A Nordic Knight of the Golden Fleece: Jakob & Avery: Book 2 (The Hansen Series - Jakob & Avery)
Page 32
And he never even left Milwaukee.
Realizing she had been a fool, Hollis’s life soon became an endless round of alarm clocks, premade dinners from the deli, and online dating failures. She seemed destined to be alone and was seriously contemplating adopting several feral cats to seal that fate.
Speaking of alone, Mr. Fur-and-Leather remained rooted in his spot, completely ignored by the otherwise friendly and enthusiastic crowd. The sound bouncing around her was impressive: two hundred women and a handful of men, all talking at once in a happy cacophony of excitement and reconnection. As she watched him, his skittish gaze eventually landed on hers.
Hollis sucked a quick breath and held it. His eyes were an ocean-clear blue, but no less penetrating than if they had been solid black. As he watched her, watching him, his eyes widened and he straightened, eschewing the wall’s support. His hands rolled into fists.
What should I do now?
Hollis looked away, but could not stop herself from looking back. He still stared at her, his expression somber.
She took the first step without thinking about it. As she approached him—eyes fixed on each other’s—the ladies in her path stepped aside with crooked smiles and puzzled expressions. She didn’t pay attention to them—she was being pulled toward the handsome stranger as if he had caught her on a hook and was reeling her in. She stopped in front of him and looked up into his eyes. He was well over six feet tall with dark blond hair hanging below his shoulders.
Hollis spoke first. “Hello.”
His gaze shot around the foyer before returning to hers. “Do you have one of those shiny rectangles to press to your ear?”
She made a skeptical face, reached into her hip pocket, and pulled out her phone. “Do you mean this?”
“Yes.” He wagged a finger, indicating that she should lift the phone to her ear. “Hold it up while we speak.”
Hollis complied with the strange request because she was too curious not to. “Are you one of the models?”
He frowned. “No. What is a model?”
“The Men of Our Dreams contestants.” Hollis noticed an accent which she could not place. “If you aren’t one of them, then why are you wearing a costume?”
His hands stroked the laced leather vest over his linen shirt and then his palms slid down the sides of his leather pants. “These are my clothes.”
“But it’s over a hundred degrees outside.” She waved a hand at the surrounding glass walls. “Aren’t you hot?”
He looked a little embarrassed. “I do not feel heat. Or cold, anymore.”
Her hand sagged away from my ear, incredulous at his claim, and he gestured urgently for her to put it back in place. “Keep your shiny thing there.”
Frustrated, Hollis held the phone in front of his unshaven face instead. “Why?”
“I don’t mean to interrupt, but… are you okay?”
Hollis turned to her right to face a woman wearing a purple cowboy hat made of straw, and one of the surprisingly cute event t-shirts that came free with registration. The woman’s concern for Hollis, however, was much more obvious than the reason for it.
“Yes. I’m fine. I’m just talking to this guy.” She gestured with the hand holding her phone.
The other woman’s eyes flicked to the phone. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She flashed an embarrassed smile and backed away, waving her hands in a go on sort of motion. “Sorry.”
Hollis returned her attention to Mr. Hunky Fur-and-Leather, who now had a first name. “As I was just saying—”
He flicked his finger. “Shiny thing. Now.”
She grunted and smacked her phone against her ear.
Ouch. She should have worn smaller earrings. “Why do I need to have my phone against my ear for you to talk to me?”
He leaned close enough that his hair should have ticked her cheek. “Because you are the only one who can see me.”
Hollis’s eyes rounded and she whirled around to face the gathered attendees, sloshing wine on the carpeted floor. Her sudden movement garnered brief flashes of friendly attention, before the participants shot odd looks in her direction, and then returned to their momentarily interrupted conversations. Not a single one of them so much as glanced at the tall, leather-clad stranger by her side.
“How is this possible?” Her head felt woozy, like it might float off her shoulders and go bouncing against the ornate ceiling.
She raised her phone to her ear once more—more slowly this time—but it felt as heavy as her battered college-graduation briefcase. She turned back to stare at the tall man. “Are you a ghost?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?” Hollis squeaked, her anger growing. “Perhaps?”
He looked inexplicably stricken. “To be honest, I am not sure what I am.”
“Well if you don’t know, then what am I to think?” she shouted. “Have I gone crazy?”
His gaze lifted over her head and his brow lowered. “Do you have a private chamber?”
“I have a suite in the hotel, if that’s what you mean.” Hollis recoiled, shocked. “Certainly you don’t expect—”
“My lady, you are garnishing an overabundance of unwanted attention.” He moved to take her elbow and she imagined that she felt his touch. “I do suggest that we retire to a private setting to continue this discussion, if only for the benefit of your own repute.”
Hollis blew an exasperated sigh, slammed her wine glass on a marble side table hard enough that she was relieved the stem didn’t shatter, and strode through the foyer, past the crowded bar, toward the elevators to the suites. She didn’t dare look behind her. She could feel the weight of inquisitive stares on her back and wondered if she might be better off spending the rest of the weekend in her suite, watching cable and ordering in copious amounts of Chinese food.
When the elevator doors opened, Hollis stepped inside and pressed the button for the second floor. She moved to stand against the back wall, as is correct in polite society. She was alone in the car.
“Of course, I’m alone,” she muttered. What did she expect?
Obviously Miranda was right. Hollis had been working too hard, to the point of hallucinating after a couple glasses of wine. Okay, three. What the heck—they were free.
When the elevator doors opened, she gasped, sucking the air from the car. Her mysterious man waited on the landing.
“How did you do that?”
“I do not know.” He extended a hand. “Come out before the panels slide closed.”
Hollis rolled her eyes, stomped out of the elevator and turned right, then right again. Her suite was halfway down the hall and had a very lovely view of the swimming pool below and golf course beyond. If she made the cable and Chinese food decision, at least the weekend’s scenery would be enticing.
She fumbled for the room key, hands shaking, and slid the card into the electronic lock the wrong way.
“Damn.”
She flipped it over and inserted it again, receiving a condescending beep for the effort. Hollis pressed the handle down and shouldered her way into the room. She let the heavy door fall shut behind her, reasoning that a ghost wouldn’t be affected by a mere steel portal. Stopping in the middle of the living room, she turned to face the—whatever he was.
His gaze roamed around the room, taking in details. “It is very clean.”
“Yes. The maids come every day.”
He nodded. “You must be very wealthy.”
Hollis laughed at that. “If I was wealthy, I’d be staying at the Phoenician.”
His brow wrinkled. “In Egypt?”
She waved his question away; that answer was far too long and pointless. “Who are you?”
He pressed a fist to his heart and bowed at the waist. “My name is Sveyn Hansen. I come from the home of my father and my father’s father, Arendal.”
Though the name sounded vaguely familiar, she shook her head. “Where is that?”
Sveyn straightened. “On the southe
rn coast of Norway.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you a Viking?”
“Not any longer.” He motioned toward the sleeper sofa. “Will you sit?”
Hollis sank onto the sofa, kicked off her sandals, and tucked her legs under her. She grabbed a throw pillow and clutched it to her chest for protection.
Against a ghost?
She grunted and tossed the pillow back in place. “Okay. Tell me your story.”
Sveyn paced back and forth, his long legs eating up the carpeted space with ease. “It was the year ten-seventy. The new religion had come to Norway, and the old religionists were fighting against it.”
“New religion?” Hollis interrupted to be certain.
Sveyn paused. “Christianity.”
She nodded and waved for him to continue.
“Young Magnus Haraldsson had just died, and his youngest brother, Olaf Haraldsson took his place as king. He was the one who decreed that Norway was now a Christian country.” Sveyn stopped his pacing and regarded her with an intense blue gaze. “The viking—raiding—must stop. Do you understand?”
Hollis was admittedly entranced, as impossible as this tale was. “Yes. Viking is a verb.”
He waved an approving finger in her direction. “But not everyone agrees. When the pagan halls are converted to churches, there are fights between the men. Battles, with strong beliefs on both sides.”
“Were you killed?” What the hell am I asking?
Sveyn Hansen squatted in front of her. He looked so impossibly real, so enticingly solid, and so unbelievably handsome with his dark blond hair, icy blue eyes, and strong jaw line.
“I was impaled by a long sword through my gut. I was lying in the cold snow, my hot blood running from my body.” His eyes pinned hers as his hand moved to the bloodied gash in his vest, which she had been too stunned to notice before he pointed it out.
Hollis felt the unexpected prickle of tears. “And?” she whispered.
“The priest has my head.” Sveyn mimed his narrative. “And Old Eric has my feet.”
“Old Eric?” Hollis shrugged; her knowledge of Viking lore was limited, because up until very recently this evening she hadn’t been that interested. “Who is he?”
“Tunrida? Loki?”
Her blank expression spoke volumes.
Sveyn leaned forward. “The devil himself.”
“Oh! Like a tug-of-war?”
Now his expression went blank.
“Each one had hold of you, and they were trying to pull you to their own side. Am I right?”
He nodded, his frighteningly intense expression pulling her in. “There was a sudden flash of light so bright I was blinded, and a roar of thunder that rattled my bones. When everything faded away, I was like this.”
Hollis stared at him, wondering if she dared to believe him. “What does ‘like this’ mean?”
Sveyn would have sighed, she thought, if he was breathing. “I am not dead, and I am not alive.”
She unfolded her legs and leaned toward him. “You want me to believe that you are caught in between?”
His shoulders slumped. “I have no other explanation.”
Hollis’s scientific training kicked into gear. “How extensively can you interact with the three dimensional world?”
Sveyn blinked, but understood her question in spite of his claimed antiquity. “I can see and hear. I cannot taste or smell.”
“What about touch?” She lifted her hand. “Can you feel this?”
Hollis pressed her palm against his chest. His form was soft, like pressing into whipped cream—it’s there, but only barely.
With a grunt, Sveyn jerked backwards as if she had burned him and scrambled to his feet. He rubbed his chest. His eyes rounded under a startled brow. “My God! I felt that!”
Hollis stood, incredulous and trembling. When her hand moved against the Viking, she definitely felt something. Whatever sort of being he was, or had become, he was definitely here.
“Wha—what does this mean?” she stammered.
He reached toward her and tried to grab her hands, but his fingers passed through hers with an ephemeral chill. She jerked her hands back, her pulse surging with adrenaline.
Disappointment pulled his body downward in defeat. “I thought... I hoped…”
He peered down into her eyes. Hollis clearly saw his soul then: tortured, tired, lonely. So very lonely. Even more lonely and heartbroken than she was.
His voice rumbled in her chest like a looming monsoon storm. “What now?”
THE HANSEN FAMILY TREE
Sveyn Hansen* (b. 1035 ~ Arendal, Norway)
***
Rydar Hansen (b. 1324 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Grier MacInnes (b. 1328 ~ Durness, Scotland)
Eryndal Bell Hansen (b. 1327 ~ Bedford, England)
Andrew Drummond (b. 1325 ~ Falkirk, Scotland)
***
Jakob Petter Hansen (b. 1485 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Avery Galaviz de Mendoza (b. 1483 ~ Madrid, Spain)
***
Brander Hansen (b. 1689 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Regin Kildahl (b. 1693 ~ Hamar, Norway)
***
Martin Hansen (b. 1721 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Dagne Sivertsen (b. 1725 ~ Ljan, Norway)
Reidar Hansen (b. 1750 ~ Boston, Massachusetts)
Kristen Sven (b. 1754 ~ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Nicolas Hansen (b. 1787 ~ Cheltenham, Missouri Territory)
Siobhan Sydney Bell (b. 1789 ~ Shelbyville, Kentucky)
Stefan Hansen (b. 1813 ~ Cheltenham, Missouri)
Kirsten Hansen (b. 1820 ~ Cheltenham, Missouri)
Leif Fredericksen Hansen (b. 1809 ~ Christiania, Norway)
***
Tor Hansen (b. 1913 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Kyle Solberg (b. 1919 ~ Viking, Minnesota)
Teigen Hansen (b. 1915 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Selby Hovland (b. 1914 ~ Trondheim, Norway)
***
*Hollis McKenna Hansen (b. 1985 Sparta, Wisconsin)
Kris Tualla is a dynamic, award-winning, and internationally published author of historical romance and suspense. She started in 2006 with nothing but a nugget of a character in mind, and has created a dynasty with The Hansen Series, and its spin-off, The Discreet Gentleman Series. Find out more at: www.KrisTualla.com
Kris is an active PAN member of Romance Writers of America, the Historical Novel Society, and Sisters in Crime, and was invited to be a guest instructor at the Piper Writing Center at Arizona State University.
“In the Historical Romance genre, there have been countless kilted warrior stories told. I say it's time for a new breed of heroes. Come along with me and find out why: Norway IS the new Scotland!”