Page 91 of Truly, Madly Viking

Mag-he's gift to him had been a tooled leather belt to hold the scabbard for his sword and a set of books about Vikings, with fine gold-edged bindings. He could not easily read the books yet. But every day he was getting more proficient at recognizing written words and phrases. He was deeply touched that she'd given the books to him. It was as if she expected him to be here long enough to learn to read English well. And that was what was causing his low spirits.

He had not expected to care so deeply ever again. It had happened so quickly, as if predestined. That scared him mightily, because he sensed that he was soon going to have to make a decision: to save his brother and leave this land and those he had come to care for; or to stay and see how these affections might develop, and thus abandon his brother and his father's mission.

"Joe, you're not paying attention," Sue-zee complained.

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing her new video game with her.

It was a gruesome battle of gremlins against giants. "And they say Vikings are bloodthirsty," he grumbled good naturedly. "They ought to see a nine-year-old girl with a game clicker in her hand."

Sue-zee jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow and hooted. "You're not going to give up, are you?"

"Yea, I am."

"Chicken! Bock, bock, bock!"

"You win, sweetling." With a wink, he declined to rise to her bait, and instead stood and arched his back to remove the kinks.

"Joe, could you come over here?" Beth urged. "You, too, Mom." Beth was playing with the new laptop come-pewter he'd given her. Truly, it was a magic box. And he'd seen only a few of its marvels which Beth had demonstrated that morning.

A-oh-ell. The Enter-net. Webbing sites. E-mail. Chatting rooms. Whale research sites.

Beth was a truly remarkable child, with her fierce protectiveness of the killer whales... especially one particular whale named Keiko. On her own, she had established her own Webbing site where she was garnering support among young people all over the world. He would bet a Viking king's booty that Thora would love this girl.

Mag-he put aside the book she had been reading in the comfortable chair next to the fire—one of the Viking books she had given him. It was the end of December, but in Tax-us the weather was still fairly warm... certainly not cold enough for a fire. But Mag-he and the girls had insisted that it wouldn't be Christmas without a fire, now that they actually had a fireplace; so they'd put on the air conditioner, a device that magically cooled the house, and had him make a fire.

It struck him as odd that people would want a fireplace in their homes when fire was not used for heat or cooking. But then, this was a country that encouraged cutting down live trees and bringing them indoors to shed their pine needles.

The girls also yearned to have snow for Christmas—another strange tradition in this country— which was almost impossible in this part of Texas. He had told them with a laugh, "A fireplace I could produce for you, but not snow. I am not a god."

"I think you're a god," Mag-he had whispered in that husky sexvoice of hers.

She made him feel like a god.

Now she came up to stand beside him, behind her daughter, who was sitting on a chair in front of a piece of furniture called a desk. She was staring at the colored screen of the laptop, which showed words and colored pictures.

He put his arm around Mag-he's waist, then let his hand sidle lower to palm her buttock. It seemed like forever since he'd last had the freedom to touch Mag-he, even though it had been only a week.

She gave him a startled sideways look, slapped his hand away, then let her gaze wander till she took in the fact that neither Sue-zee nor Beth had noticed. Only then did she reach over and pinch his buttock.

"Behave," she ordered in an undertone.

"What did you say, Mom?" Beth asked. She was doing some complicated maneuvers on her lap top.

Sue-zee had started another game by herself, and the sounds of zing-zing-zap could be heard in the background.

"Nothing," Mag-he replied innocently. "What did you want to show us, sweetie?"

"Vikings."

"Vikings?" he and Mag-he said at the same time.

"Yeah, I know how interested Joe is in Vikings... coming from Norway and all that," Beth explained. He and Mag-he had agreed not to tell the twins about his having time traveled, but instead to let them think he was a man of Norse heritage with a special interest in the tenth century. "Well, I did a search on Yahoo—that's a search engine—and came up with a zillion sites on the Internet. Then I narrowed my search to tenth-century Vikings, and you won't believe what I found. Are you interested?"

Jorund looked at Mag-he, and she looked back at him. Was he interested? Bloody hell, yes. He pulled an extra chair over next to Beth.

"Lots of the stuff you've told us about King Olaf is true."

"Of course it's true. Did you think I would lie?"