“How long has it been . . . since Dave’s death?” Alison put a hand on hers in understanding.
“Five years.” She gulped. “But it seems like yesterday. I know, I know, I should be getting past this . . . this . . . grief, but I still feel raw.” Truthfully, since Lydia had never viewed Dave’s remains before his burial—the explosion presumably making him unrecognizable—she’d always sustained an unspoken hope that he was still alive . . . a POW, or involved in some secret government operation, and that someday he would knock on her door and say, “Honey, I’m home.” Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic! She turned to Kirstin. “Yes, I would like to go out clubbing sometime, but the Wet and Wild would not be my first choice. With all due respect”—she glanced at Madrene and Alison—“I don’t need another military man in my life.”
The waiter arrived, cutting off conversation for a bit.
As an appetizer, they all opted for blue crab bisque with sweet sherry and tarragon. For an entrée, Madrene chose grilled salmon with braised fingerling potatoes and a shaved fennel, green bean, and wilted lettuce salad. Alison picked the mushroom ravioli in vodka sauce, and for Lydia and Kirstin, it was black and blue Angus burgers, heavy on exquisite Roquefort blue cheese, with caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and cheddar, served on warm-from-the-oven kaiser rolls. Then, for dessert, coffee and crème brûlée for all. Not quite the fare you would expect from body-conscious women, but then they’d worked hard today.
They were on their way back to the studio parking lot, where their cars were parked, when Lydia told them, “We’re starting a new class next week that you ladies might be interested in.” She grinned and paused for a ta-da moment. “Pole dancing.”
“Are you serious?” Kirstin’s jaw gaped open.
“Oh, yeah! A good pole dance works all the muscle groups at one time.”
“Plus, there’s the naughty factor.” Alison waggled her eyebrows.
Alison and Kirstin giggled, but Madrene frowned in confusion. “What is pole dancing?”
Once Lydia explained, Madrene snorted, “Pfff! As if I need to do aught but look at my husband to turn him lustsome!”
“I don’t know. I think it might be fun,” Alison said.
“Me, too.” This from Kirstin. When Madrene and Alison both looked at Kirstin questioningly, she said, “Hey, if a little pole dancing will attract Prince Charming, I’m game.”
They all laughed at that. The image of some knight on a white charger coming on to a woman pole dancing was just too funny.
“Leastways, where would I get a pole to dance for my husband?” Madrene continued to harp.
“How about that support pole in your basement?” Kirstin suggested.
“Now I must go down into the basement, amidst the furnace and storage bins, to entice my husband?” Madrene asked mockingly, but Lydia could tell that she was interested.
“I could use the flag pole in our backyard,” Alison said.
“Your neighbors would appreciate that, I wager,” Madrene scoffed.
“Don’t be such a killjoy,” Kirstin said. “Oh, look. Ian’s here.”
They were just pulling into the parking lot. Ian and the three children were standing on the grassy area behind the building near the water. Ian didn’t see them yet, and what a picture he made! Holding the baby in one arm, cuddled against his chest, he laughed as the two little boys chased each other around his legs, the toddler comical in his staggering gait. Ian glanced up then and saw Madrene approaching. The light that came into his eyes was priceless.
A searing, crushing pain seized Lydia’s chest. It should be Dave and our children. It should be Dave giving me “the look.”
She stayed in the car, windows open, while the others piled out.
“I was called back to the base; so, I brought the kids over here,” Ian said after giving Madrene a quick kiss of welcome.
Kirstin and Alison waved as they made for their own vehicles, with Kirstin calling out, “Remember. Girls’ night out. Soon.”
As Ian walked Madrene and the children back to the van, Lydia heard Madrene say to her husband, “What would you think of me pole dancing?”
Ian stumbled, then stopped stock still. Turning slowly, inch by inch, to look at his wife, he merely grinned. That was answer enough.
Lydia drove off then to pick up her son. And for the first time in a long time she wept for all she had lost. She felt so very lonely.
Maybe it was time to move on.
But no military man ever again!
Chapter 2
When the Norns of Fate come calling . . .
Thorfinn was a strong military man, but he was unprepared for and outnumbered by the six Arab men who attacked him on the way back from Baghdad the next morning.
The woman and child he had sought turned out to be a false lead once again. No surprise there. It had been ludicrous, really. The woman was blonde, like Luta, but she had a hooked nose and weighed as much as a small horse. The child was a girl, not a boy. And the husband, who had been away from home, was Arab, not Saxon.
He had sent Steven and his men on ahead after their wasted trip back into the city whilst he had stopped to speak to a horse breeder who betimes traveled to trading posts in the Norselands . . . Hedeby and Birka, in particular. The man promised to come as far as Norstead on his next trip. Steven should have the two longships ready to launch by the time he got to the harbor.
But then the unbelievable happened.
He was caught off guard when he was some distance from the city, but not yet close to the river where the longships were anchored. He did not see the men coming at him. He did hear a noise behind him that saved him from the spear which merely lanced his shoulder, not his heart, as intended.
Nimble-footed, despite his size, from years on the exercise and battlefields, he danced back, at the same time drawing his battle sword from the scabbard at his side.
Luckily, it was his favorite pattern-welded sword, “Skin Biter,” an especially powerful weapon. All swords were strengthened by quenching the hot metal in liquid . . . water, honey, oil, wet clay, or in this case, blood.
Unluckily, there were six of these miscreants to his one, and they were weapon-heavy, brandishing lance and bow and knife as well as sword.
In Arabic, he asked his attackers what they were about afore he gave them a sample of the flavor of his wrath. They did not appear to be thieves. Mayhap they had mistaken him for someone else.
One of them, seemingly the leader, snarled out something about how Thorfinn had befouled their sister-by-marriage when he gazed on her beauteous face.
Ah, the woman he had just visited. Beauteous she was not with that huge nose and splotchy skin, but no matter. Arab men took a harsh view of their wives’ faces being seen by other men. And these were six outraged brothers of the husband.
He apologized for his mistake. “I did not mean to give offense.”
The leader said a foul word in Arabic.
So be it!
In one swift movement, he gritted his teeth with unleashed fury, crouched, then lunged with sword held high in both hands. Coming down hard, he cleaved the first man from head to heart. Blood spurted everywhere, dimming his vision and stunning the brothers.
He fought valiantly after that, but made no more kills even after an hour of swordplay. All of them had wounds, though none mortal. A warrior must needs hit a foeman in the fat line, the area betwixt neck and groin, in order for the injury to be fatal, but these men were weapon-skillful, and his stamina was wearing down.
Bloody hell! It appears that I will be in Valhalla this day. Ah, well, my demise must have been destined; no doubt the Norns of Fate have been busy on my behalf.
In the distance, he saw some white objects floating down from the sky. Mayhap it was the Valkyries come to escort him to Asgard.
At first he wished his brother was there, fighting at his side, but then changed his mind. He did not want his brother to make that final journey with him . . . not yet.
r /> The only sounds now were the clash of swords, the loud panting of seven men’s breaths, himself included, the occasional curse in Arabic or Norse, and a raven overhead heralding that someone would die this day.
One of the men slipped in the blood on the ground, and Thorfinn was able to swing his sword in an arc, lopping off his head. Not a pretty sight but not unknown for a seasoned warrior.
The head lopping enraged the remaining five brothers, who came at him as one.
The side of one of their swords hit his head. Oooooouch! He staggered backwards, dazed. Through his pain-ridden, blurred vision, he saw a group of men tossing the white objects off their backs . . . the selfsame objects he had seen floating from the sky. Was this a death-dream? They wore strange garments of mottled pale brown colors that nigh blended in with the desert sand. Who were these men who seemed to be coming to his rescue? For a certainty, they were not of his hird, or his brother’s.
He gasped when recognition hit him. Praise the gods and bring on the mead, ’twas his cousin Torolf, whom he had not seen for four years and who was supposed to be living in a far-off land. No matter! I will welcome help from any quarter.
“To the death!” he bellowed. Then, to his self-shame, fell back in a stone cold faint.
Hey, Cuz! Long time no see! . . .
Lt. Torolf Magnusson, better known as Max, raised a hand to halt the small team of five SEALs behind him, then scanned the bizarre scene in front of them. “Holy crap!” about summed it up.
Some distance ahead of them stood a lone man, about six-three, wearing a belted, short-sleeved, suedelike leather tunic over matching narrow pants. Etched gold bracelets, two inches wide, glinted on his upper arms. Ankle boots were cross-gartered up to his knees. His black, shoulder-length hair had two thin braids framing a face of chiseled fury. In his hand was a broadsword, which he was wielding with great expertise against the six Arabs.
He looked like a freakin’ Viking warrior of old. And Torolf ought to know, being of Norse background himself.
As they watched, the “victim” raised the heavy weapon with two hands and chopped one guy in half, through the skull, between the eyes, giving him a permanent cleft in his chin, all the way to his belly. The body fell in a puddle of blood. One down, five to go.
“Mon Dieu! Did I just see what I think I saw?” asked Justin LeBlanc, even as they began to run in a leapfrog fashion toward the kill zone, SEALs working in pairs, covering each other’s advance. One crouched and covered his partner’s six ’til he moved forward and passed him, over and over. “Me, I thought I’d seen it all, but this takes the Mardi Gras cake. Talk about!” LeBlanc, or Cage, was a Cajun from Southern Louisiana and a longtime SEAL.
“I think I might just hurl, and I have a strong stomach.” This from Sylvester “Sly” Simms, who ought to have a belly lined with steel. The black dude had grown up in one of the worst blood-gang neighborhoods, blood being the key word.
They were getting closer, but still not noticed, thank God. For a long time, they stayed hidden, letting the Norse Rambo duke it out with the five remaining Arabs. Were these Arabs the ones Torolf and his team were after? Probably.
The nitwit should have run like hell in the beginning instead of trying to face off a small mob. But then, to everyone’s amazement, said nitwit raised his broadsword high, then swung it in an arc, lopping off the head of another one of the assailants. Two down, four to go.
“Holy shit!” Sly did gag then. In fact, Torolf would bet they all had bile rising in their throats at that gruesome sight.
“Who the hell is this guy? A freakin’ gladiator?” asked JAM, or Jacob Alvarez Mendozo, who had once studied for the priesthood.
“You got the wrong country, pal. He’s a Viking,” Torolf said, more than a little impressed with the guy’s strength and expertise with a sword.
“Oh, crap! The Viking bullshit again!” Cage jabbed Torolf’s upper arm playfully, a reminder that the men had heard more than enough from him about his Norse background.
Torolf’s small squad was in Iraq, attempting to jimmy the works of some al-Qaeda tangos who were about to buy Russian nuclear arms from an Iranian intermediary. And these numbnuts fighting the lone Viking numbnut were presumably those al-Qaeda terrorists. The whole mission, which was supposed to be hush-hush with a quick in-and-out, was about to go FUBAR, if they didn’t stop this berserk, sword-wielding idiot from screwing up the works.
But then everything changed as Torolf got his first good look at the face of the victim who staggered at a sharp blow delivered to his head. Pale silver eyes connected with his for a second.
“Oh, my God!” he murmured. It was his cousin Finn . . . Thorfinn Haraldsson, to be precise.
Why was that kinship curse-worthy?
Because Finn was an eleventh-century Viking warrior.
Stubbornness . . . a genetic Viking trait . . .
“Put the friggin’ uniform on before I friggin’ bop you over your friggin’ head with your own friggin’ sword.”
Torolf was trying to argue some sense into his hard-headed cousin, to no avail.
Finn just arched his brows at the threat. Apparently, friggin’ was a word he could understand, in context.
Really, all Torolf wanted Finn to do was put on a helmet and jumpsuit so they could help the moron get out of this very dangerous place. The other four Arabs had been dispatched to their Maker. The perimeter would soon be swarming with tangos, he would guarantee it. How was Torolf going to be able to explain who Finn was when he was wearing an outfit that screamed, “I am Viking. Hear me roar”? Not to mention his carrying a big-ass sword that would do Genghis Khan proud. Jeesh! Those gold armbands in themselves were enough to raise questions.
Oh, yes, General, sir, he mimicked in his head, I just came from eleventh-century Baghdad. The sultan gives his regards. And this yahoo is Finn the Dark, a head-lopping Viking warrior.
“Do you dare try to bop me, whatever in bloody hell bopping is, and I will have to hurt you.” Finn was casually swabbing at the blood from his wounds and splatters from his victims with a T-shirt one of the SEALs had tossed his way, as if he had all the time in the world.
“What? Ya gonna lop off my head, too?”
“Mayhap. By the by, last time I saw you, you were drooling over that shrew Hilda Berdottir.”
“Be careful what you say about Hilda. She’s my wife now.”
Finn’s lips twitched with humor. “Better you than me.”
“You never had a chance with Hilda.”
“Since when do women have a say in who they wed? That choice is best left to men and their superior intellects. If I had wanted her, believe you me, Hilda would have been my wife. ’Tis the trouble with this world, women are getting too uppity.”
“Oh, God! The women of America are going to love you.” Merrill “Geek” Good, another SEAL, made that remark as he passed. It pretty much reflected all their sentiments. Finn was a chauvinist just waiting to be cut off at the snout by some raging feminist.
“Look, much as I would like to continue this tea party, we don’t have much time,” Torolf said. “Put this jumpsuit on and let’s get out of here. There’s a chopper coming in for us any minute. Yep. There it is.”
“What is a ch . . .” Finn’s words trailed off at the thwack-thwack-thwack ing noise in the distance. His eyes widened. “That is the biggest bloody damn bird I have e’er seen.”
“You idiot! It’s the chopper. It’ll take us out of here.”
Finn laughed as he stood and put his sword back in his side scabbard. “That bird is going to land, let you climb on its back, then fly you away? Who is the idiot here, cousin?”
The rest of the guys had been searching the tangos’ bodies for documents while he’d made sure his cousin was okay, then stood here arguing with him. He understood Finn’s confusion, but, dammit, their mission was over, and they needed to get out of Dodge. The team had radioed CentCom first thing, and special forces in the city were already on the way to a ce
rtain warehouse in Baghdad where the arms were being stored. Omar Jones, one of his teammates who was half-Arab and could read the language, had found an address in one of the tango’s pockets, as well as the names of some contacts who would soon be rounded up.
“Fare thee well, Torolf. Thank you for your help, but I must needs get back to my longship. Steven and my shiphird await me there. He will be worried at my delay. And give Hilda my regards . . . or not. Ha, ha, ha.”
Torolf rolled his eyes. Oh, Hilda is gonna love having Finn around again. “I got news for you, buddy. Steven is definitely going to be worried because it’s possible you might not ever see him again.”
“What? Do you threaten me?”
Torolf saw Cage creeping up behind Finn and read his silent signal to keep Finn talking to divert his attention. “It’s not a threat. It’s a fact of life.”
“You make no sense.”
“I probably don’t, but there’s no time to explain now.”
Quickly, Cage put a choke hold on Finn from behind and pinched a nerve in his neck, which immediately immobilized the big guy. He and JAM jumped right in to help Cage catch Finn before he hit the ground. He had to weigh about two hundred thirty or forty pounds. They got the jumpsuit and helmet on him somehow. It required four of them to carry the dead-weight body at a run toward the hovering chopper, then get him into a harness and up into the air. But soon they were all strapped into bench seats, including the unconscious Finn, and the Blackhawk took off.
Not a moment too soon, they saw. Battered vehicles and trucks were careening down the highway, coming to the rescue of their dead al-Qaeda friends. He hoped to God that Al-Jazeera didn’t get photos of the head-lopped guy or the body-cleaved guy. Not the greatest PR for Uncle Sam’s brave and bold.
The six SEALs grinned at each other and cheered as one, “Hoo-yah!”
“Me, I’m pretty sure your cousin ain’t gonna be cheerin’ once he wakes up, cher,” Cage told him.
“Not to worry. I plan on wearing body armor.” He laughed. “Or else I’ll sic Hilda on him.”