Rough and Ready

  “It’s for wiping. I’m turning around now. Tell me when you’re done.”

  When she stood, he flushed the toilet.

  She jumped at the noise. “Son of a troll! What was that?”

  “The toilet flushing. I’ll explain all this when you can see.”

  After he helped her wash her hands and settled her back in the bed, her muttering once again over the indecent hospital gown, she asked, “Did you look at my arse?”

  “Who? Me?” Just a little.

  “You are smiling. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I can’t help it, Hildy. You have a pretty ass.”

  “Nobody has a pretty arse.”

  “I beg to differ. Want me to tell you what I like about yours?”

  “No!” she all but shouted.

  He propped his butt on the edge of the bed and watched as she craned her neck this way and that, trying to see the room.

  “Are you a little calmer?”

  “Nay, I am not calmer. Didst know they prick my arm every time I raise my voice? Didst know there is something odd about my blood? Didst know they intend to take more of my blood to test? Didst know they want to dice-section my body?”

  “Dice-section? What is . . . omigod! . . . do you mean dissection?”

  “Is that not what I said?”

  “Someone said they want to dissect your body? Who? No, you must have heard wrong.”

  “I may be half-blind, but I am not deaf.”

  His heart was racing with alarm. She must have misunderstood. Still . . . “A doctor here said he wanted to dissect you?”

  “A dock-whore? The first man here was a dock-whore, but how would I know if the men who came later were dock-whores? All I know is one of them thinks I am an ale-yen who has peculiar blood. He and the other man—”

  “What other man?”

  “If you would stop interrupting, I would tell you. Two men were in the room near my bed when I awakened the third time . . . or was it the fourth? They plan to get a van—dost know what a van is?—and take me away in the night to some hidden place where they will dice-sect me.”

  “Sonofabitch! I was afraid of this. My blood type was different when I first got here, too. We think it was the same with my entire family. Don’t ask me to explain why, or how it changed, but gradually our blood types became type B. Maybe it was the food or the climate or another of those frickin’ miracles, like time travel.” He pulled out his cell phone.

  She must have heard the rustle of his pulling it out because she asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Cage.”

  “Cage is here? Where?”

  “Not here. He’s in Coronado . . . the town where we live.”

  “Then how are you calling him?”

  “Never mind. I’ll explain later.”

  “LeBlanc here,” Cage answered his cell phone. Torolf could hear music in the background.

  “Max here. Where are you?”

  “The Wet and Wild. Yeah, I know it’s barely noon. Why dontcha come over, cher. That CIA babe you were dating last year is here. You know, the backbend goddess. She asked about you.”

  Gina, he thought. He’d spent a long, very interesting weekend with her in her D.C. apartment last spring. And, yes, she could do backbends. “Can’t make it today. I’m in Hilda’s hospital room.”

  “How is she?”

  “Still having vision problems.”

  “Whatcha gonna do with her?”

  “Hell if I know, but that’s not why I called. Big trouble here, buddy, and it could affect all of us.” Quickly, he explained the situation. “So, you can see why none of you can discuss this trip, except among yourselves. In the meantime, I’ve got to get Hilda out of here before those bozos come back.”

  “You takin’ her to your apartment?”

  “Nah, that’s not a good idea. I gave my name and address to the EMT as a contact in case of emergency. The hospital probably has it on file.”

  “So, you gotta find someplace to hide her for a while?”

  “Yeah, any ideas?”

  “You could take her down on the bayou. My maw maw would take her in. In fact, she’d get a kick outta hearin’ Hilda talk about Vikings and the eleventh century. Prob’ly have her speakin’ Southern in no time. Fix her up with some Cajun dude.”

  A picture of Hilda lounging on some bayou stream with a Cajun dude leaning over her flashed into his mind, with her drawling out, “Frankly, darlin’, ah doan give a damn. Y’all kin taste mah biscuits any ol’ time y’all want.” Oddly, he was the Rhett Butler in that mind blip. “Thanks for the offer, but that’s too far away.”

  “How about your dad’s place up in Sonoma?”

  “No way!” My family would have me married to Hilda before I could blink. “They would be in as much trouble as Hilda if those screwballs caught up. I can’t risk that danger for them.”

  “Hey, I know . . . How about that place you hid out last year after your accident?”

  Torolf grinned. “Hog Heaven?”

  “That’s the place.”

  Hog Heaven was a biker RV/trailer park in a remote area north of Coronado, and it was within driving distance. Hilda would fit right in with the other crazies there. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

  “Sure you don’t want us guys to come up there and wipe out the alien dodo birds?”

  Torolf could just envision the scene. A bunch of drunk Navy SEALs fighting with some skinny scientist types. “No. I’ll let you know how it works out. And I’ll be there on the grinder next Monday. Don’t want to raise any red flags there.”

  “Max,” Cage said just before he hung up.

  “What?”

  “Doan go gettin’ married or nothin’ . . . not unless I’m there ta be yer bes’ man.”

  “Ha, ha, ha!”

  After he clicked the phone shut, he looked up to find Hilda standing at the window. “What are those things with wheels out there?”

  At first, Torolf couldn’t answer. Hilda had forgotten about the hospital gown. Be still my heart! Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a pretty ass. “They’re cars. It’s a parking lot.”

  She turned.

  Damn!

  “What did you discuss with Cage?”

  “I know a place I can take you where you can recuperate.”

  “Ray-coop-raid? You would take me to a chicken coop?”

  He laughed. “Recuperate means get better.”

  “Why did you not say that?”

  Nag, nag, nag! “Do you want to know where I’ll be taking you or not?”

  Just then, he heard voices outside the door . . . a man and Nurse Ratched. It must be the doctor coming to check on Hilda. Quickly, he picked her up in his arms so he could lay her in the bed, but when he picked her up, his bare hand landed on her bare ass. She screeched and tried to squirm out of his hold.

  “Be still, Hilda. Someone’s coming, and I’ve got to put you back in—”

  The door opened. Slick stood there dressed in one of those green doctor outfits. He even had an ID tag clipped to his pocket and a stethoscope around his neck. And Nurse Ratched was smiling as if George Clooney had just arrived from ER.

  “Well, well, well,” Slick said, taking in Hilda in Torolf’s arms and his hand on her ass. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  Chapter 16

  Lady in the red dress, red dress . . . uh, red suit . . . oh, my! . . .

  Hilda was in another land . . . a land of magic.

  Could it really be the future? Or was it just one of those fanciful places that the Norse legends spoke of where trolls and dragons and such resided. Not that she’d seen any dragons here . . . yet, though the lout did qualify as a troll.

  Said troll was off somewhere getting his hog so that they could ride on it to a place called Hog Heaven. She did not even want to think about how they were going to ride a hog and live in a hog shed, but she’d already asked so many questions. And, after riding in that horseless carriage during the
night, at an ungodly speed, she supposed anything was possible here.

  Torolf and Slick were tired of answering all her questions about every little wonder in this bloody world during the past day and a half. They’d escaped the barmy sign-tiss at the hospitium, and Torolf had taken her to Slick’s keep on the ocean.

  Right now, she sat on the beach, watching the ocean and Slick as he ran up and down the beach, over and over. A barmy exercise, if you asked her, but no one did, of course. And, yes, her vision had returned gradually so she could see fine now.

  Slick walked up and sank down to the sand beside her. He wiped the sweat off his bare chest with a towel, wearing only short braies that had been cut off at the upper thighs, appropriately called shorts, and special shoes made for running. He was a good-looking man with dark hair and eyes and a well-muscled body, which seemed to be a requirement for all the SEALs, but he rarely smiled and was grim, much like Thorfinn had been. She wondered what tragedy he had in his past.

  Then he checked a small black box lying on the blanket. “There’s a text message from Max. He’s on his way. Should be here in less than an hour.”

  “How did you . . . ?” She started to ask how he had gotten the message from Torolf, but decided her brain was filled with too many new ideas already. “’Tis a beautiful spot where you have your keep . . . uh, cottage . . . but why are the cottages so close together?”

  “Hey, this is Malibu. This place would be beyond my means if I hadn’t inherited it from my great aunt.”

  She nodded. “I did not mean offense.”

  “I know you didn’t.” He tugged her lone braid, which hung over one shoulder. “Wanna go for a swim?”

  “Why would I swim . . . unless I had to? Like to escape from a sinking longship or to bathe.”

  “For pleasure?”

  “You must be barmy. Besides, ne’er will I expose myself in that bathing garment you gave me. ’Tis wanton.”

  “That suit belonged to my ex-wife, and, believe me, it’s tame compared to what she usually wore. It’s not even a bikini. Like that bikini there.” He pointed to a woman running along the shoreline, wearing two small scraps of bright yellow cloth, one across her breasts and the other barely covering her nether hair and buttocks. Her breasts bounced as she trotted.

  “Do not tell me that is not scandalous.”

  “Not at all. I like it.”

  “And why not? You are a man, and men like to see a woman flaunting her bare udders.” She looked down at the white tea-ing shert she wore over the bathing garment. “Except for me, who has no udders to speak of.”

  He laughed. “Big breasts are highly overrated.”

  “That is what Torolf said.”

  “Is that so?” Slick’s mouth twitched with humor.

  They stared ahead for a while. The sun beat down on them, hotter than any sun she’d felt before. Some children were feeding the seagulls. An elderly couple wearing matching long-sleeved sherts and braies walked by.

  More people in brief bathing garments walked by, and there was even a young man riding the waves on a board. Amazing how he could stand on water using the board! Like the Christian Jesus.

  Finally, Hilda had had enough of the blistering sun. “Mayhap I will swim a bit after all. ’Tis hotter than the pits of Muspell.” She forced herself not to flinch under Slick’s scrutiny as she shrugged off the shert, uncovering the red bathing suit.

  “I’ll join you.”

  Soon they were swimming in the cool waves. Well, she was attempting to swim. He was laughing at her as she kept getting washed ashore in the surf.

  They were still laughing as they emerged from the water, walking up the sand to the blanket that she had been sitting on . . . until they noticed Torolf walking toward them, a frown on his face. The frown he directed at Slick. To her, he gave a hot once-over from her wet head to her bare toes, and lots of time in between. She raised her chin high, refusing to cower under his regard. Slick just chuckled.

  “You two having fun frolicking out there while I’m running from the mad sign-tiss?”

  “I do not frolic,” Slick said with a laugh.

  “The sign-tiss chased you?”

  “Did you lose him?” Slick asked, no longer laughing.

  “Damn straight I did. Two dingbats in a van marked National Center for Alien Research followed me all the way down I-5. I lost them before I got off the Escondido exit. Good thing I left my car in Coronado, though. Now that they’ve got my license number, they’ll be able to track where I live.”

  “I’m gonna go in and fix us some lunch,” Slick said.

  They waited till Slick was some distance away. Torolf took her hand, starting to walk along the beach. She should have pulled her hand out of his grasp, but she rather liked the feel of his palm against hers. He wore the blue braies many men in this country seemed to favor and a green tea-ing shert which said, U.S. Navy. She knew what it said because he’d told her earlier. She was self-conscious about walking about in the scant bathing garment but did not want to call attention to herself by protesting her almost nudity.

  “We need to talk,” he repeated.

  “Every time you say that you want to talk to me, I end up in trouble . . . either on my back with you betwixt my legs . . . or in another bloody country.”

  He grinned at her. That is all. He just grinned.

  The lout.

  It’s a vibrator, no matter what you say . . .

  As long as he lived, Torolf would never forget the image of Hilda walking out of the surf wearing a wet, red, one-piece swimsuit molded to her body.

  He knew that Hilda had issues about her body and her sexuality, but, good God, if she could only see herself the way he saw her. Being close to five nine, she had very long legs. The suit wasn’t overtly suggestive, more like the tank suits that Olympic swimmers wore, but it clearly outlined her narrow waist and the flare of her hips. And her small breasts with their jutting nipples . . . He had to stop looking there, or no telling what he would do.

  “When can I go home . . . to The Sanctuary?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do not like the sound of that. Explain yourself.”

  “Hilda, you’re in the future. I swear to God you are. Don’t ask me how it happened. I haven’t a clue, except to say that miracles happen sometimes.”

  “So, call up another miracle and send me back.”

  “I’m not sure I can. Each of our time travels has happened in a different way, and never on demand. As far as I know, it’s only happened in my family, until this latest incident with my buddies and you.”

  “Perchance, if you take me back to the Norselands, the miracle will happen for me there, as it did for you.”

  “I will . . . eventually.”

  She stopped and narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Norway is far away, Hildy. I would need to get plane reservations and—”

  “What is a plane?”

  “Uh . . .” He looked up at the sky and pointed. “That up there is an airplane. It probably has two hundred people in it and is headed to an airport in L.A.”

  She gasped. “Are you saying we would have to travel up in the sky?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh, that is just wonderful! What have you done to my life? I swear, I have had naught but trouble since you came back.”

  That goes both ways, cupcake. “I got rid of Steinolf.”

  “Yea, you did. I should not be so ungracious. Still, you have nigh ruined my life by bringing me here.”

  “I didn’t do it deliberately. It was an accident.”

  “An accident is falling and breaking a leg. An accident is spilling a pail of goat’s milk. An accident is a longship sinking. Sending a person through time and across lands is not an accident. It is a disaster.”

  No kidding. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do not be sorry. Do something about it.”

  Nag, nag, nag. “I’m trying. First, we have to get you in hiding. Don’t get excited. It’s
just for a short time till these kooks are out of the picture. You have to know that they think you’re an alien, a person who lives up in the sky on one of the planets . . . um, other worlds up there.”

  “Hah! ’Tis no worse than being from a thousand years ago.”

  “In any case, they would like to take you to a place where they can study you . . . really study you. Like cut you open and see how you are different. They would never let you be free again.”

  Horror overcame Hilda, and she sank down to the sand, putting her face in her hands.

  He sank down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, honey, I won’t let that happen. You’ll go into hiding . . . hopefully just for a few weeks. I’ll go back to the base, go on assignment as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Then, when the coast is clear, I’ll try my best to get you back to The Sanctuary. In the meantime, enjoy yourself.”

  By nightfall, they were on their way, riding his Harley up I-5. It was a balmy night, the stars were out, and Hilda sat behind him, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers that had belonged to Slick’s ex. She held on for dear life, and he kinda liked her being up close and personal to him like that, unable to talk over the roar of the engine.

  When he pulled into the parking lot of a diner two hours later, he helped her off the bike and had to hold her up for a second to steady her legs.

  They sat down in a booth and placed their orders. Hilda looked really cute sitting there, staring at everything in wonder. Even the menu amazed her.

  And when their food came, two Italian hoagies with a side of fries and two chocolate milkshakes, she just stared at everything and watched as he took a bite of the hoagie, then dunked a fry in catsup and popped it into his mouth. “Now what?”

  “My mouth is big, but not that big,” she protested, gazing at the huge sandwich.

  I know exactly how big your mouth is, and what it can do.