Unavoidable Confrontations: Day 14

Word Count: 84,153

Summary of Events:

Madeleine asked Erik to tell her what Kaira looked like, and got upset when he told her that he wasn't going to do it, lest he fuel her obsession. Axel finally screwed up the courage to message Amalie over social media, although he felt the message was highly awkward. Madeleine came to the decision that if Erik wasn't going to tell her what Kaira looked like she'd walk down to the farm and find out for herself. Axel was waiting for the grain to be unloaded out of his truck when a very beautiful woman, but one he could tell was married, approached him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“May I speak to Mr. Kjeldsen?” she asked, a subtle different accent to her voice than he’d ever heard before, but still struck him as familiar.

Quickly Axel discarded and crushed out his cigarette, it had been almost done anyways. “Um, well, you are.”

She startled and looked him over somewhat suspiciously, he thought he saw her gaze linger on Muninn for a moment.

“You are?” she asked.

“Axel Kjeldsen,” he replied.

“Oh,” she said.

“You were wanting Uncle Morten,” he said.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“And you are?” he asked.

“Madeleine Patriksson,” she replied quietly.

Axel hoped the small explosion inside his brain didn’t cause any smoke to come out of his ears. This was Erik’s wife? He actually felt jealous. She was about the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life, even prettier than Amalie.

As the smoke dissipated from the mental explosion, though, it revealed one of his newest little memories, fresh from that morning.

He’d videoed a portion of the milking — which had included one of the cows getting upset that two people were hovering so close to her and deliberately stepping back onto Kaira’s foot, which had incited an angry outburst from the offended woman that Erik had quelled — and Erik had noticed.

Erik had enquired why he was taking the video and he’d explained that Kaira’s closeness to him was unsafe, which had surprised Erik, who’d said Kaira had told him it was just her method.

Axel had elected to show him the video and Erik had been appalled and mortified, and it was his comment that emerged from the smoke in Axel’s brain now: “Maybe Madeleine does have a reason for being so mad at me.”

“Would you come with me Mrs. Patriksson?” Axel asked — even if it felt odd to call a woman who looked so beautiful, and young, Mrs.

She nodded, although she looked a little puzzled, and Axel turned, leading the way under the auger.

“But you’re almost empty,” Axel stopped and turned to look at the two men who were unloading his truck.

“How almost?” Axel asked.

The grain flow out of his trailer answered the question, dropping the last couple dozen kernels into the auger.

“That almost.”

“I’ll move then,” Axel said. “Mrs. Patriksson wait, over there, close to the bin.”

Mrs. Patriksson nodded obediently and Axel hurried to move his truck enough out of the way that another truck could come unload, then he hurried back to Mrs. Patriksson, who was standing quite close to the bin quietly.

“Come with me,” Axel said.

Obediently Mrs. Patriksson started toward Axel and he set off toward the barn; the vet had been called on account of concerning behaviour in one of the pregnant cows and if Axel wasn’t mistaken Kaira was helping him and Mr. Duncan. He hoped she was.