Truly, Madly Viking

by Sandra Hill

  Maggie's hormones kicked up a notch with just that wink. She pulled her car into the driveway and turned off the ignition. Only then did she tell him, "You are too good-looking for your own good, do you know that?"

  "I know," he said, and dazzled her with another of his grins. They both unbuckled their seat belts but had yet to open their car doors. Out of the blue, he stated flatly, "You want me."

  "Yep."

  "But you are going to continue restraining those base impulses?"

  "Yep."

  " 'Tis not good for the temperament to—"

  "Don't even bother with that line," she advised with a soft laugh. "It's as old as the hills, and as ineffective as a butter knife cutting an ice cube."

  "I presume I would be the knife and you the ice?"

  "Uh-huh," she replied hesitantly.

  "Ah, but sometimes the knife is hot enough to melt the ice," he announced with a sweeping gesture of one hand toward his genital area.

  "That was so bad." She wagged a finger at him reprovingly.

  "I apologize for my crudity, m'lady. I can only attribute it to an overabundance of male need."

  She laughed. "That line's as old as the hills, too: 'Testosterone made me do it.' "

  "Kiss me," he commanded, leaning closer. All humor had left his face.

  And God help her... despite the seriousness of all she needed to discuss with him, Maggie yielded to the demand. He angled his head over hers and put a hand to her throat, just where a slow pulse beat her erotic response to his nearness.

  She pressed her lips to his, and let him master her into wet, clinging compliancy. Then he forced her lips open with his thrusting tongue.

  The kiss was short... just long enough for him to prove his point: this Viking was hot.

  "You are a Viking," she accused.

  They were sitting at her kitchen table. Mag-he was sipping a cup of herb tea in a delicate porcelain cup... raspberry, he would guess by the fruity scent. He was sipping a beer, straight from the can.

  "Of course I am a Viking. Have I not been telling you such since I first landed in this godforsaken country?" Then the implications of her words sank in. "Do you now believe that I have time traveled here?"

  "Yes... no... I don't know what to believe."

  She released a long sigh. "Actually, I do accept now that you are who you claim to be. The logical side of my brain says it can't be true, but I do believe in miracles. So that's the explanation I choose to give for it."

  "You consider me a miracle?"

  "In a way."

  He laughed. "See, wench, we really should engage in bed sport. We would no doubt make miraculous love."

  She laughed, too. "While I'm thinking of it, Joe... You don't mind my calling you Joe, do you? I've referred to you that way for so long that Jorund would come hard to my tongue."

  "I rather like the idea of coming hard to your tongue."

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk," she said.

  "In any case, it matters not whether you call me Joe or Jorund."

  "What I started to say was that you really shouldn't refer to a woman as a wench. It's sexist... comparable to the word babe."

  "Babe, wench... I prefer to think of those as endearments of a sort... like heartling." If she believed that, he had a sunny beach on a northern fjord he would like to show her. "But tell me why you now believe my story, but would not afore."

  She explained... a complicated tale involving the physician who had healed him and Seafarers' Lament. It was a malady he was already familiar with: his cousin and two of his brother Rolf's sailors had died of it three years past. No doubt he'd contracted the disease from that bloody whale, Thora, who'd made him ride atop her back in the cold, disease-ridden seas.

  "Tell me about yourself," she urged all of a sudden.

  "What do you wish to know?"

  "Everything."

  "I already told you everything afore."

  "I wasn't listening closely then."

  He gave her an exaggerated glower. "There is not much to say, to my mind. I am one of four living children born to Eric Tryggvason, a high jarl of Norway, and Lady Asgar, a Christian of Saxon birth who has adopted the northern ways these many years."

  Mag-he stared at him, transfixed, her chin propped in the cup of two hands, her elbows resting on the table, her tea forgotten. "You've already mentioned your older brother Magnus, the farmer. He's the one with the big ears and an overabundance of women and children, right?"

  "The selfsame once." He missed his brother, just speaking of him. Had Magnus returned to Norway by now? Jorund hoped he had not stayed at sea searching for him.

  "And you've also talked of your younger brother, Rolf... the one you were searching for. A shipbuilder, you said. But who was the fourth sibling?"

  "My sister, Katla. She was married a dozen or more years ago, at age thirteen, to a Viking prince from Normandy. I have not seen her in many a year, though I hear that she fares well."

  "Thirteen! Your sister was married at age thirteen?"

  He shrugged. "Women wed young in my land. Their lives are not usually as long as those of women in your country. Mostly they die of childbirth fever. 'Tis the reason why my ancestors first began the practice of more danico, I warrant."

  "More danico meaning polygamy, I presume?"

  "True, but let us not argue that issue again. Suffice it to say, the countries and the times are different."

  "Tell me about your wife."

  He stiffened.

  "Did you love her hopelessly? Do you miss her still?"

  He put a hand to his chin and rubbed thoughtfully. "I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but Inga was a conniving witch. She and her brothers decided that I would make a suitable husband, based on my wealth and that of my father. So they invited me to a feast and showered me with mead. The next morn, I found myself with a big head and a naked woman in my bed... no longer a virgin. Inga, that is... not me. Soon after, I was forced to announce the wedding banns when Inga's monthly flow stopped and she was breeding."

  "Surely you can't lay all the blame on her."

  "I did then, but I mellowed toward her later. After all, most marriages are arranged in my time. And woe to the party who will not comply. I recall the time King Olaf wanted his sister, Astrid, to wed Erling Skjalgson, a man of good lineage and fine looks. But Astrid refused since Erling was not a prince, of equal station to her. The next day, so wroth was Olaf that he had Astrid's pet hawk taken from her, and he returned it to her that eventide with all the feathers plucked off. Needless to say, Astrid soon agreed to the marriage."

  Mag-he was staring at him in horror. "That's awful."

  "Nay. That is life in my land."

  "Back to your own marriage—did you ever forgive Inga?"

  "Yea. In time. She was young. I was old enough to know better. And besides, she gave me a great gift."

  "Your twin daughters," she guessed.

  "Yea, that she did." He did not want to speak of them. It was too painful. But Mag-he was like a puppy tugging on a man's boot. She would not let up. "I was there at the birthing... which is not the usual practice in my land. I saw them first, as they emerged from the womb, wrinkled and blue and more beautiful than anything I had ever seen afore, or since."

  "You loved them from the start then?"

  He nodded. For the first time in a long time, he allowed his memories to spill forth. "In many ways, Greta and Girta are similar to your twins. Girta was a daredevil, as you say in modern language... outspoken and adventuresome. Greta was the gentler soul, but willing to try anything her sister dared her to. They loved me unconditionally. I loved them madly."

  Mag-he reached out a hand and squeezed one of his. There were tears in her eyes... and his as well, he realized with mortification. Vikings were not supposed to cry. He wiped at the tears. "I let them die. For that I will be eternally guilty. 'Tis probably the reason for my punishment... being banished into another time. I am not even welcome in Valhalla."

  "Tha
t's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she said ferociously, in that husky voice he so appreciated. "Don't you dare blame yourself. Bad things happen. It's no one's fault."

  He would like to believe her. He really would. But enough of his spewing forth his confidences. "'Tis your turn. Now that you have opened a hole in my chest and let my heart hang out, tell me about yourself. What are your secrets? Why have you never married?"

  "Well, the reason I never married is because Suzy and Beth's father didn't have marriage in his plans. When I told him I was pregnant, he suggested that I abort the babies."

  "Kill them in the womb?" It was not unheard-of in his time, but a deplorable practice, nonetheless... especially to Vikings, who prized children above all else.

  "Yes. Oh, I try to be tolerant of him, but it's hard for me to look at my girls and accept that he never wanted them."

  "Perchance he would have changed his mind on seeing them birthed, as I did."

  "Maybe, but I don't think so. He had all these things he wanted to do with his life. Children—and me, for that matter—wouldn't have fit in. He wanted to become a famous, wealthy surgeon. Set a record for skydiving. Climb the highest mountains. Race cars. Scuba dive. Whatever. Always a new challenge."

  "And were you a challenge to him?"

  Her eyes went wide with surprise. "How perceptive of you! Yes, I think I was. I was a virgin when I met Judd... a twenty-one-year-old virgin. You have to understand my background to see why I was ripe for the kill. I developed earlier than most girls my age. Breasts and curves at age twelve were not welcome, believe me."

  "I like your breasts... and your curves... especially your fine arse."

  She flashed him a glare of reprimand for interrupting her... and for liking her breasts and arse, no doubt.

  "Kids can be cruel, and some boys started calling me a slut. And other girls made assumptions that, if I had the visible manifestations of a sexpot, then that's what I must be."

  A sexpot? Oh, that must be a woman who spreads her favors hither and yon. Like Rosalyn.

  "Today it would be called sexual harassment. But then, teachers and my parents just put it down to harmless teasing. Well, it wasn't harmless."

  "You never mention your parents. Where are they now?"

  "They died when I was fifteen. That didn't help, either... having no one to confide in, except the elderly aunt I went to live with. She has since died, too. The only family I have is my girls; so you can see why I am so grateful for them."

  He nodded. "Go on."

  "I got a severe throat infection when I was thirteen, which changed the tenor of my voice. A sex voice, you called it. My classmates did, too. I started wearing clothes that hid my body, and I rarely spoke, unless spoken to, but by then it was too late. I got a reputation without ever having any of the fun... not that I would have considered sex fun at that early stage. All of these repressions lasted through high school."

  "Where did you meet this Mud person?"

  "Not Mud... Judd," she corrected with a little laugh.

  "My mistake," he said, stone-faced.

  But she could tell it had been deliberate. "In college. During my senior year. Oh, he was smooth. I give him credit for one thing, though: he brought me out of my shell and made me see that my sensuality belonged to me, and no one else... that I shouldn't care what anyone else thought of my body or my voice. So I started to dress differently and act the way my personality dictated."

  "He took advantage of you," Jorund observed with disgust.

  "I suppose he did, but he did help me in some ways, too. I can't believe that I never thought of it that way before. And for all his bad traits, he gave me Suzy and Beth, and for that I have to be thankful."

  "And did you love him hopelessly?" He was throwing back at her the same question she had asked of him earlier.

  She shook her head. "No. I thought I loved him then, of course. I wouldn't have opened myself to him unless I did. But, in the end, I wasn't all that upset when he didn't want to marry me... except for the girls' sakes. And fortunately I had a trust fund from my parents and a small inheritance from my aunt, which allowed me to finish grad school and take care of my children. Lots of single parents aren't so lucky." She gazed off into the air, tucking away some memory or other, he supposed. Then she concluded, "So that's my story."

  "Can we go to bed now?"

  She laughed, no longer somber with remembrance. "Stop teasing me."

  Jorund hadn't been teasing. After all they had disclosed to each other, he really would have liked to hold her in his arms. And swive her a time or two, he supposed. The time was not right, she had told him on more than one occasion, and he did not know if that right time would ever come. Bloody hell!

  "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Joe, let's get down to what I really wanted to talk with you about."

  "More talking?"

  "More talking."

  The woman talks entirely too much.

  He groaned.

  "Joe, we have to discuss the implications of this time-travel stuff. I've been thinking "

  The woman thinks entirely too much.

  "I don't believe this was a random time traveling."

  "Random time traveling? What the hell is that?"

  "It's a phrase I came up with myself," she admitted sheepishly. "If it was random, it would mean that it could have happened to anyone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Like your brother Magnus, for example, who stood right next to you. Also, it would mean that the time traveler could have ended up anywhere and in any time, not necessarily in Galveston, and not necessarily in the year two thousand. Do you see what I mean?"

  "I'm beginning to," he answered. And that is not a good sign. "In other words, there must have been a specific reason why I was sent, and where I was sent."

  "Right."

  "So, what's that reason?"

  "I haven't a clue. Do you?"

  He pondered the puzzle for a few moments. "All I can think of is that it's too much of a coincidence that I lost twin girls and that I came to a place where there were twin girls."

  She tapped her fingers on the table pensively. "I agree. The girls' wishing on a star, or praying, or whatever, must have brought you here."

  He nodded. "They seem to have great need of me."

  He saw that she would have liked to argue that point. But then her shoulders slumped.

  "Of course, you have great need of me, too. Did you perchance wish for me upon a star, too?"

  "I did not!" she declared vehemently, but her words were belied by the blush on her fair cheeks. "The most important thing to me isn't why you came, but what will happen to the girls when you leave... as you most assuredly will."

  Jorund wasn't as certain of that as she was. "I suspect I will not be returned to my time to complete my father's mission until I have accomplished some mission here. It will not happen of a sudden, without forewarning; I am convinced of that."

  "I just don't want my girls to be hurt."

  "Methinks you are overly protective."

  Her chin shot up in the air, as if he had struck her. "Mag-he, all your life you have tried to control life, which is an impossibility. You tried to control your sensuality as a youthling. You thought you could control a man in your first relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if you avoid men today for fear of not being in control. And you try to control your daughters too much. Part of growing up is being hurt and learning to handle the pain."

  Her eyes were welling over at his harsh assessment.

  "I do not mean to offend you, m'lady."

  "You aren't," she said with a little sob. "Much of what you say I already knew, deep down."

  "The bottom line, as you people say in this land, is that you must ask yourself this question: Would your daughters be better off not knowing me at all? Or would it be better for them to have had me in their lives, even for a short time?"

  Jorund couldn't believe he was actually speaking of playing a pa
rt in those little girls' lives. If ever there was a disaster waiting to happen to his already broken heart, it was Sue-zee and Beth.

  "How did you get to be so smart?" she asked, dabbing at her eyes with a tish-you.

  "I'm a Viking."

  "I don't believe it!"

  It was a Saturday afternoon, two weeks later, when Maggie arrived home from a half-day mental-health conference in Dallas. She'd known that Joe was bored, staying home, with no job. There wasn't a big call for Viking warriors in the work force. But never in a million years had she expected this.

  There was a hole in the side of her house. A huge hole. And Joe, dressed in jeans and a sweaty T-shirt, despite the mid-December chill, was wielding the sledgehammer that has caused the damage.

  No, that wasn't quite true. Steve was there, too, driving a small backhoe. What was he doing here... out in public? The press had been hounding him for weeks, ever since that reporter had recognized him at the Moving Wall. He'd even moved into the hospital temporarily, to protect his much-wanted privacy.

  Maggie glanced around her yard. It wasn't just Steve who was there. There were Suzy and Beth, too, along with several other outpatients from Rainbow, including Natalie, Rosalyn, Harvey, Chuck, and Fred. They were all helping to remove the debris—debris that was actually the side of her house—and putting it in a Dumpster. A Dumpster? Where did that Dumpster come from?

  Fred, dressed as a Village People version of a carpenter, was looking full of himself in a hard hat and tool belt as he followed Joe's orders. Harvey was off to the side counting the number of two-by-fours in one pile and round rocks in another pile, then tabulating his results on an official job-site clipboard.

  Chuck was being an elephant today, swinging his loose arms forward like a trunk as he carried large pieces of siding to the Dumpster; Maggie, who still had not diagnosed Chuck's real problem, was not surprised to see the words on the bright young man's shirt: It is as bad as you think, and they are out to get you. Natalie was singing, of course, as she fetched and carried, and Rosalyn looked surprisingly fetching in tight jeans and a T-shirt that proclaimed, Librarians Do It by the Book.

  And, oh, good Lord, was that Nurse Hatcher in coveralls and workman's boots, appearing for all the world as if she could take down Maggie's entire house with just a huff and a puff? She was avidly listening to something Fred the Carpenter was telling her. Oh, no! It wasn't possible. Was it? A love connection between Gladys and Fred?