by Sandra Hill
There were people running on the beach, both singly and in groups. Was someone chasing them?
On the other side of the arena where Britta sat, high up, there were many buildings, but none resembled the timber-sided keeps she was accustomed to or the rare stone castles that the Normans favored. Nor were there farmsteads and grazing animals. Not even the wattle and daub cotters’ huts. These buildings were rather ugly, although they did hold precious glass windows.
But wait. In the distance she saw a white castle with a red roof. How odd! Why would anyone want a white dwelling? It must get dirty. She figured the king must live there, since only a king would have staff enough to keep the building clean.
And the people…Thor’s toenails, there were hundreds of them walking about, most of them in uniforms of brown or white, even women. She also saw what appeared to be horseless carriages traveling hither and yon, but mayhap she was mistaken about that. She must be.
Another woman swung her leg over the top, facing her. She was not panting at all.
“Whose castle is that over there?” She pointed to the white building with the red roof.
“Huh? Oh, you mean the Hotel del Coronado.” Grinning at Britta, she said, “Hey, did you just get here? You must be my partner.”
Partner? We are partners? “Uh, what is your name?”
“Teresa Evans. You can call me Terri.” The petite woman with red curly hair and dancing green eyes was a head shorter than Britta but just as well-muscled, especially her upper arms and thighs.
Britta’s forehead creased with bafflement, but then she shrugged. The man with the red face had mentioned this being their first day, so Britta’s failure to recall her partner’s name might be understandable.
“And you’re Britta Asado, right? I was told that my swim buddy would be the foreign exchange officer from the Norse navy.”
Since when do I need a “buddy” to swim? And since when does the Norselands boast its own knave-he…whatever a knave-he is? Britta could understand what these strange people were saying in a strange tongue, but the odd words here and there were a puzzle to her. She was about to tell the woman her last name was Asadottir, not the shortened Asado, but then decided she liked the sound of it.
“Where are we?” Britta asked.
The woman eyed her even more curiously. “Coronado, California. At the special forces training compound. Trying out for the new team.”
Ah! A military training area. Britta nodded her understanding, even though she did not understand one bit.
“We were told last night that the Norse officer, Olga Svensson, had rung out before even arriving. She apparently eloped with her boyfriend, right? Good thing you were available for a last-minute replacement.”
“Yea, ’tis a good thing,” Britta said quickly. Until she got her bearings, she figured it was best to blend in. “I was just a mite muddleheaded from hitting my head.”
Terri laughed. “I thought it was your bottom you hit, not your head.”
Britta laughed back. “Both.”
“Do you know Olga very well?”
Olga? Oh, that Olga! Nay. “Of course.”
Terri gave her a questioning look, waiting for her to elaborate.
Think quick, Britta. Make up a story. “Sweet Frigg! Olga ever was the fey one, dancing from one man to another. But when the lustsome Gunnar cast his wicked eyes her way, well, Olga did not stand a chance. When given the choice of serving her country or serving her man, she chose—”
“Her man,” Terri finished for her with a laugh. “Wicked eyes will do it every time.”
“Yea, but ’tis more than that with Gunnar. He has wordfame for his impressive…endowments. A manroot the size of a gourd…a big gourd.” She spread her hands apart to show just how big. By the runes! Where do these ideas come from? Mayhap I have a gift for lying.
Their attention was diverted then by a man down below who took hold of the ropes and scaled them with surprising agility up the wall, over the top, and down again to demonstrate how it should be done. “That’s the way, girls. Easy as Friday night hooking,” he said, winking at one of the women closest to him.
“You oughta know. It’s the only tail you get,” a woman shot back.
Another man yelled to a nearby woman on the ground, “Hey, Sanchez, yer so small, if we tied a string to yer ankle, you’d be a kite. Ha, ha, ha! Why dontcha fly on over and ring out?”
The woman named Sanchez said something in a language Britta could not understand. It was not English. But she suspected the words were foul, as evidenced by the widened eyes below.
Good!
Down below, the men continued to yell orders up at her and Terri, something about getting their sorry arses down the ropes so they could move to the obstacle course.
Hah! I would think this rope wall is obstacle enough.
“Yo, GI girls, wanna jump? I’ll try to catch you.” One of the men leered up at her and Terri.
Another yelled, “Hey, honey, want me to come up and hold your hand?”
The chieftain, whose face was now purple, nigh screamed, “Either come down or ring out. Make up your friggin’ minds.”
“Those guys are jerks, aren’t they?”
Britta nodded, figuring that jerks must be comparable to crude, lust-filled males, which they definitely were. All men were, for that matter. “Yea, just because they have dangly parts somehow makes them think they are superior.”
Terri laughed. “I know they’re trying to get us to quit. None of them want women in the SEALs, but dammit, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.”
“SEALs?” Britta homed in on that one word. She had heard of SEALs afore. They were an elite military force in a far-off land. “Dost mean we are in Ah-mare-eek-ah?”
The other woman’s forehead creased even more. “Are you okay? The sun is hot. Maybe you’re getting sunstroke.”
Britta shook her head. Nay, I just fell off a cliff, am suffering from the world’s worst ale-head, must needs avoid my father and his hirdsmen who want naught more than my sword dew on their blades or my maiden blood on a husband of their choosing’s cock, and then I might just find out if I am dead or alive. Being hot is the least of my concerns.
Then Terri said, “Oh, my God! Who is that? What a hunk!”
“A hunk of what?” Britta started to ask as she swung one leg over the top and was about to descend back down the rope wall. She glanced beyond the side of the sandy arena where a man was approaching with fire in his blue eyes…eyes she would recognize anywhere. Gesticulating wildly, he stopped to talk with another man who was laughing so hard he held his sides.
It was the lout, the very same loathsome lout who was responsible for all her troubles. Well, not all. But enough. Zack-hairy the Pretty Boy. He was a hunk, all right. A hunk of trouble.
Oooh, I am going to give him a piece of my mind…if I ever manage to get down off this bloody damn rope wall.
That was when she slipped, causing the rope wall to shake even more than it had been, and all twelve of the women climbing up and down the wall fell to the sand with a thud, shrieking with dismay. Most of the expletives were aimed at her.
“You women are the most clumsy dingbats I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” the chieftain sputtered. All the other men were laughing instead of helping the women to their feet or checking for injuries. Chivalry must be dead in this country. “Somebody is going to pay for this fiasco, ladies.”
And he gazed directly at her.
Chapter 3
Kiss me, baby…and that’s an order…
Zach was stomping his way from the bachelor officers’ quarters to the grinder after having changed into his PT clothes: khaki shorts, a blue T-shirt with gold trim and the SEAL emblem, and heavy socks folded down and over the tops of his boondockers.
The grinder was a blacktopped area used for a structured regimen of hard physical workouts. Almost totally surrounded by buildings, some two-story, it resembled a penitentiary yard, which was n
ot totally without intent, he supposed.
Along the way he ran into Cage and Merrill “Geek” Good, the Beaver Cleaver of Navy SEALs. Zach was explaining his new assignment to them and enlisting their help.
Suddenly, there was a communal scream by about two dozen female voices as the women fell clumsily off the cargo net. This was followed by a series of squeals, groans, expletives, and at least one woman bursting into loud sobs.
He started to shake his head at the sorry examples of what the government expected them to turn into rough, tough military babes. But then he was blindsided, big-time.
On a day in which one disaster after another had piled on him, like NFL tackles on a quarterback, he was now faced with the biggest disaster of all.
Britta.
Among those women was the one woman who’d rebuffed him…the one woman who was like a thorn in his heart…or ass. Pick one. The implications were staggering, and they were hitting him like thousand-pound dominos. Whack, whack, whack!
Oh, my God! Britta is here.
Sonofabitch! Now, I have a thousand-year-old girlfriend to contend with. Ha, ha, ha.
Well, not really a girlfriend, but she would have been. Eventually. Probably.
Shit! She looks as if she’s baited for bear…and I’m the big ol’ grizzly.
Zach couldn’t help but grin at the picture he saw. For an eleventh-century, six-foot-tall, Viking warrior goddess kind of gal, Britta sure did look fine in a perspiration-dampened drab green T-shirt, nylon running shorts, and beat-up boondockers. The Navy had probably dismissed the idea of white T-shirts for the women because once sweaty they would become, well, wet T-shirts. Which might give the male instructors inappropriate ideas, ideas that were always close to the surface. Her blonde hair was pulled off her face into a single, straggly braid that hung down to the middle of her back. Her legs were sinfully long, giving a guy—this guy, anyhow—some really vivid ideas. Her breasts were nicely rounded; they gave him ideas, too. Even with sand on her face and her rump, she looked good enough to eat. And he meant that literally.
Unfortunately, Britta didn’t regard him in quite the same way. The first thing she did was shove him in the chest.
He didn’t budge. “What are you doing here, honey?”
“Do not honey me, Zack-hairy.”
His grin at her mispronunciation of his name did not amuse her.
“What am I doing here? How do I know? You tell me.”
“Well, I did sort of pray for you to come here and help me out one night, but I was drunk and didn’t know any better.”
Britta didn’t even crack a smile. She ought to join Lean Mean’s frowny-face club.
“You wish-prayed me here?” Her voice was so shrill, he hit the side of his head with the heel of his hand to make sure an eardrum wasn’t broken. “For what purpose?”
“Uh, to babysit.” The second those words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back.
“Babysit? Are you barmy? You actually thought I, a trained warrior, would play nursemaid to your whelp?”
“Well, I did mention that I was drunk, didn’t I?” He flashed her one of his too-innocent smiles.
She was obviously in no mood for humor or flirtation. “And your wife? Did she wish-pray for me to be a nursemaid, as well? By the by, you told me you were unwed, you slimy fornicator. Didst think of your wife on those numerous occasions when you attempted to get me in your bed furs?”
“Uh, I’m not married.” Oooh, boy! Another slip of the tongue.
Britta threw her arms up in disgust, which did amazing things to her breasts. “Why am I not surprised? Dost have any idea how like my father and brothers you are? How many other children do you have, on how many women?”
Zach drew himself up straight, suspecting that comparison to her father and brothers was not a compliment. “There are no others.” That I know of. “Listen, we need to talk…in private. Stay here.”
He walked around her and went over to one of the low platforms surrounding the grinder. Instructors stood there to oversee the exercise evolutions. “Master Chief Uxley, you are relieved of this billet. I’m here to take over.”
“About time, asshole.” Master Chief Frank Uxley, better known appropriately as F.U., was one of the more obnoxious members of SEAL Team Thirteen. A good soldier but a speed bump on the evolutionary superhighway.
“Yeah, I can see you’ve been doing a bang-up job so far, dog breath.”
Close to a hundred women—dirty, battered, and panting like warhorses—stood about fifteen feet away. They were the sorriest class of trainees he had ever seen.
“So, you hittin’ on one of the trainees already?” Uxley inquired in his usual snide manner, motioning his head toward Britta, who had come up behind him. “Can you say sexual harassment suit, big boy?”
“Go away, Uxley. I’ll take over now.”
“My pleasure. Think you can handle a big ’un like her? If not, I’ll be glad to lend a hand.”
Before Zach had a chance to answer, Britta picked up Uxley by the waist and tossed him into the sand. Uxley was fairly short—only five-nine—but he was built like a bull. He had to weigh a solid hundred and sixty. Standing over him, hands on hips, Britta said, “Be forewarned, Chieftain, I am a Viking warrior, more than you ever wagered for in your flea-bitten life. Dost still think you can handle me, knave?”
At first, there was a stunned silence. Then Zach turned to the group and yelled, “Ah-ten-shun!”
Everyone stood in rigid formation, hands at sides, chins forward. Except Britta. He turned to glare at her. At first she balked, but then she went over to stand in line. All of them ignored Uxley as he got to his feet, cursing, and headed toward the Naval Special Warfare Center—or NSWC. He would no doubt file a complaint against Zach.
Welcome to the club, buddy.
“I am Lieutenant Zachary Floyd, the assistant commander of this first class of WEALS. These two gentlemen…,” he said, pointing to his two buddies strolling toward them, “…are Petty Officer Justin LeBlanc and Ensign Merrill Good.” He’d enlisted them to help him. He also introduced the other instructors standing around.
Zach saw the flicker of astonished recognition on the part of Britta toward his two fellow SEALs and vice versa. They’d all met before in another time and place.
Cage and Geek were grinning like fools as they gave little waves to Britta, but at least they kept their fool mouths shut, except for Cage muttering to Zach under his breath, “You are in such trouble, buddy,” and Geek muttering, “I can’t wait to see how you wiggle out of this one.”
“Now, each of you identify yourselves,” Zach urged the ladies.
One at a time, they did so till they came to Britta, who announced proudly, “Britta Asado.” Her real surname was Asadottir. She glared at him, as if daring him to disagree with her shortening of her name.
Not bloody likely. She’d probably punch out my lights. “Petty Officer LeBlanc and Ensign Good will take over for a short time. Ms. Asado, come with me to the command center. There seems to be some missing…paperwork.”
Luckily, she followed his order, and he took her not only into the building but into a basement storage room. He slammed the door and turned on her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” she countered. Lifting her arms, she pushed errant strands of blonde hair off her face. The gesture caused her breasts to press against the thin fabric of the T-shirt.
Pssssh! Like a deflating balloon, every logical thought in his brain shooshed out under testosterone overload. Finally, he shook his head like a wet dog. “You’ve got to ring out. I’ll take you over to do it right now.”
“And then what?”
We could sneak off to the nearest motel, where we can have wild monkey sex. Maybe. Or maybe not. “What do you want to do?” He wasn’t about to suggest babysitting again, or wild monkey sex. Besides, with her attitude toward him, she would be a bad influence on his kid, who had a bad enou
gh attitude already.
“What are all those women doing out there?”
He waved a hand airily. “It’s a new experimental program for females. Like SEALs, but different. They’ll be called WEALS.”
“Like wheels on a cart?”
He laughed. “No. It stands for Women on Earth, Air, Land and Sea.”
“Female military?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. ’Tis what I want to do.”
“No, no, no! You don’t understand. This program is going to be brutal. Absolute torture.”
“Dost think I cannot endure hardship?”
“I didn’t say that.” Not exactly.
“You wish-prayed me here. If I do not become a wheel, you are responsible for me. Dost want that responsibility?”
“Hell, no, but—”
“You cannot have it both ways. Ah, do not trouble yourself, lout. I will take care of myself. I will be a wheel, but, Holy Thor, I hope no one intends to roll me down a hill or attach me to a wagon, especially with this ale-head.”
He laughed again. “Britta, we don’t have much time. I don’t think you understand what has happened here. You, my dear, have traveled through time one thousand years.” Folding his arms over his chest, he waited for her reaction.
It was quick in coming. “You. Are. An. Idiot.”
“Believe it or not, that’s what happened. Same thing for all of Max’s family…the Ericssons and the Magnussons.” Max was the SEAL nickname for Torolf Magnusson. “They’ll tell you that if you meet them. And Hilda, too. Not to mention Geek and Cage and JAM.”
“Yo, Pretty Boy!” Cage yelled from an upstairs stairwell. “Haul ass, buddy. Lean Mean is lookin’ fer you.”
Okay, convincing Britta about time travel would have to wait. Hell, he wouldn’t believe it either. Wasn’t sure he did even now. “Let’s make a deal here, honey. You ring out of WEALS, and I’ll find a way to send you home to the past.”
“Nay, let’s make this deal, honey. I do not ring out of WEALS, and you learn to live with the fact that I am to become a woman warrior in your land.”
