“I’ll heat the coffee,” she said, stepping back into the hallway.
He shook his head, trying to steady himself on the bedpost. “Go tell them I was up late working on their chapel.”
Stopping in the bathroom, Annika rinsed off her face and ran a brush through her brown hair, frizzy from the damp air. There was no time to change clothes, but her work skirt and blouse were an improvement on the worn winter coat she’d been wearing the last time she saw Max.
She braided her hair as she strode across the living room and then out through the strip of trees, into the courtyard that separated their cottage from the manor home. No one was inside the car when she returned to the courtyard, but she heard male voices in the chapel. Someone was talking to Hermann.
Had Herr Dornbach come alone?
A man stepped out of the chapel, and a moment passed before she realized it was Max, his light-brown hair hidden under his hat. His eyes met hers, and even as she straightened her shoulders, her heart pounded so hard it made her chest quiver.
“Hello, Annika.”
“Hello.” She glanced at the empty car again. “Where are your parents?”
“They stayed in Vienna.”
Max was still six months shy of being old enough to obtain his driver’s license, but then again, perhaps no one cared about such things these days.
“Vati’s been detained,” she said. She could lie to Herr and Frau Dornbach, saying that he’d been working late, but she could never lie to Max no matter what her father asked of her.
“I’m not here to see your father.” He opened the back door of the vehicle. “I wanted to see you.”
Annika caught her breath, her heart feeling as if it might puncture a hole straight through her chest. She could see herself again in a beautiful gown, dancing with Max across a polished floor. “Really?”
He nodded before turning toward the backseat of his car, retrieving a small cage with a gray cat enclosed inside. “I’d like you to meet Frederica,” he said, his smile sheepish. “I was hoping you could take care of her.”
The beating of her heart plummeted as she reached for the cage, his words dissolving the foolish vision of him smiling at her as he’d done with Luzia. She would do just about anything for him, and she was fairly certain he knew this. “Of course.”
“She’s not the sort of cat that likes to stay inside.” He lowered the cage to the grass. “In a way, she reminds me of you,Kätzchen.”
“I’m not a kitten, Max.”
Frederica clawed at the door of the cage. When Max opened it, the cat scampered toward the barn.
“She won’t stay away for long,” he said, watching the cat race through the door.
Annika turned back to him. “You drove all that way to bring me a cat?”
“I have other reasons as well.”
She smiled again, brushing her hands over her skirt. Perhaps he had missed her as much as she’d missed him.
His gaze wandered to the trees that hid the caretaker’s cottage. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s—” she started, searching for her next words, but the stomping of boots on leaves interrupted them. Vati no longer looked down at Max, at least not physically, but he was twice Max’s girth, and the sneer on his face reminded Annika of a steely samlet from the lake with its many teeth.
Max held Vati’s gaze, not wavering, like he’d stepped into his father’s shoes as lord of this estate.
“I wasn’t expecting you.” Her father’s words seemed to drag along with his feet. He eyed the cage at Max’s feet but didn’t say anything. He was used to Max bringing a variety of pets with him.
“I’ve only come for the night.” Max unlocked the trunk of the car. “I have to return to school in the morning.”
“Does your father know that you’ve taken the car?” Vati asked.
“He’s much too distracted to realize either the car or his son is gone.”
Vati’s eyes narrowed. “It seems now is the time to be focused.”
