She glanced back to find Brendon watching in fascination. “That should do it. We don’t have much space on the boat.”
Brendon bustled out ahead of them, his arms filled. “Hey, I’ve always wanted to live on a boat. Just sail away if you get tired of one place.”
“Storage is a problem. And then there’s the mold,” she said. “Boats are just plain damp.”
“Hmmmm. That couldn’t be good for my poster collection. I may have to rethink.”
She was betting Marilyn Monroe movie posters. And the fact that he could consider having a poster collection aboard a boat showed how little he knew about living aboard.
Brendon checked them out and distributed the many bags, Lucy thanking him profusely.
She was fuming by the time she and Galen got to the parking lot, though. He turned heads all right. Women were undressing her Viking with their eyes at every turn. And Galen might be exhausted, but he was looking smug. He had just discovered that women were women, whatever the millennia. But once in the car, he eased his shoulder against the car seat, letting out a breath.
“So, we will go back to the boat and you will sleep now.” Her speech had taken on an unfamiliar rhythm as she strove to use words they shared or that he had learned. Who was changing more, Galen or herself?
“Ja, Lucy,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “You speak sooth.”
But there was one more stop to make. They rolled into the parking lot of the Quik Stop about half an hour later. Lucy got out, motioning Galen to stay, and practically sprinted into the little store. The sooner she got him back to the boat and some Vicodin the better.
“Hey,” she greeted the clerk. The radio was blaring. Sounded like a basketball game.
“That package you were expecting showed up.” He turned to the boxes behind the counter, took out a key that unwound from a clip on his belt, and retrieved a thick package. There was no name at all in the address. It just said: Occupant, Slip 18. Talk about discreet.
She glanced up to find that the guy had a really curious look on his face. “It was delivered by messenger,” he said.
“Oh. Well . . . thanks.” She turned to go.
“Wally,” he called after her. “The name is Wally Campbell. And you are . . . ?”
She laughed in what she hoped was a carefree way, glancing over her shoulder at him. “The newlywed in slip eighteen.” Then she escaped, the bell of the door dogging her heels.
When she got to the car, she ripped open the padded bag and pulled out the contents. Two passports lay on top of a sheaf of papers, one the familiar navy blue with gold lettering and one red. She flipped open the navy blue one and saw her picture—the one Jake had taken in the apartment. Her name was now Lucinda Jane Gilroy. Great, Jake. Couldn’t you have thought of a nicer name? At least she could still be called Lucy. That prevented slipups. Today her name was short for “Lucia,” but “Lucinda” worked just as well. Her passport had some official-looking stamps in it, the latest from . . . Denmark. The other passport turned out to be Danish. And the picture was clearly Galen. The hair was short, the beard trimmed and neat. Good old Photoshop. He didn’t look fierce at all. Someone had retouched the circles he’d had under his eyes that night and given him a complexion that wasn’t ashen. He looked like a modern, very civilized denizen of Copenhagen. You’d never know he was a Viking from more than a thousand years ago. His passport was stamped with a U.S. entry.
Galen peered at the passports. He started when he recognized himself. “What is this?”
Of course he’d never seen a photograph. “That is a photo. It captures your reflection. Like the far-seer, or . . . like a mirror.” She took her compact mirror out of her purse.
“Ahhh. Like a sceawere. Mirror.” He peered more closely at his picture.
“It tells people who you are.” She pointed to his name. “See? Galen Valgarssen.”
“I can tell people who I am.”
“Everyone needs one of these in our time. People want you to have one.”
“Then I have one.” He peered over at the other documents.
Jake had been thorough. A U.S. visa for Galen. Two birth certificates, one in English for her and Galen’s in Danish, and a California driver’s license for her, registration for the Chevy in her name, even some letters from a fictional mother, saying how happy she was at Lucy’s marriage and wondering whether she would be taking Galen’s last name. There were pictures she couldn’t even tell were faked that showed her and Galen against the backdrop of a busy Mexican market. She looked like a real person. A different person, with a different life, but real.
Impressive. If she had ever wondered whether Jake was really some bad-ass dude who did dirty work for the government, her doubts had just been laid to rest. Jake was the real deal. And he thought she and Galen were in big trouble.
Now that was frightening.
Chapter 14
“Well, look who’s up and about,” Lucy said, looking over her shoulder at Galen. He looked tousled and soft with sleep. He’d been out like a light for several hours. Now, in the fading light, barefoot in jeans and a Henley pullover, he looked good enough to eat.
“No wind,” he remarked, easing himself carefully onto the bench around the table.
The boat rocked gently in its slip. “Fog tonight.” She glanced her question to him. He shook his head. “Mist?” she tried.
He quirked his lips and nodded. “Ja. Mist.”
“New storm . . .” She raised her brows. “Storm?”
“It is ilca in my words. Storm.”
“The word is ‘same,’ ” she said automatically. “New storm comes tomorrow night.” Of course the basic words for weather were the same. Weather endured. The Earth endured, though it might be embattled just now.
“How do you know this?” he asked.
Uh-oh. That was a tough one. He’d think she was a witch again. She bent to the refrigerator and opened the door while she thought. Pulling out the sour cream, she scooped out a cup for her dill sauce. “Wise men can learn to know what weather will come. They tell us.”
“They know weder? Storm? Wind?”
“Weather,” she corrected. “They are not always right.” Galen gave a look of frustration that he didn’t know all the English words. He’s been at it what, two days? He pushes himself so hard.
He frowned. “Were they here that they tell you of this?” He obviously didn’t like to think others had been on the boat while he had slept.
Well, she might as well show him now as later. She reached over to the radio on the bar and turned the knob.
“And now, the marine forecast,” the announcer’s voice said, right on cue, sounding slightly tinny. Galen lurched to his feet in a crouch.
“It’s okay.” She raised her hands, palms out. “It’s okay. It’s like the far-seer.” She pointed to the small flat screen mounted on the wall in the salon. “Men in other places speak. We hear them through this.” She pointed to the radio and turned it off.
He heaved a breath and sat back down. She could see he was troubled. “Your time is not the same as mine. I do not belimp here.”
Belimp . . . belimp. Limp? Context was wrong. “Belong?” He looked away. What could she say to that? He so did not belong here, no matter that he looked the part now.
“I am like a bearn . . . a lytling.” He looked disgusted with himself. “Not like a man.”
Those words she understood. She turned down her sauce and went to sit beside him. His analogy was pretty good. He was like a child learning a new environment. But that meant the problem was temporary. “We all learn about radios and TVs and cars. You will learn, Galen.” She knew the word for learn was the same—they had been through that this morning. He turned his head away. He must not want her to see the pain in his eyes. And why wouldn’t he be in pain? Far from all he knew, all those he cared about. Not sure whether he would ever get back. “I do not belong in your time, either. I was there only a moment, and I almost died.”
; He was silent for a moment. “You are not a duguth, Lucy.”
She shook her head, signifying she didn’t understand.
“Wigend?” He sighed and used the Latin.
“Warrior,” she supplied. “I understand. But there are many ways to fight. Fight?”
He nodded.
“You fight to learn the words. You fight to heal your wounds. That is enough for now.”
“It is not enough.” Before he turned his head away, she saw the look of shame flicker across his eyes.
That right there was what she wanted to know about him. Why he got that look in his eyes. He had opened the door. She could ask him why he said that. But wanting a tit-for-tat revelation because she’d said things about herself she hadn’t meant to say was petty revenge. She patted his forearm instead. The contact made her thrill even through his shirt.
“You are too hard on yourself.” He looked up, a puzzle in his eyes. They seemed to see right into her. She broke the moment by standing. “What you need is food. Yes?”
“Ja, Lucy. I am hungry. Like hors. You have horses?”
“Ahhh. Beautiful horses. I rode as a child. Lytling.” She liked that word.
“I have a strong horse. No, had a strong horse. He is long dead.” Galen sighed. “His hide was frfaexen.”
“We would call him a chestnut.”
“You have horse now?”
“No. No horses in the city.” She got up and went back to the tiny galley.
“Hund?”
“No. No dog.”
“Mother?”
She shook her head. “Dead when I was lytling.”
“You have women who are friends?”
“I have kept much to myself since my father died.”
“Only Jake and this Brad.” Her lips would not behave. Galen said Brad’s name with such disdain. “You need more friends, Lucy.”
He probably had lots of friends. Female friends. She didn’t like the feeling that brought on. “Perhaps you’re right.” She had thought just this afternoon that he might become a friend.
“Oh, I have the right of it? You besyrwast me.”
She could tell by the sarcastic tone of his voice he probably meant “surprise.” She checked with him in Latin. Yep. “The word is ‘surprise.’ ”
She was surprised herself. Who knew Vikings could be sarcastic? She couldn’t help the crinkle in her eyes as she bent to take out the salmon. As she moved around the galley, he kept it light, asking the words for food, for the actions she took. She turned on the lights, and the gently rocking boat was bathed in a soft glow. The feeling of rightness washed over her again, unrelated to kisses and the almost constant pull she felt to his body. It was a deeper, more satisfying rightness, comfortable, certain. Lucy had never felt anything like it, not even when her mother was alive. It was as if this was where Lucy belonged, talking softly to a half-Saxon, half-Viking warrior as she made him salmon for dinner. Brad and Colonel Casey were far away. Her fears and doubts seemed almost foolish.
Sated, Galen watched her wash up the dishes. She had made him a fine dinner. Beef and a bowl of lettuces and a roasted wyrt she called potatoes. It was a woman’s place to cook, but she had provided even the food, much to his shame. Her red hair glowed in the light of the lamps, the movements of her body endlessly fascinating. What a kind woman she was, generous. In other times, if he were another man, he would have felt . . . content.
He puzzled over the thrumming rightness he had felt sometimes in the last days. Was it some kind of a call? He had felt it when he kissed Lucy today. Her mouth was sweet, yielding. He had felt her nipples peak against his ribs. She was a tiny thing but strong of spirit. Still, she had trembled as they walked down the dock. She was not afraid of him physically, in spite of the differences in their strength. Was she afraid of what she felt for him?
He understood that. He was drawn to her. He wanted her as he had never wanted a woman, not because he had not spilled his seed of late, not because he was dependent on her. That was abhorrent to him still. He needed Lucy in such a deep way that . . .
It was if some foreign thing possessed him, growing inside him and straightening his cock. Even now, as he watched her reach to place a dish in a high cupboard, the curve of her breast made a drumbeat in his loins. He had desired many women in his life. But this was something else, growing more urgent, more insistent every moment. He needed to make love to Lucy. He needed to protect her. Claim her. Something inside him said that if he did, everything would be all right.
As he watched her silhouette, he saw her nipples peak again. She was aware of him. Her eyes slid to his. He saw both lust and fear there, echoes of the unfamiliar emotions circling inside him. She stared at him, and he could not look away.
He sucked in a breath, almost a gasp. A thought chased itself around inside his head. This was no ordinary lust. It felt like a force on its own, apart from him. Was she a wicce indeed? Did she bespell him? He barely suppressed an outraged laugh. Not what his mother wanted for him when she named him Galen, meaning “bespelled one.”
This spell was making him lose his way. He belonged in another time. Lucy was only a means to an end. Contentment was a trap. He must go back as soon as he could to a time when he had value that he might fulfill whatever destiny he had left.
Or maybe he had a new destiny. To be imprisoned by this Brad and his friends, tortured as in Kiev. Only a fearful outline of Galen’s destiny was visible, as though a beast approached through mist. The threads of the Norns, who wove men’s destiny, had been broken by Lucy’s time machine and might never be put right again.
He shook himself. All men had fear. But men of value pushed down their fear and acted. His action now was to learn the language and get back to strength.
He jerked his gaze away from her witch green eyes. He mustn’t lose his soul to her.
He stood abruptly. “I must sleep.”
She blinked, as though coming to herself. “Yes. Of course. Rest well.” She turned away, her blush creeping up her throat into her face. It made him want to kiss away her embarrassment.
And mayhaps to lose himself forever.
He stumbled aft and shut the cabin door, fumbled at his jeans, pulled his shirt over his head with his left hand and down his injured shoulder, and struggled out of his jeans and boxers. His erection, hard as an oak staff, sprang free. He eased himself down, naked on the bed, on his back so not even the blankets could touch his rod and aggravate his condition. The throb in his shoulder and thigh was pale in comparison to the tight beat of need in his loins. He was sweating, Loki take him, just at the thought of Lucy in the next room, practically outside the door, blushing, wanting him.
He thought of other things. Guthrum’s son. The battle. It didn’t matter. Lucy fought her way into his brain—the way her naked breasts moved beneath the green shirt this morning, the way her lips opened to his on the deck in the wind for all to see.
He groaned.
There was nothing for it. He grabbed his rod and jerked at himself without mercy until his loins contracted and he spurted hot semen across his belly. That would keep him from losing his soul to the green-eyed witch.
But all it did was make him miserable. An emptiness crept into his belly as though he had desecrated his destiny.
Saturday
Lucy was out of the shower and dressed by the time Galen got up. She’d been so relieved last night when he went to bed early and removed the temptation to march over to where he sat and kiss him again that she hadn’t even tried to disinfect his wounds.
And if relief left her feeling bereft, well, at least she’d won the battle with herself. She had won, hadn’t she? Then why did it feel like a devastating loss? She’d tossed her pepper spray into the nightstand drawer in disgust. Not only would she probably not resist if he came into her bed, but he obviously wasn’t going to come. And he didn’t.
Now he came out of the aft cabin like a tousled Norse god, naked and glowering, and marched into the head with a g
runt of “good morning.” He carried a batch of clothes under one arm. His genitals were full, if not fully erect.
Lucy blew out a breath and tried turning her attention to the sizzling bacon whose smell was no doubt what had brought him out of his lair. That probably didn’t conceal her blush. Damn her fair coloring. And damn the feeling that seeing him naked and rising put between her legs. She was almost in pain, so suddenly that it seemed that someone had just flipped a switch. Great. How was she going to deal with this constant response to him?
The head flushed. The shower started. Her imagination kicked into high gear. This was just untenable.
She realized that the stitches on his thigh had been slightly red. Probably from the irritation of rubbing on his jeans. She sighed. Okay. She’d cut some bandages for his thigh and give him the Betadine and the hydrogen peroxide solution. He was well enough to take care of himself at this point. She gathered materials, waited until she heard the shower shut off, then opened the door a crack and thrust the supplies into the steam.
“Bandages for your thigh.” She cleared her throat to get the gravel out of her voice. “You can tend your wounds yourself today.”
Did his hands have to brush against hers as he took the supplies?
“Thonc . . . Thanks, Lucy,” he growled, then cleared his throat. They seemed to be afflicted with the same problem this morning.
Lucy snatched back her hand and shut the door with a bang. A month until she heard from Jake? Well, more than three weeks. She was stuck here with Galen until then. And after? There must be some way out of this predicament.
Galen’s progress was truly amazing. Agatha Christie’s phrase “mind like a bacon slicer” occurred to Lucy. He remembered all the words she had taught him with very little repetition. He seemed to be able to use them almost immediately in sentences. He had gotten the hang of using Latin roots to understand the meaning of many English words. His accent was still pronounced, but he was pretty much talking in whole sentences without a lot of stopping to figure out words anymore. She swept the crumbs from their sandwiches off the chart and rolled it up. They had hardly used it all morning as he progressed faster and faster.
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