A Twist in Time

Chapter 9

The sky behind her in the west had grown dark and threatening. They were in for some rain. This whole thing had taken longer than Lucy thought. Galen had been alone for hours. What if he overdosed on Vicodin or something? She pushed her speed up to seventy all the way to the turnoff from Highway 37. Past the Quik Stop, she took the dirt road at more like twenty but still faster than was probably safe and parked in the gravel lot. She gathered an armload of bags and let herself in through the gate. Down at the other end of the dock from the Camelot, a very suntanned, older, sailor-looking guy worked on his boat. He looked up but didn’t greet her. Just as well. She and Galen weren’t supposed to fraternize. A kid maybe sixteen came up on deck from a boat about halfway down, followed by a huge black wolf-looking dog. Who kept a dog that big on a boat? She hurried past as they played tug with a piece of old rope.

At slip eighteen she stepped aboard and climbed down into the cockpit. The hatch to below decks wasn’t locked. Had she forgotten to lock it? She groped for the ladder juggling her bags. No sound of the television. At least Galen had learned to use the remote. Unless he just threw the television against the wall when he got annoyed with it.

At the bottom of the ladder one very naked Viking brandished the very naked blade of Jake’s sword in one hand and a carving knife in the other. She gasped and froze. Where was her pepper spray? Somewhere in the bags . . . But his glower turned to obvious relief.

“You return,” he said in Latin, laying the knife on the table.

She breathed again. For a minute there . . . “Well, yeah,” she muttered, trying to still her thumping heart while she stacked her bags on the table. Maybe the mattress wasn’t an entirely original hiding place for the sword. Now it looked glued to his hand. Not a chance she’d be able to pry it away. She glanced at the sling, its buckle torn from the strap, lying on the floor. “Why are you not in bed?” she managed in Latin.

“A man came here.” Galen sat on the sofa.

She turned on him. Oh, this was bad. “What man?”

“A small, soft man.”

Well, that let out the sailor she’d seen working on his boat and even the kid. And you couldn’t say either Brad or Casey was small or soft. “Did . . . did he attack you?”

“No. I think he wanted to be a friend.”

“Did you attack him?” She nodded to the sword, imagining fountains of blood, a body hacked to pieces and thrown overboard.

Galen looked affronted. “I did not attack him.”

“Well, what . . . what came to pass?” Boy, this Latin thing was sure getting annoying.

Galen lifted his chin. “He grew frightened and left.”

That sword would frighten anyone off. As a matter of fact, Galen, seen through a stranger’s eyes, was pretty fearsome with his naked, muscled frame, his wild hair, his barbarian braids, and his beard. Who could it have been?

“He had a cart also, but with more dirt than yours.”

A car. Someone not from the marina then . . . It was the nosey man from the convenience store Jake had warned her about, dollars to doughnuts. Galen would cause talk, and she didn’t want the man spreading stories of wounded Vikings from here to next Sunday.

“Okay, okay.” She had to do something about this. First things first. Get the rest of the bags in from the car, give Galen something to eat. She needed to think anyway. “I will return.”

She carried in two more armloads of supplies while she thought. The man at the convenience store would tell everyone who came in and they’d tell someone, who’d tell someone, and pretty soon . . . Well she didn’t want to think what would happen if the police heard about Galen. Brad and Casey had to have the word out. Okay. Okay. Just stay calm. This was bound to happen sooner or later. First see the man from the convenience store. Make up some story to keep him from gossiping. And what would that be?

Galen watched her rummage through the bags. She pulled out the three-pack of boxer shorts, one in black-watch plaid, one plain navy blue, and one hunter green. She tossed him the plaid. They hit him in the belly and slid to the floor, since he was still hanging on to that sword for dear life. “For you. Put down your sword.” She said it in English without thinking and was amazed to see that he understood. He laid his sword down and painstakingly reached for the boxers. Fierce as he looked with a sword in his hand, he was still injured. It had been less than forty-eight hours since he’d had surgery on his shoulder. He should be flat on his back. That he was not spoke to the fact that he came from an age where weakness was rewarded with death.

He turned the boxer shorts around. His eyes widened as he found the elastic waistband. He examined the fabric. “Es ful gd. Hwer . . . ?” Then he found the slit for relieving oneself. One corner of his mouth turned up. The smile softened his face. He looked up at her under one arched brow.

She blushed. “Put them on.” She spoke in English because she couldn’t recall the Latin for “dress yourself.”

He got the idea. He laid his sword reverently on the sofa. He put his bad leg into the boxers and marveled that the elastic stretched to accommodate his other foot. “Hwaet es this?”

“Elastic,” she said.

“Elastic.” He pulled the boxers up to his knees and then stood, a little shaky, and pulled them over his hips. The elastic snapped against his ribbed belly.

Lucy sighed. No more X-rated scenery. That should be a relief. She would never have gotten used to it. Was it a relief? She rummaged in another bag and pulled out a pair of sweatpants. “If you are cold.” She handed them to him.

Again he examined the cloth. He pulled it and marveled at the stretch. He looked for the elastic at the waist and pulled it. “Elastic.” He put the emphasis on the first syllable.

She chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Ne cyld.” He laid them aside.

Hmmm. That was pretty clearly “not cold.” The words they understood together were mostly one syllable—the Old English roots of the modern language. The basics lived on. She’d heard the f word was Old English, and the c word for female genitalia, too. Bet you won’t find those in any modern Old English dictionary.

He watched her put groceries away. She popped open some herring and sour cream and a package of crackers. “Lunch,” she announced, and handed him a plateful and a fork. It had seemed a very Viking kind of food when she’d bought it.

“Herring,” he said. “Es gd.” His attention turned totally to his food, and he stabbed it as though it were still swimming.

Enough delay. There was no use putting off her trip to the Quik Stop any longer, even though she had no idea what she would say. Every moment she wasted was time the guy could be telling people about the crazy naked guy with the sword down on the boat in slip eighteen who looked like a Viking. She switched to Latin. “I go. I will be back. With greatest haste . . .”

Galen barely glanced up from his food as she left. It was less than a mile to the convenience store, but she took the car. She didn’t want to be away longer than she had to be. Look what trouble Galen had gotten into already. The sky was really dark now and the wind had kicked up. They were in for some Northern California March weather.

She had no idea what she would say to the Quik Stop guy. If he was gossip central, he’d for sure tell the other people at the marina. Only two boats had been lighted last night, but that didn’t mean only two were occupied. Jake said anyone who stayed on a boat in the winter was hard-core. The lean, brown sailor looked like just the kind who would know someone like Casey. She felt a shudder start down her spine and stifled it. She was getting as bad as Jake.

She got out of the car in the little asphalt parking lot outside the Quik Stop. Cars whizzed by on Highway 37, mostly trucks going over to Vallejo and Richmond and locals in their pickup trucks. The area was really rural and agricultural until you got up into the wine country, and that was just a more touristy kind of agriculture. The Quik Stop probably made its money off wine tourists in high season.

She pushed into the store, still not knowing what she’d say to the guy. She couldn’t stop the rumor mill. Hmmmm. But maybe she could use it. What would keep hard-core types from ever wanting to bother her and Galen? If she said he was a soldier, they’d want to trade war stories. If she . . .

Wait. Oh yeah. She knew what would keep hard-core types a hundred miles away.

The little man behind the crowded counter could be described as small and soft. The radio blared with pop music. He gave her a big grin. She glanced around. There were mail slots behind the counter. This was where their passports would show up tomorrow. She’d better buy something to give her an excuse to talk. Unsurprisingly, the store came equipped with a deli counter to sell unconscionably expensive picnic supplies to tourists. The goods looked a little thin and not quite fresh this time of year.

“Hi there,” she said. “Can I get a pint of the olives and some goat cheese?”

“Sure,” he said, rising. “You on your way up to the wine country?”

Here we go. “Nope. I’m staying down at the marina.”

His eyes lighted up. “With the German guy?”

She let her eyes go soft and gave the sappiest smile she could muster. “Yeah.” Don’t even tell him Galen’s a Dane. She cleared her throat. “He’s my husband.” An image of what a wedding night might be like with Galen started winding itself down her spine. She couldn’t help the blush that rose to her cheeks. Oh, well. That works.

“Newlywed maybe?”

She nodded. He cut off a slab of goat cheese. “We were in Acapulco on our honeymoon.” How did he get hurt? Shark attack? Too dramatic. “We were powerboating. He went overboard and got sliced up in the propeller pretty bad.” Was that even believable? “The first day we got there.”

“Wow. You hardly had time to . . . uh . . . get to know each other.”

This guy was quaint. Most people these days had “gotten to know each other” in the biblical sense long before their wedding night. She gave a pronounced sigh, as though what he said was completely true. “My uncle lent us his boat as a honeymoon hideaway until Galen feels better. Flew us up here and everything. It was really nice of him.”

“Bet you’re making up for lost time now.”

The blush rose again. It’s okay. Goes with the story, she told herself. “Well, no, not yet.”

The guy laughed as he ladled olives into a plastic container. “But soon. Your husband looked like he was recovering fast when I saw him today.”

“You . . . ?” She feigned ignorance.

“I went down to welcome you. Saw your lights last night. I . . . I guess I surprised him.”

“Uh-oh. I hope he didn’t frighten you with that Japanese sword of his.”

“Not . . . not really.” The guy looked away and then bustled over to the cash register.

“Oh, I am so sorry. He’s really very sweet.”

“I’d hate to see him riled up, I’ll say that.” The register spit out a receipt.

Lucy pulled out a twenty, smiling. Sixteen dollars for some olives and goat cheese. Sheesh. Then she sobered. “I hope we can get a little peace and quiet up here. If people start dropping by . . . It’s just that Galen not speaking the language and being a little protective of me, well, he . . . might react badly and then there’d be trouble.”

“Normally, I’d say he looks fierce enough to keep anybody away. But believe me, those crazies here all winter are tough nuts themselves.” He counted out her change. “Nope. The way to keep them away is to let them see you canoodling.”

Canoodling? Who said that? Still, it was just what she’d hoped. But wait. How to explain Galen’s fierce looks? “He’s not really fierce, you know. Well, except about me. He’s a little shaggy right now. Wanted to have a traditional wedding with all of us dressed like . . . like Druids.” Hope the guy is ignorant enough not to realize that Druids were Celt, not Germanic. “He won’t be quite so intimidating when we get him shaved and those braids out of his hair.”

The clerk just laughed. “Lady, if you think that is going to make him look less scary . . .”

“If you only knew how kind he is,” she said as though sharing a secret.

“Don’t worry, miss. I’ll let everyone know you’re newlyweds. The last thing any of those crazies holed up on their boats want is to put up with some cooing turtledoves.”

She gave him one more smile she hoped looked innocent. “Thanks.”

As she ran to her car, it began to pour.

Galen peered out the thin horizontal port holes into the rain. He should have forbidden her to leave. Why go when she had just returned? Where had she gone? Had she left him forever?

Or she might betray their location to her lover and his warriors, either willfully, because she had a change of heart about disobeying her man, or in innocence. Who would not recognize that red hair? Even now it was all he could do to stand and watch for her. He was dependent on her. She brought food and clothing when it was a man’s place to provide for his woman. . . .

Of course, she wasn’t his woman. She was just a woman. Any woman. Any woman who was a sorceress in a time of magic. When he bedded her she would belong to him, at least until he left for his own time. He must bed her soon in order to bind her to him. His thoughts were scattered by fatigue. He wanted to return to his soft bed. But he held himself on watch for her.

There! She scurried down the little dock through the pouring rain, her coat pulled over her head. He went to stand at the bottom of the ladder. Her hasty steps thudded across the deck. The hatch above him opened, letting in spray and wind. She came down the ladder, dripping and breathless, and turned to latch the hatch.

“Oh, my, but it is wet out there,” she panted. When she turned at the bottom of the ladder, she was very close to him. She was so tiny, so delicate. She wore small gold rings pierced through her ears as though she came from the lands east of the Danube River. Her head came only to his chest. Her eyes were that clear green again. Her face was sprinkled with drops of rain. The red wisps, damp and dark, clung to her cheeks, her forehead. She had a dusting of freckles across her fine, pale skin. He felt a pull in his loins in spite of his exhaustion. It would not be a trial to bed her. She looked up at him and stilled. He imagined her naked body writhing under him, thrusting up to meet him as he plunged inside her. Did she feel that same tightness in her woman’s core? Her eyes grew big.

“Hwer wert thu?” he growled, not bothering with Latin.

She pulled back. But she understood him. “I saw your little man.” She pushed past him. “You frightened him.” She caught herself and repeated in her halting and badly pronounced Latin. “He must not tell all of a fierce Viking.”

“Hwæt spekest thu to him?” Galen couldn’t seem to muster Latin. But she understood.

She blushed. “That we were new wed. He will tell others. No one will come here.”

Galen caught himself imagining the first night after plighting their troth. Would she blush all over her milk white body? Would she be shy and try to cover herself, even though she routinely flaunted her body in skimpy clothing? Mayhaps, at least until he made her moan when he suckled her breast.

Where was his mind? He set his jaw. She had taken care of him yet again by lying to the soft man. That made Galen angry. She should have left it to him to confront the soft man.

“Go to the bed. You are sick.”

He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for giving him orders, for being right, for his dependence on her, for being so sure of herself. He wanted to make her lie that she belonged to him into a truth. But as he glared at her his vision swam. He felt his knees wobble.

“Don’t you dare collapse,” she muttered. He didn’t understand. But he understood the blackness in his field of vision. She grabbed his arm and half-hauled him, staggering, through the passageway until he collapsed upon the bed on his good side. She pulled the bedding out from under him, lifted his legs, and covered him. He lay gasping like a hooked fish. She brought him more of her vile tablets. He wanted to sweep away her tablets and her flagon of water, along with the concerned look on her face. But only his wounded shoulder was outside the blankets, and almost any movement made pain wash over him. He could do nothing as she sat beside him and rolled him gently to his back.

“Leave me, woman,” he ordered, mustering Latin to be sure she obeyed. But she didn’t. She lifted him and presented the pills. All fight went out of him. What choice did he have but to obey her? Disgusted with himself, he took the tablets (there were many this time) and gulped water from the flagon she held to his lips. He could not even turn away from her.