Valhalla Cupcakes (3 page)

He just looked so realistic, and she wished someone like him had been around when those thugs came in. Yes, a man like Harrold here would have torn them to shreds with his hammer and axe.

She closed her eyes and took a moment to imagine it, stopping when things got too gruesome, pretty sure the health department would frown on an axe slaying taking place in the dining area. A few last tears fell and she hurriedly wiped them off his fur vest, the expert brushstrokes almost evoking a feeling of soft warmth under her fingers.

“I wish you were real,” she said, leaning back in defeat. “I could really use some help.”

She knew she should be frantically making calls to find a replacement for Maria, but a deep tiredness stole into her bones. Dragging herself upstairs, she fell into her lumpy bed, asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

Erik Agnarsson could move again, for the first time in over five hundred years. He could see more than what was directly in front of him, and his nostrils were filled with a sweet scent, reminding him of the pastries his grandmother made. Just to smell anything again filled his heart with a sweeping joy.

It was short lived. Stepping away from his prison, he kicked it aside and clenched his fists, ready to tear the first person he saw to pieces. Everyone he knew was gone, everything he cared about was hundreds of years in the past, thanks to that witch. He’d find her, if it took another five hundred years. If it took to the end of the world, he’d find her.

He slowly relaxed and took a moment to relish his freedom, being able to move his muscles again almost blotting out his rage. He knew he wasn’t in the spot he’d been for the last twenty or so years. He’d been in a dark, quiet space for a long time, a sign that he would soon find himself in a different location. He turned in a slow circle, stretching his long arms out at his sides, reveling in the feel of the cool, dry air, and filling his lungs with it. He could breathe again.

A showily carved sign read Welcome to Valhalla and as he slowly sounded out the English words in his mind, he laughed. While his long confinement had felt worse than death to him, he knew he was still very much alive, and this strangely decorated room filled with small wooden tables was not Valhalla. Odin wouldn’t be so cruel.

He ambled around, enjoying the feel of his feet hitting the floor, inspecting his surroundings. He recalled a woman kneeling over him and wondered where she was. It had been an awfully long time since he’d had his hands on a woman.

He thought of the witch who’d imprisoned him, longing to wrap his hands around her neck. He needed to figure out where he was first, assess what he’d need. He’d seen many things from his different vantage points over the last centuries, and he knew for one thing the clothes he’d been wearing when he was cursed would bring unwanted attention to him. He knew he’d need the currency of the time and place he was now in to get anywhere. As much as he wanted to race out the door, he had to be smart and get some answers first. If only someone was around that he could question.

“Hello,” he shouted in the last language he’d heard spoken.

Sometimes he listened to what the people around him had to say, sometimes he drifted off in his own world. Five hundred years was an unbearably long time, and he’d been unable to do anything but listen and stare straight ahead. It was long past time for action. He thundered halfway up the stairs and bellowed his greeting again, more forcefully this time.

He heard a door open and feet padding along the floor above him and smiled, moving to the center of the room and crossing his arms in front of him, feet wide apart, ready to greet whoever appeared.

There she was, that woman who’d fallen on him earlier, coming down the stairs. He liked the looks of her much better than when his vision had been restricted. His eyes were clear again, and he let them roam appreciatively down her body. She wore a form fitting skirt and a shirt that clung to her breasts, her feet were bare and her dark russet hair was rumpled as if she’d been asleep. The moment she saw him, she stopped dead on the stairs, her rosy full lips parted in shock, her deep green eyes wide. Every inch of visible skin looked soft enough to want to run his fingers over.

“Don’t be afraid.” He smiled invitingly at her, thinking luck had finally got back on his side, being freed by such a beautiful woman. This was going to be fun.

Until she wrenched an antler off the wall and flung it at his head, screaming loud enough to frighten a kraken.

***

Audrey closed her mouth and sat down on the stairs, hard enough to let her know she wasn’t dreaming.

“Harrold?” she choked out.

He stood in the middle of the room, smiling welcomingly as if he owned the place, and she was right about one thing. He was as gorgeous as she thought he’d be without that murderous scowl. In fact, right now, the smile seemed infinitely more dangerous. Feeling an overwhelming urge to scuttle down the rest of the steps and let him do all the mischievous things to her that her mind conjured up, she pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t still asleep.

Ouch, nope, she was awake. It was a shame, because she thought she deserved a dream in which a hot Viking swept her off her feet. As soon as she got over her disappointment, she realized she had a far bigger problem than her lack of any good sex lately.

There was a giant Viking standing in the middle of her bakery. Completely blank, she stood up and screamed again.

He actually laughed, making his way to her in two strides. He clapped his hand over her mouth before easily picking her up under one arm and hauling her down the stairs.

“I won’t hurt you,” he rumbled, dropping her onto the floor and holding out his hands placatingly. “My name is Erik Agnarsson, not Harrold.”

“How in the hell are you even here?”

Even though she’d just been squashed against his extremely hard body, confirming that he was not a figment of her imagination, she jumped forward and hit him in the chest with both palms. Yes, extremely hard. Definitely real.

“Unless I lost my mind?” she wondered aloud, unable to tear her eyes off him. She had an idea and closed her eyes, counting to ten. When she opened them, he’d be gone, and then she’d call a doctor. “Five, six …”

“You didn’t lose your mind.”

She opened her eyes, not making it all the way to ten, and swore. “Do you want a cupcake?” she asked, unable to think of anything else to say. A mysterious Viking on top of everything else. It was impossible. Surely pausing for baked goods would fix things.

“No thank you. I want the first thing I eat in five hundred years to be juicy red meat.”

“Five hundred years,” she repeated, staggering to a chair. That was an awfully long time.

He hurried to pull one out for her, kneeling in front of her. Way too close, her mind screamed. He put his hands gently on her knees and her breath hitched at the warm touch that jolted up her thighs. Oh, crap.

She jerked the chair away and jumped back up, edging around him for the kitchen. She had to get things under control, figure out what was going on, and she definitely had to keep him from turning into the crazed barbarian he’d been portrayed as, though his expectant smile was just as nerve wracking. Answers. She needed answers.

“Really, have a cupcake.” Again, Audrey? That was all she could think to say?

His eyes changed from merry to confused, then his smile faltered for a moment. “Fine,” he finally said, standing stiffly and crossing his arms.

She put the remaining cupcakes the mobster jerks had left behind on a plate and brought them out to him, still standing sentinel where she’d left him. He didn’t look nearly as cheerful as he had when she first came down the stairs and she tried to think what had put him off. Having a happy, flirtatious Viking was bad enough. What if he went completely berserk and tore the place apart?

“Have a seat,” she said, placing the cupcakes on a table and sitting down herself.

He looked like he went through an intense mental battle with the variety of scowls that passed over his handsome face, before taking a seat across from her.

“Eat up,” she said encouragingly.

Her cupcakes could put anyone in a good mood, especially a man who hadn’t eaten in five hundred years. He glared at her before taking a huge bite of a chocolate one. A little frosting clung to his lip and she insanely wanted to lick it off. Before she could control herself, she reached over and wiped it off for him with her thumb. The smile returned and he relaxed, taking another bite and nodding his approval.

“So, tell me about the painting,” she said, almost cracking up at the ridiculousness of it. Making small talk with the man who’d been a portrait an hour ago. His smile faded and he dropped the cupcake.

“I was cursed by a witch and imprisoned in that painting for over five hundred years.”

Oh, wow, he really hadn’t wanted his picture taken. Still not quite able to believe it, she reached across and touched him again, running her hand down his shoulder. The fur of his vest was slightly matted and his bicep twitched under her fingertips. She had never seen, or felt, a man as big as him. Squeezing his arm, she moved closer, almost against her will. He felt real, there was no getting around that. Embarrassed at how much she enjoyed having her hand on him, she leaned back demurely and apologized. She felt her cheeks heat up when he raised an eyebrow at her obvious lack of restraint.

“Uh, you speak English really well. I hardly hear an accent.” She wanted to ask him if he deserved to be cursed, but didn’t think she’d get an honest answer. Besides existing, which he couldn’t help, he hadn’t done anything so far to alarm her.

“The painting moved around over the years. Besides English, I speak Japanese, German, French, Portuguese, and of course, my mother tongue, Norwegian.” When she looked astounded, he shrugged. “Five hundred years is a long time and I had nothing better to do than listen.”

She felt more comfortable around him by the minute, and while he seemed plenty dangerous, she didn’t think he was dangerous to her. He’d picked her up and carried her down the stairs like a sack of grain, but he was a Viking from five hundred years ago after all, and he did put her down quickly enough. He’d pulled out a chair for her when she thought her legs would give way, and knelt down, presumably to comfort her, before she flipped out and ran for cupcakes. And now he sat across from her, quite civilly carrying on a conversation. If he wanted her neck snapped, it would have been snapped by now.

She didn’t think he could have possibly done anything close to warranting being trapped in a painting for five centuries. He was probably just a victim of unlucky circumstance. Witches be crazy, after all.

“These cakes of yours are really quite good,” he said, taking another and licking the frosting.

The sight of his tongue sliding across the pink fluff made her go cross-eyed for a second. And he was smiling again, which didn’t help her equilibrium. Now that he was three dimensional, he was sinfully, outrageously handsome, all rugged planes and chiseled muscles.

“Go ahead and eat them all,” she urged, always delighted to see someone enjoying her baking.

He groaned and tipped his head back as if beseeching the heavens, but took yet another cupcake, downing it in three bites.

“How are you here now?” she asked. “Do you know what broke the curse?”

He nodded around a mouthful and laboriously swallowed, looking close to tortured as he ate another cupcake before answering.

“I think it’s because you wished it,” he said. “Might I have something to drink?”

“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry.” She raced for a pitcher of ice water.

He drained an entire glass and looked hatefully at the last cupcake, but pulled the paper off and crammed it into his mouth. He drank another glass and settled back in his chair, looking slightly ill, but triumphant.

“You’re here because I wished it?” she asked, positive she had done no such thing. “That can’t be right. My friend is the one who bought the painting.”

He shook his head. “I heard you say it. You fell on top of me at the time.” He leered suggestively. “I didn’t mind it.”

She blushed, remembering her sobfest before she gave up and took a nap to clear her mind. She eyed Erik Agnarsson up and down and blushed harder. His answer was too easy to possibly be the real reason he’d got out of the painting.

“I’m surprised I was the first woman in five hundred years to wish you were real,” she said, wanting to crawl in a hole when she saw his amused reaction. She really had to stop thinking out loud.

His smug look told her she probably hadn’t been the first woman to wish that, but he turned serious. “I think it was the tears that made it work. You were crying, yes?”

“Yes.” She turned in a circle to encompass everything she owned. Which she really didn’t, since the mobsters would be coming around again to collect. When she didn’t have the money, who knew what they would do? “This is all I’ve got in the world,” she sighed. “I’m supposed to open tomorrow.”

He looked around and nodded. “This does not seem a credible depiction of the Valhalla as I’ve always imagined it, but it’s a nice place. And your skills with those small cakes are excellent. You should have much success.”

“I guess you didn’t hear the part where the loan sharks came in and told me I have a month to pay them back a hundred grand or scary things will happen?”