Sandra Hill (28 page)

But is it any more ridiculous than my traveling here from the tenth century?

Geirolf put a hand to his throbbing head.

“Why dost thou trouble thyself about matters thou cannot control, my son?” the man inquired with compassion, his misty eyes seeming to pierce Rolf’s soul. “Nothing will happen but what God wills.”

Geirolf raised his eyes hopefully. Perhaps this priest, whoever he was, had the answers.

“I believe you have something for me,” the monk said, holding out a palm.

A shiver passed over Geirolf’s flesh. Without hesi
tation, he undid the clasp on his talisman belt and removed the sacred relic. He placed the crucifix in the monk’s hand, which immediately closed over it. Then, with a sigh, the monk said, “It is done.”

“What’s done? Who are you, really? And why am I here?”

Once again, the monk just smiled softly at him. “When time comes full circle, the line will continue.”

“Huh? What kind of riddle is that?”

He made the sign of the cross in the air before Rolf. “Bless you, my son.”

“But…but…what am I supposed to do now?”

“Fulfill thy destiny.”

“Destiny? What destiny?” Geirolf cried to the monk’s departing back.

Just then, a gusty breeze came up, whipping his long hair across his face. In the second it took for Geirolf to brush the strands from in front of his eyes, the monk was gone.

“
Fulfill thy destiny
,” the monk had said, but Geirolf had no idea what that destiny could be…until his gaze, still scanning the windswept coastline for the monk, snagged on a red object nestled amongst the craggy rocks. How could he have missed it?

Stepping closer, he saw a single red rose growing amid the ruins. Hunkering down, he sniffed the air permeated with the flower’s scent. And then he smiled. It was a sign.

Geirolf now knew what his destiny was.

Merry-Death
.

“Professor Foster, we have another applicant for the captain position,” Mike said, poking his head into the doorway of her office at the end of the day.

Meredith’s head jerked up from the papers she’d been grading, and she glanced quickly at her watch. Six o’clock. She would have to leave soon to pick up Thea after soccer practice. She was surprised to see Mike here so late. Since he’d begun dating Sonja, he didn’t hang around evenings anymore. And why wasn’t he at the longship site?

But she was even more surprised to hear him announce another candidate for the longship job. They’d filled the post, albeit unsatisfactorily, the week before with a young boating enthusiast from Michigan.

“Tell him we’ve stopped interviewing.” Meredith took off her reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She noticed then the paleness of Mike’s complexion and the way he held a fist to his mouth, as if to suppress some great emotion. “Are you sick?” she asked with concern, standing and moving to the side of her desk.

He shook his head. “I think you’ll want to meet this…applicant,” Mike insisted. “He’s perfect for the job.”

With that, he stepped back, calling over his shoulder, “Sonja and I will go pick up Thea at the school.”

Before she had a chance to react to Mike’s unsolicited offer, a very tall man started to back into the room, speaking softly to Mike as he entered. At first, all Meredith could see was long legs encased in loafers and designer jeans, and broad shoulders covered with a collarless, white linen dress shirt and a dark blue blazer.

But, no, she observed something else in that split second. Long, pale brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Just like…

Her heart lurched, then pounded madly against her
chest as the man turned in what seemed an exaggerated slow motion. And a pair of familiar whiskey eyes clung to hers with staggering adoration.

As blood drained from her head, a wave of light-headedness swamped her. She grabbed onto the edge of her desk to prevent herself from fainting. She blinked once, twice, three times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. The proof stood before her still, eyes brimming with tenderness, waiting for her recognition. A Viking, to be sure, despite the modern trappings.

A sob escaped her tortured lungs.

“Dearling,” he rasped.

“Rolf!” she cried and threw herself into his arms. “You came back!”

At last!
Geirolf thought when he got his first glimpse of Merry-Death. In that brief flash of time before she launched herself at him, he saw that she’d reverted back to drab brown
braies
and
shert
, and her luxuriant mahogany hair was pulled back into a nunlike knot at her nape.

He would change that soon enough, but for now he closed his eyes as an overwhelming rush of pleasure surged over him. His misery at being parted from Merry-Death had been a physical pain, he realized now. One touch from her and he was healed.

Kicking the door shut with his heel and flicking the lock with a snap of his fingers, he proceeded to lift Merry-Death more tightly into his embrace, her legs dangling above the floor, his face buried in her neck. He inhaled deeply, and the faint scent of roses filled his senses.

He was home.
At last!

With a bone-deep sigh, he raised his head. Then he
couldn’t resist skimming his mouth lightly across hers. He almost swooned with the heady bliss of his lips on hers once again. Immediately, the kiss turned hungry and devouring. It had been too long. Too damn long!

Finally, she tore her mouth from his, panting for breath. She held his face in her hands and gazed at him with pure love. Tears streamed down her face from eyes that looked like liquid emeralds.

“Did you feel the tingle?” She gasped, pressing the fingertips of one hand to her lips. “Oh, God, I haven’t tingled for six long weeks.”

He smiled. Yes, there was a definite tingle on his lips…and other unmentionable body parts. He smiled wider.

Somehow, they’d moved to the desk, and she was half-sitting, half-leaning against the side with him bent over her. Rolf stretched out an arm and swept all the papers, pens, and other profess-whore-ly debris from her desk, then hoisted her up so she could lie flat on her back.

In a pinch, Vikings were known to improvise a bed for coupling anywhere. In fact, some said a Norseman could mate on a glacier if the lust was upon him, Geirolf recalled. His brother Jorund once claimed to have made love in a tree, but Geirolf hardly credited that as true.

In his haste, he didn’t bother to undress her, or himself. He merely pulled her
braies
and silk panties to her knees in one swoop, buttons flying hither and yon. And he undid the snap and zipper on his jeans—Lord, these modern men knew what they were doing when they invented zippers. In the blink of an eye, he was poised over her. He would have bruises on his knees from the hard desk, but who could worry about that
now? Every Viking warrior knew the best-won battles were worth a little pain.

Her eyes narrowed at him. “You haven’t been tingling anyone else while you’ve been gone, have you?”

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a suffocated gurgle. “Sweetling, would I be on you like an overeager pup if I had been tingling another wench?”

She smiled sweetly, pulling him forward with one hand wrapped around the back of his neck. The other hand was wrapped about his man-part to guide him, thus causing stars to burst behind his eyeballs. He fought for restraint. And then—Bless the gods!—he was inside the hot, welcoming sheath of his beloved.

Between his strokes, he planted feathery kisses on her eyelids, chin, the soft pulse spot beneath her ear, her forehead, the tip of her nose. And intermingled with his kisses were soft-spoken endearments expressed by them both on how much they’d missed each other and how wonderful it was to be together again.

“You broke my heart,” she whispered.

“I’ll put it back together,” he promised, “with my love.”

“Never leave me again.”

“Never!”

“I love you, Geirolf Ericsson.”

“I love you, Merry-Death Ericsson.”

The earth moved then as they came to an explosive, mutual climax. Or mayhap it was just the desk skidding across the wooden floor from the force of their lovemaking.

He preferred the former explanation. Another sign from the gods. In truth, he could swear he heard a clap of Thor’s thunder in the distance. Or was it the Chris
tian one-god clapping at this thick-headed heathen finally fulfilling his destiny?

As he and Merry-Death lay sated in each other’s arms, murmuring their awe at the fates that had ordained their converging paths, Geirolf pondered whether it was too soon to ask Merry-Death if she had any Oreos at her keep.

Meredith couldn’t believe how dramatically her life had changed in a few short hours. As they headed toward the pink convertible in the faculty parking lot, she kept looking at Rolf just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

“You kept the car,” Rolf commented with a smile, reaching over to brush a wisp of wind-tossed hair behind her ear. He couldn’t stop touching her. She felt the same way.

She raised her chin defensively at his remark about the car. “I haven’t had time to get rid of it yet,” she lied. Although she’d protested his purchase of the horrendous car in the beginning, threatening to sell it the moment he was gone, she’d come to love the gas guzzler, which could be seen even from this distance—a football-field length away, thanks to its Pepto-Bismol color.

He laughed, and continued to ask her nonstop questions. She had a ton of questions for him, as well. What happened when he’d traveled back to the tenth century? Had the famine ended? How had he managed to come back? But she let Rolf talk first.

“I feel like I’ve been gone a millennium, instead of six weeks.” He expelled a breath and pulled her snugly against his side, kissing the top of her head. “Tell me everything that’s happened since I’ve been gone.”

“It’s been hell.”

“For me, too, sweetling.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Is Thea adjusting?”

“Extremely well. Oh, she’s been distraught over your”—she stared at him with dismay—“death. But kids are resilient, and Thea is blooming in this environment.”

“Speaking of blooming—why is your face so flushed? You’re not feverish, are you?”

Meredith’s heart skipped a beat. Rolf didn’t know about her pregnancy yet. In fact, no one did; she’d planned to keep the secret to herself until she began to show in another month or two. She cast him a shy sideways glance. Would he be happy? Of course, he would. But this wasn’t the time to give him the news. Later. She wanted the moment to be special…just right.

Rolf cocked his head. “Merry-Death?” he prompted.

“It must be the sun,” she answered evasively, and then wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Or our lovemaking.”

He nodded with arrogant satisfaction. “Just don’t think of getting sick now—at least not till we’ve made love another ten or twenty or fifty times.”

Yep, arrogance was second nature to Rolf. As they arrived at her car, she tossed her briefcase into the back seat and turned to him, lifting a skeptical eyebrow.

He winked.

“Promises, promises,” she taunted, barely able to suppress a giggle at the flutter of butterflies in her stomach that his mere wink engendered. “By the way, where did you get the fancy duds?”

“London,” Rolf remarked idly, about to open the car door.

Uh-oh!
Geirolf thought, realizing his blunder immediately.

“London?” The soft expression on Merry-Death’s face went hard as a rock. She speared him with an incredulous scowl. “You just got back after six weeks in the past, and you decided to go to London
before
seeing me?”

He’d also forgotten her talent for ear-splitting shrieks.

“What? No, you misunderstood, Merry-Death,” he said, trying for a casual tone. “The time-travel reversal failed. I have been…” His words trailed off as he saw her demeanor become even stiffer.

“The time reversal didn’t work?” she gritted out. “Are you saying that you’ve been around the neighborhood for the past six weeks and you never bothered to inform me of the fact?”

“Not the neighborhood, sweetling. Europe.” He tried to put an arm around her shoulder. He wasn’t surprised when she shoved his hand away.

“You moron! You beast! How could you do that to me? Oh, to think of the agony I’ve been through!” She put her face in her trembling hands. “I never thought you could be so cruel.”

“Merry-Death, let me explain.”

“No!” she shouted and stormed to the other side of the car, opening the driver’s door. Bracing her hands on her hips, tears of anger and hurt welling her eyes, she told him icily, “I thought I was used to betrayal, after Jeffrey, but this…this is the worst thing any man has ever done to me. I never want to see you again. Do you hear me? It’s over.”

“Never!” How dare she liken him to that misbegotten past-husband of hers! He had just cause for his actions. Love for her had been his guiding light. “Merry-Death, if you would only listen. I had good reason for pretending to have died.”

“Nothing—
nothing
—in this world could justify that.” She slipped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Turning on the ignition, she revved the motor, then glared at him as he prepared to slide into the seat next to her. “Out! You are not coming home with me now.”

“Where should I go?” he sputtered.

“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I don’t care.”

Stung, he removed his body from her vehicle and slammed his door shut with equal vehemence. “You don’t mean that, Merry-Death. Have a caution with your harsh condemnations. Some words, once spoken, can ne’er be taken back.”

She pressed her forehead against the steering wheel for a moment. Then with a long sigh, she looked up at him. “I care, Rolf, but some things are more important in life.”

“More important than love?” he scoffed.

“Yes. Like trust. Commitment. Honor. I need some time alone to think this through, Rolf. Don’t follow me. Please.”

Before he had a chance to tell her that she would be unable to reflect on the matter without all the facts, Merry-Death’s car roared away in a cloud of exhaust fumes. And Geirolf’s Viking pride kicked in.