Sandra Hill (19 page)

Before she walked away, Thea informed her softly, “Rolf said he wanted you to remember him, forever and ever, whenever you smell roses.”

Meredith sighed.

“And he said it’s your first bride gift.”

“Let me take Teddy.”

Mike came up to her and took the sleeping child from her arms with an ease that startled her for a young bachelor. Teddy blinked his eyes at the man nestling him onto his shoulder.

“How ya doin’, cowboy?” Mike playfully patted his well-padded rump. Amazingly, her grad assistant was wearing an Oxford collared shirt and jeans
and
a pair of black-and-white checkered running shoes that matched the miniature ones on the boy’s feet.

“Mike,” the child murmured contentedly before nodding off again.

“Do you know Teddy’s mother well?” Meredith asked. It was a personal question she wouldn’t have asked just a few days ago.

“Sonja?” Mike squirmed under her scrutiny.

Meredith glanced off in the distance where a blond-
haired woman in Viking attire raised her hand and waved at them before resuming her soap-making demonstration. Meredith remembered her now. Sonja Wareham. A divorcee and new assistant professor. Although she’d only met her a few times at college functions, Meredith recalled her as being very nice. Rather quiet and serious, but definitely nice. Was it Mike’s contact with Sonja, who was an active SCA re-enactor, that had gotten the organization involved in the project?

Mike’s ears turned red. “We’ve dated a few times.”

“Well, well, well,” she teased. “Apparently, your taste isn’t as atrocious as I thought.” Teasing was another thing she’d always avoided with her employees.
Why?
she wondered now. Was her reserve a trait she’d picked up from her parents? The them-versus-us mentality separating people into classes, whether they were lines drawn by intelligence, money, birth, or occupation.

“Hey, just ’cause I lick my chops over a jelly donut doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a bagel once in a while.”

Meredith laughed. “I don’t think Sonja would appreciate being compared to a bagel. And by the way, the jelly donut left a message for you on the office answering machine.”

“Oh, that,” Mike said, his ears burning redder. “I think she’s more interested in Rolf than me.”

Why did that not surprise Meredith?

“Oh, no!” Mike said. “Rolf’s gonna cut out my loose tongue.”

“So, where is the matchmaker from Valhalla?”

“Out front, unloading the truck.” Mike started to walk away.

“Whoa!” she said to his back. “Where have you two been?”

His shoulders slumped as he realized he wasn’t going to escape so easily. Turning, he asked, “Is it true that you two are gonna get hitched?”

“No!”

Mike’s blue eyes widened. “Rolf seems to think so.”

“He doesn’t listen to me, that’s why.”

“Honest to God, Dr. Foster, he’s convinced that you’re in love with him. I mean, you wouldn’t believe all the stuff he bought today because he’s so crazy in love. And he thinks—”

Crazy in love?
“Mike, I never said I didn’t love him. I do, even though we’ve only known each other a few days. But I won’t marry him.” Was she really telling Mike about her intimate feelings? It was so…inappropriate. “I won’t marry him,” she repeated nonetheless.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Damn, I’d better tell you some of what we did today before you hear it somewhere else and come after my butt.”

She folded her arms over her chest, waiting.

“Remember when Rolf tried to give you and me his silver arm rings in exchange for money and our help? Well, we both gave them back, but today Rolf insisted I take him to an upscale antiques dealer in Bangor.” He took a deep breath while he unconsciously rubbed Teddy’s back; then he informed her, “He sold one of them for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Meredith gasped. “That man is so stubborn. I told him not to do that. Over and over, I told him. But he
doesn’t listen. I think he’s been eating too many Oreos. They’re eroding his brain and clogging his ears.”

Mike’s mouth twisted with amusement at her vehement response. “The dealer said he’d give him three hundred and fifty thousand for the pair, but he refused. And the dealer practically went into a drooling fit over the belt, which Rolf insisted was not for sale under any circumstances.”

“Oh, Mike, he probably could have gotten three hundred thousand for just one arm ring by putting it up for auction at Sotheby’s or Christie’s.”

“Rolf knows he was lowballed, but he said he didn’t have time to haggle. And, man, when it comes to making good use of time, that guy is a black belt shopper.”

“Exactly what did he buy today?” She already knew about the roses, but what else?

Mike waved a hand airily but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Let’s suffice it to say, we’ve been to jewelry stores, landscapers, car dealers, seamstress shops, furriers, a farm…”

She groaned, but had no time to press the issue because a loud noise diverted her attention to the side of the house—the side away from the shipbuilding enterprise. With the roar of a revving engine, a flatbed truck was backing up slowly, easing its way past the swimming pool, toward the longhouse.

“Oh, no! Please, don’t tell me—” She jerked around to address Mike and saw that he was already gone. The coward!

Turning back to the truck, she got her second shock of the day. Well, actually, her zillionth shock of the day. The driver of the truck was none other than Rolf. She braced an arm against the house for support.

The man was a thousand years old. He didn’t have
a modern identity, except for the fake one Mike had obtained for him, let alone a motor vehicle license. Even so, he was driving a…well, practically a semi, for heaven’s sake. And it was loaded down with long rectangles of precut sod.
Sod?
Her eyes shot to the longhouse foundation.

He wouldn’t
.

She gawked at Rolf behind the wheel of the truck.

He would
.

Cutting the motor, he jumped down from the truck and sauntered over to her. If Meredith hadn’t been speechless before, she was now. Wearing Gucci loafers, a white Polo shirt, pleated Ralph Lauren slacks, and, of course, the talisman belt, he was so handsome he made her teeth hurt. A new addition was a small leather fanny pack, probably to hold all his loot. His hair was pulled off his face with a rubber band at the neck, which showed off his deep tan, especially when he favored her with one of his dazzling white smiles.

“Merry-Death.” He greeted her in a husky whisper before lowering his mouth to kiss her.

Hel-lo!
Meredith said in her head.
Is anybody home? I’m supposed to be resisting this guy. I’m supposed to be laying down the law. I’m supposed to…oh!

She averted her face at the last minute, and he kissed her neck instead, which didn’t bother him at all. Chuckling, he propelled her, body to body, up against the house and nibbled at the curve where a pulse began to thump against his warm lips.

Who knew the neck was an erogenous zone? Oh, my
. “You are not building a longhouse, Rolf,” she protested on a whimper.

“Whate’er you say, dearling,” he agreed, and then grinned when he got a gander at the stretched neckline
of her shirt, which left one shoulder bare. “You have the nicest garments, Merry-Death,” he drawled, fingering the edge of the neckline till it slipped even lower. “Will you wear this for me one day with your wanton hose? Or with those sheer pan-tease I bought for you at Victory’s Secret?” Meanwhile, his teeth were nipping the curve of her neck.

“Stop it!” she demanded. “There are people all around here.”

As usual, he heeded only what he wanted. “Was there a strong wind at the college today?” He’d just taken note of her half-up, half-down hair style, and he was smirking.

“No, I got a new hair stylist,” she snapped. “Mr. Ted.”

Over his shoulder she saw Mike, who’d returned after changing his clothes. He still wore jeans and the checkered sneakers but had donned a leather Viking tunic on top, belted at the waist. He was directing some college boys where to unload the sod.

The sod
. Jolted back to the present, she shoved Rolf away. “I am
not
going to marry you, Rolf. So cut all these seductive moves. Are you listening? I…am…
not
…going…to…marry…you.” It had been a nonstop refrain of hers the past two days. He’d been unwilling to budge on his plans to leave her eventually; so, she’d been equally resolute in her refusal to marry him. She glared at him now.

“You are wearing your wanton hose today,” he observed, his eyes flashing appreciatively. “For me?”

She was wearing stockings, but she’d deliberately chosen a calf-length skirt and a sedate, short-sleeved cotton sweater. Definitely unwanton. She glared even harder at him. He was filtering her words again.

“You have lipstick on your teeth,” he commented irrelevantly.

“What?”

“Would you like me to lick it off?”

She put a forefinger to her front teeth and started to rub till she remembered something. “I’m not wearing lipstick.”

“Oh.” He grimaced in one of those it-was-worth-a-shot expressions.

At her raised eyebrow, he explained sheepishly, “Whilst we were driving home from Bang-whore, Mike regaled me with tidbits from a book he bought.
How to Seduce Wenches in Ale-Houses
, or some such. That remark about lipstick was one of the lines guaranteed to break the frozen water. Since you were scowling so at me, I figured ’twas worth a try.”

“Mike was telling you how to pick up women in bars?” She laughed. “Take my advice, Rolf. Stick to the Viking charm. It’ll get you a whole lot farther.”

“It will?” He smiled. “Well, that is what I told Mike.”

“Aaarrgh!” She’d just noticed that Mike and the students were continuing to unload the sod. When he’d come back a few moments ago, she’d been about to order him not to touch the stuff, but somehow she’d gotten distracted. “Put that sod back on the truck, right now. Rolf, I mean it, you’re not building a longhouse.”

Mike and the students halted their work and glanced questioningly at Rolf. He shrugged. “Whate’er Merry-Death says. After all, ’tis her bridal home.” With an exaggerated sigh, he added, “Mister Burgess will be so-o-o disappointed.”

“Mister who? Oh, no! Don’t tell me. You’re not
talking about Frank Burgess, the foundation board member.”

“Yea, that’s the one.” He beamed. “He came to visit this morn.”

“That does it. Now we’re going to lose our funding. Frank Burgess is the most cantankerous, short-sighted, hard-to-please, stingy man I’ve ever met.”

“Frank? Cantankerous?” Rolf frowned. “Why, Merry-Death, surely you misjudge the man. He was very amiable. In truth, he was so impressed with the progress on the project that he donated the sod for our longhouse. I invited him to the wedding.”

Putting aside her dismay over his issuing wedding invitations when there wasn’t going to be a wedding, she leveled disbelieving eyes on Mike, who nodded. “It’s true. The old fart actually smiled today. I didn’t think he knew how.”

“He asked if he and his wife, Henrietta—who e’er heard of naming a girl child after a chicken?—could volunteer on the weekends. ’Twould seem they are cooking book collectors. Is that not an odd thing to collect, Merry-Death? And they would relish trying some of their made-heave-all recipes here,” Rolf elaborated. “Especially was Frank impressed with all the Norse activities blossoming about the site. In addition to the shipbuilding, of course.”

“Speaking of blossoms—” she began.

“Ah, you noticed the rosebushes,” he said, making a surreptitious little hand gesture to Mike to continue unloading the sod. Before she could chastise him for that sneaky action, though, he looped an arm around her shoulders. He was being entirely too familiar around Mike and the students. She tried to duck away, but he held her tight to his side. “With all the nagging
you have lashed me with since I arrived, I thought perchance you’d missed them.”

“How could I help but notice the rosebushes, Rolf? They’re all over the place,” she sniped unfairly. She regretted her hasty words when she saw the wounded expression on his face.

“You do not like them? But I thought—”

She moaned. The man had a knack for putting her on the defensive and making her forget why she was so angry at him. “I adore them.”

He immediately brightened. “Come, see this one, sweetling.” He pulled her over to the foundation of the longhouse and what would presumably be the front door. A small bush with one single blood-red bud—so dark it was almost black—held prominence. “’Tis called Norse Rose,” he told her in a hushed voice. “Do you think ’tis an omen?”

She closed her eyes on a shudder, fighting hard to quell the new and wonderful emotions swirling through her body.

“Are you gladdened by my first bride gift?” he asked with touching vulnerability.

Against her better judgment, she opened her eyes and almost staggered under the sensual assault in his smoky amber gaze. “I’m delighted with the roses,” she conceded in a suffocated whisper. Straightening with resolve, she added, “I am
not
going to marry you, though.”

“Whate’er you say, dearling.” With an arm still wrapped around her shoulders, he hugged her closer and kissed the top of her head, then walked her toward the shipbuilding area. He spoiled the whole conciliatory pose, however, when he palmed her behind and
confided, “I bought a barrel of dried rose petals today to spread on your bridal bed.”

“I am
not
going to marry you.”

“Whate’er you say, dearling.”

And when she went to her bed that night—the one she shared with Thea since Jillie was gone once again—Meredith saw a little velvet box on her pillow. With trepidation, she opened it to find an exquisite gold pin in the form of a rose. On one of its finely detailed petals perched a bumblebee that was sucking on the flower’s nectar. Taped to the inside top cover was a tiny piece of paper, folded a dozen times into a one-inch square. When she finally got it open, a sob escaped her lips. With a tremulous smile, she read the one-word pencilled message, “Bzzzzz!”

It was already approaching dusk on Friday when Meredith drove up the road to her house.