by Sandra Hill
Max shoved her behind him, but not before the tango gave her a sweeping glance of disgust and snarled in broken English, “Bitch! Infidel! Whore! You die today.” He held the pistol in two hands and crouched a bit into the firing position. Clearly, he was more interested in her than Max, though he probably wouldn’t mind—in fact, wouldn’t hesitate—to take them both out.
“Nobody is dying here today,” Max said calmly, motioning with his hands behind his back that she should move into the shower stall.
“No move!” the perp shrieked. “Go to side.” He motioned with his gun.
This guy was a loose cannon. No telling what he would do. Alison moved back to Max’s side. The room was a fair size, and the guy—Lebanese, she would guess—stood in the open doorway of the bathroom, putting about ten feet between them. She could see that the bedroom door out to the corridor was closed. No help from that quarter.
“Just relax. Just relax,” Max said, holding his palms out in front of him. His voice and demeanor were cool, but Alison saw the fire of anger in his blue eyes. “Let’s talk about this,” he told the tango.
“No talk. Today, Allah be praised, my family be avenged. Today the Jew-loving U.S. of A., the Nav-hee SEALs, the MacLean family … today they pay price for their support of Israel. Murderers, all of you!”
“Murderers? Not us,” Alison argued.
“Shhh,” Max cautioned her.
“Don’t tell me to be quiet. I have no idea who this jerk is, but he doesn’t scare me.” Actually, he does scare me, but I can’t let him know that.
“This lady has nothing to do with you,” Max said, slowly backing up and pulling her with him, an inch at a time.
“She has everything to do … she and her cursed family. I lost my father, two brothers, and a sister in that bombing. Her betrothed rots in hell for his crime; no business he had coming to my country. No business! Her brother will suffer the same fate, too … soon as he enters his home tonight.”
“Oh, God! He must have planted a bomb in Ian’s house,” she murmured to Max.
He nodded that he’d heard her.
“How did you get on this base? In this building?” she asked, though she wasn’t entirely surprised. After all, Max had managed to get in, too.
“Carefully. I plan for five long years. You think your military the only one knows covert tactics?”
“Killing me is not going to solve anything,” Alison said.
His dark face went rigid with fury. “Do not speak to me, American harlot. Soon you burn in the fires of your Christian hell.”
“You’ll never escape alive.”
“I die glady for just cause. A family jihad—”
In the middle of his sentence, Max shoved her hard so that she fell backward onto the tile floor while he launched himself forward. The gun went off as Alison watched in horror while the two men struggled on the floor. The gun went off a second time.
Alison heard someone screaming and realized it was herself. As she crawled up on her knees, then stood, making her way over to the two still bodies, she sobbed. Oh, please … oh, please, God, let him be alive. Already a pool of blood was forming on the white tiles in an ever-expanding circle.
As several military men, weapons raised, broke through the outside door—apparently the tango had locked it from inside—and Flash came crawling through the window, alerted by the gunshots, Max moved slightly and raised himself up to a sitting position, gazing about groggily. The tango was dead, a bullet wound showing between his eyes. And Max had been shot in the shoulder. Alison dropped to her knees beside him.
“Somebody hurry! Find Ian! A bomb has been planted at his house,” she yelled to one of the Navy guards. “And please, call the medics right away. Max is bleeding.” Already she was examining the shoulder wound and stanching the flow with her towel, leaving herself naked. That didn’t matter. He was probably just stunned, but still she cried, “Wake up, Max. Don’t you dare die on me.”
Just then, Ian rushed in. Apparently, he hadn’t gone home yet. Drawing Alison to her feet, he wrapped a blanket around her and drew her shaking body into his embrace. “What the hell is going on here?” he yelled. Medics followed close behind him and were soon working on a now awake and protesting Max, trying to talk him into getting onto a stretcher. She explained shakily what had happened. Before long, the tango’s body was removed and a bomb squad was sent to Ian’s home.
In the end, Max had no choice. They forced him onto the stretcher. Just before they took him out, he glanced over at Alison, probably to say something teasing. But instead, his eyes latched onto her hands, which were held protectively over her stomach. It was a reflexive action that mothers throughout time had been taking. His eyes shot up to hers in surprise, then shock, then accusation. He said nothing. Nothing!
Luckily, he was the only one who’d noticed. Once the room was emptied, except for her and her brother, who would be joining the bomb squad shortly, Ian hugged her tightly.
It was over.
I’ve got a secret …
By the time Alison got to the medical facility two hours later, Max had already been stitched and bandaged up and was preparing to return to his barracks. Obviously, if a concussion couldn’t hold him down, a mere bullet wound wouldn’t either.
Ian had called her a half hour ago to tell her that the bomb in his home had been disabled. Without her warning, not only would his house have gone up in flames, but possibly the entire block.
Lieutenant Igo spoke with her in the corridor. “This boy Magnusson has got a lot of questions to answer. You do, too. First thing tomorrow morning. What was he doing in your room tonight? And what the hell was Petty Officer Gordon doing up on the roof? Major breaches in Navy regulations and security. Major!”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a sinking heart, then added, “Ensign Magnusson saved my life, sir, and that of my brother. Possibly others. I hope that will be taken into consideration.”
Her superior officer glowered at her for a moment. “Duly noted.” He walked stiffly away.
Once the doctor on duty came out of the examining room, shaking his head over his irascible patient’s complaints, he told her, “He’s all yours, and good riddance.”
Max was in the bathroom attached to the examining room. When he came out, looking wobbly and very, very tired, she started to go to him, arms open for an embrace. “Oh, Max!”
He put up a halting hand and stepped back, eying her coolly. It was as if they were strangers.
“You are such a fool.” A tiny sob escaped her. “You could have been killed, throwing yourself at that tango like that.” Now that the danger was over, a war of emotions was playing out inside her. She found herself angry with Max, but so very happy that he was alive.
His jaw clenched and unclenched visibly. “I am a Viking. We protect those under our shields. And you, wench, are under my shield, whether you like it or not.”
“I am not …” she started to say, then stopped herself at the fury she saw boiling just below the surface.
“You are breeding.” It was not a question.
She nodded, placing a hand over her tummy, as if protecting her baby from its father’s anger.
He blinked, profound hurt clouding his eyes. “Were you going to tell me?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Soon. Well, probably not till after graduation. Or—”
“Or mayhap you were waiting to see if I would be around. Or if you even wanted me around.” Another idea seemed to occur to him, and his nostrils flared with fury. “Were you going to kill our child? I have heard how easy it is to do that in your enlightened modern time. And a child would not fit in with your plans for a military life, now that I think on it.”
“No!” Now it was her turn to be hurt. “If I were going to abort this child, I would have done so as soon as I found out I was pregnant.”
“I should be honored that you decided to have my child.”
“There was no opportun
ity for us to make a joint decision.”
“Do not tell me you couldn’t have found a way to make contact with me these past three weeks in George-ha.”
Her face heated at his accusation, which was well founded. And he was right about something else as well. She had considered this her decision to make, not theirs.
He exhaled with disgust. “So much for all your modern marvels! I thought those cone-domes were supposed to prevent conception.”
“They do.”
He arched an eyebrow at her.
Her face heated with embarrassment. “That one time in the broom closet when you weren’t covered.”
“What? That was only for a second.”
“It only takes a second.”
His lips twitched and he almost smiled, but then he quickly suppressed it. “Bloody hell, I am as bad as my father. My seed is way too virile.”
She was the one who almost smiled then.
“When will we wed?”
“What? Oh, no! We are not getting married just because I’m pregnant.”
“I beg to differ. This child will have my name. Do not doubt that fact.”
“We are not getting married.
“We are, do not doubt that for one instant.”
“Be reasonable, Max.”
“Reason has naught to do with paternity.”
“Do you still think you are a time-traveler?”
“Yea. What has that to do with this?”
“It has everything to do with this. If I believe you are a blooming Viking from the eleventh century, why would I want to marry you?” She regretted her words the moment they left her mouth.
“Indeed,” he said sadly, his blue eyes piercing the distance between them.
A hot tear rolled down her cheek.
He was unmoved.
“What I meant by that was, if we got married tomorrow, how would I know that you would be there the next day?”
“There are no guarantees in this life, even without time-travel. Consider what almost happened to us. Consider your fiancé David.”
“That was a low blow.”
“That is real life. Bad things happen. But people don’t stop living to avoid dying.”
“Max, this is not the time to—”
“You are right, as usual,” he interrupted her stonily. Sarcasm coated his voice. “When will be the right time?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a dull ache of foreboding.
“So be it.” He turned and proudly walked away from her and out of the medical facility.
Intuitively, Alison understood that something momentous had just happened. She feared what it might be.
Running as fast as he can …
Ragnor did not see Alison at all during the following week. By choice. He was afraid of what he would say or do in his present mood.
Ragnor was relieved, of course, that Alison was no longer in any danger. That did not mean he could forgive everything in his relief.
He had been called on the carpet by the XO, the CO, and the BC for being in Alison’s keep that night. Being “called on the carpet” was the modern way of saying “screamed at” so shrilly they could have peeled rust off armor in a moldy Saxon castle. XO and CO were military terms for executive officer and commanding officer, while BC was Ragnor’s own affectionate term for bloody chieftain. In the end, he’d been given permanent Gig Squad, which Cage had assured him was a mild punishment for boinking his superior officer … “boinking” being a crude term for swiving. Apparently, his saving Alison’s, the chieftain’s, and a large number of other lives had weighed in his favor.
Alison had sent him several notes asking him to meet with her to talk, but eventually she stopped asking when he ignored her pleas. He was in no frame of mind to talk at the present time. He was too angry. Too hurt. Too confused. Too tired. Besides, when women wanted to talk, it usually meant they wanted to tell the man what he should think and do. Well, that was not going to happen. He would be the one doing the telling when he finally met with her. The problem was, he didn’t know what he wanted to tell her at this point.
Everything was happening too fast.
As the BUD/S training wound down to its last phase, which would culminate next week with a rock portage exercise, the instructors were working the team extra hard, trying to get every bit of education in. There was so much to do and so little time.
Luckily, Ragnor’s wound had been minor and he had not missed any training. Cage was healing fast, too.
They were all excited about the upcoming graduation, which was scheduled a week from tomorrow, to be followed by two glorious weeks of liberty. Amazingly, only fifty men remained of the 145 who had started in the program four months earlier. That was before Ragnor ever got to Coronado, though no one would believe him when he said so. The ending of BUD/S did not mean they would become SEALs or that they would be given the coveted trident pin. Nay, that would come six months later after serving successfully on an assigned team.
He was unable to sleep more than a few hours each night, and his heart raced all the time. He was edgy and had to keep moving, as if his body was readying itself for some big event. He listened to tapes and even read books as fast as he could get them. His mind felt like a sponge soaking up knowledge about anything and everything related to this modern world where he had landed.
And, yea, some of the books had been on childbirth. He kept coming back to those pages that showed pictures of an unborn child at one month, two months, all the way to delivery. His fingertips traced the images, over and over. Who knew it had fingers and toes, even eyelashes, at such a young age? Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it look like him or her or a combination of them both?
To Ragnor’s mind, it was a sign of weakness that he’d become so confused. He brushed his teeth twice a day and blew into his palm to make sure he was minty enough. Yesterday he’d caught himself sniffing his own armpits to see if his dear-odor-ant still worked, when good manly sweat had sufficed in the past. He said “Yes, sir!” and “No, sir!” to men he did not necessarily respect. He thought about learning to drive a car. Food had become too important to him, especially sweets. He’d developed a particular fondness for peanut butter and honey grain bars. Soon he would be soft … oh, not soft in body … he had more muscles now than any man had a right to, except for some berserkers he knew … but soft inside. Womanish. He thought about Alison all the time, and when he did, his heart ached.
He was losing himself, that was his fear. Real men did not sit about questioning their life paths. They just lived. For that reason, he sought out Doctor Fine-gold repeatedly. His instructors gave him permission to see the head healer once each day because they were concerned about his continuing claim of being a time-traveler. This was his fourth visit since the shooting. Doctor Fine-gold was the only one he’d told about Alison’s pregnancy, and then only on condition that the doctor keep the secret.
“I think we should talk about the baby,” Abe said, for about the tenth time in the past four days. Abe was his other name. Doctor Abe Fine-gold.
And here they went again with the “we” business, when what Abe really meant was that Ragnor should talk about the baby.
“Do you want this child?” Abe asked bluntly.
Ragnor sighed. “That is the question I wrestle with in my head in the dead of night when I cannot sleep. I was always repulsed by my father’s breeding excesses; I told you afore that he had thirteen children in all.”
“Some men measure their manliness by their reproductivity, which is foolish, of course. It doesn’t take a real man to make a child, but it takes a real man to raise one.”
Ragnor waved a hand dismissively. “You missay me, Abe. My father fulfilled his duties admirably. Everyone said so, even when they laughed at him. Seemed like all he had to do was look at a female and his seed flew out of his body and into her womb. But then, he cared for them. That is neither here nor there. What I was saying was that I always thought I hated large familie
s and everything they represent … babies, whining children with runny noses and smelly bottoms, noise, chaos, overwhelming responsibility.”
“And now?”
“Now I am wondering about my low spirits of the past year and my lack of enthusiasm for the bedsport.”
“Max, Max, Max. It is a known fact that depression can cause impotency.”
“Aaarrgh! I had no trouble raising my staff. I just did not want to.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” Abe said, unconvinced.
No doubt the doctor liked to think that Ragnor’s cock wouldn’t … well, cock … because that would provide a neat answer to all his problems. Cage had explained to Ragnor last night that shrinks—that’s what they called mind healers, and didn’t that conjure up unpalatable images … mind shrinking?—liked to boil all problems down to one thing: sex. Too much, not enough, perverted, lacking perversion, whatever.
“I am wondering if perhaps you protest too much,” the doctor said.
Aaarrgh! The man does not listen. The wick in my candle is just fine, thank you very much. “Now all I want to do is tup,” he went on. “With Alison, that is. Tup, tup, tup. I would wear my staff down to a nub if I could. But am I getting any tupping now? Nay! Dost want to know why? I will tell you. Because I am a bullheaded lackwit who does not know what in bloody hell he wants.”
Abe’s jaw was hanging open.
Mayhap I am blathering again. Hah! Forget mayhap. For a certainty, blathering comes second nature to me now. They ought to call me Ragnor the Blatherer.
Once Abe shut his jaw, the mind healer said, “Can we get back on the subject? I asked if you wanted the baby.”
“Of course I want the baby. What a question! But I was trying to explain why I feel that way … why I am surprised that I feel that way.” Thor’s teeth! Am I really talking about feelings? Next I will be weeping or taking up the needle arts. “Truth to tell, I miss my large family, even the chaos. The things I thought I hated about my father’s household have become precious memories to me.”
“That is entirely normal, Max. In fact, I suspect that seventy-five percent of all adults go through a period when they hate their homes, their hometowns, their families, everything they associate with childhood.”