The train smelled of burned coffee, humming and swaying as it ran over the tracks. It was quiet, with occasional soft conversations in lilting Norwegian and the faint squawk of a cartoon playing for a toddler on his father’s phone a few seats away. People read, knitted, or listened on headphones.
Graham grinned at the avid way Sam looked out the window, drinking in every yard of the passing landscape of hills, trees, rocks, lakes, and farms. “We’re really here,” she said.
“Yeah. We really are.”
“My grandmother would be so…” She looked away from the window, blinked and swallowed. Graham squeezed her hand.
“Yeah. She really would.”
The train slowed and they got up, gathering their bags. The air was cold and crisp when they stepped off, rumpled from their overnight flight and three-hour train journey.
“How are you holding up?” Graham asked, his gaze scanning Sam’s weary face as she looked for the driver they had hired to take them on the last leg.
“Good. I could kill for a shower, but it’s just another hour or so.” She looked at the station, a structure of irregular blocks of stone topped with red-painted wood. A massive mountain peak loomed in the distance.
“There he is,” Graham said, pointing to a man on the platform who was bundled against the November chill, bearing a sign that said, Halvorsen. They moved toward the man and he nodded welcome.
“Er du Samantha Halvorsen?” he asked.
“Ja.”
“Kan du Norsk?”
“Nei.” Both of them laughed.
“What did you say?” Graham asked as the man led them to a parked car and stowed their bags.
Sam giggled, as they got into the back seat, apparently loopy. “He asked if I spoke Norwegian. I said no.”
“And that was funny why?” His brain felt thick with fatigue.
“Because I understood what he asked me and answered in Norwegian.”
He smiled, too tired to laugh. “You know a lot more than you used to,” he said, thinking of the hours she had spent with a language learning program in preparation for this trip. “I think Honey is fluent by now.”
“Poor baby. I wonder how she’s doing,” Sam said, leaning against Graham’s shoulder as the car pulled out.
“Lloyd and Zoe and the kids have probably spoiled her rotten by now. Don’t worry.”
Sam couldn’t have been too worried, because her eyes were closed and he was pretty sure she was already dozing. Jet lag dragged him down with her and the next thing he knew, the driver was waking them with barely accented English. “Here we are—Undredal.”
Blinking and rubbing their eyes, they retrieved their bags, paid the driver, and went to check in. The apple-cheeked woman at the reception desk gave them a key and directed them to a cabin a few doors down. “Not a lot of tourists in Norway in November,” she commented.
“We’re intrepid,” Graham said and took Sam’s hand, winking at her.
“I’m just glad the RiverKeepers were willing to give me an extra few days off for Thanksgiving,” she said as they walked toward their cabin.
“That too.” They made their way the last few steps, let themselves into the cabin, and Sam gave a little gasp.
“We’re really right here. That’s the fjord,” she said, pointing at a picture window at the far end of the room. It let out onto a deck that seemed to hang right over the water. Mountains loomed on the far side of the inlet, creating a moody, dramatic scene in the darkening end of the short northern day.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the view. Sam’s face, shadowed as it was by fatigue, was so happy it made his heart turn over. With a fierce grin, she threw herself into his arms, hugging him with an intensity that made him jettison the careful plans he had made. “I have a question for you,” he said.
“What’s that?”
He unzipped an inner pocket in his parka and pulled out a small box. Her breath hitched as he opened it and showed her the single sapphire, the exact midnight color of her eyes, set in a thick band of platinum.
“Is that…?” Her eyes lifted from the ring, met his.
“That’s me asking you if you’ll marry me, Samantha Lisbet Halvorsen.”
She swallowed and her gaze went from his eyes to the ring to his face, then back to the ring. His heart thudded. He should have stuck to the plan. This was too impulsive, too soon. They were too tired. It was too big a decision to make under the weight of this much fatigue.
“You know how I said I used to only know a couple of phrases of Norwegian?”
“Yes.” He almost couldn’t hear himself over the thunder of his pulse.
“Let me teach you one now. Say after me. Jeg elsker deg.”
“Jeg elsker deg.”
She nodded, a small smile on her face. His pulse eased a little, but he hesitated, unsure.
“What did I just say? What did you say?”
“That’s Norwegian for, ‘I love you.’”
Relief washed through him, weakening his knees and making him dizzy. “Is that a yes?”
“I don’t know the Norwegian for, ‘This is the most perfect proposal in the history of the universe and yes, I’ll marry you.’”
“English is just fine.”
She held out her hand and he slid the ring on. He pressed his lips to hers, fatigue washed away for the moment while they kissed, the only witness to their promise the fjord and the mountains and the low sun in the darkening sky.
“Yes.”