to do now? Contact the lawyer?”
“I think I need some more information before I do that. I need to be sure of…well, something.”
And suddenly, Sam thought she knew just who might be able to help.
“And where did that faraway look come from, young lady?” Gina pointed at Sam’s face, her eyes shining.
Sam bit her lip. “Oh. Just. Graham.”
Gina leaned forward so abruptly, some of the martini sloshed out of her glass. “Girl, are you doing the dirty with the intense librarian?”
“He’s not so intense when you get to know him… Or. Well. It’s different. He’s different.” Sam’s face was so hot she was sure she could have hired out as a space heater. She grabbed a rag and wiped at the spilled gin on the bar.
“Oh, was I right about getting all that intensity pointed at you? Zap?”
Sam nodded, some of the morning’s bright joy beating back the confusion and anxiety that had accompanied the lawyer’s letter.
“Yeah. Zap.”
Monday morning seemed determined to wipe out any lingering happiness or satisfaction that Graham had taken away from his weekend with Sam. Honey made one of his sneakers into a chew toy. He was out of coffee. On the drive in to work, his car started emitting an irritating buzz that he couldn’t find the source of.
Worst of all, Dorinda launched into another peevish monologue, this one during his weekly staff meeting, implying that the acquisitions librarian and the electronic resources librarian weren’t doing their jobs adequately. The meeting hadn’t quite devolved into an all-out war, but Graham saw dreary weeks of passive-aggressive sniping among his staff in his future.
A knock on the doorframe of his office made him want to bite out, “Not now.” Instead, he forced a smile and looked up to see what the latest disaster was going to be.
Sam. Looking uncertain and hollow-eyed. He was on his feet and across the room almost before he knew what he was doing, his arms reaching towards her until he remembered where he was.
“What’s wrong?”
Her brows pinched together. “I look that bad?”
He resisted the urge to cup her cheek in his palm. Instead, he looked out into the hallway for anyone who might witness this scene, closed the door, settled his hands on her waist. “You’re beautiful, same as always. But you look like you’ve gotten some terrible news and haven’t slept very well.”
She rubbed her forehead. “I haven’t slept much, it’s true. Whether or not I got terrible news…I don’t know.” Shrugging her backpack off her shoulder, she unzipped it and removed a thick envelope. “This came in the mail. I got it after you dropped me off yesterday.”
Puzzled, Graham pulled the sheaf of papers out and read the letter on top. He frowned. “So you inherited property. Why is this bad news?”
She pointed to the letter. “That’s not my grandfather. This woman is saying that my paternal grandfather was some guy named Einar Johannasen. But it’s not true.” There was an edge to her voice.
He scanned her face, baffled. “You’ve inherited a farm by mistake?”
She chewed her lower lip. “I don’t know. That’s what I thought at first. But I spent half the night with Google Translate and pieced together some sense of the deed.” She pulled the letter off the pile of documents and pointed at a word amid the unintelligible Norwegian on a document still in his hand. “The farm is in Undredal. That’s my grandmother’s hometown. According to her it was pretty tiny. There’s too much coincidence. I need to find out more.”
“Can you ask your aunt?”
“My aunt is out of town, traveling. And besides, if she does know something about this and never told me…I need to know what’s going on. If this could possibly be true. I need some sort of objective facts before I talk to her.”
He looked into those deep blue eyes, so bright when he dropped her off yesterday, now ringed with fatigue. He remembered all the times she had told him about how she was raised. How she was defined by the expectations placed on her and how that tied into her family.
How would it feel, to go from that kind of certainty to wondering if she really was who she thought she was? And how alone must she feel if she wasn’t sure if she could trust her only living relative?
He kicked into professional researcher mode, thinking about the resources he had at his disposal. “There are genealogical databases, marriage records, that kind of thing. My colleague, Nicole, is really good at it.”
She gave a frustrated wave of her hand. “I don’t know the first thing about those sorts of things. I was never interested in my family tree before—I thought I already knew.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I know how to look for stuff, remember?”
Her posture sagged a little with relief. “That’s exactly why I came to you. Can you help me try to figure this out? Can you teach me how to fish this time?”
He squeezed the shoulder under his hand. “Sure. I can do that. Are you working tonight?”
She shook her head.
“Then come to my house. We’ll figure it out together.”
She surprised him by leaning into him, her arms wrapping around his waist. “Can I bring an overnight bag?”
Something bright and hot bloomed in Graham’s chest and he brought his arms around her, hugging her tight. “Of course.”