A Restored Viking: Sveyn & Hollis: Part Two (The Hansen Series - Sveyn & Hollis Book 2)

by Kris Tualla

  She flipped the lock and pulled the door open. “Yes, sorry.”

  Stevie looked past her, her concern obvious. “Are you alone?”

  “Of course. I just needed a minute.” Hollis stepped past the normally perky blonde.

  Stevie, however, didn’t budge. “I thought I heard a man’s voice.”

  Hollis turned back slowly. “You did?”

  Stevie faced her squarely. “What’s going on?”

  Sveyn looked at her over the top of Stevie’s head. “Tell her about Matt.”

  Duh.

  “We have a guest this evening who I never in a million years expected to see.” Hollis wrinkled her nose like something smelled bad. “It caught me off guard and I needed to compose myself.”

  Stevie’s brow plunged. “Who?”

  “Matt.”

  “Matt, who?” Realization exploded her expression. “Your Matt?”

  “Yep. That’s the one.”

  Stevie was obviously still confused. She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Were you talking to him in there?”

  “No. I was planning what I was going to say to him in there.” Hollis looked purposefully sheepish. “I was saying what I expected him to say, and then coming up with my responses.”

  “So that deep voice was you?” Stevie’s skepticism dripped from her words.

  “It’s really stupid. I know,” Hollis diverted; she would think about the fact that Stevie could hear Sveyn’s voice at another time. “But you know how it is when you think of a great comeback way too late? I just wanted to have some snark pre-loaded in my arsenal.”

  Stevie gave a reluctant grin of acceptance. “You’ll have to introduce me.”

  “Absolutely. And Miranda.” Hollis started walking back to the gathering. “You both need to see what I was up against.”

  Matt was still in the lobby. Clearly he didn’t want to miss seeing her return.

  “Is that him?” Stevie whispered. “Be still my heart…”

  Hollis had to admit that Matt Wallace was a handsome man. Just shy of six feet, he had neat dark hair and rusty brown eyes highlighted with gold streaks.

  In that custom tailored tux, he was to die for.

  “Ah, you’re back.” Matt handed Hollis one of the two flutes he held. “I took the liberty.”

  Hollis accepted the champagne. “This is Stevie Phillips. She’s the Registrar I have been working with on this project. Stevie, this is Matt Wallace.”

  Matt grinned charmingly at Stevie, offering the second flute. “And so this is for you.”

  Stevie smiled. “Thank you.”

  Matt gave them a hint of a bow. “Please excuse me while I get another. Would you ladies like any canapés?”

  Hollis shook her head. “No. Thank you.”

  “Stevie?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  As he walked away, Stevie whirled to face Hollis. “Okay, now I understand why you stuck it out for ten years. He’s charming and drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “It’s true,” Hollis admitted. “And out of my league, as it turned out.”

  “Pfft. Not even!” Stevie sipped the champagne and glanced back at Matt. “But I do have another question.”

  “And that is?” Hollis prompted.

  Stevie faced her again, her expression comically bemused. “Were you really willing to become Mrs. Hollis Wallace?”

  *****

  Even Sveyn laughed. “If you were a criminal, you would be the lawless Hollis Wallace!” he quipped.

  Hollis bit her lower lip. “I, uh, wasn’t going to change my name.”

  “And your beauty is unsurpassed!” Sveyn howled. “Flawless and lawless Hollis Wallace!”

  Hollis coughed to hide her laugh.

  Stevie frowned. “Are you all right?”

  “Fierce as a lioness, but in actuality harmless…” Sveyn dropped to his knees, holding his belly. “Flawless and lawless, Hollis Wallace is clawless!”

  “Shut up—or you’ll be jawless,” Hollis said through clenched teeth.

  Stevie glared at her. “Why are you threatening me?”

  Sveyn flopped on the floor, kicking his feet. “Stop! I can’t breathe!”

  “No kidding!” Hollis scrubbed her palm over her mouth. Her hilarity surged behind her hand and she was losing the battle to contain it.

  Stevie stomped a foot. “Hollis, you’re not making sense.”

  Matt returned with his drink. “What’s going on?”

  Sveyn sat up. “I’ll end up jawless for saying it, but the flawless and lawless, Hollis Wallace, is clawless!”

  Hollis succumbed, laughing at apparently nothing. “Well you look like a walrus!”

  Sveyn bellowed his glee. “And you are found out!”

  Heads began to turn in her direction as Hollis realized her blunder. “A—a silly sentence popped into my head. Rhyming.”

  “What was it?” Matt asked.

  Hollis snorted, then covered her mouth. “If I married you and became a criminal, I’d be the lawless Hollis Wallace.”

  People around them smiled faintly, looked at her like she was a few bulbs short of a chandelier, and then went back to their conversations as they edged away from her.

  Sveyn climbed to his feet. “Oh my God—when did I laugh so hard?”

  “Oh my god!” Stevie jumped back. “Did you see that?”

  “What?” Matt asked. His gaze swept the area.

  “Your angel!” Stevie pointed at Sveyn. “He was right there!”

  Matt frowned at her. “Are you saying that’s real?”

  “No!” Hollis stepped in front of the still-heaving Viking. “I mean, there is some sort of—something—that showed up. But no one here has actually seen him. I mean it.”

  Matt faced Stevie. “What did it look like?”

  “A tall, brown, smudge of smoke.” Stevie tipped her head toward Hollis. “She says it’s here to guard the Nordic icon.”

  “The Blessing of the Gods?” Matt turned to Hollis. “Is that true?”

  Intense emotion made Sveyn momentarily visible.

  And apparently the emotion didn’t have to be negative. That was an interesting new twist.

  If that was true, Hollis needed to cap this precarious well of speculation and pretty darn quickly. “First of all, I have no idea what is true. I’ve never had any experience with anything otherworldly before, so I’m no expert.”

  “Have you seen it?” Matt pressed.

  “I’ve seen the video,” was all she would admit to.

  “What’s second of all?” Matt was always good at pushing for details. The man never let anything slide past him.

  Hollis took a gulp of her champagne to buy herself a steadying moment.

  “Starting next Monday, we’ll have weekly visitors doing paranormal research.” She forced a smile. “If they actually find anything, we’ll let people know.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  Let it go, Matt. “I’m not sure about next week. But the week after is Ghost Myths, Inc.”

  Matt let out a low whistle. “That’s impressive. Those guys don’t go just anywhere.”

  Hollis looked at her watch. “Well I need to get back to the paying customers.”

  Matt leaned toward her. “I paid.”

  Hollis leveled her gaze at him. “I mean those whose opinion of the wing matters.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Apparently, even the insult wasn’t enough to dissuade Matt. Though Hollis stood at the door at nine o’clock and personally thanked everyone who attended, Matt waited for her until the last guest—other than himself—had left.

  “You need to leave now,” Hollis held the door open. “And please hurry. It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted.”

  Matt paused in the doorway. “Can I take you to dinner tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “No?” He actually looked hurt. “Why not?”

  Hollis rolled her eyes. “What’s the point, Matt?”

  “I came all
this way to see you,” he cajoled. “How about lunch, then? I’ll come here and pick you up.”

  “I’m not working tomorrow.”

  “Ms. McKenna!” Benton’s voice echoed through the lobby as he wound his way through the scurrying caterers who were packing up. “There you are. What a triumph!”

  Hollis smiled tiredly. “Thank you sir.”

  “When you get in tomorrow come see me first off. I have news.”

  Crap-pants. “Of course.”

  Benton exited through the door Hollis still held open for Matt.

  Matt flashed a smug smile. “See you tomorrow at noon.”

  Hollis pulled the door closed behind him and locked it.

  Wednesday

  December 2

  The line waiting for the museum to open was astounding.

  “We never have a line—unless it’s a school group, of course.” Hollis drove around to the employee parking lot. “I guess the new wing was more anticipated than I expected.”

  “Hmph.” Sveyn hadn’t said much last night, spending his time scowling silently at the television. Between Matt’s appearance, and Stevie being able to hear him, and then see him when he was laughing so hard, the Viking seemed a bit off-kilter.

  “My existence no longer makes sense to me,” he said as they drove home. “I can smell things. And I can be seen at times by people to whom I did not manifest.”

  “That happens when your emotions are high.” Hollis stifled a huge yawn. “But I’m too tired tonight to think about it any more.”

  When she let herself into the museum’s back door, Stevie virtually pounced on her. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m supposed to go see Benton.” Hollis walked down the hall to her office. “Can it wait?”

  Stevie followed so closely that her leg bumped Hollis’s. “No. I’ll lose my mind if I have to wait any longer. Hurry up and get inside before Miranda sees you.”

  Hollis closed her office door and crossed to her desk. Though she dreaded the answer, there was no skirting the issue any longer. “What’s going on, Stevie?”

  Her friend stood in front of the desk, staring hard at her. “No, the question is what is going on with you.”

  Hollis opened her mouth to speak, but Stevie didn’t give her the chance. “Be honest with me, Hollis. I really need some answers.”

  “I do believe she means it,” Sveyn opined.

  “I know I heard a man talking to you in the ladies room last night,” Stevie continued. “And I saw—something—in the lobby. Something more clear than the shadows I thought I saw before.”

  Hollis sank into her chair, pushed down by the weight of the truth. Stevie now had enough of her own experiences with the apparition that she was not going to accept an I don’t know sort of answer anymore.

  “Oh, Stevie,” Hollis moaned. “You’re going to think I’m crazy. And then you’ll start avoiding me. That’ll lead to more questions, and rumors. And then I’ll end up having to leave the museum.”

  Stevie’s face paled. “I don’t want that to happen.”

  Hollis felt the prickle of tears. “Neither do I.”

  Stevie pulled the other chair around Hollis’s desk, so nothing separated the two women. She grabbed Hollis’s hand. “I feel like I’m going crazy. And if you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to completely lose it, I swear I am.”

  Hollis looked up at Sveyn. “What should I do?”

  His expression was resolute. “Tell her the truth.”

  Stevie looked in the direction Hollis was. “Are you talking to him?”

  “Yep.” Hollis returned her attention to her petite friend and drew a deep breath. “All right. I’ll tell you everything. All I ask is that you remember how sane I was for the first six months that you knew me.”

  Stevie quirked a smile. “Of course.”

  Hollis began her tale with, “It started when I went to that romance book weekend that Miranda paid for…”

  Over the next quarter hour, she told Stevie everything: how Sveyn was tethered to her, that she was the first woman he ever manifested to, that he bounced forward in time, never backwards, and that he had no control over his manifestations.

  Stevie looked stricken. “You mean he could disappear at any moment?”

  Hollis nodded.

  “How did he end up like this?”

  “He was run through the gut by a broadsword in ten-seventy.” Hollis glanced at the unchangeable bloodied slice in Sveyn’s leather vest. “As he lay on the ground dying, the priest was at his head giving him last rites. But the devil was pulling at his feet.”

  “Oh dear…” Stevie’s eyes widened.

  “He says there was a boom of thunder and a flash of lightning. When it cleared he was like he is now.”

  “A ghost?”

  “No. He didn’t die. He’s caught in between.”

  Stevie leaned back and let go of Hollis’s hand. “What will happen to him?”

  Hollis couldn’t look at the Viking or she would not be able to speak. “Someday he’ll leave me and manifest to someone in the future.”

  Stevie’s eye welled with tears. “That’s so sad.”

  Hollis nodded, but said nothing.

  “Has anyone else seen him?” Stevie reached for a tissue.

  Hollis decided to lie, lest Stevie decided to run to Tom the intern and compare notes. The fewer people who knew about this situation the better. “No.”

  “I guess I’m special, then.” Stevie blotted her eyes. “My grandma had the gift, as she called it. Said she could talk to spirits.”

  Hollis chose not to encourage that possibility. “The thing is, he says this is the first time this has happened.”

  She stopped dabbing. “What?”

  “The first time others can see evidence of him.”

  “Or hear him?” Stevie’s hands fell to her lap. “I did hear him, didn’t I? In the ladies’ room with you?”

  “Yes. But how?” Hollis tried to remember exactly what Sveyn said.

  “Intense emotion.”

  Hollis looked up at Sveyn. “What emotion?”

  Stevie turned her head in the same direction.

  “When I said I wished I could be more than I am for you.” Sveyn smiled softly. “And then I said you looked beautiful. My God, but I ached for you.”

  Stevie sucked a slow gasp. “How tall is he?”

  Hollis turned to her friend. “Six feet and five or six inches.”

  Stevie’s gaze shot back to hers. “Why is he brown?”

  Hollis felt a wash of relief so strong she was glad to be sitting; her knees would have buckled from it. “You can see him now?”

  “I did. Just for an instant.”

  Hollis sighed, glad to finally be able to talk about the Viking. “He looks as he did at that moment. Nothing can change. So he is dressed in leather pants, a leather vest, a linen shirt, and furry boots.”

  “What color is his hair?”

  “Dark blond.”

  “And his eyes?”

  “Blue.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Sveyn.” Hollis smiled softly. “Sveyn Hansen.”

  Stevie gave her a sheepish look. “Is he handsome?”

  Hollis felt a knife slice through her heart. “He is the most beautiful man I’ve ever met. Inside and out.”

  Sveyn snorted, clearly embarrassed by the praise.

  “Really? Better looking than Matt?” Stevie looked skeptical now. “Are you being honest, or are you just mad at Matt?”

  Hollis chuckled. “Both.”

  Someone knocked on Hollis’s door. “Come in.”

  Miranda opened the door. “So you are in here.” Her gaze bounced between Stevie and Hollis. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Just a super-secret planning session,” Hollis said the first thing she thought of and punctuated it with a laugh. “Some possible tweaks for the display.”

  “You’d better talk to Benton before you touch a thing,” M
iranda warned. “He’s as giddy as a girl over last night. He sent me to find you and send you to see him ASAP.”

  Hollis stood. “Tell him I’m on my way.”

  Miranda gave them another odd look, then left the door open when she walked away.

  Hollis regarded Stevie with the sternest expression she could manage. “Not one. Single. Word. Do you understand?” she whispered.

  “Cross my heart.” Stevie moved her index finger over her chest.

  “I mean it, Stevie.” Hollis pulled a steadying breath. “My professional life will be finished for good if anyone hears about this.”

  *****

  Hollis sat in front of Mr. Benton’s desk and listened to his seemingly unending recap of the previous evening’s gala, complete down to who said what about the collection in a long list of people she wasn’t acquainted with and probably never would be.

  “And did you know that there was a line of people outside the museum this morning waiting to get in?” he effused. “A line! We haven’t had a line since the museum opened!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The grinning director wagged a finger at Hollis. “It’s because of you and that Blessing.”

  “I beg to disagree,” she demurred.

  “No—it is. You have such a presence and it comes across beautifully on the small screen.” He chuckled. “Either on television or a computer monitor, you are captivating.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And when Ghost Myths, Inc. starts taping here, you’ll be representing the Arizona History and Cultural Center on an even larger scale!”

  Oh joy of joys.

  “If I might offer another opinion about the interest in the Kensington collection?” Hollis ventured.

  Benton gave her a dispensational wave. “Of course! Is it anything I can use to promote the museum?”

  “Maybe.” Hollis shifted in her chair. “As you know, I’ve been in Phoenix for less than a year, and as a museum professional I was disappointed in the options here, especially for such a large city.”

  Benton frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well…” Hollis swallowed. “It’s my opinion that the popularity of the new collection might be rooted in the fact that nothing in it originated in Arizona.”