Page 48 of The Very Virile Viking

The most amazing thing to him was the fastening devices they used in this land. Zip-hers, they were called. He did not think he would ever be able to explain their workings to his sewing women back in the Norselands. Buttons, on the other hand, were such a simple concept that he wondered why people had not thought of them earlier or why news of them had not spread from this country to his.

And that was the problem.

This land—Ah-mare-ee-ca—was more than strange to him. In the back of his mind an uneasiness kept niggling at him. Something was wrong, and he could not figure out what it was.

It was not apprehension at discovering a new, possibly dangerous land. Vikings, and adventurers from other countries, had been discovering new lands since the beginning of time, though he did not think they had discovered lands so fully populated. He was willing to accept that he had come across an already settled country that no one knew about. Somehow his longship had gone so far off course as to enter territory never seen before.

But all the marvels that this land held… they did not just boggle the mind—they were unbelievable.

Impossible, really.

Magnus had never been a fanciful man. He'd always disdained the old Norse legends of enchanted isles beyond Greenland and the unknown places north of the Rus lands, but if this Ah-mare-ee-ca did not count as an enchanted isle, he did not know what would.

That was the problem he had to puzzle out.

Was this journey a dream? Or was it real?

Was it permanent? Or would they suddenly awaken back on his longship off the shore of Vinland?

Why had he been called here by the elderly woman?

What exactly was his destiny?

And where did Angela fit into this madness?

Chapter Eight

Still calm, but picking up steam…

Angela swung back and forth slowly on the old swing near the pond, watching her guests with newfound

admiration and progressing alarm.

She admired Magnus for the way he cared for his children. While loudly protesting what a bother they all were, he calmly kept them in line and taught them good life lessons. Right now he was lying on his back in the newly mown grass near the pond with a barefooted Lida waddling around him. Lida was picking wildflowers, which she kept carrying back to him one at a time. Each of them he praised as if they were precious objects and she were the most talented girl in the world.

Lida had learned a new trick—kissing. Every time someone said the word kiss , she would cheerily place a slobbery smack on lips or cheek or whatever skin surface she could reach. Right now Magnus was saying kiss every couple of moments, which would cause Lida to halt in her busy tracks, turn around, waddle back, give a smiling kiss, then continue on her merry way.

To give Magnus credit, he was a good father. She admired the work ethic of his children. Dagny was inside helping Juanita clean up the kitchen. Afterward the cook had promised to show the young girl how to make homemade pizzas… "better than Domino's."

Kirsten was with Grandma, pruning and spraying her prize collection of one hundred species of rosebushes. Grandma— God bless her soul!—had sneaked off to have a cigarette in the potting shed, but Kirsten had found her there and urged her to show her the roses. Grandma might kick the habit yet…

and all because of these children.

Torolf was having great fun mowing the lawns with a tractor, under Juan's tutelage. The wildflowers that were permitted to grow in the grass got cut off in the process, which was a shame, but they would soon grow back.

Njal and Hamr had been given the ignominious task of picking up Jow's poop in the lawn with small trowels and buckets before Torolf's mowing. Jow had helped them, running to each of the piles and barking loudly. The two rascals had been given that job as punishment because Magnus had caught them smoking one of Grandma's cigarettes that afternoon.

Now, the poop patrol completed, the two boys— along with Storvald and Jogeir—were playing in the shallow pond, doing more splashing than swimming.

She eased off the swing and went over to stand beside Magnus. His hands were crossed behind his neck. His feet were bare and planted firmly in the grass, his knees raised. He wore a plain black T-shirt and blue jeans. His hair, which appeared dark blond today in the sun, was held back off his face with a rubber band.

"Do you like what you see?" Magnus asked, turning his head on his hands to look at her.

Oh, yeah! "I was just checking out your new duds. You've adapted to our attire already. Are you sure you haven't worn jeans and Tshirts before?" She forced herself to look at his face, and not his tight jeans. All those muscles and bulges. Jeesh !

He arched his eyebrows at her, not fooled by her diversionary tactics. "Are you staring at my big ears?"

Nope. It's that other big part that draws my attention, honey. "No, I'm not staring at your ears. For heaven's sake, why would I?"