He had no proof that either coincided with each other, but every atom in his academic being pulled toward the force of Lorraine’s astounding tale. Moved by nothing but gut instinct, he felt as if he’d solved the mystery of his archeological find.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her off the bed, deserting the gifts she’d given him. “Come,” he said hastily. “I have to show you something.”
She could barely keep up with him as he tore from the room and sprinted down the hall. His excitement bubbled over, and he couldn’t wait to show her the rare antiquity from her story he had in his possession.
Pausing at his closed door, his hand on the knob, he looked at her. “What I am about to show you is something very special to me and must remain between us. Only my brother knows about this. Can I trust you?”
Lorraine gave him an excited smile. “Of course you can.”
Bursting through his bedroom door, he hauled her in and stopped just short of his bed. In the far corner of his room lay plastic covering the floor, assorted brushes, a ruler, various picks, a trowel, camera, and a pad of paper with lots of scribbled notations. Amid all his tools, in neat rows, were tattered items riddled with dirt and carefully labeled. Although tarnished and weathered, his proud find sat in the middle of it all, gleaming before their eyes.
****
Lorraine’s heart stopped. Her eyes bulged. The muscles in her legs turned to putty as she stared at the display of eerily familiar objects. She could hardly believe her eyes, blinking repeatedly. No amount of staring altered the realization that she was looking at the chest from her past. The chest she had just foretold to Leif. The chest that Dægan had given her as a wedding gift after telling her that very story.
“Where did you find this?” Lorraine asked, her voice shaking.
“Alongside my porch, just beneath my house.”
She peeled her eyes from the memorable coffer and gawked at Leif. So many questions bounced around in her head, but none of them would surface. She stood speechless, dumbfounded.
Leif seemed to understand her struggle and touched her shoulder. “Do you know what this is?” His own escalation of excitement cut off her answer. “I can’t say for certain, but I think this is the chest from your story. The chest that the king gave to his lover’s husband as a truce offering.”
He pulled her stiff body toward the mess, both of them dropping to their knees. “Look,” he demanded, pointing as he spoke. “The jewels, the jars of precious oils, the bolts of silks…it’s all here.” He grimaced a bit. “Well, I realize they don’t look as impressive now as they did then, but surely you can see past the grime and dust. As old as they are, they’re remarkably preserved.”
As Lorraine listened to him praising the condition of the contents, she realized he was only in awe as an archeologist. Not as a man who’d recognized something extraordinary from his past. To him, the chest only meant exhilaration on a tangible level, and that realization nearly brought her to tears.
The blow of gut-wrenching disappointment left her nauseated and dizzy. She touched her hand to her chest, the thudding of her heart hammering against her palm. Hot tears welled up in her eyes and the knot in her throat swelled to an unmerciful lump.
In peril of passing out, Leif completely misread her outward emotions. “I’m short of words as well. And to think I owe it all to you. I just wish I knew where in the world I heard that story. I know I must have read about it somewhere, but for the life of me I’m clueless. I don’t know….maybe I heard one of the locals talking about it in a pub somewhere.”
Leif oblivious blabber crushed her like a heavy bolder. “I can’t believe this,” she gasped, closing her eyes to the pain in her heart.
Gingerly, he grabbed her by the arms and looked at her. “I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “I’m such an insensitive jerk. You just gave me something from the heart and I dismissed it coldly. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not that. I don’t care about the stupid music box.”
The brusque quality of her voice marked by the bluntness of her statement drew his face backward. “What is it then?”
“You don’t recognize the chest, do you?”
“But I do. Because of you, I believe I’ve uncovered an alliance endowment between an Irish chieftain and a foreigner from the Dark Ages. Now I’ve not discovered the identity of the foreigner, but I’m betting that it’s a Scandinavian man—your merchant the dying king came upon. Obviously, this is going to take more research, but since I’ve already traced my ancestors to this very island, I have high hopes that someone from my lineage settled here and had knowledge of the chest.”
Hearing Leif speak of the chest with such disconnection left her feeling dejected. Over and over she heard the words that disassociated him from the chest, which he should have, by all rights, remembered. She was weak and distraught from the roller coaster ride of emotions she had endured in the last few minutes. At one time, she was lightsome and joyous as she sat beside him watching him open his gifts. Then she was jolted with sheer exhilaration upon seeing the chest, only to be shot back down, her heart bleeding, draining the life out of her. It brought her to a level of despair she’d only known one other time; when Dægan had died in her arms.
She closed her eyes, hiding the pain she fought to conceal. She felt his hand beneath her chin, his thumb brushing against her cheek.
“Are you crying?” His voice was soft and kind, making it that much harder not to break down in front of him. “Rain, tell me what’s wrong. I don’t understand why you’re upset.”
“Because you don’t remember anything,” she whimpered, her voice choking behind the knot in her throat. “You don’t remember who you are, who you used to be, what we used to be to each other.”
Confusion slanted his eyes. “I want to understand, but I’m having a difficult time following you. What do you mean who we used to be?”
This was the moment she feared. The moment she’d be forced to explain, knowing he wasn’t ready to accept the unfathomable truth. Her heart pounded erratically in her chest, testing her strength and courage beyond what she possessed at the moment.
Drawing a deep breath, she straightened her back and held fast to the determination of making him understand. “Leif,” she wheezed, feeling her apprehension tightening around her neck like a noose. “You are the merchant the dying king gave the chest to. You are the foreigner that offered the chest to the Connacht king as a peace offering. The chest is the wedding gift you gave me in hopes that I might realize how much you loved me.”
Leif stiffened, and slowly removed his hands from her. He looked at her as though she’d spoke to him in an unknown language.
Knowing she had to explain herself quickly, she grabbed his hands and squeezed. “Let’s go in a different direction,” she proposed. “Where did you say you dug up the chest?” Even if she were blind, she’d be a fool not to notice the uneasiness on his face.
“Beneath my porch, just outside the perimeter of my house.”
She looked behind her, determining her bearings. “If I drew a straight line from here to the outside, is that where you found it?”
“Yes.” The incredulous tone of his one-word reply cut her like a dull knife, slow and excruciating.
She stood up examining the direction of the outer walls and the width of the room. Drawing an imaginary line with her hands, she paced out the steps as she imagined the length of Dægan’s longhouse and where it would have stood, given the location of the chest. “I need you to imagine a longhouse, running perpendicular from the lay of your cottage. Since you’re an archaeologist, I assume you’re aware of their general dimensions and layout. And it wouldn’t be hard to envision your bedroom as the private chambers sitting off the main room where a central hearth would exist.”
“Rain—”
“No, please, let me finish. I beg you let me explain.”
An aggravated sigh spat from his thinned lips, taking another piece of her heart. Ignoring the
detriment to her strength of mind, she trudged on, using details she knew he’d understand. She could only hope it would give credit to her, demonstrating that she wasn’t just plain crazy.
“In the days of Harold ‘the Fairhair’ and Niall Glundubh, you and I had fallen in love during a time a great upheaval. I was a princess of Connacht and you were a mighty warrior chieftain of Norway, two very different people who should have never found love in each other. But we did. To protect me, you brought me here to Inis Mór and we married, securing an alliance between the Irish natives of the island and your Norse family. You needed this alliance so you weren’t forced to uproot your family again. We lived here,” she denoted, recalling the nights she’d spent lying in Dægan’s bed. “We were husband and wife…and we were so happy.” In thinking of how short lived their joy spanned, her smile faded. “We were only together for a little over a fortnight. Your heinous brother had come to the isle and, in revenge, took me from you. He thought he had killed you, and all of your men, as he burned our homes to the ground, so he’d be free to barter with the Connacht king. But you came for me. You and your great army saved me and, in turn, spared my father the fight he would have been faced with to save his reign. Tragically, you had sustained many great wounds and after sailing back to the isle, you died in my arms. I held you as you took your last breaths.”
The room was so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop. She wasn’t sure if Leif was being respectful and letting her grieve through this moment, or if he was too shocked to speak. Gathering her bravado once again, she wiped the tears from her face and sniffed. A slight hint of rain suddenly infused her senses. At first she wrote it off as a common smell, given she was in Ireland, but the more she inhaled, the more prominent it became until she couldn’t ignore it anymore.
“Do you smell that?” she asked timidly.
Leif stood, his face unreadable. “Smell what?”
“Rain,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I smell rain.”
Rolling his eyes, he discounted her observation and berated her with hard cold scorn. “We are in Ireland.”
Had it not been for the height of her rising emotions, his harsh derisive statement would have cut her to the quick. A blissful warmth armored her from the chill of his indifference as she drew in another long breath of rain.
Gasping with excitement, she exclaimed, “The book! It’s here…” Frantically, she looked around her, drawing in deep gulps of air as she tried to sniff out the whereabouts of St. Ciarán’s Gospels.
Leif slapped his hands to his hips, frustration pervading him. “What are you doing?”
“The book of St. Ciarán’s Gospels…I smell it.” She ripped open his closet doors, the aroma of rain overwhelming her now. “Here,” she pointed to the floor. “It’s got to be buried here, beneath your floor. And that would make sense because this is about the location of our bed chamber where you hid it once before.”
“Rain—”
She dropped to her knees, running her fingers along the baseboard, searching for a gap. “If you pull up this floor, I know you’ll find it. And if you hold it in your hands I know you’ll remember. It was the book your father used to help your family survive a cruel winter when he was alive and it’s the same book you held fast to—”
“Rain,” he interrupted, his voice raising.
“Help me,” she pleaded, shooting him a look of desperation. “It’s here. It’s the book you treasured. The book you showed me the night of our wedding and if you’d just help me, I know we’ll find it and—”
Leif jerked her to her feet, his eyes as dark as midnight. “It’s time for you to go.”
She gripped his arms, the feeling of rising water mounting all around her, threatening to drown her. “Please, don’t do this. You have to believe me. You have to listen to what I’m telling you.”
“I’ve heard enough,” he said, dragging her from his room down the hall. The icy grip of his hand around her elbow bit all the way to her bone. Leif had never acted this harsh toward her and it sickened her. Her heart bled for the chance to make him understand, but with the points of his fingertips pinching her arm, she didn’t dare try. Not now. It was obvious to her Leif needed some time to think, some time to let it all sink in. She was a patient woman. She’d give him all the time he needed.
Stopping at the guest room, he looked down his nose at her. “Get your things, and go.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Lorraine gasped for air, as if her life depended on it. Leif was shoving her out of his life for good and she couldn’t do a thing about it. All that she had worked so hard for was gone. Like a thief in the night, all her hopes and dreams of reuniting with her long lost love had vanished. By the intimidating look in his eyes, the hard angles of his face took on a malevolent appearance. The enormity of his muscular body no longer appealed to her as he towered over her like a monstrous heathen. Though every part of her wanted to shrink with spinelessness, she refused to cower.
“I know you’re upset. But think about us. Think about how we connected so strongly with each. There’s a reason.” She reached out to put her hand on his heart in order to depict being joined at the heart, but he wrapped his callused hand around her wrist and jerked it away.
“How dare you, Rain. How dare you take the words from my heart and twist them to fit into your outlandish fabrication of lies. I cannot believe you’d be so low as to take my life’s work and passion and turn it into a farce. I trusted you.”
“And you still can,” she insisted.
He scoffed at her. “Not anymore. You’re not the woman I thought you were. All this time I’d been giving you the benefit of the doubt, excusing your peculiar behavior and your strange outbursts for a head injury, when in fact, you were just playing on my emotions, toying with my feelings. I’ll admit, I was taken by you. I thought what we had was special. I might go so far as to say I was falling in love with you.”
Lorraine dropped her chin to her chest. She didn’t have to look at him to know there was an impending ‘however’ waiting to unfold.
“But I was a fool. I was blinded by your beauty and deceived by your innocence.”
Hot tears burned Lorraine’s eyes. She felt as if she was stuck in the middle of a nightmare with no way to wake up. “I’m not lying to you. I would never lie to you. What I’ve said is the honest truth. You are the reincarnated Dægan Ræliksen, my husband.”
Devoid of emotion, Leif dismissed her heartfelt words. “And you’re crazy as a loon.”
“Whoa…” Kristoff said, coming around the corner of the hallway.
After glancing between her and Leif, he realizing the thick tension in the air and backtracked. “I’ll just come back.”
“No,” Leif retorted, holding up his hand. “Lorraine was just leaving.”
She held Kristoff’s gaze for a few lengthy awkward moments, watching the brother battle against his intuition. “Seriously guys, I didn’t know you were….and I should’ve knocked.”
“It’s not a problem. She’s leaving.” The blunt finality of Leif’s announcement was like a slap in the face. The sting of his cruelty prickled under her skin.
“Better yet, Kristoff,” Leif offered. “I’d appreciate it if you’d get her out of here.”
Kristoff stammered. “Leif, don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
Leif ignored his brother and glared at her. “Get your things, and go.”
She had one last chance, though she knew deep down it was a shot in the dark. “What about us? What about all we’ve shared together.”
“The only thing we shared was an obsessive desire to encourage love when it never existed to begin with. Some of us a little more fanatical than the other.”
Leif practically sprinted as he turned away from her and stormed into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. The loud blast of wood hitting wood caused her to jump, squeezing her eyes against the severity of the sound. As she turned to get dressed and gather her things from the guest
room, her entire world crashed down around her.
****
Lorraine sat in Kristoff’s carriage, the beautiful scenery of Ireland’s craggy fields of flowers and stone passing by her as if they weren’t even there. She couldn’t appreciate the open meadows of wild roses and saxifrage. She couldn’t feel the warm sun baking her in the Aran sweater she donned. She couldn’t feel the bumps in the road jostling her about the bench. She was numb, in shock by what had just transpired between her and Leif.
She replayed the morning over and over in her head. She was so absorbed in remembering the last words Leif had spat at her, that she didn’t even feel the gentle rock of carriage coming to a halt.
“Rain,” Kristoff said apprehensively as he climbed into the carriage with her. “What happened back there?”
Lorraine looked up and saw him sitting across from her, his eyes full of sympathy. He looked and sounded so much like Leif at that moment and the realization overwhelmed her to the point of tears. “I’m sorry, Kristoff. I can’t.” Gathering her things, she leaped from the carriage and ran to the safety of her cottage.
****
Kristoff knocked tentatively on Leif’s front door before entering. Seeing his brother on the couch, staring off into nothing, he closed the door quietly behind him. “Want to tell me what hell is going on?”
Leif hardly acknowledged him. “Not really.”
Kristoff sighed and sat beside him. “She’s really upset.”
Leif closed his eyes. Part of him didn’t want to care that he had broken her heart. He wanted to forget her and move on. The other part couldn’t ignore his brother’s words and he felt the heavy weight of regret. No matter how hard he tried, he longed to run to her and take her in his arms, to make up another excuse for her neurotic behavior so he’d feel better about falling for her. Even if he did run to her, he had no idea what he’d say, but the notion of feeling her against him felt so right.
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