Sandra Hill (29 page)

Trust went both ways. Where was Merry-Death’s trust in him?

And what made her imagine he would chase after her like some milksop swain? He’d suffered much
these past sennights, trying to find a way to stay in her time. And did she appreciate his efforts? Nay!

Worst of all, Merry-Death had questioned his honor. That insult he could not countenance. That slur to his integrity was the verbal knife wound that hurt the most.

Well, let her come to him when her common sense returned. He was a Viking. No more would he demean himself in pursuit where he was not wanted.

It was not the homecoming he’d envisioned.

“Oh, my God! Aunt Mer, hurry! You’ve got to see this,” Thea called from the living room.

Meredith wiped her hands on a dish towel and turned down the flame under the pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove. With deliberate care, she plastered a smile on her face as she prepared to go into the other room, not wanting her niece to see how she was splintering apart inside.

It had been a week since Rolf had returned…a week during which pride had prevented each from approaching the other. Despite the urging from Mike and Thea, who’d both spoken with Rolf on numerous occasions—in fact, Rolf was staying with Mike—she’d refused to meet with him. Her feelings were still too raw.

And she feared for her baby. Did she want to bring the baby’s father into its life if he might leave at a
moment’s notice? Or
choose
not to be in their lives, as he’d done so callously those past six weeks?

Meredith groaned as she saw why Thea had beckoned her into the living room. The girl was watching
Home Improvement
on the television. Dog slept at her feet, all four legs spread out.

Then Meredith did a double-take.

Was that Rolf on the screen, conversing with Tim “The Toolman” Taylor, his friend Al, and the neighbor Wilson?

It was.

Somehow, the insufferable brute had managed to get himself on the network program.
He’d better not be planning on bringing the show here. I already warned him about that. He’d better not involve the Trondheim Venture. He’d better not…

Hah! The thick-headed fool would do whatever he wanted, as evidenced by his face being plastered on nationwide television—just the kind of exposure she’d warned him could be dangerous.

Rolf was dressed in full Viking regalia: thigh-length deerskin tunic, cross-gartered ankle boots, and a wide leather belt with a gold buckle. In fact, the TV cast members wore similar attire as they stood admiring a Viking longship that sat, incongruously, in Tim’s driveway.

But how had they gotten a longship on the set with such short notice? This particular model must have come from a museum, or else it had been whipped up hastily with plywood and hot glue. Or duct tape—the dumb man’s favorite tool toy.

“It’s a show about how Tim soups up his motorboat to be a ‘real man’s motorboat,’” Thea apprised her hastily, giving her a quick catch-up on what had al
ready transpired in the program. “When he and Al tried it out on a local lake, the speedboat went about one hundred and fifty miles per hour. Of course, the stupid thing ran into the wharf, where Tim met this Viking character, played by Rolf, who had just come in from sailing his longship. Isn’t that a cool storyline, Aunt Mer?”

Yeah, real cool!
Studying the screen, Meredith decided that all the men looked ludicrous, especially Tim, who sported an anachronistic horned helmet. Al had a battle-ax propped over one shoulder. Wilson’s face was screened by a battle shield.

On second thought, Rolf didn’t look ludicrous. He looked absolutely gorgeous. As usual. Darn it!

Meredith frowned. Where was Rolf’s talisman belt? Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t been wearing it last week when she’d seen him, either. And he never went anywhere without that blasted belt. Unless…

“All I wanted to do was build a really impressive powerboat,” Tim was complaining to his buddies. “I don’t see why Jill is so upset. The damage wasn’t all
that
expensive. Women!”

“You weren’t here when she needed you,” the logical Al reminded him. “Remember. Jill told you that she was having problems with her job. The boys were driving her crazy. And she needed to lose ten pounds before her class reunion next week. Her female psyche was calling for a male ego boost—sort of like the positive and negative electrodes on a battery.” Al shook his head hopelessly at Tim. “Tsk-tsk! You let Jill down, Tim.”

“You may have a point there,” Wilson said. “Yes, indeedy!”

“Nah! She just needs a battery charge. Ha, ha, ha!”
Tim quipped. “Real men know how to keep a woman’s motor humming.”

“Real men? Hah!
I’m
more sensitive to a woman’s needs, Tim,” Al declared with an air of self-satisfaction. “That’s because
I’m
attuned to the feminine side of my brain. Just as you should be. Just as all men should be.”

“Huh?” Tim and Rolf exclaimed.

“Where did you learn that bit of wisdom, my good man?” Wilson had moved into Tim’s yard and his face was now hidden by…
oh, good Lord!
…a pair of huge breasts. Was that Ingrid he was attempting to affix to the front of the dragonship?

It was. A “real man’s” figurehead, to be sure.

“Oprah,” Al answered.

“That figures,” Tim and Rolf said at the same time.

As he considered Al’s advice, Tim’s helmet slid slightly off center and his horns went askew. “But Jill should be sensitive to my needs, too. A man’s got to fulfill his…his…”

“Destiny?” Rolf prodded.

I’d like to show Rolf his destiny, all right
.

“Yes!” Tim concurred. “Every man has to follow his destiny.” The other men nodded.

Dolts! They are all dolts
.

“It’s true, Tim,” the sage Wilson opined. “Yes, indeedy, when I was in Pango-Pango, I learned from a village chieftain that every man has a life goal to complete…a destiny, so to speak. Sometimes women don’t comprehend when a man’s honor is at stake. Isn’t that the way it is in the Viking culture, as well, Rolf?”

“Yea, some things ne’er change, no matter the culture, no matter the century,” Rolf stated nervously as he shifted from foot to foot. “A man must protect those
under his shield—wife, father, mother, friend. ’Tis the woman’s place to demur to his better judgment.”

Andrew Dice Ericsson—that’s who he is. The ultimate Viking chauvinist pig
.

“Yeah!” the other three idiots whooped.

“If a woman loves a man,” Rolf continued, addressing the camera again, as if directing his words to her, “she should have confidence in her man to follow the right path. She shouldn’t dishonor him by questioning his loyalty.”

But what about the man having confidence in his woman, Rolf?

“Did women nag their husbands in Viking times?” Tim interjected, steering the conversation to a more humorous vein.

Rolf snorted, muttering something crude under his breath, which was bleeped out.

All the men, Rolf included, were laughing heartily, lifting long-necked bottles of beer to their mouths in salute to that bit of shared universal maleness.

Meredith plopped down on the couch next to Thea. “Did you know about this?”

“No. All I knew was that Rolf asked me to tape tonight’s show for him.”

Meredith decided she had much to think about. The men were now on the set of Tim’s TV workshop, constructing a clinker-built longship.

“The most important thing is that the woman…uh, wood, be pliable,” Rolf explained, flexing a strip of green uh, wood, that had already been cut into a wedge shape. “That allows a man to bend them in the right direction.”

“Right on, man!” Tim shouted, pumping the air with a fist.

“There is naught worse than a stiff-boarded boat.”

“Or a stiff-necked woman,” Tim added.

Rolf grinned, no doubt patting himself on the back. “A man must be in control of his ship, steering its course,” he elaborated on his macho analogy. “A boat that is off keel will list through life…I mean, through the seas. Rudderless.” He grinned even wider.

I’m going to take care of his rudder if I ever get my hands on him again
.

“A good
boat
can be a man’s greatest treasure, or his greatest heartache,” Rolf concluded with a sigh. “Of course, there’s one sure way to stop a willful
boat
from tossing you to and fro,” Rolf said casually, walking over to the wall of tools on the side of the set. Taking down an S-shaped metal bolt, he held it in the air. “Norse shipbuilders make such a device, carved from wood, Tim. Have I e’er told you about the famous Viking S-nail? Nay? Well, perhaps another time. ’Tis a sure-fire mechanism for securing a wayward boat, or, in the case of the famous Viking S-spot, putting a woman in her rightful place.”

Then Rolf winked into the camera lenses.

Meredith knew—she just knew—that the wink was intended for her. A promise. The Viking lout intended to put her in her “rightful place.”

Dusk already blanketed the countryside as Meredith drove up the long lane to her cottage the next evening. She’d just come from the airport, where she’d put her niece on a shuttle for Chicago. Thea was going to spend a few days with her father and his family—the first visit since she’d moved in with Meredith. It wasn’t a trip the young girl had looked forward to, but she’d consented to a short visit, at Meredith’s urging. The girl needed her father’s love.

Approaching her darkened A-frame cottage, Meredith felt a sense of déjà vu. It had been a long time since she’d come home to an empty house—almost three months, in fact. That was when Rolf had first entered her life, and then Thea.

At that point, the Trondheim longship hadn’t been built. She hadn’t given up her tenured position at Columbia to stay on here at Oxley College. Her life hadn’t been turned upside down and inside out. She hadn’t been pregnant.

A solitary few days would be good for her, Meredith resolved as she parked the car and then walked to the front door. She needed time alone to make some decisions about her future and any relationship she might have with Rolf, whom she presumed was still in New York where the
Home Improvement
show was taped. Or was it L.A.? Whatever.

Mike had been decidedly mum when she’d questioned him about Rolf that afternoon, except to tell her that Tim Allen had offered Rolf a periodic guest spot on his program—a Viking philosopher role, similar to Wilson’s. Apparently, the show’s rating had shot sky-high last night.

She’d gone slack-jawed with amazement at the news. That was all she needed—Rolf as a TV celebrity.

“Rolf declined the offer,” Mike had related.

Thank God!

As she inserted the key in the lock, a loud yipping noise greeted her. She smiled, realizing some other things were different from her lonely life of a few months ago. She wasn’t entirely alone now. She had Dog.

Yippee!
she thought wryly.

No sooner did she step into the entryway than a
rough arm wrapped around her waist from behind, lifting her off the floor, while a knife was pressed against her neck. Time stood still, and the last three months slipped away like snowflakes in the wind.

In an exact recap of the previous experience, she dropped her briefcase to the floor, its contents spilling everywhere. Even her words came out the same as she flailed her arms and legs, shrieking, “Let me go!”

Dog barked loudly, but Meredith wasn’t sure if he was trying to scare the “attacker” off, or encourage him.

“Hljótt!”
Rolf ordered the animal, who slunk off to lie down obediently in the corner. Geez, did Dog understand Old Norse?

Her “attacker” spat out the single guttural command of
“Hljótt!”
or “Quiet!” to her, as well, when she continued to scream and fight his painful hold on her. Finally, he exhaled loudly with disgust and tossed her over his shoulder.

“You want a vicious Viking, you’ll get a vicious Viking,” he muttered. Carrying her into the living room, where the only light came from the blazing fireplace, the wretch threw her down to the sofa and followed after her, his braced hands pinning her shoulders flat and his right hip nudging her body firmly against the backframe.

“You’re…you’re despicable,” she screeched.

“Yea, I am,” he seethed. “And best you accustom yourself to my baser nature, because even your screeching will not drive me away this time.”

“You can’t just barge into my home. A civilized man would respect my wishes and stay away,” she stormed weakly.

“Like Jeffrey?
Blód hel!
Is that the kind of man you
favor now?” The contempt in his voice ripped through the air.

“No!” Then, realizing she’d conceded a point, she added, “But that doesn’t mean—”

He put up a halting hand and inquired frostily, “Wouldst prefer that I go back to my own time, Merry-Death?”

She shook her head, unable to speak over the torment such a possibility evoked. What a dog in the manger she was. She didn’t want him here, but she didn’t want him gone.

Rolf’s expression softened as he stared at her. “In truth, I suspect you don’t know what you want. Most of your resistance these past days stems from hurt, and I understand that. Truly, I do. I’ve muddled your senses with my lackwit actions, Merry-Death. Let me explain myself. Mayhap it will help.”

He leaned back slightly, though still pinning her to the sofa, and she got her first good look at the “new” Rolf. He wore the same outfit he’d had on in her office a week ago—loafers, designer jeans, a white, collarless linen dress shirt, and a dark blue blazer. But his long hair had been cut. Not short-short, like Mike’s, but close-clipped on the sides and collar-length in the back.

“Why did you cut your hair?” She gasped.

“I’m adapting,” he said sheepishly.

A sadness rushed through her then that Rolf sought to lose his Viking persona. “Oh, Rolf, a haircut won’t make you a nineties man, nor fancy clothes. You can take the man out of the Viking, but you can’t take the Viking out of the man.”

“That’s not why I bought the clothes, nor submitted to a barb-whore.” His jaw jutted out in affront.

She bristled as she recalled that it had been her ques
tion about where he’d bought the apparel that had prompted their estrangement a week ago.

“Don’t go pike-stiff on me, Merry-Death,” he advised. “I’ve had more than enough of your willful ways this past sennight. ’Tis time you shut your teeth and opened your ears to my story.”

The crude clod!
She squirmed, trying to break free.

“I will gag you, if necessary,” he warned.

She turned her face away, but he took her chin in a vicelike grip, forcing her to meet his gaze.