Page 115 of Hot & Heavy

Actually, there is a more important question. What will Maddie think of our marriage now that she's reunited with her family? Will I be extraneous?

She said she loves me.

Ian was hit with unexpected news just before he went into the debriefing. JAM pulled him aside and said,

"Uh, I have something to tell you that you're not going to like."

Now what? "I got a piece of mail today that had originally been sent to my Virginia apartment, forwarded, then lost in dead mail for almost a year. I mean, I should have checked, but I didn't think it was necessary. And now… oh, hell!" JAM was clearly avoiding telling him what was on his mind. What?

Was he still a priest, or almost-priest, and hadn't been released from his vows or whatever they called it?

"Spit it out."

"You're not married."

Ian inhaled sharply with shock. That was the last thing he'd expected JAM to say. "What do you mean?"

"The Church doesn't like its priests or almost-priests to continue with priestly duties. Apparently, the Vatican came out with a new edict that now disallows men like me from performing marriages."

"Not even civil ones?"

JAM shook his head. " I would have to apply for a special license and everything."

The back of Ian's neck prickled, a sure sign something suspicious was going on. "The CIA must have known this when they were being so accommodating about the marriage and Maddie leaving Baghdad without a passport."

"Maybe. Probably."

"Sonofabitch!" Ian felt like hitting someone or something. Not JAM—it wasn't his fault. But a nice wall would come in handy about now.

"Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"

JAM bit his bottom lip with reluctance. "All right. For now, my lips are sealed."

They went into the meeting then, but all Ian could think about was Maddie. How was he going to keep Maddie without the marriage binding them together? He had no hold over her now, with the marriage being null and her family here to protect her… nothing except love.

The question was: Would love be enough?

Daddy's little girl… not!…

Madrene was surrounded by mayhem.

Thirteen years might have gone by since they were all together, but some things never changed. Everyone talked at once. They teased each other mercilessly. The men thought women were to be protected and pampered.

"Pampered? Are you all demented? I have been running the farmstead and then Norstead for a long time.

And I did it admirably, if I must say so myself, until… until Steinolf came." She stopped then and pondered what she had said. "I failed then. I was unable to hold Norstead from the invaders. Mayhap you are all correct. Mayhap a man would have done a better job."

"You are not to berate yourself, Madrene," her father said. They were all sitting around Ian's solar drinking beer and eating Dome-nose pizzas which Torolf had ordered delivered to the house. What a bunch of handsome men they were, she thought, even her father and uncles who were of an advanced age… more than fifty. And big! The large solar seemed small with all of them inside. "Are you listening, child?"

Child? I am thirty-one years old. Long past childhood.

"You did a magnificent job of defending Norstead," her father continued. "As good as any man. Steinolf is a devious warrior, and betimes good soldiers lose to evil forces when they choose the honorable way."

"I must needs raise an army and go back to fight him," Madrene told them. "It is my quest, and I have told Ian and his comrades so on many an occasion. In fact, I have sold the jewels I took from the harems, and raised almost a million dollars. Not that I know what dollars are."

Ragnor, who sat beside her on the sofa, grinned. Well, actually, he sat next to Sam, who sat next to her.

Sam had taken to her family like a cat on a barrel of lutefisk. "You in a harem? I can hardly credit that.