Sandra Hill (23 page)

Ian tried to punch Pretty Boy in the arm, but he ducked away. Luckily, Ian was spared any further discussion on the subject. His cell phone rang.

“Yo, Mac,” Cage said. He could hear the laughter in his voice.

Uh-oh!

“Guess what your wife is doing, bless her heart?”

Uh-oh!
“Stop playing games. What the hell is up?”

“Well, me, I am pretty sure … but I better check with my binoculars again … yep, I’m pretty sure that’s your wife out there swimming in the surf.”

“I’ll kill her,” he muttered.

“Oh, did I forget to mention skinny dipping? Yep, your wife is N-U-D-E,” he spelled out.

“Fuck!”

“Seems to me you already did that, by the looks of her when she came outside.
Mon Dieu!
She had
whisker burns up one side and down the other. And her lips—whooee, they—”

“Shut up!”

“A little testy today, are you,
mon coeur?
”

“Don’t give me that ‘my friend’ crap. Where’s Geek? He’s supposed to be watching her.”

“He was in the head when she slipped out.”

Shit! Cage and Geek both looking at my wife’s nude body. Aaarrgh! She’s not really my wife. But I still don’t want other men ogling her.
How long has she been out there?”

“About ten minutes.”

“You have been standing there watching her for ten minutes?” he asked in an icy voice.

“Yep!”

“I’ll be right home.”

“Do you want me to go in and get her?”

“
No!
Is that clear?”

“How could it not be? You about melted the wax in my ears.”

He hung up then on Cage, who was laughing like a hyena.

Ian was so angry he was shaking. He didn’t care how good Maddie was in the sack, he was going to kill her. Well, he did care, but he was still going to kill her.

He slammed his cell phone shut and noticed everyone was looking at him. And every single one of them was smiling.

A far journey was obviously in her future …

Madrene was learning to read.

If she had known she would get such joy from the simple task of practicing letters on a piece of parchment, she would have taken time when she was a
child to study along with her brothers and their monk teachers. She had started her lessons early this morning until she’d taken a break for a quick swim … something she had learned to do as a toddler in the cold waters of a Norseland fjord. Vikings, who were most comfortable in the seas riding their longships, considered swimming a necessary skill.

Geek said she was a quick learner and he gave her homework to do on the days when he was not there. Writing her letters over and over. And practicing simple words like cat and dog.

Now they had a book in front of them called
See Jane Run,
which was helping her to recognize simple words.

“I don’t think you need to learn everything,” Geek said. “People start learning to read when they’re four or five years old and continue studying the language in one way or another for twelve years or more.”

“You jest?” she asked with horror.

He patted her arm. “Don’t worry. We’re going to try to compress all that into a few weeks. Sort of a
Reading for Dummies
kind of approach.”

“You jest?” she repeated.

“Really. They use this method in English as a Second Language classes sometimes.”

She made a quick lunch for them … slices of white bread put together with ham and cheese and mustard, called a sand-which, of all things; there was no sand used. For a beverage, they drank that bubbly drink called Pepsi with ice in tall glasses. She, who had put together feasts for two hundred in the past, was inordinately pleased with herself that she was able to accomplish such a small feat.

While they ate, they talked. Geek told her about his family … a mother, father and five sisters who lived in a country called Poo-kip-see. Apparently, he had an extraordinary intellect and had many years of learning. “Why did you decide to become a warrior?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Seemed the best way to put my brain to good use in a just cause.” He grew quiet for a moment, and his jaw tensed with some strong emotion. “I hate terrorists. If my intelligence can eliminate a few of them, well … that’s why I joined the SEALs.” A grin teased his mouth and a blush bloomed on his freckled face. “Plus, I like the way SEALs push the limits on physical stamina. A buff body and girls. I can’t deny there’s an attraction in that.”

Madrene smiled, and then, at his urging, told him about her life, starting with the days when her entire large family lived on a Norse farmstead up till her meeting the seals in the Arab lands.

It was then that Geek explained what it meant when these men called themselves seals. They didn’t mean animals. The letters stood for SEa, Air and Land.

Then she continued talking about her life.

Geek laughed out loud at some times … when she described her method for deflating male parts, her futile attempts to learn scarf dancing in a sultan’s harem, milking a camel. At other times, he grew grim, squeezing her hand, especially when she talked about the deaths of one member of her family after another.

After they were done eating and talking and cleaning up the kitchen, Geek said, “Let’s go boot up Ian’s computer and see what we can find out about … what did you call it, Hordaland?”

She nodded, even though she did not understand half of what he said.

Soon she sat on a stool and Geek on a chair in front of a square box on a piece of furniture called a desk. The box was a come-pewter, and Geek claimed it held information about everything in the world.

In the next half hour, Geek had obtained so much information that it made her brain fuzzy. In truth, the more he told her, the more she wanted to know. And, actually, his brow was becoming as furrowed as hers.

“This just doesn’t make sense,” he told her as his finger tapped on little buttons set into a tray. “I can find a country called Hordaland, but it’s an archaic name. Hordaland does not exist today.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hordaland more or less became the country called Norway. Is that where you’re from? Norway?”

“Nay. Leastways, I never heard it called such. But I am Norse. So perhaps … I just don’t understand.”

“You’re not the only one,” he muttered.

Next he put the letters for Birka and Hedeby in. Then pronounced, “Same thing. Old names for places that no longer exist. Birka was in what is called Sweden today. Hedeby was in what is called Germany today.”

“Can this magic box show me a picture of where these places are … were? A map?”

“Sure.”

Within a few moments, she was studying several maps … something she’d had no need to learn in the past. Geek had to read the names printed on the map for the various countries and waterways. Finally she said, “It does look faintly familiar.” She
looked up at him. “I must be from Norway, then. Leastways, a country known as Norway here but Hordaland to its inhabitants.”

He looked skeptical.

“Now can you show me how far it is from here to … Norway?”

“Sure.”

Seconds later, her shoulders slumped with dismay. It was so far away. Daunting to think she would have to raise an army and then transport them there. Mayhap she should raise the funds here, travel to Saxon lands and raise an army there to travel with her to Norstead. No matter what the obstacles, it was a mission she refused to consider impossible.

Just then, they heard the front door open. They both sat up, alert. Who could it be? Surely it was not one of the terrorists this soon. Geek reached for the weapon, called a piss-toll, which he carried with him at all times.

The mystery was soon solved.

From down the hall, possibly from the kitchen, they heard Ian shout at the top of his lungs, “
Mad-die!
”

Her magic fingers did what? …

Ian was in a foul mood.

He’d hope to calm his temper on the ride home. No such luck! Anger bubbled in him just below the surface. He needed to hit something or he would explode.

Truth be told, Ian was as hurt as he was angry.

How could she?

He’d stormed into the house, seen no one in the living room. In the kitchen he saw evidence of
Maddie’s reading lessons. His eyebrows lifted at the book Geek was using. It was titled
See Jane Run
, but it was not like any primer he’d ever seen in school. On the cover was Jane, who looked a bit like Barbie. She wore spandex shorts and top and she was running, all right, with Ken hot on her tail.

He shook his head and hollered once again, “
Mad-die!
”

“You do not have to yell. I am right here,” she said. “Why are you here?”

She strolled into the kitchen big as you please. Geek had the good sense to disappear back into the office.

Ian tried hard not to notice her body in a tanktop and shorts; she was barefooted. He tried not to recall every bit of that body he’d explored last night.
“Why are you here?” she had asked. The nerve! This is my house.
“Didn’t you miss me?” he asked icily.

“No,” she answered with her usual bluntness. “You said you would not be back till eventide.”

He scowled at her. “What? Did you have plans for another foray outside? Naked foray, that is?”

She frowned for a second. “Oh, that is what this is all about.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I just went for a swim. It was such a beautiful day. The sun warm. And I …” Her words trailed off as she noticed his scowl.

“I ordered you to stay inside,” he said, pausing at each word. While he spoke he backed her up against the cabinets, fists on either side of her on the counter.

“I do not take orders from you or anyone else,” she said in the same slow manner, emphasizing each word. Ducking under his arm, she returned his glower, then remarked, “The vein in your forehead is throbbing.”

Aaarrgh!
“You are under my protection. I have every right to tell you what to do. I order. You follow orders. That’s just the way it is.”

“That is your opinion.”

“I’ll shackle you to the bed.” Immediately he wished he hadn’t used that word, especially when her wrist and ankle and back scars were visible to him.

She looked wounded for a moment.

“Maddie,” he said more softly now, crowding her toward the laundry room. When he got her inside, he slammed the door shut with the back of his foot. “I thought after last night … well … you know?”

She cocked her head to the side, and her face turned pink. At first he thought it was from embarrassment, but, nope, it was anger. “You thought that because I spread my thighs for you that I would suddenly turn biddable outside the bedchamber?”

“No, but—”

She was the one crowding him now. With a finger jabbing at his chest, she said, “Understand me well. Seal or not seal. Warrior or not warrior. Husband or not husband. I am my own person. I have suffered too much to give my freedom over to any man. What have men done but leave me, set me aside, betray me, beat me, attempt to break my pride? I do not trust men, least of all you.”

That hurt. That really hurt. Anger seeped out of Ian and was replaced with regret that she lumped him in with all those tyrants. And it really hurt when he saw her wipe at a tear and proclaim, “I never cry. Do not dare to think I am crying.”

She lifted her chin, refusing to look at him, instead staring with great interest at a box of detergent. Once again, he had the sudden feeling that he had seen her
before. He’d had a similar feeling back in Iraq. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. He had met her before, he just knew he had. His instincts never failed him on something like this. “Have we ever met before, Maddie? In the past. Like a few years ago?”

She still would not look at him. “Nay. If we had, I would have remembered such an ill-tempered son of a weasel as you.”

He almost grinned.

“It is not funny. You are an overbearing beast.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You should be.” She sniffled.

“I’m not used to people disobeying my orders.”

“Get used to it.”

“You were naked, for chrissake!”

She arched her eyebrows at the Tide. “And that signifies how? Didst expect me to get my new clothing wet?”

“You shouldn’t swim naked in public. Surely you didn’t do that where you come from.”

“Yea, I did. What fool swims fully clothed?” If anything, her chin went even higher.

“How old were you then?”

“Five. Not that it matters.”

He grinned.
Five? And she honest-to-God thought she could convince him that what she did at five was okay at her age? She was … something else.
“Let’s kiss and make up,” he suggested, reaching for her.

She swatted his hands aside and said, “Go swive yourself!” He could tell by the expression on her face that she was unaccustomed to such expletives … archaic as it was.

“I would rather … swive you.”

She gasped and glanced down at the bulge in his
running shorts. “Oh, nay! Nay, nay, nay! You are not going to tamp my anger down with bedsport.”

“More like laundry sport, baby.” He was already shrugging out of his shorts and jockstrap.

She looked at his erection and waggled her fingers at it. At first he didn’t understand what she was doing. But then he did. With a hoot of laughter, he told her, “Honey, you are not talking, mocking or waggling down this hard-on. There’s only one way to do that.” And he told her explicitly what that was.

“You are a vulgar, vulgar man.”

“Yeah. Don’t you love it?”

Spouting some mumbo-jumbo now, she continued to waggle her fingers.

He just grew bigger.

“It works. It really does,” she cried out. “Your tupping days will soon be over.”

“Tupping, huh?” He laughed and took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “I thought about you all morning,” he said huskily.

“I did not think of you at all.”

“Out of sight, out of mind, eh?” He was nibbling at her neck, and she wasn’t shoving him away. “Perhaps I need to do a better job so I’ll be on your mind, too.” He ground his hips against her belly.