Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 04] (31 page)

A hot tear rolled down her cheek.

He was unmoved.

“What I meant by that was, if we got married tomorrow, how would I know that you would be there the next day?”

“There are no guarantees in this life, even without time-travel. Consider what almost happened to us. Consider your fiancé David.”

“That was a low blow.”

“That is real life. Bad things happen. But people don’t stop living to avoid dying.”

“Max, this is not the time to—”

“You are right, as usual,” he interrupted her stonily. Sarcasm coated his voice. “When will be the right time?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a dull ache of foreboding.

“So be it.” He turned and proudly walked away from her and out of the medical facility.

Intuitively, Alison understood that something momentous had just happened. She feared what it might be.

Running as fast as he can …

Ragnor did not see Alison at all during the following week. By choice. He was afraid of what he would say or do in his present mood.

Ragnor was relieved, of course, that Alison was no
longer in any danger. That did not mean he could forgive everything in his relief.

He had been called on the carpet by the XO, the CO, and the BC for being in Alison’s keep that night. Being “called on the carpet” was the modern way of saying “screamed at” so shrilly they could have peeled rust off armor in a moldy Saxon castle. XO and CO were military terms for executive officer and commanding officer, while BC was Ragnor’s own affectionate term for bloody chieftain. In the end, he’d been given permanent Gig Squad, which Cage had assured him was a mild punishment for boinking his superior officer … “boinking” being a crude term for swiving. Apparently, his saving Alison’s, the chieftain’s, and a large number of other lives had weighed in his favor.

Alison had sent him several notes asking him to meet with her to talk, but eventually she stopped asking when he ignored her pleas. He was in no frame of mind to talk at the present time. He was too angry. Too hurt. Too confused. Too tired. Besides, when women wanted to talk, it usually meant they wanted to tell the man what he should think and do. Well, that was not going to happen. He would be the one doing the telling when he finally met with her. The problem was, he didn’t know what he wanted to tell her at this point.

Everything was happening too fast.

As the BUD/S training wound down to its last phase, which would culminate next week with a rock portage exercise, the instructors were working the team extra hard, trying to get every bit of education in. There was so much to do and so little time.

Luckily, Ragnor’s wound had been minor and he had not missed any training. Cage was healing fast, too.

They were all excited about the upcoming graduation, which was scheduled a week from tomorrow, to be followed by two glorious weeks of liberty. Amazingly, only fifty men remained of the 145 who had started in the program four months earlier. That was before Ragnor ever got to Coronado, though no one would believe him when he said so. The ending of BUD/S did not mean they would become SEALs or that they would be given the coveted trident pin. Nay, that would come six months later after serving successfully on an assigned team.

He was unable to sleep more than a few hours each night, and his heart raced all the time. He was edgy and had to keep moving, as if his body was readying itself for some big event. He listened to tapes and even read books as fast as he could get them. His mind felt like a sponge soaking up knowledge about anything and everything related to this modern world where he had landed.

And, yea, some of the books had been on childbirth. He kept coming back to those pages that showed pictures of an unborn child at one month, two months, all the way to delivery. His fingertips traced the images, over and over. Who knew
it
had fingers and toes, even eyelashes, at such a young age? Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it look like him or her or a combination of them both?

To Ragnor’s mind, it was a sign of weakness that he’d become so confused. He brushed his teeth twice a day and blew into his palm to make sure he was minty enough. Yesterday he’d caught himself sniffing
his own armpits to see if his dear-odor-ant still worked, when good manly sweat had sufficed in the past. He said “Yes, sir!” and “No, sir!” to men he did not necessarily respect. He thought about learning to drive a car. Food had become too important to him, especially sweets. He’d developed a particular fondness for peanut butter and honey grain bars. Soon he would be soft … oh, not soft in body … he had more muscles now than any man had a right to, except for some berserkers he knew … but soft inside. Womanish. He thought about Alison all the time, and when he did, his heart ached.

He was losing himself, that was his fear. Real men did not sit about questioning their life paths. They just lived. For that reason, he sought out Doctor Fine-gold repeatedly. His instructors gave him permission to see the head healer once each day because they were concerned about his continuing claim of being a time-traveler. This was his fourth visit since the shooting. Doctor Fine-gold was the only one he’d told about Alison’s pregnancy, and then only on condition that the doctor keep the secret.

“I think we should talk about the baby,” Abe said, for about the tenth time in the past four days. Abe was his other name. Doctor Abe Fine-gold.

And here they went again with the “we” business, when what Abe really meant was that Ragnor should talk about the baby.

“Do
you
want this child?” Abe asked bluntly.

Ragnor sighed. “That is the question I wrestle with in my head in the dead of night when I cannot sleep. I was always repulsed by my father’s breeding excesses; I told you afore that he had thirteen children in all.”

“Some men measure their manliness by their reproductivity, which is foolish, of course. It doesn’t take a real man to make a child, but it takes a real man to raise one.”

Ragnor waved a hand dismissively. “You missay me, Abe. My father fulfilled his duties admirably. Everyone said so, even when they laughed at him. Seemed like all he had to do was look at a female and his seed flew out of his body and into her womb. But then, he cared for them. That is neither here nor there. What I was saying was that I always thought I hated large families and everything they represent … babies, whining children with runny noses and smelly bottoms, noise, chaos, overwhelming responsibility.”

“And now?”

“Now I am wondering about my low spirits of the past year and my lack of enthusiasm for the bedsport.”

“Max, Max, Max. It is a known fact that depression can cause impotency.”

“Aaarrgh! I had no trouble raising my staff. I just did not want to.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” Abe said, unconvinced.

No doubt the doctor liked to think that Ragnor’s cock wouldn’t … well, cock … because that would provide a neat answer to all his problems. Cage had explained to Ragnor last night that shrinks—
that’s what they called mind healers, and didn’t that conjure up unpalatable images … mind shrinking?
—liked to boil all problems down to one thing: sex. Too much, not enough, perverted, lacking perversion, whatever.

“I am wondering if perhaps you protest too much,” the doctor said.

Aaarrgh! The man does not listen. The wick in my
candle is just fine, thank you very much.
“Now all I want to do is tup,” he went on. “With Alison, that is. Tup, tup, tup. I would wear my staff down to a nub if I could. But am I getting any tupping now? Nay! Dost want to know why? I will tell you. Because I am a bullheaded lackwit who does not know what in bloody hell he wants.”

Abe’s jaw was hanging open.

Mayhap I am blathering again. Hah! Forget mayhap. For a certainty, blathering comes second nature to me now. They ought to call me Ragnor the Blatherer.

Once Abe shut his jaw, the mind healer said, “Can we get back on the subject? I asked if you wanted the baby.”

“Of course I want the baby. What a question! But I was trying to explain why I feel that way … why I am surprised that I feel that way.”
Thor’s teeth! Am I really talking about feelings? Next I will be weeping or taking up the needle arts.
“Truth to tell, I miss my large family, even the chaos. The things I thought I hated about my father’s household have become precious memories to me.”

“That is entirely normal, Max. In fact, I suspect that seventy-five percent of all adults go through a period when they hate their homes, their hometowns, their families, everything they associate with childhood.”

“Did you?”

Abe smiled. “Absolutely. Now I am thinking of retiring someday to Long Island and maybe even returning to synagogue.”

Ragnor had no idea what a sin-a-grog was, but it sounded interesting. He wondered idly how Lillian,
Abe’s companion of late, would feel about his going to a sin-a-grog place.

“So, you say that you want this baby. What are your plans?”

“Huh?”

“Come, Ragnor, there are lots of decisions you must make.”

“Like?”

“Well, you will be assigned to teams after graduation next week. Perhaps you might want to consider requesting assignment to a team here in California so you can be nearby when the baby comes.”

“They would assign me to a team outside Coronado?”

“Certainly. The men in your class will be going to assignments all over the world, some of them even on ships.”

“I will not go.”

Abe laughed. “You’ll go wherever they send you, or end up in the brig or out of SEALs or both.”

“Well, this certainly complicates things. I must go to the chieftain right away and make my preference known. But, nay, I cannot do that without Alison’s permission to disclose
her pregnancy.”

“You’ve got to talk to her,” Abe said.

Ragnor let out an exhale of surrender, though he had hoped to hold out longer. “I suppose I must.”

“Why are you avoiding her? That’s what I don’t understand.”

He gave Abe a grimace of disgust. “I told her we would wed, and she refused me.”

Abe smiled. “You
told
her?”

“Yea, and, unbiddable wench that she is, she said her pregnancy is not a good enough reason for marriage. Hah! I would like to know what is.”

“Alison has a lot on her mind these days. It has to be horrendously disappointing to her that after all these years waiting to join the SEALs, she’s finally being given an opportunity to be part of those new Liberty Teams, but—”

“—she’s pregnant,” Ragnor finished for Abe, even though he had no idea what a “Liberty Team” was. Sounded like something similar to SEALs. Another secret that Alison was keeping from him. When had she been going to tell him of this fine opportunity she’d been offered, and how his planting his seed in her belly was causing her to lose her dreams?

“Don’t look so unhappy, Max. Things will work out. They always do. Love prevails, and all that.”

“She never said she loves me.”
By the heavens! I sound like a whiney lackbrain.
“Do you think she does?”

“Why not ask her?”

“ ’Tis not the kind of thing a man asks.” He stood. “I must needs get back to the pool arena. The chieftain wants to teach me to stay underwater for longer times by nigh drowning me.”

Abe smiled, then stirred the papers on his desk as if suddenly recalling something of importance. “I forgot to give this to you. Alison dropped it off earlier today. She said you might find it of some interest.”

Ragnor frowned and was about to ask why she couldn’t have given it to him herself, but then stifled himself because he knew the reason. He’d refused to see her.

He took the folder in his hands and opened the top. Inside was a pile of parchment sheets. The top one said, “A Study of an Old Norse Family in
Eleventh Century Vestfold,” by Kirsten Magnusson. Ragnor’s brow furrowed with confusion. Hmmm. Alison had asked him if he knew anyone by that name, he recalled now. Then he shrugged. There had to be many Kirsten Magnussons in this huge world today. He wondered if this was yet another secret Alison had hidden from him.

He waved to Abe as he left, but he noticed something about his other arm. He was getting the same ripple of shock running over his body, emanating from the folder, as he had from that bottle of Blue Dragon wine.

How odd!

Looking for clues …

All week Max had refused to meet with her. By Friday, Alison was fed up. She’d gotten along without him before she met him, she’d get along without him now, or so that old song went.

What was it about men and their blasted pride? Yeah, she’d done something that might have offended him, but mainly it had been a sin of omission. And easily explainable if he’d only give her a chance. Heck, her brother Ian was the same way. He probably would have been able to work things out with his fiancée if his pride hadn’t got in the way.

She’d done enough groveling with Max. The next step would have to be his.

In the meantime, she had that appointment to meet with Kirsten Magnusson in her UCLA office. Alison got up early, did her usual five-mile jog, then
ate a huge breakfast in line with her increased I’m-bound-and-determined-to-get-fat appetite. After that, she made the more than two-hour drive to Los Angeles.

Kirsten Magnusson was gorgeous, even with glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was tall, about five foot nine, with glorious blond hair hanging halfway down her back. Her features were Nordic, with a slight resemblance to Max. Wearing faded Gap jeans and an Aerosmith T-shirt, she greeted Alison in her sixth-floor office—little more than a closet, really.

Alison liked her almost immediately. She was warm and intelligent, with a self-deprecating sense of humor, especially about her office, which she referred to as Trump’s Other Tower.

“What did you think of my thesis?”

“I enjoyed it very much, although it ended rather abruptly.”

Kirsten studied her closely. “With the ship being lost in the fog, you mean?”

“Yes. Max always talks about his family having gone down in a shipwreck or something. Even so, it seems as if there should be more to the story.”