Page 27 of Truly, Madly Viking

"Joe!" she exclaimed with alarm. "This isn't the year 998. It's the year two thousand."

"That's impossible!"

She shook her head slowly with a telling sadness. Instead of his convincing her of his sanity, he could tell she was increasingly convinced he was demented.

He inhaled and exhaled several times to digest all that she had proclaimed.

Finally he told her, "If I am not dead, as you have assured me, and if this is in truth the year two thousand, then there can be only one conclusion."

"And that would be?"

He groaned. "I've heard about this in the sagas of the Norse gods, but never did I actually think it could come true, especially not for mortal men. But what other explanation could there be?"

"What are you talking about, Joe?"

"I must have traveled through time."

"Time travel!" Another delusion.

"Yea, time travel," Joe said. "Oh, I know it is hard to believe, and never would I have thought it possible myself. But the Norse sagas tell tales of even more fantastical events. Even the Greeks told of impossible heroes doing extraordinary things... like Hercules."

"Those are myths," Maggie informed him gentlly. "Fantasies."

Joe shrugged. "Mayhap one's man's fancy is another man's reality. Nay, do not frown at me so. I am a man who deals with the bloody face of war, ofttimes on a daily basis. Believe me when I tell you I am not given to fanciful notions, but even I would find it hard to discredit miraculous events."

Maggie arched her eyebrows at him. "Are you saying that you have experienced a miracle?"

"Hmpfh! What would you call being shot through time on the back of a killer whale?" Obviously Maggie's usually impassive face was not so impassive today, because Joe was quick to add, "Mayhap the Norse culture is more inclined to believe in the spectacular than yours. Mayhap, because of our harsh environment, we tend to have more hope in the gods... and miracles."

With an air of hopelessness, Maggie put her notebook and pencil aside and walked over to the window.

Maybe I should just give up now. Call the state hospital and have them come pick up Joe. Better yet, just let him go and fare the best he can on the streets. There's no way I can give him all the help he needs in one lousy week. No way!

On the other hand, if we let him go now, he'll probably be out on Galveston Bay, rowing a longboat... or waving that sword around in the nearest McDonald's.

Crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the windowsill, she stared out blindly through the bars, trying to figure out how to handle this latest problem... especially with the time constraint her boss had laid on her only yesterday. "Why are you so sad, m'lady?"

Maggie jumped, not having realized that Joe had stepped up beside her. Although she was not short by any means, Maggie had to crane her neck to gaze up at him.

He didn't touch her at all not that he could, wearing a straitjacket but Maggie felt his nearness as a palpable thing. The pine scent of the hospital-issue soap he'd used to shower with that morning was a whisper teasing at her senses. But more than that, there was the scent of man... of him... erotic and compelling.

Maggie took a slight step backward, and her shoulders hit the side wall. She wasn't afraid, but she needed some distance between herself and this provocative male specimen. ....

"You fear me?"

She shook her head.

He contemplated that contradiction of words and physical evidence, then smiled slightly, as if he understood that it was herself she feared. She saw the moment of hesitancy in his smoky eyes, when he contemplated moving closer to test his theory, but luckily he exercised restraint.

Maggie wasn't sure what she would have done if he'd leaned in and rubbed his lips against hers. Or pressed his sex against hers. Or breathed her name. Lordy, lordy!. Pretty soon I'm going to qualify for admittance to my own mental hospital.

"You didn't answer my question," he murmured gruffly, jarring Maggie back to reality. "Why did my mention of time traveling make you sad?"

"There is no such thing," she answered bluntly, "and if you really believe that's what happened to you, then that makes my task impossible... a task that now has a deadline on it."

"What task would that be?" He was leaning back against the window now, his butt propped on the ledge, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. How a man wearing a straitjacket could look so relaxed was beyond Maggie.

"Making you healthy?"