A Twist in Time

by Susan Squires

  After last night, there were things he wanted to know about her. The intimacy of learning her language just might afford him an excuse to find out.

  “I want a new word,” he said. “Widewe. You understand this word?”

  “Widow? Yes.”

  “Are you widow, Lucy?”

  She looked surprised. “No. Why do you ask?”

  Any woman in his time would have known exactly why he asked. He was glad she didn’t. But he didn’t like her answer anyway. If she was not widow but had no man, she would be virgin. A virgin was off-limits. But how could she be a virgin when she consorted with this Brad? Galen didn’t like to think she might have given her maidenhead to this Brad without the protection of marriage. Galen chewed his lip. Was she promised but not yet married? Not as good but some protection. He didn’t like that, either. Again, she would be off-limits to him. Why get bad news? Still he had to know if she had a protector. Even in this world that must be important. Would she understand the word for promise? “This Brad weddast you?”

  Her cheeks went red. She looked away. “No.”

  This was bad. Brad had not promised her, yet her blush said clearly that she had bedded him. In spite of her clothing, Galen had grown certain she was not a prostitute. But she would never call this Brad her friend if he had raped her. That meant she had given herself to him in spite of the fact that she was not betrothed. Galen’s gut churned. There was only one reason for that. Why was this so important to him?

  “What is the word for lufian?”

  “Lufian?” Her delicate brows creased. “I don’t know.”

  He pressed ahead. “You lufast Brad?”

  She got that one. She flushed to the roots of her hair. “No. I told you. He is a friend.”

  Galen frowned. “Is he very old?” Maybe this Brad was like Jake, more a father or an uncle.

  “No. He is about my age.”

  “He has your years?” This was bad. “No man of your years is friend. He lusts for you, Lucy. Do you lust for him?” The thought made Galen’s gut churn.

  “No!”

  “Do you allow him—?”

  She didn’t let him finish. “No! And that is not for you to know anyway.”

  “When he wants to imprison me, it is for me to know.” He had to admit to himself that was not why he asked. ”What is he for you?”

  She was silent for a moment, thinking. Then she took a breath as if for courage. “It is hard to explain. To make you understand,” she corrected herself when he didn’t get the gist of it at first, “I will speak Latin.”

  She wanted to change to a language they didn’t share to push him away. “No. English. Speak more slow.”

  She looked down. “My father liked Brad. Much.”

  Was she using past tense? “Your father is dead?” Galen made his voice gentle.

  She nodded and her eyes filled. She managed a small smile. “Nine months.”

  Well, “dead” was a word they shared. “I am sorry for it. Do you have kin from your mother?” He raised his brows and waited quietly. She stared at the word charts.

  “No. I have only Jake. And Brad. My father wanted me to marry Brad.” She glanced up at Galen. “Marry? Wed?”

  He nodded. Her word for marry was the same as his word for promise. Not surprising.

  “I do not love Brad. I want to love the man I marry. But Brad can speak of my father. I like to speak of my father with Brad. It makes me remember him. Like he is not dead.”

  Galen saw it all. This Brad only waited for her to recover from her father’s death. Would Brad ask her to wed him, or would he just take her virginity so that she would have no choice but to wed him? Galen liked the fact that she did not love Brad. But perhaps Brad would worm his way into her affections and convince her that it was love, and she would go to him anyway.

  “Do you know love?”

  “No. I have known men.” She was bright red now. “But I do not know love.”

  So she was not a virgin. Galen blinked rapidly. That meant she was available. That was good. It meant she might have been a prostitute at one time. He didn’t care about that. And now he knew why she wanted to be her own person, away from men who might have victimized her.

  She looked up at him expectantly. Her eyes asked him a question. He grasped for what it might be. Ahhh. She wanted to know if he knew love. He couldn’t enlighten her on that one. He had loved his mother, of course, and his father in a different way. Galen treasured companions for their loyalty, their wit. He owed fealty to his king. Galen liked women, respected them sometimes even. But love?

  “I do not know love also, Lucy.”

  She smiled at that, a little sadly, and he returned in kind. That felt good on some deep level, to share a smile. A slinking, uncomfortable thought wormed its way into his brain. She might not love Brad, but without her maidenhead what place in the world could she have if some man did not promise for her and make her his bride, or at least agree to protect her in return for exclusive use of her body? Jake would try to protect her, but he was old. He would die soon. Her only choice might be prostitution without the protection of a man. She had disobeyed Brad. He was angry with her. Mayhaps he would not protect her. She was vulnerable. Something inside Galen stirred.

  But she was so beautiful surely another man would protect her if this Brad did not. “You have other men friends, Lucy?”

  She blushed again and shook her head. “Not now.” She held her chin up. “I am not what men want. Fyrfaexen. Not thin. Not tall.”

  They wanted a woman to look like a starving peasant? What were the men of this time, that they did not tell this woman that she was beautiful every day of her life, with their eyes, if not with their words? Even this Brad, who lusted after her, had not made her feel the power of her beauty. Galen could make her feel beautiful, if he was to be her protector. . . .

  Fool! He was in no position to be her protector. But Brad was.

  If Galen had his way, this Brad would be made to promise for her. He should be flogged until his back was raw and bleeding if he made her unhappy for a moment in time. Galen wanted to be the man to do it. He grimaced and shrugged his shoulder, trying to loosen it. The swelling made it tight and painful. Curse his weakness . . . He didn’t like to think of her belonging to this Brad, but she needed someone to protect her, and this Brad was certainly powerful. Galen had no standing in this strange world to make Brad do anything or to protect Lucy himself. That thought rankled like a burr under his horse’s saddle.

  But there was another thing he wanted to know. “Why did you go to my time, Lucy?”

  “To your time?” She looked uncomfortable. “I had the book. Brad had the machine.” Galen didn’t understand the word “machine.” He signaled as much to her. Why could he not learn faster? She switched to Latin. Ahh. The bronze wheels were called a machine. She went back to English. “I thought it was . . . fate. You know fate. Destiny?”

  He shook his head, and she had to resort to Latin again. Frustration made him want to stand and pace the room. But that would only take him away from her, and he didn’t want to lose their contact. “That was stupid.” She tried to laugh and resorted to Latin to explain the word “stupid” again. “Enough of this.” She tried to make her face hide her feelings. One of the best things about her was that she failed. Her eyes told her soul, like the color of the ocean that varied with the weather and the health of the sea. “We must work.”

  He let her go back to their lessons. He needed language if he was ever to be independent.

  “ ‘Sail,’ ” she said again, writing it in her column. “Like ‘sail a boat.’ ”

  He nodded and wrote seglian on his side of the ledger. “I sail. You sail. He sails. They sail. Sailed. Sailing. Will sail.” He would learn her English if he had to work day and night.

  She must know her vulnerability in angering Brad. Did she have any options at all? “Lucy . . . ,” Galen began.

  She shook her head. “No more questions. Just the les
son. ‘Walk.’ ” She wrote it down. And then she suddenly said, “I have not yet had my bath.” She rose and hurried to her cabin.

  The moment of intimacy had passed. He was sorry. But he was not sorry for what he had learned. He wanted to know more than action words. He wanted to know, for instance, why this Brad had let the woman he lusted after go into the middle of a battle alone and unprotected.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lucy let the hot water sluice over her head, trying to keep her balance as the boat rolled in the wind that had kicked up after the rainsqualls of the morning.

  Why the hell had she answered Galen’s questions about Brad? And admitting that she slept with men? Waaaay too personal. Was she an idiot? She had blurted out her life story to a Viking she’d known for—what? Three days?

  She poured a handful of shampoo and began scrubbing at her head. All she really knew about him was that he was insufferably sure of himself with women. He probably bedded everything in sight in his own time, whether they were attractive or not. Which was the only reason he’d come on to her. She wasn’t anybody’s idea of beautiful. She’d so forgotten herself she sat next to him clad in nothing but her sleep shirt for hours while they studied this morning. Was she out of her mind?

  Or did she subconsciously want to provoke another attempt to kiss her?

  Absolutely not. She’d just gotten carried away with teaching him. He was not her type. She liked a refined man. Brad was refined. Well educated, knew good wine. Liked to take her to the Exploratorium to try to change her into a woman who loved science as much as he did . . .

  Enough. She rinsed her hair and soaped herself. There were other refined men besides Brad. It didn’t mean she’d fall for a guy who practically dragged women around by their hair.

  She was at a fragile time in her life. That was how she’d let Leonardo’s book become such an obsession. That was why she felt such an attraction to Galen. And why she had dashed back in time for God’s sake, looking for answers about a life to which she no longer seemed connected? She should have told him she loved Brad and Brad loved her. That might have made her off-limits, even in his Dark Ages mind. Why hadn’t she?

  Because he asked her for the truth.

  As if that mattered when it came from a man like him. She pushed open the shower door and grabbed a towel. He’d just been looking for a chink in her armor. He wanted her to admit she was free and desired him so he could slake his lust without actually raping her. He must know he was dependent on her right now. He wasn’t unintelligent.

  Far from it, actually.

  She pulled on her clothes and dragged the brush ruthlessly through her hair. That brought back the moment of closeness they’d shared while he brushed her hair. Surprising in the extreme. She could still feel his big, calloused hands lifting her hair, his breath on her neck . . .

  Get hold of yourself.

  Right. Right. Well, it was good that his English would improve so rapidly. Two could play this game of eliciting uncomfortable admissions. Because he wasn’t the only one with questions. Why, for instance, did he look so ashamed of himself sometimes? That was so at odds with his insufferable sureness. Why had he been fighting Danes when he was half Dane himself? And did he have a woman back in 912? She snorted to herself. He probably had dozens, eager to welcome him to their beds. Why not, with that body and that smile?

  But still there were things about himself he wouldn’t want to reveal.

  She’d ask him, if for no other reason than to see him squirm. Sauce for the gander.

  Lucy returned to the salon after bathing and dressing and found Galen with his boots on. “We walk out,” he said, standing. “We are on this boat too many days.”

  He had cabin fever. Frankly, so did she. “Are you well enough?”

  He nodded. “Ja. We walk now.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What is this smell?”

  He didn’t have to ask what that word was. “Min scen . . . Nay . . . my boots. Blood.”

  “Well then,” she said, pulling on a heavy knit sweater and grabbing her bag. “We will go find you new boots.”

  “A quest?” He grinned at her.

  “A quest.” She grabbed Galen’s pills and some more of Jake’s cash. Lucy’s bag was practically featherweight without Leonardo’s book. She felt lighter, too. Galen would probably collapse in the middle of the store. Or maybe not. The Viking seemed pretty hardy. Three days and already he was much better.

  Maybe her blood donation had helped him.

  Stupid. It had probably been one of many pints of blood he’d gotten. But the thought of her blood running in his veins and helping him to heal was strangely . . . intimate.

  She pushed open the hatch and climbed out into the cockpit. The wind was brisk off the bay. It took her hair and whipped it around her face. She gathered it in both hands and twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck. Torn clouds raced across the blue of the sky. At least it wasn’t foggy. Movement caught her eye and she turned to see a heron lifting off the marsh, out of the reeds. It glided out over the bay, its passage causing other birds to whirl up in anxiety. She recognized some mallards among the confetti spiral of smaller birds.

  Galen shoved up through the hatch and climbed up to the deck, looking up at the sky. Jake’s flannel shirt flapped away from his rock-hard body.

  “Why is the sky brun?” he asked, pointing over to the industrial area of the east bay. “Is there a great fire?”

  “No.” How to explain smog? “Many cars and . . . and . . . smithies?”

  He frowned, but it wasn’t because he didn’t understand. “The sky is sick, Lucy. I feel it.” He peered over into the side, frowning. “Water sick, too.”

  “Yeah. Too many people now.” But there was nothing you could do about it, short of wiping out enough of mankind to go back to the population level in Galen’s time.

  He shook his head and began moving around the deck touching the halyards, the nylon lines the fiberglass, the metal I-bolts. How strange this must all be to him. Jake is out of his mind if he thinks Galen will be able to sail a modern boat. He might be able to crew for her and follow directions if she taught him words for everything. He’d really hate taking orders from her. He might just refuse. What would she do then?

  “Is she fast?” he asked, staring up at the mast.

  “Not the fastest,” Lucy admitted. “These are boats for pleasure not for very fast.”

  Galen peered over the edge into the water again. “She sits high.” Maybe compared with a Viking warship loaded down with men and weapons and supplies for a four-month journey, including cattle. She’d seen illustrations. He climbed down into the cockpit. “What is this?”

  “The wheel.” He looked his question. True. Boats would not have had wheels in his day. “Tiller,” she said, making the motion back and forth of holding a tiller. “To the rudder.”

  That he understood. “From here?”

  She nodded and motioned under the boat. “From the wheel to the rudder.”

  “We sail this boat today.”

  Lucy frowned. “Your shoulder.” She touched her own.

  He clenched his jaw, looking disgusted with himself. It must be hard for a man used to his strength to accept limitations. He climbed up and limped over to the back of the boat, leaned over the aft rail, and nodded in satisfaction at the sight of the rudder. “What is the iron under there?” He pointed to the cockpit.

  Hmmmm—oh, he must have seen the engine room. She blew out a breath. How to explain? “Like the car. It makes the boat sail when there is no wind.”

  He frowned at her. “Boats do not sail without wind.”

  “This boat sails. Like the car goes.”

  “Show me now,” he commanded.

  “No. We are on a quest, remember?”

  He looked rebellious. “Show now, then quest.”

  “I have no desire to go sailing, with or without the motor,” she said, exasperated.

  “A . . . a woman does what a man spea
ks.” Galen was glowering now.

  “Not in this time.” Well, some did, to be fair. “Not me.” That, at least, was true.

  Galen was about to retort something when his eyes sharpened and fixed upon a point over her right shoulder. Lucy turned. It was the tanned, hard-looking guy down the dock, coming topside on his boat. He stared at them.

  Jeez. Here they were facing off like two boxers. That didn’t match her and Galen’s cover at all. Could the guy hear what they’d been saying? It didn’t matter. She’d better make this look like a lovers’ spat. Oh, boy. She was going to regret this.

  She held out a hand to Galen and softened into a smile. “Come, darling, you know you’ll be worn out, what with all the exercise we’ve been getting.”

  Galen didn’t get much of that, if anything, but he heard the tone of her voice. He glanced to her hand as she moved forward and then up to her face. The man was a picture of suspicion. Not good. Lucy took his good arm and sidled in against him, so she could keep an eye on the hard guy. A guy and the kid who’d been playing with the dog yesterday emerged from their boat about halfway down, dressed in shorts and boat shoes even in this weather. The dog was with them. Great. Everyone seemed to be coming up on deck to enjoy the respite from the rain. Now they had three witnesses to a tiff.

  “Don’t be angry,” she cooed. Galen’s eyes widened. “Kiss me,” she whispered. She was going to regret this big-time.

  Wariness crept into Galen’s blue eyes. His chin lifted.

  “Kiss me,” she hissed, moving her head slightly to indicate the others down the dock. “Just for show.”

  Wariness was replaced by that light in his eyes. “Ja, Lucy. I kiss you for show.”

  “Make it good,” she whispered. “We are new wed.” She looked up at him and suddenly she was afraid. Not that he would ravish her. She was afraid of something worse. Or better.

  Galen dipped his head. His breath was warm on her face. His lashes brushed his cheeks. His beard and mustache, gone, had freed his lips to reveal a sensuality that was dangerous. They brushed her lips softly. His arm came round her waist, holding her to his hip. She felt the bulge of his biceps as he tightened his embrace until she could hardly get her breath.