Sandra Hill (31 page)

“Not even civil ones?”

JAM shook his head. “I would have to apply for a special license and everything.”

The back of Ian’s neck prickled, a sure sign something suspicious was going on. “The CIA must have known this when they were being so accommodating about the marriage and Maddie leaving Baghdad without a passport.”

“Maybe. Probably.”

“Sonofabitch!” Ian felt like hitting someone or something. Not JAM—it wasn’t his fault. But a nice wall would come in handy about now.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

JAM bit his bottom lip with reluctance. “All right. For now, my lips are sealed.”

They went into the meeting then, but all Ian could think about was Maddie. How was he going to keep Maddie without the marriage binding them together? He had no hold over her now, with the marriage being null and her family here to protect her … nothing except love.

The question was: Would love be enough?

Daddy’s little girl … not! …

Madrene was surrounded by mayhem.

Thirteen years might have gone by since they were all together, but some things never changed. Everyone talked at once. They teased each other mercilessly. The men thought women were to be protected and pampered.

“Pampered? Are you all demented? I have been running the farmstead and then Norstead for a long time. And I did it admirably, if I must say so myself, until … until Steinolf came.” She stopped then and
pondered what she had said. “I failed then. I was unable to hold Norstead from the invaders. Mayhap you are all correct. Mayhap a man would have done a better job.”

“You are not to berate yourself, Madrene,” her father said. They were all sitting around Ian’s solar drinking beer and eating Dome-nose pizzas which Torolf had ordered delivered to the house. What a bunch of handsome men they were, she thought, even her father and uncles who were of an advanced age … more than fifty. And big! The large solar seemed small with all of them inside. “Are you listening, child?”

Child? I am thirty-one years old. Long past childhood.

“You did a magnificent job of defending Norstead,” her father continued. “As good as any man. Steinolf is a devious warrior, and betimes good soldiers lose to evil forces when they choose the honorable way.”

“I must needs raise an army and go back to fight him,” Madrene told them. “It is my quest, and I have told Ian and his comrades so on many an occasion. In fact, I have sold the jewels I took from the harems, and raised almost a million dollars. Not that I know what dollars are.”

Ragnor, who sat beside her on the sofa, grinned. Well, actually, he sat next to Sam, who sat next to her. Sam had taken to her family like a cat on a barrel of lutefisk. “You in a harem? I can hardly credit that. You must have driven the sultans mad with your nagging.”

She reached over Sam and punched Ragnor on the arm. Sam hissed at him to back her up. Grinning, she said, “Nay. I drove them mad with my cock-wilting talents.”

“Madrene!” her father chided her, but he was laughing like all the rest.

“You cannot say that and stop,” her Uncle Geirolf said. “Explain yourself.”

And she did, demonstrating the finger waggle and the “uhm-uhm” chant she’d perfected. They were all howling with laughter by the time she finished.

She turned to Ragnor. “Speaking of soft manparts, can I presume that you have regained your ‘enthusiasm’ for the bedsport?”

Ragnor’s face turned red. “I never had trouble getting it hard,” he tried to tell his hooting family members. He would never live this down, thanks to her jibe. “I just did not want to.” He looked at her then and said, “I will never forgive you for this.”

She made a face at him.

“About the army business,” her Uncle Jorund said, “even if you are able to raise the manpower, what makes you think you, let alone a small army, could travel back in time?”

Everyone grew silent.

“First, I never heard about this time-travel notion till today. Two, I am not sure I believe in it. Three, if a person can travel forward in time, there must be a way to travel back.”

“Personally, I don’t even try to explain time-travel, I just accept it,” Torolf said.

“Now, me, I just believe it is a miracle,” her father said. “My mind cannot wrap around any explanation for time-travel, but I do believe in miracles. God, or the gods, destined me to be here in this time and place.”

They all nodded, except for Madrene, who was still skeptical.

“And what’s this about a marriage?” Torolf, waggling his eyebrows at her, was back to teasing. “I cannot picture my sister, the shrew, hooking up with the lean mean Mac machine. A loathsome lout if I ever met one.”

“Yeah, you always said you wouldn’t marry again,” Ragnor reminded her.

“I hardly had any say in the matter,” she told them.

“And now? Would you have the marriage annulled?” her father inquired, his eyes studying her sharply. She must have blushed, because her father said, “I see.”

“Maaaa-dreeene! I am shocked,” said Ragnor, who was anything but shocked. “It would seem you regained some enthusiasm, too.”

“I did not know she ever had any. Not with that prick Karl.” It was Torolf chiming in now.

She was not sure what a prick was, but she could pretty well guess, and, yea, it was a good description. “What? You thought only those with dangly parts could have the sap rise? Well, let me tell you, women get lustsome on occasion, too. I have been watching
Sex and the City
, and women definitely can match men when it comes to lust. And, by the by, why is it that I had to come to another country … or time … to learn about oral sex?”

“That will be enough,” her father said. Everyone else was gaping at her. Ragnor put his face in his hand, and his body was shaking with laughter. Sometimes Madrene surprised even herself with her bluntness.

Her father coughed to compose himself. “The question then, daughter, is whether you wish for a divorce or to stay married to the loathsome lout.”

“I want to remain married,” she said without hesitation.
The more important question is whether Ian will want me once he learns of the time-travel nonsense. Or whether he will want to be linked to my barmy family.

Her father tilted his head in question. “And why is that?”

“Because I love the loathsome lout.”

“Spoken like a true Norsewoman,” her father proclaimed.

She made him an offer he couldn’t refuse …

Ian’s nerves were shot by the time his meetings ended three hours later. He was worried about Maddie.

“I’m worried about you,” his commander told him as they walked across the O-course.

It’s not me you should be worried about.
Ian’s eyebrows arched.

“You haven’t been to counseling since your Iraq mission ended. The other guys have, but not you.”

All SEALs were required to meet with the base psychologist after every field op, the theory being that killing people can affect the mind.
Like anyone who’s ever killed another human being doesn’t know that!
The Navy did not want its men going bonkers from lack of proper mental care.

“I’ll make an appointment for next week,” he promised.

“We need to talk about this so-called marriage of yours, too.”

There’s nothing “so-called” about it in my mind.
“I will not discuss my personal life with you or anyone else.”

“Your personal life is the Navy’s business, whether you like it or not.”

Ian bit his tongue to stop himself from saying more. He didn’t give a rat’s ass what the commander, or the Navy, or the whole freakin’ world thought about his marriage. It was real, or it would be as soon as he could make it legal.

He said good-bye to the commander, then turned away. As he started driving his car across the Silver Strand, his cell phone rang. Recognizing his home phone number on the caller i.d., he groaned.
Please, God, not someone asking me if I know what my wife is doing.

“Ian?”

“Maddie?”

He was surprised, never having known Maddie to use a telephone before.

“I’m calling you on the tell-off-own,” she told him.

“I know.” He smiled. “I love you.” Why he felt the need to say that, he didn’t know. Well, yes, he did. JAM’s news had put the fear of God in him.

“I love you, too,” she whispered.

“Where are you?”

“In the closet?”

The closet?
“Why?”

“Torolf showed me how to dial the tell-off-own, but I wanted privacy.”

“Are you all right?”

“Nay, I am not all right.”

He sat up straighter as he drove. “What’s happened? Maybe you should go to the hospital for a checkup, just in case. I thought you’d be okay with your family. I thought you would want this extra time with them.”

“I am fine, physically, but I must tell you, Ian, an hour with my family and I begin to feel suffocated Three hours and I am ready to go back to the harems.”

“Same thing when I’m around my father. Not the harems, but the suffocation.”

“Can you meet me someplace, outside the house?”

“Like where? I don’t want you going out somewhere by yourself where you might get lost.”

“The beach behind your house,” she suggested.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

He heard a rustling sound, then a loud bang in his ear as she obviously dropped the phone. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off my underwear.”

“Make that five minutes.”

Goin’ for a dirty swim …

Madrene was walking along the beach some distance down the shore from Ian’s house. The cold foam of the surf came and went over her bare feet. A soft breeze whipped her gauzy, ankle-length skirt about her. The late-afternoon sun still felt warm on her shoulders … or what part of her shoulders was exposed by her tanktop.

Her family, especially her father, was outraged over the welts that crisscrossed her back. She hadn’t realized when she put on the tanktop that part of them would be visible. Torolf was the one who said, “The bastard will pay.”

But Madrene could not care about all that now. She was at peace for the first time in forever. It was one of those moments out of time that a person comes back
to over and over in her mind, a time when all the world seems to be in step.
I’m happy. Pure and simple. I am happy and in love and glad to be alive.

She started to walk out a little deeper, up to her knees. Like a child she reveled in the splash of the water against her body. It was then, as she twirled about, that she saw Ian coming down the beach. He was taking off his
shert
as he walked and smiling wickedly at her. Once the
shert
was dropped to the sand, he toed off his shoes, then pulled off his socks. He was at the water’s edge directly in front of her when he began to undo his
braies
.

She backed up a bit.

He walked in as he continued to work on his
braies
. The water covered him up to his waist when he scooted down, tugged his
braies
off and tossed them back to the shore. He was left in only white small clothes. She could see how much he already wanted her.

“No underwear, eh?” he said when he reached her.

She just smiled.

A large wave broke, wetting them totally. So they swam out past the breaking wave to still water. At this time of day, it was only waist high. He pulled her into an embrace with her legs wrapped around his waist. They bobbed about with the ripple of the current, just smiling at each other.

“Greetings, husband,” she said.

An odd look crossed his face, but then he replied, “Hello, wife.” Giving her a quick kiss on the lips, he murmured against her mouth, “So, do you have something to reward me for coming home so quickly?”

She laughed and undulated her hips against him,
belly hitting belly. “I was hoping it was the other way around. That you had something for me.”

“Do I ever!” Without any foresport, he lifted her skirt and settled her on his upraised, very hard staff. “Oh, baby!” he said, closing his eyes for a second. “You make me breathless.”

Madrene was not a playful person, and certainly had never been playful in the bed furs, but she was now. “Well, mayhap I should jump off this pole, then. I would not want to kill you for lack of breath.”

He nipped her chin with his teeth. “Don’t you dare move.” Taking her buttocks firmly in hand, he eased his fingers under and forward so he was touching her in her nether folds, which held him in their clasp.

“Oh.”

“Oh? That is all?” He grinned at her.

“Now I am breathless. Mayhap you will kill me with pleasure.”

“Have you ever heard of the little death?” he whispered against her ear.

“Nooooo.”

“Well, then, I guess I’d better show you.”

And he did.

Three times.

Then he died himself, so to speak.

Ian said the oddest thing to her a short time later, after he’d donned his garments. They were walking across the sand back toward the house when he stopped and looked her directly in the eyes. “Please don’t ever leave me … no matter what.”

It was odd because men left her, not the other way around.

The beginning of the end …

Maddie was leaving him.

Oh, she said she was going to Blue Dragon for a short visit with her family, but Ian just knew she would never come back. Every instinct in his body screamed,
Make her stay!
But he didn’t, of course. Besides, the entire SEAL Team Thirteen, which also included Torolf, was leaving on Monday for San Clemente Island, where they would engage in extreme terrorist training.

“Why don’t you come with us for a few days?” she asked. They were standing in a loose embrace at his open front door. Torolf was at the wheel of an Expedition van out front which would take Maddie, her father and the two uncles back to the vineyard today, where a massive family reunion was being planned for the weekend. The motor was running, and soon the horn would be blowing. Sam was rubbing her body against Maddie’s jeans-clad leg, meowing in one long whine; the cat obviously sensed she was leaving.

“You know I can’t. Today’s Friday. We’re leaving Monday for training. Just not enough time.” That was a lie, actually. If he’d really wanted to, he could have gone by plane and spent a day there, even two. But this was her time with her family, and he didn’t want to intrude. More important, he was scared spitless that someone would find out they weren’t really married before he was ready to tell Maddie. He was going to see how they could straighten out this mess while she was gone.