“I’m going to have to leave here soon,” he announced suddenly, sinking down on a bench near a small flower garden.
“I see.” Alarm shot through Maggie like wildfire. She sat down beside him and closed her eyes momentarily in dismay.
“I left my homeland on a quest for my father. Much unfinished business awaits me. I cannot dawdle here much longer without making an effort to locate Thora and my way home. If naught else, I cannot risk being on the high seas come winter.”
At first, an overwhelming sadness swept over her—that he still clung to these foolish notions. But then inspiration hit her. “I have the most wonderful idea.”
“Somehow I misdoubt that your idea of a wonderful idea would coincide with mine…unless it involves sex.”
She slanted him a disapproving frown, then continued. “I think we should go on a field trip to Orcaland. It might be just the trick to jar your memories and convince you that you aren’t really a time traveler.”
He just stared at her.
Disappointment that he wasn’t immediately receptive dampened her enthusiasm, but only for a second when she realized he might not know what a field trip was. “A field trip is an excursion away from a facility. Not a permanent release. Just a day trip.”
“So you are suggesting that you and I go to Orcaland…to visit the site of my time travel, and perhaps get a glimpse of Thora…and some answers.”
She nodded hesitantly. “It wouldn’t be just you and me, though. I would have to take the others in the group. I know, I know,” she said excitedly. “We could stop by that traveling Vietnam memorial exhibit, as well. The Moving Wall, I think it’s called. That might benefit Steve. And later, dinner at that new club, Boot Scootin’ Cowboy, would give Natalie a glimpse of how her life could be if she ever realized her dream of being a country-western singer. I hear they have live entertainment there.”
“Mayhap we could also stop by a farm and let Hair-vee check out the livestock for a new personality. Or perchance Rosalyn the mouse could snag a customer or two for a swiving marathon.”
Maggie gave Joe a dirty look. “Your sarcasm doesn’t help.”
He shrugged.
“This is a good idea. A really good idea,” she insisted. “Of course, I’ll have to get permission from Harry—I mean, Dr. Seabold—first, but I don’t think he’ll object.”
“Is he your lover?”
“Huh? Who? Harry? No, of course not.” She put a hand to her mouth to hide her smile.
He exhaled with a loud whoosh, as if relieved. “Good.”
Good? Why is that good? No, don’t ask. It will just start him on the topic of things he and I shouldn’t be discussing. But, good?
Changing the subject, she remarked, “Of course, my daughters will be upset that they can’t come along. Especially Beth. She just loves killer whales and Orcaland.”
Joe drew himself up stiffly. “I give you notice here and now: I am going nowhere with those girls of yours. Not now or ever. Keep them away from me.”
Maggie would have been outraged at his maligning her daughters if she hadn’t noticed the haunted expression in his gray eyes. In fact, she could swear they were misty with tears.
“Joe…?” she probed.
He turned his face away from her.
She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t you like children?”
Swinging his head, he scowled at her. “Heed me well, wench. Push me too far, and I will not be responsible for my actions.”
An alarming question occurred to Maggie…one she should have asked before. “Are you married? Do you have a wife somewhere?”
His throat worked as if he was attempting to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. Finally he answered in a whisper of a voice, “I have no wife.”
For some reason that news heartened Maggie. She shouldn’t care, but she did. “Okay, one last question.”
“One too many,” he grumbled, looking down at his fists, which were clenched between his widespread knees.
“Do you have any children? Perhaps a little girl who resembles one of mine?”
“Your tongue outruns your good sense, you foolish wench.” He stood suddenly and faced her angrily. A low growl came up from deep within before he informed her in an ice-cold voice, “Seed of my loins exists nowhere in this living world, neither male nor female.” With those words hurled at her, Joe stomped off on the sidewalk leading back to the clinic.
Maggie watched him leave. Without realizing it, Joe had given her a clue that might lead to his cure. Children. There was no doubt in Maggie’s mind. Children were the clue to Joe’s dysfunction.
Jorund’s emotions were in a roil the rest of that day.
He exercised on the rowing machine till he thought his arms would fall off. He joined some pay-shuns in a lackbrain game of Bingo. He threw a Freeze-bee in the halls with Steve, till Norse Hatch-her took the circular toy away from him. He Ping-Ponged till his head felt as if it Ping-Ponged. He ate a dinner of burr-eat-toes and salt-sa that about took the lining off his tongue. He viewed “Em-tea-vee” till his eyes burned.
Still, thoughts of his daughters would not go away. Was he cursed for the rest of his life, or mayhap all of eternity, to carry this guilt with him?
It was all Mag-he’s fault. Why did she have to probe so deeply?
“What I need is about a tun of mead,” he muttered.
“Isn’t mead some kind of beer?” Steve asked from the open doorway. “Me, too, then. A cold beer and a baseball game would come in handy about now. Mine would have to be the nonalcoholic kind, though.” Without being invited, he stepped into Jorund’s room and sank down into one of the two leather armchairs in front of the tea-vee.
“Baseball? Isn’t that a game where you hit a ball with a stick and run around a diamond-shaped field? One of the Norses explained it to me.”
Steve gaped at him for a second, then laughed. “Hell, don’t tell me you’ve never seen a baseball game. Man, that’s purely un-American.” Taking the remote control from Jorund’s hand, he flicked the channels until he came to one of those baseball games, the Dodge-hers against the Red Sox, and for the next hour he proceeded to explain the game to a fascinated Jorund.
“And you excelled at this game?”
“That was thirty years ago, but yeah, everyone said I was the next Ted Williams.”
“And this is what you did in life? You played games?”
Steve laughed at his apparent confusion and named some seemingly high amount of money he was paid for this occupation.
“You obviously loved this game. ’Twas in your eyes when you watched it on the tea-vee box. Why did you stop?”
“I was drafted…well, actually I jumped the gun because I knew I was going to be drafted.”
“Drafted?”
“Uh-huh. I got the word that Uncle Sam wanted me for military service, and there was no saying no in those days. The Vietnam War was at its height. I enlisted in the Navy SEALs.” He shrugged. “The rest is history.”
Jorund didn’t understand all that he had said. Uncle Sam, for instance. Nay-vee, for another. But the gist of it filtered through: Steve had fought in some gruesome war as a soldier of some sort, and although it had been many years ago, he still suffered the consequences.
“Did your wife leave you whilst you were away at battle?”
At first Steve’s eyes flashed angrily at the intrusive question, but then his body relaxed, almost as if he was tired of holding it all in. “Nah! Shelley stuck around for twenty years. I haven’t seen her for ten years. Hell, that was the last time we made love, too. The last time I was able to get it up. And a poor performance it was.”
Jorund decided to ignore Steve’s remarks on his sexual prowess. “Well, you are fortunate then. Many a feckless wench have I encountered in my day. Faithless women who spread their legs for another the minute their men pick up spear and shield to go off a-Viking or a-fighting.”
“Huh?” Steve said. Then his thoughts reverted back to his Shel
l-he. “Man, I made Shell’s life a living hell. Good thing we never had kids. I probably would have made them suffer, too.”
Although Steve claimed happiness in not having bred children, Jorund could see the lie in his lifeless eyes. Jorund could understand this. Hadn’t he disdained children all his life, too? Then hadn’t he seen the mistruth of his lifelong protestations the moment his daughters were born?
“I have heard much on The Young and the Restless this week about divorce…which we have in my land, too. Did you divorce your wife…or did she divorce you?”
“Shelley’s back in Iowa, teaching school. I figured she’d file for divorce once she met another man and wanted to get married again. I never received any notification, though, so I really don’t know.” He stared blankly at the screen for a long time before he spoke again. “I thought she’d find someone else right off the bat. In fact, I hope she did. Shell is so beautiful. She deserves more than a broken-down ex-baseball player.” His voice cracked on that last, making it as clear as a sunny day on a northern fjord that Steve’s biggest problem wasn’t his impotence, or aleheadedness, or black night-frights, but the empty hole left in his life by a woman.
That was the way of it throughout time, Jorund decided. Women were the root of all men’s problems.
Chapter Eight
Maggie rarely went back to the hospital at night, but the girls were attending a birthday party at a friend’s house, and she just couldn’t stop worrying about Joe. The anguished look on his face when she’d last seen him stabbed at her heart.
“Joe?” She stepped tentatively into his room, which was dark except for the light from the TV screen. “Are you awake?”
He didn’t answer, though she could make out his semirecumbent form on the bed, arms folded behind his head.
“I came back to apologize,” she said, closing the door behind her, then stepping closer to the bed, where she could see that his eyes were open and staring right at her. “I shouldn’t have pushed you with all those family inquiries. It was too much, too soon. And you have a right to some privacy. When you’re ready—”
Before she had a chance to finish her sentence, Joe reached out and grabbed her by the waist. “Oh, I am ready, wench. I am more than ready.” In a blink, she was flat on her back on the bed, and he lay on top of her, his upper body braced on his extended arms.
“M’lady, you are driving me mad,” he said in a husky growl.
“Mad?” she chocked out. With his maleness pressed against her femaleness, sanity seemed to be lacking in her as well.
“Yea, all your probing interrogations are driving me mad. Then, too, there are your kiss-some lips, and sex-voice, and eyes so blue they draw a man in and catch him unawares, and legs just the right size to wrap around a man’s waist, and breasts…holy Thor, your breasts would fit just perfectly in my hands. All these things are driving me mind-draining mad.” He took a deep breath, one she felt against her diaphragm, then continued. “I was sane when I arrived in this godforsaken land. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Why do you think I’m doing this to you?” she squeaked out.
“Aaarrgh! Always you turn my questions back on me. Can you not give a straight answer just once?”
“Well, yes,” she whispered.
“And you will answer straight and true?”
She nodded.
Maggie knew it was a mistake even before Joe uttered the delicious words, “Do you want me as much as I want you?”
Oh, this was dangerous territory for a psychologist to enter with her patient. Maggie could lose her license. But even if no one found out, she would know there was an ethical line that had been crossed, if she answered honestly with herself.
He put his fingertips to her lips. “Shhh. Don’t speak. There are some things that need not be said aloud.”
He lowered his upper body so that he rested on his elbows. Furrowing his fingers through her hair on either side, he cupped her head. “Why did you cut your hair so short?” he asked, even as he inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of her shampoo.
“I lost a bet with my girls.”
His face jerked to the side at the mention of her daughters, as if he’d been slapped. It was she, then, who cupped his jaw and turned his face back. “Joe? What is it? Tell me why the mere mention of my daughters upsets you so,”
“You overreach yourself my lady.”
“I want to help.”
“What you want does not signify in this situation. You can’t help…not with this. Leave be, I tell you. Leave be.”
She realized that he wasn’t ready to share his grief yet…whatever that grief was. “You’ve got to let me up, Joe. If anyone saw us, I could be in big trouble. You, too, for that matter. Remember the contract you signed with your X mark?”
“Words! Nothing but words! You gainsay me at every turn, my lady. How long do you think I will allow you to hold me off?”
“Let me up,” was her only response.
At first it appeared as if he would balk, but then he said, “I will release you if you but grant me one token.”
“And that would be?” she asked with a small laugh.
“A kiss.”
“A kiss?”
“Yea…a good kiss.”
“You said you don’t like kisses.”
“I thought we already cleared up that misunderstanding. I have changed my mind…leastways, with you. Besides, I doubt you would agree if I’d suggested a good swiving.”
“Not if it’s what I think it is.” This conversation is totally out-of-bounds. I am totally out-of-bounds.
He smiled…another of those smiles that parted his lips and exposed his white teeth, but did not reach his eyes. “It is. But you should know that I give good swives.”
“You also give good kisses.”
“I do?” he said, inordinately pleased. “And with so little practice. Imagine how good I will be when we have kissed a hundred times or so.”
“A hun-hundred?” she stammered. “You said one kiss.”
“For now,” he murmured against her lips. “One good kiss for now to hold me over till next time.”
“Joe, there can’t be a next—”
Her words were cut off with the soft caress of his firm lips against hers. Back and forth, back and forth, he rubbed till she was pliant and willing. Only then did his kiss turn into a hungry, punishing, sweet torture, an exercise in eroticism. He shaped her lips with his, then pressed hard. When his tongue thrust into her mouth, she moaned, then moaned again when it began an in-and-out rhythm that caused her nipples to peak and hot liquid to pool between her legs.
Maggie went delirious with need, something she had never done in all her thirty-two years. She would die if this kiss went on any longer. She would die if it stopped.
His hands were everywhere—fondling her breasts, skimming her hips, cupping her buttocks and rocking her against his erection.
Erection! Maggie’s eyes flew open, and it was as if she stood above the writhing bodies on the bed. When had her legs spread wide and wrapped themselves about his hips? When had he begun pounding against the apex of her thighs, mimicking the sex act? Good Lord! Maggie shoved hard against his chest, and because he was caught unawares, she was able to slip out from under him and stagger to the door, where she pressed her forehead against the cool glass and panted for breath.
Behind her, she heard a string of unbroken words in a foreign tongue, which she assumed were swear words. They dwindled down eventually to silence.
Finally, when she had calmed down, Maggie flicked on the light switch, and turned.
Jorund sat on the edge of the bed, his arms braced on his widespread knees, breathing heavily. He stared at her with barely suppressed anger. “You will bend to my will one day,” he said, and he was serious. “Your days are numbered.”
“This will never happen between us again,” she disagreed in a shaky voice, rubbing her fingers across her kiss-swollen lips.
He started to laugh t
hen, and couldn’t seem to stop.
“What’s so damn funny?” Maggie asked huffily.
Joe wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “I’ll tell you what’s so funny, my lady. You speak of endings, but methinks there is another direction for our relationship.”
“Relationship? Relationship? We have no relationship,” she shrieked.
He hit the side of his head with the heel of one hand. “Must you be so shrill? Your screeching hurts my ears. Reminds me of a seagull when it spots a tasty meal.”
She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists to calm down. “Get this though your thick skull: we have no relationship.”
“Ha! Think again, my lady,” he declared with a droll expression on his face. “I have just realized an important fact about us.”
She was about to scream that there was no “us,” but restrained herself. Instead she lifted one eyebrow in question.
“I think you are my fate. I think you are the reason I was sent here.”
Maggie did scream then, silently.
“Oh, my God!”
The tour of the Rainbow facilities by the Medic-All contingent had just been successfully completed, and Maggie was about to breathe a deep sigh of relief when she heard Harry’s exclamation. Turning, she followed the direction of his gaze, down the corridor to the open doorway of the exercise room. It was her turn to exclaim then, “Oh, my God!”
Joe was leaning against the doorjamb, wearing black sweatpants, white high tops, and a gray T-shirt that spelled out, No Pain, No Gain. He was talking animatedly to a short, gray-haired gentleman in wing tips and a pin-striped business suit…a stranger, as far as Maggie could tell.
With trepidation, she inquired of the Medic-All PR man, George Smith, “Who is that?”
“Oh! So he decided to come, after all,” George answered enthusiastically. He was already walking away.
“Who?” she and Harry said at the same time, rushing to catch up. The other six members of the Medic-All group, along with two members of the Lawrence family, which owned the privately held Rainbow facility, followed quickly behind them.
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