Astra was tempted to ask her mother then if it would matter if he wasn’t a Viking or demigod. And if she would promise not to give him too much shit and run him off when the time came to meet him. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them back.
“Thanks, Mom,” she finally said.
Her mother nodded and disappeared down the hall, leaving Astra staring at the open door behind her.
ChapterTwelve
Rune wasn’t nervous. He absolutely wasn’t.
A little anxious, maybe. But not nervous.
So, what if he was meeting Astra’s sister and her wife? And it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t a family dinner or anything, it was a consultation. For interior decorating.
He paced the floor in his office, fidgeting with the pen in his hand. Finally, he stopped.
He stopped walking. Stopped pretending he wasn’t nervous. Just stopped.
He’d never gotten serious with anyone, but he knew what this meant.
Astra was ready to take things to the next level.
Now,thatwas the only thought that didn’t scare him.
He tossed the pen on his desk and started to head out of the room. Then, he stopped and glanced around his office. It wasn’t messy because he wasn’t a messy guy, but there was some clutter. Magazines he hadn’t put away. Books he’d consulted for research scattered over his desk.
He knew that Astra’s sister would be examining him as closely as her sister-in-law would be examining his house. And he wanted to make a good impression to both of them because it was obvious that Astra loved them both very much.
With a sigh, he took ten minutes to straighten up his office. Then, he went through the rest of the house. He didn’t have much in the way of furniture, but he did tend to leave books, coffee mugs, and the occasional plate or sock lying around. Mostly because he forgot about them.
It took a good hour and a half, but he had the house tidied, vacuumed, and dusted. There. It was fit for company, as his mother would have said.
Of course, if she’d still been around, his house would have stayed clean. Not because she would have done it for him but because she would have come over and asked him who raised him to be such a slob.
There was a pang in his chest, a tightness that ebbed quickly, as he thought about her. She’d died a long while ago, but he still missed her every day. He looked around at the bare walls of his house and decided that one thing he would ask Astra’s sister-in-law to do was find frames for the few pictures he had of his family. They deserved to be remembered.
The doorbell rang and he set the melancholy thoughts aside.
Right now, he was going to meet Astra’s sister and her wife. Considering how sharp Astra was, he was certain he would need to be on his A-game with her sister, Devorah.
He should have gotten snacks. Everyone loved snacks.
The doorbell rang and he knew it was too late for that.
Why in the hell were his palms sweaty?
Rune wiped them on his pants and walked to the front door. He took a deep breath and opened it.
His eyes went to Astra first. She seemed happy and relaxed. And beautiful. Then, he looked at the other two women and knew which was her sister immediately. They shared the same height, build, and eyes. There was no mistaking them for anything other than family.
“Good morning,” he said. “Please come in.”
Astra herded her sister and sister-in-law into the house. “Rune Ferguson, this is my sister Devorah Falk and her wife, Claudia Deveraux.”
The other woman elbowed Astra in the side. “Falk, not Deveraux. I changed it this year, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess you realized that Devorah would follow you around, begging, if you refused to change it or left her and made it official, huh?”
This time Devorah was the one to elbow Astra, but all she did was laugh.
