She smiled at the brothers. “Order done. I hope you’re hungry because I ordered soup to start and they have apple crumble for dessert. My favorite.”
“Fiona, mine, I’d prefer you for dessert.”
She beamed at Arve. “What if you could have both?”
It was a fun meal, full of teasing and laughter. They also discussed the plan for the upcoming days.
“I guess it would be easier to fly back to Winnipeg and catch a connecting flight to get home to Fort Lauderdale,” she said.
“You could always stay,” Stig suggested.
His brothers agreed with emphatic nods.
“Didn’t you say you’d decided to work from home?” Leif asked. “Is there any reason you couldn’t stay with us and work from here?”
“You want me to stay?” Her heart beat a little faster, her gaze taking in their earnest faces. Surely this was an interlude for all of them, a brief time out of reality to enjoy the experiences she’d never had because she’d cared for her mother and then she’d hooked up with Robert.
Arve reached for her hand. “Live with us. Be our mate, Fiona, mine.”
“All of you?” she asked in a faint voice. She glanced around the café and lowered her voice. “I thought you wanted a short-term fling.”
The brothers shared a glance before turning their focus on her.
“It’s not a fling for us.” Leif reached for her hands. “I love you, Fiona. I can’t speak for my brothers, but I suspect they feel the same as me. We want you to stay and be our mate.”
“What about the gossip?” she asked. Because the locals would speculate about their living arrangements.
Kirk shrugged. “They gossip about us now. Nothing would change for us apart from the fact we’d have your delightful company.”
She frowned. “I’d need to think about it.”
“That’s all we ask,” Josef said, serious for once. “We’d never want to force you into something against your wishes, but a relationship with you would work well for us. We’ve been happier and less argumentative with you around. Your skills complement ours. Sometimes we’ll be away, but you’d always have one or two of us, at least, to warm your cold feet.”
“Children?” she asked in a faint voice.
“We’re brothers,” Stig answered. “Any child we had would be loved and valued. It wouldn’t matter who the biological father was, the child or children would belong to all of us. Right, Leif?”
Leif swallowed hard, his eyes darker than normal.
“Leif?” Arve prompted.
“I, yes,” Leif said with a harsh expel of air. “A long time ago I fell for a local woman. She became pregnant, and I—we—were so happy. The birth—there were difficulties.”
“You didn’t want to hear, Leif, because you were heartbroken at losing Mia and the child, but it was plain bad luck. These days, we have more medical help available. We have a hospital. You shouldn’t worry or let that stop you from moving forward. Besides, Fiona will decide on the issue of children. She will have the last say,” Stig said.
“You are smart, young brother.” Arve turned to Leif. “Runt is the wise one among us. He suggested the ice road and setting up a business.”
“He saw Fiona first,” Kirk added. “Okay, he saw her seconds after me.”
“My point,” Arve said. “Runt brings us luck and good fortune. We would be mad to ignore his suggestions.”
“Well,” Fiona said as she consumed her last bite of apple crumble. She set her spoon down with a happy sigh. “I guess that means I’ll think about it a little harder.”
“I’ll give you hard,” Josef said with a suggestive wink.
“Really?” Leif growled. “In public. You want the locals to overhear? Their ears are flapping hard enough now.”
Fiona scanned the occupants of the café. “We should go. There are customers waiting for a table.” As she spoke, the dark-haired man stood and left, a cell phone plastered to his ear.
