Page 19 of The Last Viking

Rolf was swaying from side to side now, keening a low, savage wail of bereavement. Because of his own death? Holy cow! Over and over, he muttered, “Dauður…dauður…dauður…” Finally, he snapped his head up, and swore, “Hver fjandinn! Damn it! Damn Storr Grimmsson! Damn all the gods who drew me to this place and time. Most of all, damn me for my sins, which must have brought about this punishment.”

Meredith tried to put a comforting hand on his arm, but he shrugged her off. “Feel no pity for me, maiden, for I will return to my time. This I swear on all I hold sacred.”

Stepping back, she watched the raging warrior who tore the rubber band from his nape and pulled wildly at the strands of his long hair in agony. He let out a primitive Viking yell, as old as time, and stormed from the room and out to the cliffs, where he proceeded to bellow his rage and grief to the night skies.

Peering through the windows, she saw him pacing along the cliff edge, tearing at his hair, beating his chest, throwing out his hands in dismay. He chanted some strange words in Old Norse. A funeral dirge?

Meredith’s heart went out to the tormented man. She should be frightened, but she wasn’t. Somehow she knew he posed no threat to her. At least not a physical one.

He was a stranger, really, and yet she felt connected to him in a way she couldn’t define. She was attracted to him, but it was much more than that.

Tears welled in her eyes, and she felt Rolf’s pain. Whatever the reason for his being here, her intuition told her that fate, or God, played a role. It was meant to be.

She went out and tried to offer solace, but he was beyond hearing or welcoming her aid at this point. Through glazed, red-rimmed eyes, he stared at her as if she were invisible. “Begone, woman. Leave me to mourn…alone.” Turning blindly toward the house, she thought he added in a gentler tone, “A man’s honor demands he show strength, even in the death farewells.”

During the next few hours, as Meredith tidied the kitchen, made up a bed for Rolf on the sofa, and turned off the lights for the night, she kept glancing outside with concern. One time, she saw him kneeling with arms upraised to the moonlit sky, still chanting the Norse dirge. Another time, he raged, pounding a fist against a tree in frustrated anger.

And all the time he appeared so lost and lonely.

Finally, Meredith could no longer keep her eyes open, and she went to bed. Surprisingly, she fell into a deep sleep, exhausted by all that had happened to her that evening. Before dozing off, though, she wondered if she might awaken in the morning to find that the fierce Viking visitor had been a mere figment of her overworked imagination.

Oddly, that prospect filled her with heartfelt sorrow.

In the middle of the night, she awakened groggily, sensing a presence in her room…in her bed, actually. Before she had a chance to jump up with alarm, a cold arm snaked around her waist, pulling her flush against a hard male body. Although she wore panties and a nightshirt, she could feel that the body holding her was totally nude.

“No,” she protested and tried to push herself out of his embrace.

“Shhh.” Rolf breathed against her ear, fitting himself more closely against the length of her back, from head to heel. “I mean you no harm. Just let me hold you for a while.”

She didn’t want to make love with him. Not yet. The lust that had almost overcome her earlier was gone now, replaced by a new, unsettling bond that she wanted to examine more closely in the light of day. Besides, she had so many questions.

“No,” she repeated. “Not now…not yet.”

Rolf’s body stiffened behind her, and his fingertips, which had been tracing a sweet path down her arm from shoulder to wrist, stilled. He exhaled softly, and Meredith closed her eyes against the enticing feel of his lips against the nape of her neck.

“I need you.”

His whispered entreaty—three little words, spoken with raw, pain-ridden honesty—were her undoing. And Meredith accepted something she’d unconsciously concluded hours earlier. She turned in his arms and lovingly touched the side of his damp cheek, unable to distinguish whether the wetness had been caused by tears or ocean mist.

“I need you, too,” she sighed. In surrender.

Chapter Four

“I am dead,” Rolf said with utter desolation.

Rolling over on his back, he rested a forearm over his closed eyes. By the light of an unshaded window and the lingering full moon, she saw his long hair spread out over the snowy white pillow.

Meredith propped herself on her right elbow and reached across with her other arm to place a hand against his cheek again with gentle assurance. “No. You are alive, Rolf.”

Lifting his arm, he regarded her beseechingly. “Do you think so? Hmmm. I must needs yield to your better judgment on the matter. In truth, my head throbs with confusion. My body is frozen in your time, but my spirit craves the comfort of my own people. My heart is breaking. Surely those who walk in the afterlife experience no such pain.”

Then he laid his huge hand over hers, which continued to caress his cheek, and guided it to his chest, where his heart thudded wildly, as if it would, indeed, burst. Rolf was bare to the waist, and from there covered by her grandmother’s handmade quilt—a starburst design. She knew he was nude to the toes, but as she gazed at his magnificent body, she felt no overpowering lust. What she felt was an overpowering…what? Caring was the only word she could come up with to describe the emotion that swelled her heart and warmed her blood.

He was a stranger, but he was not.

She yearned to touch him and heal all his inner hurts, but she didn’t even know what they were.

As a teacher, she delighted in passing on knowledge to her students. Ironically, she sensed this primitive man could teach her much, much more.