Page 73 of The Last Viking

“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.