Truly, Madly Viking

By

Sandra Hill

Other Love Spell and Leisure books by Sandra Hill:

THE LOVE POTION

THE LAST VIKING

FRANKLY, MY DEAR

THE TARNISHED LADY

THE BEWITCHED VIKING

THE RELUCTANT VIKING

LOVE ME TENDER

THE OUTLAW VIKING

SWEETER SAVAGE LOVE

DESPERADO

A LOVE SPELL BOOK®

July 2000

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

276 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10001

Copyright © 2000 by Sandra Hill

ISBN 0-505-52387-6

Printed in the United States of America.

Prolog

998 A.D., Summertime in the Norse lands
 
Jorund Ericsson stared blankly at the huge grave mound. It was large enough to hold a longship and all the personal belongings necessary for the occupant to lead a good life in the afterworld.
A year and more he had been gone to the East lands, fighting the wars of the emperor of Miklegard. A lifelong warrior-for-hire, he had been part of the elite Varangian Guard, made up of handpicked Vikings from many nations. On the journey home, he had idled time away by standing under the banner of the Norse king Olaf Tryggva son, who was on the offensive again in Britain, spreading sword dew in his wake like a bloody wave. For Olaf, who happened to be Jorund's paternal uncle, this represented but a brief respite from the ongoing territorial struggles with the Danish king, Sven Forkbeard.
Some said fighting was a Viking way of life. 'Twas true.
With no apologies, Jorund acknowledged being a lord of swordplay... a mercenary, but not without principles; he stood only with those chieftains whose goals and standards he shared. Following this life path, he saw death as a constant companion and had long since lost count of the bodies that had fallen under his sword, or those of his comrades who now resided in Valhalla.
Still, he had never expected to find this upon his return to his homeland.
In his distress, his eyes darted here and there about the grave site, soon catching on the burial stone, where sticklike runic symbols spelled out:
 

Here lies Inga Sigrundottir,

Wife of Jarl Jorund Ericsson of Vestfold, Daughter of Jarl Anlaf of Lade.

She lived but twenty and three winters. Died she in the great famine,

In the year nine ninety-seven.
 
Jorund choked back a gasp. There had been no great love betwixt him and Inga these six years since their forced marriage. Nonetheless, grief and great shame overwhelmed him at her death eight months past. A man protected those under his shield, lest he be a nithing, a man devoid of honor. He should have been here to safeguard her welll being, whether from the dangers of man or nature.
But then his gaze moved to the left, to the two small conjoined grave markers that read:
 

Greta and Girta Ingadottir,

Firstborn twins,

Beloved daughters.

They lived but five years.

May Freyja hold them to her eternal bosom.
 
Jorund dropped to his knees and put his face in his hands. He was not an emotional man. Once, amid the din of battle, he'd cleaved a man to the teeth with his battle-ax and ne'er felt a moment of remorse. He could not remember the last time he had yielded to the woman-weakness of crying— mayhap as a child when one of his brothers had hurt him in rough play—but tears welled in his eyes now.
The thought of Inga lying in the cold earth brought him regret that one so young should journey from this earth before her time. Regret... that was all. He was the one who had suffered most from Inga's renowned machinations, which had led him reluctantly to her marriage bed, but he bore her no ill will. She had not been a bad woman at heart.
Thoughts of his daughters, on the other hand, brought fierce pain to his chest and constriction to his throat. He had not wanted marriage. He had not even wanted children—but, oh, when he'd held them for the first time, bloody and blue with wrinkled skin, after they emerged from their mother's womb... well, he'd loved them on first sight. Seed of his loins they had been, but so much more than that.
The last time he'd seen his girls, they'd not yet celebrated the fourth anniversary of their birthing day. His longship had been pulling up anchor in the fjord in front of his vast homestead. Inga had been standing at the bank, along with his father and mother Jarl Eric and Lady Asgar; his brothers, Rolf the Shipbuilder and Magnus of the Big Ears; and the family retainers. Greta and Girta had come dancing down the hillside at the last moment, their blond braids swishing back and forth, their hiked-up gunnas wrinkled and dirty from some youthling game or another. And they had been giggling. Odd that he should recall that now. But then, he reminded himself, was there a sound more heart-touching in the whole world than that of a giggling child... even to a hardened warrior such as himself.
"Don't forget to bring me ribands, Father!" Greta had called out to him... as if she hadn't reminded him enough times the night before amid sticky kisses and little-girl hugs. "All the colors of the rainbow... please." That last word she'd added upon seeing her mother frown down at her for the girl's lack of politeness. Inga, daughter of a high jarl of Lade in northeast Norway, had placed great importance on courtly.
"And silk slippers from a harem," Girta had added gaily ducking as her mother reached out to swat her with an open palm for her impertinence.
"A harem, indeed!" Inga had snorted, but then she hadn't been able to help herself and grinned at the child's outrageousness. Girta had been known for her saucy tongue.
Jorund smiled to himself at the sweet memory, even as a strangled cry escaped his closed air passes.
"My son."
Jorund jerked upright as he felt a palm on his shoulder. Standing, he turned to see his father.
"I need your help, Jorund. Yours and that of your brother, Magnus."
"This is not the time," he choked out, waving a d to indicate the burial mound.
"There is no better time," his father said wearily. "There is naught you can do for Inga and the girls now. Nay, do not scowl at me. 'Tis true."
Suddenly Jorund noticed how much his father had aged in the time he'd been gone. Was it the famine and all the human losses? Or something else? He furrowed his brow in question.
"Your brother, Geirolf, is missing and feared dead."
"Oh, Father! He's probably just delayed on one of his voyages." Rolf was a shipbuilder who often tested his vessels on extended journeys before selling them to high-placed nobles from many lands.
"Not this time," his father insisted. "Whilst you were gone, I sent him on a quest that I hoped would end the famine here in Norway, but then his dragonship sank after a violent sea battle with that misbegotten cur, Storr Grimmsson. His body was never found." He paused, then added, "I need to be sure, one way or another."
"You think Rolf may still be alive?" he inquired, suddenly alert, though still stunned by this latest news.
"Some seamen from Storr's crew told us, under torture, that Geirolf was last seen in the waters... alive. " His father shrugged with uncertainty. "You and Magnus must travel to Iceland and mayhap even beyond that to Greenland... the region where Geirolf was last seen alive."
"Iceland!" he exclaimed. This was no small favor his father beseeched of him. "No!"
"But—"
"Nei yцir nei," he practically shouted. Then, more softly, "No is no."
His father merely stared at him, making him feel like a child again... a selfish child.
Jorund was torn. Should he stay here in Vest fold and suffer penance for his failing of Inga and his daughters? Or should he leave his homeland to help his father, and perhaps expiate his guilt?
"I beg of you, my son. Put aside your sorrow for now and grant me this boon. 'Twas I who sent Geirolf into harm's way. The guilt is weighing me down so, I can scarce think or speak."
Jorund knew exactly how his father felt. Soon he nodded.
This was a mission he could not refuse.
 

Autumn, 998 A.D. Beyond Iceland

 
"Look, Jorund, look! There she blows... again. Hmmm. Mayhap that is the fair Thora's way of blowing kisses at you. Dost thinks..."
"Magnus," Jorund Ericsson warned his brother with a disgusted shake of his head.
"I have heard more than enough of your nonsense today. I suggest you go take a seat at one of the oarlocks and row off some of your excess vigor."
He was standing at the rail of his longship, Fierce Warrior, honing the blade of his favorite sword, Bloodletter. Magnus was standing next to him, honing his tongue. Unless Magnus had a plow in his hands, or a mead horn in his mouth, or a wench in his bed, he tended to think it was his mission in life to bedevil his brother. It was no exaggeration to say that Magnus had an opinion on every bloody topic in the world.
"Now, now, do not be overmodest, little brother," Magnus advised, puffing his chest out, which was a sure sign he was about to expound at length... on some triviality. His long, blond hair was pulled off his face with a leather thong tied at the nape, which drew attention to his uncommonly large ears. For years, Magnus had claimed that his large ears were a sign of other... well, attributes that were equally pronounced, but Jorund could hardly credit that.
And what did he call me? Little? In truth, he and Magnus were of the same immense height, though Magnus was bullish in stature, being a farmsteader by trade, while Jorund carried the leaner-muscled body of a fighting man. And they were a mere nine months apart in age. So little hardly applied. For the love of Odin! What importance is there in whether my brother deems me big or little? My mind must be melting in this unseasonably hot sun. And that is another thing... who would think the sun could be so hot in Iceland? Perchance we have strayed farther than—
"One and all can see that the fair Thora has developed a passion for you,"
Magnus blathered on. "And not just the blowing of kisses. You must admit she has been following you about for a sennight and more. Wagging her tail at you like a Hedeby whore. Besotted she is, for a certainty."
He sliced a glare at his brother. "What makes you think she is blowing kisses?"
He knew that it was a mistake to react to any of Magnus's jibes. Still, he blundered on, "Mayhap she is just blowing air."
"Like breaking wind? Now there's a thought."
Magnus grinned. "Mother always told us when we were growing up that females do not break wind, leastways not in public... just old men and bad boys. Ha! I suspect Mother was laughing behind our backs with that mistruth. Either that, or I warrant she was never in close quarters with Fat Helga, the goatherder, after a night of eating gammelost." He tapped his chin with exaggerated pensiveness.
Jorund groaned. When will I ever learn? I can predict what he is going to say now.
"Do females make a habit of trying to attract you with farts?"
I was correct. "What a ridiculous notion!" Jorund snarled, then realized that Magnus was chuckling under his breath. "Aaarrgh!" he said. Carrying on a conversation with Magnus was like talking with one of his dumb cows. His coarseness knew no limits, his earthiness coming, no doubt, from his dealing so much with... well, earth. Not that Jorund was unaccustomed to coarseness, being surrounded as he was by soldiers whose every other word was apt to be an expletive of the foulest nature. He'd uttered a few himself.
But, really, his brother had fallen into the most annoying habit of late—teasing him. Holy Thor! Who ever heard of grown men engaging in such youthful games? Life was too serious—and fleeting, as he well knew—and their mission was too important for frivolity. It was probably boredom, or frustration at being lost at sea. Well, not quite lost, just a mite off course.
Ignoring his brother's smirking face, he looked off into the distance, where the magnificent killer whale the sailors had named Thora was indeed performing her ritual dance. It was to her that Magnus had attributed blowing kisses, of all things.
Just now, her sleek black-and-white shape leaped into the air with a spectacular flourish, a maneuver that had come to be known among seafarers as breaching.
The whale, at the height of her impressive leap, gave the false appearance of standing on her tail fins on the surface of the water for several long moments.
Then she twisted her sleek body into a perfect arc with an agility remarkable for her size and dove back into the salty depths to swim swiftly beneath the waves she had created. If she followed her previous routine, she would be repeating the performance another two or three times, ofttimes varying the act with backflips, all accompanied by boisterous squeals and chirps and rapid clicking noises, before swimming off a short distance to watch and follow their sailing vessel.
There was no escaping the killer whale. They had tried to elude their unwelcome companion by rowing fast with a strong wind at their backs, and still she kept up. Surely the killer whale must be the fastest animal in all the oceans.
They knew it was a female because of her comparatively small size to the male of the species, though this friendly beast was still nigh as big as his dragonship.
Well, perhaps that was an overstatement. At the least, she had to be four times his body height from mouth to tail.
There was no question in Jorund's mind—though he would never acknowledge it to his brother—that it was himself the animal had developed an affection for. The whale had been shadowing them for more than fourteen days, coming closer and closer. But that wasn't how Jorund knew that the whale was following him. He knew because the whale was talking to him.
Amazing as that sounded, even if oddly to his own ears, Jorund had taken to communicating with a killer whale. He talked to the whale in his head. And the whale talked back to him.
Languages of other countries had always come easily to him. And not just Norse and English, the language of the Saxons, which were very similar. He was also fluent in the tongues of Frankland, Byzantium, Baghdad, Rome, and Cordoba. But never had he been known to speak with animals. No one did, that he knew of, except perhaps the gods. And he was no god.
Where did this voice in his head came from? When it was late at night and his men were asleep, he would stand at the prow of his long ship and converse with a killer whale, of all things. Good thing Magnus was unaware of this insanity, or he would really have something to tease him about.
Was he going mad? Were the events of the past year too much for his brain to bear? Or was it the cumulative effect of years and years of bloodshed finally crushing down on him? Stronger men than he had gone berserk.
How can this be? he had asked Thora yestereve. It was an indication of his sorry state that he sought advice on his mental condition from an animal.
Click, click. Squeal, squeal. Click, squeal, click, squeal, the whale had answered him in ever changing patterns. In other words, Men question too much. Listen with your heart; speak with your heart, my friend.
I ask for help, and you give me riddles, he'd wailed silently. I don't understand. He need not speak aloud for the whale to hear him—another amazing happenstance.
With her usual clicks and squeals and chirps, Thora had told him, You will, you will. Then, just before the whale had swum off, she'd added, Open your heart, man. Only then will there be no barriers of country or animal... or time.
Time? What has time to do with this?
"Jorund, has your mind gone awandering again? Are you all right?"
Jorund blinked and reined in his thoughts. His brother's big paw of a hand was resting on his shoulder with concern.
Am I all right?
Nay, I am not all right.
"I'm fine," he said.
But he was not fine, he soon found out.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
"Blцd hell!" he and Magnus exclaimed at the same time, then repeated, "Bloody hell!" A number of his sailors, who followed both the Christian and Norse religions, were making the sign of the cross on their broad chests. All of them stared gape-mouthed out to sea.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Thora was using her huge tail fins to whack the far side of the longship.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
She must be playing with them—some kind of strange killer whale game—for it was clear she was not employing full force; otherwise the vessel would have tipped over. Even so, the impact of the powerful tail hitting the wood sides was enough to set the boat rocking side to side. A little harder and the wood might splinter.
Jorund tried to listen in the way the whale had taught him. There was a loud, grinding noise in response, almost like a rusty door closing, and he thought he heard her say, It is time, Viking.
"Time? What time?" Jorund asked.
"Huh?" Magnus tilted his head in question. Jorund realized that he must have spoken aloud and felt his face heat with embarrassment. Magnus would make great mock of him if he even suspected his brother was communicating with an animal.
The whale swam off a short distance and floated atop the water, just watching him with her big, beady eyes. And the groaning noise continued.
"Jorund? Are you all right?" Magnus repeated with concern. "
He nodded.
"Something odd is happening here," Magnus contended. "You have not been yourself since learning of Inga's and the girls' deaths."
"I do not want to speak of that," he said icily. "Best we pull anchor and get rid of this bothersome whale. If we cannot move quickly enough to lose her, then we must kill the beast."
He thought he heard a squealy voice in the distance say, Ha! I would like to see you try.
Closer at hand, Magnus was not about to drop the subject. "Some people think a man must talk of his heart-pain, lest it eat away at his innards... turn him mad with grief."
"Are you implying that I have gone berserk?"
Magnus pursed his lips and tugged at one of his big ears pensively. "Mayhap. Leastways, a little barmy."
Jorund grunted with disgust.
"Oh, I know you harbored no great affection for Inga, but your daughters... well, 'tis clear they held a special place in your soul."
"Have a caution, Magnus. You go too far," he warned.
But as always, his brother failed to heed sound advice and blathered on. "I know that I would surely tear out my hair in mourning if I lost my son... or daughter."
"And which son—or daughter—would that be?" Jorund asked with a hint of humor.
It was hard to stay angry with his well-meaning brother.
"Any one of my sons... or daughters," Magnus answered, lifting his chin defensively. His brother followed the old custom of more danico and had two wives, in addition to three current mistresses... or was it four? All told, his seed had produced eight sons and five daughters... all with big ears.
Jorund made a tsking sound at his brother, whom he loved dearly, despite his nagging ways.
"I will work out my own problems in my own time and way," he told Magnus. "For now we must make haste and try to outrun this killer whale."
They had anchored offshore in a small cove the night before so that they could draw fresh water from a stream on a nearby island. There were no human inhabitants that they could see. Still, they had slept aboard ship as a precaution.
Turning away, he gave orders to his crew to pull up the anchor and man their sea chests. His long ship, built by his brother Rolf, was not an over large vessel.
There were thirty-two oar holes on each side, manned by as many men who sat on their own personal sea chests rather than benches. Next to them were another thirty-two seamen, who would relieve them when their arms grew weary.
"It won't come up," a seaman soon informed him. "The anchor must have caught in some seaweed when the whale bumped us."
In the meantime, the whale was back to prodding the ship with its tail fins and snout. Enough of this nonsense!
Jorund said a foul word and began to remove his clothing—mantle, tunic, skin boots, braies— knowing he was going to have to dive below and try to loosen the tangled anchor. He could have sworn he heard a high-pitched peal of laughter, but when he glanced about the longship, he saw naught but his sailors staring back at him with worry.
"Becalm yourselves, men," he told them. "We will soon be on our way. I am an excellent swimmer and have great fame for holding my breath underwater. Leather-lunged, my father used to say of me." He was not boasting, merely stating a fact to put them at ease.
Once he was naked, except for his sheathed sword, which was attached to a wide belt at his waist and secured to his thigh with a leather thong, he dove into the water. It was surprisingly warm near the surface. Though the sea became colder the deeper he went, it should have been frigid near Iceland. He would have to ponder that puzzle later. Even so, 'tis icy enough to shrivel even the grandest cock into a nub, he thought with a shiver.
And what makes you think yours is so grand? he heard the whale remark with a laugh.
Oh, God! You again? Jorund commented dryly to himself as he sawed with his sword at the seaweed wrapped around the rope and anchor. He soon discovered that there was no way he could disentangle the metal anchor from the grassy tentacles. The more he tossed aside, the more seemed to appear in their place. He would have to cut the rope.
Stealthily, the whale had swum underwater and was watching his endeavors with interest.
For some reason he felt no fear... just disgust that this animal was causing him so much trouble.
Putting his sword back in the scabbard, he swam to the surface and took several deep gulps of air.
Magnus and all the seamen were staring over the side rail at him. Seabirds were whirling overhead in anticipation of some tasty morsel. He hoped it was not him.
"Is it free?" Magnus asked.
Jorund shook his head, still breathless. When he was able to speak, he informed his brother, "It's that special seal rope that Rolf insists on using. It will take me a little longer." Many ship owners bought the prized seal rope in the markets of Birka and Hedeby. Known for its sturdiness, it was cut in one single strip, like a spiral, from the hide of a seal or walrus. Unfortunately, it was difficult to slice through with a sword.
With one last deep inhalation of air, Jorund dove under the briny depths again.
As expected, the whale was waiting for him. This time, as he sawed away with haste, the whale began a new game— butting Jorund's bare arse with its big nose. That was all he needed... a randy she-whale!
Finally the rope broke free. He sheathed his sword and was about to swim back to the surface when the whale shot forward and took him in her mouth, his head sticking out one side of her mouth and his flailing legs out the other side. He could feel the whale's massive teeth pressing against his stomach and buttocks, but Thora must be holding him with extra gentleness, for the teeth did not pierce his skin.
"Unteeth me, you lackbrain whale."
The only response was a chirping laugh.
He should have been mortally afraid. He was not. At first he laughed silently at the great trick. The skalds would be telling this saga forevermore. No doubt there would even be a praise poem honoring Jorund, the warrior who rode in the cradle of a killer whale's mouth and lived to tell the tale. Soon his mirth disappeared, however, when he realized that he could not hold his breath much longer and that the whale was swimming at great speed... away from the longship.
Once, when the whale came to the surface briefly, Jorund noted with distress that the longship was already far away... much too far for him to swim back.
Unless the whale returned him.
But no. Thora had other plans.
With a squeal and a chirping noise of glee, the whale submerged again, and all of Jorund's silent screams and flailing limbs could not dissuade her.
Soon water rushed into his nostrils and all the orifices of his body. He could no longer hold his breath and took in great swallows of seawater. As his long hair came loose from its queue and swirled about his face, blinding him, a light-headedness overtook him, which was not altogether unpleasant. And he thought, So I will break the raven's fast thus—by sea, rather than battlefield?
So this is how it ends?
Not quite, the whale answered. The Fates have other plans for you, Viking.
 

2000 A.D. Galveston, Texas

"Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight,

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have my wish come true tonight."
 
Maggie McBride was about to enter the bedroom of her daughters, Suzy and Beth, when she heard them reciting, in unison, the childish rhyme. She'd already tucked them in and given them their customary good-night kisses, accompanied by the usual tickle. It wasn't surprising that the minute she'd departed, they'd jumped out of their beds, up to some harmless mischief... and it was no big deal, really. Maggie had learned to pick her battles when it came to her kids.
With a smile, she stepped back into the hall, then peered around the doorjamb to see them leaning out their bedroom window, gazing at an especially bright, flickering star. Their young, nine-year-old voices carried a breathy tone of wistful belief in the magic of the constellations as they repeated the old nursery rhyme.
Was I ever that innocent? Did I ever believe in miracles?
Shimmying their tummies back on the windowsill, they stood and adjusted their respective nightshirts—Suzy's a shocking pink image of Ricky Martin, and Beth's a rendition of Keiko, the killer whale—no less an idol to her than her sister's rock star du jour. Aside from their opposite personalities and interests, the girls were identical twins, both flashing brand-new shiny braces on their teeth and both sporting long mops of naturally curly hair, which was braided for sleep now into single tails down to their shoulder blades. They'd inherited their bad bites and honey blond locks from a father they'd never met—Judd Haskell.
Maggie's hair was coal black and straight as a pin... and thanks to a recent hair adventure gone awry, G. I. Jane short. But they did have her cornflower blue eyes.
"My wish was that Mom would finally find a husband," Suzy confessed to her sister. They still hadn't noticed her standing in the hallway. Beth nodded gravely. "Mine, too."
Maggie cringed. Not again!
"I am not spending one more Christmas at Grandpa Haskell's farm, I'll tell you that," Suzy declared vehemently. "All he does is give us sermons on how bad it is here in the city, and how we should come live with him and Grandma. As if! And no disrespect or nothin', but I'm tired of all those stories about our dad before he died in that skydiving accident. What was a doctor doing skydiving anyhow? You'd think he was a saint the way Grandpa talks. 'If your father was alive, this...' Or, 'If your father was alive, that...' Sheesh!"
"If he was so wonderful," Beth pointed out, "how come he never married our mom?"
"Right," Suzy agreed.
Maggie barely stifled a gasp. How did they know that Judd had refused to marry her when he found out she was pregnant? Having a wife and family never would have fit into his high-risk, free-as-a-bird lifestyle. She prayed God they were unaware of an additional fact: that he'd wanted her to get an abortion. No, there was no way they could find that out. She'd never told anyone. Soon after that horrible meeting, Judd had died, the result of one of his never-ending adventures.
"And Grandma is no different," Suzy went on. "She keeps harping on single mothers, as if it's Mom's fault she had to raise us alone."
"I know," Beth said with a groan. "Last time, Grandma was quoting statistics she heard on some TV commercial about how daughters who are raised without a father often don't finish high school, and lots and lots of them get pregnant before they're sixteen."
Beth and Suzy exchanged a look at that last bit of information. "Gross!" they both exclaimed at the same time. Boys weren't even of interest to them yet, let alone sex or anything leading to babies.
"But, you know," Beth offered thoughtfully, "I betcha we could make Mom search for a dad a little harder if she believed all that stuff. She keeps saying school is so important."
"And I betcha we could stay home this Christmas if there were a dad in the house," Suzy added.
"Yep, a dad wouldn't let them badger Mom into giving in. He'd tell them"—here Beth's voice dropped into a low, masculine tone—" 'Sorry, folks, but the gifts can't come for Christmas this year. We're a family now, and we need our girls to stay home for a family Christmas. My girls have gotta help me go out into the forest and chop down a tree. Maybe we'll even chop us a load of firewood to bring back in the pickup truck.'"
"That would be so perfect," Beth commented, "especially if there was snow. A dad, a real tree, a fire with our stockings hanging on the mantel, and snow!"
The audible sighs that followed were poignant with dreaminess.
As distressed as Maggie was over this wistful conversation, she had to smile. There were no forests in their neighborhood. An artificial tree had done them nicely for nine years now. They had no fireplace for that truckload of wood or the stockings. Nor was her driveway big enough for her Volvo and a truck. As for snow in Galveston for Christmas... Forget it!
Despite her half smile, she felt like weeping.
"Mom keeps saying she's happy the way things are," Suzy complained.
I am. I am. Oh, it gets lonely on occasion, but let's face it: I'm thirty-two years old, and I'm not about to give up my hard-earned independence at this late date. It's taken me too long to get where I am now. Besides, I gave up on the Prince Charming dream a long time ago. If only my two munchkins would give up on the perfect-dad dream.
"But I'm not happy, you know. Not one bit."
"Me neither," Beth agreed.
Maggie's heart went out to her two precious daughters. There was a hole in their lives without a father. She knew that. But sometimes no father was better than a bad father. And Judd would have been a terrible father, no doubt about it.
Besides, she'd done a dam good job playing mommy and daddy to them, and raising herself up by the bootstraps as well to the point where she could now proudly proclaim herself Dr. Margaret McBride, psychologist.
"Mom is so beautiful. Just like Demi Moore," Beth added. "Everyone says so. Even with that haircut. And especially since she got that rad belly-button ring. I still can't believe she did it. She could get any man she wanted."
Maggie didn't know about getting any man she wanted, especially since she couldn't remember the last time she'd had a real date. But she was with the girls on one thing: she couldn't believe she'd gotten the belly-button ring either. It was so out of character for her.
When Maggie was a young girl, she had developed earlier than her friends and was the brunt of many taunts from adolescent boys based on the mistaken belief that big breasts meant hot babe. Of course, the rest of her body had eventually caught up with her breasts—though she was far too curvy for her taste, despite constant dieting— but she'd never gotten over the habit of overcompensating for her endowments with full-cut clothes and an almost prissy social lifestyle. Until recently, that was.
The haircut had been her idea... a breaking free of the old when she'd received her doctorate degree last spring. Who knew the beautician would go so wild?
The belly-button ring, on the other hand, had not been her idea. It was the price she'd had to pay for losing a bet with her daughters, who had amazingly come through with straight As for two semesters, and completed a daily regimen of household chores. Dr. Spock would have been horrified at her lack of parenting skills in using a bet to motivate her daughters. It was worth it, though. Not because of Beth, who loved school, but because of Suzy, who usually cruised along, content with C grades. And having the dishes done and the laundry folded without an argument had been nine months of heaven.
The belly-button ring could be removed. "Yep," Suzy agreed.
Huh?
"Mom is so beautiful she could get any man she wanted," Suzy continued.
Oh. That.
"Even Ricky Martin."
The two girls giggled at that outlandish prospect: Maggie the psychologist and Mr. Teenage Heartthrob. Actually, that wasn't quite true... he appealed to lots more than adolescent girls.
"The only thing is, Suz, remember our matchmaking effort last year with the assistant manager of Shop 'n' Save. Whooee! It was a disaster from the get-go," Beth reminded her. "I thought Mom would like a younger man. She is cool... for a mom. And Spike was, you know, major cute! Go figure."
"But eighteen?" Suzy grimaced in remembrance. "Mom about swallowed a bird. She was soooo mad!"
Maggie clamped a palm over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Spike—the little snot— had taken one look at her belly-button ring and invited her to the drive-in. Ha! Not in this lifetime!
"That fiasco came right after we tried to fix her up with Rita's vet," Suzy remembered.
Rita was their ten-year-old, twenty-pound Persian cat. This was the same vet who'd made an astute observation about Rita one day, "Your cat doesn't stray far from her food dish, does she?"
"Who knew Dr. Cheswick was gay?" Beth whispered the last word.
I did. The minute I saw him.
"And then there was the state trooper who visited our school."
"Yeah." Beth sighed. "He had the neatest buzz cut."
It was an attractive haircut. And George was handsome as all get-out. Too bad his political views on guns and minority groups had clashed with hers on the first meeting.
Suzy giggled at some remembrance. "How about the priest you brought home for dinner?"
"How could I know he was a priest? Sheesh! He was wearing a jogging suit," Beth said defensively, "and to-die-for Nike Air Jordans."
Now, that one was hugely embarrassing.
"Well, Christmas is only three months away. She leaves us no choice," Suzy asserted, straightening her narrow shoulders with resolve. "If she can't find a dad for us on her own... well, maybe"—she motioned her head toward the heavens outside their window—"God can help."
Beth brightened with understanding. "Right. How can Mom get mad at God?"
"Exactly. She couldn't possibly blame us." Suzy blinked innocently at her sister.
Maggie thought about stepping into the room and setting the girls straight, but somehow she couldn't burst their bubble. They had plenty of time to learn that dreams came true only in the movies.
Before hopping into their beds, they each took one last look at the wishing star, then gasped. Maggie stifled a gasp, too.
It almost seemed as if the star winked at them. Then their attention was diverted elsewhere.
"Oooh, Suz. Look. Look at that new formation of stars over there. Doesn't it resemble a... a whale?"
Suzy smiled widely at Beth from her matching poster bed. "That has to be a good sign."
When Maggie entered her own bedroom a short time later, she couldn't help herself. Drawn to the large, double-hung windows, she glanced up at the sky.
The new stars were gone.
 

The next day
 
"Mother! He's bald!" Suzy exclaimed the moment Dr. Harrison Seabold was out of hearing range. With a grimace of distaste, she added, "Your first date in, like, forever, and you had to pick a baldy?"
"Susan Marie McBride! Shhh!" Maggie cautioned her daughter and darted a quick glance at her boss's departing back to make sure he hadn't overheard. They'd just entered Orcaland, the marine park that was part of the huge amusement complex on Galveston Bay known as Marine Kingdom. Harry had gone off to buy snow cones for the four of them.
"Besides, he's not my date," she added.
"It's not polite to say bald anymore," Beth corrected with an air of one-upmanship. "He's follically challenged."
Suzy and Beth were dressed identically today— something they usually avoided with a passion— in jeans shorts and white T-shirts proclaiming Twins Rule. And they were both in a snit... something to do with a star and a father-hunt and their mother not cooperating.
Even if she hadn't overheard their conversation the night before, Maggie would be able to tell that the girls were up to something. They were so transparent.
She narrowed her eyes at them. If they were seriously starting that husband/daddy business again, she was going to wring their cute little necks. Really.
Besides, she'd already decided as she lay sleepless last night to have the biggest, best Christmas ever for the gifts this year. At home. Case closed. No need for a daddy, after all. Snow and a fireplace were out of her realm, but if they really, really wanted a live tree, who said she couldn't handle that herself? I am woman. Hear me chop evergreen.
Suzy made a nose-wrinkling face at Beth. Beth lifted her pert nose in the air with a superior sniff and twitched back at her.
"You think all men should look like Ricky Martin," Beth continued. "How many posters of him do you have on the wall on your side of our bedroom? Huh? Huh?"
"Not as many as you have of Keiko the killer whale," Suzy countered. "Besides, you like Ricky Martin, too."
"Not as much as you."
"I just think it's stupid for us to go to the marine park again. I'd rather go on a roller coaster. We've already seen all there is to see at Orcaland." The last of her comments was directed at her sister with some hinted meaning.
Presumably, there were better father prospects in an amusement park than a marine park.
Beth was very sensitive about her feelings for Keiko... for all killer whales in captivity, actually. Her precocious daughter even operated her own Web site for youths interested in the plight of the whales. Normally, with such criticism from her sister, she would launch into her pat adolescent lecture on the tragedy of the orcas. Instead, today she took a deep breath and explained, "What Suzy was trying to say, Mom, when she made that comment about Dr. Seabold being bald, is that we were sort of surprised that you would pick a bald man for a dad... I mean date."
"Don't start—"
"Okay, I admit the Shop 'n' Save guy was a bit young for you," Beth went on, "but isn't this going overboard in the other direction? I know you're always saying that it's what's inside that counts, and that brains are more important than brawn, but still—"
"He's not my date," Maggie interjected—again.
"Brains? Well, duh!" Suzy countered, ignoring her mother. "How many brains could a guy have when he parts his hair at the ear? He'd better hope the wind doesn't blow. And he certainly shouldn't go on any roller coasters." She threw in that last with a huge sigh as if it would be the greatest tragedy in the worlda dad who couldn't go on roller coasters. Horrors!
The twins contemplated Harry's admittedly hopeless comb-over hairstyle and grinned at each other. Instead of hiding his shiny pate, he was calling attention to it. You'd think a man with all his credentials in the psychiatric field would know better. Men! And they say women are vain!
The girls were really very close to each other, but their tempers had been riled today by the unseasonably hot temperatures for early October, and frustration over their matchmaking failures. And truthfully, they had been to this particular marine park at least a dozen times this year alone.
"Did you see those shorts he's wearing?" Apparently Suzy was still fixated on Harry as a daddy prospect. "They're plaid." She said plaid as if it were something revolting like homework. Beth enjoyed school; Suzy put up with it.
"Hey, who named you the fashion police? I'm no fashion plate, either," Maggie interjected, pointing to her knee-length denim skirt and cropped, short-sleeved Liz Claiborne sweater of faded blue.
But the girls weren't paying attention to her. Instead Suzy was continuing with her tirade against Harry's shorts. "Even worse, they're madras plaid. Talk about being lost in the sixties. Well, I'm not having a father who wears plaid, and that's final. Not to mention white socks and sandals. Gross!"
"You think everything is yucky if it doesn't come from The Gap."
"You think everything is yucky if it doesn't smell like a stinkin' fish."
"Whales are not fish. They're mammals."
"Fish, mammal, whatever... they stink."
"Oooooh!" Beth growled.
"Oooooh!" Suzy growled.
"Why don't you take a chill pill?"
"Why don't you try and make me?"
Whatever spirit of comradeship the two had been sharing fell apart then. Another moment and they would be rolling on the ground like a pair of puppies. Time for a mother intervention.
"That's enough! Both of you!" Maggie chided. Dropping down to a bench, she gathered them to either side of her. "Behave yourselves. Harry is a very nice man. I invited him to come with us today because he's worried about the clinic and whether it will close down under the new owners. He needs a distraction, not two smart-mouthed girls making fun of his appearance."
"Mom, we won't have to move if the clinic closes, will we?" Beth asked anxiously. Leave it to one of her daughters to hone in on the least pertinent point in her tirade. Obviously she was worried about a possible separation between herself and Gonzo, the star orca at the marine park, not the possible loss of her mother's job. Maybe this obsession with killer whales had gone too far. But that was a question she'd have to address later.
"I wouldn't mind moving to Houston. They have an awesome roller coaster at Rodeoland. It's not as good as the Vomit, though."
The Vomit? Maggie mouthed, then recalled that was the nickname for the Comet, the roller coaster at the amusement park affiliated with Marine Kingdom. Suzy adored roller coasters; Beth could take them or leave them; Maggie avoided them as much as possible. But that was incidental now. She pulled her attention to the present. "We are not moving, regardless of what happens with the clinic," she assured them. "But back to what I was telling you. I've taught you girls better than to make mean remarks about people's appearances. Remember how you felt when Joey Pisano called you Metal Mouth the first day you came to school with braces? And the Tin Grin Twins?"
Both girls nodded, and their faces flushed with shame that they'd been guilty of the same transgression.
"Listen, my sweeties, never judge a man—or woman by what you see. You'll be wrong every time, I guarantee."
"But Mom..." they said simultaneously.
"And one last thing. I heard you girls last night. Forget about miracles. The only miracles in this life are the ones we create ourselves."
Suzy and Beth hung their heads—with remorse or disappointment, she couldn't tell. And, despite all her logical words, Maggie felt a twinge of regret that she'd come down so hard on them.
"Hey, toots," she teased Beth, tugging on her braids. "Don't we have a date with some orcas?"
The smile Beth plastered on her lips was clearly forced.
"And how about you, my little salsa princess? Maybe we could fit in one roller coaster ride before we go home today."
Suzy, too, forced a smile.
Maggie could see that the subject wasn't closed... not by a long shot. Obviously
having a father was far more important to them than whales or scary rides.
Sometimes Maggie wished dreams really could come true.
They were sitting on the bleachers at the inner curve of the oceanarium that comprised the marine park. The oceanarium was a huge, fiveacre inlet leading out to Galveston Bay. The orcas were prevented from escaping captivity by a net wall at the mouth of the inlet that stretched from the bottom of the water to ten feet above the surface. Because this particular sea pen was located outside the killer whale's normal habitat, there were special cooling tubes running along the bottom, and salt was added to the water.
They were watching Gonzo go through his paces, along with two baby killer whales, Mork and Mindy. The babies, which were the size of pickup trucks, performed only rudimentary tricks, like backflips and leaps into the air for food, but Gonzo was a real pro... and a ham, to boot. He sailed through hoops.
He lobtailed the crowd, splashing large amounts of water on them with his flukes, better known as flippers. He plopped himself up onto a platform. He squealed and chirped and generally appeared to be having a good time. He might be one of the top predators of the seas, but here at Orcaland he was a pussycat letting the trainers ride on his back or put their heads inside his mouth where three dozen deadly teeth shone whitely in the bright sunlight. Maggie could see why Beth had developed such a strong affection for Gonzo—and all killer whales, for that matter.
Just then she heard Beth gasp.
"What? What?" she asked, quickly morphing into mother mode.
Beth was still gasping for breath and pointing out to sea, beyond the oceanarium. Holy cow! There was an enormous killer whale swimming just beyond the nets... circling and circling, blowing mists of spume, diving and coming up in geyser splashes of water.
It was not usual for free whales to approach the oceanarium because they did not roam the warmer, salty waters off of Texas, but this one must have been drawn by the other whales in captivity and the prospect of food. Or was this magnificent animal in distress?
As it began spyhopping—leaping out of the water almost in a perpendicular position— Gonzo did the same thing. They were mirroring each other's actions.
Their loud chirps and whistles and squeals echoed across the inlet like eerie aquatic bullhorns. It appeared as if they were communicating frantically with each other.
That wasn't the most remarkable thing, though.
There was a man riding atop the killer whale. And he appeared to be holding on to the whale's dorsal fin for dear life.
But wait. Was he steering the mammal as if its fin were the rudder of a boat?
Could this be a new addition to the marine park, staged as a grand entrance?
Wow!
Or—Oh, my God!—was it a wild killer whale on the rampage?
The fine hairs stood out all over Maggie's body, and her intuition kicked in big-time. She knew— she just knew—that man was in real trouble.
"Slow down!" Jorund yelled to Thora.
Hold on, was the whale's only response as she blew enough spume out of her blowhole to drown a small village, and shot through the ocean like a rock from a catapult.
With the wind created by the beast's excessive speed, most of the substance landed on her reluctant passenger. Jorund tossed his hair back off his face and spit several times with distaste. Whale spume tasted as revolting as rancid lutefisk.
Jorund was so angry he could scarcely think or breathe.
And, yes, he had to admit it: he was so bloody frightened he might just wet his braies. If he were wearing braies, that was. And if he weren't already wet.
Apparently he had not drowned, after all. But in some ways he wished he had.
"I'm going to slice you up into the world's biggest pile of whale blubber once we stop," he yelled at Thora. "I'm going to make enough whale soup to feed a nation. I'm going to make hatchets out of your teeth. I'm going to make a necklace to hold your ugly pig eyes. I'm going—"
Jorund never finished his sentence, because Thora performed another one of her quick dips in the ocean, which required her passenger to hold his breath.
When he came up again, Jorund continued his harangue: "And furthermore, the next time you decide to break your fast on shark, would you mind eating with your mouth closed? Your breath is enough to curdle milk."
Be quiet, Viking. We're almost there, Thora said with her usual chirps and squeals.
Jorund still couldn't believe he could understand whale talk. But that was neither here nor there. "Almost where?" he asked. Just then he noticed the huge net rising up high above the waves ahead.
She wouldn't, Jorund thought.
Thora increased her speed till the air whistled in Jorund's ears and his hair whipped back.
She would.
Before Jorund could blink, or say a silent prayer to the gods, Thora dipped down into the ocean and came back up in a truly impressive leap into the air. At the peak of her high jump, just before bending her massive body over into an arc for its return to the water, Thora shook herself, causing Jorund to lose his grasp on her top fin. With a scream of terror, Jorund flew through the air, over the net fence, and into the water beyond.
It's up to you now, Viking.
"What?" Jorund gurgled, still underwater.
Your fate.
Aaarrgh! Riddles again... whale riddles!
When he finally swam to the surface, his sword banging against his thigh, Jorund turned. Thora was nowhere to be seen.
Then, twisting toward the shore that was visible in the distance, Jornnd saw a most amazing sight. There were people—many of them—and several whales, and melodic music in the air that sounded like Oompapa, Oompapa, Oompapa... and strange objects of many vivid colors twirling about in circles and on huge metal loops in the air.
Jorund began to swim toward the shore, even as he sighed deeply. There was only one explanation: he must have died, after all. Although he felt at peace, a sadness swept over him that he had not completed his father's work. Ah, well!
What must be, must be.
This must be Asgard... Viking heaven.
With a rueful chuckle, he expressed a silent wish that his personal Valkyries would be buxom. After what he'd been through these past months, and having been wedlocked to a flat-chested woman, he deserved a well-endowed goddess. Mayhap his brother Rolf would be waiting on the shore to welcome him. Yea, if his brother had indeed passed to the other side before him, Rolf would ensure that there were big-breasted wenches aplenty to warm his bed furs.
Jorund had been swimming steadily shoreward, arm over arm, with his face in the water. He looked up now, jerked his head back, then looked again.
"Oh, holy Thor!"
The man and the three captive orcas were swimming underwater now, blurrily visible in the blue water, heading straight for the bleacher area. When they were about thirty feet away, man and beasts dipped deep into the water, then came spy hopping up into four spectacular perpendicular leaps.
It was one thing to see a two-ton animal skyrocket from the water like one of God's blessed creatures. It was quite another thing to see a huge male, all sinewy muscles encased in a flawlessly proportioned body, perform the same remarkable feat, whipping a swath of long blond hair back off his face at the pinnacle of his surge.
It was especially remarkable because the man was naked. Naked! He wore nothing but a—Oh, good Lord!—was that a sheathed sword attached to a belt at his narrow waist and secured with a leather thong to his thigh? No wonder sirens could be heard in the distance; soon police would be swarming in like killer bees. No wonder there were screams of "Stand back! Stand back!" from a single security officer, who was having trouble getting through the crowd of three hundred or so spectators. The amphitheater further thwarted their progress, with no place for the spectators to exit, except where police would have to come in.
Bare seconds passed before the man came down from his leap and landed on his feet, standing in shoulder-high water. Then he began to walk up the sloping bottom toward them, the water revealing his nude body inch by glorious inch.
With the lazy indifference of a man comfortable with his body, he reached up with both hands and finger-combed his long hair—surely a champagne blond when it was dry—off his face. Although his jaw was covered with several days' growth of whiskers, it didn't detract from his appeal at all. Despite his relaxed attitude, his eyes were wary.
Is this part of the act? If so, I'm impressed, Maggie thought, fanning her suddenly hot face with an Orcaland program.
"He's a trespasser!" one man in the crowd accused. "Put him in the slammer." The guy's stout body sported a T-shirt proclaiming, If Swimming Is So Good for Your Weight, How Do You Explain Whales?
"Ha!" the blond god exclaimed. He stood in water up to his waist now, at least fifteen feet away. "The first person who tries to slam me will be missing an essential body part. Besides, there is no such thing as trespassing in Valhalla." The man's voice carried over the crowd in a strange foreign accent.
"This ain't Vail, fella," a cowboy-clad, gray haired man commented in a heavy Southern drawl. "This heah's Texas. You're 'bout two thousand miles off course. Ha, ha, ha!"
"Tax-us? Many lands require scutage, but ne'er have I heard of a country that  asks to be taxed."
The hunk just shook his head in confusion.
"Threatening an endangered species... the jerk!" another man called out. To Maggie's amazement, it was an outraged Harry, sitting beside her.
"I have not threatened anyone... yet," the stranger asserted. "And, in truth, I never 'jerked' anyone that I recall."
"Indecent exposure... arrest the man for public nudity," a middle-aged lady demanded as she peeked through the fingers that covered her eyes. Her T-shirt said, All Men Are Idiots, and I Married the King. Her bored husband sitting next to her wore a T-shirt that said, perhaps appropriately, Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy; Other Times I Just Let Her Sleep. Maggie couldn't tell for sure if the "grumpy" lady was pleased or disappointed that the blond god stood in place momentarily, and was still covered to the waist by the murky water.
"Now I know that I have arrived in the strangest land of all. Since when has nudity become a crime?"
"A weapon...the maniac is carrying a weapon. Duck, everyone, duck!"
"Duck? What duck?" The man twisted his neck this way and that. Then he shrugged as if to indicate there was not a duck in sight.
Maggie was becoming as confused as this man appeared to be.
There was chaos all around them. Police and security guards were attempting to run forward, guns raised, but their progress was impeded by the capacity crowd, which was standing, inadvertently forming a barricade, some cheering, some screaming with fright, still others calling out their opinions. Even mild-mannered Harry, who claimed a longtime interest in orcas, was yelling with outrage at the interloper, whom he perceived as a threat to Gonzo, Mork, and Mindy.
But Maggie and her two daughters sat stone still, mesmerized by the spectacle unfolding before them.
"And you wanted to go roller coasting," Beth told her sister.
"This is better than Jerry Springer," Suzy offered with awe.
But Maggie had more important things on her mind as she continued to gape at what had to be the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen—one of God's perfect creations, superbly formed and wonderfully wild, just like the orcas.
More than that, Maggie sensed an eerie connection between them... a connection that was getting stronger the closer he came.
"Cool!" Beth exclaimed.
"Ditto," Suzy added. Then: "So that's what a too-too looks like."
"Eeew. It looks like a fat worm."
"I didn't know men had hair there."
It was then that Maggie registered the fact that her daughters, too, had been staring at the nude man, openmouthed, like every other female in the park. Even though his privates had been visible for only a few seconds, Maggie's maternal instincts kicked in. "Cover your eyes," she ordered.
Suzy looked at Beth. Beth looked at Suzy. They both looked at their mother—and laughed. "Yeah, right," they said simultaneously, and did just the opposite.
Their eyes were glued to the man emerging slowly from the water, his step confident.
When he reached the bulkheads, he raised himself on braced arms, causing veins to stand out on the ropy muscles outlined under skin deeply tanned by the sun.
As he panted to regain his breath, water drops glistened on silky chest hairs.
Lordy, Lordy! She noticed the intricately etched arm rings that encircled his upper arms. Were they a new male fashion accessory... gold arm bracelets more suited to ancient warriors than modern man?
If not, they should be.
Thank goodness, his more intimate body parts were now hidden by the bulkhead as he surveyed the crowd before him, as if searching for someone in particular.
Maggie saw confusion in his eyes, which opened wider and wider as they moved along the rows of people gawking at him like a freak at a sideshow. He was either a really good actor, or he was a man who'd fallen into a situation he did not understand.
Either way, this was a day Maggie would not soon forget.
 
Jorund was totally confused.
Well, he supposed that was understandable. Entering Asgard, land of the gods, would muddle even the most clearheaded warrior.
Still, it passed all bounds, this sight that he beheld. If this was the otherworld, then the land of the gods was mightily overvalued. Where were the walls made of golden spears and the roof of gold shields? Supposedly, Valhalla, hall of the gods, had 540 doors, each big enough to allow eight hundred armed men through side by side. Furthermore, he saw no gilded longships, nor groaning boards overlader with plentiful foods and tuns of ale. Jorund blinked with bafflement.
Not a god was there in sight not Odin, nor Thor, nor any of the lesser deities, not even the mischievous Loki... and for a certainty, missing were the beautiful Valkyries that were supposed to escort brave warriors into Valhalla.
Most important, he saw no one who even remotely resembled his brother Rolf. That at least was good news. Apparently his brother was still alive.
Too bad Jorund was not.
Best he gather his wits about him and study the situation. He should pull himself up onto land and walk among these curious people who were gaping at him as if he were the strange one. However, he was much aware of his nudity, and did not relish displaying his manly parts before one and all impressive though they might be. He was little inclined toward modesty, but he would be a lackwit not to mind being the only one unclothed... and vulnerable.
An idea came unbidden to him. What if this were a test? Mayhap this was just the outer portal to Valhalla—not unlike the Christian limbo, leading to heaven. Mayhap he must endure some ordeal in order to finally enter the hall of the gods. Could being naked in a clothed crowd constitute an ordeal?
Without hesitation, he levered himself up onto the narrow, wharflike ledge, pretending unconcern over his nudity. Standing, legs braced apart, hands clasped behind his back, he harbored a passing vain concern that his staff might be all shriveled up, as male genitals were wont to be when in cool water, but he resisted the impulse to glance downward. Instead, with practiced nonchalance, he looped his thumbs in his leather belt and slowly scanned the crowd.
On his initial survey of the staring faces, he noticed children. In a blink he grabbed a large toweling cloth off the ground near his feet and wrapped it about his hips, leaving an opening on his sword side. It was one thing to exhibit bold arrogance before adults, quite another to show himself to children. He was not a pederast. Who knew there would be children in Asgard? But he supposed it made sense. There had to be a place for all the young persons to go.
But, oh, that brought another thought to mind: would he be seeing his own precious dearlings here... Greta and Girta?
No, it was impossible. Where did these fanciful ideas come from? No doubt he had salt on the brain from all that time spent underwater. His brother Magnus would call it pickling of the brain, though most Vikings did it with mead, rather than brine, and were known as aleheads.
Enough of this nonsense! He was a warrior... one of the finest in all the Varangian Guard. Where were his well-honed instincts? Why was he standing about waiting for something to happen? Every good soldier knew it was best to take the offensive.
He inhaled deeply and let all the sounds of this unfamiliar place seep into his pores. Some part of him had already suspected that foreign tongues were being spoken here, yet he'd been able to understandand speak—moments ago. At first all the words had seemed to blend together, like endless, raucous chatter. No matter. He would do what Thora, the killer whale, had instructed him: Listen, Viking. Listen with your heart. Well, he did not know about listening with his heart, but he opened his mind as best he could and concentrated with all his might. Soon the words began to separate, like wheat from chaff.
"Armed and dangerous," one man shouted in an accusing manner.
"Well, of course I'm armed," he snapped back, and was surprised, just as he had been moments ago, that the words coming out of his mouth were in this strange language. "And you had best hope that you do not learn firsthand just how dangerous I am."
The man who had shouted stepped back, even though he was separated from Jorund by the several hundred people sitting and standing in the bench area. The man exchanged glances with some men behind him who wore identical clothing—dark blue braies and long-sleeved, collared sherts of a lighter hue. Silver, starlike, metal emblems flashed on their chests, and on their heads were ridiculous round hats with hard brims, which were the oddest helmets he'd ever seen. They would be no protection at all in a real battle. By the looks of their livery, these men must be the royal hird for the king of this land, or guardsmen to one god or another, if this indeed were Asgard.
More important, the men carried metal implements in their hands, which they pointed in his direction. He sensed that they were weapons of some type.
Surreptitiously, he loosened his sword from its scabbard, making ready to defend himself, if necessary. He would not attack unless he was provoked, but it was always best to be prepared when in hostile territory.
It appeared the armed guard was having trouble spearheading a way through the mob, so he had a few more moments to study the situation. Stepping back slightly, he began to examine the people standing and sitting in the arena.
What manner of dress was this that people wore here? The arms and legs of many of the women and children were bare, as were those of some of the men. He supposed it was in deference to the heat. Still, it appeared odd to him. The majority of the men, besides the guardsmen, wore short-sleeved, collarless sherts with indecipherable messages on them, like Just Do It, Forget about Your Gardens; Show Me Your Busch, Houston Oilers, and My Wild Oats Have Turned to Shredded Wheat. Later he would have to ponder this bizarre business of people wearing words on their bodies, like human books. In addition, these people wore braies made of coarse-woven blue fabric similar to sailcloth, and high-heeled leather boots.
High-heeled boots on men! Are the men of this place demented? Do they not know how ridiculous they look? Do their toes not hurt and their ankles not ache at the end of a day spent in men's work?
His keen eyes were scanning the front row now, left to right, when his attention snagged on one particular person, then doubled back for closer inspection.
Initially, he'd thought it was a diminutive, dark-haired male because of the short haircut in the Frankish mode, which exposed the nape and ears. But no, no male had the curves this person did. Full, rounded globes filled a collarless, knitted shert that had short sleeves and stretched barely to the waist. From the arch of her hips to just above the knee she was covered by a garment of the same blue fabric as some of the booted men.
But then she stood, as if involuntarily, and raised a hand to her hair nervously, which cause the shert to lift and the bottom garment to recede, leaving a band of bare skin exposed. It was that area between her shert and her lower apparel that caused his breath to catch and his heart to skip a beat. In that region where smooth skin gleamed with a summery glow was the most enticing belly button he had ever seen—and he had seen more than a few—pierced with a small golden ring. It was not the first such ornament he'd ever viewed, but most of them had been on houris in Eastern harems.
He couldn't help smiling. In fact, another part of his body was starting to show its appreciation, as well. He had to be thankful now for the toweling cover over his nether parts.
Jorund raised his eyes and met the direct gaze of the woman with man-hair. Her eyes were wide and blue as a springtime sky in the Baltic, fringed by black lashes that curled up prettily. Her nose was straight, her cheekbones high and her mouth full and rosy red. It was the kind of mouth that led a man to wicked thoughts, especially in combination with that belly ornament.
She did not return his smile, but instead continued to stare at him as if hit by a thunderbolt.
He knew how she felt. Ripples of some odd connection were assailing him as well.
He inclined his head to her and said, "M'lady."
She nodded back at him, but instead of saying, "My lord," in response, the normal expression when returning a salutation, she exclaimed, "Good Lord!"
He wondered if she were one of the Valkyries sent to welcome him. If so, he would not protest—not even with that man-hair. Her body was the type meant to please a man—rather, him in particular—of that he was convinced. He held out his hand to her as he recalled that the Valkyries were to take the chosen warriors by the hand and lead them into Valhalla.
Instead of stepping up to him and leading him off, the woman plopped back down into her seat, dazed with bewilderment.
"Mother! That man is flirting with you," someone said, diverting Jorund's attention away from his Valkyrie.
"I am not flirting. I was merely..." Jorund's words trailed off as he got his greatest shock of the day. The person speaking had been a young girl, no more than eight or nine, and her identical twin sat next to her. At first he thought it was Greta and Girta, but soon decided he was mistaken. The two girls with honey blond braids and a slight dotting of freckles on their small faces were older than Greta and Girta had been, and their hair was a darker shade of blond than his daughters', and they wore strange metal jewelry on their teeth.
But, oh, look at that! One twin had ribands tied at the ends of her braids—multicolored ribands, in all the colors of the rainbow. The other wore cloth shoes of a bright red color... not silk harem shoes as Girta had requested, but close enough, to his way of thinking.
Was it a cruel jest of the gods? Or was it a sign? He had no time to ponder further. His attention had been distracted by the woman and two girls, but not so much that he didn't notice the moment that the soldiers broke through the crowd.
They were rushing at him now, weapons raised. In fact, one of the weapons made a loud popping sound. He felt the whiz of air just past his ear, not unlike that of an arrow in flight, and then noticed the splintering of a lettered board behind him.
"No shooting, you fool! Hold your weapon," one of the soldiers yelled at another, who responded, "I thought he was reaching for a weapon."
He hadn't been, but he was now. With well honed instincts, Jorund drew his sword from its scabbard and prepared to fight off the assault—though why they should be assaulting him was unknown to him at this point. There were at least ten of them, but he had been outnumbered before. He could handle this.
"Halt!" one guardsman yelled. "Drop your weapon."
"Use the stun gun," another guardsman suggested.
Jorund had no idea what a "stung one" was, but he was taking no chances. When he did not comply, but instead took the battle stance, crouching with his sword at the ready, another guardsman raised a weapon of a different kind. In the blink of an eye, Jorund felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, which radiated down his arm to his fingertips, causing him to momentarily loosen his grip on his sword. Shocked, Jorund saw that there was no blood, and yet he felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. In that split second of inattention, the guardsmen jumped on him, knocking him to the ground.
In a daze, Jorund realized that he had been bested. It was humiliating that he—the most noted warrior in all the Norse and Saxon and Frank lands—should be struck down by such weak specimens, but there it was.
Even as he fought against the overpowering waves of dizziness that he sensed would lead to loss of consciousness, he was somehow able to hear and understand the words Greta and Girta sobbed pitifully: "Mother, help him. Please. You have to help him." Ah, good girls! That's it, intercede on my behalf.
But, no, he reminded himself, they were not Greta and Girta. These were merely twins who resembled his dead daughters. And he needed no intercession from children. If only he could stand. For some reason, though, he was not even able to lift his arms.
"Shhh! He's a stranger," the mother answered in a voice that he recognized, even in his foggy, limp condition, as husky and deliciously sensual.
"No! No, he's not a stranger!" one of the twins wailed. "He's the one."
"He is not the one," the mother said indignantly.
"Which one?" he tried to ask, but, though his lips appeared to move, no words came out.
"Don't let them hurt him," the other twin cried. "He's not dangerous, Mommy. He's just mixed-up."
Mixed-up? That's an understatement.
They were all standing about, peering down at him as he lay ignominiously on the ground the twins, the mother, and several guardsmen.
Finally he heard the woman with the man hair tell the guardsmen in an authoritative voice, "I'm a doctor. I work at the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital."
She's a dock whore? And she works in a hospitium? Amazing!
"This man is clearly under mental duress. He's my... uh, patient."
Man-tail door-ass? Pay-shun? I do not think I care to be described thus. He wasn't sure of the meaning of those words she'd used to describe him, but they must not be good, since the two girls gasped and the guardsmen growled with displeasure. But then, maybe not, he thought, when the girls turned to their mother as if she'd granted them some great favor... like his life.
He tried to speak up in protest, but his lips would not move. However, he was able to raise his eyelids to half-mast and assess his surroundings.
"Release him to my custody," the dock whore demanded.
That he understood. How ferocious she sounded! She really must be his personal Valkyrie. He had to smile at that, or at least try to smile.
That was when another man emerged into his line of vision—the strangest creature in this strangest of lands. The man wore braies that reached only as far as his thighs and a patterned and colored shert, but most unusual was his hairstyle. Bald he was on the top—like Jorund's cousin, Arnaud No-Hair but this fellow chose to grow his side hairs excessively long on one side and fling them over his pate like a drape. No doubt it was the custom of some minor tribe in this land.
The man with the hair drape spoke to the woman with man-hair. It appeared as if he was arguing with Jorund's Valkyrie. How dared he! But when Jorund tried to rise to her defense, his brain spun woozily, and he dropped back, weak as a blood-drained warrior after a fierce battle.
The dock whore and the man with the hair drape stared down at him, still debating some issues that sounded like unethical, illogical, and emotional. The woman began to drop down on her knees at his side, but a burly guardsman held her back. "He needs my help. You didn't have to hurt him," she accused in a loud voice. "He was just... confused."
"Confused? The psycho had a sword," the guardsman yelled back at her. "And he's not hurt, just temporarily stunned."
He could hear a loud, high-pitched noise in the distance, like a violent tornado at its most destructive peak but no, this was no storm approaching. Instead, white-clothed men rushed forward and lifted him onto a canvas pallet. To his satisfaction, it took four of the white-dressed men to lift him.
"Take him to the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital," she told one of the newcomers.
The leader of the white-dressed men glanced at the head guardsman, who shrugged as if Jorund were a problem the guardsmen would just as soon not handle. "You'd better put him in a straitjacket, though," the chieftain said. "When the effects of the stun gun wear off, he's going to be really pissed."
Jorund tried to focus on these foreign words, as the orca had instructed him, but his brain was too muddled right now.
"Maggie, do you think this is wise?" the hair drape man whispered to Jorund's  Valkyrie.
"Yes, I do. My instincts tell me that he's not dangerous, just disoriented. And you know my instincts are good, Harry. You've told me so dozens of times."
Her name is Mag-he. A woman with man-hair, whose name is Mag-he?
"But, Maggie..." Hair-drape pleaded. "He's clearly disturbed. Don't you think the state hospital would be a better place for him?"
"No, Harry," Mag-he asserted. "As mental health professionals, we have a responsibility to assume care for a disturbed individual, especially since we're the caregivers on-site. After all, he hasn't hurt anyone."
Although he somehow understood the language, Jorund failed to understand everything that the woman was saying. Still, he liked when she grew assertive in that sexy voice of hers, especially when it was on his behalf. With an irrelevance totally out of place in this bizarre situation, he couldn't help wondering how that voice would sound when she was being assertive in other situations, like bedplay.
Now, where did that thought come from? I haven't been interested in a woman in that way in a long, long time.
Hair-drape took charge then, to Jorund's surprise. He addressed the guardsman in an unexpectedly imposing voice. "I'm Dr. Harry Seabold, director of the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital." He took a small square of parchment from a leather object that must have been hidden in a flap of his short braies. "Officers, I'm assuming responsibility for this man."
Who? Me? Well, then, this is a new turn of events. Jorund concluded that he must have been assigned two Valkyries—a male and a female one—and both of them dock whores. He had never heard of such before, but he supposed it was possible.
Even as he was succumbing to the weight of unconsciousness, he thought he heard the twins whisper as one to their mother, "Thank you, Mommy."
He amended his earlier thought then. He must have four Valkyries: a man, a woman, and two children. Maybe he was a more favored warrior with the gods than even he had imagined.
"And you won't be sorry, Mommy," one of the twins said with childish earnestness, "because we've decided"—she paused for dramatic effect, as young girls often did— "he really is the one."
The woman with the man-hair and the sex voice groaned in the most beguiling way.
And Jorund decided he was going to like being "the one."
 

Two days later...
 
"How was school today?" Maggie asked her girls as they sat down at the kitchen table to eat a late dinner.
It was a nightly ritual that Maggie insisted upon, even though their eating habits were divergent, to say the least. Rita, their ten-year-old, twenty-pound, white Persian cat, sat queenlike on the floor between Suzy and Beth, just waiting for a scrap to fall her way.
"Great," they both answered through mouthfuls of food.
"Didn't you have a math test today?" she asked Suzy.
It was Beth who responded. "I got a ninety-five."
Maggie sent Suzy a motherly glower, and Suzy sent Beth a sisterly glower.
Suzy colored and tried to change the subject. "How is he today?"
Maggie didn't need a name to know who Suzy was referring to.
"You know I can't talk about my patients," Maggie replied firmly, but she wasn't about to let Suzy escape so easily. "How did you do on the math test, Susan Marie?" Her daughter knew she meant business when Maggie used her full name.
"I got a seventy-two," Suzy admitted. "Sheesh, who cares about percentages anyhow?" Then the little imp added, "Maybe we need a new bet to make me study harder."
"Yeah, the house has been looking a little dingy since Suz and I stopped helping out," Beth contributed. "Yep, another bet would do the trick."
Maggie raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Bat? So I can be forced to get tatoos—or something worse—this time?" Maggie asked with a little laugh.
"Nah, we had something else in mind," Suzy said, exchanging a meaningful look with her sister.
Something else?
"There are some things in life worth getting dishpan hands over," Beth pointed out woefully.
Some things? Like what?
"Or homework fatigue," Suz added with an exaggerated woe-is-me expression.
Suzy didn't have to tell her what that "something else" entailed. Maggie already knew. The "something else" was roughly six-foot-four and bone-meltingly gorgeous.
"Nurse Hatcher said he hasn't talked at all in the two days he's been at the hospital. She calls him a stud muffin." Beth giggled as she relayed this information.
Gladys Hatcher... our head nurse... calls him a stud muffin? Maggie gasped. "Nurse Hatcher has been talking to you about a hospital patient?" As good a nurse as Gladys was, this constituted cause for dismissal.
"Oh, she didn't tell me," Beth was quick to correct. "Suz and I overheard her talking to another nurse this afternoon when we were waiting for you to leave work. The bench we were sitting on was right outside the nurse's lounge, and the window was open, and, well..." Beth shrugged as if she'd been helpless not to eavesdrop in such a situation.
Maggie was going to have a talk with Gladys about this breach, even if it was unintentional. Anyone could have been passing by, including representatives of the Medic-All Corporation, which was currently in negotiations to purchase Rainbow.
"Mom, we've been talking, and, well..." Beth glanced at Suzy, then took a deep breath before continuing. "We think you should let us talk to him."
Maggie went slack-jawed with incredulity. But only for a second. "Absolutely not! No way! Don't either of you even think of approaching this man."
"But Mom," Suzy pleaded. "You already told the police he's not dangerous... just a little mixed-up."
"That's beside the point," she declared indignantly. "In fact, you girls stay away from the hospital until further notice. If I'm late picking you up at school, you stay in the after-school daycare program till I arrive."
"Day care!" they cried simultaneously. "We're not children."
"You're not adults, either. And while we're on the subject, there will be no more fixating on this stranger as... as...
"A dad?" Beth offered.
Maggie put her face in both hands and groaned.
"Or a husband?" Beth added with a dramatic sigh.
Maggie groaned a little louder. She knew her little girls like a book, and she had to put a stop to this nonsense—now. "He is not 'the one,'" she told them emphatically.
She didn't have to look up to see they weren't buying it... not one bit.
 

Five days later...
 
"How are you feeling today? Hmmm? Are you ready to talk?" a female voice inquired sweetly. "Now don't be afraid. We just want to help you."
Afraid? Who's afraid? A soldier's fear is his doom... I need no—Jorund cracked his eyes open to mere slits. The wench with the man-hair and sex-voice was back. Again. The one responsible for his current dilemma. And she was speaking to him in the same slow-paced manner he'd become accustomed to this past sennight, as if he were a child... or a lackbrain.
He had thought for one insane moment back at the whale place that she might be his personal Valkyrie. Ha! He'd soon rid himself of that foolish notion. It was more likely he'd landed in Niflheim, and this was the beginning of his eternal damnation.
He'd spoken a few words on first setting foot in this foreign land, but not once since. They could question him till all the warriors went home to Valhalla, but his lips were sealed. A fighting man knew to hold his silence in the enemy camp... leastways till he assessed his foe's strengths and weaknesses. Thus far for seven whole days and nights—he'd managed to remain mute under the torment of their endless questions.
He was waiting till they removed his ankle restraints and the peculiar shert that forced his arms to wrap around his body. They put the restraints on him when anyone entered his cell only because he was deemed dangerous. Sharp thinking there. And it took four good-size men to hold him down every time they put that binding shert on him... a sadistic torture device, if he'd ever seen one.
He had learned much in the prolonged period of quiet, but there were still so many questions. He supposed he would have to talk soon.
"What's your name?" she persisted in the husky voice that could turn a man's bones to butter and his thoughts to... well, certainly not butter.
The wench pulled a short stick from her pocket, which she used to write on a stack of parchment on her lap. Glancing sideways, he was able to discern some of the letters she formed, thanks to this mystical capacity he seemed to have developed for understanding her language. Silence syndrome.
It was hard to concentrate on the meaning of the words or the magic stick, however, when his eyes were drawn to her crossed knees, where sheer hose covered nicely formed legs, exposed from thigh to oddly enticing, high-heeled shoes. Vikings had long held a tradition of attaching descriptive words to a name, like Gustov TreeFeller, or Sigurd the Beautiful, or Halfdan of the Wide Embrace. So, to his mind, she was the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, and comely legs.
A shoe dangled from the toes of one foot, which swung up and down rhythmically as she wrote. Was she nervous? Or deliberately trying to disconcert him? Or—and he felt a jolt in his lower belly—was she excited by him?
When he failed to answer, she tried a new approach... one he'd heard dozens of times from her. "My name is Dr. Maggie McBride."
Muck-bride? Did that mean she was a soiled bride? Soiled in what way? Well, of course she was soiled. She proudly proclaimed herself a dock whore. He smiled to himself. Some men might be put off by that, but Jorund preferred women with a bit of tarnish on the gilt.
He was still confused by the bride name, though. Was she a recent bride, or hoping to become one? Ha! Aroused or not, soiled or not, she would not snare him into the bonds of matrimony. He'd made that mistake once already.
And there was another curious thing. While this wench called herself a dock whore, the other women who came into his cell, big as you please, without even knocking, called themselves Norse. There was Norse John-son, Norse Fill-ups.
Some men also took on that Norse appellation. Oddly, none of them had any of the characteristics he would usually associate with the Norse race—blond hair, height, or exceptional appearance. Even stranger, they were all dressed in white, right down to white shoes that squished when they walked. No true Norseman would wear foot coverings that announced his arrival. It would be like shouting, "Here I am. Lop off my head."
But then, there was the wench's reference on the parchment to silence sin-drone.
He had no idea what a sin-drone was, precisely, but he was fairly certain it was not a desirable trait. Everyone knew a drone was a male bee. And he'd noticed a flower garden below his window one day, teeming with honey bees. Mayhap this was a land of bees, just as there were said to be godlands of bears and wolves—and, yes, even killer whales. The gods of this land must favor the buzzing insects.
But sin-drone... sinful bees? That was hard to comprehend. How did one know when a male bee had erred? When it pricked the wrong queen bee?
There was much to puzzle over in this new land.
He pressed his lips together more tightly and cast the wench his fiercest glare.
She just smiled.
She must be simple. Or exceptionally daring. Either way, Jonmd was contemplating the best way to kill her... assuming that he was not already dead. He was still uncertain whether he had landed in some new mortal land, or the otherworld.
He had narrowed his mental list to some particularly creative extermination methods after a full seven days of being held prisoner in her dungeon. At least, he assumed it was a dungeon with its barred window and locked door, though its white walls and metal fixtures resembled no torture chamber he'd ever seen. No actual physical tribulations had been levied yet, except for the Norse people pricking him on occasion with a needle and taking his blood in a little glass vessel, hut there had been indignities aplenty. The most outrageous of these involved a metal trencher slipped under his bare buttocks on a regular basis for the relief of certain bodily functions. The white-uniformed dragon who performed this function had the face of a battle-ax. Her name was Norse Hatch-her, not Hatch-it; still, an appropriate name.
What was not appropriate was her other name...Glad-ass. Norse Glad-ass Hatch-her. Now, he had met a few women in his time for which the appellation would fit like that highpriced strumpet from Cordova with the pretty heart-shaped arse. But Norse Hatch-her had a backside the size of a warhorse. He could not fathom anyone giving her the glad-ass description.
Every time Norse Hatch-her came into his chamber, she asked with a snide grin,
"Does the stud muffin have to tinkle today?" After hearing the din of his piss in the metal trencher, he could pretty well guess what a tinkle was. But the other... What was a stud muffin? On occasion people referred to horse droppings as horse muffins, and for a certainty, some horses were put out to stud. Was the dragon calling him a horse's arse?
At first he felt a rise of anger at the insult. But then, it wouldn't be the first time he'd been called such.
Norse Hatch-her may have been the one to shove down the loose braies that covered his lower half, forcing the cold metal object under him, but a good warrior knew that, in the end, the leader was responsible for his soldiers' actions. It was this brassy female sitting before him now who would bear the brunt of his anger... in good time. It was she who had instructed the guardsmen at the whale place to bring him here.
"Can't you at least tell me your name?" the wench urged.
Jorund refused to answer.
"Well, can you tell me why you were nude in a public amusement park? I really don't think you came there with violence in mind, despite your sword, but there has to be a reason for your... well, exhibiting yourself before a crowd at Orca land. If you'd only talk with me about your nude display, perhaps we can..."
On and on the dimwit female blathered, with most of her words unfathomable to him. Still, one message came through to him: She thinks I'm a pervert.
He heard the sound of his own grinding teeth. "Most psychologists sit back and listen while the patient talks. It's hard to do that when you won't cooperate."
Sigh-colic-jest? Another big word for Jorund to add to his list for later unraveling. How could the wench be a dock whore and a jester at the same time?
Was she a humorous strumpet?
The whole time she talked and he pondered, the magic stick continued to skim across the parchment, leaving foreign scribblings in its wake. He would like to examine the sorcerer's instrument at a later date.
While she wrote, he used the opportunity to study her lips, which were full and wantonly kiss- some, especially with that rose-colored, glossy substance that glistened on them. Oh, that is just wonderful, he chastised himself. Now he would have to think of her as the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, comely legs, and kiss-some lips. Said lips were pursed now as she tapped her witch stick on the parchment, perusing something she had written.
Aaarrgh. What difference did the temptation of her lips make? He was going mad with all this inactivity. Concentrate, Jorund. Concentrate.
He half-reclined on the bed, his head supported by down pillows that were softer than any he'd ever rested upon, even in the Eastern harems. His posture was relaxed, but inside he was poised to pounce at the first opening. Unfortunately, he'd tried once with Norse Hatch-her. Thus the ankle restraints, in addition to the seamless shert. Who knew a female could be so strong? Or could spout such foul language? Grudgingly, he admitted that the Amazon would make a good warrior in battle... not only wielding a battle-ax, but a pike and a battering ram as well.
The woman sitting before him now was another matter. He could break her slim wrists with a snap of his fingers. He could lift her by the waist and toss her over his shoulder. He could press her to the bed, and... Well, he could do things to her.
Her eyes caught his then, as if she sensed his carnal thoughts. The air nigh sizzled between them, like heat flashes in a lightning storm. He was aware of an intense attraction to her... something far beyond her physical attributes. He could tell she was attracted to him, as well... and was just as puzzled as he.
He shook his head to rid it of these alarming thoughts. And she did the same.
Focus on something else. Do not be diverted. A weak link in a man's armor can be his undoing. Jorund noted that at least the wench was alone today—Thank the gods! Sending a defenseless maid into his chamber was akin to sending a paltry kitten into a wolf's lair, assuming he could finally manage to break free of his restraints. Missing today was her comrade-in-arms—the man with the bald head covered oddly with his swath of side hair. The man was a dock whore, too. Dock-whore Sea-bold. Jorund refused to contemplate what a man would be doing as a dock whore, and on the bold seas, no less. He reminded Jorund of Dagfinn the Dumb, one of his soldiers who'd once tried to braid his nose hairs... all for the sake of male vanity.
Jorund thought he had it figured out. After watching for hours on end that black box in the corner with the illuminated face, he was coming to understand the language of this land rather well, even down to reading some words, as he had those on the Lady Muck-bride's parchment. People here spoke English, though vastly different from the Saxon English with which he was familiar. More important than teaching him the language, the box was giving him views into many other worlds... Genoa City, Cross Creek, Springfield, Port Charles, Pine Valley.
Then there were Sesame Street, Nashville, Mayberry. Speaking of the latter, Jorund was more than a little amused to realize there was a man-or was he a god?—named Barn-knee Fife with ears as big as his brother Magnus's. His brother was twice the size of the Maybel world's guardsman, but they were both bumbling idiots.
Every time a Norse came into the room, she turned a tiny wheel on the box, which gave him a peephole of sorts into a different world. He kept watching, hoping that one of these times he would see his own Vestfold.
It was surprising, really. Norse legend said that when a fighting man died, he went to Valhalla, hall of the gods in Asgard. Apparently there were many other worlds, and many gods he'd never heard of... like Victor New-man and Bill Clin-town.
Surprising, too, was the way in which the gods could view what was happening in other worlds. He had always pictured Odin or Thor—even the Christian One-God—gazing down from the heavens to observe what mortal beings were doing.
But apparently they must all have these magic boxes to do the job for them.
Amazing!
"Well, since you're not talking, I guess that ends our session for today." She stood and ran a palm swiftly over the front of her garment, presumably to smooth out the wrinkles, but what she accomplished instead was the jarring of another memory: a belly ring... that was it. Jorund suddenly recalled seeing a gold ornament piercing her navel the first day he'd encountered her at the whale place. With an inward groan, he amended her name list. So now she was the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, comely legs, kiss-some lips, and naughty navel.
Releasing a long sigh presumably at his stubborn silence, she tossed her shoulders back, as if to show that two people could be stubborn. But her posture caused her breasts to jut out against the white silk of her shert, and they were magnificent, round and uplifted; he even imagined he saw the hard points of her nipples. Oh, it was too much! Soon her name list would require a skald of exceptional memory to recite, as in the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, comely legs, kiss-some lips, naughty navel, and magnificent breasts. Mag-he Man-hair Dock-whore sex-voice. Mag-he of the kiss-some lips. The combinations were endless.
She noticed the direction of his gaze and tsked her disapproval as she folded her arms over her chest, hiding her breasts from his view. It was a useless exercise, really, because the image was already planted in his head. "I'm really disappointed in you...whoever you are," she informed him sadly.
He tried not to look guilty. Men throughout time had been viewing women's physical attributes with appreciation. Why should she make him feel as if he'd failed her in some way by noticing she was a voluptuous woman?
"My daughters are the ones who begged me to help you," she told him in that low, raspy sexvoice that he was growing overly fond of. "They still ask about you every day. You've touched them in some way." She sighed again. "I can't even tell them your name." Spinning on her high heels, she then proceeded toward the door.
A fierce constriction took place in the region of his heart. The twin girls, who resembled his own daughters, had interceded on his behalf. They had been touched by him just as he had been touched by them?
Finally, he was beginning to see some reason for his deliverance to this strange land.
Was it not possible that these girls had called to him... that they needed him for some reason? Mayhap—Oh, please!—he was being given a second chance to make up for failing his own twin girls. That prospect tantalized and terrified him. "Wait!" he called out suddenly.
She turned slowly, surprise showing on her face at his first word in a whole sennight.
"My name is"—his eyes darted between her and the black box in the corner, still distrustful of speaking and revealing too much—"Alan Spaulding."
"I see." She murmured something that sounded like "Celebrity delusions, too."
She quickly made some words on her parchment before addressing him again, this time with a smile. "And you come from Genoa City, right? How do you feel about that?" Despite her recognizing his lie, she sat back down and waited expectantly for him to talk.
"Mayhap that was a slight mistruth."
"You mean a lie?"
He shrugged with resignation. "My name is Jorund."
She smiled widely, and somewhere deep inside him, he felt a melting sensation.
"Well, it's so nice to meet you, Mr. Rand. Do you object if I call you Joe?"
Joe? He glanced back over his shoulder before he realized that, of course, there was no one else in the room. "Am I your prisoner?"
"Prisoner?" Her eyes went wide, but then she must have realized that it was a natural assumption on his part, considering he was in a torture shert with ankle restraints and bars on his windows. Possible bondage fantasies, she wrote on her parchment.
He raised his chin indignantly, though secretly he wondered exactly what a bondage fantasy was. It brought up mental images that were... well, fascinating.
"Of course you're not a prisoner, Joe. You'll be released once we're certain of your safety." Hah! "How do you feel about that?"
How do you feel? How do you feel? I feel rotten. "Il tell you how I feel. Captive I may be, for now, but I want you to know, I won't be a slave to any man... Or woman."
"A slave?" she sputtered. "What would I do with a slave?"
"Precisely," he answered. But then the mischievous god Loki whispered in his ear, and a tantalizing idea tugged at him. With as much casualness as he could garner, he remarked, "Except in your case I might consider being your..." He deliberately let his words trail off.
He wasn't really serious. Leastways, he did not think he was. Jorund was a man little bent toward humor. And the teasing taunt he'd thrown out to the wench was so out of character it fairly boggled his already boggled mind. It must be the confinement, and the shock of his death or whatever the hell had happened to him, even the influence of his frivolous brother or the damned orca. Or mayhap the blame could be laid on the first temptation he'd felt in a long, long while.
"What?" she prodded finally. "I want you to be free to speak your mind, Joe. Nothing is out of bounds in the psychologist/patient relationship. So tell me. You might consider being my... what?"
"Love slave."
"Love slave?" Maggie squeaked out.
As a professional, Maggie shouldn't have been shocked. Patients made outrageous suggestions to her all the time. But when the proposition came from a compellingly handsome man with pale blond hair, translucent gray eyes, and suntanned skin... well, Maggie had to admit to a teensy bit of temptation.
She would have to be extra careful not to cross that ethical line between patient and doctor... even if the patient was drop-dead gorgeous, despite the fact that he wore boring blue hospital issue pajama bottoms, ankle restraints, and a white straitjacket. Even his bare feet, which were huge—a narrow size thirteen, she would guess—were surprisingly sexy.
She had to smile at that latter whimsy. Yep, there were strange goings-on inside Maggie these days, if she was getting turned on by feet. Actually, the psychiatrist in her had a ready, logical explanation: on a big, strong man like Joe, his bare feet appeared vulnerable and open to... well, touch as other parts of his covered body were not.
Her face flushing with heat at the mere thought of touch, Maggie experienced a twinge of guilt as she glanced at the restraints that were put on him whenever she entered his room. They were necessary, though, even with a security guard posted outside the door, because he fought confinement. Fighting back was a natural reaction, of course, but it proved that he could be dangerous, until hospital experts could complete a diagnosis.
He was lounging on the bed now, his back propped up by two fluffy pillows and his long legs spread out on the narrow mattress, crossed at the ankles. His posture said he was relaxed, but the tension of the corded muscles in his neck said he was ready to pounce at the first opportunity.
He nodded in response to her question, which she'd already forgotten with all her musings. Oh, yes, she'd exclaimed at his ridiculous love-slave proposition.
"Yea, a love slave." He spoke slowly, with a strong foreign accent. Clearly English was not his first language. "Release me from these restraints, and we can negotiate an agreement."
She shook her head and pulled her chair closer to the bed, pencil and notepad at the ready. It was time she got a more complete background on this guy, now that he'd finally deigned to speak. "I can't release you till we're certain you won't harm others, or yourself."
"Why would I harm myself?" he scoffed.
She shrugged. "Lots of people do."
He looked skeptical at that statement.
She smiled as some of his words flitted through her brain. "You would actually negotiate a contract to be a... love slave?" Her face heated up over those last words.
To her dismay, his intelligent eyes registered her embarrassment, and he winked.
Oh, my God! He winked at me. Whoa! Since when is a wink an erotic signal? Maybe my girls are right. Maybe I really do need a man. No, no, no. That's the last thing I need.
Maggie also saw the way his eyes scanned her body, from the top of her short hairdo, over her silk blouse, short skirt, and sheer stockings, down to her high heels. The jacket that matched the skirt hung on a wall peg back in her office.
She was attending a seminar later today.
Joe liked what he saw—Maggie could tell by the brief flicker of his eyelids and the dilating of his pupils, especially as his gaze paused over her breasts—and she had to force herself not to react, either in anger or withdrawal.
It had taken Maggie years to become comfortable with her body. As a young girl who had developed much earlier than her friends, and as a young woman who had always had a curvy, voluptuous figure that made males think she was "easy," Maggie had gone out of her way to dress in a manner that would hide her figure, and to behave contrary to her sensual nature. But she was changing—her short, saucy hairdo and the belly-button ring being the most recent signs— and she no longer dressed repressively. If people wanted to form the wrong opinions of her, that was their problem, not hers. She didn't wear slut clothes, but then she didn't dress like a librarian, either.
That didn't mean she felt entirely comfortable under the carnal scrutiny of this handsome fellow. But she wasn't dying of mortification, either.
She held her chin high in defiance, and he chuckled, as if he understood... which was impossible, of course. She hoped.
"You would actually negotiate a contract to be a love slave?" Even as Maggie repeated her question, she wondered why she was pursuing this line of questioning. In her own defense, psychologists were taught to go with the flow of the patient's dialogue... to lead unobtrusively, when necessary, but mostly to follow, without censorship.
"Yea... if it would bring me closer to freedom."
"Have you ever been a love slave before?"
His eyes shot wide at her question. "Nay. Have you?"
"No," she answered with a nervous laugh. "And I'm not interested now.'"
His only answer was the disbelieving lift of his eyebrows. He flicked his tongue briefly over his full lips, as if to signal that, even if she wasn't interested, he definitely was.
Lordy, lordy!
This had to be a joke, but he displayed no sign of humor. In fact, the chiseled features of his fine face lacked the laugh lines that should have been etched about the mouth and eyes of a man his age—about mid-thirties. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, his bespoke grimness, not a life filled with smiles.
Who was this man? The Orcaland people claimed they'd never seen him before. A police search of his fingerprints had brought up nothing. No family or friends had shown up claiming a missing person. He seemed to be a man without a past.
Maggie shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to bring up the love-slave subject again. But then she chastised herself: no topic should be taboo in the therapy relationship. With that in mind she asked, "Exactly how would you negotiate a loveslave contract?"
She expected him to laugh, or at least grin, but his expression was somber. "On your side, there would be the promise of freedom. On my side would be the promise of bed pleasuring."
A ripple, like an erotic shock, rushed through Maggie with stunning force. And that was amazing, really, because, while she'd made great gains in her insecurities about her body, she still harbored strong inhibitions about her sexuality. Case in point, her girls' father, Judd Haskell, who'd once said she was "as exciting as nailing a bowl of mashed potatoes."
"I see." Maggie blinked several times to clear her head under the intense survey of the man half reclining on the bed before her. He saw way too much. "Define freedom," she encouraged.
"I'd rather define bed pleasuring." A slight grin tugged at his lips, and Maggie thought he might not be without a sense of humor, after all. Perhaps it was just buried beneath the surface... or whatever pain had caused his breakdown.
"You talk in such an odd way," she commented. "I can't quite place the dialect."
"Hah! You think I talk oddly? You should hear yourself... and I do not just mean that sex-voice."
Sex-voice? Oh, he must be referring to the huskiness. That was another part of her body makeup that had contributed to her early reputation as easy. Leave it to this fellow to home in on it, right off. "My voice has sounded raspy like this since I was a child. A severe throat infection," she said, more defensively than she'd intended. "But your dialect... where are you from?"
"Vestfold."
"Huh? Is that in Texas?"
"I have no idea where this Tax-us is. Vestfold is in Norway. I am a Norseman. A Viking."
"I see." Now they were getting somewhere. Among his other mental problems, this guy thought he was a Viking... although, come to think of it, he did resemble a Norse god. She made a few quick notes on her pad.
"We were negotiating our love-slave contract when—"
"I never agreed to negotiate any such thing," she interjected, perhaps too indignantly.
"I have much experience in bed sport, of course.
"Of course," she replied, and immediately regretted her sarcasm.
Either he failed to hear the sarcasm in her voice, or he chose to ignore it.
Good.
"Now, I cannot claim great finesse in more refined bed sport—no flowery words or hand holding or such—and, in truth, I do not favor kissing all that much, but I have been told my endurance is remarkable. That and my size."
Her only response was a gurgle, which he must have taken for a compliment because he continued, "And, of course, all Norsemen know the secret of a woman s S-spot."
"Don't you mean G-spot?" Criminy, was she the one going crazy here? What would prompt her to encourage him with questions like that?
"I know naught of a G-spot, but all Vikings know that the S-spot is far superior to any other sex spot." The lack of expression on his face gave her no clue as to whether he was serious or not.
"Well, this love-slave business would never work, I can tell you that right away," she informed him with a nervous laugh, "because most women like kissing."
"Do you?"
"Uh... well, yes. Of course." Oh, good heavens! My tongue has developed a mind of its own.
He seemed to consider her faltering words, the whole time staring at her with those luminous gray eyes. Finally he said, "Agreed."
"Agreed? What does that mean?" she practically shrieked.
He arched an eyebrow at the panic in her voice. "I agree to give kisses, and you agree to give... well, some things I want—nay, need."
Like what? she desperately wanted to ask. Luckily her good sense returned, and she bridled her tongue. Enough was enough on this dangerous subject. "I am not in need of a love slave, thank you very much. We should get back to the subject at hand the client interview."
"Is that what this is? An interview?" He frowned. "By the by, m'lady Muck-bride, are you married?"
She shook her head in confusion. What had her marital status to do with anything? Oh. He must be worried about potential conflicts with another man in the event she agreed to the love-slave business... which would be when hell froze oven. "No, I'm not married."
"I thought not. No offense, m'lady, but wedlock will not be part of our love-slave agreement."
It took a moment before her fuzzy brain absorbed the fact that he was declining a marriage proposal from her. "You... you..." she sputtered.
"Am I dead?" he asked suddenly.
"Wh-what?" Now that question really surprised her. "Why would you ask a question like that?"
"Well, the anchor of my longship got tangled in the seas somewhere beyond Iceland, and—"
"Iceland!" she exclaimed. "Joe, you are apparently lost."
He frowned. "Why do you address me as Joe?"
"Because you told me your name was Joe Rand. Oh... do you mean that I'm being too familiar? Do you prefer I call you Mr. Rand?"
"Nay, I prefer that you address me by my real name. Johr-rund," he sounded out for her "Jorund Ericsson."
She put a hand over her mouth to hide a smile at her mistake. "Jorund. What an unusual name! But nice... very nice! I think I'll just call you by your nickname, though Joe."
"Joe the Viking?" He pursed his lips pensively. "Somehow it does not have the same luster as Jorund the Viking, or Jorund the Warrior." Then he flashed her an irresistible grin.
She grinned back at him.
"I know I was—am—lost," he confessed. "But it was that damned Thora who caused me to end up here."
"Thora?" For some reason, the thought of Joe being with a woman caused her stomach to clench. No, no, no. She couldn't allow herself to become involved with a patient. Besides, for all she knew, he might be married. "Is Thora your wife?" she asked with as much nonchalance as she could muster.
"Do you make mock of me?"
She took that for a no. Whew! "Your lover?"
He snorted with disgust. "Thora is a killer whale."
"Thora... a killer whale? You named a killer whale?"
"I did. Well, actually, my bother Magnus and my sailors did. And, if you must know, Thora is the most irritating animal this side of the Baltic. And she has bad breath, too."
"I see."
"Why do you keep saying, 'I see,' when you clearly do not see?"
Maggie put her notebook aside and rubbed at the furrows in her forehead with the fingers of one hand. "A killer whale brought you here... from Iceland? A killer whale with bad breath?"
"Aha! Now you are beginning to understand."
"I see," she said.
 

The next day...
 
"That's it till next Monday," Dr. Harry Seabold told the people assembled around the conference table, thus calling a halt to the weekly staff meeting. "We should have more definite word within the next two weeks on the status of Medic-All negotiations with the Rainbow owners. I hope to give you a progress report next week."
"Two weeks! Well, whoopie-doo! My nurses are panicking now, Dr. Seabold. They need to know if they should be submitting job applications elsewhere," Gladys Hatcher insisted as she stood and gathered up her papers. "Some of them live from paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford to go even two weeks without work."
Gladys was a big, brusque woman who took no guff from anyone, not even their boss, but she also had a heart of gold when it came to her "girls," the nurses working under her supervision.
Earlier today, when Maggie had mentioned her daughters' report of the nurse's overheard remark, Gladys had clapped Maggie so hard on the back she almost fell over and exclaimed, "Well, he is a stud muffin, honey. Ya can't deny that."
Maggie had decided not to make an issue of it, for now.
"I know, I know." Harry was nodding in reply to Gladys's concerns. "But let's not overreact here, folks. Even if Medic-All buys out Rainbow, it doesn't mean the hospital will shut down, or that jobs will be eliminated."
But what Harry wasn't saying, and they all knew, was that Rainbow was a unique operation, and many of them, Maggie included, might not want to work for the hospital if it changed its procedures. Maggie knew of only a few mental clinics in the country that were experimenting with a minimal-security setting with a combination of in- and out- patient therapy for serious mental disorders, combined with work-training experience. It was all based on individualized contracts, a relaxed atmosphere, and close supervision. Their success rate had been phenomenal, but it was too soon to try it on a wider scale. Would Medic-All be impressed with what they'd accomplished so far? After all, the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital was a small facility of less than one hundred patients, and it was only five years old. Or would they bring their own people in and want a rubber stamp of the medical procedures followed in its other numerous facilities? Would the bottom line be dollars, or patient success?
Maggie feared she already knew the answer. As the business manager, nursing director, activities coordinator, and other psychologists began to stream out of the room, Harry said, "Stay behind, Maggie. I have something I need to discuss with you."
"Uh-oh. She sat back down in a chair close to the head of the table.
"It's about your John Doe .... " Harry, still sitting in the head seat, gave her a weary glance that didn't bode well for said John Doe. Today Harry wore a white, short-sleeved dress shirt, a red striped power tie, and khaki slacks—every bit the head honcho, even with his hair comb-over, which he patted every so often, whether to make sure it was still in place or out of nervousness, Maggie couldn't tell for sure.
"He's no longer a John Doe," Maggie reminded him. "Remember, he started talking yesterday. His name is Jorund Ericsson."
Harry gave a short "whatever" wag of his hand. "We are walking on eggshells with the potential takeover, Maggie. I'm very concerned about our having a patient here at this time with no known medical insurance and—"
"So that's what this is all about? Money?"
"Damn straight it is," Harry shot right back, his face flushed with sudden anger. He was usually such a calm person, even in the face of traumatic events, which were not unusual in a hospital setting. The takeover talks must be taking a bigger toll on him than she'd imagined. "I've never refused to care for a patient who had no means to pay, but these are very sensitive times. I'll be damned if I'll jeopardize the interests of ninety-nine paying customers for the sake of one... one"—he stammered, at a loss for the least offensive words to describe Joe—"one nude exhibitionist who just happens to be wearing a hundred thousand dollars in jewelry."
"Huh?" Maggie homed in on the most irrelevant part of Harry's tirade. "What jewelry? Oh, you mean those brass arm tings?"
"Brass? Ha! Those are solid gold, if my guess is right, and probably antiques... maybe even tenth century—at least that's what Martie said when she was here yesterday."
Martie, an antique dealer, was Harry's on again, off-again girlfriend. She operated a well respected auction house with international connections, similar to Sotheby's and Christie's, though on a smaller scale, and she served on several museum boards. She ought to know.
"Martie says those arm bands are potentially important antiquities, whatever the hell that means. And besides that, have you looked at that sword the police department sent over? I did, before they locked it in the hospital safe. My God, Maggie, it weighs a ton, and the hilt is in the shape of a dragon, imbedded with what appear to be real emeralds. I didn't bring it out to show Martie, of course that would be unethical. But I'm telling you, this guy should be a paying customer... insurance or no insurance."
Maggie's shoulders sagged with weariness. Harry was right. He'd gone out on a  limb, giving in to her whim over bringing a stranger to their hospital. And how did she repay him? By giving him grief. "What do you want me to do?"
"One week," he stipulated, wagging a forefinger at her with emphasis. "You have one week to show some real progress with this guy. That's when the advance team from Medic-All will arrive for the red-carpet treatment. I expect your assurance by then that he is no danger to anyone, including himself. That means no more ankle restraints or straitjackets. I want to see some interaction with other patients. Otherwise he is being sent to the state facility, whether it is in his best interests or not. Rainbows best interests are my main concern, especially now. I mean that, Maggie. I really do."
Maggie put up both hands in surrender. "I get the picture, boss."
The question, though, was how to translate that picture to her patient. Most important, would Joe the Viking cooperate?
 

The next day...
 
"I do not understand," Jorund said, pacing the room as he shook his head with incredulity. "What kind of prison is this?"
"Why kind of prison do you think it is?"
The wench was back in his chamber again, battering him with more pointless conversation, half of which he could not comprehend, when he needed to be on his journey back to his ship to rescue his brother Rolf. And—Thor's toenails!— he hated it when she never answered his questions, but instead tossed them back at him like a bloody parrot.
If he asked, "Why am I being confined?" she countered with, "How do you feel about being confined?" Or a simple query like, "Where am I?" would garner, "Where do you think you are?" Never could he get a simple answer to a simple question.
She wore another of those short-sleeved sherts, as she had worn at the orca place—crimson red this time, made of a stretchy material that highlighted the most perfect breasts, round globes that would fit nicely into a big male hand... one the size of... oh, say, his hand. Not that he was considering the handling of her breasts. It was just an observation, he told himself. Just as he'd noticed she was wearing men's black braies that clung to her rounded hips and flat belly in a beguiling way. Then, too, there were those enticing, open-toed shoes with flame painted toenails today. He had the most alarming compulsion to suck on those deliciously appealing appendages.
He stopped dead in his tracks. Really, he had been isolated too long if he was developing a taste for toes. Magnus would love to hear of this. No doubt at the next All-Thing, the skalds would be writing praise-poems...but to ridicule, not praise him. Instead of his being known as Jorund the Warrior, people would refer to him forever after as Jorund the Toe-Taster.
He'd best be on his guard. The wench might be out to seduce him with all these dock-whore wiles. And he might just be tempted if it weren't for her annoying nature. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? he mocked her incessant refrain in his head. What he thought was that he was tired of thinking. It was long past the time for action.
Oh, the wench had released his ankle restraints. A guardsman was still posted outside the door, though, and Jorund still wore the torture shert. That ankle-restraint concession had been made this morn when he'd promised not to make an effort to escape or engage in any violence. Even so, it rankled that she engaged him in useless chatter when he had important business elsewhere. Besides he might as well admit it he wanted to get back to the black box and see if Josh was able to rescue Reva from those dastardly villains on that far island. He had some suggestions he'd like to offer Josh for retrieving his wayward wife. And Odin's balls !—that Reva was a woman after a Viking's heart... or any other body organ.
"What don't you understand, Joe?"
I swear I am going to rip out your tongue if you don't stop calling me Joe. What kind of name is that? That was what he thought. What he said was, "You say this is a hospitium?"
"A hospital... yes." She craned her neck to watch him as he resumed moving restlessly about the small chamber. "Actually, we prefer to call it a clinic."
"Ne'er have I seen a hospitium—or clan-hick— like this afore," he declared with a grunt. "I should know. There is one of the finest in the world located in Jorvik, near the minster. The good monks perform the healing arts there. They've sewn up my wounds on a dozen occasions. One time I nigh lost an eye."
Scanning him quickly, the wench took note of the white scar that ran from his right eye to his ear.
A distressing idea occurred to him then. "Since this is a hospitium, are those men in white uniforms who come in here... are they perchance monks?"
She smiled. "No, they're orderlies, or attendants."
"And the women in white—and you—surely you are not nuns?"
She laughed out loud at that. "The women in white are nurses, and I'm a doctor."
He exhaled with a loud whoosh, in relief.
The wench looked at him strangely. "You do understand that? No, I guess you don't." She paused. "This is a mental hospital, Joe."
Men-tall? Men-tall? He rolled the word around on his tongue silently. Oh, she must mean mental, like having to do with the head. It took him a few moments to digest that news. "Your country has special hospitiums for mad people?"
She nodded.
"Well, I can see where that might be a good idea." I have ne'er heard of such a ludicrous idea in all my days. Next she will tell me there are separate hospitiums for battle veterans or breeding women. Not wanting to give offense, but needing to know if he faced additional dangers from a berserk society, he asked casually, "Dost have so very many mad people here?"
She shrugged. "No more than any other country."
"We lock them up in my country... in dungeons, if they are available." Actually he'd seen only a few dungeons in his time, though he supposed some folks did lock up their infamous family members. They were probably Saxons, who were known to have no heart, even for their own kin. Even then, it was more likely to be a root cellar or woodshed, rather than a dungeon. She gaped.
"Or just kill them." His third cousin Halfdan had killed his half-witted brother, Helvid, many summers ago because he'd slobbered in Half dan's mead. "I have heard of some clans where less-than-perfect babes are left outdoors to die soon after birth. Life is harsh in the northlands, and sometimes 'tis merciful to spare the child with death when life would mean endless torture."
She gulped.
"In truth, I have heard of madhouses on occasion, but those were mostly in leper colonies."
She gasped.
But then, the implications of her words struck him on a personal level: he was being held captive in a madhouse. "You think I, Jorund the Warrior, am demented?"
"Well, I wouldn't use the word demented," she answered, but the flush on her cheeks told another story.
"What word would you use?" He narrowed his eyes at her and gritted his teeth.
"Troubled."
He released the breath he had not realized he was holding. "Of course I am troubled. I already told you I am lost and must needs get back to my ship in order to rescue my brother Rolf."
"I mean troubled in a more serious, clinical way. Joe, you need help to correct your disorders before you can be released back into society."
"If by disorders you mean mental ones, then you are sorely mistaken," he informed her haughtily. "I am as sane as the next person... as you, for example. Or that Dock-whore Hairy with the hair swag."
He saw her lips twitch with suppressed mirth at his description of her colleague.
"Tell me exactly what I am accused of so that I may convince you of my innocence, and leave this place."
"No, no, no. You aren't being accused of any crime. This is a low-security mental facility. If police thought you were truly dangerous, or a criminal, you'd be in jail, not here."
"Then why am I not free to leave?"
"For starters, you showed up stark naked in a public place."
"Pfff!" He blew air out in a dismissive manner. "I did not choose to arrive without garments, but I needed ease of movement when I dove into the waters off Iceland to disentangle my ship's anchor."
"See, that's another thing," she said with excitement, as if she'd made some great discovery. "Surely you're aware of the frigid nature of waters in that region. Your body never could have withstood that temperature for more than a few minutes."
He was trying his best to concentrate on her words and not notice that her nipples had pearled with her excitement and pressed outward from the stretchy material of her shert. He made a mental note to take a length or two of that fabric back to Vestfold with him. He knew a trader who could make a fortune selling it to the Eastern potentates. For a certainty, the nether portion of his body was developing a liking for all that the fabric disclosed on the dock whore. He forced himself to think of other things before he embarrassed himself.
"Well, you may have a point there," he managed to get out finally. "Mayhap my boat did go off course a mite. Mayhap it was not really Iceland, but some other country. Mayhap I was a trifle... well, lost."
"Oh, Joe"—she sighed—"that would be more than lost. From Galveston, Texas, to Iceland is more than two thousand miles, as the bird flies."
It was his turn to gasp now. "As the bird flies, hmmm? And how many sea miles would that be by longship?"
"I haven't a clue. Possibly four thousand miles." She laughed. "Why do you keep mentioning such archaic words as longship?"
"Huh?" Then, "What is archaic about a long ship? 'Tis the way we Vikings travel."
"There you go again, referring to yourself as a Viking. I've got to tell you that I've had patients in the past who thought they were aliens from another planet. One even believed he was the emperor Nero. Vikings, Romans, aliens... those are delusions, my friend."
He stared at her, slack-jawed with incomprehension.
"Vikings do not exist as a separate culture today," she explained slowly. "They were assimilated into the various countries where they raped and pillaged, or just plain settled."
"Oh! There you go," he said, mimicking her expression. "Why do so many people accept as truth this portrayal of Vikings as bloodthirsty marauders? Do you not recognize the bias of those bloody Saxon clerics who call themselves historians? Rumormongers, they are, one and...
She gazed softly at him, as if she were a parent, and he a simple child.
For a brief moment, he entertained the possibility of slicing off her tongue afore he left this chamber. Once he regained his sword, that was.
"Perhaps this is a starting point for us to begin therapy." She inhaled deeply, as if to fortify herself. "I believe that your name is Joe Rand, as you told me originally. And I think I know what your biggest problem is."
"You do?" Now, why did I ask her that? It's just prolonging this ridiculous conversation.
"Yes. You have a T-type personality... you're an extreme risk taker. That was evident at the orca park when you made a grand entrance riding atop a killer whale. I'm not judging you, but some people might equate that with a death wish."
"I was not riding Thora by choice," he pointed out.
She waved a hand in the air as if his observation counted for naught. "Man is the only species that deliberately takes risks, did you know that, Joe? And I'm speaking of everything from finances to our very lives. Think about it. Stock speculation. Gambling. Skydiving. Car racing. Whatever. The safer our environment becomes, the more risks people intentionally take on."
The woman is barmy as a bat.
"You are a thrill-seeker," she concluded with a wide smile, as if inviting him to agree.
Barmy as two bats. "Are you a... what did you call it... a type-tea, also?"
"Oh, good heavens, no! I've got inhibitions coming out the wazoo." She squirmed on her chair, practically jumping with glee at the expectation of solving one of his so-called disorders.
"Really?" he asked with more interest than her comment evoked. What he'd really like to know, though, was where her cause-oooh was? Could it be anywhere in the vicinity of those nicely rounded buttocks that perched on the edge of her chair?
And he had to wonder, if she got this aroused at the prospect of his being a thrill seeker, how aroused would she get when it was her he targeted for his thrills?
"But, more important, you must accept this fact, Joe: you are not a Viking."
"I'm not?" For a moment there, she had him questioning himself. If he was not already mad, she would make him so. "What am I?"
"Why don't you tell me?"
"Why do you always throw my questions back at me?"
She sighed, but then seemed to take his criticism to heart. "I suspect you are an ordinary man with an ordinary job, who took on this fantasy in order to bring excitement to his life. There's nothing wrong with that, except that it's an illusion. And overindulgence in fantasies can interfere with reality."
If Jorund's arms weren't confined in the torture jacket, he would have pulled at his own hair with frustration. "I most certainly am a Viking... just as you are a dock whore. And I assure you, I am not, nor ever have been, ordinary."
She smiled at him in a patronizing manner he did not find one bit complimentary.
"Of course you're special. I just meant that there's no need to attach fancy labels to yourself. Who you are is enough."
"Aaarrgh!" he growled, then forced himself to control his temper when he noticed the flash of alarm on her face and the darting of her eyes toward the guardsman just outside in the corridor. "Let me make myself clear: I do not consider Viking a 'fancy label.' I am a Norseman... a Viking born and bred. That, m'lady, is no fantasy."
"I see," she remarked in a tone he could tell was intended to placate. She did not believe him.
He decided to change the subject. "What is this why-two-key I see mentioned on the black box all the time?"
At first the wench did not seem to understand his words. "Why-two-key, why-two-key," she repeated several times, then laughed. "Oh, you mean Y2K."
"That's what I said, didn't I?"
She ignored his grumpiness and explained. "Even though the turn of the century has passed, lots of people are still patting themselves on the backs over having escaped unscathed."
"Well, that is as clear as fjord fog on a frosty Friggsday." But something else she'd said tugged at his brain. "What do you mean about the turn of the century  having passed? It was the year 998 when I left Vestfold. There is a year and more till the turn of the century." He was beginning to think that perchance it was the wench who was mad, not the other inhabitants of this madhouse, and definitely not him.
"Joe!" she exclaimed with alarm. "This isn't the year 998. It's the year two thousand."
"That's impossible!"
She shook her head slowly with a telling sadness. Instead of his convincing her of his sanity, he could tell she was increasingly convinced he was demented.
He inhaled and exhaled several times to digest all that she had proclaimed.
Finally he told her, "If I am not dead, as you have assured me, and if this is in truth the year two thousand, then there can be only one conclusion."
"And that would be?"
He groaned. "I've heard about this in the sagas of the Norse gods, but never did I actually think it could come true, especially not for mortal men. But what other explanation could there be?"
"What are you talking about, Joe?"
"I must have traveled through time."
"Time travel!" Another delusion.
"Yea, time travel," Joe said. "Oh, I know it is hard to believe, and never would I have thought it possible myself. But the Norse sagas tell tales of even more fantastical events. Even the Greeks told of impossible heroes doing
extraordinary things... like Hercules."
"Those are myths," Maggie informed him gentlly. "Fantasies."
Joe shrugged. "Mayhap one's man's fancy is another man's reality. Nay, do not frown at me so. I am a man who deals with the bloody face of war, ofttimes on a daily basis. Believe me when I tell you I am not given to fanciful notions, but even I would find it hard to discredit miraculous events."
Maggie arched her eyebrows at him. "Are you saying that you have experienced a miracle?"
"Hmpfh! What would you call being shot through time on the back of a killer whale?" Obviously Maggie's usually impassive face was not so impassive today, because Joe was quick to add, "Mayhap the Norse culture is more inclined to believe in the spectacular than yours. Mayhap, because of our harsh environment, we tend to have more hope in the gods... and miracles."
With an air of hopelessness, Maggie put her notebook and pencil aside and walked over to the window.
Maybe I should just give up now. Call the state hospital and have them come pick up Joe. Better yet, just let him go and fare the best he can on the streets. There's no way I can give him all the help he needs in one lousy week. No way!
On the other hand, if we let him go now, he'll probably be out on Galveston Bay, rowing a longboat... or waving that sword around in the nearest McDonald's.
Crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the windowsill, she stared out blindly through the bars, trying to figure out how to handle this latest problem... especially with the time constraint her boss had laid on her only yesterday. "Why are you so sad, m'lady?"
Maggie jumped, not having realized that Joe had stepped up beside her. Although she was not short by any means, Maggie had to crane her neck to gaze up at him.
He didn't touch her at all not that he could, wearing a straitjacket but Maggie felt his nearness as a palpable thing. The pine scent of the hospital-issue soap he'd used to shower with that morning was a whisper teasing at her senses. But more than that, there was the scent of man... of him... erotic and compelling.
Maggie took a slight step backward, and her shoulders hit the side wall. She wasn't afraid, but she needed some distance between herself and this provocative male specimen. ....
"You fear me?"
She shook her head.
He contemplated that contradiction of words and physical evidence, then smiled slightly, as if he understood that it was herself she feared. She saw the moment of hesitancy in his smoky eyes, when he contemplated moving closer to test his theory, but luckily he exercised restraint.
Maggie wasn't sure what she would have done if he'd leaned in and rubbed his lips against hers. Or pressed his sex against hers. Or breathed her name. Lordy, lordy!. Pretty soon I'm going to qualify for admittance to my own mental hospital.
"You didn't answer my question," he murmured gruffly, jarring Maggie back to reality. "Why did my mention of time traveling make you sad?"
"There is no such thing," she answered bluntly, "and if you really believe that's what happened to you, then that makes my task impossible... a task that now has a deadline on it."
"What task would that be?" He was leaning back against the window now, his butt propped on the ledge, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. How a man wearing a straitjacket could look so relaxed was beyond Maggie.
"Making you healthy?"
"Who says I am unhealthy?" His chin jutted out.
"Mentally healthy," she elaborated.
"Oh, that! The demented nonsense again," he scoffed.
"I never said you were demented, Joe. Just..."
"I know... just troubled. But why does being a time traveler—"
"Your belief that you are a time traveler, not your being a time traveler," she interjected.
"Aaarrgh! If you keep interrupting, I will forget what I was going to say. Then you will accuse me of being demented—I mean, troubled for that reason, also."
"Sorry. Continue then."
"Why does my conclusion that I have traveled through time affect your ability to cure me any more than my claim to being a Viking, or my arrival in your land, bare-arsed and wielding a sword?"
"There isn't enough time to work on all those problems. Oh, I'm really encouraged by your finally talking, and I'm sure we'll be making great progress, but not before..." She let her words trail off.
"You mentioned a deadline," he prodded.
She paused a moment, then disclosed, "I shouldn't be telling you this, but Rainbow Hospital may soon be sold. The prospective buyers will be here next week six days from now—to look everything over, and Harry—I mean, Dr. Seabold has given me my orders: everything has got to be shipshape for their inspection tour."
Jorund listened carefully, trying to comprehend all that the wench said. Although he was learning the language of this world day by day, he still had trouble with many of the words. What has she to do with ships? Finally he asked, "And I would not fit into this shipshape?"
"You would not fit into this shipshape," she agreed.
"So what will happen if I am not... uh, shipshape by then?"
"Well, the team—Dr. Seabold, me, and your head nurse, Gladys Hatcher—would sit down and decide whether to send you to a state-run hospital, or just release you."
Jorund inhaled deeply with surprise. "Glad-ass has a say in my fate?" he inquired. He would have
to be nicer to the witch in the future. "Glad-ass?" the wench choked out.
"Yea, Norse Hatch-her... the sadist with the bed trencher."
Mag-he tried to suppress a smile, but he saw it nonetheless.
"Nurse Hatcher is a very nice woman... a dedicated professional."
He lifted both eyebrows in disbelief. "Are you speaking of the same person? The Amazon with the arms of a seasoned warrior?"
Mag-he smiled. "I wouldn't describe her in quite those words, but yes."
"Well, I am informing you here and now, that hatchet-faced, bed trencher-brandishing, smartmouthed woman is having naught to do with my fate," he told her in no uncertain terms. "Back to that other... all I have to do is stay here for six days and then I could be freed?"
She nodded. "Possibly."
"Well, why didn't you tell me this afore?" Six days? That is not an overlong delay. Really, Jorund had no desire to rush back to the place where the killer whale had deposited him. For some reason his instincts told him to sit back and study his surroundings, to try to understand why the gods, or the bloody whale, had chosen to interrupt his father's quest with this particular stop. He was convinced he would have to locate Thora in order to return to his own time. He sensed that Thora would be the key to his return home.
"Oh, Joe," she said in a voice wobbly with emotion. "Being free isn't the answer if you're not well."
He cocked his head to the side and studied her more closely. "Why do you care?"
"I don't know," she answered, clearly dismayed. Her lips were trembling and her eyes misting up.
"Oh, for the love of Freyja! Tears!" The wench was about to weep. Over him! He could not abide female tears under the best of circumstances, and definitely not in pity of him. Straightening, he emitted a low growl of outrage and jerked his restricted arms sharply to the sides—once, twice, three times. To his amazement, as well as hers,the torture shert split down the center.
She gaped at him.
He gaped at her, then clicked his jaw shut. It was not fitting that he should appear dumbfounded at his own incredible strength.
"How did you do that?"
He shrugged, as if it were nothing. In truth, he had no idea how he had done it.
One minute he had seen her near tears, and the next minute he was consumed with frustration at his being unable to... what? Hold her? Holy Thor! Best I rein in those thoughts.
"Are you Houdini, or some kind of magician?"
"Well, I have been known to wield magic onoccasion," he lied. Ha! The only sorcery skill he could boast was that an overendowed Saxon tart had once told him he had magic in his rod, and she had been drunkinn at the time.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Have you been playing a game with me?"
"Nay." But I'd like to. One that involves kiss some lips, sweet, succulent toes, long legs, round breasts, and a sex-voice.
"Just tell me this... have you been able to break free from that straitjacket all along?"
"I have not," he answered honestly.
She seemed to accept his answer.
In a matter of seconds, he had tossed the garment aside and was flexing his limbs to get the blood flowing again. He turned back to the wench, glanced away, then immediately turned back. "What?" She was staring at his bare chest as if she'd never seen a naked man before, though he was not really naked, since he still wore those loose blue hospital braies with the waist ties.
He would have to be blind not to see the interest in her eyes. He stepped closer, obeying a strange compulsion that drew him against his will. It was like the sensation one got sometimes when standing on a cliff. A person didn't want to jump or fall forward, but there was some physical pulling sensation nonetheless. Had she cast a spell on him?
"Don't touch me .... " she protested weakly.
"I have wanted to touch you for days," he admitted in a gravelly voice, but he restrained himself from doing so. For now, he was content to inhale her flowery scent, to appreciate the rise and fall of those magnificent breasts, to wonder at the trembling of her full, cherry lips. "You shouldn't... you can't."
"Who says I cannot?"
"I do. It's unethical."
"What?"
"I'm a doctor; you're my patient. There can be nothing personal between us."
He made a snorting sound of disagreement. "I know about this dock whore/pay-shun business from The Guiding Light. There was this man, Dock-Whore Rick, who... well, never mind that. Heed me well, wench; I never hired you to be my dock whore. Therefore, I cannot be your pay shun. Mayhap I will be Dock-whore Hairy's pay shun. Then I can touch you all I want."
He could see that he was confusing Mag-he. Good. It was always best to keep a wench in a muddled condition, lest she start thinking she had a brain equal to a man's.
Also, women, no matter their station, were more likely to succumb to men's baser suggestions in that state. Once he had befuddled an Irish wench so badly that she had agreed to the most outrageous things. But that had been a long time ago, and it was neither here nor there.
Jorund needed a plan. Too many baffling thoughts and feelings were hitting him from every angle. If he were in the midst of battle, he would be dead by now.
Where was his legendary gift for war tactics? How had he lost his focus?
"Come." He directed the wench to a small metal table with folding chairs on either side. "Sit down, and let us come up with a plan for healing me."
She eyed him skeptically, the way that women were wont to do on occasion when they thought their men were up to some mischief.
He sat down, but she still stood on the other side of the room, suspicious of him. He wished she would hurry so they could get this business over with. By his count of the big, circular ticking device on the wall, Judge Judy would be coming on the black world box soon, and he did enjoy her saucy tongue when wielding her edicts. He was learning much about the law of this land.
The wench went to a door first, which he had learned previously was called a close-it. From it she took a shert, which matched his braies. "Put this on first," she demanded.
He was about to ask why, but he knew... somehow he knew. His near-nudity disconcerted her. Now that was a fact to be stored for future reference. He did as she asked, leaving the strange fastening devices undone; they were known as butt-ons. For a certainty, he intended to take a sampling of these back to his country. He knew a few merchants who would pay a fortune for knowledge of their marvelous usage.
Now that they were sitting across from each other, Jorund took a deep breath and began, "Your problem is that you must heal me within a week, whilst—"
"No, not exactly. That's the purpose of a mental facility... to be helping patients with problems. What we can't have is your being locked in a barred room with ankle restraints and a strait jacket. I'm not saying they aren't legitimate tools for controlling out-of-control patients, but if the need for them continues for a week or more, then that person probably belongs in a maximum security mental facility. Not here."
He put both hands in the air in a manner that said, What is the problem?
She tilted her head in silent question.
"Can't you see, the problem is halfway solved? My feet are free .... "he teased, extending one leg and wiggling his toes at her.
Her face went prettily pink at his action, and he thought, not without some satisfaction, that mayhap she had a fascination for his feet, just as he'd experienced over her flame-colored toenails. How odd! That was another fact to store for future reference.
"And I no longer wear the torture shert. Do you see me attacking anyone? Or harming myself?"
Just then the guard must have peered through the window and noticed that he was free. He opened the door and rushed in, about to attack him—or try to. "Dr. McBride! Why didn't you call for help?"
Dock-whore Muck-bride stood quickly, placing herself between Jorund, still seated, and the burly guardsman. "Everything's all right, Hank. I, um... I released Joe. A little experiment. And it's working out just fine."
God, he loved it when his very own Valkyrie— even if she wasn't such, he liked to think of her so—went hostile on his behalf. He would have jumped up and defended himself if he hadn't been enjoying the sight of her in battle mode so much.
"Well, if you say so," the guardsman agreed reluctantly and left, though Jorund noticed that he left the door ajar.
"Well done, m'lady." He gave her a smart salute.
"Huh?"
"You put Hunk in his proper place."
"Huh?"
"Now that we have resolved the first two obstacles—the ankle restraints and the torture shert— what can be done about the bars and locked doors?"
"I think an experiment is in order. We move you to another room. No bars. And the door will be unlocked for certain periods of the day... not all the time, at first. At those times you will be able to go to the activities room or the workout room, where you can mix with some of the other patients. How does that sound?"
Just wonderful! I will get to exchange pleasantries with demented people. "Fine," he said, because that was obviously the answer she wanted.
"Good." She smiled broadly. "I think we'll start by having you eat dinner with the others in the dining hall."
"I hope there will be no more of that green jail low. That provender is a torment even the vilest prisoner should not be subjected to."
Mag-he thought a moment, then laughed. "Oh, you mean Jell-O. Yes, you're right. They do tend to overdo the green Jell-O a bit. Anyhow, if the dining experience works out all right, tomorrow you can join group therapy for the first time."
He didn't even want to know what he would be doing in a group with other half-witted people. But his brain cautioned him not to protest too much, to take one step at a time, to watch, assess, then act. "So this is how you heal people?"
"Well, not exactly. Usually we draw up a contract."
"See. Did I not offer already to have a contract with you?"
She shook her head at him as if he were a mischievous child. "Not that kind of contract."
His shoulders slumped with disappointment.
"You do not want me for a love slave?"
"Get serious, Joe."
"I was serious. Well, mayhap I wasn't, really. But it did pose interesting possibilities. On the other hand, you could be my love slave. That definitely would be of interest. What do you think?"
"I think you just took five steps forward and ten steps backward in your healing with that comment."
"So what kind of contract do you usually do?" he asked, not bothering to hide his chagrin.
"We do a mental-health diagnosis, which we discuss with the patient. Then we set up goals for how to overcome those mental problems and enter back into society as a productive member... though some of our patients still work with us after they've left the clinic."
"I could do that," he concluded enthusiastically.
"Wonderful."
He could tell she was about to conclude their meeting, which he wasn't prepared to do just yet.
"Wait," he said, stretching out a hand to encircle the nape of her neck. The short hairs were prickly and silky at the same time against his fingertips. "Do you not conclude contracts in a particular way, as they do in my country... especially when the contract is a man-woman one?"
"Wh-what do you mean?"
Jorund saw the small pulse leap in her throat, as if she enjoyed his touch, despite herself, and yearned for more. Well, she was about to get more, if he had his way.
"In my culture, a true Norseman likes to seal his bargains with"—he leaned forward "a kiss."
"Liar," she whispered.
The blood in Jorund's veins was pumping so wildly, he was in no condition to protest her insult.
His lips brushed hers then, back and forth, light as a feather, but the pleasure it evoked was so intense, he moaned against her lips. Or was it she who moaned into his mouth? He could not help himself then. He deepened the kiss and slipped his tongue between her parted lips. Sweet, sweet, sweet, she was. And hot!
He drew back sharply, and withdrew his hand. He stared at her, mesmerized.
She stared at him, mesmerized.
It was she who spoke first. He could tell that she was about to say that this shouldn't have happened, or that it wouldn't happen again, as women throughout the ages were wont to do after they had succumbed to temptation, but instead she surprised even herself by blurting out an irrelevancy.
"I thought you didn't like kisses," she whispered in that sex-voice that seeped under his skin and grabbed at his loins with a jolt.
At first he was unable to utter a word. When he did, it was in a choked growl.
"I changed my mind."
 

The next day...
 
Joe was about to begin his first group-therapy session, and Maggie was more than a little nervous. It had taken some convincing to have Harry agree to Joe's moving into therapy so quickly, but even he was impressed with the way the man, who still claimed to be a tenth-century Viking, was mixing in with the others. Not only had he signed the personal contract required by Rainbow, the rules of which must be obeyed or the patient would be expelled, but he had behaved himself at dinner the night before, and he'd taken to the workout room with great enthusiasm.
One of the aides reported to her this morning that Jorund had lifted weights like an Olympian, and had manned the rowing machine as if it were an actual boat. In fact, he'd given it a name... Fierce Wizard, or some such thing. In true leadership fashion, he had set two other patients, who had been lethargic about exercise thus far, to rowing in tandem. You'd think they were the potential crew members of a... well, a longship.
Still, it was good to see Joe being proactive about something, anything. So much progress in such a short time was hard for Maggie to comprehend, but she wasn't about to protest a good thing.
"Are you ready?" he asked on arrival at his new room, where he was waiting for her. This room was the same as the other, sans barred windows and two-way mirrors on the corridor wall. She was about to escort him to the terrace room where group-therapy sessions were held. It was a light, sunny place that everyone liked.
"I must be. We have only five more days to get my ship in shape." He jiggled his eyebrows at her with his little joke, which was really odd because he appeared to be a man little inclined to teasing.
It was adorable the way he deliberately misinterpreted words and phrases. At least, she assumed it was deliberate. The other possibility meant more hurdles for them to jump in his therapy. And actually, he was adorable, period. Today he was wearing a white Dallas Cowboys T-shirt tucked into a pair of tight-fitting jeans and hightop athletic shoes. His long blond hair was held back off his face with a rubber band.
"We're wearing matching braies," he commented as they strolled down the corridor.
She looked down, then over at him. Yes, they were both wearing denim braies, which appeared to be the word Joe used for pants. But Maggie wasn't wearing a sweater or T-shirt today, as she usually did for these sessions. Instead she wore a white cotton blouse and a blue blazer.
Group-therapy day was usually one on which she deliberately chose casual clothes to fit in with her patients. But today, she suspected, she hadn't wanted to be disconcerted by any hot looks toward any part of her anatomy... in particular, her breasts.
"I like you better in those sheer hose you wore yesterday," he mentioned, "but tight braies have a certain allure, too."
As if she cared!
Okay, she hardly cared.
She was trying not to care.
Oh, lordy!
Heads pivoted as they passed, and not just those of the women staff and patients. Men gawked, too. Joe Rand was a sight to see. It wasn't just his immense height or good looks. It was the way he carried himself, as if he were someone important. No, that wasn't quite it. It was pride, or grace, or an innate air of leadership... she couldn't say for sure which.
"Do I pass your inspection?" he asked, apparently aware of her scrutiny.
"Just checking out your new duds. Thank God for Goodwill."
She wasn't fooling him one bit. He was enjoying her discomfort immensely. That was especially obvious when his gaze snagged on her lips, and paused.
Was he remembering their kiss?
She had certainly been able to think of little else. And her dreams last night had been X-rated. For a man who disliked kisses, he'd sure known a whole lot of ways to kiss. In her dreams, at least.
"Oh, lady, if you're thinking what I think you are, I am not going to be able to concentrate on anything during this group-therapy business. Leastways, anything except how soon I can bed you."
Maggie gasped. "I was not thinking anything at all like that." Exactly. "I will tell you this, Joe: there can be no repeat of what happened yesterday. I'm willing to overlook one kiss. You caught me off guard. But if you try it again while you're my patient, I'm going to have to excuse myself from your case."
The knowing look he gave her didn't bode well for Maggie. This Viking was going to do whatever he wanted. And he wasn't fooled one bit by her insinuation that the kiss had been a one-sided deal. She had participated, too.
And enjoyed it immensely.
Luckily, they were interrupted then by Harry, who was on his way to a budget meeting.
"How do you do, Joe?" Harry reached out and shook Joe's hand... an action that Joe looked on with puzzlement. "I'm Dr. Harrison Seabold. I know we've met before, but I just thought I'd introduce myself again. Glad to see you moving around, buddy. And talking."
Joe looked at their joined hands, then at Maggie. "Is this a gesture of welcome in your land?"
"Yes. Exactly," she said, which prompted him to reach out and shake her hand, as well... heartily.
"How do you do?" he repeated woodenly.
"Not quite so tight," she advised, and he loosened his iron grip.
"See," he pointed out as they continued to the end of the hall. "I can adapt to your culture."
In little ways, he could. But Maggie wondered how he would handle the bigger things—like his first group-therapy session.
The others were already there when they arrived, sitting about in a circle of folding chairs.
Steve Askey was an attractive, fiftyish former professional baseball player and Navy SEAL vet, who suffered from PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder. His alcoholism and subsequent self destructive behavior had already resulted in a broken marriage, which had further escalated his problems. Despite being on the wagon for a year, he thought he had no future. She could see it in his posture as he slumped in his chair, staring at nothing.
Chuck Belammy, thirty, was purported to have multiple-personality disorder, except that his was the darnedest case Maggie had ever heard of. His personalities were animals: a cow who ate grass and mooed all the time, a galloping horse, a chicken pecking for kernels of corn, a rooster crowing—which could be annoying in a hospital setting—and a slithering snake. His animal personas all had names. Right now he must be Bessie, because he was making mooing sounds and chewing his cud. Actually, Chuck's "animal MPD" was a sham... something the very intelligent young man had dreamed up to throw his doctors off track. Underneath, he hid some other mental problems that he deemed too horrible or embarrassing—to share... yet.
Natalie Blue, twenty-four, was agoraphobic—afraid to leave her house, even to go shopping. Ironically, she dreamed of being a country-western singer, which would be impossible if she was unable to perform before crowds. But she'd progressed tremendously in the past six months. At least now she came to them as an outpatient. There was a time when she'd been unable to leave the security of her bedroom.
Rosalyn Harris, twenty-eight, was a mousy librarian, when she was able to work. Most often she just rocked back and forth. Sometimes Rosalyn mutilated herself. Thus far Maggie had been unable to diagnose the cause of her condition, except that she had feelings of low self-worth. Rosalyn lived at home and was brought to the clinic weekly by her parents, who insisted on her getting therapy because they believed she was anorexic. Maggie thought there might be some other reason for her withdrawal... something Rosalyn had yet to disclose.
Harvey Lutz, a nerdy looking young man in his early twenties, was a bipolar obsessive-compulsive who had a habit of continually counting things and lining them up. Right now he was counting lint pills on his wool trousers. Every time he got to twelve, he stumbled and started over.
Fred Bernstein, a balding, middle-aged man, was delusional, hiding his problems in fantasy identities. From one week to the next, she never knew if he was some famous movie star, athlete, or biblical figure. She couldn't wait to hear why he was carrying two large, ironstone dinner platters today. The kitchen staff wouldn't be pleased to know they were missing.
Sometimes there were extra people in the group: a biker from Houston with head injuries, a chronically depressed accountant who yearned for a lost love, and various others. The wonderful thing about Rainbow, in Maggie's opinion, was that people could come and go, as their ailments required.
Maggie sat down next to Rosalyn and motioned for Joe to sit across the circle, with Chuck on one side and Steve on the other. That was when she realized that Joe wasn't beside her. Looking up, she saw him still standing in the doorway, gawking at the group as if he'd landed in... well, Bedlam.
But what he said was, "Is this Niflheim?"
Jorund could not believe his eyes. He'd never seen so many lackwitted people in one room in all his life. Even Viking warriors in the midst of battle who had gone berserk did not look this bizarre.
The most difficult thing to accept in this scenario was that Mag-he thought he was as demented as this lot of mush-brains. Raising his chin, Jorund fixed a glower on the female who had brought him there, and immediately eased his temper. There was a pleading expression on her face—one that begged him not to make a scene, or embarrass her in front of her other pay-shuns.
Biting his bottom lip to keep him from saying what he really thought, Jorund followed Mag-he's direction and sat in a seat across from her.
Almost immediately, he jumped when he got a good view of the man sitting next to
him... and what he was doing.
"Bock, hock, bock, bock, hock!" the red-haired young man, who couldn't have seen more than thirty winters, was clucking as he bobbed his head like a rooster.
Jorund glanced at Mag-he, then back at the man, who greeted him with, "Cock-adoodle-do!" Yea, I was correct. A rooster.
"Everyone is looking good today," Mag-he said brightly.
Is she demented, too? Everyone did not look good, in Jorund's opinion. In fact, they were a sorry lot, if he'd ever seen one.
"We have a new group member today." She went around the circle and told Jorund each of their names ... Steve, Chuck, Not-a-lie, Rosalyn, Furr-red, and Hair-vee. "I'd like to introduce you all to Joe Rand," Mag-he was saying.
They all stared at him curiously, and a woman who was as plain as a brown field mouse whistled under her breath, which seemed to surprise everyone. At least it took everyone's attention away from him.
"Did you say something, Rosalyn?" Mag-he asked excitedly.
The mouse woman kept her gaze downward, as if there were something important on the legs of her gray braies, which she pleated and unpleated in a jittery fashion. She refused to answer. And Jorund noticed something else: there were scars all over her forearms, like cuts from a sharp blade, and small burn marks, too.
Mag-he shrugged at the uncooperative pay-shun and was about to speak herself, but Jorund felt the need to correct something before she started.
"Ah, Dock-whore Muck-bride." He waved a hand at her to get her attention.
The nervous tapping of her wooden stick on the parchment pad told him she was tense over what he might say.
"My name is not Joe Rand. It is Jorund... Jorund Ericsson." While he spoke, he stood and went to each person in the circle and pumped their right hands with his fight hand in salutation, repeating over and over, "How do you do?" It was a strange ritual, but then there were strange customs in many of the lands he'd visited.
She hesitated at his insistence on using his real name, then agreed with a nod of her head. "Fine, Jorund it is then... unless of course you go by the nickname of Joe, as well."
"I never have, in the past."
"Well, it's up to you," she said cheerily, as if it were of great import what name he answered to.
"I care not what you call me," he grumbled. "I am Jorund the Warrior. If you want to call me Joe, it is neither here nor there to me, though I think Joe the Warrior sounds mighty peculiar. By the by, am I cured yet?"
"No, you're not cured yet," she declared with a laugh, then addressed the group.
"Joe has a great sense of humor. Ha, ha, ha."
I do?
"Jorund the Warrior, huh?" a man on his other side commented. "You one of them WWF crazies or something?" The man was about fifty years old with a receding hairline but a well-honed body that would do a Norseman proud. He wore the same blue braies as Jorund did... in fact, all the men, and Mag-he, too. His short-sleeved shert carried the words U.S. Navy SEAL.
It was odd this practice they had in this country of carrying messages on their sherts. Jorund had noticed this first at the orca place. Now not only did the man on one side of him wear words on his apparel about seals, but the clodpole on the other side proclaimed on his long-sleeved shert, I Don't Suffer from Insanity; I Enjoy Every Minute of It.
Back to the seal man. " 'Double-ewe, double ewe, if?' " Jorund inquired, as if he cared a whit... which he did not. The whole time he was thinking, Good Lord! One of these half-brains thinks he's a rooster, and the other thinks he's a seal.
What next?
"Cra-aaazy! I'm cra-aaazy for feelin' so lonely."
Another woman, huddled in a chair in the corner, began to sing.
Jorund almost fell out of his seat at the sudden singing.
The female was young, in her twenties, and pretty in a frightened-bird sort of way. Her voice was rather melodious, but singing spontaneously struck Jorund as rather... well, crazy. Crazy was a word he had learned from the black world box in his room, which he had come to find out was called a tea-vee.
"I go out walkin' after midnight..." the woman sang next.
He saw no one walking, and it was definitely far from midnight. Jorund glanced around and noticed that no one paid any mind to the singer. It was as if they didn't even hear her, or mayhap they were ignoring her, to spare her humiliation.
"WWF is the World Wrestling Federation," Mag-he explained.
At first, Jorund had to think what she was referring to; then he recalled that the seal man had asked if he was in the double-ewe, double-ewe, if.
"It includes professional wrestlers who put on rather flamboyant acts in the ring."
Jorund had no idea what she'd just said.
"Like Hulk Hogan. 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. Jake the Snake. Or Jesse 'the Body' Ventura," the seal offered.
"I knew a Norseman once who called himself Snorri the Snake; he had a special talent for fluttering his tongue that women especially liked. But he lost a leg in some Saxon battle a few years back. 'Tis hard to keep track of all the Norse-Saxon battles. There are so many of them. The English weasels are always trying to provoke us Vikings." Jorund couldn't believe he was jabbering away like a magpie.
The rooster next to him suddenly became a snake and was darting his tongue in and out of his mouth and making slithering motions with his shoulders. Everyone else was gaping at Jorund as if he'd sprouted three heads, but they didn't even blink at the snake.
Jorund knew he spoke in what they considered a foreign accent, in words they were unfamiliar with, but really, he was not the odd bead in this circle. He continued expounding: "I can wrestle, of course, but mostly I am just a Viking... a Viking soldier."
"A soldier!" Steve, the seal fellow on his other side, exclaimed. "Son of a bitch! Don't tell me you have PTSD, too."
Jorund gave his attention to the man, who was sitting up straighter now.
"Pea-tea-ass-deed?"
"That's posttraumatic stress disorder," Mag-he interjected. "It's a syndrome that many soldiers get after active duty."
Another person with a sin-drone. Just like me.
"You were a warrior?" he asked Steve. "And you suffer from this Pea-tea-ass-deed?"
"Hell, yes. Along with alcoholism, chronic depression, a broken marriage, impotence, 'Nam shakes, flashbacks, nightmares that could turn your hair white. You name it, I got it."
"What is impotence?" he whispered in an aside to Steve.
"Involuntary downtime for your..." He waved a hand toward his genital area.
"Former Red Sox baseball player. Navy SEAL vet. Can't get the lead back in his pencil. What a laugh, huh?"
Jorund nodded knowingly, and he did not think it was a laughing matter at all.
"I know much of this ailment."
"You do?" Maggie asked with astonishment.
"Not from personal experience," he was quick to add, "but many of my soldiers suffer from this malady after a particularly gruesome battle, or after serving in too many wars."
He glanced around and saw that he had everyone's attention, even the women. Was he talking too much? He looked at Mag-he and she appeared enthralled, so he assumed he was on the right course to curing himself.
"Are you for real?" But Steve meant no insult.
He was genuinely interested in knowing more, as became evident with his next que. "And how did those soldiers get... better?"
"Well, the healers never did have the answers. But then, they rarely do. Just slap on the leeches and grind up a few powders. As I recall, time was the most important thing."
"It's been ten freakin' years, man!" Steve snared.
Jorund decided to ignore his less-than-respectful tone. "The most important thing is for the man not to believe that he is less than a man. It is a natural condition that will pass, in time, if the man does not let himself think it is permanent. Unless, of course, there was actual bodily injury, like an arrow to the balls, or a battle-ax severing the cock."
Every man in the room cringed and crossed his legs.
"Then, of course, there are some potions that can help, in some cases," Jorund concluded.
"Like Viagra? That's for old men," Steve scoffed.
"Not necessarily," a new voice in the circle offered. It was Hair-vee, a young man who had been counting the lint pieces on his trousers ever since Jorund had arrived. "I tried it once."
"You did?" at least five voices asked.
"Yep. My girlfriend got it for me. Man, oh, man, I had a five-hour hard-on. Shirley was happier than a hog in a mud slide."
"You are such a bullshitter," Steve observed.
"You don't even have a girlfriend," Chuck added.
"What's vie-ag-rah?" Jorund wanted to know.
"You know what they say about the watched kettle never boiling," Hair-vee threw in. "Maybe you've been watching your kettle too much."
"Maybe I'll break a kettle over your head, Lutz," Steve remarked.
Unconcerned, Hair-vee went back to counting, his own teeth this time. It was not a pretty sight.
"I heard some positions are better than others for maintaining..." Rosalyn's voice trailed off when she saw that everyone was gawking at her.
Furr-red, the man holding the two dinner trenchers, bobbed up and down in his seat. He couldn't wait to offer, "A psychiatrist once told me that too much masturbation can make a guy get the technique down so good that no woman can please him."
"What's master-bait-shun?" Jorund asked.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Steve put his face in both hands and groaned. "Please, God, cut out my tongue if I ever decide to say anything to this motley crew again."
"My brother bought an electronic device on the Internet that you attach to your willy." Not-a-lie had stopped humming long enough to offer that sage advice. "It could tell a guy exactly how long his erection lasted, and how hard it was. Honest. Unless he got a shock, of course."
"I wish I were dead," Steve said. Then: "You people really are nuts if you think I'm gonna risk lightning boltin' my dingo."
"I think we've heard enough on this subject for today," Mag-he announced in a decisive voice, her face blushing profusely. From the blush on her face, he figured a dingo must be something sexual... and interesting.
"Fred, what are those lovely plates you're carrying today?" Mag-he asked.
"My name isn't Fred," Fur-red said. "It's Moses."
Oh, for the love of Freyja!
"These are the Ten Commandments," he added, contemplating the food trenchers with the same fondness a mother would show toward a newborn babe cradled in the crook of her arm.
And Mag-he thinks I am in the same class as these muddleheaded fools?
"Natalie, we haven't heard from you today, except for some singing, which was lovely, by the way."
Not-a-lie had her hands folded in her lap, where she kept wringing them nervously. But she did peer up finally and disclose, "I went to the mall with my mother this week."
"Why, Natalie, that's wonderful!" Mag-he said, and started to clap her hands together. As if on cue, everyone else started clapping their hands together, too. So Jorund joined in, as well. He assumed that this hand-clapping was a sign of approval. He had no idea what they were all approving of, but for now he was willing to go along with the crowd, especially if it would convince Mag-he that he was improving.
"I'm a sex addict," the mousy woman known as Rosalyn blurted out.
Everyone appeared stunned by her announcement. Then, one by one, the men leaned forward with decided interest to gaze at the plain wench.
"What's a sex add-hick?" Jorund asked Steve.
Steve jiggled his eyebrows. "A person who can't get enough."
"Enough what?"
The only response Steve gave him was a grin and a jab in the ribs with his elbow.
"Oh," Jorund murmured when realization hit. And he, too, leaned forward for a better view. The wench still looked plain as barley flour, even with her now flaming face.
"Rosalyn," Mag-he said. "You never told us that before. Thank you for sharing."
Mag-he started to clap, and everyone joined in. The men clapped really hard.
"I wanted to tell you, but I was too... too embarrassed."
"Now, Rosalyn, you know that we decided at the beginning of group that there would be no judging of each other... that no one should be embarrassed to disclose anything. Therapy won't work if we're not, all of us, honest with each other."
"Hell, if I can admit I've got a limp wick, what the hell were you afraid of?" Steve asked huffily.
Rosalyn gave Steve a scathing glare.
"Why are you here?" Hair-vee had stopped counting his teeth and was now counting the butt-ons lining the front of his shert, even as he addressed his blunt question to Jorund.
All eyes swung his way.
He wasn't sure what he should say. "I'm here to be, ah, healed."
"From what?" the singer asked, then resumed humming.
Jorund mumbled under his breath.
"What?" They all strained to hear.
"I am Jorund the Warrior, and I come from the tenth century," he practically shouted.
All jaws, except Mag-he's, were open. She just seemed sad.
Then a small voice next to him that sounded very much like a horse neighing commented, "Well, whoop-dee-dee!"
 
Maggie was leaning over Beth's shoulder that evening while she explained her Internet Web site.
"Orcalove.com is only for kids around my age, from eight to twelve. I want other young people, all over the world, to learn about killer whales. We share information, but mostly we want to increase the number of people who care about them. If we start young enough, maybe our generation will be the one to stop the killing and capture of these creatures."
"You sound like a teacher," Suzy commented from the sofa, where she was supposed to be doing homework. Instead Maggie noticed that the TV had somehow been turned on, to MTV, no less, and that singing sensation, Ricky Martin, was swinging his hips and belting out the sexy lyrics to his stellar hit song from the previous year, "Livin' La Vida Loca." Even Maggie had to stop and look and listen when he came on. Beth, too. In no way did he resemble Joe, as Beth had stated one time, but the singer was very cute.
"So what if I sound like a teacher," Beth protested. "It's important to save the orcas."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Suzy commented to her sister. "Wanna dance?"
"Oh, OK," Beth said. First she saved the information on her computer screen and walked over to Suzy, who was standing in the middle of the small den now, mimicking the movements of Ricky and the scantily clad dancers. The two of them were soon into the salsa beat. "Inside out, upside down, Livin' La Vida Loca," Ricky belted out, while the girls danced on, swinging their hips, lifting a leg, shaking their buns.
"Come on, Mom. You, too," Suzy encouraged. Maggie hesitated a second, then joined them. It took her a moment to get the moves right, but soon she, too, was swinging and swaying to the irresistible beat. When the song ended with a flourish, they all fell back onto the sofa, laughing uproariously.
This was one of those moments out of time that would be impressed on Maggie's memory. It exemplified, albeit in a small way, how she and her girls were happy and contented in their lives. That was so important. More important than money, or... or husbands and daddies.
"Is Joe getting better?" Beth asked, as if reading her mind.
Maggie nodded. "Yes. Yes, he is. Today he had his first group-therapy session, and he did surprisingly well." That wasn't disclosing too much doctor/patient information, Maggie figured. And actually, Maggie was so proud of Joe... not just for his own progress, but for the sensitive way in which he'd treated his fellow patients.
"When he's better, can we meet him?" Suzy pleaded.
"I don't know. Maybe. No promises."
"You know something odd," Beth said. "I forgot to tell you this before, but my friends on the Internet have been reporting sightings of that whale that brought Joe to Orcaland. It's as if it's been hanging around, looking for him."
"Oh, I don't know about that. It could be any whale. How would they know it was this particular one?"
"All killer whales are not alike, Mom. Each has distinguishing marks and coloring. Besides, Joe's whale is odd because orcas rarely travel in the wild in this part of the country. The water is too warm."
"There's probably some scientific explanation," Maggie insisted.
"Or maybe there isn't," Beth countered.
"Why can't you just believe in the magic of it all?" Suzy wanted to know. "Why can't you accept that maybe—just maybe—the orca brought Joe here. For us."
"That would be more than magic, hon." Maggie hauled both Suzy and Beth into a hug on either side of her. "It would be more like... like..."
Maggie couldn't come up with the exact words she was searching for-not fast enough, anyway. But her girls had no trouble. They finished for her.
"Like a dream come true."
 
Two days later, Maggie was walking outside on the clinic grounds with Joe.
He was alternately staring at the sky and over toward the highway. Though he no longer talked about it, the man couldn't seem to accept the concept of airplanes and automobiles. His face was grim with some private thoughts. Perhaps homesickness. But the home Joe insisted was his, was thousands of miles away, and a thousand years in the past.
Despite that, his progress thus far—ever since he'd started talking—was remarkable, to say the least. If he would stop insisting that he was a tenth-century Viking and tell them who he really was, Maggie would almost believe he had no mental problems at all.
The most gratifying thing about his progress was that he was helping the other patients. Dozens of the resident patients were heavily involved in exercise, and that was always good.
Many of them had already been addicted to soap operas, but now it had become a communal undertaking, directed by Joe. They watched the soaps together, then discussed them, as if these were real-life happenings. Isn't that Victor Newman a selfiimportant dictator? How about that hotty, Brooke Logan, with her penchant for stealing other women's men? Will Reva recover from her latest bout of amnesia?
Joe also had a fascination with the reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. One of the nurses told her that Joe liked the program so much because Barney Fife reminded him of his big-eared brother... a Viking named Magnus.
"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.
"Good."
He exhaled with a loud whoosh, as if relieved.
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 Shell-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. Had n'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 fight 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.
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 then, 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.
"Jerome Johnson. President and CEO of Medic-All," George informed them over his shoulder. "He was supposed to be tied up all day in meetings with the Dallas lawyers. Guess he decided to cut them short."
So this was the elusive, high-powered Donald Trump of the HMO world. He resembled a mildmannered Mr. Milquetoast, but looks were deceiving. Money magazine described him as mysterious and obsessively protective of his private life. As far as Maggie knew, he'd never been photographed for the media.
Hattie Lawrence, a spoiled Houston socialite, whispered in Maggie's ear, "Who is that character?" She was staring fixedly at Joe. "He'd better not be spoiling this deal for us. We've worked too hard to—Mercy! The man is a giant... and drop dead gorgeous. Please don't tell me he's a patient."
Hattie was three times divorced, with as many face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs as a thirty five-year-old woman could sustain. Luckily, the greedy woman had only a small say in Rainbow's future. Her daddy, Jack Lawrence, also in attendance, held the purse strings. Today was not the first time she and Harry had met Jack Lawrence or Hattie, but most of the negotiations had been taking place between the Lawrence family and the Medic-All people, off premises.
"That's Joe Rand, and yes, he's a patient."
Hattie's face dropped with disappointment. They had almost reached the exercise wing, and Maggie could hear Joe expounding to the Medic-All honcho: "'Tis my opinion that all of your patients can benefit from a daily exercise program. You know what the Norse proverbs say: sound bodies go hand in hand with sound minds." Jorund took a deep breath and continued. "Spear throwing and hand-to-hand combat on the practice field work best, of course, but in their absence, your exercise machines provide a fair substitute. I tried to instruct the pay-shuns yesterday on swordplay, but Norse Hatch-her nigh had a fit over that. You'd think broom and mop handles were priceless objects. Dost think a practice field would be a possibility for the future?"
Oh, good heavens! A patient lecturing on mental health and fitness! A patient who thinks he's a tenth-century Viking!
And Jerome Johnson was all ears.
"Even those who live in those wheeled chairs should be working muscles that are still alive," Joe was blathering on. "Otherwise they will all atrophy... that's a word I learned on Wheel of Fortune. Oh, you watch that show on the world box, too? Anyhow, just since I've been here— about two sennights—you can see a change in some of the pay-shuns. Hair-vee Lutz, for example, has the strangest compulsion to count things. Well, now he is counting the strokes of his oars on the rowing machine."
Sure enough, through the open doorway to the exercise room, they could see Harvey counting away as sweat poured down his face and he continued to row.
Appropriately, the logo on his T shirt today read, I Get Enough Exercise Just Pushing My Luck.
"See Chuck over there? Today he thinks he is a puff fish, but look how energetically he is rowing. This is the first time in two years that Chuck has worked his muscles."
Yep, Chuck was puffin away like a steam engine—or a puff fish, whatever that was—as he worked the rowing machine. The bright young man wore a T-shirt that pretty much said it all: Okay, Who Put a Stop Payment on My Reality Check? Someday soon Maggie hoped to find out what Chuck's real problem was, because it sure as heck wasn't being a split animal personality.
"And my comrade, Steve Askey, is pressing five hundred benches," Joe was still blathering on, "or is it pressing the bench at five hundred... ? Oh, I didn't see you there, Dock-whore Muck-bride... and Dock-whore Sea-bold. Have you met my new friend, Jaw-rome Johnson? He's a Norseman, too... from New-arc. That's in the world of New Jar-see."
Her jaw dropped another notch.
"You will hardly credit the coincidence, but Jaw-rome is a former fighting man, too, like me and Steve, except he was a green bar-ray."
For a prolonged moment, silence hovered in the air. But leave it to Joe to break the ice even further.
"Tsk-tsk!" Joe chided Maggie and Harry. "Aren't you going to shake hands with Jaw-rome?"
Maggie's mouth clicked shut, along with Harry's, Hattie's, and Jack's.
"How do you do?" she and Harry said, shaking the hand extended by Jerome Johnson. Joe beamed as if he'd invented the ritual of hand- shaking. Then Hattie and her father stepped upas well, although they had apparently met Johnson on some other occasions.
Joe appeared very pleased with himself. You'd never know he was a patient, and not a hospital administrator.
"Did you know that Jaw-rome has his own longship, Mag-he... I mean, Dock-whore Muck bride?" She had warned Joe on numerous occasions that he should address her in a more professional manner. "He is going to take me on a voyage someday."
Maggie groaned mentally. How long had Joe been talking with Jerome Johnson? Much too long, apparently.
Jerome smiled softly and patted Joe on the shoulder. "Actually, I have a yacht, and it was a short cruise on the Gulf I mentioned. As a possibility, mind you, just a possibility."
"Yacht, longship, knarr... they are all boats," Joe expounded. Then he returned the favor and patted Jerome on the shoulder in a good-buddy fashion.
Maggie caught a warning glance from Harry and immediately stepped forward. "Joe, would you mind coming down to my office with me?"
Joe immediately brightened and complied. Thank God! He probably thought there was more hanky-panky on the menu. Not that any of it had ever been initiated by her. "I hope to see you again soon, Jaw-rome. And remember what I told you about putting whale fat on aching muscles... arthur-itis, you named the malady, I believe. 'Tis what my father does all the time for his creaking bones, especially after a long time at sea a-Viking."
Oh, no! Had he just accused Mr. Johnson of having a creaking body?
But Mr. Johnson just laughed. "You betcha, young man. Make a note of that, George. I want a tubful of whale lard, ASAP. I'm willing to try anything for this damned arthritis."
George was turning a strange color of pale green. "And here is a surprise for you." Joe was talking to Harry now. "Jaw-rome loves the idea of our field trip. So you must put aside all your res... reservations, I think you called it."
Harry started to turn green, too.
As Maggie and Joe walked down the hallway toward her office, she was steaming, and he was beaming.
"Am I cured yet?" he had the nerve to ask.
 

A week later...
 
At last the momentous day had arrived. Maggie was taking Jorund and all his new comrades in madness on their promised field journey.
Jorund had to admit to being a mite fearful. In order to get from the Rainbow Hospitium to Orca land, the first leg of their journey, he would have to ride in one of the horseless carts he had seen nigh flying down the road from his chamber window. Actually it was a huge, yellow, boxlike structure with windows and wheels, known as a bus.
"What's wrong with a good pair of oxen to pull a cart? Or a sturdy horse?" he muttered to Mag- he, who was checking names off a piece of parchment on her clipping board as the other members of the group filed up the steps of the vehicle. It was a sign of his condition that he paid no mind to Mag-he's tight den-ham braies and short sleeved sweat-her that exposed a tiny bit of her midriff each time she lifted an arm in the air to wave someone new onto the death cart.
Mag-he darted a quick look of concern toward him, sensing his reluctance to join the others. "There are plenty of horses in Texas, but a bus is more practical for our purposes... and safer."
"So you say!" he muttered under his breath. It would not do to outwardly show his trepidation, especially when everyone, even Not-a-lie, the wench who was afraid of crowds, had already bounced up the steps. Not-a-lie was wearing the most unseemly garb: white boots, a cowgirl hat—Who ever heard of a cowgirl? Or bragged of being such?—and a shert and short gunna, known as a skirt, both with fringes all along the edges. With that amount of skin showing, she could pass for a harem houri.
Dock-whore Hairy was behind a large wheel inside the bus. He was going to drive, not trusting Mag-he and her demented troop to go off on their own. Two of the guards, who were known as attendants in this world, would accompany them as well. Norse Hatch-her came, too, surprisingly feminine in a long, gauzy purple skirt and matching shert with the words, C'mon. Make My Day. On second thought, she resembled a giant plum.
Bracing himself, Jorund forced himself to go up the steps, feeling much as if he were walking the plank. Breathing a sigh of relief at passing that hurdle, he glanced down the rows of seats, many of which were empty, since their group numbered only twelve—their original therapy group and a few others.
"Stop touching my fringe," Not-a-lie snapped to her seat partner.
Hair-vee ducked his head sheepishly. "I was just counting them for you."
"Well, I don't need you to count them," she grumbled. "And why do you have to sit next to me? There are plenty of other seats. You're crowding me."
Not-a-lie's waspish demeanor was belied by her shivering body. This outing must be an ordeal for a person with her unique anxieties.
Hair-vee got up and stared longingly toward the empty seat next to Rosalyn, the mousy woman who worked all day long with books—a lie-bear-ian, which was amazing, really. In Jorund's world, books were a rare commodity; in this world, they were as plentiful as grass. Rosalyn gave Hair-vee a glare that was as forbidding as a berserker with a battle-ax guarding a castle wall. All of the men had been trying to get n Rosalyn's good side ever since she'd announced her extraordinary longing for sexual activity.
Rosalyn's word-shert spelled out, Read My Lips. He tried to read her lips, to no avail. Apparently he was capable only of reading whale's minds.
Jorund began to walk down the aisle when his gaze snagged on Furr-red Burns-fine. He stopped dead in his tracks. The man had gone too far this time. Much too far!
Last week, at group therapy, Furr-red had arrived in the garb of a caveman.
Cavemen were apparently the ancestors of all human beings, though Jorund could hardly credit that. Jorund's Viking forbears had never looked like that rendition of early man—of that he was certain. Furr-red had worn naught but a beaver skin, which turned out to be one of Norse Hender-son's winter outer garbs—a coat—wrapped around one shoulder like a Roman toga. When he bent over, everyone got a good view of his bare, flabby buttocks... not a pretty sight. And he'd carried a huge club, which Mag-he had immediately confiscated, claiming that it was the trunk of a newly planted Crab apple tree from their back courtyard.
Today Furr-red was impersonating his idea of what a Viking warrior would look like. It was insulting, to say the least. On his head was a long, blond wig that Jorund could swear he'd seen on a scullery maid's head just yestereve. On his upper arms were two makeshift bracelets formed from strips of tinfoil, a product used in modern kitchens to save food. He wore tight sweating braies on bottom and a loose black T-shert with the sleeves and neckline ripped off, the whole cinched in at the waist by a wide, brown leather belt.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Jorund demanded.
Furr-red cowered back into his seat near the window. He was nigh whimpering when he replied, "Fred the Viking."
Jorund shook his head from side to side. The man meant no harm, he decided. Still, under his breath, he commented, "More like Furr-red the Idiot."
Just then he noticed Steve, who was motioning him toward the back of the bus. He headed in that direction, passing other Rainbow comrades along the way, including Chuck the Duck. That was who he assumed Chuck was today, since he was quack-quack-quacking to no one in particular. Just as long as he didn't drop any bodily "gifts" in the bus, Jorund could care less what animal he chose to be this day or any other. Chuck's message-shert said, Out of My Mind. Be Back in Five Minutes.
Mag-he sat down in the front seat, directly behind Dock-whore Hairy. The doors swished shut. And they were off. Well, he assumed they were off. At first the bus lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped till Dock-whore Hairy got the feel of driving a bus. Holy Thor! Not only am I riding in a most dangerous horseless cart, but I am putting my life in the hands of an incompetent driver. 'Tis comparable to going a-Viking with my sister Katla at the rudder.
But they were riding smoothly now. Jorund let out a pent-up breath, although he held on to the seat in front of him as they traveled at an excessive speed out onto the road.
"What's the problem?" Steve asked, staring at Jorund's white knuckles and his face, which was, no doubt, white as well.
"Must we travel so fast? What is the hurry?" he complained.
"Huh?" Steve responded. "We're only going twenty miles an hour on this entrance ramp. Wait till we get on the highway. The speed limit there is sixty-five."
"I cannot wait," Jorund said dryly.
Steve was frowning as he studied his rigid demeanor. "You've never ridden on a bus before?"
"I've never ridden on anything that moved without animal power... unless it was a ship on the open seas, driven by the winds and the hard rowing of well-muscled men."
Steve shrugged his shoulders sadly. "Man, you are as screwed up as the rest of us."
"Nay, I am not," Jorund declared. "What you all cannot accept is that I really am a Viking, come here from the tenth century."
Instead of arguing, as he usually did, Steve asked skeptically, "Why?"
Jorund relaxed back into the seat. As long as he didn't look out the windows and see the landscape passing in a blur, he could almost forget where he was. He pondered Steve's question. "I do not know. I am hoping some answers will come to me today."
"At Boot Scootin' Cowboy? In a music hall? Hell, I know a lot of guys who think they can find answers in a bottle of booze—I did for more years than I can count—but I guarantee that even a glass of beer will be off-limits to us today."
"I did not mean that music place. I was referring to the killer-whale place."
"Do you still think that a killer whale is the key to your being here in Galveston?" Steve and all the others in his group therapy had laughed this week when he'd told them the tale of his arrival atop Thora's back, bare-arsed and raging mad. Steve wasn't laughing now.
"I know it." Jorund snorted with disgust. "If I can find her, I'm certain that this puzzle will become clear." Leastways, he hoped that was the case. He thought of something else. "Mayhap you will get some answers yourself when we visit that war praise-wall."
It was Steve who turned stiff then. "I am not getting off this bus when we get to that freakin' wall. I swear, I'm not. I know Dr. McBride has all these piss-poor ideas about making a big breakthrough with me, but it isn't gonna happen there... or anywhere else, for that matter." He turned away and stared morosely out the window. In an undertone, he murmured, for his own benefit only, "I don't see enough of 'Nam in my dreams. I gotta see it on a damn wall, too?"
The hairs rose on the back of Jorund's neck then. In the distance, he could see a large sign that said, WELCOME TO ORCALAND. And beyond that was the water inlet that led out to Galveston Bay and the seas beyond.
Would this be the day he returned to the past?
 
Maggie found Joe, finally. He was sitting on a small promontory near the outer rim of the inlet, arms resting on bended knees, gazing out beyond the bay.
Of course, he had defied all rules by wandering away from their group, which was still watching the Gonzo show back in the arena. "Joe?" she inquired softly.
At first he didn't seem to hear her. Even though his lips were moving, no words came out. It was as if he were speaking some silent language. Then he turned.
Maggie's heart almost broke at the bleakness in his gray eyes.
"She's not there," he told her.
"Who's not there?" Maggie dropped down to the ground beside Joe and put a hand on his shoulder in concern.
"Thora."
"The killer whale?"
He nodded. "Much as I've tried- o communicate with her, there is no response."
"You... you talk to orcas?"
"Not all orcas... leastways, I don't think I can talk to them all—just my own personal pain-in the-arse killer whale, Thora."
This was not good news. After all the progress Joe had made, believing that he could talk to an ocean mammal could be chalked up to additional delusions, along with his time-travel and Viking claims.
"Does the whale talk back to you?"
"Yea, it does. In my head."
Oh, God.
He slanted a glance her way. "You think I'm demented, don't you?"
"Of course not."
"You are a poor liar, Dock-whore Muck-bride."
"Well, anyhow, it's not the end of the world that you didn't have a chat with Thora today," she said brightly. "Let's view it in a positive light."
"For the love of all the gods, spare me," he replied with a groan. "You are going to start the sigh-colic-jest blathering again, aren't you?"
She raised her chin, affronted. "I don't know what you mean."
He exhaled with a loud whoosh. "All those words and phrases that say nothing: 'I see. How do you feel about that? What do you think?' Never do you answer a question directly, but always turn it back on your pay-shuns. 'Tis enough to drive a sane man mad, I tell you."
She began to ask him how he felt about that, then stopped herself short. He was right. She did have a tendency to spout psychobabble, when the philosophy behind Rainbow was to avoid the therapist-as-robot approach. Psychologists no longer needed to hide personal emotions and reactions or remain silent and unmoved in the client relationship. At Rainbow, a therapist was supposed to be free to be oneself, while remaining objective at the same time. "What I started to say about putting a positive light on this event is that maybe this is a sign—I know you are big on signs—that it's time to put aside the past and move forward."
"To heal myself?"
"Yes!" she said enthusiastically.
He shook his head. "There is no bright side in this catastrophe today... and, yea, it is a catastrophe. Look at this from my perspective, m'lady. There is no winter chill in the air here, but winter has already begun in other parts of your country. On the seas I need to travel, the air will be frigid—too cold for sailing on an open longship till springtime. Have you ever tried to row a boat with ice on the oars? Have you ever stood for hours at a time in weather so wet and cold that every hair on your body turns to icicles, even the chest hairs? Of course you haven't. Can you not see that I must communicate with Thora soon, or be forced to wait many months to leave this land?"
"Is that such a bad thing?"
"Yea, it is the worst of all things. My brother Rolf is in danger. Every day might count in my completing his rescue."
Maggie thought about all his impossible words. "Assuming I believe everything that you've said, Joe, it seems to me that there must be a good reason why you were sent to this land... and this time." She nearly choked on that last part. "If you're going to accept that the Fates—or the gods... or even a killer whale—are determining your destiny, then you also have to accept that coming to Galveston was preordained."
He followed her words with interest. "I have considered all these things, and I agree that it was no mistake that landed me on these shores. But sometimes man can influence his destiny. In fact, does not your Christian religion have a saying that God helps those who help themselves?"
Maggie had to laugh at Joe's quick mind. She wished she knew who or what he really was. Aside from being a gorgeous specimen of manhood, he was intelligent and strong and a born leader. What did he do for a living? Was he a career military man? A construction worker? An adventurer, or an extreme exercise fanatic... like the father of her two children, who had a perfectly good career as a resident physician but had to jump out of airplanes, as well? There should be a clue in all she knew of Joe, but the answer eluded her.
"Well, enough of this for today," she said, standing and brushing the dirt off the rump of her jeans—a maneuver that Joe watched with decided masculine interest, despite his desolation over his predicament. "We have to get back to the orca show. It should be over soon."
As they were strolling in front of the bleachers toward the Rainbow group, which was watching the show avidly, Joe remarked, "I just wish that damned killer whale would get back here and rescue me, so I can rescue my brother."
Just then Gonzo swam up and flicked his huge tail fins, causing a wave of water to cover Joe from head to toe. So much for communicating with killer whales! Or maybe Gonzo was communicating, after all, in response to Joe's deprecating comment about whales. Sort of an orca version of "Screw you, Viking!"
 
Jorund and Steve sat alone in the bus.
In the distance, across a wide lawn, could be seen the rest of the Rainbow group staring at a stone wall, which apparently contained the names of all the dead soldiers who had fought in the Battle of Vee-yet-numb. It was a good idea, in Jorund's opinion... one that he intended to mention to King Olaf when he returned to Norway. Of course, they would need a wall much bigger than this one if they were going to record all the dead Vikings in battle after battle through the centuries, rather than any one war or another. In truth, there had been so many Norse wars, the skalds had lost count long ago. Some people, especially those bloody Saxon clerics who recorded English history, claimed a Viking would fight with anyone, even his own brother. It was true.
A few of the people who had come to view the Moving Wall besides the Rainbow group gave curious looks at Chuck the Viking... and at Not a-lie, too, who was wont to break into song at the least provocation. Right now she was singing about a honk-key-tonk angel, her fringes swaying from side to side as she danced to her own music.
"Come, Steve," Jorund urged his friend. "You are a man of courage. Are you going to turn coward now?"
Jorund was not in a good mood, especially after his disappointing failure to locate the elusive Thora. Although he had not voiced this particular concern to Mag-he, the worry nagging at him most was the possibility that he might no ever find Thora or his way back to his own time. What would he do then?
In his present ill temper, he did not feel inclined to prod a stubborn ox like Steve to see the error of his ways. But the grief-stricken ma was as close to a friend as Jorund had made this godforsaken land of the twentieth century and he could no more abandon him to his pail than he could his own brother, Magnus... or brother Rolf, he reminded himself guiltily.
"Get lost, birdbrain," Steve responded in most thankless manner. "The last thing in world I have is courage."
"Did you not win that famous medal for valor? Have you not endured thirty years of inner torment? Do you not stay away from your soul mat Shell-he, for love of her? Do you not battle with demons every night in your dreams, and come out the victor? That spells courage to me." Jorund had never been a talkative fellow, but he certainly seemed to have developed a taste for tongue flapping now. And he was good, too. Puffing his chest out, he concluded, "Betimes, survival itself is a form of triumph."
Steve gave him a level stare. "You are so full of it."
"Let me tell you a story—"
"Oh, God! Not another freakin' saga. I swear, if I hear one more tale about Sigurd and the Dragon Lady, I'm gonna puke."
Jorund lifted his chin, affronted. Well, mayhap he had been overdoing the life-lesson legends a mite, but he felt a little closer to home and his old life when he retold the poems and stories of his people. In truth, he probably sounded like his brother Magnus when he'd tipped the mead horn once too often and began to sing ribald songs... except in Jorund's case, he told stories. "I thought you liked my sagas."
"I was being polite, man. Hell, they might be perfectly good yarns when the poets—uh, skalds—put them together, but let me give you a bit of advice, pal: you are no storyteller. Stick to fighting, or whatever the hell it is you do."
Jorund bristled. Should he punch Steve in his sullen face? Or better yet, should he hoist him by the scrawny neck, toss him over his shoulder, and carry him bodily to the bloody wall?
It was an easy decision. He turned slowly and let a slow smile crease his lips.
"Wh-what? Why are you looking at me like that?" Steve asked warily. Then, "You wouldn't! Oh, no, you wouldn't!"
Jorund would.
"Maggie, they're safe in the bus," Harry told her. "But ff you're worried about them, go back and wait there. I'm capable of handling the rest of the group, along with the aid of Gladys and the two attendants."
"No, no," she said. "I wouldn't want Joe and Steve to think I didn't trust them." Still, she glanced back toward the parking lot at the unmarked bus. Then she glanced again. "Oh, boy!"
Jorund was striding across the lawn, carrying a cursing, squirming Steve on his shoulder. He did so with ease, even though Steve was at least six feet tall and a hundred and seventy pounds.
She started to step up and chastise Jorund for creating a scene. Tourists right and left were gaping at them. In fact, Maggie saw a local newspaper photographer, who hung around the traveling wall in hopes of catching a human-interest story, sit up alertly on the park bench where he'd been waiting.
His van with the Galveston Daily News logo was parked at a nearby curb.
But Harry put a hand on her arm. "Wait, Maggie. Let's see how this plays out."
"But—"
"Think about it. Maybe, just maybe, Joe will be the one to jolt Steve out of his self-pity. Maybe this is the breakthrough you've been waiting for."
Jorund, on the other hand, felt like breaking something. Ever since he'd landed in this world, he'd had nothing but problems. Now he, who prided himself on his aloofness, was involving himself in other people's problems as well. With a snort of disgust, he planted Steve on his feet in front of the wall, and glared at several people, who stepped away, not wanting to be in the proximity of flying fists.
"You have no right," Steve stormed, his green eyes flashing angrily. He shoved Jorund in the chest.
"Yea, I have every right. You are my friend," Jorund retorted, and pushed him back in the chest. Like two scrappy youthlings we are behaving, Jorund thought. To the side, he heard Mag-he make a tsking sound. Jorund gave Steve an extra shove in the chest and demanded, "Stop creating such a spectacle and tell me, which of these names mark your herd?"
"Herd? What the hell did you think I was in 'Nam—a cow?" Steve jeered.
"Nay, you have already told me you were a seal, and a herd is a troop, my friend... a troop of soldiers. Tell me, which of these fallen men were your comrades?"
For the first time, Steve faced the wall, and his face went ashen as he walked slowly along till he found the names he wanted. Tears filled his eyes, and Jorund noticed that Mag-he's eyes misted over as well. She and Dock-whore Hairy exchanged a look. Was it worry, self-congratulation, or compassion?
A visible shudder rippled through Steve's body as he moved closer and traced some letters with a forefinger. This had to be a deeply moving experience for him. One name after another he recited aloud in a choked voice. Then, in a deadened monotone, he said to Jorund, and to Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy, who had stepped up to form a half-circle in front of the wall, "During Vietnam, SEAL teams One and Two amassed a combined kill ratio of two hundred to one, with only forty six deaths, and those were mostly due to accidents, not enemy direct fire. It seems obscene, doesn't it, to quote that statistic now, with all the antiwar sentiment, but damn, we were good at what we did."
"So you have reason to be proud of your work... despite the grief of war," Jorund told him softly, putting an arm around his shoulder. Truly, he understood the man's conflicted emotions: Steve had been trained to be a soldier—in one of the best units of the fighting men—but was horrified by all the bloodletting, some of it needless. Life was not so different between his world and Steve's.
There were wars that had to be fought for noble reasons, but some wars, in retrospect, were obviously the political games of greedy kings and chieftains.
Maggie was regarding him as if he were some kind of hero, when all he'd done was comfort a man in need. How little she must think of him if she considered this to be extraordinary behavior on his part.
Dock-whore Hairy was nodding repeatedly. No doubt he thought the two of them were well on their way to being cured. Well, mayhap Steve was, but Jorund had never been demented to begin with.
"You have no idea how hard this is," Steve told him in a cracking voice. "Those men depended on me. If I'd done a better job, they might still be alive. The guilt, even after all these years, just tears me apart."
Appropriately, Not-a-lie started to croon, "I fall to pieces.... "
Rosalyn offered gently, "Maybe you'd like to go on a date sometime, Steve." Obviously she had another type of therapy in mind for him. They had a vulgar name for it in this new world. It was comparable to a pity-coupling in his world.
Steve appeared horrified at Rosalyn's offer. Jorund ignored them all and continued speaking to Steve of a soldier's guilt. "Betimes you feel as if it should have been you, do you not? In truth, you question whether this life you lead isn't really your hell on earth... a punishment for some past wrong—though in our land we do not call it hell. It is Niflheim, land of eternal ice, ruled by the queen of the dead, Hel." Jorund shivered violently, as if actually feeling the icy atmosphere of the underworld.
Steve was staring at Jorund. "How do you know so well how I feel? How come you can put my exact feelings into words?"
"Because they reflect my own," Jorund answered with a huge sigh. "I lost my wife and two twin daughters to famine a short year ago. And 'twas my fault for not being there to protect them." All the muscles in his body sagged, and he seemed bleak with misery as he saw the empathy on Steve's face....
"Sweet Lord! I'm sorry for opening healed wounds."
"Healed? Nay, never healed," Jorund corrected. "Know this, you dunderhead: I make it a practice never to speak of my past. It is a sign of my comradeship with you that I share it now. Let us not broach the subject again."
Steve inclined his head in agreement.
But Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy were staring at him with decided interest. And Jorund realized just how much he'd revealed... secrets he would have much rather kept to himself. Now Mag-he would be asking him all kinds questions: What do you think of your dead wife? What did you think of your daughters? What did you think of the famine? What do you think, think, think. And he had given her that ammunition.
For the rest of their visit to the wall, Steve was somber, but no longer anguished. In fact, he shared information with those around him about how he'd become a Navy SEAL. And he had some of the men listening, bug-eyed, while he related stories about his baseball career.
"Hey, aren't you Steve Askey?" someone asked suddenly.
"Uh-oh!" Maggie exclaimed. She had been deeply touched by both Steve's and Joe's stories, but now she saw trouble approaching in the form of the middle-aged reporter, who had been sitting on the bench. He was now staring fixedly at Steve, eyes narrowed as if to boot up some distant memory.
"I'm Jack Farrington from the Galveston Daily News," he said, showing a press card for identification. "If you'd just give me a minute for a few questions...?"
Steve backed away a step or two, as if he'd been attacked. "No, no, you've got the wrong man."
Even though he used his real name, everyone at Rainbow knew that Steve had been hiding out from his family and the public for the last ten years, and they'd respected his privacy. Apparently that was about to change now.
Meanwhile, the reporter's camera was flashing away. "Hey, Steve, I don't mean any harm. Just let me get a picture or two. I saw you play in Dodger Stadium back in sixty-nine... your second and last season. Man, oh, man, what a day! You hit three home runs. Some people say you were better than Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams combined... that you could've been the greatest baseball player of all time. Hell, that was just before you went off to 'Nam and..." The reporter's face went red as understanding hit. He glanced at the wall, at Steve, then back to the wall.
"I am not that man."
"Why is Steve saying he's not Steve?" Fred asked at that inopportune moment. He had been counting the names on the wall since their arrival, but apparently this was more interesting even than his obsessive-compulsive needs.
"Shut up, Furr-red," Joe said with a glare, which caused Fred to scurry back to the wall. Then he addressed the reporter. " 'Tis time for you to depart."
"Who are you to tell me what to do?" the reporter asserted belligerently.
Oh, no! Please. Don't say it.
"I am Jorund the Viking," Joe declared. Maggie and Harry both groaned at the same time, and the two attendants stood at the ready, in case there was a need to
rush the group back to the bus quickly.
"Jorund the Viking?" the reporter mocked. "Yeah, and I'm Joe DiMaggio."
"Fortunate you are that I do not have my sword with me. You would be missing a tongue for your insolence."
"Ha! You don't scare me," the newshound cried out as he took one last photo, then literally ran away. He must have recognized the threat in Joe's stance, not to mention his ill-chosen words. Over his shoulder, Farrington shouted, "Hey, Steve, did you know the Baseball Hall of Fame has been trying to locate you?"
"I think Steve's had enough of walls and halls for one day, don't you?" Maggie observed to Harry.
"Should I chase him and lop off a body part?" Joe asked her then.
"No!" she shouted.
He frowned at the vehemence of her response. "Holy Thor! I was just jesting."
Then he seemed to think of something else. "I have set back my healing a pace or two today, have I not?"
"Or twenty," she commented drolly.
"I need a beer," Steve said.
"I need an ale," Joe said.
"I need to get out of here," Maggie said.
 
Boot Scootin' Cowboy was a huge success.
Maggie had never before been to a nightclub in the daytime. But she was in one now. And she was having the time of her life. So was everyone else.
And it wasn't just because this particular club was a local country-western hangout, as well as a Galveston tourist attraction. There appeared to be a spirit of freedom and comradeship and normalcy in the patients that Maggie had never seen back at the hospital.
They had eaten a late lunch first... Tex-Mex all around: mesquite-grilled shrimp fajitas with gua camole salads, and strawberry sopapillas for dessert. Everyone had been permitted one beer each; they'd all declined in deference to Steve, who must avoid even a drop of liquor or fall off the wagon.
Now most of the group was up on the dance floor, alongside other patrons, learning the beginning steps of a line dance. With Brooks and Dunn belting out "Boot Scootin' Boogie," everyone was laughing and smiling, even as they tripped over their own feet. The dance instructors, a cute young blonde in a cowgirl outfit similar to Natalie's and a lean young man in jeans, a cowboy shirt, and boots, repeated the instructions over and over... such things as heel bounce, stomp, shuffle, camel walk, knee roll, vine fight and left, pivot, and lots of scoots and touches. The "touch" call meant a smart slap on the buttocks.
Joe was sitting across the table from her, shaking his head from side to side at the group's antics, as he sipped at a soda. He was the only one who'd refused to participate in the dancing. Maggie had chosen to sit it out with him.
He repeated now what he'd said then: "Why would a grown man willingly make such a fool of himself?."
"It's fun," she declared. "Sometimes people do things just for the fun of it."
"Idiots, mayhap."
"Come on now, haven't you ever enjoyed an activity that involved laughing at yourself?"
"Nay," he answered. "Have you?"
"Of course. Rollerblading, which resulted in many black-and-blue marks on my rump.... "
He craned his neck to the side, as if half expecting her to drop her jeans and show him. When she gave him a sharp "As if!" look, he just grinned and took another sip of soda.
"And roller coasters, which terrify me, but I ride them anyway."
"Roller coasters?"
She explained briefly, then noted, "One of my daughters, Suzy, is a real T-type personality. She must have inherited it from her father, because I sure don't have a daredevil bone in my body. Remember, I told you that T-types like to take risks. They revel in being scared to death. My other daughter, Beth, isn't afraid of roller coasters, but she doesn't get the thrill of the thrill, like Suzy does."
She noticed a slight flicker of emotion on Joe's face at the mention of her girls, but he soon masked it. "And you think I enjoy being frightened?"
"Well, weren't you frightened riding on top of that killer whale?"
"Extremely," he agreed, "but I did not engage in that activity by choice. In fact, most times I take no unwarranted risks. A good leader never gambles with his troop's lives."
She nodded.
Then he homed in on something else she'd said. "You mentioned your daughter's father being a risk taker."
It was Maggie's turn to bristle now. She shouldn't be discussing her personal life with a patient. But the atmosphere was so relaxed here, and she didn't want to spoil the mood by making Joe feel he'd crossed some fine.
"Judd Haskell was a surgical resident at Houston General Hospital. He had only one year to go before he would have been a full-fledged doctor."
"Another dock-whore!"
"Joe, you do know that a doctor is a physician, don't you?"
"A healer?" he asked. His face bloomed a lovely shade of red. "I knew that."
She narrowed her eyes in disbelief.
"Well, I didn't know at first, but later I learned about dock-whores being healers on The Guiding Light. Betimes I forget, though. 'Tis such an odd name to give a healer."
Sometimes it saddened Maggie to hear Joe use such archaic language and misunderstand so much about the language and culture of America. He seemed so normal that she could almost believe he was as sane as she was. "Back to your question about Judd. He died taking a foolish risk... foolish in my opinion, anyway. He was skydiving, and his parachute malfunctioned."
"Skydiving?"
"Jumping out of an airplane."
Joe gasped. She had already explained to him before what an airplane was when he'd commented on the large objects seen occasionally in the sky over Rainbow.
"Why would anyone willingly jump out of an air machine?"
"My point, precisely."
"And you think I am insane!" he exclaimed with a shake of his head.
Just then the rest of the group came back to the table, all laughing and talking at once. Harry had paused before a mirrored beer sign to adjust his hair drape, which must have gotten mussed during his energetic activity.
Even Steve had joined the dance lessons, much to Maggie's delight. There were so many good things that had happened today, and she considered Steve's progress the best. His willingness to step up to the Vietnam wall was well worth the field trip. He plopped down into the chair next to Joe, signaled the waiter for a cold Coke, then drawled at Joe, "Coward."
"If 'tis cowardly to avoid making a fool of myself, then I admit to being such. I never suspected you could wiggle your arse in quite such an attractive manner."
"Like my butt, do ya?"
Before Joe could answer with the smart retort she knew was coming, one of the band members announced over the loudspeakers, "We're about to begin the weekly amateur talent contest. Remember, folks, all the winners of these weekly competitions get to come back to Boot Scootin' Cowboy on New Year's Eve for the grand finale. It'll be televised on the local cable network. The top winner gets to make a demo with a major record company."
Everyone clapped.
Maggie glanced down at her watch. It was five o'clock. They should be heading back to the hospital about now. Maggie looked at Harry; they both looked at the rapt faces of everyone in their group, including the two attendants, but most especially at Natalie, who was adjusting wonderfully to the nightclub. She and Harry both shrugged, agreeing silently to wait a little while longer.
Joe stood.
She and Harry were immediately alert.
"I'm just going to the privy," he informed them with a clucking sound of disgust. "If I'd wanted to escape, I would have done it at Orcaland, or at the wall."
They both relaxed and turned their attention back to the entertainment. Even so, Maggie was uneasy till he returned a short time later.
First a sister act did a clogging routine to the tune of a fast-paced Charlie Daniels song about the devil coming down to Georgia, They were really good.
Then five boys under the age of twelve, the next Osmond Brothers, she presumed—did a rip roaring medley of country-western hits, like "God Bless Texas," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Stand By Your Man," and "Friends in Low Places."
A college sorority had ten of its sisters do an extremely provocative line-dance routine to the old Rod Stewart song, "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" By the sound of the thunderous applause, the crowd thought they were.
There were some duds in the bunch, too. A too loud guitarist from Abilene. A shy piano vocalist whose voice could barely be heard over the sound of her music. A young male comedian who must fancy himself the Andrew Dice Clay of Opryland.
Just before the end of the program, the lead singer of the band took the microphone and announced, "We have one last-minute entry... a little songbird from right here in Galveston whose dream is to become the next Patsy Cline. Hey, a whole lot of women down in Nashville have been tryin' to take her place over the years, but who knows, maybe this will be the one. Let's give a big Texas welcome to our hometown gal... Miss Natalie Blue."
The nightclub burst into applause, but there was an ominous silence at their large table. Natalie was stunned, her face going as white as her cowgirl outfit, and her fingers, which had been encircling a glass, beginning to shake visibly.
"How did this happen? Who signed her up?" Maggie demanded.
As one, everyone's heads turned toward Joe, who was beaming as if he'd just pulled off a big coup. Apparently his trip to the "privy" had involved a detour.
"Wh-what?" he asked, when he realized no one was tossing congratulations his way.
The applause was tapering off, and the band leader was saying, "Hey, Natalie, where are you? Time's awastin'."
"Isn't this what you always wanted, Not-a-lie?" Joe asked.
"It's not the right time," Natalie whimpered.
"Pfff! If you're waiting till the right time, you might never get your chance. In my land, there is a saying: 'Gold given by a beggar is no less lustrous than gold given by a king.' "
"Joe, that has no relevance to this case," Maggie chided. The big hunk had gone too far this time. "You had no right—"
"I told you, your storytelling skills stink," Steve added.
"Natalie, you don't have to go there if you don't want to," Harry advised her soothingly. "I'll go up and make your apologies. We can just slip out quietly."
"NO! Natalie cried, standing abruptly. Everyone just stared at her. "I'll do it. I will. I'm going to do it." She looked at Joe then. "Will you walk me up there? I'm not sure my wobbly legs will carry me that far."
"For a certainty, m'lady."
Joe took Natalie to the side steps leading to the stage, where one of the band members helped her up. With a few whispered instructions, Natalie walked up to the standing microphone. By the pallor of her face and her stiff posture, she seemed to think it was a guillotine.
But then everything changed.
With the first drawn-out, clear note of Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Natalie Blue had everyone's attention. Her voice was powerful and poignant and wonderfully unique as she crooned, "Cra-aazy. I'm cra-aazy for feelin' so lonely." By the end of the song, Maggie had tears in her eyes, and she knew—she just knew—that someday people would mark this place and this day as the time that Natalie Blue began her professional career. The crowd gave her a standing ovation, shouting for an encore. And Natalie, surprisingly poised for a person consumed with a fear of crowds, smiled and eased into the piercing "Sweet Dreams."
To no one's surprise, Natalie won the competition for the day, and promised to come back for the final event. Whether she would crumble once they left the club, or revert back to her old phobias, Maggie couldn't say for sure, but at least for tonight Natalie was a big hit. And New Year's Eve would be a goal they could aim for in therapy.
Joe glanced her way and winked smugly. "You may thank me now or later."
"Oh, really." She laughed.
"Methinks I will dance now."
"Huh?"
"Yea, you may thank me by dancing with me, Dock-whore Muck-bride."
"I already told you that a doctor is—"
He chucked her under the chin. "Must you always be so serious?"
"Hey, that should be my line to you. You're the one who's always serious."
Meanwhile, Joe had been leading her toward the sawdust-covered dance floor, where Steve and Rosalyn and Harry and Natalie were-already beginning to dance to, appropriately, "The Dance" by Garth Brooks.
A slow dance! Maggie realized at once, and shot a suspicious glare at Joe.
Expressionless, he was holding his arms open to her, but his gray eyes, usually somber and grim, were twinkling with mischief.
"I prefer this type of dancing to the line dancing. Not that I know how, but it does not look too hard. In truth, it resembles making love, only standing up."
Maggie gasped, but she wasn't sure if it was because of his words, or the fact that he pulled her into a full-frontal embrace that involved his arms being locked around her waist and her shoes dangling off the floor. Most important, they were chest to chest, belly to belly, and, well... you-know-what to you-know-what. Oh, my God! she thought.
"Oh... my... God!" Joe choked out, aloud. There was no satisfaction in knowing he shared her flash-fire arousal at their innocent embrace. No, she corrected herself immediately. There was nothing innocent about the chemistry that exploded between them at the merest touch, whether it was dancing or a scorching kiss.
"I told you this couldn't happen again," she said in a strained voice as he swayed from foot to foot... his Viking version of dancing, she supposed.
"Nay, m'lady. You told me we could not kiss again. You did not tell me that we couldn't dance."
"This is not dancing."
"It's not?" he asked, eyebrows raised in question.
"Both feet of both partners need to be on the floor to qualify as dancing."
"They do?" He stared at her, dubiously. "More's the pity."
He let her body slide down his body till her flat shoes rested on the floor. The sensations he created along the way were so intense Maggie feared her eyeballs might be rolling back in her head. She blinked once, then twice, just to make sure.
"Just holding you like this makes me breathless," Joe told her in a raspy voice.
His eyes were heavy-lidded and smoldering.
Breathless? I make him breathless? Oh, why does it feel so good to know I can affect him so? And, hey, is that my heart beating like a jackhammer? "You make me blush when you look at me like that. Stop it!"
A slow grin spread across his lips. And he continued looking.
She dropped her eyes before his steady, slumberous gaze. She didn't want him to see—or sense—the hot ache that was building in the pit of her stomach. All from a mere dance.
"Your arousal arouses me," he admitted, almost as if he resented the fact, then proved it by adding, "I do not want to be aroused by you. I need to get back to my time. I need to help my brother. I need no complications."
"And I would be a complication?"
"Lady, you could be the biggest complication of my entire life."
"Even more than your wife?"
He exhaled with a dismissive sound. "My wife was never a complication. She was an arrangement. Never, ever, did she affect me as you do. Not she or any other woman."
"Bet you say that to all the wenches."
"Not even when I am seducing them into the bed sport. Well, there was that one wench in Cordoba—"
Maggie punched him lightly on the shoulder. He laughed softly, a low, masculine sound, barely more than a growl. She loved his laugh. He did it so rarely.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
She laughed then. "Hey, that's supposed to be my line."
"I can scarce believe I am about to ask you this question. I swore, after Inga's death, that I had had enough of women... except for the occasional coupling, that is." He inhaled deeply, as if for courage. "I do not suppose that you would consider coming with me when I go?" he inquired tentatively.
"To the tenth century?"
"Yea, to my time and country."
How could she take such a proposal seriously? "On the back of a killer whale?"
"God, I hope not." Then he thought of something else. "On the other hand, if we were both bare-arsed naked..."
"You are impossible." She shook her head and smiled up at him. "No, I would not consider going with you. Keep in mind, I have two daughters who need me here."
The somber expression that immediately blanketed his face told her loud and clear that he wouldn't be bringing up time travel with her again... because he didn't want a reminder of her twin girls.
They continued their dance in silence then, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her face resting against his chest. It was a beautiful moment... a perfect ending to a perfect day.
Why, then, did Maggie feel like crying?
 
The next day Joe disappeared, without warning, from the Rainbow hospital. His sword was missing, too.
Police were called and an APB put out with his description, to no avail. Other patients were questioned. He'd told no one of his plans, not even Steve, who was desolate without his new friend, especially with all the media publicity he'd reluctantly attracted as a result of the report at the Moving Wall. Area hospitals reported no injured Norsemen of his size in their emergency rooms. Maggie even searched the Orcaland site on several ocasions. Nothing.
Was he lost?
Had he died? Perhaps he had swum out into the bay, hoping to connect with his special killer whale, and drowned instead.
A heavy grief settled over Maggie, and over the hospital wing where Joe had touched so many people. Suzy and Beth were devastated that they'd lost the man they had chosen as a father before they'd actually met him. She had talked to Harry about it, and neither of them could figure out what there was about this man that had affected them all so strongly.
So it was that one week passed, then a second, finally three weeks, with no sign of the mysterious man who had shown up in their lives suddenly, and just as suddenly disappeared.
Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. Maggie hated negativity, but she couldn't find much to be thankful for, not with Joe missing.
Where was Joe spending his nights? Was he cold? Was he hungry? Was he alone?
That night Maggie began a brand-new practice... one she would never admit to anyone, not even her daughters. She was wishing on a star, and her refrain was always the same.
"Come home, Joe."
At seven o'clock that night, there was a loud pounding at the front door. Rita jumped from her favorite perch on the window seat of the front bay window, where she had been snoozing. With a long mewling "Meeooow," she stretched and ambled toward the entryway. More persistent knocking followed.
Maggie assumed it was Suzy and Beth coming home from church choir practice. Even though November wasn't over, rehearsals for the annual Christmas concert were already in full swing.
But why hadn't they used their keys to open the door? Ha! Silly question. As usual, their arms were probably too full of the backpacks and whatnot that young girls felt the need to cart everywhere they went.
She swung the door wide. "Just in time. Dinner's about ready. We're having your fav—"
It wasn't her daughters. It was Joe. And, even through the light drizzle of rain, she could see that he looked awful.
She should have been angry that he'd left the hospital without notice, and had been missing for three long weeks.

She should have slammed the door in his face for breaking his therapy contract, thus barring him from returning to the clinic as a patient.
She should have been dismayed that he'd come to her home—a no-no for mental patients and their psychologists.
Instead she opened her arms wide and hugged him tightly. She was just so glad to see him again... to know he was safe.
He hugged her back just as fiercely. For several long moments they stood silently on her front doorstep, locked in the tight embrace, regardless of Rita hissing behind them, and a curious neighbor, Mrs. Watkins, walking her Pekingese along the front sidewalk.
Finally she drew back and studied his haggard, whiskered face with concern. He must not have shaved since he'd left the hospital. His usually lustrous hair, which he normally tied back into a queue at his neck, was wild and matted, barely recognizable as being a pale blond color. He wore the same clothing he'd left with, blue jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt, both of which were dirty and torn in places. Most ominous was the lethal sword that he wore in a scabbard attached to the wide leather belt at his waist. Had he used that sword on anyone or anything?
"Come in," she ordered, as she realized he was shivering.
He hesitated. "Are you alone?"
She cocked her head in question. Apparently, despite his need for care, he was reluctant to enter her house unless she was alone. Then she understood. Her daughters—her twin daughters—that was whom he wanted to avoid. "I'm alone."
His body relaxed visibly, and he stepped inside. There was a loud hissing noise, and a white ball of fur hurled itself toward Joe. Maggie's forehead creased with puzzlement and her hands went out instinctively to protect Joe. Rita wasn't usually hostile. He put an arm over his face to defend himself, but Rita had already attached her front claws to his shirt and her back claws to the lower part of his anatomy. Her tail thickened, her body stiffened, and her fur stood on end. She even began to shed fur like mad.
"Don't move," Maggie cautioned Joe as she began to gently extricate Rita's claws.
"Move?" Joe choked out. "I can scarce breathe for the proximity of the beast's talons to my male parts. Be careful, lest you change my sex in a trice."
She laughed as she lifted Rita away; whispered a firm rebuke in her cat's face, which Maggie could swear wore a smirk, then scooted her away.
"What kind of wild creature was that?" he grumbled as she closed the door and led him toward her den. Rita followed after them, despite his frown. "Perchance it needs a taste of my sword, Bloodletter." He patted the weapon at his side."
"A cat," she answered. "Our pet cat, Rita. And don't you dare pull out that sword, or hurt Rita. She was only being protective of me."
"That is a cat?" The glower he gave the feline said it all. "Cats are pampered pets in the Eastern harems, but never have I seen a cat so fat. Are you sure it's not a tiger... a white tiger? I have heard of such, though they are rare."
Rita hissed her opinion of his derogatory remark. "No, she's just a cat... our own little kitty cat."
He made a harrumphing sound at the word little. "You must have monster mice in this land to feed one that size."
The idea of Rita being a mouser was so preposterous that it didn't even warrant correcting. Maggie had obtained Rita as a kitten from a shelter more than ten years ago, and the animal had been spoiled from the get-go. Rita in the wild would be as much an anomaly as... well, Joe in a civilized setting.
"I do not like cats," he declared, his upper lip curled with distaste.
Oh, so that's the reason for Rita's aggression. Rita meowed something that probably translated to, I do not like you, either. Then she scurried away, no doubt fearing that her gourmet cat food and favorite table scraps would be cut off in favor of rodent fare.
But Joe had more important things to deal with than a cat. Already his mind had moved beyond the pesky feline. He sank down onto the big, upholstered sofa, then put his face in his hands. Concerned, she sat down beside him and put a hand on his arm.
"Joe, what's wrong?"
"Everything."
"Where have you been?"
"Everywhere."
"Could you be a little more specific?"
He glanced up and smiled at her. It was such a sad smile, barely curving his lips, and never reaching his stormy gray eyes. "For three sennights, I have wandered the woods and inlets of Gal-vast-town Bay, trying to locate Thora, or my ship. 'Twas all for naught."
"Where have you been staying?"
"Outdoors," he answered, as if it were nothing to live and sleep outdoors. The weather was fair for November in Texas, but the nights were decidedly cool.
"Where did you eat? What did you eat?"
Her question seemed to surprise him. "Whatever was available."
She was still confused. He had no money that she knew of. So restaurants were out of the question. Oh, no! He didn't steal food, did he?
He must have sensed her thoughts. "Tsktsk, Mag-he. I am no thief. Nay, I snared rabbits and caught fish and cooked them over an open fire. Once, I even ate a snake. 'Twas tougher than shoe leather, but filling."
A snake? She could barely keep herself from gagging. "Why didn't you just come back to the hospital?"
"I could not. Time was of the essence, with winter approaching on the north seas. Besides, I knew that I would no longer be welcome at the Rainbow hospitium once I broke the contract."
"And now what?"
He shrugged. "I am not sure. Well, one thing I am certain of is that I am trapped in this world till springtime. Even if I were able to locate Thora now, I misdoubt that longship travel on the Iceland route to Norway would be a wise choice."
"But..." Maggie started to ask where he would stay, but decided she had more immediate concerns. "Listen, you've got to get out of those damp clothes and take a shower.
"Are you implying that I am malodorous?"
"Let's just say; Old Spice won't be asking you to do any commercials. I assume they had no deodorants where you were."
"Deodorants? Hah! I was lucky to be able to wash up in the bay with sand and water."
"You'll be lucky if you haven't caught pneumonia."
"New-mown-ya? The only thing I caught in that cold water was seaweed, puny pan fish, and one flounder."
She laughed. She was just so glad to have him back. "While you're shaving and cleaning up, I'll throw your stuff in the washing machine. You look famished. By the time you're through in the bathroom, and have eaten some dinner, the clothes should be dry."
He lifted his eyebrows with interest. "You want me to disrobe? Right now? In front of you?"
"No, Mr. One-track Mind. You can throw your dirty clothes outside the bathroom. It's nice to see you have a sense of humor about this, though."
"I was not jesting." His face was already serious, but now it turned even more serious as he regarded her with an uncertain expression on his face. He was usually so confident. "Was I wrong to come here?"
She hardly hesitated at all. "No, I'm glad you came. But how did you find my house?"
"Hattie gave me directions."
"Hattie?"
"Hattie Lawrence."
Warning bells started clanging inside Maggie's already aching head. "The daughter of Rainbow Hospital's owner?"
"Yea, the selfsame one."
"But... how... when... I don't understand."
"She slipped me a card with her name and telephone number that day they visited the hospital. She said, 'Call me sometime, sugar.' So I did."
Oh, my God! Hattie hit on a patient at the clinic. Hah. Is that any worse than me?
"I called her tonight and said that I was released from the hospital. A small mistruth," he admitted unabashedly. "I told her I was in a phone booth with no book of numbers and could she please look up your address for me. She was very nice."
I'll bet she was. "How did you make a phone call without any money?"
"Oh, I used a phone card."
Maggie was getting a splitting headache the size of Joe's outrageous story. "You have a phone card?"
"Nay. John Lennon lent me his."
"I hate to ask this, but where did you meet John Lennon? Don't tell me he came riding in on a killer whale, too." Or in a yellow submarine, she thought.
"Of course not." He gave her an impatient frown that said she was being silly. "John Lennon is a homeless person who lives near the mission flophouse... leastways, that is what he called it. All he asked in return for my use of the phone card was for me to give peace a chance. Is that not an odd thing to say?"
"A homeless person with a phone card? And his name is John Lennon?"
"'Tis what I said, is it not?" he snapped churlishly. "And, by the by, once I get some coins, I would like to go back and thank him for his services. Mayhap you could even invite John to live at Rainbow Hospital. He thinks he is a beetle, you know. And since you already have Steve the seal and Chuck, who thinks he is every animal in the land, depending on the day of the week, why not a bug as well?" He smiled brightly at her, as if he'd made a brilliant suggestion.
Maggie had to smile, despite herself. Joe certainly put the fun in dysfunctional. But enough of this nonsense! She put her hands on Joe's shoulders and pushed him toward the hallway. "Go!" she ordered. "Go, take a shower."
"God, I love it when you go Valkyrieish on me. Mayhap it is my destiny to be saddled with a pushy wench."
"I am not pushy. I am not a wench. I am not your Valkyrie. And, most definitely, I am not your destiny."
But Maggie wasn't so sure about that last.
A short time later, while Joe showered noisily in the bathroom down the hall, Maggie heated up the Texas chili she'd made the girls for dinner, along with a loaf of warm sourdough bread. She glanced out the kitchen window and noticed something important... the first star of the night. Could it possibly be shining brighter than ever before? And that constellation over there... surely it wasn't configured in the shape of a whale, just as the girls had noticed many weeks ago.
No! It's just my imagination.
Still...
"Thank you, God," she whispered.
 
"Look at him. Look how handsome he is, even asleep."
"Shhhh. Mom told us to stay away... not to disturb him."
"He's so big. No wonder he ate the entire pot of chili Mom made for our dinner, and a whole loaf of homemade bread."
"I've always wanted a big father."
"Me, too."
"He looks a little bit like Kevin Sorbo... that guy who used to play Hercules on TV."
"I think he looks more like Ricky Martin."
"I think he looks better than both of them."
"I think he looks like... a dad."
There was a long sigh then. Actually, two long sighs at the same time.
As Jorund emerged slowly from a deep sleep, he heard voices discussing him. Whoever they were, they must be pay-shuns of the hospital if they actually thought he resembled that Greek man of strength, Hercules. Right now Jorund felt weaker than dragon piss. And had someone really said that he resembled that infuriating singer with the magic hips, Ricky Martin? Jorund would never swing his hips like that in public... or in private, either. It was not manly, in his opinion.
He cracked both eyes open to mere slits, then shot bolt upright, which caused him to almost fall off the piece of cushiony furniture called a sofa, where he had fallen asleep after a most satisfying shower and dinner. He'd been talking with Mag-he about what he would do next when his eyes had drooped shut.
He had not wanted to be here when her daughters returned. But it was too late now. Two young girls with blond braids and silver jewelry on their teeth were staring at him. Twins.
"Go away," he said in a growl.
They looked fearful, but stood their ground.
"We've been praying for you every night," one of them said.
"Me? Why would you pray for me?"
"Mom said you were lost, and we prayed that she would find you. Mom drove around the bay lots of times, trying to find you."
"She did?" But Jorund had forgotten himself. He wanted naught to do with these urchins who reminded him so much of his own daughters. "Did I not tell you to go away?"
"Where should we go? This is our house."
"Can you not go to another chamber?"
"We want to watch TV. This is the TV room."
"Where's your mother?"
"Taking a bubble bath."
Now that conjured up some interesting pictures. "She's using the lilac bath salts I bought her last Christmas," one of the twins informed him with total irrelevance. At least, he thought it was totally irrelevant till the other twin inquired, "Do you like lilacs?"
"I like lilacs fine," he snapped. Just for the meanness of it, he added a loud growl, like a grizzly bear.
The girls just giggled. They actually giggled at his fierceness.
Just as his own daughters would have done.
In misery, he informed them, "You are breaking my heart. Can you not see how painful it is for me to be around you two?"
"You don't like us?" they both asked in unison, their voices squeaky with hurt.
"'Tis not you that I mislike, particularly. I have trouble being around young girls." To his surprise, he noticed that his right hand had been lying over his heart protectively the whole time he spoke. Why did I divulge that? 'Tis none of my concern if their feelings get hurt at the least little jab. Oh, holy Thor, why do they not go away?
The twins exchanged worried glances with each other, then some whispered words he could not hear. They appeared ready to depart. Finally he seemed to have gotten through to them. But why were they approaching the sofa where he still sat?
"Mom always says a hug is the best medicine for a breaking heart," one twin told him, already reaching out her skinny arms toward him.
"No!" he cried out.
But the other twin had an even more horrifying idea. "Can I sit on your lap?"
"No!" he repeated in an anguished cry.
Short seconds later, Jorund Ericsson, the most barbarous Viking in all Vestfold, wept silently into the hair of two little girls who sat on each of his knees, arms wrapped around his shoulders, faces pressed into his neck. Oh, the little-girl smell of their skin was so familiar to him he could scarce breathe.
And then... oh, he should have been surprised—but he was not—when a strange voice in his head made a click-click-clicking noise and a whalelike grinding. To Jorund, it seemed to say, Now you know why you are here, Viking. Now you know.
 
"Mommy, please don't send him away," Beth begged from her bed, where Maggie had just tucked her in. "It's the magic of killer whales and God and wishing stars—all these things—that sent him to us. I just know it."
"There's no such thing as magic," Maggie chided her gently. "You're old enough to know that."
"Even from God?" Beth argued. "You mean there's no such thing as miracles?" Beth blinked innocently at her.
Oh, that was a low blow. "Of course there are miracles. Joe hardly qualifies as a miracle, though." Or does he?
"Can't you just believe in dreams come true, Mommy? Just a teeny-tiny bit?" Suzy added from her twin bed.
"But, honey—"
"You always told us anything is possible if you pray hard enough." It was Beth who addressed her now, and it was hard for Maggie to counter that argument, especially when she was quoting Maggie's own words.
"But sometimes the answer God gives us is no," she reminded them.
"And sometimes it's yes," they both exclaimed in unison, bright smiles on their faces.
Maggie would have liked to contradict her daughters—to tell them that reality had to be faced, that Joe was very likely a mere blip on the screen of their lives, not a permanent fixture—not to be depended on. But she couldn't get the image of Joe out of her mind... Joe holding Suzy and Beth on his lap... Joe weeping silently over them... Joe putting aside his grief to comfort her precious darlings...
Needless to say, in the end it took Maggie an exceptionally long time to get the girls to sleep that night. They were just so excited.
Maggie was excited, too, but for different, more personal, and very alarming reasons. That prompted her to call to Harry at his home.
"Joe is here," she informed Harry without preamble.
"Is he all right?" was Harry first question. His second was, "Are you all right?"
God bless Harry's good heart. No recriminations, no ranting or raving about unwise psychologists or ungrateful patients. Just a genuine concern for the well-being of all concerned. "We're fine," she assured him.
"You know he can't return to the clinic."
"I know. And he does, too. Harry, this is going to sound crazy, but—-"
He laughed softly. "Odd word to come from a psychologist."
She laughed, too, but there was a hysterical tone to her laughter.
Harry must have noticed, because his voice was serious when he prompted, "You were saying?"
"I was about to say that, despite all the appearances to the contrary, I don't think Joe is mentally ill."
"Are you sure that isn't just wishful thinking?"
Maggie sighed. So her feelings toward Joe were apparent to others. "That may play some part, but my gut instinct is that there is some other reason for all these things he claims. To tell you the truth, I've felt that way from the beginning, and I just can't get rid of this sense I have that there's something more to Joe's story... something beyond the explanations of science and logic."
"Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. The man says he's a tenth-century Viking who was delivered to this land by a killer whale."
"I know."

"And you believe that?"
"I'm not sure what I believe. I just know that he's not insane, or deranged, or mentally ill."
There was a long pause while Harry digested all that she'd said. They both knew there were cases that defied all the textbooks, that sometimes instinct was the best measure... but would he accept what she said now?
"Okay," he agreed finally. "What happens next?"
"I just want to go on record as stating that Joe Rand is no longer my patient."
"Uh-oh."
Uh-oh is right. Major uh-oh. "You've already said he's not a patient at the clinic anymore. I want to establish a paper record that he's not my patient, either."
"For the lawyers?"
"If need be."
"Maggie, be careful. You've got children to consider."
"I'm doing this for my children... as well as myself. He wouldn't hurt them any more than he would hurt his own children." No matter what Joe said, she couldn't lay the blame for his daughters' deaths on his shoulders.
"Are you sure about this, Maggie?"
"As sure as I've ever been about anything in my life." And she was, she recognized with a freeing. sort of ebullience.
"I wish you luck then... or a miracle."
Maggie suspected she'd already been handed a bit of both.
 
"You can stay...."
Jorund glanced up an hour later to see Mag-he standing in the doorway of the den chamber. He lifted one eyebrow in question. He hadn't realized that his staying or not staying had ever been an issue. He'd just assumed... well, he supposed that had been presumptuous of him.
"For a while. Till... till we figure things out."
"What things?"
"I just talked to Harry—Dr. Seabold—and everything is settled."
"What has Dock-whore Sea-bold to do with my settling?" Understanding struck him like a lightning bolt. "I am no longer your pay-shun."
She nodded.
Despite all that weighed him down, Jorund couldn't help grinning. If he was no longer considered her pay-shun, then that opened the doors to all kinds of... well, possibilities.
"Don't get any ideas," she chided him. Meanwhile, her gaze kept coming back to his exposed chest, visible through his unbuttoned shert, which he hadn't bothered to tuck into his braies after his recent shower.
"Oh, I have ideas aplenty. I wonder if my ideas coincide with your ideas."
"Probably."
"Probably? Probably? Sweetling, you'd best not toss out such seductive words unless you plan to follow up on them."
She just shrugged, but that shrug shouted a thousand things to him... all of them sexual.
"Sweetling, huh?" she asked with a soft smile. "I like the sound of that." Her voice was even huskier than usual. Jorund had been fond of that huskiness from the start. Now he would like to experiment with different ways of tuning that huskiness to his own satisfaction.
"Come here, Mag-he," he said, and was surprised that his voice, too, was husky.
She backed up a step instead. "Slowly... we've got to take things slowly here."
At first he wanted to balk... to argue that going fast was the better course. But perhaps she was right. He had been assailed by so many new emotions these past hours.
"For now, let me help you make up a bed for the night." Motioning him to stand, she stepped into the chamber. The soft folds of her scarlet silk robe outlined her body as she moved, especially where it was belted at the waist. He felt an immediate jolt of awareness at the joining of his thighs. Was she wearing undergarments under the robe? Or had she come to him naked, already prepared for his lovemaking? Oh, what a heady thought that was! His entire body went hot and throbbing with the mental picture. He had been without a woman for a long time. He had been without Mag-he for a long time.
Was now the time?
As she showed him how to pull out the bed mattress that was magically enclosed inside the sofa, the scent of lilacs wafted his way, and he recalled that the girls had said their mother was taking a bubble bath. Then, taking soft pillows, bed linens, and blankets from a close-it, she began to make up the bed. Each time she bent or turned, the filmy robe clung to a different, more enticing curve of her body.
He smiled.
Turning suddenly, she caught him in the smile, and seemed surprised—then embarrassed. Did the blush that now flooded her face and neck also color other parts of her body?
"Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, Joe," she informed him as she turned her back to him and worked to smooth out the wrinkles in the blanket. That gave him a good view of her backside as she bent to the task. Holy Valhalla, the wench had more curves than a Norse fjord.
But then Mag-he's words registered, and jolted him out of his erotic musings.
With disgust, he realized that he had been ogling her body like an untried youth before his first swiving. "Thanksgiving?" he inquired in as level a voice as he could manage. Well, I certainly hope I will be having something to be thankful for, after tonight. "In our country it's a special day when everyone gives thanks for their bounty. In our home we have our Thanksgiving feast early so we can go to the Orcaland amusement park for the last day of the season... weather permitting, of course."
"And?" he prompted. Why was she telling him this now?
"And I want to make sure you will be all right with that. Will you be able to stand being around my daughters? You've had a rather strong reaction when I've mentioned them previously."
He thought long and hard. It was a good question. Could he be in the company of twin girls, when his own cherished twin daughters were dead? "I think I will be all right. If I have a change of sentiment, I will take myself from their presence."
"I don't want my girls to get hurt. I mean that."
The fierce expression on her face bespoke a mother's protectiveness. Just as Jorund had been aroused by Mag-he's sex-voice and her alluring robe, he was also stimulated by this aspect of her personality. "I won't hurt them."
"Not just physically. I want your assurance that you won't hurt them emotionally, either."
"How can I promise that?" he cried out. At the first opportunity, he was going to leave this time and place. The way things looked now, it might not ever happen. But then again, the window in time might open for him suddenly, without warning. How could he make pledges that might be beyond his power to keep?
"My daughters love you, Joe."
To his dismay, he groaned aloud. A warrior should not display his weaknesses, but, in this instance, he could not help himself.
"Don't ask me why or how that happened; it just did. At least promise me that you will do your best not to hurt their feelings... or break their hearts."
"If I have that much power, I should depart your home now. I do not want to be responsible for their joy, or their sorrow."
"It seems to me you have no choice."
He nodded, suddenly choked up. But then he thought of something else... something that caused his throat to clear and his heart to lift. If he was going to be stuck in this land, then he was going to commence enjoying the benefits, such as they were. He had been docile too long... allowing events to lead him, instead of being the aggressor like the military chieftain he was.
Mag-he stood on the other side of the sofa bed, wearing her siren robe, staring at him. There was no fear in her luminous blue eyes, just curiosity. And boldness.
Her gaze kept returning to his chest, which was bared by his unbuttoned shert.
He smiled with satisfaction. So the wench liked his body. That was encouraging news.
She saw his smile. "I was just checking to see if Rita had scratched you badly."
He made a scoffing sound of disbelief. It was his finely honed body she was examining, not some piddling scratch.
Her stubborn chin jutted out defiantly. Foolish wench. Even a hardened warrior knew when to yield to greater forces.
He began to move around the mattress, a predatory rush of blood beginning to surge through his body. It was the selfsame feeling he had before every battle.
"Wh-what?" Mag-he stammered. Her shaky voice belied her brave stance. Still, not one step did she back off. He had to admire her for that.
"'Tis time," he said, and took another step toward her.
"Time for what, Joe?" she whispered in that sex-voice of hers. He felt it all the way to his man parts, which began to thicken in appreciation. Truly, that voice of hers was going to be his undoing yet, if he were not more careful...
"My name is Jorund." Only a few more steps. Her intoxicating lilac scent was making him dizzy.
"Jorund," she rasped out. Her head was still tilted in confusion, but she had the good sense to back up one step, then another.
He followed after her, in stalking mode now. "'Tis time," he repeated.
"For what?" she repeated, too. But now her back hit the wall.
"For unfinished business."
Maggie's senses reeled under Joe's heated gaze.
She should look away. She tried to look away. But she could not. She was too entranced by the sensuous flame that had ignited in his smoky eyes, scorching her inch by inch, as they roamed her figure in the Victoria's Secret silk wrapper—a birthday gift from her girls two weeks ago. They'd obviously considered her frumpy old chenille robe unsuitable attire for daddy hunting.
His voice was low and raw as he whispered, "You are so beautiful."
And Maggie felt beautiful at that moment. And raw.
The man was stalking her... no doubt about it. She would have darted for safety if her back weren't pressed to the wall. On the other hand, maybe she wouldn't have fled. For once in her life, Maggie yearned to free the sensuality she'd suppressed for so long. She didn't want to be self conscious about her body or worry what other people would think. She wanted to be wanton.
As Maggie stood, transfixed, he moved toward her slowly, but purposefully. Then, in a blink, he wrapped his arms about her waist, lifting her high, and walked her to the bed. Without breaking his stride, he tossed her onto the mattress and followed after her, landing between her inadvertently outspread legs.
They both gasped at the delicious contact of his sex against her sex, even through the barrier of his denim jeans and her robe. The position had been an accident, but Joe wasn't about to set aside the advantage. Instead he moved himself from side to side, adjusting himself more firmly in the cradle of her thighs. The whole time he watched her steadily, clearly wanting to witness her every reaction.
Oh, this was too embarrassing for a sexually inhibited person like herself.
Could he sense the passionate fluttering that had started between her legs and moved like wildfire to all the erogenous zones of her body? Well, at least she used to be sexually inhibited. Now she didn't even recognize the wild woman who was yanking at his open shirt and tossing it aside. She could smell the clean, musky scent of his skin, but more than anything she wanted to see it, and feel it, and taste it.
"Your eagerness excites me mightily," he said as he brushed the palms of both hands over her breasts, causing them to peak through the silk fabric.
"I'm not eager," she lied. What she thought was, Touch me, touch me, touch me, again, again, again.
As if he heard her thoughts, he put his open mouth over the tip of one breast and began to suckle wetly through the flimsy cloth barrier with a hard rhythm.
Maggie almost shot up off the bed, except that his lower body still held her in place... his lower body that had a thickening ridge pressed against her in just the right place.
He took her hands and encouraged them to explore his shoulders and chest and, yes, even his flat, male nipples. To her delight, he looked as if he might shoot up off the bed, too.
And he grew even larger against her.
And flexed.
And then Maggie flexed back.
There were so many hormones flying about that Maggie feared an explosion. In fact, an explosion was guaranteed if they continued on this course.
But wait. Wait, wait, wait. Maggie realized that she hadn't spoken the cautionary word aloud. "Wait!" she practically shouted now. She didn't know if she was trying to be heard over the roaring of blood in her ears or his... probably both, because the heightened color on his face as he stared down at her, not to mention his ragged breathing, proved he was as turned on as she was.
"Wait?" he inquired in a strangled voice. "Now you tell me to wait? What is amiss?"
"I can't make love with you here... now... not with my daughters in the house."
"Now you gainsay me?" His eyes darkened angrily to a steely gray. "Why not?"
"Because it wouldn't be right," she insisted. "I have to set an example for them. I'm a single mother... an unmarried woman. My girls can't ever think of me as being promiscuous."
"In my land, children respect their elders' privacy. They know that lust and marriage do not necessarily go hand in hand."
"Yeah, well, you're not in Oz now, Toto," she said snidely, then immediately regretted her words. "It doesn't matter what the morality is in your land—or my land. It matters what I think."
She put a palm over her heart for emphasis. "And I want my children to grow up believing that lust or love, or whatever you want to call it, do go hand in hand with marriage. Or at the least, a committed relationship."
He made a rude sound of disgust. "Like all women, you want something for your favors, then. Whether it be coin or the bindings of marriage, females are ever out to snare men with their wiles."
"You don't know me at all if you think that."
She saw the stiffening of his jaw and the accusatory gleam in his eyes. She knew exactly what he was thinking. "I wasn't teasing you, Joe."
"It felt like teasing. Are you one of those women who enjoy the chase, and get your pleasure from making a man grovel?"
"No!" she asserted forcefully. "And I doubt whether you've groveled a day in your life."
"Then why come to me in your siren robe, giving me those come-take-me looks?"
Now he was getting insulting. She tried to push him away, or squirm out from under him, but he wouldn't release her.
"I came because I wanted you, you big lout. Because I wanted you so much, I forgot that l have responsibilities." She turned her face to the side, hating the fact that her eyes were misting over.
He tipped her chin back with a forefinger so that she was staring up at him as he propped himself on one elbow above her. His anger had melted away, replaced by a rueful acceptance. "A big lout, hmmm?" he remarked with a self-deprecating grin as he fingered the ends of her hair, still damp from her recent bath, then sniffed her. He nodded, as if pleased with the scent of her shampoo. Lilacs... the same as her bath salts had been.
"The biggest," she answered with a small sob.
"And you wanted me a great deal?"
He was leaning so close that his breath fanned her lips as he spoke. When she declined to answer, he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth and rubbed his erection against her at the same time.
She jerked back at the exquisite sensations those brief caresses engendered. If that wasn't bad enough, he nudged her legs farther apart with his knees, then cupped her bottom and rocked her hips against him.
She squealed. She actually squealed. Then she admitted, "A great deal."
"And still do?" he persisted.
Now he was alternately wetting the inner whorls of her ear with the tip of his tongue and blowing it dry. It was as if a thin, erotic thread connected her ears to her breasts and genital area, because each flick of his tongue was causing her to swell and throb in delicious agony.
"Still do," she whimpered. "But, I repeat, we can't make love."
To her surprise, he nodded. "Well, a kiss then.Surely it would be no great shock to your daughters' sensibilities to see a man kissing their mother."
She laughed softly at his too-obvious ploy. "You don't even like kisses."
"Oh, m'lady, you have sung that song too many times already. I have told you more than once that I have changed my mind on that issue."
"A kiss? That would be all?"
"Well, a little touching, too."
"A little touching? Aha! Men have been saying that throughout the ages. A little touching leads to a lot more, and before you know it, well, you can guess where it all leads."
"The injustice of your remark wounds me, m'lady," he said. "If I promise to give you only kisses and little touches, then that is what I will do. My word is my bond."
She nodded, because she really did want—no, need a little bit of his loving tonight... some thing to seal this change in their relationship.
"To be fair, I must advise you that I have been told I have clever hands."
Clever hands? What does that mean? I don't want to know. Yes, I do. Oh, boy!
"Mayhap it is the calluses on my palms from wielding a long sword for so many years. Or mayhap it is the flexibility of my fingers, which must neethrust a spear or pull on the reins of a blood-maddened warhorse with equal dexterity. Or mayhap it is the things learned in the Eastern harems that—"
She put her hands on either side of his neck, pulling him down for a kiss.
He drew back a hairbreadth from her lips and said, "I may be willing to accept your terms, but he forewarned: there are things I want to do to you that no man has ever done afore... "
Maggie's heart skittered wildly at his words, and a hot dampness pooled between her legs.
"Even so, I will keep my word, for now. Mere kisses and little touches... that is all."
Joe kept his promise then, but there was nothing mere or little about him.
And, as to clever hands... Lordy, lordy!
 
Jorund sat at the head table of Mag-he's great hall early the next afternoon, awaiting the Thanksgiving feast.
Actually, there was no great hall... not even a hall at all, for that matter. And only one table. But then, Mag-he's keep itself was not all that large; he could touch the ceiling in any of the chambers. It was not as humble as the longhouses of his Norse cotters, nor as grand as the wood castles he, his father, and his brothers had erected in his homeland, following the Saxon and Frankish styles.
But one thing in this land might prove better: the food set out on the table smelled delicious, though foreign to his palate. Not a salted fjord fish or a bowl of skyr, the soured cream favored by many in his country, was in sight. And there was no central hearth with a boar on the spit or an ever-present cauldron of the meat or vegetable of the day—usually rabbit and leeks. No loss to him were any of those things.
Instead Mag-he, without the aid of any house carls, had prepared a roast turkey with sage stuffing, whipped potatoes, and candied sweet potatoes. Jorund had no idea what a potato was until Mag-he explained that it was a root vegetable, like a turnip. How one went about whipping a root, he could not even guess. There was also corn—another vegetable he'd never witnessed before—cranberry sauce—which caused his eyes to narrow and his belly to knot up because it had the same jiggly texture as that hated jail-low from the Rainbow hospitium— bread, butter, milk, and pumpkin pie.
Another thing he did not miss from his time was the often smelly, vermin-infested rushes on the floor. It was a constant struggle on the part of womenfolk to keep them fresh with juniper and dried herbs. Here there were luxurious carpets... thick as the plushest wool fleece. But then, hounds did not abound indoors here, grousing about for bones and relieving themselves hither and yon. Just an irksome cat that had its own privy box. The insufferable Rita had taken to following him about, giving him the evil eye. He would consider cleaving the bothersome beast from its hissing mouth to its twitching tail if he did not recognize the misplaced affection these three females held for the fat cat.
He started to reach for a piece of bread, then pulled his hand back abruptly when Beth made a cautionary tug on his sleeve. Beth was the name of one twin, he had learned; Sue-zee was the other. Jorund was not devoid of social graces, but he felt so awkward in this strange country whose customs he was yet learning. Even the use of a fork still came clumsily to him.
"We have to say grace firt," Beth informed him as she took his hand.
Grace? Who is Grace? Jorund glanced behind him to see if another person had come in, or worse yet, another bothersome cat.
Sue-zee took his hand on the other side. Then both girls joined hands with their mother at the other end of the table.
Jorund closed his eyes briefly at the wave of poignant memory that swept over him at the feel of two tiny hands engulfed by his. The entire hand of each of them barely covered his palm.
And the skin... ah, the skin was softer than the film on his mother's thick cream.
Dismayed, he opened his eyes to see the girls gazing at him with what could only be described as... adoration. Adoration! That caused him to be even more dismayed. What had he done to earn such adoration? Nothing. He did not deserve—nor did he want—such sentiments. Really, they were pathetic little creatures in their need for a father figure, he concluded. Any man would have suited, At least, that was what he told himself. But deep down, he suspected the only pathetic one in this picture was a Viking who was quaking in his boots... or rather, his cloth running shoes.
"Dear God, bless this food we are about to eat.... " Mag-he began.
Oh. Grace must be a prayer.
"And let us give thanks for all the bounty you have given us this year."
"Amen," the three of them said at once.
The only bounty I've been given is a kick in the arse through time to a land of lackwits, he thought ungraciously, and tried to tug free of the girls' hands, but the little imps held on tenaciously. Now that they had him, they were not about to let him go.
"Now let's begin our annual ritual," Mag-he told her daughters. They nodded, but first Mag-he elaborated to him: "Each Thanksgiving we list the things we are most thankful for from the past year.
Holy bloody hell!
"I'm thankful that no more killer whales were captured last year," Beth, the gentle twin, said.
Huh? What an odd sentiment! I would think a child her age would be thankful for a new pair of slippers, or a riband. But a whale's noncapture?
"I'm thankful that I passed math this quarter," Sue-zee proclaimed with a brash smile at her mother.
"What is this math?" Jorund asked.
"Numbers. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing. Yuck!" Sue-zee explained with disgust.
"Ah," he said with understanding. "I know exactly how you feel. Ever did I have trouble with my numbers as a child. Likewise, my brother Magnus of the Big Ears. The priest who was hired to tutor us nigh pulled his hair out with frustration... what little there was on his bald tonsured pate. My brother Rolf the Shipbuilder was the scholar... he fostered in the Saxon court, but I was destined for the battlefield, even as a youth ling, and..." His words trailed off as he realized that everyone was gaping at him... and that he'd interrupted the thanking ritual.
Mag-he spoke next. "I'm thankful that I got my doctorate degree finally, and that I'm now a full fledged psychologist."
Jorund thought her efforts might have been better directed toward more traditional female tasks... like begetting more children, especially boys—there was always a need for more young men to go off to battle or build ships or plow fields. With a grin, he decided not to share those sentiments with her. She would no doubt call him a male show-vein-is pig, just as Reva had called Josh one day a few weeks ago. Or perchance she would clout him on the side of the head, as his mother was wont to do with his father when he pronounced what she called "male blather" or "ale talk."
Sue-zee spoke again. "I'm thankful Joe came home."
"Me, too," Beth said.
Oh, no! No, no, no, no! Do not be thankful for me. And do not call this my home. I am just a wayfarer passing through. The only reason Jorund kept these sentiments to himself was that he'd promised Mag-he not to hurt her daughters.
He looked at her for help.
Mag-he just nodded her head, seemingly at a loss for words, too. Why didn't she correct her daughters? It was her job to steer the children's thinking toward  the right path.
On the other hand, Mag-he might also be thankful that he had "come home." More likely, she was thanking her One-God that she had peaked three times the night before under Jorund's expert fingers. She should be thanking her One-God that Jorund was going to bring her even more pleasure at the first opportunity. He knew that he was thanking the gods that she was a woman with enthusiasm for bed sport. He could not wait till he showed her the renowned Viking S-spot. She would be more thankful than she'd ever been in all her life, he would warrant.
"Actually," Beth began, "it was really the Vikings who discovered America. So we should probably be thankful today for the Vikings."
"Funny you should mention that. I had forgotten. You know, that Leif Eriksson was a barmy fellow...just like his father Erik the Red. I remember one time he..." Jorund's words trailed off as he realized that Mag-he was staring at him with dismay. He assumed he was not supposed to be speaking of his ancient past around her children.
"What are you thankful for, Joe?" Sue-zee asked.
Caught was his first thought. He'd been caught having lewd thoughts in the midst of a family event. His mother really would have clouted him now, having an intuition concerning her boys' lustful fantasies, even when they were no longer boys. His eyes went involuntarily to Mag-he's shert front—made of another of those stretchy materials that he loved—which clearly delineated her nipples.
She blushed, sensing his wayward thoughts, then frowned in warning.
"I'm thankful I'm alive," he blurted out, grasping at the first thing he could think of. When he saw the expression of disappointment on their faces, he added, "I thank the gods that they have given me a family with whom to share this special day."
 
Jorund wished he were dead.
He was strapped into a metal box, with Beth and Sue-zee on either side of him, and they were in the midst of riding a metal monster called 'the Comet,' or 'the Vomit,' depending on which child was speaking. Sue-zee was laughing gaily. Beth was tapping her fingers with boredom, much preferring another trip to the orca park, where there had been not one single message from Thora. And Jorund was holding on to the front bar with white knuckles, his Thanksgiving turkey in his throat, along with the candy apple and cotton candy and root-beer Slurpee he'd just consumed. If his brother, Magnus, ever heard that he'd consumed a beverage called a Slurpee he would roll on the rush floor with laughter.
Mag-he—the coward, or the wise woman, depending on one's perspective—was standing down below, waving up at them. He was going to wave something at her, like a birch rod, if he ever survived this ordeal. She should have warned him about the danger of this amusement ride, which he thought was ill-named. There was nothing amusing about putting oneself into a metal box that rode up one hill, then down another, higher and higher into the sky, sometimes upside down, then hurled the passengers straight down at excessive speed till their stomachs lurched and rose to their bulging eyeballs. Then the procedure was repeated over and over again. It was insanity, pure and simple.
They ought to establish a Rainbow Hospitium right in the midst of this chaos.
If Mag-he ever again dared to refer to him as a type-tea personality, he intended to set her crooked mind straight. There might very well be men—or women, or children for that matter—who enjoyed great thrills by making their hearts nigh stop beating, but he was not one of them. In truth, a Saracen horse soldier had once put a scimitar to his throat while dangling him off the side of a cliff, and Jorund had not felt such fright as on this rolling hell-ride.
Why could they not have stayed at Mag-he's home and watched football—a brutal game more to his liking, where grown men tried to beat each other's brains out—on the tee-vee box? It was the custom of most Americans in this land on this day. But no, these three lackbrains had to make one last trip to the Orcaland park before it closed for the winter.
Soon—though not soon enough for Jorund's satisfaction—they emerged from the demented ride. He staggered on weak legs over to a bench, where he plopped down and put his face between his outspread knees. Sue-zee sat down beside him and exclaimed happily, "Wow! That was so cool. Can we do it again?"
He raised his head slightly and slanted her a look that he hoped conveyed his feelings on the subject. He was afraid that, if he spoke aloud, foul words would spew from his mouth.
"Can we go on the Ferris wheel now?" Beth asked her mother, who sat down on his other side and stared at him with concern.
"What's a fair-ass wheel? Is it a fright machine, like the rolling coaster?"
"No," Mag-he said with a short laugh. "Even I am not afraid of the Ferris wheel."
So they walked over to another area, where the girls quickly jumped into another metal box. He and Mag-he followed in the next box. If Jorund hadn't been so disoriented by the effects of the rolling coaster, he would have paid more attention to his surroundings. It was only as the fair-ass wheel began to move, backward and upward, that he let his gaze roam skyward and saw just how high this fair-ass wheel was. Enormous. Then he glanced down at the fence that enclosed the fair-ass wheel arena where a sign clearly proclaimed, World's Largest Ferris Wheel.
That was all Jorund needed to learn. "You people are barmy," he declared, unbuckling his seat belt. He began to climb out of his metal box, which was already high up in the air.
"Joe! You can't do that," Mag-he cried out. "Come back here."
"Way to go!" Sue-zee, the bloodthirsty little type-tea, was cheering.
"Be careful," Beth shouted down to where he was dangling from the slow-rising box. Despite her concern, it was obvious she was enjoying his wild antics, too.
"Joe, you have to stay on the Ferris wheel till it stops," Mag-he informed him with chagrin.
"Not bloody likely," he said, equally chagrined, swinging an arm out to grasp at a metal supporting pole, which he used to shinny down to the ground.
"You crazy son of a bitch!" the machine operator was screaming, practically frothing at the mouth. He had a front tooth missing and a bulge in his cheek.
"You are fortunate I do not have my sword with me," Jorund retorted as he landed on his feet with a thud.
"Well, sword this, buddy," the fellow hollered recklessly, meanwhile sticking a middle finger in the air.
Normally Jorund would have ignored the scrawny know-nothing, but he had learned from his friend Steve just what this gesture meant. He could not let the insult pass.
"Nay, I prefer to do this." Jorund said, shooting him a sharp punch in the mouth, thus loosening another tooth.
Needless to say, they were soon evicted from the amusement park. But Jorund did not care... he had had enough amusement for one day.
That night Joe was in the den, buffing his sword with a soft cloth and a jar of her silver cream. He claimed that fresh blood as in battlefield blood was the finest polish for "a warrior's best friend," but Maggie didn't know if he was kidding or not. She certainly wasn't about to open a vein to find out.
"Are the girls abed?" he asked, without glancing up from his task. She had been standing in the doorway and hadn't realized he'd been aware of her presence. She stepped into the room now and wished he'd put the sword aside. The fact that he felt the need to keep the weapon in tip-top shape bespoke a time when he would be leaving them.
"Yes, but they're still so overexcited by their day with you that I doubt they'll be asleep anytime soon."
She saw the muscles in his jaw go rigid. "Thank you for being so kind to them. I know they were a pain in the neck, clinging to you, and... well, I appreciate your... uh, tolerance."
"They were just being youthlings, no different from... from other children their age."
She knew that he had been about to say they were no different from his own daughters. Why wouldn't he talk about his girls? Greta and Girta, he'd told her reluctantly, but he almost never mentioned them by name. The psychologist in Maggie recognized that Joe would never heal until he faced his loss head-on. It was a necessary part of the grieving process. And how about his wife? It was even stranger that he shut her out of his mind. He must have loved her very much.
"Do you know what your daughters said to me when I went up to look at their wishing star tonight?"
"What?" Maggie braced herself for the worst.
" 'I wish you were my daddy.' That is what they said, Mag-he."
Yep. The worst. "I told them not to say stuff like that to you, but I guess... well, I guess they can't help themselves. Don't get bent out of shape over it. Hey, next week they'll be hoping that whale trainer at Orcaland is their father, or some hotshot movie star, or..." Her words trailed off at the disbelieving look Joe leveled at her. They both knew this was not a passing fancy on her girls' part. "So what did you say to them?"
"I told them that, by necessity, I could stay in this land only for a short time."
"And?" she prodded.
He released a long-breath. "And then Beth asked if I would be their daddy just while I am in this land... at least till after the yule season."
"Oh, Joe! And what did you say to that?"
"Naught... I said naught. I was saved by Sue- zee asking me if I could chop down a Christmas tree for them. I said that I could indeed chop down a tree, though why they would want me to do so is beyond my understanding."
Maggie laughed then and sat down next to Joe on the couch. Briefly she explained the tradition of Christmas trees. "You're lucky they didn't ask you for firewood and snow, as well."
"You bring dead evergreen trees into your homes to celebrate Christ's birth?"
His eyes were wide with amazement.
"Yes, and we adorn them with bright lights and glittery balls and homemade  decorations."
"Now see, that is the strange thing about your land, Mag-he. You deem a man demented because he rides atop a whale naked, but you see naught wrong with people voluntarily putting their lives at risk on rolling coasters and fair-ass wheels, or worshiping dead trees. I ask you, who is truly insane?"
She smiled and put a hand on his arm, about to squeeze it in playful remonstrance when she felt the heat emanating from him. It was only then that she noticed the flush on his face as well. Was it a sunburn? She put a hand to his forehead and gasped. He was burning up. This was no mere sunburn.
"Joe, why didn't you tell me you're not feeling well?"
"Dost have a hearing problem, m'lady? I told you after eating all those sweets at the amusement park that my stomach was rebelling. Riding that metal monster just churned it up more. Of course I am unwell."
She left and came back with a thermometer. "Lift your tongue and let this rest in your mouth for a
minute or so. I need to check your temperature."
"Temperature?"
"Body heat."
"Oh, I can assure you that I am hot. For you."
He waggled his eyebrows at her with a halfhearted attempt at humor.
"Not that kind of heat. Open your mouth."
"No."
"If you don't want to do it that way, I'll take you to a hospital, where they can take your temperature in another orifice. It's what they do with babies—and stubborn adults."
"You would not dare."
"Try me."
Reluctantly he opened his mouth for the thermometer, but the whole time he held it under his tongue, he glowered at her.
She soon discovered that he had a fever—one hundred and four. Forcing him to take two Tylenol, she helped him into the sofa bed and declined his request that she join him. The silly man wouldn't have been able to do anything in his condition anyway. Well, maybe he would, but she doubted he'd be up to his par.
Ridiculous thoughts.
She slept restlessly that night. When she awakened the next morning, she realized that she had reason for concern. Joe was almost delirious with a raging fever... now a whopping one hundred and five. She rushed him to the emergency clinic at a nearby medical center.
And there she discovered something even more alarming about Joe... something that would change her world forever.
The Bayside Medical Center released Joe the same day with a stash of antibiotics and extra strength painkillers.
Maggie suspected that the only thing keeping them from admitting him to the hospital was his lack of medical insurance. Despite her being part of the medical establishment, she had to agree with the majority of people in this country: the health-care industry and its concern with the bottom line was deplorable.
She had a hard time keeping the girls away from him in the den, which had been transformed into a sickroom. Finally Maggie sent them to a Saturday movie matinee with a girlfriend and her mother. By the time they returned at dinnertime and went upstairs to listen to tapes, Joe was sleeping restlessly. He was still extremely sick, though his temperature had gone down.
Then the telephone rang. "Joe Rand, please," a male voice on the other end of the line said.
"He's not available right now. Who's calling?"
"This is Dr. Zalvanchic from Bayside Medical Center."
"Joe is asleep right now. In fact, he's been sleeping since we left your office this morning. Is that OK? I mean, I assumed that sleep was the best thing for him. He still seems to have a fever, but his temperature has gone down a bit."
She had stopped at a pharmacy that morning and bought one of those high-priced thermometers that were placed in the ear, thus allowing her to check his temperature even while he slept.
"That's good. That's good. It means the antibiotic is working," the doctor said, but there was a note of worry in his voice.
"What are you keeping from me?" she demanded.
"Ms. McBride, what's your relationship to this man?"
She bristled. "Friend."
"Does he have any family nearby? Wife? Parents? Siblings?"
"No," she answered hesitantly. Why would he ask such questions? Was it a privacy issue? Or something more?
"Where's he from?"
Oh, God! How should she answer that? "Norway, I think."
"Hmmm."
"What's the problem, Doctor?"
"Well, you see, we've got a puzzle on our hands here. The lab work came back, and the blood tests show a rare strain of virus that I haven't seen ever, and I've been in practice for forty-odd years."
"It's not the flu?"
"It's most definitely not the flu."
An alarming thought occurred to her, something she should have considered immediately with two daughters in the house. "Is it contagious?"
"Not at this stage. Nothing to worry about .... there."
"Is it a serious wires?" Her throat closed over as she choked out, "Terminal?"
The doctor laughed softly. "No, nothing like that. It's just that this particular virus hasn't been around for hundreds of years... maybe even a thousand years."
"Huh? Hey, even I know that there were no blood tests back then."
"I realize that, but there were specific symptoms mentioned in some of the AngloSaxon medical journals for a disease called Seafarers' Lament. Mr. Rand's unusual symptoms fit that disease to a tee. And they don't fit any modern virus we have on record."
"Unusual symptoms? Like what?"
"Swelling in the armpit and groin areas. Distinctive blotches on the skin... pink patches with white dots. Tremors in the thighs. Excruciating headaches at the base of the skull. Shrinkage of the tongue. Dilation of the pupils with a purplish shading to the cornea. A red tint in the urine sample. In those days, the malady was most often fatal, but today... well, modern treatments should work. You say that he already appears to be improving? Well, it's pure luck that we hit on the right drug for his virus so quickly."
"Yes, but now I'm really worried."
"I think we should admit him to the hospital, if only for observation. I have colleagues at Johns Hopkins University who would love to study this chap."
Suddenly, in the midst of the information the physician was relaying, one thought came through loud and clear: Joe really was from the tenth century. No, she amended, Jorund really was who he had told her he was, though she'd have a hard time thinking of him as anything but Joe. The man was a time traveler from a thousand years ago.
How was that possible?
And, of more immediate importance, how could she subject him to the public scrutiny that would surely ensue if she allowed them to admit him to a hospital?
He would be like a freak on display.
But how could she not admit him if his life was in danger?
"Doctor, would it be possible for me to treat him here at home? I have some medical training, and as I told you, he already seems to be improving. Besides, he has no insurance and no money to pay for an expensive hospital stay."
"Well, I suppose. As long as you follow my instructions carefully, and call me, or my service, the minute you notice any changes for the worse, I suppose it would be all fight. To tell you the truth, we're understaffed here with the holiday weekend. Yes, I think your suggestion would be satisfactory... for now. I want to see him first thing Monday morning, though."
Maggie agreed, but what she thought was, No way! She would not go back to that hospital unless there were a medical emergency. After getting detailed directions from the doctor, Maggie went down the hall to the den once again. For a long time she sat on the edge of the bed, bathing Joe's face and chest and bare arms with cool cloths. The whole time, Maggie's mind reeled with the enormity of what she'd just discovered.
Joe really was a Viking.
 

Two weeks later...
 
"Can we stop at McDonald's." Joe asked from the passenger seat as her car zoomed by the popular fast-food restaurant.
Maggie had come home from work today to find Joe dressed and ready for a ride to Orcaland, which was closed for the season. He had wanted to stand by the fence and try to commune with some invisible whale off in the distance. Apparently the whale was out of range, or ignoring him.
Maggie had trouble accepting the fact that the man had telepathic talks with a whale. But then, she'd had trouble accepting him as a time traveler, too. That was an issue she hadn't yet discussed with him. She told herself she was avoiding the conversation till Joe was well, but deep inside, she was afraid that, if she spoke the words aloud, she would have to accept that they were really true. "Did you hear me? Stop at McDonald's."
"No!" she exclaimed much too loudly. The man was driving her batty with his constant requests... and questions—oh, yes, especially the questions. He was like a toddler who'd just learned to talk and couldn't stop jabbering.
His monologues usually went like this: "Drive me to the bay. Buy me some beer. What's a condom? Oh. Well, buy me some of those... several dozen, at least. No? Then sell my arm ring so I can have money of my own; I'll buy the damn condoms myself. Where's the TV Guide? Why can't I watch you shave your legs? What's wrong with practicing my swordplay in the living room... with Rita? Now, if I were practicing the trick my uncle, King Olaf, taught me, where I play with three swords at once, with one of them always being in the air... then you might have cause for concern. What's a thong? No, I did not lock Rita in the bathing room... really. Sit down and watch TV with me. It does not make you braindead. Is oral sex what I think it is? How do they get toilet paper on the roll? I'm randier than a goat. When are you going to make love with me?"
The last had become a continuing refrain, ever since he'd started to feel better. Most ridiculous of all his statements had been, "I would probably recuperate more quickly with a good swiving or two."
"You're too sick," she had told him.
"Then oral-sex me." The man was impossible. But that was then. Now his fixation was on food.
"Why can't we stop at McDonald's? The girls would be happy to have such provender." During the past two weeks of Joe's recuperation, he had somehow discovered Big Macs and french fries, for which he'd developed a passion. Even Beth, who was not normally a meat eater, had become addicted to the junk food, especially chicken nuggets.
"We're going to have dinner at home. It's important that my girls and I sit down at the table together for a home-cooked meal... at least occasionally."
He groaned. "We're not going to have that tough-you again, are we? It makes my stomach cramp. I do not want to hurt your feelings, dearling, but that stuff is worse than jail-low." Maggie could feel herself go dreamy-eyed every time he used the term dearling, and she suspected that he tossed it into conversations fairly often for just that purpose.
"It's tofu, and it's good for you."
"Bedplay is good for me, too, and I don't see you passing any of that about. I don't suppose"— he flashed her one of his devastating grins, the kind that he probably knew made her insides melt—"that you would come to my bed tonight and demonstrate thongs for me?" So, he had known what thongs were, after all. The lout! "Not a chance!"
He made a low sound of disgust and sank down in his seat so his head was resting on the seat back and his knees were raised in the cramped space.
"Besides, I need to talk with you, seriously," she said, further explaining her refusal to stop at the restaurant. "Since the girls will be late tonight— they have choir practice—I wanted some time alone with you."
"Alone?" He straightened and his face brightened with hope.
She shook her head at his persistence. "To talk."
He slumped again. "Serious talk?"
"Very serious."
"I'm not going to give you my sword."
"It's not that."
"I won't marry you."
She stiffened with insult, and the brute didn't even have the sense to know he'd offended her.
"Who asked you?"
"Females need forewarning about such things." Oooh! The man could make her go from happy to mad in two seconds flat. She clenched the steering wheel and refused to rise to his bait.
Then he turned his head to the side, still resting on the headrest, and winked at her.
Maggie's hormones kicked up a notch with just that wink. She pulled her car into the driveway and turned off the ignition. Only then did she tell him, "You are too good-looking for your own good, do you know that?"
"I know," he said, and dazzled her with another of his grins. They both unbuckled their seat belts but had yet to open their car doors. Out of the blue, he stated flatly, "You want me."
"Yep."
"But you are going to continue restraining those base impulses?"
"Yep."
" 'Tis not good for the temperament to—"
"Don't even bother with that line," she advised with a soft laugh. "It's as old as the hills, and as ineffective as a butter knife cutting an ice cube."
"I presume I would be the knife and you the ice?"
"Uh-huh," she replied hesitantly.
"Ah, but sometimes the knife is hot enough to melt the ice," he announced with a sweeping gesture of one hand toward his genital area.
"That was so bad." She wagged a finger at him reprovingly.
"I apologize for my crudity, m'lady. I can only attribute it to an overabundance of male need."
She laughed. "That line's as old as the hills, too: 'Testosterone made me do it.' "
"Kiss me," he commanded, leaning closer. All humor had left his face.
And God help her... despite the seriousness of all she needed to discuss with him, Maggie yielded to the demand. He angled his head over hers and put a hand to her throat, just where a slow pulse beat her erotic response to his nearness.
She pressed her lips to his, and let him master her into wet, clinging compliancy. Then he forced her lips open with his thrusting tongue.
The kiss was short... just long enough for him to prove his point: this Viking was hot.
 
"You are a Viking," she accused.
They were sitting at her kitchen table. Mag-he was sipping a cup of herb tea in a delicate porcelain cup... raspberry, he would guess by the fruity scent. He was sipping a beer, straight from the can.
"Of course I am a Viking. Have I not been telling you such since I first landed in this godforsaken country?" Then the implications of her words sank in. "Do you now believe that I have time traveled here?"
"Yes... no... I don't know what to believe."
She released a long sigh. "Actually, I do accept now that you are who you claim to be. The logical side of my brain says it can't be true, but I do believe in miracles. So that's the explanation I choose to give for it."
"You consider me a miracle?"
"In a way."
He laughed. "See, wench, we really should engage in bed sport. We would no doubt make miraculous love."
She laughed, too. "While I'm thinking of it, Joe... You don't mind my calling you Joe, do you? I've referred to you that way for so long that Jorund would come hard to my tongue."
"I rather like the idea of coming hard to your tongue."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," she said.
"In any case, it matters not whether you call me Joe or Jorund."
"What I started to say was that you really shouldn't refer to a woman as a wench. It's sexist... comparable to the word babe."
"Babe, wench... I prefer to think of those as endearments of a sort... like heartling." If she believed that, he had a sunny beach on a northern fjord he would like to show her. "But tell me why you now believe my story, but would not afore."
She explained... a complicated tale involving the physician who had healed him and Seafarers' Lament. It was a malady he was already familiar with: his cousin and two of his brother Rolf's sailors had died of it three years past. No doubt he'd contracted the disease from that bloody whale, Thora, who'd made him ride atop her back in the cold, disease-ridden seas.
"Tell me about yourself," she urged all of a sudden.
"What do you wish to know?"
"Everything."
"I already told you everything afore."
"I wasn't listening closely then."
He gave her an exaggerated glower. "There is not much to say, to my mind. I am one of four living children born to Eric Tryggvason, a high jarl of Norway, and Lady Asgar, a Christian of Saxon birth who has adopted the northern ways these many years."
Mag-he stared at him, transfixed, her chin propped in the cup of two hands, her elbows resting on the table, her tea forgotten. "You've already mentioned your older brother Magnus, the farmer. He's the one with the big ears and an overabundance of women and children, right?"
"The selfsame once." He missed his brother, just speaking of him. Had Magnus returned to Norway by now? Jorund hoped he had not stayed at sea searching for him.
"And you've also talked of your younger brother, Rolf... the one you were searching for. A shipbuilder, you said. But who was the fourth sibling?"
"My sister, Katla. She was married a dozen or more years ago, at age thirteen, to a Viking prince from Normandy. I have not seen her in many a year, though I hear that she fares well."
"Thirteen! Your sister was married at age thirteen?"
He shrugged. "Women wed young in my land. Their lives are not usually as long as those of women in your country. Mostly they die of childbirth fever. 'Tis the reason why my ancestors first began the practice of more danico, I warrant."
"More danico meaning polygamy, I presume?"
"True, but let us not argue that issue again. Suffice it to say, the countries and the times are different."
"Tell me about your wife."
He stiffened.
"Did you love her hopelessly? Do you miss her still?"
He put a hand to his chin and rubbed thoughtfully. "I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but Inga was a conniving witch. She and her brothers decided that I would make a suitable husband, based on my wealth and that of my father. So they invited me to a feast and showered me with mead. The next morn, I found myself with a big head and a naked woman in my bed... no longer a virgin. Inga, that is... not me. Soon after, I was forced to announce the wedding banns when Inga's monthly flow stopped and she was breeding."
"Surely you can't lay all the blame on her."
"I did then, but I mellowed toward her later. After all, most marriages are arranged in my time. And woe to the party who will not comply. I recall the time King Olaf wanted his sister, Astrid, to wed Erling Skjalgson, a man of good lineage and fine looks. But Astrid refused since Erling was not a prince, of equal station to her. The next day, so wroth was Olaf that he had Astrid's pet hawk taken from her, and he returned it to her that eventide with all the feathers plucked off. Needless to say, Astrid soon agreed to the marriage."
Mag-he was staring at him in horror. "That's awful."
"Nay. That is life in my land."
"Back to your own marriage—did you ever forgive Inga?"
"Yea. In time. She was young. I was old enough to know better. And besides, she gave me a great gift."
"Your twin daughters," she guessed.
"Yea, that she did." He did not want to speak of them. It was too painful. But Mag-he was like a puppy tugging on a man's boot. She would not let up. "I was there at the birthing... which is not the usual practice in my land. I saw them first, as they emerged from the womb, wrinkled and blue and more beautiful than anything I had ever seen afore, or since."
"You loved them from the start then?"
He nodded. For the first time in a long time, he allowed his memories to spill forth. "In many ways, Greta and Girta are similar to your twins. Girta was a daredevil, as you say in modern language... outspoken and adventuresome. Greta was the gentler soul, but willing to try anything her sister dared her to. They loved me unconditionally. I loved them madly."
Mag-he reached out a hand and squeezed one of his. There were tears in her eyes... and his as well, he realized with mortification. Vikings were not supposed to cry. He wiped at the tears. "I let them die. For that I will be eternally guilty. 'Tis probably the reason for my punishment... being banished into another time. I am not even welcome in Valhalla."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she said ferociously, in that husky voice he so appreciated. "Don't you dare blame yourself. Bad things happen. It's no one's fault."
He would like to believe her. He really would. But enough of his spewing forth his confidences. "'Tis your turn. Now that you have opened a hole in my chest and let my heart hang out, tell me about yourself. What are your secrets? Why have you never married?"
"Well, the reason I never married is because Suzy and Beth's father didn't have marriage in his plans. When I told him I was pregnant, he suggested that I abort the babies."
"Kill them in the womb?" It was not unheard-of in his time, but a deplorable practice, nonetheless... especially to Vikings, who prized children above all else.
"Yes. Oh, I try to be tolerant of him, but it's hard for me to look at my girls and accept that he never wanted them."
"Perchance he would have changed his mind on seeing them birthed, as I did."
"Maybe, but I don't think so. He had all these things he wanted to do with his life. Children—and me, for that matter—wouldn't have fit in. He wanted to become a famous, wealthy surgeon. Set a record for skydiving. Climb the highest mountains. Race cars. Scuba dive. Whatever. Always a new challenge."
"And were you a challenge to him?"
Her eyes went wide with surprise. "How perceptive of you! Yes, I think I was. I was a virgin when I met Judd... a twenty-one-year-old virgin. You have to understand my background to see why I was ripe for the kill. I developed earlier than most girls my age. Breasts and curves at age twelve were not welcome, believe me."
"I like your breasts... and your curves... especially your fine arse."
She flashed him a glare of reprimand for interrupting her... and for liking her breasts and arse, no doubt.
"Kids can be cruel, and some boys started calling me a slut. And other girls made assumptions that, if I had the visible manifestations of a sexpot, then that's what I must be."
A sexpot? Oh, that must be a woman who spreads her favors hither and yon. Like Rosalyn.
"Today it would be called sexual harassment. But then, teachers and my parents just put it down to harmless teasing. Well, it wasn't harmless."
"You never mention your parents. Where are they now?"
"They died when I was fifteen. That didn't help, either... having no one to confide in, except the elderly aunt I went to live with. She has since died, too. The only family I have is my girls; so you can see why I am so grateful for them."
He nodded. "Go on."
"I got a severe throat infection when I was thirteen, which changed the tenor of my voice. A sex voice, you called it. My classmates did, too. I started wearing clothes that hid my body, and I rarely spoke, unless spoken to, but by then it was too late. I got a reputation without ever having any of the fun... not that I would have considered sex fun at that early stage. All of these repressions lasted through high school."
"Where did you meet this Mud person?"
"Not Mud... Judd," she corrected with a little laugh.
"My mistake," he said, stone-faced.
But she could tell it had been deliberate. "In college. During my senior year. Oh, he was smooth. I give him credit for one thing, though: he brought me out of my shell and made me see that my sensuality belonged to me, and no one else... that I shouldn't care what anyone else thought of my body or my voice. So I started to dress differently and act the way my personality dictated."
"He took advantage of you," Jorund observed with disgust.
"I suppose he did, but he did help me in some ways, too. I can't believe that I never thought of it that way before. And for all his bad traits, he gave me Suzy and Beth, and for that I have to be thankful."
"And did you love him hopelessly?" He was throwing back at her the same question she had asked of him earlier.
She shook her head. "No. I thought I loved him then, of course. I wouldn't have opened myself to him unless I did. But, in the end, I wasn't all that upset when he didn't want to marry me... except for the girls' sakes. And fortunately I had a trust fund from my parents and a small inheritance from my aunt, which allowed me to finish grad school and take care of my children. Lots of single parents aren't so lucky." She gazed off into the air, tucking away some memory or other, he supposed. Then she concluded, "So that's my story."
"Can we go to bed now?"
She laughed, no longer somber with remembrance. "Stop teasing me."
Jorund hadn't been teasing. After all they had disclosed to each other, he really would have liked to hold her in his arms. And swive her a time or two, he supposed. The time was not right, she had told him on more than one occasion, and he did not know if that right time would ever come. Bloody hell!
"Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Joe, let's get down to what I really wanted to talk with you about."
"More talking?"
"More talking."
The woman talks entirely too much.
He groaned.
"Joe, we have to discuss the implications of this time-travel stuff. I've been thinking "
The woman thinks entirely too much.
"I don't believe this was a random time traveling."
"Random time traveling? What the hell is that?"
"It's a phrase I came up with myself," she admitted sheepishly. "If it was random, it would mean that it could have happened to anyone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Like your brother Magnus, for example, who stood right next to you. Also, it would mean that the time traveler could have ended up anywhere and in any time, not necessarily in Galveston, and not necessarily in the year two thousand. Do you see what I mean?"
"I'm beginning to," he answered. And that is not a good sign. "In other words, there must have been a specific reason why I was sent, and where I was sent."
"Right."
"So, what's that reason?"
"I haven't a clue. Do you?"
He pondered the puzzle for a few moments. "All I can think of is that it's too much of a coincidence that I lost twin girls and that I came to a place where there were twin girls."
She tapped her fingers on the table pensively. "I agree. The girls' wishing on a star, or praying, or whatever, must have brought you here."
He nodded. "They seem to have great need of me."
He saw that she would have liked to argue that point. But then her shoulders slumped.
"Of course, you have great need of me, too. Did you perchance wish for me upon a star, too?"
"I did not!" she declared vehemently, but her words were belied by the blush on her fair cheeks. "The most important thing to me isn't why you came, but what will happen to the girls when you leave... as you most assuredly will."
Jorund wasn't as certain of that as she was. "I suspect I will not be returned to my time to complete my father's mission until I have accomplished some mission here. It will not happen of a sudden, without forewarning; I am convinced of that."
"I just don't want my girls to be hurt."
"Methinks you are overly protective."
Her chin shot up in the air, as if he had struck her. "Mag-he, all your life you have tried to control life, which is an impossibility. You tried to control your sensuality as a youthling. You thought you could control a man in your first relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if you avoid men today for fear of not being in control. And you try to control your daughters too much. Part of growing up is being hurt and learning to handle the pain."
Her eyes were welling over at his harsh assessment.
"I do not mean to offend you, m'lady."
"You aren't," she said with a little sob. "Much of what you say I already knew, deep down."
"The bottom line, as you people say in this land, is that you must ask yourself this question: Would your daughters be better off not knowing me at all? Or would it be better for them to have had me in their lives, even for a short time?"
Jorund couldn't believe he was actually speaking of playing a part in those little girls' lives. If ever there was a disaster waiting to happen to his already broken heart, it was Sue-zee and Beth.
"How did you get to be so smart?" she asked, dabbing at her eyes with a tish-you.
"I'm a Viking."
 
"I don't believe it!"
It was a Saturday afternoon, two weeks later, when Maggie arrived home from a half-day mental-health conference in Dallas. She'd known that Joe was bored, staying home, with no job. There wasn't a big call for Viking warriors in the work force. But never in a million years had she expected this.
There was a hole in the side of her house. A huge hole. And Joe, dressed in jeans and a sweaty T-shirt, despite the mid-December chill, was wielding the sledgehammer that has caused the damage.
No, that wasn't quite true. Steve was there, too, driving a small backhoe. What was he doing here... out in public? The press had been hounding him for weeks, ever since that reporter had recognized him at the Moving Wall. He'd even moved into the hospital temporarily, to protect his much-wanted privacy.
Maggie glanced around her yard. It wasn't just Steve who was there. There were Suzy and Beth, too, along with several other outpatients from Rainbow, including Natalie, Rosalyn, Harvey, Chuck, and Fred. They were all helping to remove the debris—debris that was actually the side of her house—and putting it in a Dumpster. A Dumpster? Where did that Dumpster come from?
Fred, dressed as a Village People version of a carpenter, was looking full of himself in a hard hat and tool belt as he followed Joe's orders. Harvey was off to the side counting the number of two-by-fours in one pile and round rocks in another pile, then tabulating his results on an official job-site clipboard.
Chuck was being an elephant today, swinging his loose arms forward like a trunk as he carried large pieces of siding to the Dumpster; Maggie, who still had not diagnosed Chuck's real problem, was not surprised to see the words on the bright young man's shirt: It is as bad as you think, and they are out to get you. Natalie was singing, of course, as she fetched and carried, and Rosalyn looked surprisingly fetching in tight jeans and a T-shirt that proclaimed, Librarians Do It by the Book.
And, oh, good Lord, was that Nurse Hatcher in coveralls and workman's boots, appearing for all the world as if she could take down Maggie's entire house with just a huff and a puff? She was avidly listening to something Fred the Carpenter was telling her. Oh, no! It wasn't possible. Was it? A love connection between Gladys and Fred?
"What do you think you're doing?" Maggie gritted her teeth as she stomped over and confronted Joe.
His head jerked up with surprise. "Mag-he! I thought you weren't going to be home till dinner time.
"My meetings ended early."
"We wanted to surprise you," he complained in a little-boy voice.
She felt like spanking his behind, like a little boy deserved. What did one do to a misbehaving big boy? Whack him on the butt with a two-by-four? There were plenty of them lying around.
"Surprise!" everyone yelled at once, belatedly. Maggie turned around to see the entire motley crew, including her two grimy daughters, gazing at her expectantly, as if they expected her to congratulate them.
As if! "What is this mess?" she asked, turning back to Joe, who set his sledgehammer aside and was wiping his brow with the back of a forearm. She was trying hard to stifle her fury, for the sake of her daughters, who'd never seen their mother lose her cool. Yet.
"Fireplace," Joe announced. "I'm building your daughters a fireplace."
"Huh?" A fireplace? "What next? Igloos in Florida?"
"Tsk-tsk! Dost think sarcasm is called for, Maghe?"
Maggie gave her daughters her full attention now, and they had the good sense to step back a pace, sensing her disapproval.
"We just mentioned to Joe that we've never had a fireplace," Suzy explained in the whimpery voice that usually meant tears were about to flow.
"And we told him how every Christmas we have to hang our stockings on the living room archway, 'cause we don't have a fireplace," Beth added. Her voice was small and weepy, too.
"Where did you get the money for all this?" she demanded of Joe. There had to be hundreds of dollars' worth of building materials scattered about her lawn, not to mention the rental of the backhoe. "I sold one of my arm rings to Martie."
She looked at his upper arms. Sure enough, one of the bracelets was gone.
"Martie?"
"Yea. Martie Wilson. Remember, you told me one day that Dock-whore Sea-bold's lover—"
She inhaled sharply with distress. "I never told you they were lovers."
He waved a hand dismissively. "You told me that Dock-whore Sea-bold's woman-friend was a trader in antiquities. I called her shop, and she came over to make me an offer yestereve when you took the girls to choir practice. She wanted my sword, but I could not sell her that. A warrior's weapon is his boon companion."
A headache the size of his boon companion hit Maggie like... like his sledgehammer.
"Besides, in my world, jewelry is treated the same as coin. Why else would I be wearing arm rings? Do you think I am so vain I adorn myself when going into battle, or on a seafaring voyage to rescue my brother?"
Maggie didn't know what to think. "You shouldn't have sold the arm ring, Joe. It was a prized possession."
"Pfff! A mere object! 'Tis not as if I sold a limb, or anything so dire."
"How much did she give you? Are you sure you got a fair price?"
"Seventy-five thousand dollars."
"S-seventy-five thousand dollars!" she said in a squeal.
"Yea, and you are not to worry. Methinks Martie is an honest woman. Sometimes 'tis necessary to trust, don't you think?" His words obviously had a double meaning. "Are you not surprised?" he inquired then, proud of himself as he waved a hand in a wide sweep to encompass the horrendous hole in her house.
The man is clueless.
Then he plastered a slow grin on his face for good measure... the one he knew made her insides turn to mush.
Well, maybe not so clueless.
"Surprised doesn't begin to describe how I feel."
She put a hand to her forehead and counted to ten. "Do you even know how to build a fireplace, Joe?"
"Of course." He then ducked his head sheepishly. "Well, actually, I have ne'er built one afore, but how hard could it be? Besides, Steve said he helped his brother-by-marriage construct one twenty years ago."
"Twenty years ago!"
"And the man at the Home Station—"
"Home Depot," Steve corrected.
"The man at the Home Deep-oh," Joe amended, "gave us detailed diagrams."
"I used to be a construction foreman," Fred added, puffing his chest out importantly.
"You were?" they all exclaimed as one.
His face turned bright red, even his balding head under the hard hat.
"Well, why did you not say so afore?" Joe exhaled with disgust, and handed his sledgehammer to Fred, who almost dropped the heavy object, apparently not prepared for its excessive weight.
So, by Sunday night, Maggie McBride and her two daughters had a stone fireplace in their den. And, though she hated to admit it to Joe, it was really pretty nice.
Even though Christmas was still two weeks off, stockings had already been hung with care... four of them. Suzy and Beth had insisted that Maggie go down to the craft store and have one made with Joe's name on it, identical to the three they had already. Of course, there was a paw shaped stocking for Rita, too.
She was still going to kill Joe the minute she caught him alone. He had been avoiding her like the plague. Smart man. But now she'd cornered him. He was alone in the den, basking in the glow of the fire and his newfound family.
"Uh-oh," he said when he saw her. He pretended to cringe with fright. "Despite the warmth of my surroundings, I can feel the very coolness emanating from you, Mag-he."
"You've been avoiding me all day," she accused. To her surprise, he nodded. "I am not a Viking for naught. I know when to stay out of a woman's path. Only a fool could fail to see the murderous gleam in your eyes. You would like naught more than to put a blood ring 'round my neck."
"I couldn't have said it better myself. The fire place was a nice gesture, Joe, but you are never, ever to do anything like that again without my permission."
"My brother Rolf advocated never asking for permission first. He said 'tis better to do the act, then apologize later, but he was probably talking about something involving sex."
Maggie wagged a forefinger with exasperation. "Don't try to change the subject on me. Give me your word that this won't happen again."
He gave her an amused, level stare, then agreed. "Whatever you say, dearling."
But Maggie wasn't fooled, not one bit.
Joe had other plans.
 
Joe had a job.
The takeover of the Rainbow Hospital by Medic-All had been finalized the week before. Thus far there were no visible changes in staff or policy, but Maggie knew they were sure to come after the New Year.
Whether she would stay or not depended on how the experimental programs she'd initiated were handled. If they went, she went. Unlike some employees, she was fortunate to have a sizable nest egg that would allow her to live for an extended period without a paycheck, if need be. She hoped it wouldn't come to that.
But the most surprising thing was that Jerome Johnson, president and CEO of Medic-All, had remembered Joe the Viking in a positive way. When he'd learned, last week, that Joe was no longer a patient, he had urged Rainbow to hire him to restructure its physical-fitness program. Apparently, when Jerome urged, everyone followed his wishes. So now Joe was about to start running the program three days a week, beginning today. And he was ordering everyone about as if he were a... well, a military leader.
"Why can't we give fencing lessons?" he was asking Harry in the Monday-afternoon staff meeting.
"Because this is a mental hospital, damnit," Harry snapped. "We don't give lethal weapons to patients. And that's final." Her boss usually didn't lose his temper, but Joe had already demanded new rowing machines, a running track, and bowling balls, which he referred to as catapult balls, and bowling lanes, which he referred to as huffing tracks. Amazingly, Harry had agreed, having been given a slightly higher budget from Medic All for this purpose.
When the meeting was over, Harry gave her a meaningful glare, which she interpreted as, "Keep that man out of my way."
"Hurry up, Mag-he," Joe urged as they walked down the corridor. "We have to pick up Sue-zee and Beth after school soon. You know that I promised the girls we would go out in the woods and chop down a Christmas tree today."
She groaned, having forgotten. "I still say my artificial tree would serve just fine."
The expression on his face said the issue was settled.
"I don't suppose you will be angry if I tell you that I bought you a little gift." He spoke hesitantly as they approached the parking lot.
"Joe, I already told you that I disapprove of your selling your arm ring. And I certainly don't want you buying me stuff with that money. Furthermore—Oh, no!" Maggie gawked, practically bug-eyed, at the parking lot. "You didn't. Please tell me you didn't."
He smiled brightly at her. "How could we go yule-tree chopping with your piddling vehicle?"
He had.
Sitting next to her Volvo was a brand-new red pickup truck.
 
It was going to be the best Christmas ever.
Maggie was sitting beside Joe on the sofa in the den, where their newly decorated, wonderfully pungent, way-too-big Christmas tree held center stage, with the crackling fire in the new fireplace providing just the right ambience.
Of course, the windows were open to offset the heat. She couldn't stay mad at the brazen brute when he'd given her—and her girls—such wonderful gifts for the season. Just the shine in Suzy's and Beth's eyes when she'd tucked them in a few moments ago... well, it made up for all the aggravation Joe gave her. And he could be aggravating, no doubt about that.
"Thank you," she said.
"You are welcome," he answered, not even bothering to ask what for. Putting an arm across the back of the couch, he snagged her by the shoulders and pulled her into the cradle of his arm. Nuzzling her hair, with a soft murmur of, "Lilacs, mmmmm," he added, "I expect you will give me thanks with more than words... in time."
"In time," she emphasized. She didn't need to repeat to him her concern over Suzy and Beth.
She'd told him enough times in the past few weeks that she wouldn't engage in an affair in the same house with her daughters.
"I wonder if that time will ever come," he whispered against her ear.
She bristled and tried to pull away-not because of his words, but because of what he knew how to do with her oversensitive ears. Lordy, lordy, the man could set her afire with just a few breaths and some whispered words of wicked things he'd like to do with her.
"Will you take off your undergarments for me?" he suggested all of a sudden.
"Wh-what?"
"Now, do not go all atwitter on me. I am not suggesting we make love, precisely. I just want you to go into the bathing room and take off your undergarments. You said we could not make love with the girls in the house, and being a creative fellow, I have come up with a plan for having sexless sex."
"That's some creativity." Her nervous giggle betrayed her interest.
"Yea."
"It sounds a little... perverted."
"Yea," he concurred with a little smile.
"Joe," she protested.
"Now, sweetling, you can put your braies and sweat-her back on. But when you return, and sit here chattering about this and that, I will know you are naked for me beneath. You will be aware of me, and I of you. Perchance it will satisfy my baser instincts, for now. Do it."
Maggie had never heard of such a thing before. Certainly no man had ever suggested anything so... well, erotic.
To her surprise, she did as he asked, blushing even as she complied, alone, in the bathroom.
When she returned, Joe was sitting in one of the wing-back chairs beside the fireplace. He motioned for her to sit in the chair opposite him.
"Sit as I do," he directed in a husky voice. He moved his hands so that they clutched the wings at the top of the chair, and he spread his legs wide.
She followed suit.
Then he just stared at her for a long, long time. Under his intense, carnal scrutiny, the fine hairs rose to attention all over her body. Her nipples became hard, aching points, pressing against the suddenly heavy weight of her sweater.
Between her legs, hot liquid pooled in the swelling folds. With just a look, Joe made her want him... more than she'd ever wanted any other man.
A moan escaped her parted lips.
He moaned, too, in reaction, a low, male sound of pure temptation.
She thought he would smile then, his ego appeased that he had reduced her to this pathetic state with a mere stare... but he did not. Instead he held her gaze, communicating some seemingly serious message. Then he said, "I have wanted you from first time I set eyes on you."
"Oh," was the only response she could come up with. What a perfect thing for him to say! Had he sensed her need to hear those words... to justify her hair-trigger arousal?
"When I look at you, I want to make fierce love with you... to teach you with my callused hands and hard staff not to tease a fighting man."
Merciful heavens! She was picturing all the wonderful things those rough palms could do to her soft skin... how his hardness would feel inside her. A thrum of stimulation rippled through her and lodged between her legs like a sweet burn.
"I never teased—" she started to say.
He shook his head to stop her protests. "At the same time that I yearn for savage bedplay with you, I yearn as well for gentler things. Your head upon my chest. Our fingers laced. Soft kisses. Whispered words."
Maggie's heart felt as if it were ballooning inside her, and would surely burst with the pure joy of his declaration. Did he realize just what he was saying?
"These things frighten me, Mag-he," he confessed. "I am much more at ease with lust, you know."
She nodded, understanding perfectly.
"Arch your chest for me, Mag-he," he entreated.
She did. Without glancing down, she knew that her nipples were hard pebbles, clearly delineated by the thin knit of her sweater. And she did not care. For once in her life she was glad—very glad—that these overt signs of her sensuality were there for his enjoyment.
"Oh, Mag-he," he said with a long sigh. "Do you know how much I want to suckle you? I would take your breasts deep into my mouth and draw on your nipples till you cried out for release. I would worship your breasts for a long, long time."
She moaned aloud and gripped the chair wings tighter, arching her breasts out even farther so that the throbbing tips were caressed by the coarse threads of her sweater.
"Let us put an end to this delicious agony," he said in a voice choked with emotion. Maggie could see that he was as excited as she was. Joe took one hand off the back of his chair and laid it over the ridge in his pants. With a jerk of his head, he indicated that he wanted her to do the same.
"Find the bud of your woman-pleasure and stroke it so," he instructed as he ran his fingertips up and down his erection.
To her amazement, she did just as he wanted, and experienced no shame—just a glorious, spasming orgasm as she writhed on her chair under her own touch. As much satisfaction as she received, though, the greatest thing was watching Joe rear his head back, the cords in his neck standing out, and squeeze the chair arms with white knuckles as he rode his climax.
As Maggie's senses floated back to earth, she discovered something new: it was possible to have sex without physical contact from a lover.
And she could only wonder about something else: if this man could melt her bones and heat her blood and make her hormones hum with just this, what would it be like to actually make love with him?
Love with a Viking was getting harder and harder to resist.
 
On Friday night, Maggie had taken a bubble bath and donned her red silk robe.
Barefooted, she rushed downstairs to turn off the warming oven. She'd prepared a nice dinner, which she didn't want to dry out.
Joe still wasn't home. After working in the Rainbow facilities all afternoon, he had gone to a gym with Steve to experience something new to him: working out.
Joe claimed that everyday work for a Viking soldier was "working out." Still, he'd accepted Steve's invitation.
Just then she heard a car pull up outside, then leave, followed by the sound of a key in the door. She went into the hallway, waiting.
He entered and gazed at her for a long moment. As he hung his jacket in the closet, his movements slowed. He was clearly perplexed. "Where are the girls? I do not hear the Em-tee-vee blaring."
"Their grandparents arrived suddenly this afternoon... Judd's mother and father. Since the girls won't be staying with them over Christmas this year, Jack and Martha wanted them to come back to the farm for a visit."
"A visit?" he asked. "How long a visit?"
"The weekend."
"The weekend," he repeated. It took only an instant for understanding to dawn.
"And you left me sitting in a gym, bi-sigh-cling myself to mind numbing boredom? Are you daft, lady?" Then the slow grin she loved so much began to creep across his lips. "What are you wearing under that wicked garment, wench?"
"A belly-button ring."
"And?"
Then it was she who gave him a slow grin.
She saw his Adam's apple move... once, twice, three times, as if he tried and was unable to swallow. Finally he said, "No."
"No?" she gasped out.
"No, you are not going to control this situation, as you have all others in your life." He continued to stare at her casually, as if she hadn't just offered herself to him, with a huge dollop of sexual promise.
"You don't want... I thought you wanted to make love with me." Oh, how humiliating! She wished the slate tiles of the foyer would just open up and swallow her whole.
With a tsk-tsk of disgust, he pulled his T-shirt out of his low-slung sweatpants, and over his hair, which hung in a single braid down his back, still damp from a shower at the gym. Then he tossed the shirt to the floor, slicing her with a disbelieving look. "Are you serious, wench? Of course I want you. I want you so much my teeth ache and my loins tremble. Thor's toenails! I can scarce breathe."
She saw then that his chest was indeed heaving with some great stress. And what a great chest it was, too. And broad shoulders, a washboard abdomen, well-delineated muscles everywhere, all leading down to narrow hips and waist and a deliciously flat stomach. There were blond hairs covering his chest and arms, a darker shade of blond than on his head, but straight and fine as gold silk. How would it feel to the touch?
And, oh, it was humbling to admit, but the man was in much better physical shape than she was.
She was a slug compared to him... all soft and squishy in places he was hard as steel. He was narrow and trim, while she was all curves—way too many curves, she thought, as all her insecurities came back. She should have jogged more lately. She should have spent every spare moment on the StairMaster. She should have done crunches till the cows came home... or at least till the Viking came home.
He was the exact picture of a Norse god. Better, even.
She, on the other hand, was no Norse goddess... not by any stretch of the imagination.
"You came to the door like a siren, prepared to lure me into your game," he accused.
"I did not," she protested, knowing full well it was a lie, or at least a half-truth. Subconsciously she had recognized the significance of her daughters' absence, but her skimpy attire hadn't been a deliberate attempt to lead him... to control their lovemaking. Had it?
"Ne'er once did you think of calling me at the gym and informing me of these events, I warrant. Ne'er once did you contemplate that I might like to be the man in this process. Tell me true: were you or were you not trying to seduce me?"
"You are really beginning to sound like a male chauvinist." Her chin shot up defensively. "Do women never seduce men in your time? Is it so wrong for a woman to take the first step?"
"You know it is not. That is not the issue here."
"And what would that issue be?"
"Me. The man you know me to be. I am Jorund the Warrior. The first time we make love must be on my terms. We will make love—of that there is no doubt but it will be my way."
"Viking kind of love?" She was attempting to inject some humor into their conversation, but there was no masking her nervousness.
"Precisely."
Precisely? Precisely? What does that mean?
Do Vikings make love differently from other men?
Oh, boy.
I mean, oh, man... oh, man, oh, nan!
"The only question in my mind is whether, this first time, I should woo you or conquer you."
What an arrogant, sexist thing to say. But both possibilities sounded good to Maggie. In fact, his hoarsely rasped-out words caused her knees to go weak. She backed up a pace and grabbed for the upstairs banister with one hand, for support.
"You have made me wait too long for wooing, Mag-he," Joe told her, as if they were discussing the weather and not some erotic activity that would no doubt blow her mind. He was bent over, untying the laces on his athletic shoes. "What think you on the matter?"
Maggie thought she was already too aroused to think, let alone speak.
Joe stood and in one sleek movement pushed off his sweatpants and Jockey underwear, together. Stepping out of them one foot at a time, he then gave her his full attention.
"Mercy!" was the only thing she could think of to say.
His stomach muscles lurched, as did another part of him.
She repeated, "Mercy!" Obviously Joe did want her, as he'd said. A lot. Mercy, mercy, mercy!
Joe Rand... or Jorund—was a big man. All over. And while Maggie had never been one to yearn for great size in that department, she wasn't about to deny its merits, either.
"I have made my decision," he announced, stepping slowly and purposefully toward her.
A decision? About what? Did I miss something here? Oh, he must mean his question about the fomnat off our first lovemaking.
His next words confirmed her conclusion.
"Methinks a conquering is in order."
Jorund was almost embarrassed by the hugeness of his erection. Almost. Really, he could not remember a time in his life when he'd ever wanted a woman so much. Had she ensorcelled him? He knew that he was treating her unfairly, accusing her of trying to be a leader in the sexplay.
But—blessed Odin, he had to do something to slow down his catapulting excitement.
He glanced down at his excitement and snorted with disgust. For the love of Freyja! Instead of lessening, his engorged member had become even more painfully erect.
Rita waddled in, probably figuring it was time to bedevil him again. Instead she took one look at his excitement, then appeared to do a feline double lock before raising her fat head with disdain and ambling off. Obviously she was not impressed.
But Mag-he was. Truly, did she not have the least bit of sense to be staring at him so, gape mouthed with wonder? Did she not know that a maiden's eyes on a man's most prized instrument caused it to react on its own? As his brother Magnus always said, "A man's cock can be his best friend, or his worst enemy."
And his other brother, Rolf, always said, "A manroot has no brain." He agreed with both sentiments.
"Are all Vikings like you?" She was still ogling his staff.
"I'm the only one," he lied.
She giggled. She actually giggled. He considered crossing his legs and covering himself with his hands, but that was so out of character for him, who was usually proud of his endowments... except that his endowments had never been quite this endowed. In truth, he wished the slate floor would open up and swallow him whole. Instead his other brain—the one between his legs—decided to take over.
"Take it off." His statement came out more like a growled order than a sweet request.
"Take what off?" The wench was holding on to the stair post, white-knuckled, as if she might fold bonelessly to the floor without its support. He was of the same mind.
She should know perfectly well what he'd meant, but then her eyes did seem dazed. Perhaps she was a bit disoriented. So he told her, "The siren robe." If he was going to be standing naked as a plucked chicken with a bull-size erection, he was bloody well going to have company.
"Oh." Her skin was flaming, from her face right down to the edge of the deep neckline.
He liked her blush ever so much. Usually Jorund sought out women well experienced in bedplay... ones who could teach him new tricks. But he had to admit he was anticipating the joys of teaching Mag-he a thing or two... or twenty.
She untied the cloth belt at her waist, then stopped. "Joe, I'm not as beautiful as you are, or in nearly as good shape as you are." Shyly she parted the sides over her shoulders and let the fabric slither to the floor in a crimson pool.
His heart stopped beating for a second, then exploded inside his chest into a thundering beat. "Oh, Mag-he, you are beautiful to me. And your form is shapely, just the way I like."
Actually her form was more than fine to him: it was perfect. She was taller than the average female, more like the statuesque women of his race, though there was naught Nordic about her appearance. Her hair was raven black, cut far too short to be feminine, but attractive nonetheless. Her lips were full and red and kissable beyond all bounds of sensuality. Her eyes gazed at him through misty blue pools of passion.
But it was her body that drew him now... a body that was curvaceous... made for love. Her breasts were large and full and rose-nippled. They were not excessively large, except in relation to her small-boned frame, and they were uplifted, not sagging with their heaviness. He intended to pay great homage to those breasts; that was a promise he made himself.
He knew that Mag-he thought she carried too much weight, but she was wrong. Men did not like skin-and-bone females, as was the fashion of her time. That was one thing he knew had not changed through the centuries. On that issue, men were men.
He let his eyes roam lower. Her creamy torso tapered in at the waist, but then flared out at the hips... hips perfect for bearing a man's babe, or a man's lustful body. The navel ring sparkled in its place, midbelly. He could not wait to taste it with his tongue. Was it cool? Or hot?
The thatch of dark hair below was curly and already glistening with woman-dew, he would wager. Her legs were long and comely, and her feet high-arched and narrow. He intended to investigate every part of her thoroughly before morning.
Bloody hell, it would be before midnight, he amended in his head, if he kept going at this rate.
"So beautiful," he repeated in a voice raw with passion. Then he reached for her.
Maggie did feel beautiful at that moment. Under Joe's appreciative scrutiny, her womanliness was suddenly something to glory in, instead of repress. She wanted him to find her sexy, and he apparently did.
When he opened his arms to her, reaching as he strode toward her, Maggie was filled with such joy that she hurled herself into his embrace. He caught her with a surprised laugh and lifted her high. But when she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders, she must have startled him, because he gasped and exclaimed, "Mag-he!" just before his knees gave way. He lurched forward, landing on his knees on the first rung of the carpeted stairs. Then, still pitching forward, he pressed Maggie backward, and she found herself sprawled on the steps, legs wide, and Joe on top of her.
He blinked at her, wide-eyed with shock. Maggie wasn't sure if he was about to laugh or cry. Despite the carpet that had broken his fall, Joe's knees must pain him dreadfully. "Are you hurt?"
"Beyond belief," he choked out, and insinuated his erection more tightly against her. "Too late, too late, too late," he moaned as his lips took hers hungrily and he thrust himself inside her slickness. Well, not quite inside. Halfway. He was so big, and Maggie had not done this for a long time.
With his eyes closed and his head reared back, he pulled himself out, then thrust again. Three times he repeated this exercise before imbedding himself to the hilt.
To Maggie's mortification, she began to spasm around him. Her eyes were probably rolled back in her head, with only the whites exposed, so intense was the pleasure he gave her. She shut her eyes. And she continued to spasm. It was much too soon. How pathetic she was. She began to cry and tried to squirm out from under him, but he would not allow that.
"Shhh," he said, "you feel so good. Like a supple glove of warm, oiled leather."
Then he rolled so he was on his back on the steps and she sat on his lap, impaled and filled. "Peak again for me, sweetling," he urged in a voice smoky with sex, putting his hands on her hips to hold her still. Her first instinct was to undulate on him. But no, he took her hand and made her touch herself at that place where they were joined. She glanced down. The base of his erection was barely visible where blond hair blended with black.
Just that sight made her go hot with liquid pleasure, there. Does he feel the scorching heat as well? His gray eyes appeared glazed, like misty silver, and from his parted lips came a soft moan.
He does.
His firm hands on her hips forced her to keep him inside her. He refused to let her seek her release through movement, only through her own sinfully erotic touch. Within seconds she came again in violent convulsions that grasped and released, grasped and released, grasped and released his still-engorged penis.
In fact, she thought he might have elongated and thickened with the flexible accommodating of her inner muscles. She wanted desperately to move, to feel the friction of his penis, but he kept murmuring against her ear, "Not yet, not yet."
Maggie realized he was indeed playing the role of the conqueror. Didn't he realize that she'd already surrendered? But no, that wasn't quite true. There was a part of her that still fought these out-of-control passions. He must sense that.
And so she threw her head back and moaned and moaned and moaned as shudders rocked her body, and she came endlessly. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ooooh!"
And still Joe had not climaxed.
But that did not mean he was unaffected. Hardly. He rolled them over so she was on the bottom again, and his stiffened arms were braced on the step, on either side of her head. From his lips came a panting noise, "Wfff, wfff, wfff, wfff," like an overheated horse. He was clearly trying to rein in his excitement. For what purpose?
Finally, when he had calmed down a bit—though he was still fully erect and imbedded inside her, like a permanent erotic fixture he smiled down at her and gave her a brief kiss "Where are those condoms we bought?" he whispered against her ear, at the same time he nipped at the lobe. Even his breath was a carnal caress at this stage of her seemingly endless arousal.
So that was why he was holding off. Birth control. He wanted condoms. "In my purse... in the hall closet."
In one lithe movement, he put a palm under each of her buttocks and stood, still planted inside her. Then he began to walk across the foyer.
With a little yelp, she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders, as she had before. The slight jarring created by his stride reverberated into sensations inside her that were... interesting. Maggie was beginning to think she was either a wanton, or a woman who had been very sexually deprived for a long time. Maybe a little of both.
In a few moments, condoms in hand, Joe carried her through the archway into the living room, where he deposited her on an antique chaise lounge, which she'd inherited from her great grandmother. It was upholstered in green velvet, backless, and had an arm at only one end. A useless piece of furniture, she'd always thought... till now.
With surprising expertise for a task he'd never performed before, Joe put on the condom, then made a great fuss over arranging her nude body just so on the chaise... half reclining, with her head against the armrest, her hands behind her head, and her legs spread with her feet resting on the floor.
The old Maggie would have been mortified beyond belief to be so exposed.
The new Maggie wondered what surprising, sinful things he would do next.
Kneeling on the floor at her side, he was studying her body from head to toe, like a connoisseur considering the purchase of a fine painting. Did he like what he saw? The answer she saw on his flushed face and parted lips was a glorious Yes, yes, yes.
"Let's just make love," she urged, and her voice came out even huskier than usual.
"We will, heartling. We will," he promised, still studying every curve and plane of her body.
When was he going to start touching her, and doing other things? Oh, good Lord!
Was it possible that Vikings didn't make love the same way people did today? No, that was silly. Sex was sex. Wasn't it?
Aaarrgh! Can a person go crazy from hormone overload?
"When?" She arched her body involuntarily, like a purring cat in need of a good petting.
Her posture caused his eyes to go wide, and he clenched his fists at his sides, still restraining his impulses. Darn him! He'd better unrestrain soon, or... Or else.
"When you are wild... with want."
Oh, boy! Maggie simultaneously felt a sharp throb between her legs and an ache in her breasts, and she thought, I am already wild.
Jorund could not believe his eyes. His Mag-he had gone wild for him. What a picture she made, reclining sensuously on the low sofa... a sofa that was, by the by, constructed perfectly for bed sport. Jorund, kneeling on the floor at her side, could not get enough of gazing at her. But he'd best be careful, or he would explode before he ever entered her body. That was a shame he intended to avoid at all costs.
The ripeness of her mouth attracted him first. He let his touch trace the outline of her full lips, then dipped a finger inside and moistened them. A lamp on a nearby table provided just enough golden light for him to view the glistening wetness he had created. Then he tunneled his fingers in her short hair, and moved his lips over hers, back and forth, till they fitted together perfectly. He had been telling Mag-he the truth when he stated at one time that he had no particular fondness for kissing. But, oh, she had changed his mind.
Now he could not imagine making love with her and not tasting her lips and tongue and teeth. With that in mind, he stroked her with his tongue, in and out, in and out, in and out, and she drew on him. He had never known a kiss could be so intimate, or so like sex itself.
When he finally tore his mouth away, her lips were swollen and even more kiss-some. Her breathing was as ragged as his. He saw the pleading in her luminous blue eyes. Her eagerness both excited and scared him at the same time. Beware, some inner voice warned, this woman could be your downfall.
But then another voice, accompanied by some whalelike clicking noises, countered, Or your greatest achievement. Follow your heart, Viking. Follow your heart.
But Jorund ignored the voices in his head. He had a beautiful, sensual woman begging for his erotic loveplay. "Soon, dearling, soon," he assured her as he moved his ministrations lower.
It was her breasts—her beautiful, beautiful breasts—that caught his attention now. For a long time, he played with them, pushing them up from underneath, tracing the dusty areolae, fingering the prominent nipples. She was a mewling, mindless creature by the time he was through with her, imploring him for release. That was the way he wanted her. In truth, he was a bit mindless himself.
"Tell me what you want, Mag-he," he entreated in a voice thick with male need. "Tell me your desires."
Her eyes went frenzied, and he knew she was fighting the part of her personality that wanted to be in control. She did not want to tell him her secrets, her wanton yearnings, because then he would have some power over her. Foolish wench!
She did not yet realize that she was the one who had power over him.
He saw on her face the moment that she yielded to his mastery. Her hands were still folded behind her neck, where he had forced them to stay, but now she pulled them out resolutely. She put her left hand on the nape of his neck, drawing him downward, and with her right hand placed under one breast and pushing upward, she gave him her breast to suckle. And—oh, holy Thor—how sweet it was!
For a long time he stabbed her nipple with his tongue, and licked, and plucked, and bit, and sucked, and fluttered her. Then he did the same to her other breast. Such wonderful agony was this to her that she cried out her pleasure with little mewling moans and bucked her hips rhythmically on the sofa, trying to find her release against thin air. In the end, even as he continued to minister to her sensitive breasts, he put the heel of his hand on her loins, and she bucked against his callused flesh till she peaked in unbridled convulsions.
"Ne'er have I enjoyed anything so much in all my life as watching your pleasure," he told her.
When her breathing slowed down a bit, she opened her eyes and glared at him.
"You'd better end this soon, Viking, or you'll be sorry."
He doubted that. Laughing softly because she was such a delight, Jorund moved to his knees at the foot of the sofa. Then, hooking her under the knees, he yanked her toward him till her buttocks rested on the edge of the sofa and her feet were planted on the floor, on either side of his legs.
He explored her abdomen then, her trim waist, her delicious navel with the warm metal ring, the crease where her buttocks met her thighs, but mostly the dark nest of curls and the parted cleft that was so very wet with her readiness for him. He spread her legs even wider, to expose her more.
Then he tasted her, just a quick swipe of tongue over swollen nether lips and a bud that was turgid and prominent.
Mag-he screamed out his name, not that modern one, but his real one; "Jorund!"
He thought he would melt at how sweet his true name on her tongue sounded to his ears. But it was too soon for melting, though the scorching heat in his vitals did not bode well. Just a few more minutes, he promised himself.
Relying on all he'd learned over the years about bedplay, and a few surprising ideas he thought up now, Jorund then used his tongue and teeth and lips on Mag-he's slickness... and never in all his life had he brought a woman to such wetness. Like a nectar of the gods was her cream. He pushed his tongue inside her as far as he could go, trying to find her most erogenous zones—that was a term he'd learned from Dock-whore Ruth on the TV box—then decided to save those delights for later. When he sucked on her rigid bud—the center of female eroticism, or so he'd been taught—Mag-he let loose a continuous wail of "Yeeeeeessss," the whole time pounding on his back with her fists.
Needless to say, she peaked again. Perhaps it was even two times. It was hard to tell with all that continuous convulsing.
It was time.
Raising his head, Jorund saw that Mag-he was lying sprawled on the sofa like a limp doll, with her eyes closed. Well, not for long, he pledged silently. Putting his hands on her waist, he lifted her bodily so that she lay farther up the sofa. Her eyes shot open.
Yes, he wanted her wide-awake for this. Bracing his arms on either side of her, he eased his erection into her hot depths. As before, she immediately started shattering around him, her inner muscles grasping and releasing him in welcome, not unlike that handshaking practice.
He tried to go slowly, with long, easy strokes, his fingers entwined with hers above her head, but he had prolonged his ecstasy too long.
"You stretch me," she commented in wonder.
"Yea, I do," he remarked pridefully. Was that not the way it was supposed to be with a man and a woman? "Should I stop?"
She laughed, a seductive, feminine trill. "Don't you dare." She drew her knees up, wrapping her legs about his hips as if to lock him in.
He needed no such encouragement. He was not able to let her go. This time he lunged so deep, he feared his penetration had reached her womb. He paused in question.
She blinked at him repeatedly. Then she said, "Goodness!"
He assumed that meant she was pleased at how well he filled her, so he continued. Caught in the throes of a hurricane, his sexplay became a raw act of possession as he drove into her, hard. He was wild.
She was wild.
The power of their joining was a palpable thing swirling between them as they gazed in wonder at each other. His burning eyes held hers, but she did not look away. Had a coupling of man and woman ever been so staggering to the senses?
"I love you," she whispered as the pinnacle of their rapture approached, and he continued to hammer himself into her. Her words surprised him and did not surprise him at the same time. He could not say that he was displeased, but he did not repeat the words back to her. He could not.
Still, he gave her the greatest pleasure he could with his shaft and his expert fingers and mouth. At the height of her fierce undulations and his deep strokes, he slid his fingers between her legs from behind. At that one touch, her molten folds exploded around his shaft, which was now so engorged it pained him. Jorund reared his head back, released a harsh, masculine roar of victory, and came to pulsating satisfaction.
Then he fell heavily on top of her, sated to the point of bonelessness. I love you, sweetling, he said inside his head. But he did not say the words aloud. In truth, he did not know where the sentiment came from. He did not really love this modern woman. Did he? He was no longer capable of love. Was he? Cloudy thoughts swam in his brain as he eased himself off the too-small sofa, onto the carpeted floor. He took Mag-he with him, nestling her face in the crook of his neck, one of her arms over his chest, and one leg draped over his.
He wanted to say something to her, to thank her for the most incredible experience of his life, but "thank you" seemed so inadequate to express all he felt. Instead he hugged her tighter and kissed the top of her head.
 
Maggie must have swooned, or slept. All she knew was that some time must have passed since the most spectacular sexual marathon of her life—of anyone's life, she would bet—and Joe was sleeping soundly beside her.
Her face was resting against his shoulder, her palm over his chest, where his heart beat slowly in sleep, and a leg was thrown over his, with her knee pressed up against his genitals—genitals that were now semi-limp. Did the man never give totally... even in sleep? Was he always half up and ready to go?
Her body felt bruised and battered from Joe's lovemaking... and wonderfully satisfied, too. She was exhausted, no doubt due to her being out of shape. And more than anything, she was confused by the whirlwind that had overcome her in the form of a very sexy Viking. This was so much more than she'd ever expected.
He was so much more than she'd ever expected.
A warm shower, that was what she needed. Then she was going to crawl into bed and sleep till noon. Only then would she feel rejuvenated enough to contemplate with a logical mind all that had happened to her tonight.Carefully she eased herself off of Joe. He was in a deep sleep. She attempted to stand, but her legs gave way. She sank back to the floor, on her knees, and giggled. Then she clamped a hand over her mouth and glanced guiltily at Joe. He snored softy. Well, good. There was some small gratification in knowing she'd worn him out, too. It was an ignominious posture, but Maggie began to crawl from the room on her hands and knees. When she got to the hall she would stand, with the support of walls and stair rails.
"Going somewhere, wench?" a silky, male voice inquired. At the same time, an iron hand snaked out and grasped her ankle.
Maggie peeked over her shoulder and groaned. Joe was approaching her, on hands and knees, too, like a big, stalking cat. That image was only reinforced when he came up and over her from behind, covering her with his massive body, and purred into her ear. Already she could feel his erection against her leg.
"No, Joe, not again. Haven't you had enough for now?"
"Did I not say afore that my biggest talent was my stamina?" he boasted. She didn't look, but she suspected he was smiling.
"Is that like the Viking version of understatement?" she remarked dryly, and tried to crawl away.
He swatted her on the behind and yanked her back. She could feel the heat of his skin as he undulated over her, like a cat, though he barely touched her skin.
"It's too soon," she protested. "I couldn't. Really. Oh, my goodness!"
In one sleek, feline move, he lifted her hips and entered her from behind.
And Maggie soon discovered that, in fact, she could.
While his male member stroked her inside with long, leisurely plunges, his fingers and his whispered words praised her breasts... then the wet folds that she had thought were too sensitive to be touched again so soon.
But—oh... oh... oh—they were not.
Maggie realized then, if she had not already, that this was not a modern man who did things according to politically correct rules. He was a Viking warrior with savage sexual appetites and barbarian ways of seduction. An uncivilized lover.
She would have him no other way.
This time a sated Maggie lay flat on her stomach on the floor, with Joe splayed top of her, laughing in her ear. "So what do you think of Viking lovemaking, m'lady?"
"I'm afraid to ask what you do for an encore," she said with a strangled laugh.
"Aaahhh, I am so glad you asked. Have I not told you about the famous Viking S-spot?"
 
It was midnight. They were lying nestled in each other's arms on the sofa bed in the den, watching a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show, which Joe adored, for some reason.
They were sated... for the moment, anyhow. One never knew about Joe. Just a little while ago, she had inquired of Mr. Homier-than-Thou, "Do Viking women walk around bowlegged all the time?"
He'd tilted his head at her, baffled by her question. Then he'd laughed. "Nay, just the lucky ones."
There were no lights on now, but the Christmas tree in the corner was twinkling brightly, and Joe had built a fire in the fireplace, even though there was enough heat in the room to fire a nuclear station. Sexual heat, that was.
Joe had carried her here after they had taken a shower together. Words didn't begin to describe that experience, involving hot water, liquid soap, and a loofah.
Afterward they had sat at the kitchen table in nothing but oversize bath towels, scarfing down beef Stroganoff over buttered noodles, and an entire half-gallon of orange juice. Joe had wanted a beer but she'd suggested o.j., as being more regenerative. Hah! Little did she know!
Then they had made love again, this time with her sitting on top of the vibrating dishwasher, and that was where she discovered the secret of the Viking S-spot. Holy cow! Joe could write a book about the phenomenon, if he stuck around this century long enough, and if he was unable to find a job as a warrior. It certainly put the G-spot to shame. She knew for darn sure he'd be a hot ticket on the talk-show circuit.
Then again, no. Maggie didn't want to share this man with anyone else. That was selfish of her, of course, but she regarded him as her special secret.
Joe had then carried her to the den. Now she wondered why he was so quiet.
"What are you thinking, Joe?"
He chuckled. "Already you are back to the sigh-colic-jest questions."
She slapped him playfully on the chest, and he playfully winced as if she'd hurt him. When she tried to shrug out of his arms, he tucked her more closely into the cradle formed by his arm looped over her shoulder.
"I was thinking that I must be more virile than I thought if I can make a woman peak twenty-five times in a matter of"—he glanced over to the mantel clock—"four hours."
"Oh! That is such a lie. I never climaxed twenty-five times."
He lifted an eyebrow at her.
"Were you counting?" she accused.
"Are you daft, wench? I was too busy trying to catch my breath."
She buried her hot face against his chest as all her old insecurities slam-dunked into her brain. Was she a slut at heart? Too sensuous? Too uninhibited? "Was I too... too... ?"
Her words were muffled, spoken as they were against the warm skin of his bare chest, but he heard her. Tipping her chin up with a forefinger so he could see her face, Joe finished for her, "... wanton?"
"Yes. Was I too wanton?"
"Oh, Mag-he! How can you ask such a question?" He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. When she sliced him a glare, he gave her lips a quick, smacking kiss. "Your woman-joy is my man-pleasure, silly lady. I was teasing you, but in essence I was puffing my chest out with pride at my good fortune."
"Really?"
"Really."
"So what were you thinking about so seriously then?"
"I was thinking that mayhap living in this godforsaken country and time might not be so bad. I was thinking that perchance my mother was right when she said home is where the heart is. She was answering my question at the time as to how she—a highborn Saxon lady—could adapt so easily to the harsh northern climate and a vastly different culture. And finally I was thinking—and this scared me mightily—that your home is becoming too much like home to me."
Tears welled in Maggie's eyes. "Oh, Joe, that's the nicest thing you could have said."
"So you think, but how will I ever be able to depart this land if my affections grow so strong? All this time, I have been heeding your cautions not to let your daughters get too close, for fear of the hurt they would suffer once I leave which I must do inevitably—but not once did I realize that I was being pulled into this selfsame net."
My affections... Maggie homed in on those words of Joe's. What did he mean by that? Suddenly she recalled blurting out to Joe, in the midst of their lovemaking earlier tonight, that she loved him. Had he heard her? Did her words bother him? Was he trying to tell her, indirectly, that he returned her affection? She couldn't help herself. Maggie asked, "Are you in love with me, Joe?"
"Pfff! How would I know? I have never been in love afore."
"Some men claim that if you have to ask the question, then you're not."
"Ha! Most men don't know their manroot from a beet root." He sighed deeply. "All I know is that I go breathless just looking at you. Is that love? I could swive you till my cock falls off. Is that love? When you leave a chamber, even for a few minutes, I miss you. Is that love? My heart swells almost to bursting when I watch you with your daughters. Is that love? I want to do things to you that no man has ever done or contemplated. Is that love? I want to protect you with my shield from all harm. I want to stop all men from gazing at you. I want to see... I want to see you..." He was unable to finish his litany.
Maggie was weeping openly now. "You want to see me what?"
He reached beneath the covers and placed a hand over her belly. "I want to see my babe growing in your womb."
 
That afternoon, they decided to go yule shopping.
Mag-he claimed she needed to buy some last minute gifts to put under the tree—Odd practice, that but he suspected she wanted to get him out of her house, lest he try to teach her more tricks in bedplay. Smart lady.
He yielded to her wishes readily because he was thinking he should buy some gifts, as well. The Norse people did not celebrate Christmas, as such, though they welcomed any opportunity for feasting and gift giving. But mostly Jorund agreed to go shopping with Mag-he because he did not want her to become bowlegged. Ha, ha, ha, he thought. A little Viking humor. Quite frankly, he did not want his manpart to fall off from overuse—Ha, ha, ha! A lot of Viking humor.
She was driving her car, and he was sitting in the passenger seat, strapped in. He was going to have to learn to drive if he stayed in this land much longer. Driving a car was a necessity here, much as riding a horse or a longship was in his time.
"Did you hear me?" she asked.
Oh, she must have been talking while he'd been humoring himself. Too much swiving must turn a man's brain to gruel. On the other hand, was there such a thing as too much swiving?
"I said, I think we'll skip the mall."
"Methinks we should skip the shopping and stop at McDonald's. My stomach is growling."
"Your stomach is always growling. We are not going to McDonald's again. If you eat many more Big Mac's and french fries, you're going to turn into a clown... a Ronald McDonald clown."
"Shopping is women's work," he grumbled.
"And a man's work would be... ?"
"War." Then he waggled his eyebrows at her. "And swiving."
"Why did I ask?" She shook her head at him, as if he were hopeless. "Anyhow, we're going to the Strand historical district. Besides, you already went shopping at the mall with Beth and Suzy the night I had a staff meeting at Rainbow."
"And ne'er did my feet hurt so much in all my life. Those girls must have stopped at every blessed trading stall in the entire mall. And I swear, if I hear 'Jingle Bells' one more time, I may just throw up the contents of my stomach."
"The girls told me you had a good time," she pointed out with a smile. "They said you even had a long conversation with Santa Claus."
"Santa Claus! Oh, I am glad you brought up the subject. That fat, old, white-bearded fraud! You'd never catch me wearing a red suit, not even if I owned a set of flying reindeer. Do you really believe in the Santa Claus myth? Do you?"
"Well, I certainly believe in the spirit of Christmas."
"That is a nonanswer if I ever heard one," he scoffed.
"If time travel exists, why not Santa Claus?" He saw the grin she was trying to stifle and realized that she jested with him. He made a harrumph of disgust.
"Anyhow, you won't have to worry about Santa Claus downtown. Oh, he'll be there, by the dozen, I'm sure, but the Strand is much more Christmasy in a traditional, old-fashioned sense."
"What is the Strand?" he asked, gazing at Mag-he's lips, which were swollen from his numerous kisses. He rather liked the idea that she carried his mark in some way.
"The Strand is the district at the heart of Galveston. In its heyday, which was the late 1800s and early 1900s, Galveston was even called the New York of Texas."
Jorund thought about letting Mag-he blather on, but he had to refute that last preposterous statement of hers. "How could a city in Tax-us be the New York? Everyone knows that York—-or Jorvik, as we Norse call it—is in England. Even I know they cannot move a city across the ocean."
Mag-he turned toward him, taking her eyes off the roadway for a brief second. "Not that York. I'm referring to New York City. Oh, never mind. It's not important."
She was correct: it was not important. What was important was that his attention had snagged on her red Christmas sweat-her, which had a green tree on the front... a green tree with colored balls, two of which were stationed right about where her nipples were—nipples for which he had developed a particular fondness. He was also fond of what was beneath her black silk braies on the bottom.
"Are you wearing undergarments?" he asked of a sudden.
"Joe! What a question to ask!"
"Are you?"
"What would make you think that I'm not?"
"A man can be hopeful, can he not? Methought you might have wanted to surprise me, since I must go celibate today."
"I think celibacy refers to a longer period than three or four hours."
" 'Tis a long time for me," he grumbled. Sighing with disappointment, he stared out the window on his side at the passing scenery.
"I'm not," she said softly, "wearing underwear."
His head swerved to the left. She was blushing profusely. Suddenly he decided shopping would not be as boring as he had contemplated.
Mag-he returned her attention to her driving, and went on talking, probably to cover her embarrassment. "Many of the spectacular buildings erected then are still in existence on the Strand, surviving even a devastating storm in 1900. I think you'll like it."
He thought he would like to go home and practice some more oral sexing, or mayhap he would just polish Mag-he's belly button ring for her... with his tongue. And he still wanted to try licking her toes, which he had discovered were very ticklish.
"What are you grinning about?" she asked.
"Toes," he said, and winked at her.
She blushed again. But she did not turn the car around. Apparently she was bound and determined to go shopping.
He slumped down into his seat, disgusted. Oh, it would be interesting to watch Mag-he today, knowing she was nude for him beneath, but there were dozens of sexual exercises he wanted to experiment with, and only a limited number of hours left till the girls came home tomorrow night. And what did the feckless wench propose? Shopping!
In truth, women were the same throughout the ages. It mattered not if it was a shopping mall in a city or a trading stall in a market town. He didn't doubt that the first Christian man, Adam, was as beleaguered by his woman, Eve, as all men were. It would not have mattered to Eve that she had everything she could possibly need, living in the Garden of Eden. She would have wanted to go shopping, he would warrant. For apples.
"Did you see that?" He sat up straight, undid his seat belt, rolled down the window, and leaned his head outside.
"What? What?" Mag-he asked, swerving her car over to the side of the roadway, then turning off the motor.
"Out there." Jorund pointed over the water. "I thought I saw a killer whale jumping into the air. Do you think... Yea, it must have been Thora."
The Strand area was located on the opposite side of the island from the Gulf near a thriving commercial port. Surely a whale would not swim into those congested waters. But then, this was not a normal whale.
Much as he and Mag-he peered over the water, there was no sign of Thora. Perhaps he had been mistaken, but he did not think so. There had to be a reason for her showing herself now. What could it be? Was it a sign, or a warning?
"You're not going back to your time now, are you, Joe?" Mag-he asked him in a tear-filled, panicky voice.
He brought his head back inside the car and stared at her, horrified. That thought had never occurred to him. It was too soon. Oh, he had been complaining for weeks about not being able to go home. But now that the possibility loomed on the horizon, he realized that he did not want to go... not yet. Conflicting feelings battered him. He had to go, for his brother Rolf's sake. He had to stay, for Mag-he's and her daughters' sakes.
He could not think about all this now. Instead he made a tsking sound and put his arms around her, kissing her face and neck and lips. "I am not going anywhere, sweetling," he assured her.
But a whaley-like voice inside his head clicked and squealed in orca language, adding to his words an ominous, Yet.
 
"Hey, Dr. McBride. How's your belly button?"
Maggie's head jerked upright with surprise, but then she noticed the young man with purple spiked hair. He was standing in the doorway of the tattoo parlor where she'd had her body piercing done earlier this year.
"Just great, Orvis," she answered. Orvis was the son of the owner, Herbert Dupree, a longhaired, graying, sixties hippie who had never really grown up.
Before she could turn and introduce Joe, he set their overflowing shopping bags on the ground and stomped forward, grabbed Orvis by the front of his raggedy T-shirt, which read, A Hangover Is the Wrath of Grapes, and lifted him off his feet so that the young man was at eye level with him.
"Troll, do you dare speak of my lady's intimate body parts?"
The kid appeared as if he might pee his pants, so surprised and terrified was he. Even worse, they were garnering attention from the shoppers and tourists in the busy Strand district.
"Put him down. Right now," she ordered Joe as she tugged on his arm to pull him back. "He's just a college student who works in this shop, where I had my belly-button ring put in." In fact, as Maggie recalled, he was a prelaw student at UCLA.
"Oh." Joe looked from her to the dangling boy in his hands. "I thought perchance your braies had dropped down a bit, and he could tell you were not wearing undergarments." He snaked out a hand to palm her behind then, and squeezed. His other hand was still holding Orris up in the air by his T-shirt.
She yelped and jumped away.
"I was just checking," he said, and smiled widely, apparently satisfied that she hadn't lied. Then he turned back to the boy, inquiring, "You meant no insult?"
He was still not convinced the kid wasn't some dire threat to her reputation. The kid just shook his head, speechless.
Joe dropped him unceremoniously to his feet.
"Apologize at once," Maggie told Joe in an undertone, "or else we're going to have police here, arresting you for assault."
"Assault? That was no assault." He blinked at her in incomprehension. "An assault would be a blood eagle to his back, or sword dew spilled. This youthling is unharmed." He turned his attention back to said youthling. "Is that not true?"
Orvis nodded his head like a dashboard doll. Joe reached out a hand then and shook Orvis's hand vigorously. "I am Jorund Ericsson. How do you do?"
Orvis shook his hand back, but under his breath Maggie heard him mutter, "Holy shit!"
Joe glared at the ogling shoppers who still stood about, till they finally slunk away, figuring he might start on them next. Then he turned his gaze to the storefront. "Ah! A body-piercing market stall. Mayhap I should have one of my body parts pierced, too."
Maggie inhaled sharply, and the air went down the wrong tube. She began to cough uncontrollably.
Joe just blathered on: "I can think of one body part that deserves particular homage after all of last night's bedsport. What think you of—"
"No!" He barely had time to gather up the shopping bags before she grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the store and down the unique street, with its high curbs and overhanging canopies. Horse-drawn carriages passed by slowly, contributing to the Victorian ambience of the place. A Viking in Dickens's world, she thought with a shake of her head. But actually, anything went on the Strand.
Even the occasional oddball shops, selling body piercing, kites, and army surplus gear, somehow seemed to fit in with those carrying fine antiques, gourmet chocolates, imported cigars, and designer clothing.
"I was jesting, Mag-he. Dost really think I would mar such perfection? Or sustain such pain for the sake of vanity?" He winced and pretended to cross his legs.
Where had this playfulness and sense of humor come from? Joe had been such a grim fellow when she'd first met him. Hmmm. Maybe she was a good influence on him. But she couldn't let his outlandish statement stand. "Perfection, huh? A little full of yourself today, aren't you?"
"With good cause, m'lady," he bragged, pointing out, "You would know that best of all."
Maggie couldn't stop her face from heating with embarrassment.
"Mayhap I should get a tattoo, then," Joe offered, stopping in his tracks and resisting her efforts to move him along the sidewalk.
"No!"
"I could purchase a tattoo of a killer whale," he suggested. "Mayhap that would be a good thing to do, Mag-he, like an offering to the gods to appease their wrath."
"The gods of orcas?" she inquired with raised eyebrows.
He shrugged. " 'Twould appear anything is possible."
His forehead creased with thought. "Yea, I could put a drawing of a whale on my arse. Thora has a fondness for my arse, you know."
"You are impossible," she said with a laugh, shoving him into the Old Strand Emporium, where they soon ordered deli sandwiches and mugs of draft beer. From the back could be heard a cacophony of musical sounds coming from the Wurlitzer Band Organ, player pianos, and oldtime banjo-player jukeboxes.
"Mayhap I will buy one of those music machines for Sue-zee for Christmas," Joe suggested as he took a long swallow of beer.
"Are you crazy?" she asked, then immediately ducked her head with shame. What a question for a psychologist to be asking... especially of a former patient. "I mean... do you know how much those jukeboxes cost? At least five thousand dollars."
He pulled out a wad of bills from his back pocket and laid them out on the table. "Don't I have five thousand dollars?" Joe hadn't yet mastered the currency system.
She motioned for him to put the money away before the bug-eyed diners at the other tables decided to help themselves. "Joe, you have sixty thousand dollars left. That's not the issue. You can't be buying such expensive gifts for people."
"Why not?"
"Because you already bought a laptop computer for Beth and a pricey video-game system with a dozen cartridges for Suzy, both against my protests."
"You wouldn't let me buy that word-shert that proclaimed, I Love Cats. They Taste Just Like Chicken."
"Get real," she commented. "Rita would never forgive me."
He raised his chin stubbornly. "Viking people love to give gifts, and to receive them, too." He was back to the subject of expensive gifts. "Why is it wrong to purchase items that might please someone?"
"Because sometimes your generosity goes too far."
"Mag-he," he said with a long sigh, "generosity is when a person gives something till it hurts. Spending a few thousand dollars on people I care about is not going to affect me at all. Further more—I do not care how much you resist—I intend to buy gifts for Steve, Hair-vee, Chuck, Fur-red, Rosalyn, Not-a-lie, and Norse Hatch-her, as well."
Maggie put her face in her hands. The man just would not listen to her. The hospital gave Christmas gifts—small items, to be sure—to all its patients. It wasn't a good idea to get too personal with the patients.
Or was it?
Maggie had seen on more than one occasion how Joe's relationship with the therapy group, even though he was no longer a patient, had helped everyone.
Treating them as friends, rather than sick people, had raised their self-esteem, and jump-started some real mental-health progress.
"Okay," she agreed, "but we have to work together on this. You're not going to go off the deep end buying extravagant presents."
"Who? Me?" he asked. Then, out of the clear blue sky, he commented, "I am picturing you naked right now. Do you like that?"
The man had a one-track mind. And frankly, she did like it. A lot. But she couldn't tell him that.
He winked at her. Oh, my. Could he read her mind now? Then he stretched his long legs out, crossing them at the ankles. The whole time he sipped at his beer, which he continued to refer to as mead.
A lot of men and women in the restaurant took note of Joe with surreptitious glances his way, even a gray-haired lady with a sweatshirt saying, Forget Youth.
How about a Fountain of Smart? And it was no wonder. He stood out in any crowd with his height, good looks, and the proud way he carried himself. Today he was dressed in a long sleeved plaid shirt tucked into jeans. On his big feet he wore the same athletic shoes he'd been given at the hospital. His long blond hair was bound into a queue with a rubber band. But it wouldn't matter how he was dressed. Joe would draw stares even if he wore rags.
"Well, we could buy Natalie a Patsy Cline greatest-hits CD."
Joe nodded. He was familiar with CDs, since Suzy and Beth often forced him to listen to their music, especially Ricky Martin, for whom Joe had developed a particular aversion. And he had to recognize the name of Patsy Cline, because Natalie was always belting out her tunes.
"Maybe we could buy Suzy another Ricky Martin CD. Perhaps there's one she doesn't have."
"I want to go back to that military surplus store and purchase that Navy SEALs jacket for Steve."
Maggie bit her tongue to stop herself from pointing out that it was a hundred dollars... too much for a friendly gift, especially since he'd already bought a baseball card of Steve's at a memorabilia store earlier today for a whopping fifty dollars, and it wasn't even in mint condition.
"Ooh, I thought of something else. We should buy one of those hats we saw in the cow-man store for Dock-whore Sea-bold."
Maggie smiled. "You mean the cowboy store?"
"Is that not what I said?" Sometimes Joe got exasperated when she corrected his language mistakes. "We should buy him one of those big ass black hats we saw in the window... that's a word Steve taught me, by the by. With a hat like that, Dock-whore Hairy wouldn't have to worry about his hair drape blowing in the wind."
"The Stetson?"
"Yea, that's the one. The stepson."
Oh, good Lord. What would Harry think of such a gift? Then she giggled, trying to picture her boss in the big-ass thing. Though cowboy hats were not uncommon on a Texas man—or woman—she had a hard time picturing Harry, noted psychiatrist, wearing a cowboy hat. But then, his hair comb-over was out of character, too.
A mischievous grin appeared on Joe's face then. "And I have thought of the perfect gift for Glad-ass Hatch-her," he announced. "A whip."
"That's not funny," she said. But it was, kind of. Once again Maggie was surprised by Joe's sense of humor. Maybe he was beginning to put his guilt over his children's death behind him.
"On the other hand, mayhap we will give Glad-ass some scented skin creams to soften her up."
Yep, he was developing a super sense of humor.
They discussed what to buy for the other members of his group, then went out to make their purchases. In addition, there were a few more impulse buys, like the kaleidoscope that Joe just had to buy for Suzy. Maggie would have thought the Viking man was a little boy as he oohed and aahed over all the objects in the kaleidoscope store, finally settling on a brass-plated scope of fine quality.
He'd also found a cuddly stuffed Keiko to add to Beth's collection. And he'd picked out colorful kites for both of them.
This was going to be some spectacular Christmas for her daughters. While Maggie wasn't stingy, she had never gone overboard with Christmas gifts, not wanting her daughters to become spoiled, or to take away from the true meaning of the season. She didn't think it would matter if this year was a little excessive, though. Besides, it might be the only Christmas they had with Joe, and she couldn't begrudge his making it memorable for them.
It was late afternoon, and each of them were carrying two shopping bags, when Joe said, "Do you know what I really want?"
"A Big Mac and french fries."
He made a tsking noise at her. "No, I want to go home."
Maggie closed her eyes for a brief second, savoring the sound of home on his tongue. She suspected what he had in mind, and suddenly even the slight abrasion of her light clothing was like an erotic caress. "Your wish is my command, oh Viking leader."
He gave her a look that translated to, Since when? They had almost reached her car when he remarked, "Do you know what I want when we get home?"
The sultry lowering of his eyelids and the husky tone of his voice were certainly big clues. She felt her breasts peak and begin to ache. The man was turning her into a world-class bimbo. "Surprise, surprise!" she responded in a choked voice. Am I really up to another marathon of sex? she questioned, then immediately replied: Absolutely.
"Not that, Mag-he," he corrected. "I mean, of course I want to make love after this long day of deprivation." He flashed her a slow grin, then added, "Nay, it is something else I yearn for, and have ne'er done afore."
Uh-oh! Maggie couldn't imagine anything sensual Joe hadn't done, and that smoky look in his gray eyes certainly bespoke sex with a capital S. The ache in her breasts dropped lower. She waited for him to continue.
"A bubble bath."
 
It was Sunday night, Christmas Eve, and they were attending the choir recital in the church.
Maggie was wearing a new white silk pantsuit, trimmed with gold cording, over a glittery gold lamй shell, just fight for the season. There was something about Christmas that called for a new outfit, or a special outfit pulled out only at this time each year to fit the occasion.
Tears filled her eyes as she watched her daughters in small gold choir robes, with wreaths of holly in their hair, singing in harmony with their peers. "Silent Night." "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." "Oh, Holy Night." "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." "The First Noel." But actually, tears seemed to be the norm for Maggie the past few days as one poignant event after another took place.
Since Christmas fell on a Monday this year, they'd held the Christmas party at the hospital this afternoon, even though many staff members were off on Sunday and outpatients were not usually on the premises. The clinic's standardized gifts were doled out—chocolate Santas and rainbow plaques with motivational poems on them. Then Joe and Maggie distributed their individualized gifts, as well.
All of the patients from their group seemed stunned by the particular care taken in choosing their presents, but Steve... oh, the moment when Steve opened the gift wrap revealing his baseball card... well, Maggie would never forget it. And neither would anyone else who had been there. Steve had been overcome that Joe—and everyone knew, without being told, that Joe was at the bottom of these special gifts—cared enough about him to buy that particular memento. In the end, he had just stared at him hopelessly and said, "Oh, man. Oh, man. You're gonna force me to straighten out, aren't you?" He'd liked the SEALs jacket, too, and made a big deal of putting it on for everyone to see how it fit, but it was the card that had hit home hardest.
How had Joe known it would mean so much to his friend? She never would have thought of it herself.
The refreshments included homemade Christmas cookies made by the staff and sickeningly sweet cherry punch, which they enjoyed while watching tapes of all the Christmas episodes on the afternoon soap operas. It turned out that some of the nurses and attendants were hooked on the soaps, too.
When the different shows brought out flashbacks to Christmas past as far back as twenty years ago, there were tears in some of the eyes watching.
After that, Joe had put Maggie in a most awkward position. He'd invited everyone to attend the church choir recital tonight. Since it was open to the public, Maggie couldn't very well object.
He was sitting beside her now in a blue oxford shirt, khaki pants, a navy blazer, and cowboy boots... yes, cowboy boots, of all things. They had been a gift from Steve, who had shown up at their house unexpectedly just before they'd left for the church. The boots had touched Joe almost as much as Joe's gift had touched Steve earlier that day. And he didn't even seem to mind that they pinched his toes and made him wobble a bit when he walked. "I'm a true Texan now," he'd boasted.
"The Lone Star Viking?" she'd quipped.
"Aw, shucks, darlin'," Joe had drawled in response.
Sitting on her other side were Harry and Martie. Harry's new hat, which he appeared to love, was sitting on the bench between them. Harry claimed that he would have to wear the hat, since it had been given to him by a former patient, but she could tell that he was delighted every time he plopped the thing on his head.
On Joe's other side was Steve Askey in a conservative gray suit and tie, with cowboy boots. He was staring with serious concentration at the altar where the choir was singing, as if the music was filling some important void in his life. But perhaps it was just being back in a church after so many years.
Natalie Blue was there with her parents, dressed in her usual cowgirl attire, but this time it was an outfit in the seasonal colors of red and green, with glittery tinsel taking the place of fringe. Her parents had wished Maggie a merry Christmas before the recital began, and whispered a quick thank-you in an aside for all of their daughter's recent progress. It was a sign of Natalie's improvement that she was even able to sit in a crowded church. Maggie hadn't said anything at the time, but she'd really thought it was Joe they should be thanking.
Chuck Belammy was looking very normal tonight in a Polo shirt and blue chinos, though his gaze kept drifting back to the Nativity scene. Maggie thought she heard an intermittent "baa baa" come from his direction, though he kept it very low.
Harvey Lutz was straining his neck this way and that, obviously counting the stained-glass windows. He didn't count aloud, but his lips were moving.
Fred Bernstein came dressed as Santa, so for once he blended in with everyone else. The audience probably thought he'd just gotten off work at the mall.
Sitting next to Fred was Gladys Hatcher, dressed in a bright flame-colored dress with a reindeer appliquйd on the front. There must have been a battery under the bodice, because every couple of seconds the reindeer's nose blinked bright red.
The biggest surprise was Rosalyn Harris, who'd arrived late in a burgundy sheath dress. Her hair was still pulled back straight off her face into a spinsterish bun, she wore no makeup, and the dress was not immodest by any means... high necked, long-sleeved, and calf-length. But holy cow! Who knew she had such a wonderful figure? She was tall, svelte, and curved in just the right places.
More than one male head turned in her direction during the recital, and not just those who knew of her sexual desires.
Christmas had always been a special time to Maggie. This year every little nuance and tradition and smell and sound seemed to resonate inside her soul. She was creating memories... memories that she feared would have to last her a lifetime.
Jorund surveyed the little church, took a deep whiff of the pungent scents of evergreen boughs and bayberry candles, flexed his fingers where they were twined with Mag-he's, and sighed. My mother would be so proud of me, he thought ruefully. All those years she'd tried to preach her Christian dogmas, while he went hither and yon, practicing his warrior skills. Oh, he, his father, his brothers, and his sister had all been baptized in the Christian rites to satisfy her wishes, but it was only a token action. They still practiced the old Norse religions, as well. But tonight, as the sounds of the Christian music flowed in his ears, Jorund felt a sense of peace with the One-God... as if finally he were forgiven—that with the birth of the Christ child, he could be reborn, too. It was a heady thought.
"I'm glad I came," he whispered in Mag-he's ear. She smelled of some light floral scent—lilacs again, perhaps—and of her own distinctive woman essence.
"Me, too," she said and squeezed his hand. There were tears in her eyes, and Jorund knew they were tears of pride for Sue-zee and Beth, who were performing at the church altar. It was one of the things he admired most about Mag-he—the ferocious devotion she showed her daughters. If he ever had children again, he would accept no less in a wife.
Oh, may God and all his angels weep! Where did that thought come from? I will never wed again. I will never breed babes again. Never, never, never! The joy of parenthood will ne'er be mine again.
Ironically, the recital ended then with a loud rendition of "Joy to the World," accompanied by the blare of trumpets. Was it a sign? And that clicking noise .... surely it was just a clock ticking somewhere in the church vestibule.
Afterward they were driving home—Jorund in the passenger seat, Sue-zee and Beth in the backseat. There was a warm feel to the comfortable silence that surrounded them. Forevermore, Jorund knew he would associate this kind of hushed tranquility with Christmas. Perhaps this was what was meant by peace.
"Mom..." Sue-zee said.
"Hmmm?" she responded.
"This is the best Christmas ever."
Beth agreed, adding, "Like a dream come true."
Misty-eyed, Mag-he glanced over at him and murmured, "Thank you."
He looked at her, back at the girls, then at her once again. "Nay, heartling, I thank you."
 
Christmas was almost over in the Muck-bride household, and Jorund should have been at peace. He wasn't. Not anymore.
Oh, it had been one of the most wonderful days of his life. He could not deny that. Perhaps that was why his spirits had plummeted. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that he did not want the day to end. No, he knew it was more than that. No matter what happened tomorrow, or some tomorrow down the road, this was a day he would never forget.
It was that inevitable tomorrow that was brewing unrest in him now.
First there had been the gift exchanging, followed by a special yule breakfast of bacon, "dippy" eggs, toasted bread, and pancakes shaped like Christmas trees, covered with butter and syrup, along with pitchers of milk and orange juice, and cups of black coffee, a bitter brew he could not like, no matter that it was a favorite beverage of adults in this time. Later they'd had a feast of baked ham with roasted potatoes, vegetables, and let-ass, a staple of practically every meal, but which was little more than grass, if you asked him.
After that, they had watched a move-he on the TV world box called It's a Wonderful Life. Mag-he and the girls had gone weepy-eyed at the end, to his dismay, but they had told him it was "good crying," whatever that was.
The gift exchanging had been the best part, with the girls exuberantly exclaiming over each gift, big or small, and Maggie breaking out in tears over the antique gold, heart-shaped pendant on a chain that he'd given her. The heavy gold was etched with writhing animals in the Viking style. Inside there was an inlay of amber and a somber photograph of himself, which Sue-zee and Beth had helped him make in a machine at the shopping mall.
The girls had given their mother numerous small gifts bath oils, perfume, a leather carrying bag for her papers, a music box that played her favorite song from a move-he about a sinking ship. Mag-he in turn gave them clothes and wrist rings and music CDs and stuffed animals. Of course, they had pretended that the gifts came from Santa Claus, but they weren't fooling him. He knew Santa was a  myth. He had closed the flue on the fireplace chimney last night, and when he'd checked this morning, it was still closed. Not that he'd been foolish enough to give that legend any credence.
Jorund loved to receive gifts—he would not deny them that the gifts had made him handcrafted cards with poignant sentiments that shot straight to his already melted heart. In addition, they'd given him fun presents, like a miniature Ricky Martin doll, which they claimed resembled him, only younger; a sweatshirt that said, Proud to be a Texan; a scale model of a Viking longship; and a glass bowl of green Jell-O cubes that could be held in the hands and eaten that way. Good thing that last had been a jest, for Jorund did not think he would have been able to eat even one, especially after imbibing that horrible egg-nog that Mag-he had claimed was a traditional yule drink. What is wrong with good old mead as a yule drink, I ask you?
Even the annoying Rita had not been left out of the gift giving. Mag-he had given her a feline foo-tawn bed, which was a type of comfortable couch. The damn cat was spoiled too much, in his opinion, and he didn't feel that way just because the beast had taken an extreme dislike to him at first sight. She shed her fur all over his garments. She hissed when he approached Mag-he. She coughed up hairballs into his running shoes.
In any case, aside from the ridiculous foo-tawn, Mag-he had also given Rita a Santa hat, which she deemed the latest in "cat coo-tour." Jorund had barely been able to stifle his chuckles of delight at how ludicrous the cat looked.
Sue-zee gave Rita blowing bubbles that had catnip in them, and Beth gave her a Christmas wreath made of tuna-flavored leaves to place above her new bed. The wreath played a meowing version of "Jingle Bells." To be sure, that smelly wreath was going to be lost before morning. "Jingle Bells" was bad enough. A meowing "Jingle Bells"? Never.
Not wanting to be considered a cat hater, which he no doubt was, Jorund had purchased a cat present, too: a feathery kitty wand, which had a heavy metal disc for a base that suctioned to the floor, and a tall, thin metal pole from which numerous bird feathers were suspended. Cats apparently took great pleasure in trying to catch the elusive, fluttery feathers. The good thing about this one was that every so often, when Rita batted at a feather, the wand would swat back, causing the cat to fall on her fat rump with a shriek.
Mag-he had eyed him suspiciously, obviously wondering if he'd deliberately bought a toy that would drive Rita half-mad.
He'd just smiled innocently at her.
Of course, there was no explaining away the second gift he'd bought for Rita: a food bowl with the words, The Cat from Hell, emblazoned on the side.
Mag-he's gift to him had been a tooled leather belt to hold the scabbard for his sword and a set of books about Vikings, with fine gold-edged bindings. He could not easily read the books yet. But every day he was getting more proficient at recognizing written words and phrases. He was deeply touched that she'd given the books to him. It was as if she expected him to be here long enough to learn to read English well. And that was what was causing his low spirits.
He had not expected to care so deeply ever again. It had happened so quickly, as if predestined. That scared him mightily, because he sensed that he was soon going to have to make a decision: to save his brother and leave this land and those he had come to care for; or to stay and see how these affections might develop, and thus abandon his brother and his father's mission.
"Joe, you're not paying attention," Sue-zee complained.
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing her new video game with her.
It was a gruesome battle of gremlins against giants. "And they say Vikings are bloodthirsty," he grumbled good naturedly. "They ought to see a nine-year-old girl with a game clicker in her hand."
Sue-zee jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow and hooted. "You're not going to give up, are you?"
"Yea, I am."
"Chicken! Bock, bock, bock!"
"You win, sweetling." With a wink, he declined to rise to her bait, and instead stood and arched his back to remove the kinks.
"Joe, could you come over here?" Beth urged. "You, too, Mom." Beth was playing with the new laptop come-pewter he'd given her. Truly, it was a magic box. And he'd seen only a few of its marvels which Beth had demonstrated that morning.
A-oh-ell. The Enter-net. Webbing sites. E-mail. Chatting rooms. Whale research sites.
Beth was a truly remarkable child, with her fierce protectiveness of the killer whales... especially one particular whale named Keiko. On her own, she had established her own Webbing site where she was garnering support among young people all over the world. He would bet a Viking king's booty that Thora would love this girl.
Mag-he put aside the book she had been reading in the comfortable chair next to the fire—one of the Viking books she had given him. It was the end of December, but in Tax-us the weather was still fairly warm... certainly not cold enough for a fire. But Mag-he and the girls had insisted that it wouldn't be Christmas without a fire, now that they actually had a fireplace; so they'd put on the air conditioner, a device that magically cooled the house, and had him make a fire.
It struck him as odd that people would want a fireplace in their homes when fire was not used for heat or cooking. But then, this was a country that encouraged cutting down live trees and bringing them indoors to shed their pine needles.
The girls also yearned to have snow for Christmas—another strange tradition in this country— which was almost impossible in this part of Texas. He had told them with a laugh, "A fireplace I could produce for you, but not snow. I am not a god."
"I think you're a god," Mag-he had whispered in that husky sex-voice of hers.
She made him feel like a god.
Now she came up to stand beside him, behind her daughter, who was sitting on a chair in front of a piece of furniture called a desk. She was staring at the colored screen of the laptop, which showed words and colored pictures.
He put his arm around Mag-he's waist, then let his hand sidle lower to palm her buttock. It seemed like forever since he'd last had the freedom to touch Mag-he, even though it had been only a week.
She gave him a startled sideways look, slapped his hand away, then let her gaze wander till she took in the fact that neither Sue-zee nor Beth had noticed. Only then did she reach over and pinch his buttock. "Behave," she ordered in an undertone.
"What did you say, Mom?" Beth asked. She was doing some complicated maneuvers on her lap top. Sue-zee had started another game by herself, and the sounds of zing-zing-zap could be heard in the background.
"Nothing," Mag-he replied innocently. "What did you want to show us, sweetie?"
"Vikings."
"Vikings?" he and Mag-he said at the same time.
"Yeah, I know how interested Joe is in Vikings... coming from Norway and all that," Beth explained. He and Mag-he had agreed not to tell the twins about his having time traveled, but instead to let them think he was a man of Norse heritage with a special interest in the tenth century. "Well, I did a search on Yahoo—that's a search engine—and came up with a zillion sites on the Internet. Then I narrowed my search to tenth-century Vikings, and you won't believe what I found. Are you interested?"
Jorund looked at Mag-he, and she looked back at him. Was he interested? Bloody hell, yes. He pulled an extra chair over next to Beth.
"Lots of the stuff you've told us about King Olaf is true."
"Of course it's true. Did you think I would lie?"
"Well, sometimes the things you say are pretty off-the-wall."
"Name one thing."
"That your father is—was—a Viking king."
"Well, he is—was—not really a king... rather a minor king. Actually, his title is jarl, which is similar to the English earl."
Beth skipped from one site to the next, showing him histories of tenth-century Vikings, along with pictures of their longships, jewelry, clothing, and native fjords. Jorund was fascinated. And he was also homesick, just seeing the images of his homeland.
He didn't realize that Mag-he had placed a hand on his shoulder, but she was just as captivated as he was, leaning over him. "Honey, do a search under the Viking histories for Vestfold. And then for Jarl Eric Tryggvason." She squeezed his shoulder. "Isn't that where you said you come... I mean, where your people come from? The southeastern section of Norway?"
He nodded.
Soon Beth had even more detailed information, though she declared that the tenth century was practically the Dark Ages and not much data had been collected in written form. The person who owned this particular Web site, a member of some group called the ess-see-a, claimed there was a man called Jarl Eric Trygvasson, brother to King Olaf Trygvasson. Apparently there was a grave mound in modern-day Norway with his father's name on it in runic symbols, dated the year 999. Beside it on one side was a smaller grave mound commemorating the death of Eric's daughter-by-marriage, Inga, and his two granddaughters, Greta and Girta. Jorund had already seen the latter, but the former... well, it must mean that his father had died one year after he'd last seen him in 998. Had there been aft accident, or had his father fallen in battle?
If that wasn't heartbreaking enough for Jorund, the next screen showed a large stone with runic symbols on it. Before Beth had a chance to read the text for him, Jorund began translating aloud the inscription, "'This stone is dedicated in the year 998 to the memory of my sons, Jarl Geirolf Ericsson and Jarl Jorund Ericsson. They died at sea, brave of heart. May I join them one day in Valhalla.'"
More important, there was a picture there of Jorund's sword, Bloodletter, which had been buffed in the grave. Surely that was a sign that he had returned home, for there was no duplicate of this specially crafted weapon.
Jorund was staggered by this news, and he could tell that Mag-he was, too, by the way she squeezed both his shoulders. Did this mean that he would never return home to his time? Or would he return after his father's death? Wouldn't he have removed the fallacious gravestone, if he had? On the other hand, mayhap he'd been too griefstricken to care. No, the most damning evidence was his sword. He would be returning to his time.
Mag-he leaned down and whispered in his ear, "We'll talk about this later."
"Oooh, oooh, oooh!" Beth exclaimed. "Look at what I found." She'd moved to another Webbing site. "'Rosestead: A Viking Village.' See. Some guy and his wife built an authentic Viking village in Maine. And it's a working village, too."
Picture after picture was shown of the inhabitants at work... building longships, operating farms, caring for livestock, weaving textiles, making soaps, crafting jewelry, brewing mead, pattern-welding swords. It was like gazing back in time, and yet all of this was apparently taking place today somewhere in this country. Amazing.
"'Tis odd," he commented tentatively, "but the icon marking each of these pages is identical to my family crest—writhing dragons wrapped around a cross. It represents the Vikings of my father and the Christians of my mother."
"It's probably just a coincidence," Mag-he observed.
"And that longship shown there. 'Tis called Fierce Raven. The ships my brother Rolf built all had the name Fierce in them, like Fierce Destiny, Fierce Pride, Fierce Dragon."
"That's probably a coincidence, too."
"Yea," he agreed finally. "If people have no compunction about robbing graves, they would not hesitate to steal a family crest or a ship name, as well."
Beth read some more and told them that the village was originally started to preserve the Viking culture, since there was no true Viking country today...
Iceland being more Viking in nature than Norway was. Because Vikings were assimilated into the countries where they conquered or settled, they had no real homeland of their own. In addition, Beth read that Rosestead also served as an orphanage for inner-city homeless kids.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a place like that for mental patients, like the ones at Rainbow?" Sue zee suggested from behind them, where she was still playing her game. She must have been listening to them and playing at the same time.
Everyone turned with surprise.
She shrugged. "It was, just an idea. Lots of the people at Rainbow aren't dangerous or anything, and look how well some of them are doing, just being around Joe, who's kind of a Viking."
"Who's kind of a Viking?" he protested. "I am most definitely a real Viking."
"Yeah, yeah," Sue-zee said, and went back to concentrating on her game.
"It's an interesting thought," Jorund remarked to Mag-he.
She nodded and appeared to be considering all the possibilities. Not that it was really possible. He would be long gone before any such project could be undertaken. Wouldn't he?
"They even have a visitors' program six months of the year, when outsiders can come in and tour the place. They're closed November through April," Beth went on. "Maybe we could go there for vacation next year, huh, Mom?"
"Maybe," Mag-he conceded, but her mind still seemed to be elsewhere.
For some reason the computer shut down on them momentarily, and when it came back on, they had lost the Rosestead Web site. But Jorund had seen enough.
"I must needs tell you something that I have just now decided. Methinks it will be glad tidings for you all." Jorund could scarce contain his excitement in making this announcement.
They all stopped what they were doing and stared at him expectantly. Mag-he tilted her head; she was a little suspicious.
He didn't know where the notion had come from, or why he was so convinced that it was the right thing to do. It just felt right.
"We're going to Maine."
Pandemonium broke loose. Joe was jabbering away excitedly. The girls were jumping up and down, thrilled at the prospect of a road trip with their beloved father figure. And Maggie was seething with fury.
"No!" she finally screamed to get their attention. When everyone calmed down enough to listen, she softened her voice. "We are not going to Maine." And she gave Joe a meaningful glower to indicate that it was cruel for him to have made the suggestion without consulting her first.
He just lifted his stubborn chin in defiance. The dunce didn't have the sense to realize his blunder.
"Mom!" Suzy and Beth whined.
"No!" she repeated, more firmly this time. "It's out of the question."
Then to Joe, she said, "Number one, it's too far away. Number two, we have to be here on New Year's Eve—remember, we promised to be at the talent show at Boot Scootin' Cowboy to support Natalie. Number three, that Rosestead place isn't even open in the winter. Number four, the girls have to be back in school the day after New Year's Day—that's only nine days from now. Number five, it's cold—very cold—in Maine this time of the year."
"We could get a couple days off of school," Beth argued. "They're allowed for educational purposes. And this would be educational, I bet."
"You never let us do anything," Suzy added.
"Girls, I want you to go upstairs and take your baths."
"It's, Christmas. Why do we have to go up so early?' Suzy protested, tears welling in her eyes.
I thought we were going to watch A Christmas Story on TV tonight," Beth added. "You said we could, Mom. Remember, that's the movie about the kid who wanted a BB gun for Christmas? It was so funny when he got those footed bunny pajamas, and when that kid's tongue got stuck to the flagpole."
Maggie remembered. She didn't need Beth's nervous jabbering to jog her memory. Did Suzy and Beth really think she would be so harsh? She wasn't about to let their Christmas end on such a sour note. "You can come back down after your baths," she said gently, pushing some loose strands of hair off of Beth's face and behind her ears. "Joe and I need to talk... alone."
Once the girls were gone, Jorund knew he was in big trouble. But before he let that trouble hit him smack in the face, he had something important to do. Walking resolutely to the door leading from the den to the hallway, he shoved Rita out with a whisk of his foot, closed the door with a loud bang, then turned the key in the lock.
"What are you doing, Joe?" Mag-he asked, backing up slightly. She was wearing tight black braies, which were appropriately called tights, and a big, loose black tunic, caught in at the waist with a twisted rope belt of red and green. He hoped to hell she was wearing no undergarments, because he didn't have that much time before the girls returned.
"What am I doing?" he repeated, already yanking his Proud to Be a Viking T-shirt over his head. "I'm about to give you the best Christmas present you've ever had."
"No."
"Yea."
"We can't. I told you that I wouldn't do this with the girls in the house."
"Surely there must be an exception for Christmas."
She wavered. He could see it in her eyes. He would warrant she'd missed their lovemaking almost as much as he had.
"Mag-he, you are killing me with all these new... emotions. Not just our lovemaking, or being amongst twin girls again, but the whole Christmas season. I need... I need..."
She waited for him to finish, but he could not. In truth, he had closed the door to the den chamber in hopes of a quick swiving. He had not intended to spout such nonsense—at least, that was what he would have called it at one time— but the words just came out. Perhaps it was not just a quick swiving he was after... or not the only thing he was after. Why does everything have to be so complicated in this land?
"You need what, Joe?" Mag-he asked softly.
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them, staring at her bleakly. "I need to be touched," he confessed.
"Oh, Joe."
She was ripe for the plucking now, if he wanted to take advantage of her vulnerability. Somehow Jorund could not do that. He did not want to seduce her tonight. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.
She bit her bottom lip with indecision and reached a hand out, cupping his jaw.
That touch that mere touch was almost his undoing. He moaned and turned his mouth to her palm, kissing it gently.
She moaned, too, a soft, feminine sound of capitulation. "I need your touch, too," she admitted. "I have missed you so much this week."
He nodded, waiting for her word to proceed. Jorund was a warrior. He knew when to advance and when to delay. Now his instincts said to wait for her cue.
"They'll be back too soon for us to do anything."
"Not for what I have in mind."
She arched an eyebrow. Yes, she was interested, despite herself.
"Something I heard about on the TV world box," he answered, backing her up against the closet door, beside the glittering Christmas tree. Even as he brushed his mouth over hers, restraining himself from deepening the kiss, he was already at work, loosening her belt. "A wall-bang-her."
Maggie gasped with surprise. He wasn't sure if it was because of what he intended to do, or because he'd already lifted her off the floor, shoved her tights down to her thighs—and yes, he had been right... thank the Lord... she was not wearing undergarments—and pulled his braies down far enough to release his erection... which was immense again. Oh, for the tears of Thor! It resemble a tree limb. What is happening to my male parts in this land? I ne'er thought I would say this about my virility, but "tis embarrassing. Before she could blink, or raise some objection, he adjusted her legs to hug his hips, and plunged inside. Luckily, Mag-he had gone back on something called birth-control pills, and the condoms were no longer necessary.
"We can't." Maggie was already wrapping her arms around his shoulders and adjusting her legs more tightly about his hips, locking them at the ankles behind his back.
"We can," he said, then beseeched her in a raw voice, "Touch me, Mag-he. Touch me, touch me, touch me."
She undid the rub-her band holding his hair back and ran her fingers through the long strands lovingly. She traced the line of his jaw and his eyebrows with a forefinger. She rubbed his shoulders and caressed his back. Everywhere her hands and fingers could reach, she touched him.
Only then did he begin the long, slow strokes that he knew she enjoyed so much.
The friction of her inner walls tugging at his staff on each backward stroke was sweet agony to him.
With one hand under her buttocks to hold her up, Jorund reached his other hand under her shert and began to massage one breast. He lifted its fullness from underneath, then palmed the whole, rubbing in a circular fashion till the tight bud in the center stabbed at his flesh. Mag-he had the most sensitive breasts, and it was only seconds before she was moaning aloud, and peaking around his pounding erection.
He wanted her to continue peaking for him till he came to his own release. So, even before she stopped her erotic spasms, he was fluttering his thumb against her sex-bud... a continuous, rapid, back-and-forth motion that prompted another orgasm from Mag-he. The whole time, he continued his long strokes, which were becoming shorter and faster as he approached his own imminent exploding point.
"I love you," she cried out in the midst of her ecstasy, still alternately clutching and caressing his shoulders. Then, "Tell me, tell me, tell me," she begged.
He knew exactly what she wanted to hear, and perhaps it was the sex, or perhaps it was the Christmas spirit in the air, or perhaps he was finally surrendering to the inevitable, but Jorund couldn't help himself then. "I love you, heartling. I love you, I love you, I love you." He said all this to her as his seed burst into her body.
And for that moment, at least, Jorund's life seemed to have come full circle. He was complete.
 
"I said no, and I mean it," Maggie said, straightening out her clothes.
There was no afterglow period to their lovemaking this time, as much as she cherished Joe's words of love. She didn't blame him for the wild sexual interlude. She had needed his touch as much as he'd apparently needed hers. It had been as beautiful in its spontaneity as some of his long, drawn-out loveplay often was. But now Maggie felt awful, unable to savor what should be such a special moment. She couldn't seem to help herself. The girls would be back soon, and she had to settle the absurd question of their taking off across the country to some tourist attraction that wasn't even open to the public during the winter.
Joe stared at her, his eyes desolate and pleading. "Why is it so important to you?"
"I don't know. It just is." He'd already adjusted his clothing. Now he went over to unlock the door. When Rita rushed in, he made a disgusted sound. Turning back to Maggie, he reached out and took one of her hands in both of his. "My instincts tell me that this is something I must do."
Maggie pulled her hand from his clasp. She couldn't think when he touched her in any way. Besides that, her skin was still extrasensitive from their lovemaking.
Pacing the room, she tried to get her emotions under control. "You want us—me and my two daughters—to take a fruitless, two-thousand-mile trip, all based on an instinct?"
"Yea, I do."
She noticed a familiar expression on his face. "Oh, don't you dare throw that trust business in my face again. This isn't about trust. It's about a whim."
"Mayhap it's about control, Mag-he. Mayhap you just can't bear to give up some of your precious control. I admit that I should have discussed this with you first, but I did not do it to usurp your authority. I was so excited over the idea that I blurted it out."
She took a deep breath. "Listen, Joe, we can go next summer when the girls are on vacation—"
"Next summer! What makes you think I will be here next summer?" His words were angry and bleak at the same time.
Maggie felt as if a vise were squeezing her heart.
"I'll go myself then. I will reserve a seat for myself on a gray dog."
"Gray dog?" Maggie laughed briefly. "You mean Greyhound... like a Greyhound bus?"
He waved a hand dismissively. "That is what I said, is it not?"
The idea of a tenth-century Viking boarding a modern bus and traveling a great distance to a place where he knew no one was so outlandish that Maggie hurried to convince him he was being unreasonable. "I can't let you do that."
His eyes threw flinty sparks at her, as if to say, Try to stop me.
"Joe, try to understand. I'm the only one who drives. Even if I could drive nonstop, it would be two days going and two days coming back. With at least one overnight stay in a motel, we're talking three days each way of driving alone.
Were you planning that we would go, examine the closed-to-the-public village from the outside, then turn around and come right back?"
"You know I have made no specific plans. It's just something I want to do—nay, something I need to do."
As he needed my touch? No, don't think. You're softening, Maggie. Whatever you do, don't soften. "Don't you think you're being selfish?"
He seemed to give her question serious thought. "Nay... yea... it does not matter."
"And there's another thing: do you think it's wise to go so far away from the point of your time travel entry? There's a chance you'd cut yourself off forever from returning to your time."
"On the other hand, Thora may have traveled north to colder waters. Mayhap she awaits me there. Mayhap that is why it is so important to me."
That prospect staggered Maggie. "You think that this might be a sign from Thora?"
"Mayhap."
"And you would abandon me and Suzy and Beth in Maine?" Maggie hated the pathetic tone of her voice.
"Not willingly." He drew himself up resolutely. "Heed me well on this, m'lady: I am going to this Rosestead village, but your arguments make good sense. So I will offer this compromise, though it vexes me no end to think of doing it."
He had her full attention now.
"We could go on one of those flying longships."
Flying longships? Flying longships? Oh. "By airplane?"
"Yea." His face was pale as a ghost at the possibility.
He plopped down on the sofa, pulling her down next to him. "I cannot credit that this love we have just discovered is destined to end here. Come with me, heartling. Please."
The girls burst through the door then, smelling of shampoo and lilac bubble bath. "Well?" they both asked expectantly.
Maggie barely hesitated a moment before informing them with forced brightness, "Looks like we're going to see snow this Christmas, after all."
"If ever I make it back to my time, I am going to have some fantastic stories to give to the skalds," Jorund grumbled.
Sitting next to the window in an actual flying machine, for the love of Freyja—he was as rigid as a Saxon soldier with a Norse Made at his private parts, and twice as frightened. The only thing different was the lack of piss running down his legs... so far.
The airplane had the whimsical name of United. He supposed that was not so unusual, considering the names some Vikings gave their longships and favorite weapons.
Mag-he sat totally at ease in the seat next to him, trying to assure him of their safety with such ludicrous words as, "Only one plane in about a million ever crashes." As if that were any comfort to him. This metal container could very likely be the millionth one.
Once the craft was airborne, he released a long breath and continued his complaints. "Truly, my sagas will be retold through the centuries: how Jorund the Lackwit Warrior not only rode naked on the back of a killer whale, but landed in a madhouse, then willingly flew through the skies in a magic machine called an airplane, thus proving his madness."
Steve had loaned him his new SEALs jacket in anticipation of the low temperatures they would find in Maine. Mag-he and the girls, who sat in the eats behind them, wore layers of sweat-hers under their jackets.
While the girls were excited about the trip, he was tense, waiting for something—he knew not what—to happen next. Not an airplane crash. No, it was something else, he was certain. Mag-he, bless her trusting soul, was simply resigned.
For the next hour or so, he was able to relax, even though the airplane was traveling at an excessive rate of speed. When he turned to glance over the back of the headrest, he saw that the girls were napping. He had thought Mag-he was dozing, too, fill she asked softly, "Do you still feel this trip has some importance?"
Clearly she was worried that their time together was nearing an end. He could give her no assurances to the contrary. Reaching over to lace his fingers with hers, he tugged her closer, then put an arm around her shoulders and rested her face in the crook of his neck. He would try to lighten her spirits, he decided. "Steve told me about a remarkable feat that some couples attempt while in an air machine."
She laughed—a choked, wobbly sound. "Stop trying to make me laugh." Her words were light, but her eyes remained melancholy.
"'Tis called the Mile-high Association," he went on. "I believe it has something to do with sex in the clouds. That sounds interesting, do you not think?" Jorund was just jesting, of course. He might have been foolhardy enough to try flying in a metal box, but never would he dare fornicate on a cloud.
"Oh, no, you don't, buster." She punched him lightly on the upper arm. "Last night you might have been able to talk me into... into—"
"A wall-bang-her?" he offered with a grin.
"Yes. You might have been able to seduce me into vertical sex..."
Well, that's an interesting name for it.
"... but no way are you sweet-talking me into sex in an airplane bathroom. Uh-uh."
Oh, so that is what the Mile-high Association is. They both sat in silence then, but Jorund had some things that needed to be said, and Mag-he apparently did, too.
She spoke first. "You very cleverly evaded my question, Joe. Why are you so serious, aside from being scared to death of flying? What's bothering you?"
"If I should depart suddenly..." he blurted out.
Her body stiffened with alarm. "Oh, no! Do you really think you might—"
"Shhh." He squeezed her shoulder and held her face with his other hand. "I don't know that I would be sent back without warning, but I must needs be ready."
"Tell me the truth. You sense that something is about to happen, don't you?"
He hesitated to tell her, but she had to be prepared. Finally he nodded.
She gasped.
Fie tried to explain. "I cannot tell you how many times over how many years I have prepared myself to go into battle. Each time, at the last moment, there is a rush of blood in the body, a humming in the ears, an excitement of sorts."
"It's called adrenaline."
Why was he not surprised that she would have a name for it? They had a name for every other bloody thing in this strange land... including mouth sex, the bad temper women were in before their monthly flux, the perfectly natural inclination of males of middle years to swive younger women, and—
"Is that how you feel now? All hyped up?" she asked, tears misting her beautiful blue eyes. "As if you are about to fight?"
"Hmmm. Not exactly. More like something immense is about to happen."
They were both silent then. What could be more immense than his being hurtled back through time? What could be more immense than their permanent separation?
"You're strong, Mag-he," he remarked in a strangled voice. "You can handle anything."
He was not so sure about himself, though.
"No matter what happens, Joe, I can't be sorry that I met you, or that we made love."
He nodded, unable to express just how much his short relationship with her meant to him. In the end, he told her, "I will never forget you."
They were both too overcome to speak more, and Jorund turned away to stare out the window. The airplane was now traveling over an expanse of water. He narrowed his eyes and pressed his nose to the glass. Aha! He didn't even bother to tell Mag-he when he saw a killer whale skyhopping merrily down below. She would only tell him that it was impossible to see that far. But he knew. It was Thora; he was certain of that.
And her words to him, accompanied by the usual clicks and groans, came up the great distance from the water to the plane, loud and clear, for his ears only. Soon, Viking. Soon you will know.
They arrived at Rosestead the next morning, and the Viking village was beautiful as a postcard... a perfect Hallmark holiday image.
"Wow!" Suzy and Beth exclaimed. They were practically jumping up and down with glee in the backseat of the rental car—not just at their initial view of an authentic Norse settlement, but at seeing real snow for the first time. Luckily  this wasn't gray, slushy snow, but crisp, new-fallen flakes, like the snow globes found in gift stores.
"It was well worth the trip just to see this charming scene," she told Joe as they exited the vehicle. She was trying to make up for her earlier resistance to the trip, but her sentiments were honest.
He nodded distractedly. He was no longer hyped up, but also somber with some odd anticipation... something she could neither fathom nor alleviate.
"Are you all right?" she asked, putting a hand on his arm. His face was pale, his lips pinched.
Giving her a sideways glance, he grimaced. "Bloody damn a-drain-a-line! My heart's pumping faster than a youthling's legs in his first wolf race."
At first Maggie had been alarmed by Joe's belief that something monumental was about to happen, but now it was more as if they were all on a slow-moving roller coaster. It was sure to be a rocky ride, but there was no getting off. What would be, would be.
She did say a silent prayer, though: Please, God, if it be your will, let everything work out for me and Joe and my daughters. We love him so much.
They'd gotten into the Bangor airport the night before, but Maggie had insisted that they get a motel room before heading for the village. If Joe and the girls had had their way, they would have come upon this scene in the dark, and that would have been a shame, she realized now.
With snow flurries coming down steadily, their first view of Rosestead was seen through a filter of the white flakes. Suzy and Beth were so excited as they emerged from the rental car, they were oblivious to the freezing cold.
Rosestead was located at a secluded site in northern Maine, accessed by a half-mile roadway leading off the interstate. A giant archway over the entrance read: ROSESTEAD: A VIKING VILLAGE. A smaller sign on the side listed its schedule. A banner over the sign proclaimed, CLOSED TILL APRIL. And there was a wooden gate across the entrance barring car traffic. It couldn't be any clearer than that.
Closed to the public.
They emerged from the car, and Joe walked right around the gate. She and the girls had no choice but to follow.
A small, rolling mountainscape provided the backdrop to Rosestead on the left side. Several dozen thatch-roofed Viking longhouses—some large, some small; some clearly private residences, some workshops and businesses—were scattered about a private lake on the opposite side from the wooded hillside. She assumed that the lake led out to the ocean, because there were several beached longships, which would be of no use on a mere lake. In the middle of these longhouses, set back and elevated somewhat, was a larger dwelling that could only be described as a wooden, fortlike castle.
"That structure doesn't seem to fit in with the Viking ones," Maggie remarked to Joe, having to practically skip to keep up with his long strides.
"You are right. It is more in the Saxon and Frankish manner of building, but, if my eyes tell me true, 'tis identical to my father's home in Vestfold," he observed. "Some of the kings and jarls of Norway in the late tenth century were building castles of wood, just so. Longhouses were becoming too small for their extended families and housecarls and hirds of soldiers."
She nodded. If she hadn't already accepted that Joe had somehow come to her from another time, his ease in discussing the everyday life of the Dark Ages would have impressed her now.
"Look, Mom, look!" Suzy was gazing at the lake, where a group of young people had begun ice-skating.
"Can we go, too? Please. Please. Please," Beth added.
"Maybe later," Maggie said, though why she would make even that tentative promise when they were already trespassing was beyond her.
A young, thirtyish man in a crew cut, jeans, and a sweatshirt that read, U.S. Army came out of one of the first buildings and yelled at them, "Hey, you guys. You can't come in here. The place is closed for..." He was striding quickly toward them when his steps faltered and his words trailed off. "Holy cow!" he muttered. At first Maggie thought he was awestruck because he thought Joe was a Navy SEAL, as evidenced by his jacket; many people were dazzled by the prestigious military unit. And he was apparently an ex-army man. But then she noticed that he was staring fixedly at Joe's face. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost.
"Who are you?" Joe demanded of the young man. His tone was so imperious, he sounded like some visiting warlord.
"Mike Johnson. The curator," he replied, not even questioning Joe's authority to grill him. "Who are you?"
"Jorund Ericsson."
Mike Johnson nodded. Then, with a disbelieving shake of his head, he repeated, "Holy freakin' cow!"
A young woman with blond hair and a little boy of five or so came out of the longhouse where Mike Johnson had originally emerged. Maggie assumed it was his wife and child. The woman watched Joe, wide-eyed, then exchanged a look with her husband.
"Where is your chieftain?" Joe asked. "The jarl of Rosestead?"
Mike inclined his head toward the wood castle, and Joe immediately stomped off in that direction. Maggie took Suzy's and Beth's hands and followed after him.
As they walked along, people were coming out of the longhouses, some in Viking attire, which they all probably wore during the regular tourist season, but most of them in jeans or sweatpants. There seemed to be a large number of young people. Hadn't Beth told them, when surfing the Web site, that there was a residential program for homeless inner-city kids here?
Interestingly, although this was a Viking village, there were Christmas decorations on many of the longhouses, a light-up Santa and a reindeer panorama in the front yard of another, and lots of illuminated pine trees. So it was a modern-day Viking village, she supposed.
No one tried to halt their progress, though they were clearly outsiders, trespassing. Little by little, the people following in Joe's wake grew into a murmuring crowd.
"Mommy, I'm scared," Beth said.
"Everyone's acting weird," Suzy added. "Even Joe."
"Don't worry, kiddos. It's just that Joe looks like a Viking, and this is a Viking village. They've probably never seen a real Viking before." That sounded like a good explanation. Too bad Suzy and Beth weren't buying it any more than she was.
Maggie wished Joe would take her hand. Instead he seemed to be oblivious to her presence. Soon his longer stride caused them to be left behind... at first only a few paces, then greater and greater distance. To Maggie's dismay, she realized that he didn't even care whether she was there anymore, so intent was he on this... this thing that was drawing him.
Was this the beginning of the end?
 
Rosestead felt like home to Jorund.
There were differences, of course. Cold as it was here, winter in his country was frigid. A man's mustache and nose hairs developed icicles with just a brief visit to the garderobe. Some men claimed it was so cold their piss froze the second it left their bodies. In addition, the light coating of snow on the ground would have been eaves high at his homestead by now, and would stay that way or pile higher till the spring thaw. The landscape itself was different, too. The northern fields were mostly rocky and untillable, unless they were farmed by skilled farmers like his brother, Magnus. But here, he could see, there would be thriving wheat fields and vegetable patches by midsummer.
Despite the differences, Jorund reveled in his first glimpse of the familiar wattle-and-daub longhouses with their thatch and sod roofs, the wooden keep so like his father's, and the dragon ships. His throat constricted as he walked swiftly into the village. He had not realized how homesick he was till now.
He passed the dragonships, which were propped on wooden cradles. Then he did a double take.
Holy Thor! There was a colorful figurehead on one of the prows that appeared identical to the one he'd given Rolf as a coarse jest years ago—a figure of a buxom blond woman with cherry-red nipples. They'd dubbed the wooden wench Ingrid, as he recalled.
How odd! Had a copy of this figurehead been made in his country by the craftsman who'd chiseled the first? Or had this figurehead gone down with Rolf's ship a thousand years ago, and ended up on some beach as flotsam?
Well, that was of little import now. He needed to speak with the leader of this village. There were some significant questions he wanted to ask, like, How did his family crest get on Rosestead's Webbing site? Why did this keep so resemble his father's? What was the Ingrid figurehead doing here?
A man wearing standard Viking attire of a belted leather tunic over black braies and cross gartered half boots, stepped out of the giant double doors of the keep. He walked across the small wooden bridge that traversed a narrow dry moat. 
Beside him on one side was a small boy of about two winters, clinging to his hand. On the other was a woman with long, auburn hair and green eyes. In her arms was a warmly bundled babe of perhaps a few months.
As the man came closer, Jorund got his first good view of him, then said with a gasp, "Guц minn gцdur!" Stopping in his tracks, he repeated in English, "My God!"
The man did likewise, muttering, "Blцd hel!" He released the child's grasp to put both hands to his face, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Except for the darker blond color of his hair, the resemblance between him and Jorund was remarkable.
That was why all the inhabitants of this village had been gawking at him so, he realized now.
It was his brother, Rolf.
"Jorund!" Roll shouted joyously, now that his initial shock had passed.
"Rolf!" Jorund exclaimed, and rushed forward to grasp his younger brother, who was the same massive height as he, and lift him high in the hair, swinging him around as his father used to do with his mother when he came home after a long voyage a-Viking.
Once Jorund released his brother, they embraced tightly, choked with emotion. Then they stood, simply staring at each other with stupid delight. They both had tears in their eyes, which they wiped away surreptitiously.
"How did you get here?" Rolf asked.
"On a flying machine. An airplane," he informed him with disgust.
"From Vestfold? And the tenth century?" Rolf's mouth dropped open with surprise.
"Nay, you lackbrain, not from Vestfold. From Tax-us."
Rolf shook his head briskly from side to side, like a wet dog who had fallen into a fjord. "How the bloody hell did you get to Texas?"
"Ha! Funny you should ask! On the back of a killer whale. Do you believe it?"
"A... a killer whale?"
He nodded. "Her name is Thora."
"A whale with a name?"
"And Joe was buck-naked, too," Sue-zee offered with a little giggle, coming up behind them.
"Oh, I do not believe this," Rolf said, reaching down to lift both Suzy and Beth  into his arms and give each of them a hug and a kiss. When he put them down, the girls scurried back to their mother, a little bit frightened by this exuberant stranger. "You brought Greta and Girta here? On the back of a whale? Was that not foolhardy of you?"
At first Jorund did not understand. Then he realized that Rolf thought these twins were his twins. "No, brother, these girls do not belong to me," he explained.
The expression of hurt on Suzy's and Beth's faces cut him to the quick. So he quickly added, "But they are the daughters of my heart."
The girls beamed.
"I will tell you of Inga and Greta and Girta later. Suffice it to say, they died in the famine."
"Oh, Jorund!" Rolf commiserated sadly and gave him another bear hug.
Jorund noticed Mag-he standing there silently, as well as the woman with the babe and child next to Rolf. He had been rude in ignoring them all, especially Mag-he, who had brought him, reluctantly, to this joyous homecoming. Tucking an arm around her shoulder, he drew her closer, and introduced everyone all around.
"Rolf, this is my... uh, friend, Dock-whore Mag-he Muck bride." He had been about to say "my leman," but suspected that Mag-he would not appreciate that title. Then, "Mag-he, this is my little brother, Rolf."
"Little?" Rolf scoffed.
"Younger, then."
"The brother you were searching for?" Mag-he asked.
"Yea, the very one. Isn't it wonderful?"
"More than wonderful," Mag-he said softly, and he knew they had much to discuss, later, about the implications of this reunion.
Then Roll introduced his wife, Profess-whore Merry-death Ericsson, his son Foster, and his new daughter, Rose. A wife? What an amazing happenstance!
Methought Rolf would never wed again. Methought he liked his freedom too much. "A profess-whore?" Jorund asked with a grin.
"A dock-whore?" Rolf asked with a grin.
The two ladies shook their heads at each other, as if their men were hopeless youths.
"Seems to me there are way too many whores in this country," Jorund quipped, and Mag-he elbowed him in the ribs.
Despite his attempt at mirth, Jorund was puzzled. How could Rolf have left Norway one year ago, in 997, and already have two children? It was all so confusing. Perhaps the time portals where they had entered were just different... years could be gained or lost in the passing. Perhaps he could have even left after Roll, but arrived before him.
It was enough to muddle the brain, if his weren't already muddled.
The women and children were all shivering in the cold. Rolf motioned for everyone behind them to go on home and invited the rest of them to come inside.
With his arm looped over Jorund's shoulder, Rolf said, "I have been praying for a sign from the past."
Jorund arched an eyebrow at him. "You? Praying?" Then, "Hell and Valhalla! I am your sign?"
"Yea." His brother nodded. "Finally, someone I can best in swordplay."
"Hah!" From the time they were kids Jorund had always triumphed over his in the military arts.
"There will be no swordplay here." Rolf's wife spoke up for the first time. "Remember what happened the last time? Mike had to get stitches."
"Whate'er you say, dearling," Rolf replied, rolled his eyes at Jorund, as if fifteen stitches were a mere child's wound.
It was.
"By the by, Rolf remarked then. "When did you arrive in this land?"
"Three months ago."
"Three months! What have you been doing all this time?"
"Well, of late, I have been teaching demented people."
Rolf stopped walking and stared at him, gape-mouthed, as if he were himself demented, which of course they had thought he was at one time.
Then, just to tease his brother, he added, "In madhouse."
Rolf's jaw dropped a notch lower.
Leaning close to his brother's ear, he said, "One of the pay-shuns is a sex addict. One thinks he is Moses, on the days when he is not Charlemagne. Still another cannot get his cock to rise. One wench sings all day long. And there is Norse there named Glad-ass. Is that not amazing, Rolf?"
Bursting out with a short laugh, Rolf punch him in the arm. "You are making all this up."
"I am not. 'Tis true. Really." He called up " "Mag-he who was walking beside Roll's wife, and conversing softly with her. "Mag-he, tell the truth. Do you and I not work in a medhouse?"
She reddened at his words. "We work in a mental-health facility," she said, making a point of the distinction in wordng. The word madhouse is not used any more, Joe."
"Madhouse, mental-health facility 'tis the same titling—" he whispered to Rolf, but to Mag-he said, "Wha-te'er you say, dearling," repeating his brother's response to his wife. A fine response it was, too. It was always best to let women think they had the upper hand.
"Why does she call you Joe?"
Jorund shrugged. "'Tis a nicking name."
Rolf burst out with a chuckle. "Joe the Viking?"
Jorund rolled his shoulders in a gesture meant to convey, What could I do?
But then Roll smiled at him, hooking an arm around his neck and yanking him close. " 'Twould seem that you and I have much to discuss, brother."
That was the version of an understatement.
 
They were sittings, at the high table in Rolls great hall, the men sipping mead and the women tea. It was like stepping back in time, right down to the primitive weapons on the walls. During their tourist season, there were even rushes on the floor, which Meredith claimed were a pain in the neck to keep clean.
Lunch had been over an hour ago, but Maggie was still in a state of shock. She'd sent Suzy and Beth out with some of the older kids, including a girl named Thea, who'd come up with extra ice skates for them, along with gloves, knit caps, and warmer jackets. Maggie had been assured the ice was very thick and completely safe.
She liked Rolf and his wife... a lot. Right now Meredith was discreetly nursing her three month-old baby under a receiving blanket thrown over her shoulder.
Maggie couldn't help noticing the way Rolf's loving gaze kept going back to his wife, even as he spoke with Joe. And Meredith was equally enamored of her husband, which was evident in the pleasure she displayed over her husband's joy in being reunited with his brother. Whatever made him happy made her happy; that was obvious.
"Besotted, are you?" Joe teased his brother. Apparently he had observed the same bond between Rolf and Meredith.
"For a certainty," Rolf admitted without hesitation, leaning over to kiss his wife loudly on the mouth, then to give an equally loud smack to his now-sleeping daughter's cheek.
Both brothers had been talking rapidly ever since they'd come inside, catching up on all their news. Joe told Rolf everything that had happened to him since he'd arrived in Texas, and it was interesting to hear the spin he put on everything. All agreed that Joe's method of time travel, atop a killer whale, naked, was much more dramatic than Rolf's simple shipwreck. And all agreed, as well, that not one, but two brothers being time travelers was a remarkable coincidence.
As Joe and Rolf continued to reminisce, Maggie asked Meredith, "Didn't you find it hard to accept the concept of time travel?"
"Absolutely," Meredith said. "I still do."
Maggie nodded. It was the same with her. She accepted and did not accept at the same time.
"I'm a professor of medieval studies at Oxley College. My parents are professors. My grandfather was, too. All my life I was trained to believe in scientific, scholarly methods of research. I think that the only way I was able to reconcile logic with such a fantastic notion as time travel was that it was a miracle."
"That's amazing. I came to the same conclusion."
"I can't believe in time travel as a scientific concept..." Meredith started to explain.
"But you can accept a God with the power to do anything," Maggie finished for her.
"Right," Meredith agreed with a smile. "I really, really needed Rolf at the time when he arrived. I didn't realize it at first, of course, but in the end the things he brought to me... well, I can only describe him as a miracle."
Suzy and Beth burst into the great hall then, along with the other excited children. Thea, who was Meredith's fifteen-year-old niece, wrapped her arms around Rolf's neck from behind, hugging him tightly. Her hair was purple, and she had five earrings in each ear and an eyebrow ring. Maggie imagined that she'd make an interesting Viking maiden during the tourist season. Her mother, Meredith's sister, was in London at the moment, trying to establish new markets for the reproduction Viking jewelry that was crafted at Rosestead.
Her daughters' faces were red. Snow dusted their bright caps and gloves. They were gloriously happy, as only children could be.
And where did they rush first? To Joe. Maggie wasn't offended, though. Instinctively she understood how important he'd become in their lives. He didn't supplant her; he supplemented her.
With both of them speaking at once, it was hard to decipher their words, but mostly they were talking about how exciting it had been to ice-skate, and wasn't snow the greatest invention in the world, and would he please, please, please be on their side in the upcoming snowball fight? Joe listened attentively to all they said, seeming to be able to decipher who was saying what. He nodded and smiled, tugged playfully on Suzy's braids, and whisked some snowflakes off Beth's eyelashes. And Maggie's heart swelled and swelled and swelled.
She looked at Meredith, and Meredith looked back at her with understanding.
Maggie had never realized just how much her daughters had needed a father figure in their lives—a man just like Joe. Was it really as simple as the fact that they had prayed on a wishing star, and God had sent them Joe?
Truly, she concluded, her Viking had been a miracle, too. A Christmas miracle.
 
Later that day, Jorund was still touring the Rosestead village.
"I'm impressed," he told his brother. "Not just because you have built a thriving shipbuilding concern, and a world outlet for Norse crafts, and a tourist attraction, but you help troubled children as well. And look at how much you do to educate people in this land about Vikings."
"I am proud of my work," Rolf admitted with no token show of humility. It was the way of the menfolk in his family. 'Twas especially important to me that this enterprise succeed so that I could find a place for myself in this new world. I'm not sure what I could have done, if not for this."
Jorund understood. "A man needs to find work that suits his talents and feeds his soul."
"Yea, that is it exactly. Oh, I suppose I could have gotten work as a carpenter, but I doubt I could have worked for someone else. I am too used to leading."
That sentiment Jorund agreed with, too. In truth, he was not sure he could fit in so well in this society.
"What will you do now?" Rolf asked. "Now that you have found me... does that not fulfill our father's wishes?"
"I am not sure," he answered truthfully. "One part of me is joyous and says I am finally free .... "
"Free to do what?"
"That is the problem, I'm not sure. Just free, I suppose. Another part of me argues that I must go back. Do you know—I probably shouldn't tell you this but on one of the Enter-net history sites, it says that our father died in the year 999. That is only one year from the time I left. Mayhap if I go back I can forestall his passing on to Valhalla. And there was another thing, too. I saw my sword the very sword I carry with me now—pictured on that Webbing site. It said that the sword was buried in my grave mound. Surely that means that I must go back."
"The Webbing site also mentioned that the grave mound was for me, too, and I am not returning. It must be a mistake." Rolf frowned with bafflement.
"I do not know," Jorund answered desolately. "Mayhap I died far from home. All I know is that our father cannot be left ignorant of your fate... before he dies."
He added that last with a choked sound of pain. All of the Ericsson children were fond of their father.
Rolf put a hand on his shoulder. "Merry-death is an expert on ancient studies, and she tells me that the dates in the tenth-century histories are rarely accurate. Besides, it is not your responsibility."
"He is our father," Jorund cried out.
"Yea, he is, and though I expect ne'er to see him again in this life, it does not mean I love him any less because I choose to live my life here."
"But it's cruel not to let our father know that we—I mean, you—are well."
"I will say this, brother: you were ever the one to take on all the world's responsibilities."
Jorund bristled. "What mean you by that blather?"
" 'Tis not blather. Many a man would have refused to wed Inga if tricked into wedlock the way you were, but you felt responsible. Many a man has lost children and not felt the massive guilt that weighs you down, but you feel responsible. Many a man would have considered his father-duty ended when he completed his mission, but you feel a responsibility to tell our father in person. When does your responsibility to others end and your own happiness take precedence?"
He accepted that Rolf meant well, and much of what he said was true, but a strong sense of duty was in Jorund's nature. He could not change. Nor did he want to. At least, that was what he told himself. Inside he was not so sure.
"What of your Mag-he? Do you have a responsibility to her, as well?"
He shook his head. "Mag-he understands."
"Does she?"
He cocked his head to the side. "Do you doubt that?"
Rolf shrugged. 'I don't know. I suspect you are confused right now, and I do not want you to make any hasty decisions."
"I won't," he promised. "In the meanwhile, I am obliged to attend a singing competition on New Year's Eve... involving one of the pay-shuns from the madhouse—I mean, mental-health facility."
He grinned at his brother on making that correction. "Then, Sue-zee and Beth's birthing day is in February. I should probably stay till then. And Beth is planning a big protesting march at the orca park in April, and she asked specifically if I would be there for support, but—"
"More responsibilities?" Rolf was grinning at him knowingly.
"Then, too, I would really like to stay long enough to find out what happens to Josh and Reva." He ducked his head sheepishly.
"The Guiding Light! Do you watch that show, too? Ah, it is one of my favorites."
"Those two would make wonderful Vikings, do you not think?"
"I have said so on many an occasion to Merrydeath. And Alan Spaulding, he would be a true Viking villain, if you ask me. Much like that Storr Grimmsson."
"Who is dead, by the by, thanks to our father's men. Be assured there was a long torture afore his passing to avenge what he did to cause your shipwreck."
Rolf nodded his approval. "And may he be swiving Hel, the queen of the dead, in her icy home in Niflheim, as we speak."
They smiled at each other, being reminded that they were of like minds.
"You know, Rolf, there is so much that is better in this land than what we had, but the excess bothers me."
"I cannot believe this. I had the same feelings when first I arrived. How can men be men if their hard work is not required to bring food to the table and shelter overhead?"
Jorund nodded. "And they take all this abundance for granted. When wealth comes too easily, it is not appreciated. And I'll tell you something else: this business of men and women being equal is sheer nonsense. Men are men, and women are women. Each have their given tasks Why are you grinning?"
"Because my wife would knock you over the head with an oar if she heard you talk so."
"Mag-he would no doubt do the same, but that does not make it less true." Jorund raised his chin defiantly.
They slapped their arms around each other's shoulders then and started to walk back toward the keep. Dusk was approaching early, and the snow was falling more heavily. Jorund inhaled deeply of the cold air. Just like home, he thought.
"I'll tell you one thing I favor about this country." Rolf wagged his eyebrows mischievously. "Drekking."
"Drekking? What in bloody hell is that?"
"Well, I have developed a fondness for this particular kind of hair soap called Breck, which is no longer sold in this country, but Merry-death and I bought boxloads of it from a remainder outlet. In any case, there is this most delicious activity that a man and woman can do together in the shower with Breck." He rolled his eyes meaningfully. "Drekking."
"Now, that is something I understand. You can do the same with liquid body soap."
Rolf's jaw dropped open. Apparently he hadn't expected his brother to adapt as well as he had.
"Why are you so surprised?"
"I am surprised because you were never so frivolous afore. In truth, from the time we were youthlings together you were always somber."
"Frivolous? Pfff. What is frivolous about sex play? Did you think I was a monk just because I performed the somber work of war?"
Rolf grinned at him. Really, Jorund thought, his brother was doing a great amount of grinning today, at his expense.
"I will give this land credit for two things: Big Macs and french fries," Jorund remarked. "Ne'er have I eaten such delicacies, even in the courts of Byzantium."
"Hah! I think the greatest delicacy is Oreos."
"Too sweet!"
"Too greasy!"
They were about to argue the point further; then both shrugged.
"There is one remarkable thing I have noticed about this land—" Jorund started to say, then stopped himself. Why give his brother cause for more grinning?
"What?" Rolf prodded. "Do not be shy now, brother."
Jorund knew he would regret his hasty words, but... What the hell! That was a handy expression Steve had taught him. With his eyes at half mast, he slowly divulged, "Well, have you noticed how much bigger your staff gets in this land?"
At first Rolf just stared at him blankly. Then his gaze moved lower, to his groin. "That staff?"
"Of course, that staff. How many other staffs are there?"
"And yours is bigger in this land?"
"Immense."
"You lie." Rolf hooted. Then, "Show me."
"I do not lie, and I will not show you. Besides, it only gets big when I am around Mag-he."
"You lackbrain. All men's man parts get big when they are aroused by their women."
"I know that," Jorund said with disgust. His brother was speaking to him as if he were an untried boy. "I am talking of huge. Not big, huge."
"Methinks time travel has distorted your eyes."
"Methinks I will never tell you any secrets ever again."
"That is not a secret. That is news of great import. Viking men throughout the Old World will be seeking to travel to the future on the promise of that alone—big cocks."
Rolf and Jorund were laughing heartily when they reentered the keep.
"What's up?" Merry-death and Mag-he asked them both at the same time.
The women could not understand why that simple question caused the two brothers to burst into more hysterical laughter.
 
After three days, it was time to go home.
Suzy and Beth were already in the rental car, but they had the windows open and were waving and saying last-minute good-byes to all their new found friends. There were promises of e-mail letters to be exchanged and possible future visits.
Mike Johnson had been taking photographs the entire time during their visit, and now he was snapping last-minute shots... group pictures, individual ones, all different combinations. He was going to the one-hour processing center that afternoon and promised to send copies to them in Texas as soon as they were developed.
"Come back anytime," Meredith urged, hugging Maggie warmly. "It's especially beautiful here in the summer."
"Maybe." Maggie hugged her back.
It was odd, but she and the girls had been accepted by Rolf and Meredith like family. And yet they were not. Their only link with this Rosestead family was through Joe, whose connection with them was tenuous, to say the least.
She and Meredith glanced over to the side, where Rolf and Joe were talking seriously with each other. Whether Maggie and her daughters ever returned to Rosestead would depend on whether Joe stayed with her. And that was not a given, by any means.
Maggie had seen a different side of Joe here in the village. He was in his element, wearing Viking clothing, speaking Old Norse, teaching swordplay to the young men, playing thinking board games like hnefatafl, arm wrestling with his brother, engaging in footraces and horse races, drinking honeyed mead from a hand-carved horn, helping to chisel with an adz in Roll's ship-building shop, chopping firewood like a demon, talking of his other life... a life Maggie could not understand, let alone share.
Deep down, Maggie sensed that Joe wanted to go back to his own time. Oh, his brother had managed to adapt to this modern life, but he had a skill—building ships—that was still valued today. What would Joe do if he stayed? Really, what kind of demand was there for a man who wielded a wicked sword? How long would it be before his self-esteem as a man began to slip? Would he become half a man... like his friend Steve?
And Maggie couldn't see his coming to work with his brother, either. This was Rolf's place... his small niche in modern society. Two strong, independent men like these two, would never be able to share leadership without eventually clashing.
"Don't expect too much too soon."
Maggie was jarred from her meandering thoughts by Meredith's admonition. "I wasn't."
"Shhh," Meredith said, reaching over to wipe a tear from Maggie's cheek with a tissue.
Maggie hadn't even realized she'd begun weeping. "I thought that the only stumbling block to Joe's staying here in the future with me and my daughters was finding his brother," she confided. "Well, he's found his brother, but Joe hasn't said a word since we've been here. His silence is telling."
"It means that he's probably confused," Meredith said.
"Yes, it does. And I just don't understand why," Maggie cried.
Meredith thought carefully before she spoke. "These Viking men have to make the choice themselves. They do not think or act according to our feminine whims. Did you know that Rolf left me for six weeks before we got back together? He let me think that he had died, or gone back to the past."
"No!" Maggie exclaimed. Then, "Did you whack him upside the head when you found out?"
"For sure," Meredith answered with a little laugh. "Rolf had to go back to present-day Norway, and then England, to get some answers before he made the decision to stay with me."
"Love wasn't enough?"
"Love wasn't enough."
Maggie let Meredith's comforting words sink in. "But Joe might be different. He might decide that the best thing would be to go back to his own time."
"He might," Meredith agreed. "That's something you have to prepare yourself for."
"I'm trying. In fact, I think I've been girding myself for that eventuality almost from the first time I met him. This relationship screamed heartbreak from the get-go."
"No," Meredith corrected. "I suspect it screamed 'the love of your life, baby' from the get go. The fact that there might be some heartbreak as well was secondary."
"You're very wise. You should have been a psychologist," Maggie said, laughing.
"Come back," Meredith urged, repeating her earlier words. "No matter what... come back."
"I will," Maggie promised then, opening the driver's door of the car, but waiting for Joe before entering. "No matter what."
Jorund had said his farewells to his brother, and it was time to go.
"Will I see you again, Jorund? Ever?"
He shrugged. "You could come to Tax-us. Really, we could buy you a pair of cow-man boots. For you, I might even line dance."
Rolf smiled sadly, not at all taken in by his brother's teasing words or evasive response.
I do not know," Jorund answered finally.
Rolf let out a whoosh of exasperation. "Why do you always make life so difficult? Really, it is an easy decision."
"Was it an easy decision for you?"
"Nay, but my situation was different."
"Hah! So you say now."
"Jorund, I thought I had to go back to complete our father's mission... a different one from yours, I concede, but his mission nonetheless. When I found out it was no longer necessary, I immediately returned to Merry-death. You thought the same thing—that you had to complete our father's mission—but your work is done."
"I am not sure of that."
Rolf pulled at his hair, which he had left loose today, the dark blond strands lying like a swath of gold on his shoulders. "You are so damn stubborn."
Jorund raised his brows sardonically. "Like you, mayhap?"
Rolf laughed and put an arm around his brother's shoulders, hugging him close as they began to walk toward the car.
"I am not like you, Rolf," he tried one last time to explain. "I need to have things settled one way or another. I could not bear to stay here and know I had responsibilities elsewhere that I had neglected to satisfy my own whims. I could not bear to stay here knowing that at any minute that bloody whale might flip me back in time. I could not bear to stay and build strong bonds with Mag-he and her daughters, only to hurt them more by leaving later.'
"Do you love the wench, Jorund?"
"Of course."
"Then you already know the answer, lackbrain."
He looked at Mag-he standing near the open door of the car, snowflakes powdering her too short hair. She glanced in his direction, as if sensing his thoughts.
There were tears in her misty blue eyes, and he knew the tears were for him... not for their departure from Rosestead.
Like a knife to his heart was Jorund's knowledge that he could hurt this woman so easily. Yes, he had his answer.
Better the small cut now than the open wound later.
 
It was New Year's Eve at the Boot Scootin' Cowboy.
Three whole tables of ten each were filled with friends of Natalie Blue, including her family, fellow group members, and some of the staff from Rainbow... even the new owner, Jerome Johnson and his lovely wife Freda, who loved country music. There was a festive air in the crowded club due to its being New Year's Eve, complete with glittery decorations, confetti, funny hats, and noisemakers.
But there was tension in the air, too, due to the talent show, which was about to start. Judges were already beginning to sit down at the long folding tables set up in the center of the now empty dance floor.
The judges were several radio and TV country-music program hosts, a Nashville record producer, a talent agent, and various other local celebrities.
Tension wasn't just in the air, either. Maggie looked at Joe, who was fidgeting in his chair. Every couple of minutes, he would glance at the doorway, as if he expected someone. In fact, he'd insisted that a couple of chairs be left empty at their table, on the other side of Steve, who sat next to him, spiffily attired in a herringbone sport coat with gray slacks, and a white golf shirt, open at the collar. He and Joe had taken up jogging the last few days, since their return from Maine, as part of Rainbows physical-fitness program. While Joe had always looked good to her, Steve's appearance had taken a decided turn for the better. His skin was no longer pale, but tan and healthy. He had always had an athlete's body, but something about the way he carried himself had changed.
In an instant she realized that he carded himself just like Joe... with self-confidence.
"You've been a good influence on Steve," Maggie commented to Joe.
"Do you think so?" His lips turned up with genuine pleasure. God, he was a handsome man. Tonight he wore his hair slicked back into its usual queue and he'd shaved, so his face was smooth. A trip to the mall yesterday had resulted in her red sequined sheath and black high heels— Joe's choice, accompanied by some hot looks and a few winks—and his navy blue suit, white shirt, and tie. He wore the latter under protest, deeming it a torture device. It had seemed particularly important to Joe that tonight he fit what he considered the image of a modern man. Of course, he wore his cowboy boots—another torture device, in his opinion—so she guessed it was the image of the modern Texas man.
"Yes, I do think so. Steve's whole demeanor has changed, largely due to his association with you."
"That and getting a prescription for Viagra from that new doctor." Joe grinned at her as he spoke. More than once Joe had expressed amazement that there was a little blue pellet in modern times that could create such magic. More seriously he remarked, "You know, in the Norse culture, a man's worth is often measured by how well he fights. Valhalla, hall of the gods, is open only to warriors who die in battle. But I've been thinking that mayhap the true measure of a man should be how he has touched other people afore his death."
Maggie's heart constricted at such sensitivity coming from what, at the core, was a primitive man.
"I mean, think about it, Mag-he. What good is a man though he be the greatest soldier of all time, if he trod over those who surrounded him in everyday life? Believe me, I know many such men, and they are considered heroes."
"To me, you're the real hero." She said the words teasingly, but she meant them sincerely.
He put a hand to her nape and pulled her close for a quick kiss on the head. "Thank you, sweetling." Then he nuzzled her neck. "You smell so good. Years from now I do not think I will ever smell the scent of lilacs without thinking of you."
There was a drumroll then as the lights dimmed and a spotlight shone on the stage. The competition was about to begin. But Maggie's thoughts were centered on Joe's last, revealing words. He probably didn't realize what he had subconsciously let slip. The infuriating man was contemplating a future without her in it; she just knew it. They hadn't discussed the future since their return from Maine, though it loomed silently between them all the time. She hadn't pressed him for a decision, fearing what he would say. And he hadn't brought up the subject, she suspected, because he was still so confused.
Not a promising beginning for the New Year.
Six of the contestants had given their performances by the time a break was called and the lights were turned up. Natalie would be in the second round, and she was looking mighty nervous after hearing and seeing such talent in the first half—singing, guitar playing, comedy routines, clogging.
Everyone was ordering drinks or making quick runs to the rest rooms or conversing quietly when Joe stiffened and stared at the front door. The others at their table followed his gaze, noticing the strange intensity of his stare.
Steve was the last to look because his back had been to the door, and he had to strain to look over his shoulder. Then he stood so suddenly that he knocked his chair over.
Steve stared at the doorway, then glared at Joe. "You interfering son of a bitch!" he said with a snarl. But his attention immediately returned to the doorway.
A woman in her mid-forties stood there, tall and thin and attractive in a natural, un-made-up way. Her blond hair hung straight to her shoulders. She wore a plain denim jumper under a heavy, fleece-lined winter jacket... unusual for Texas. In her hand was a small piece of carryon luggage.
Steve put his hand to his mouth, where a small moan escaped. In his eyes, tears were already beginning to well into green pools.
"Shelley," he cried then, joyously, but he seemed frozen in place.
Even though it all happened in a flash, the scenario that followed was like a slow-motion film clip. She dropped the suitcase and ran toward him, a clear pathway being made by the curious spectators. "Steve," she practically screamed, and hurled herself into his arms.
Hugging each other tightly, as if they would never let go, he kept repeating, "Ah, Shelley. Ah, Shelley. Ah, Shelley."
And she kept saying, "You dumb jerk! How could you leave? How could you hide from me all these years? You dumb jerk!"
"I did it for you," he said.
"For me? You just about killed me. I kept expecting you to come back when you came to your senses. First it was one week. Then a month. Then years. You are dumber than Idaho dirt if you think you helped me by leaving." Still holding on tightly to his shoulders, she leaned her head back to look at him. "I could kill you."
He nodded, and kissed her with all the pent-up feeling that had been building in him over ten long years.
Finally she pushed him away gently and motioned for someone to come forward, someone who must have been standing behind her in the doorway. It was a boy.
"There's someone I want you to meet," Shelly said in a choked voice.
She took the hand of the boy—a boy of about nine years, with unique green eyes and a wiry, athletic body. On the shirt under his denim jacket could be read the words, My Dad Was a Navy SEAL.
Steve stared blankly at first, then put his face in both hands to hide the silent sobs that were racking him.
Shelly was merciless. "Steve, let me introduce you to Steven Askey, Jr."
Steve dropped his hands and murmured, "Sweet Jesus!"
"Dad?" The boy gazed up in adoration at a man he had never seen in person.
Only then did Steve reach for the boy and lift him high into his arms and give him a big bear hug.
"Hello, son."
 
An hour later Maggie finally got the chance to say to Joe, "Tell me how you found Steve's wife."
"Beth."
"Beth?"
"Yea, Beth told me you can find anyone on the Enter-net. And we did."
"I don't understand."
"The newspaper photographs of Steve at that warrior's wall apparently traveled across the country on some wiring service, whatever that is," he explained.
"Shelley saw the picture in a newspaper in I-duh-hoe and has been trying to find Steve ever since. A fruitless search. She ne'er thought to look in a madhouse... I mean, mental-health facility. In any case, Beth and Sue-zee helped me phone Shelley in I-duh-hoe after we found her message on the Enter-net."
It took several minutes for everything he'd said to sink in. "Why, that little stinker! She kept a secret from her mother."
"Do not be angry with her. She I feared you would raise objections to my interfering in Steve's life that way."
"I would have."
"Yea, but look how well everything turned out."
"It did. I can't deny that," Maggie conceded, "but as a psychologist, I must say shock therapy is not standard procedure. By taking all the control safeguards out of the scenario—like having a private setting, removing the surprise element, asking for permission—this could just as easily have been a disaster."
Joe groaned. "We are back to the control thing again, are we not?"
She had to laugh. "Maybe you're right. Anyhow, everything worked out fine, but would you do me a favor? Consult me first in the future."
He nodded vigorously, which meant he would do whatever he damn well pleased, as always. "You look beautiful tonight, dearling," Joe observed then. He had a habit of changing the subject without warning, but sometimes in the most pleasant ways.
"You look pretty handsome yourself, fellow."
"Are you wearing undergarments under that skimpy apparel?"
"Skimpy? You picked it out."
"Yea, I did." He smiled at her, that slow, lazy smile that she loved.
"No, I'm not."
"Good thing that Sue-zee and Beth are staying with the sitting person tonight, then."
Maggie thought it was a good thing, too. It had been a week since she'd made love with Joe, and she needed that intimacy so much. Without the reinforcement of their loving, she feared that Joe would drift away from her. An irrational concern, she supposed, but when was love rational?
"How did you find out about Steve's son, by the way?"
"I did not know till I called Shelley on the telephone."
"How could Steve have a son when he's always claimed to be impotent?"
"Ah, but remember that he said it has been ten years since he last made love. Apparently 'twas a dismal effort on his part, which was what caused his abrupt departure. But 'twas not dismal enough that it did not result in his seed being planted in his wife's body."
She nodded. "Oh, look. It's almost Natalie's turn. I hope they come back soon."
Steve and his newfound family were off in a private dining area, reacquainting themselves with each other. Natalie had just stepped onto the stage when they slipped into the empty seats. They seemed ecstatically happy. Steve's fingers were laced with Shelley's and his eyes kept going to his son.
Natalie was the eleventh of twelve performers scheduled. To say she was nervous was an understatement. All evening she had been going outside with her mother to get fresh air. Maggie only hoped she wasn't having agoraphobic attacks, as well as good old-fashioned stage fright.
"Ladies and gentlemen, our next contestant is Miss Natalie Blue," the announcer said in a deep Texas drawl. "She wanted me to tell y'all that this song is dedicated to the folks at Rainbow... but especially to the Viking who's responsible for her being here. Don't know what that means, but let's give a big Texas welcome to this sweet thing from Galveston... Miss Natalie Blue."
The stage went dark, and then a single spotlight shone on the young woman standing alone. Natalie looked so pretty in tight black denim jeans with a dress-up cowgirl shirt decorated with fancy fringe. The only problem was that she appeared to be shaking in her boots.
The backup band gave a slight strumming sound of chords... her cue to begin.
Maggie held her breath. Would Natalie freeze, or bolt? It was an excruciating test to put anyone through, but especially someone with her background. Were they expecting too much of her?
Suddenly Natalie's voice burst forth, filling the entire club with a clear, twangy, poignant resonance. "I... fall... to pieeeeces..." she began the old Patsy Cline favorite, and by the end, she brought down the house. Patsy had never sung the classic as well as Natalie did. A standing ovation was Natalie's reward.
 
At the end of the evening, winning the free recording session in Nashville was almost superfluous. Natalie had won her greatest success that night in a Galveston night spot.
Maggie glanced at Joe and smiled. "This has been a wonderful night, hasn't it?"
He nodded. "Come, let us dance. It is almost midnight." Maggie had already explained the customs of this celebration.
"Don't you want some champagne?"
He shook his head. "I'd rather be intoxicated by you."
"You sweet talker, you." She laughed.
And suddenly it was midnight, and the band was playing "Auld Lang Syne," and noisemakers were going off, and she was in Joe's arms. The kiss they exchanged was warm and wonderful. Maggie couldn't help wondering then what the new year would bring for them, but she refused to let dismal thoughts ruin her evening. "Happy New Year, Joe."
"Happy New Year, Mag-he."
As everyone sang the words to the song and came to the part about old acquaintances never being forgotten, Joe whispered in her ear, "I will never forget you, dearling. Never."
Instead of heartening Maggie, his words sounded like a death knell.
"I want to make slow love to you, heartling."
"Slow, fast... it doesn't matter to me," Mag-he said. "I just want to be with you tonight."
He nodded because he understood her need completely.
They were standing in her bedchamber in the wee dark hours of the morning of New Year's Day—nude, having made short work of removing their festive apparel.
Thank the gods, Sue-zee and Beth would be gone till daybreak or later, since they were staying the night with the sitting person down the street.
Although he had examined her lush body from head to toe in detail on previous occasions, he could see that Mag-he was still shy with him. Women of his time were not so inhibited about their nudity. What was it about the females of this time? They worried about every little physical flaw. Were they too fat? Or too thin? Were their brests too small? Or too big? Their buttocks were of particular concern. Did they not know that most men favored a well-rounded backside on a woman? A lustful man needed something to grab onto in the bedsport. Besides, his Mag-he was perfect. So her modesty was out of place.
He strode across the small room and lifted her into his arms, causing a little squeal to erupt from her lips. He dumped her unceremoniously on the soft bed and followed after her. The lights were out, but the room was well lit from the full moon and star-filled skies, visible through the large double windows that were open to the cool night air.
She reached up her arms to him, but he shook his head. Instead he placed them above her on the pillows. "Let me do the work in this loveplay," he urged, his voice already raw with passion.
She laughed softly, a nervous, husky sound.
"Do you plan on making me wild for you again?"
He had been brushing wisps of hair off her face and pressing butterfly kisses on her forehead and eyebrows and jawline, but he halted momentarily.
"Nay... yea... well, of course I would like you to be wild, but that is not my objective. I just want to pay tribute to your body, which pleases me greatly."
"Oh, Joe."
He loved how his name sounded on her tongue... and yes, he had even come to like the shortened name she had given him.
Lying on his side, he kissed her... prolonged, deep, wet, drugging kisses that went on forever.
"I cannot get enough of your sweet taste," he murmured.
"I feel the same," she whispered back against his lips.
He pulled back slightly. "I make a pledge to you, sweetling. Ne'er will I kiss another woman again... unless it be my lady mother or my sister. This delicious exercise that I have learned to savor belongs only to you."
Tears welled in her eyes, and he knew why. It was the unspoken message that he would be back in his own time, where he would have occasion to kiss his mother and sister. Well, so be it. It was a fact—or possible fact—that must be faced. But he could lighten her spirits. "I cannot promise that I will ne'er swive another female for the remainder of my days, though. The male urge is too strong. But I can deny myself the pleasure of kissing. In truth, I misdoubt it would even be a pleasure with another lady."
She gave him a weak punch in the arm. "Lout! Don't you dare think of making love with another woman."
He smiled at her ferociousness. They both knew she would be in no position to know what he did or to do anything about his transgressions.
But then he moved his ministrations lower, caressing her neck and shoulders, even her hairless armpits and the silken skin of her sides leading down to her waist. He grinned when he saw her navel ring glittering in the moonlight.
"Kiss it," she demanded.
Her words caused his groin to tighten and his male organ to swell. He gave the golden ornament and the enticing little cavity behind it a soft lick with his tongue.
She inhaled sharply.
That was a good sign. Viking men knew how to read erotic signals better than any others. At least, that was what Norse fathers had taught their sons.
Best I look for more signs now, he thought with a barely suppressed chuckle. He worshiped her breasts then. Wetting them to sensitivity, he watched appreciatively as the rosy tips sprang to life under his expert fingers.
"Your mouth is so hot," she said, moaning as he suckled her deeply.
He considered that a compliment, and so did his engorging staff. Another sign. He took her nipple deeper, including the puffy areola. His tongue pressed up from the underside, and the roof of his mouth held her breast from the top.
Then, and only then, did he show her things he would warrant no modern man ever had. She had taught him about kissing. Now he was showing her the best ways to pleasure a woman.
When he was through tasting her breasts, he reposed on one elbow and examined his work. She had peaked once already—a definite sign—and her nipples were wet, rigid pebbles, standing up on swollen breasts like rose-colored sentinels.
If he knew what he was doing—and he did—even the air would feel like a caress
on her hardened buds now. He would guess that she ached for him... not just in
her breasts, but below. Signs, one and all.
Still leaning over her on a braced elbow, he let his fingers walk their way from
breasts to abdomen, which she sucked in sharply, over the slight hillock of her
belly, to the dark curls below. Without hesitation, he dipped into her womanly
folds and came away with telltale slickness.
"You are ready," he informed her with a groan.
"Yes," she said, spreading her legs in welcome. "Come inside me. Now."
"Yea, I will." He gave her a quick kiss. "But not quite yet. There is something I need to do first."
She groaned. "I'm already wild for you, Joe. What else do you want?"
"This," he said, and rolled over atop her, kneeling betwixt her thighs. He could
see by her widened eyes that she knew what he intended next.
She surprised him, though, by saying, "I want to do the same for you, Joe." And then she used wicked, deliciously wanton and explicit words to tell him exactly what she would do to him... later. Apparently she was not as timid as he'd thought.
He almost spilled his seed upon the sheets. So much for signs!
With adoration, he made love to that part of her body now. He felt almost possessive about the distended folds and sleek moisture, and especially the raised nub that was the seat of her woman-pleasure. The end result was that she lay writhing for satisfaction. The scent and taste and texture of her would remain with him forever.
There was probably a sign in there somewhere, but he'd stopped counting or caring.
Soon he eased himself into her hot sheath. She pulsed as inch by inch he slid into her depth till he was deeply seated, and they were one. Only then did he gaze into her eyes, which were wide and blue and staring directly back at him, reciprocating the adoration he had lavished on her. "I love you," he vowed then.
The spoken sentiment came effortlessly to him now... straight from his breaking heart.
"I love you, too, Joe," she whispered, and the words imbedded themselves in his soul... to be replayed over and over in some solitary future.
He made slow love to her then, as he had pledged. And from then on, till their simultaneous, crashing peaks, they murmured words of love to each other, poignant expressions of feelings so deep and eternal they seemed hard enough to last a lifetime, and so fragile that they could very well shatter at any moment.
As Mag-he lay, drowsily sated, he glanced through the wide windows and noticed a strange constellation of stars that resembled, of all things, a whale. He did not call the star shape to Mag-he's attention because he knew its significance.
It was a time omen.
Jorund wanted to make promises to his beloved Mag-he, who wept silent tears now, but he could not. So he held her through the night, and as she slept, he kept saying over and over, in one form or another, "I may have to leave you, my love, but I also leave behind my heart, forevermore."
 
Two days later Joe was gone. And this time, Maggie feared, it was for good.
The girls had returned to school for the first time since holiday vacation, and Maggie had spent the morning and part of the afternoon at the hospital till some inner voice had told her to go home. This was not one of Joe's days for working out with the patients in the physical-fitness program, and he should have been at the house. Beth had conned him into helping her with her Keiko project. She was fascinated by what Joe had told her about whales and Viking sailors in the tenth century. Of course, Beth did not know that he knew of these legends firsthand. Beth had shown him how to speak into a tape player to record his tales, which she intended to incorporate into her Web Site at a later date.
The house was empty, as she had somehow known it would be. Rita snoozed complacently on her window-seat cushion. If Joe were at home, she would have been off harassing him, with hissing, or shedding, or whatever. She wondered with hysterical irrelevance if Rita would miss him as much as she would.
Even before Maggie entered the den and saw the evidence of Joe's departure, tears were streaming down her face. On the sofa Joe had piled all of the clothing he'd been given or purchased while here, even the running shoes and the cowboy boots that he'd never gotten used to. He must have worn the Viking clothing that his brother Rolf had given him at Rosestead.
On the desk were two audiocassettes with childlike block lettering on them. One said SUEZEE AND BETH, and the other said MAG-HE. There was also a scattered pile of photographs... the ones they'd received in the mail from Rosestead yesterday.
He must have taken some with him. A cursory examination showed that two were missing: the one of him, her, Suzy, and Beth standing in front of the Rosestead archway, and the one of him and his brother, smiling for the camera, just before they'd left for the airport.
With a sigh, Maggie first listened to the tape intended for her daughters, who were going to be devastated when they got home to the empty house. And it was empty without Joe in it. How had they survived without him before?
"Sue-zee and Beth, daughters of my heart, do not be upset that I have gone. I must go. My father needs me more than you do. Do not think that you have done aught to send me away. In truth, you made my leaving all the harder. Please be strong. Your mother will need your loving support now. Someday, if I am able, I will come back. But if I cannot, go visit my brother Rolf and his family often.
I have told him to treat you as he would have my own precious daughters. I love you, dearlings."
Maggie was sobbing aloud by the time she finished the short message. Rewinding the tape, she turned to the other side of the desk. There was a huge pile of paper money. The jerk! Leaving me money like some paid mistress, or something.
Then she listened to the tape intended for her.
"Ah, heartling, what can I say? The time has come, and I must go. Do not be bristling over the money, as I know you are, for I have no use for it where I am going. Deep down, I know this is the right decision for me... my destiny... but  it is so hard, Mag-he. So very, very hard. I ne'er thought I would love a woman as I do you. You make me a better man, and in essence that is why I must go now.
A better man heeds his responsibilities. I know how it feels to lose two children. I cannot let my father live out his life, never knowing that his two sons are safe and well. There is no other way. But, heart of my heart... my beloved... this is the hardest thing that I have ever done. Love me for all time, sweetling, as I will love you."
She noticed that Joe had made no promises to try to come back, as he had to her girls. And she knew why: he did not really think he would.
With a hand over her mouth, Maggie tried to stifle the silent sobs that were racking her. Soon she let loose and cried out her pain loudly.
The phone rang then and Maggie rushed for it, hoping beyond hope that it might be Joe, having second thoughts.
"Hello," she said, her voice cracking on even that one word.
"Mag-he? Is that you?" a male voice inquired. It wasn't Joe. "This is Rolf Ericsson."
"Yes."
"Is Jorund there?"
There was a long silence, and then she told him, "He's gone."
Rolf muttered a bunch of unintelligible words, which she assumed were Old Norse swear words. Finally he declared forcefully, "He'll be back."
"Did he tell you he would?" she asked hopefully.
"Nay, but I know him. He'll return when he comes to his senses. Should Merry-death and I come to be with you and your daughters?"
"No. We need to be strong, by ourselves. It's what Joe wanted."
She could hear Rolf talking to someone. Then Meredith got on the line. "You have to believe, Maggie," she advised. "He will come back."
Maggie wished with all her heart that she could believe. But Joe's words echoed in her head: There is no other way.
 
Despite all that, there were three McBride females, eyes red from crying, who refused to give up hope that night. Each, of her own volition, went to her bedroom window in hopes of seeing the wishing star. But the night was as black as eternity, and only hopelessness loomed on the horizon.
 

The next afternoon...
 
"Thora!" Jorund bellowed at the top of his lungs. His throat was sore from all his hollering, and he feared he might soon lose his voice altogether. "Get your bloody damn slimy carcass back here."
Nothing.
"You know, there are greedy men, even in these times, who would love to harpoon you, just for the sake of your skin and blubber. Methinks I should tell them of you."
Nothing.
Ever since he had left Mag-he's home the day before, Jorund had been sitting or standing on the land overlooking Galveston Bay, trying to make contact with his time-traveling orca. He'd been certain that the time was right now, but the stupid animal refused to connect with him.
"Thora!" he tried again. He refused to go back to Mag-he's, defeated, as he had the last time he'd left. In his breaking heart, he knew this was the right thing to do.
You don't have to scream, a clicking voice said to him in his head.
Finally! He peered outward, and sure enough, on the horizon he saw the infuriating killer whale leaping in the air, carefree, oblivious to the fact that she had ruined his life. Or was she oblivious? "Where the hell have you been?"
Here and there.
Jorund rose to his full height, beat his fists against his chest in frustration, and made a low, rumbling sound in his throat, like a huge black bear he had once come upon in the forest. Temper, temper, the whale chastised.
"I would like to show you my temper, you lackbrain whale. Come get me, and take me home."
The whale was swimming closer, going for long stretches undervater, then leaping high in the air. The bloody exhibitionist! Jorund thought.
But where is home, Viking? the whale asked with its usual groans and clicks and squeals.
'What? Riddles now?" Jorund snarled, tearing at his hair in frustration. "Do you know how hard it was to make this decision? And now you question me?"
'Twas a good question. Where is home?
" 'Tis... 'tis..." Jorund sputtered.
Precisely. Now do you see?
"See? I see naught."
I have shown you your destiny, Jorund, and still you are blind.
"Do you mean Mag-he?"
That is for you to say.
The whale was closer now, several ship lengths away, but not close enough for him to lop off its irritating tongue... if whales did in fact have tongues. But, oh, the inclination to do the animal harm was strong.
"You brought me to this land, whale. Why?"
'Twas a gift, Jorund.
Those words made his eyes bulge. He was speechless with surprise.
Are Norsemen so thickheaded that they cannot see what hits them in the face?
"This one apparently is. Spit it out, whale."
You have a choice. It is for you to make, not me.
Enough of games and riddles! "Can you take me back to my time?"
Yes, I can. Actually, your brother Magnus is combing the seas near Iceland as we speak, searching for you still. And a dangerous enterprise it is, at this time of the year, as you well know.
"He is?" Jorund's breath hitched, but he was not sure why. Yes, he did know. In his heart of hearts, he had hoped that his departure from this time—and from Mag-he—was impossible. In that case, he would be unable to fulfill his responsibility. "Then I have no choice."
Have you heard a word I've said, Viking? You do have a choice.
"I cannot abandon my father. My mission will not be complete till he knows that Rolf and I are safe. And the only way for me to let him know is by returning to the past."
Oh? Really? The whale click-squealed, then went off into a series of spectacular leaping exercises. Sometimes the whale stood straight in the air for long moments. Half-wit show-off! Jorund thought. In the distance he could see some employees of Orcaland watching the exhibitionist whale through special eye devices called binoculars.
Frowning, he contemplated the whale's tantalizing question. Was there some other way to let his father know that Rolf was safe without Jorund's delivering the message in person? Please God, he prayed to the Christian One-God, if there is a way, show me. Then he added a plea to Odin, as well: Your wisdom is needed here, god of all the Norse gods.
Suddenly tears filled his eyes, and he shouted with the sheer jubilation of his discovery. "There is a way; there is a way," he shouted excitedly to Thora, who swam close again. Jorund was practically jumping up and down with glee.
Of course there is, the whale replied smugly. Jorund took his sword from its scabbard, the leather thong from his hair, and the zipper bag with the two photographs from his tunic flap. Carefully he wrapped the photographs around the sword till they were secure. Where's duct tape when you need it? His brother Rolf had taught him about that modern man's miracle.
Then, before he could think of the consequences, Jorund tossed the sword high in the air out over the water. End over end the sword sailed until the talented whale caught it by the hilt in its huge mouth. "Can you deliver this to my brother, Magnus?"
I can.
"Will I see you again?"
I doubt it, Viking. My mission is complete.
"Who sent you?"
The whale just laughed, Deep down, you know. "Good-bye then," Jorund called out.
The whale did an enormous backflip, creating a wave of huge proportions, the whole time holding the sword between its teeth so that it glittered in the bright Texas sun. The Orcaland people would soon be upon them.
One last thing, Thora told him before swimming off. Tell Beth that Keiko sends his regards. "Keiko? You know Keiko?"
If whales could smirk, Thora did now. Then she flipped him a big splash of water with her tail fins and swam off. He thought he heard Thora mutter, Can't wait to straighten out that Magnus and all his women!
"Thank you," Jorund said then. Simple words, but they were from the heart.
You are welcome, Viking. Use your gift well.
Left alone then, Jorund glanced at his surroundings. So this would be his destiny. With a smile, he headed for home.
Maggie's first sign came from Rita. She was hissing in the front window, her back arched with outrage. Joe was the only one who brought that hostility out in her pet. Was this Rita's way of telling them that the man of the house had come back?
"Mom! Mom! It's Joe!" Beth shouted. She and Suzy were out the front door in a flash and running down the street toward the tall man who was walking purposefully along the sidewalk toward the house. He was wearing the usual Norse attire: a belted leather tunic over tight leggings and cross-gartered half boots. His blond hair was loose and blowing slightly in the breeze. He didn't look any the worse for wear, as he had the last time, but then he'd been gone only for a day. A lifetime!
By the time he reached her open front door, where she stood leaning against the frame for support, he had one girl in each arm, both of them chattering away and kissing his neck and face in welcome. But it was Maggie to whom he looked.
"Honey, I'm home," he said, mimicking the line he must have heard on the TV a hundred times. His tone was flip, but his eyes were dead serious, and vulnerable with question. He had to wonder if he was still welcome. After all, how many times could he leave and still be able to return?
"For how long?" she asked, trying to sound querulous, but failing because she was so happy to see the lout.
He set the girls on their feet and shooed them toward the house. Surprisingly, the twins scooted inside, giving them privacy. But the look they gave her as they passed was clear: Don't screw this up, Mom.
"Forever," he answered then, and opened his arms imploringly to her.
She hurled herself forward into his tight embrace. Against his neck she whispered, "Forever sounds just right to me."
 
Only later, when they all sat in the den, feeling very much like a true family, did Maggie ask Joe, "What will you do here?"
"I know not for certain. Build fireplaces? Teach demented people how to row a machine? Join the you-ess military as a warrior. He shrugged. "Does it matter?"
She shook her head. "I just want you to be happy."
"I will be happy wherever you are. You are my destiny."
 

Epilogue

Two weeks later...
 
Everyone agreed it was the best Viking wedding ever held on the grounds of a Texas mental hospital. Primitive at times.
Poignant at times.
Unconventional at all times.
Jorund's brother Geirolf wanted him to wait until summer and have a spectacular lakeside ceremony at Rosestead, following the ancient Viking rituals.
Rosestead's famous rosebushes would be in bloom then. But Jorund was heard to exclaim, "Ibad kemur ekki komi til greina!" That was the Old Norse version of "No way!" Jorund said his brother was living in another world—Viking soap opera humor if he thought he was going to wait any longer than necessary to make Maggie his bride, and he certainly wasn't waiting for a bloody rosebush to bloom before he broke the period of celibacy his fiancйe was insisting upon during the betrothal period.
Rolf sighed in the end and said, "Allt lagi." That was Viking for "OK." He also said something about bullheaded Norsemen who made decisions with organs other than their brains.
It was important to Jorund and Maggie that all their friends from Rainbow be a part of their wedding. Of course, barricades had to be erected around the hospital grounds to hold off the news media and spectators who'd gotten wind of the unusual event.
The wedding was held on a Friday—or Friggs day—to honor the goddess of marriage. It was an unseasonably warm and sunny day, even for Texas in January. Everyone took that as a sign that Jorund was in good favor with the gods, except for Maggie and her daughters, who claimed full credit, having made a wish upon a star to their One-God.
A small family-only wedding ceremony was held in church early that morning, to be followed by the traditional Norse nuptials on the hospital grounds that afternoon. Jorund claimed to be covering all his bases in tying the matrimonial knot.
The day started for both Jorund and Maggie with the ceremonial cleansings, which would normally take place in the castle bathhouse, similar to modern saunas. They compromised by having Maggie take a lilac bubble bath in her own home, with Jorund and his male attendants visiting a local athletic club, with boasted a Jacuzzi and sauna, as well. The symbolism behind these rituals had something to do with purification and the washing away of the virgin or single status. Jorund said the hot steam and cold rinse was more symbolic of his sexual state these past two sennights, which required many cold showers—hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold.
While these cleansing rituals were going on, the bride's and groom's attendants were supposed to be giving them advice. In Maggie's case, there was a lot of giggling going on. In Jorund's case, there was much scoffing and ribald jesting, especially concerning a certain body part of purportedly remarkable size.
Maggie wore the wedding outfit brought from Maine by her sister-by-marriage, Meredith Ericsson, which fit perfectly after a few adjustments. It included a long-sleeved, collarless chemise of gauzy white linen, ankle length in front and pleated and slightly longer in back. Metallic gold embroidered roses edged the wrists and circular neckline. A crimson silk overgown, open-sided in the Viking style, had matching bands of metallic embroidery at the neckline and hem.
The gold shoulder brooches and belt buckle were gifts from Jorund in the design of inter-twined boars. The boar was the symbol of Freyja, goddess of fertility. Jorund and Maggie hoped to breed many children before she got too long in the tooth—Jorund's words—or he lost his virility—Maggie's words. In truth, there were rumors that Maggie already carried Jorund's seed.
Jorund wore his brother's wedding finery: an black cashmere wool tunic with long sleeves, which hung to midthigh over slim trousers. At the waist was the leather belt Maggie had given him for Christmas, including his scabbard, minus his sword, Bloodletter. Rolf had presented him with a new sword that morning, Joy-bringer, which would play an integral part in the ceremony. A white silk-lined mantle, embroidered with roses matching the bridal attire, completed the outfit.
Rolf and Jorund, Meredith and Maggie had all agreed that they would be starting their own individualized Viking customs in this new world, including the passing on to each generation of these family bridal costumes.
Everyone who attended the wedding ceremony wore Viking attire, including the balding, middleaged Fred Bernstein in furs... which in actuality were worn only on rare occasions and then only in the most frigid climate, but Jorund did not tell him that for fear of hurting his feelings. Fred was accompanied by Gladys Hatcher, who was heard to remark to some attendees that Fred was more than he seemed to be... that, in fact, with all the exercise he'd been getting lately, a person could crack coconuts on his butt. When said attendees had looked askance at Fred, who actually did look quite handsome as a balding Norseman, Gladys had added, "No kidding. His buns of steel would probably set off the metal detectors at the airport." Good-hearted laughter followed, as it did throughout the day.
Natalie Blue sang the processional and recessional song, "Sweet Dreams."
By the time the bridal party approached the trellis, decorated with imported lilacs, everyone was in high spirits, especially Maggie's dual maids of honor, Suzy and Beth, who looked adorable in matching Viking gowns of robin's-egg blue, their hair in braids wound into coronets atop their head. Jorund had insisted that the girls wear in their braids ribands of all the colors of the rainbow, and soft-skinned, pastel-colored harem shoes on their feet. The girls kept gazing at Jorund with adoration, and on more than one occasion were heard to ask, "Can we call you Daddy yet?"
In some primitive Viking wedding rituals, an animal was sacrificed to the gods.
It was not surprising which animal Jorund suggested: the fat white hairball sporting a robin's-egg blue bow, sitting big-as-you-please beside the refreshment table. After being jabbed in the ribs by a feminine elbow, Jorund compromised and sacrificed a Big Mac to the gods.
During the ceremony, Jorund handed his sword to Maggie, which was to be held in trust for their sons. The sword was a living symbol of the continuation of his bloodline. Jorund informed Maggie in an aside that, when their first son was born, a few grains of salt would be placed on the sword tip, which was in turn touched to the babe's lips. Thus would the newborn be given the courage of Viking chieftains throughout time, a contempt for danger, weapon skill, and even a facile tongue.
Instead of scoffing at this primitive ritual, the attendees listened raptly.
And Maggie had tears in her eyes. "What if we have a daughter, and not a son?"
"Same thing," Jorund decided on the spot. "We are American Vikings, after all."
At that, Maggie gave the sword back to Jorund, thus marking the transfer of her guardianship and protection into his hands.
Finger rings were exchanged by both parties, each offered on the tip of the new sword. Once the rings were on their fingers, they joined hands upon the sword hilt and spoke their vows. Rolf and Steve stood as Jorund's witnesses. Meredith and Shelley were at Maggie's side.
When they were finally wed, the bride-run began, with Maggie being given a head start in her rush for the hospital door. Jorund chased after her, passed her by with a joyous laugh, and stood awaiting her when she arrived, breathless with excitement. Jorund blocked her way by setting his sword across the doorway. When he took her hand and led her inside, it represented the final transition from maid to wife.
The ancient rituals touched the heart, and made the attendees laugh out loud. On the whole, it was a rip-roaring, whooping event in the style of a true Norse celebration, combined with a little Texas low-down hoedown.
In fact, Jerome Johnson, new owner of Rainbow, gave one of the bridal toasts—honeyed nonalcoholic mead, of course—with these words:
"Texans must be Vikings at heart, because both know how to have a damn good time."
Jerome had become a good friend and patron to Jorund. Not only was he lending them his yacht for a one-week honeymoon, he had even offered to help finance the health club that Jorund planned to open—a club that would cater not to perfect, already fit people—mentally and physically—but to those who needed to hone the talents that God—or the gods had given them... to be the best that they could be. It was all about self-esteem, as Maggie, in her role of psychologist, had once told him.
"I want to make a difference in this world, like my brother Rolf does," he had told Maggie when first explaining this plan. "Too long I have been a warrior, taking lives. Now I want to build lives up."
Maggie's response had been a little sob and the words, "You already make a difference, Joe, just being you."
"And Texans and Vikings both think the universe revolves around them," Gladys Hatcher had yelled out, seconding Jerome's toast.
"And they're both the world's best lovers," Maggie had muttered under her breath, then ducked her head, just the tiniest bit tipsy from too many nonalcoholic mead toasts and the euphoria of this most special day.
But Jorund heard her and smiled. "Yea, that is the truth. Good loving. 'Tis a gift we Vikings give our women."

Author's Letter