Sandra Hill (35 page)

She sat up in the bed, cross-legged and naked, which made his eyes do cartwheels in his head. The woman just did not have the usual feminine anxiety about her body. You had to love her for that alone. He sat up, too.

She inhaled and exhaled as if for courage. “I’m a time-traveler.”

That was not what he’d expected. That she came from Russia and was a cossack, maybe. Or a freedom fighter in the North Pole, yeah. But a time-traveler? He started to laugh.

She stared at him, absolutely serious.

“Come on, Maddie. What’s the joke?”

She shook her head. “I do not jest.” She told him the year of her birth, about her family living in some
royal estate in the Norselands, that all of her looney-bird family had time-traveled, too, that everything she’d told him so far about Steinolf and the invasion and the harems was true, except those events took place long, long ago.

“That’s over a thousand years ago. Give me a break!”

“ ’Tis true. I swear it is. Leastways, I think it is.”

He put a hand to his chin and rubbed. He needed a shave. He looked at her again as she gazed at him expectantly. What did she expect? That he would tell her, “It’s all right if you’re a thousand years old, I still love you.”
Shit! How do I tell her she needs to see a shrink if that’s what she really thinks. But she can’t think that. It’s gotta be a joke.

“Do you think you could still love me if I am a time-traveler?”

“Sweetheart, I would love you if you were an alien from outer space.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly on her kiss-bruised lips.
First thing this morning, I’m calling Dr. Feingold at the base to get his advice. This is bizarre.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter.”

“What is your secret?” she asked then.

Oh, God! I forgot.
There was nothing to do but brave it out. “We’re not married.”

She gasped and jerked backward as if he’d punched her.

He took both of her hands in his and tried to explain. “It’s just a technicality. We can go get married somewhere private. Las Vegas, Reno, city hall, I don’t care. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“We are not married?” She looked crushed.

“Turns out JAM’s license to perform marriages had been taken away without his knowing it. But, please, don’t look like that. I feel as if we’re married. We will be married. Today, if you want.”

“It does matter,” she said in a dead voice. “How long have you known?”

He felt his face heat up. “A few days.”

She shook her head at him. “The question is, will you be willing to wed a thousand-year-old woman?”

“That’s silly.”

“No, it’s not. Tell me this, can a person get married in this country with no identity? Do they just marry anybody?”

“Well, no. You need a birth certificate at least, I would think. I don’t know for sure. I was never married.”

“And where are you going to find one for me?”

He was getting tired of this game. “Hell if I know! You’ve given me so many countries that you’re from.”

“Madrene Olgadottir, born in the Norselands in the year 982, daughter of Olga Gerdsson and Magnus Ericsson, former wife of Karl Ivarsson.” She lifted her chin, daring him to contradict her.

What could he say to that? Deep down, he wondered if she wasn’t just coming up with this goofball story to get out of marrying him … again. Well, he was not going to beg. With a grunt of disgust, he got out of bed and pulled on a pair of jogging shorts, then sat back down to put on socks and athletic shoes.

“Where are you going?” she asked. She was still sitting on the bed behind him.

“Running.” He stood and looked down at her. There were tears in her eyes. He wished she would
rail at him like she usually did. Shrewishness he could handle. Tears would do him in.

“Why?”

“I need to clear my head. I’m in love with a wacko. That’s gonna take a little getting used to.”

She winced at his words. Before he could take them back, she said, “Running away will not solve anything.”

“I’m not running away.” But inside, he wondered if that wasn’t exactly what he was doing.

For more than an hour, he ran on the beach. It had started to rain, but he didn’t care—he needed a cold shower. By the time he’d made the return run, he’d come to a conclusion: He would take Maddie any way he could get her. Even if she claimed to be Cleopatra coming down the Mississippi on a barge, he loved her, pure and simple. She could get psychological help, or not … he didn’t care.

But when he got back to the house, it was deathly silent.

Maddie was gone.

Freedom is just another word for …

Ian needed running to clear his head. Madrene needed absence to clear her head.

For two weeks, Madrene had been staying alone in a temporarily vacant apartment in Coronado which Ragnor and Alison had found for her. Hiding out would be a more appropriate description, since no one but the two of them knew she was there. With Ragnor’s help, she’d left a short message on the answering machines at Ian’s home and Blue Dragon, stating that she was all right but needed time alone to think. She’d sworn Ragnor and Alison to secrecy.

The apartment was merely the living quarters on the second floor of a house owned by a lovely elderly woman named Lillian, who had an adorable horse of a dog named Sam, the same name as Ian’s cat, except this animal really was a male. Apparently, Alison had lived here before marrying her brother. Now they owned a house in another part of town.

Since Ragnor was out of town at some kind of come-pewter meeting, Alison had come over to spend the afternoon with her. She was not on duty at the base hospitium on Saturdays, although she could be called in an emergency. They planned to watch a tape on the tea-vee of
Sex and the City
repeats. Alison was a fan of the old show, too.

“How are the lessons going?” Alison asked as they sat down in the kitchen, which overlooked the backyard. The apartment was sparsely furnished, but it served Madrene’s purposes for now.

“Very well.” Ragnor had hired a tutor to work with her three hours a day, not just teaching her reading and writing, but history and biology, and geography, and numbers, and so many other important things. “I don’t know how Ragnor, and all the rest of my family, did it. My mind gets fuzzy at all there is to know just to live here.”

“Ragnor has only been here three years, and look how well he’s adjusted. He speaks like a native,” Alison pointed out.

“Pfff. Ragnor always was more intelligent than the rest of us.”

Alison patted her hand. “It will come to you, too.”

“I love this apartment and its location,” she told Alison. “I can walk everywhere. To the ocean. To the bay. Downtown Coronado and all its shops. Even the base, if I wanted to.” Which she did not want to do, for fear she might run into Ian.

As if reading her mind, Alison asked, “Are you ready to talk about my brother yet?”

Madrene had refused to discuss Ian or her reasons for leaving him. Apparently, Ian had been just as close-mouthed.

She had deliberately not allowed herself to ask before, but she had to now. “How is he?”

“Not good. Even Sam has gone into total meltdown. Won’t eat, hisses at Ian all the time, keeps going to the closet where a shirt of yours still hangs.”

Madrene tried to smile but could not. A lump formed in her throat. “Tell me about Ian.”

“He’s devastated. This is way worse than when Jennifer left him. I honest to God think he was relieved then. But now, it’s as if someone—you—cut out his heart. The worst part is that he has totally shut down his emotions. He won’t talk about it. Claims he doesn’t care.”

“I did not mean to hurt him.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you, either. Can’t you two work this out?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.” She looked at her sister-by-marriage who had become such a good friend to her. “We are not married,” she confessed.

“Really? I had no idea. I mean, everyone said you were married in Baghdad.”

“We were, but it was not legal.”

“And my brother the rat refused to marry you again,” she concluded. “Wait till I get ahold of him. I’ll wring his stupid neck.”

Madrene laughed. “No need for that. Ian did want to get married again … in a place called Lost-vague-ass. But I could not do it as long as he refuses to believe I have time-traveled.”

“Oh, Maddie, he might not ever do that. I know I still have trouble accepting it.”

“And Ragnor does not mind?”

“Sweetie, your brother would take me any way he
could get me. And if he didn’t, I would force him to.” She grinned. “Another thing. Dad has been here, and he’s been badgering Ian to get off his ass and find you.”

Madrene groaned. “That is just wonderful. If anything will make Ian do the opposite, it is an order from his father.”

“You know Ian well. But he’s too hard on Dad, in my opinion. Our father is overbearing and he has been especially hard on Ian, but his heart is in the right place. Ian just can’t see that … yet.”

“I had the same impression of your father.”

“It’s stuffy in here,” Alison said. “Do you mind if I open the window?”

“No. Go ahead. I am so accustomed to the cold of the North that warmth like this is a treasure to me, as it was in the Arab lands. And, believe you me, that was the only thing I liked about the Arab lands.”

“Yummmmmm. Smell that. Lillian must be making her famous lasagna.”

“Garlic,” Madrene said with alarm as her stomach roiled and she ran for the toy-let.

When she came back out, Alison remarked, “Still have a reaction to garlic, huh? Maybe you should get a checkup. It might be an allergy or something.”

“Nay, it is only garlic that affects me so. As long as I avoid it, there is no problem.”

“So, what are you going to do about you and Ian?”

“I need a little more time. I am relishing this time alone, with more freedom than I have ever had. It is only as I have had time to contemplate that I realized my life has been akilter for a long time. I have fought
and fought and fought against one stricture or another. I am tired of fighting.”

“You also need some time to heal from all the physical and emotional batterings you’ve had.”

Madrene nodded.

“But in the end, being the eternal optimist, I am confident that love will win.”

“I hope you are right,” Madrene said, because there was something else she had realized in this time of reflection.

Freedom was not everything.

Never provoke a woman in public …

It had been three weeks since Maddie had left, and Ian was royally ticked.

At first, he had been worried about her. Maddie was clueless about finding her way around the block, let alone a big city.

Then the devastation had set in. Hurt was too small a word. He had loved her beyond anything he’d ever thought possible, and she’d just sloughed him off like he was nothing to her.

Anger came next. She had a hell of a nerve leaving him without any message other than she was all right. He deserved a lot more than that. No one had any idea where she was, or if she was indeed all right.

And that time-travel crap!
Give me a break!

Well, today was the first day of the rest of his life. He had just met Laura Madison for lunch at a little outdoor cafe in Coronado. She was a nurse at the same hospital where his sister worked. He was in uniform, as she was, since he had to return to the
base in an hour or so. She was attractive and smart and wasn’t a psycho time-traveler.
She also doesn’t have breasts that merit a
Penthouse
gig. Shit. I am not going to think about that. Not, not, not!

They were halfway through their Caesar salads and Laura was telling him about a recent scuba-diving vacation in the Bahamas when Ian glanced to the right, then did a double take.
Torpedo time!

There came Maddie sashaying down the street as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Her hair hung in one long braid. Sunglasses were on her eyes. And she wore a tight white tanktop tucked into a jeans skirt. At the bottom of her long bare legs were sandals. She was carrying a small shopping bag from a nearby clothing shop.

His heart started beating wildly and a lump formed in his throat. All this time he’d been searching for her, she’d been right here, practically in his own back yard. His sister lived in Coronado. He would bet his left nut that she had something to do with this.

She looks great. Apparently our separation hasn’t affected her at all.

He saw the moment she spotted him. She stopped dead in her tracks, took off the sunglasses, then smiled. She actually had the balls to smile. The smile lasted only a nanosecond … till she spotted Laura at his table.

“Uh-oh!”

“What’s wrong?” Laura asked, turning in her seat to look at Maddie storming toward them like Attila the Hun.

Before he had a chance to warn Laura, Maddie reached their table. “What are you doing with my husband?”

“Hu … husband?” Laura’s eyes darted to him.

He would have said that he wasn’t Maddie’s husband, not anymore, not ever, but Maddie was on a tear. “Some women do not have the sense to stay in their own bowers. They must go sniffing around the bed furs of men who are already wed. And you …” She turned to him, her blue eyes flashing like diamonds, “… you cannot keep your dangly part in your
braies
even for a short time—”

“Three weeks,” he reminded her.
Holy shit! I must be as crazy as she is. I feel like smiling … because I’ve missed her nagging.

She threw her hands in the air. “Three weeks. Three hours. Same thing!”

“Not to me!”

Now she was back to addressing Laura, whose mouth hung open with astonishment. She also kept checking out Maddie’s breasts … even women tended to do that. “Men! They are ever fickle, do you not agree? I do not know why I thought Ian was any different. Methinks I will go buy myself a dog. At least they are loyal. And, by the by, Ian, your vein is about to pop.”

I even like her commenting on my vein.
“Maddie, you’re causing a scene,” he told her. And, man, was she! Not just because of her tirade, but about three dozen people, mostly men, had their eyes glued on Maddie’s breasts.
I wonder if she’s wearing a bra.