by Sandra Hill
The chieftain grumbled now at being forced to give him a reprieve in order for Magnusson to keep his appointment with Doctor Fine-gold. Holy Thor, did he have a lot to tell the head healer!
Nobody had been willing to listen to his claims of time-travel. Mostly they’d just laughed at him or shaken their heads sadly at his assertions. Bloody hell, he couldn’t blame them. He could hardly believe it himself.
Actually, his teammates had been more interested in knowing what had happened betwixt him and Dr. MacLean for those missing six hours afore he’d returned to the sleeping hall. Of course, he’d told them nothing. That had not stopped them from speculating in a most crude and rude fashion.
“One hour, Magnusson,” the chieftain bellowed at him now. The man had perfected the art of fine bellowing. If he was not careful, the chieftain would burst that vein in his forehead one of these days. By thunder, but he would make a good mate for Madrene. They could nag each other to death. Of course, now that Ragnor believed he had time-traveled, there was the little problem of how to send the chieftain back to Madrene, especially since he hadn’t a clue how to get back himself. Besides, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to return, now that he’d met Alison. Mayhap he could lure Madrene here by some trickery; she would ne’er leave her beloved farmstead willingly, not even at the prospect of a half-bald, ill-tempered SEAL chieftain for a bed mate. Problems, problems!
“And you’d better be back here ready for advanced surf rescue. We all want to see if you can set any more records for swimming. Ha, ha, ha! And remember, if something is hard, it must be worth doing.”
Nag, nag, nag! I swear, if I hear one more miserable inspirational dirge out of your mouth, Chieftain, I might just see how much sand can be stuffed down that hole. He tried to swagger away from the exercise arena, just to annoy the chieftain, but his legs felt like butter and every muscle in his body burned and his bones actually creaked. So all he managed was a careful walk. Pride was great in him, but by the time he arrived at the medical building, he felt like collapsing.
Then he saw something that made him perk up immediately. Rather, someone.
Alison.
Her lips were still kiss-swollen from their lovemaking of the night before, and he liked to think that her pinkened cheeks showed a blush as she recalled all that they had done. Bloody hell, even he might consider blushing over all they had done. On the other hand, perchance she was having second thoughts about having been intimate with a thousand-year-old man. And whilst on that subject, he gave himself a mental pat on the back for being so virile at such an old age. Ha, ha, ha! This is just wonderful. Making jests in my head, and then laughing at my own jests.
In one hand, Alison carried a parchment sack imprinted with “Noble Barn,” or “Barn and Noble,” whatever the hell that meant. What a peculiar country, to give nobility to a barn!
But that was neither here nor there. The important thing was Alison, who was headed toward him with steely determination in her green eyes. He did so appreciate a determined woman!
He smiled.
She did not smile back.
Uh-oh!
There is the Triple Crown, and then there is the Triple-S …
Alison had awakened that morning with a smile on her face.
No second thoughts. No recriminations over casual sex. Who was she kidding? There had been nothing casual about her encounter with the Viking SEAL trainee. Even during her routine five-mile run before breakfast, she’d kept on smiling. Then she had smiled during a quick stop at a bookstore before heading to work.
No way did she buy Max’s time-travel nonsense, but clearly something had happened to his memory as a result of the concussion. She should report his condition to authorities, but that would mean an automatic dismissal from SEAL training. Instead, she’d bought him a bunch of English as a Second Language books and tapes, along with a Walkman which he could use even when sleeping at night. In addition, she’d tossed in some rudimentary math and history books and tapes. If these didn’t jog his memory, or if he didn’t heal more on his own, she would be forced to take action.
But that was before. This was now. So much for her good mood! Her smile had frozen on her face only seconds into a meeting a few moments ago with her brother. Max, the man she had built so many foolish dreams on, had gone blabbing to her brother. The jerk! Max, not her brother. Well, actually, her brother, too. Why didn’t either of them realize that she was a strong woman? She could take care of herself. And if she couldn’t, she would be the one to arrange additional security, not either of those Neanderthals.
“You are in such trouble, buster,” she said, seething, as she came up to the grinning moron and poked a finger in his chest. He must have come to his appointment with Dr. Feingold right from the morning exercise evolution because he wore a grungy T-shirt, equally grungy shorts, and heavy, scuffed-up boots. His face, neck, and arms were marked by equal parts perspiration and sand.
Max looked wonderful. And she remembered just how wonderful he looked under all that grunge. Aaarrgh!
“Me? Why am I in trouble, sweetling?” he asked in a silky purr, coming way too close to her for a public corridor. He put up a hand and rubbed a strand of her hair between thumb and forefinger, as if fascinated.
Before he had a chance to lean down and sniff her hair, which he seemed inclined to do, she shoved him away and said, “Because you betrayed me, you jerk.”
“Me?” He frowned. “How so?”
“By talking about me to my brother. Behind my back.”
“Oh, that,” he said as if it were nothing.
“Yes, that. Here.” She shoved the shopping bag into his hand. “These are some books and tapes I bought for you … before I realized what a snake you are.”
“You bought me a gift?” The expression on his face was priceless. You would have thought she’d given him a Rolex.
“Don’t distract me, you louse. Take the stuff and enjoy it, because I don’t plan on seeing you again.”
“Of course we will be seeing each other again,” he said, peering into the bag, then setting it down on the floor.
Before she had a chance to realize what he was about, he lifted her by the waist, opened a large broom closet behind her, and walked them both inside. It was as black as coal inside till he pulled the string on the ceiling bulb. He must be familiar with the broom closet for some reason, she thought. But that was beside the point. Way beside the point!
“What do you think you’re doing?” she squealed as he backed her up against a rolling utility table, then lifted her up so she sat with her feet dangling off the floor. He shoved her skirt up and stepped between her spread thighs.
“Thanking you,” he murmured as he sniffed her hair and murmured something about strawberries, which was the scent of her shampoo.
“For what?” she gasped out. Little tingles of sensation were ricocheting throughout her body just from his breath near her ear.
“Your gift today. Last night. What is about to happen. Take your pick.” Now he was outright blowing in her ear, and it felt damn good … dammit.
“A simple ‘thank you’ outside would have sufficed. And get one thing straight—nothing is going to happen now.” She tried to turn her face away from the kiss she sensed was coming, but he plowed his big fingers into her hair, holding her face in place.
Then he kissed her.
And she surrendered. Just like that. She couldn’t help herself. Like a wanderer in the desert who had been thirsty for too long, she welcomed him. There was no explanation for her behavior. He was just a man, like any other she’d known before. Her heart and her traitorous body didn’t see him that way, though. Every time she saw him, even from that day on the grinder when he’d returned without medical permission to BUD/S, it was as if some inner being recognized him, saying, There you are, sweetheart. I have been waiting for you forever. And it was the same every time she saw him again. Strange!
“I missed you,” he murmured after kissing her into a panting b
lob of hormones.
“How could you miss me when you’ve been working out so hard today?” she argued. “I can see that Ian gave you a grueling workout today—as punishment for something or other, I suspect.”
“Brooms,” he said, of all things, and smiled against her mouth. “Dost think I cannot run and think at the same time? I am a many-talented man.”
Boy, do I know how many talents you have! She smiled back against his mouth. “I’m mad at you,” she said and nipped his lower lip.
“I’m mad about you,” he replied. “What are these things anyhow?”
She glanced down and saw that he was running his palms over her stockings from knee to upper thigh and back again. No wonder she’d been tingling in that region! “Stockings. Pantyhose, to be precise. And you’ve probably put a dozen snags in them with those calluses on your hands.”
“How far up do they go?”
There he went again with that stupidity about everyday things. “To the waist.”
He groaned. “Another form of chastity belt.” She was about to correct him, but he’d raised her skirt and proceeded to pull down her stockings, all the way off, including her high-heeled pumps.
“Max, this is not a good idea. If we get caught in here, we’re both going to be busted.”
“I am not precisely sure what ‘busted’ means, but whatever it is, we will be happily busted.” With those ominous words, he pulled her butt to the edge of the table, then released a very impressive erection from his shorts and entered her all in one fluid motion.
Her heart practically stopped with the intense pleasure that one stroke generated.
But then he pulled back out. All the way. With horror. And said, “Oops!”
“What do you mean, ‘Oops’? Come back here.” She tried to grab for him, but he stepped away and held out his arms to keep his distance.
“I didn’t use a cone-dome, and I have none with me. Do you perchance have any cone-domes with you?”
“No, I don’t have any condoms with me,” she replied with visible consternation. “Jeesh, do you think I have sex at work every day?” Any day?
“I hope not,” he said, then grinned at her. She loved the way he grinned … kind of lopsided and sexy. “Not to fear, dearling, I will just have to show you the Viking S-Spot.” With those words, he threw her legs over his shoulders, causing her to topple backward onto the table.
“Eeeekkkk! You already showed me the Viking S-Spot,” she pointed out with a little gurgle of embarrassment at her vulnerable position.
“Ah, but this will be different. ’Tis the Triple-S, known by only a few Norsemen and used only on very special women … those who are strong enough to withstand the torture and worthy enough to be given the gift of supreme ecstasy. Legend says that women are unable to speak afterwards, so intense is the pleasure. Legend also says that the woman is ruined for any other man afterwards, her standards for peaking having been raised so high.”
He was right.
Blind man’s bluff …
Ian was stomping down the hallway of the medical center searching for the blight on his life when a utility-closet door swung open. To his shock, out stepped his sister and the idiot-from-hell. They were pretty freakin’ shocked to see him, too.
His sister’s hair was mussed and her uniform was wrinkled. In fact, he could see sprinkles of sand in various places, and there were a half-dozen runs in her stockings. The dodo bird was no better. He had a bite mark on his bottom lip, and the look of a man who’d just had his ashes hauled.
“Sonofabitch!” Ian exclaimed.
“Now, Ian …” his sister started to say. She, at least, had the good sense to be blushing.
“Chieftain, it is not what you—” dodo bird started to say.
Ian raised both hands to halt the two of them. If he reported this incident, and he should, his sister would lose as much as the dodo bird … everything she’d worked so hard for as a woman in the military. He couldn’t do that to her. Not without giving her a second chance. “Don’t say anything. Either of you. I did not see this. I am a blind man as of five minutes ago.”
“Thank you, Ian,” she said in a shaky voice.
He nodded his acknowledgment of her thanks. They both knew how difficult it was for him to bend military rules, no matter what was at stake.
“Thank you, Chieftain,” the dodo bird added.
“Shut up!” The dodo bird probably didn’t have a clue how much personal integrity he was sacrificing to remain quiet.
To both of them, he warned, “Next time, I won’t be so blind.”
Meanwhile, back at the commune … bikers’ commune, that is …
“How’s your head today, Tor?” asked Serenity Morgan, a middle-aged woman with blond hair accented by black roots, which hung down to her leather-clad butt. She had eight rings in each ear, two gold studs in her nose, and tattoos up one arm and down the other. Not surprisingly, she was a tattoo artist.
Her husband, George Morgan, also known as Spike, a former Microsoft engineer who now sold classic Harley parts on the Internet, was equally long-haired, pierced, and tattooed. While Serenity did body art in her spare time, George did body piercings. They lived in a remote commune of thirty-some bikers somewhere in northern California. Actually, it was a cozy trailer park called Hog Heaven. Sort of a commune for bikers.
Torolf shrugged. “My head doesn’t hurt anymore, but my memory is still a blank. I sense that I’m running away from something, and that I’m angry, but I have no clue what that might be.”
The only way he knew that his name was Torolf Magnusson was because of his driver’s license. When they’d found him and his Harley Road King along the side of a rural road two weeks ago, the bikers had decided that his shaved head bespoke a background in the military or prison. They doubted whether it was Hare Krishna or some such cult, because that didn’t jibe with the expensive vehicle he’d been driving. In addition, he’d sustained some kind of head wound, which had been stitched and treated, and there was an odd bruising about his neck. Could it be from a prison garroting, or from a neck chain being yanked from his neck by a burglar, or an accident while engaged in some clandestine military op?
The only other items in his wallet were three hundred dollars in cash, a credit card, and a photo showing an older blond-haired version of himself, an older black-haired woman, and a pigload of kids of various ages. Was this his family? If so, he didn’t recognize a one of them.
Respecting his privacy, no one in the motorcycle community had tried to contact anyone at the Sonoma address on his license, nor did George use his Internet expertise to do a search on him or that address; these were people who felt a person’s past was his or her own business. Thus far, Torolf hadn’t felt inclined to call Information for a telephone number attached to the address, either, fearing what he would find out about himself. The memory loss itself and what physical ailment it might signify scared him, too. Also, he’d been having strange, strange dreams the last few nights. In some, he was a Viking in some Dark Age wooden castle, almost instantly morphing into some guy tending a modern-day vineyard, then switching to a sailor in a military-type rubber boat bobbing out at sea, or was it a longship? Every time Torolf tried to reason it out, his head wound started to throb.
For now, he did mechanical work on motorcycles for various residents around Hog Heaven to earn his keep, especially for the Morgans, who’d opened the second bedroom of their RV to him. He didn’t know where he’d learned the skill, but somehow he could break down and put back together a Harley with ease. Maybe he’d learned how on his own, as a Harley owner, or maybe he’d been a mechanic.
“You are not to worry about anything,” Serenity said, patting him on the shoulder. He was in the process of repairing the trim on one of the RV windows. “Take your time, and everything will eventually fall into place. God has a plan for all of us.”
Or the gods, he thought. Now, where did that idea come from?
“It’s sad that no one has
come looking for you, though,” Serenity added. “And that’s all I’ll say on the subject.”
Torolf thought it was sad, too. “Perhaps I’m all alone in this world, and no one cares about me.”
“We care,” Serenity said, tears brimming in her eyes.
He smiled, and it was his turn to pat her on the back. Serenity and Spike had been married for thirty years and had never had any children. He suspected his dropping into their lives fulfilled some need of theirs … and his, too.
“What say we go have a beer?” she suggested, swiping at her wet eyes.
“A horn of mead cures many an ill,” he replied with forced cheerfulness. A horn of mead? I really am losing my mind.
Son of a gun! …
“Has that son of mine lost his mind?” Magnus Ericsson raged at his wife Angela for the hundredth time in the past two weeks. “Torolf may be twenty and seven years old, but I swear he is as insensitive as a boyling.”
“Now, Magnus, I’m sure he is all right. He’ll call when he is able.”
“I think I should call him.”
“Don’t you dare. Torolf specifically said he is not able to take calls. He will contact us when he gets a chance.”
“But it is unlike him to go more than two weeks without—”
“No!” she said emphatically. It was one of the things that had attracted him to her from the beginning—her take-no-nonsense attitude.
They were in the Blue Dragon vineyard, checking the status of their latest crop of grapes as they talked. It would be one month till harvest, but every day some new catastrophe might swoop down on them … a sudden frost, too much heat, wind, worms, fungus, just about anything.
But the catastrophe he feared most at the moment involved his son Torolf. He had the oddest premonition that all was not as it should be.
