Rough and Ready (7 page)

"A few… a few minutes?" he sputtered.

"Yea," she said slowly, suspecting that she had stepped into some hole of his making.

"Number one, making love with a man should take more than a few minutes.

Number

two, I am rarely satisfied with one bout of tupping. Number three, you've been missing out on a whole lot in your life, sweetheart."

Her face felt hot as if she had been standing near a hearth fire. "Number one, do not call me sweetling. I am not your sweetling. Number two, how many bouts?

Number three, how long each time?"

Torolf was shaking his head and laughing. She did not care. This was important business to her. They may never again get such an opportunity to learn military skills.

"Probably three or four times each night, and, oh, let's say an hour or two each time."

Her jaw dropped. "You cannot be serious."

"Hey, I'm virile."

"Your self-love is impressive."

On the other side of Torolf, the dark-haired man wearing a strange hat and gold ring in one ear, with the odd name of Cage, was blatantly listening in on their conversation, laughing so hard tears were brimming over in his eyes.

"You have my consent," Hilda said with disgust.

"Huh?" It was Torolf's turn to have his jaw drop.

"You may swive me for one night, dusk to dawn."

Torolf's jaw dropped farther, and the laughing rogue beside him said something that sounded like, "Way to go, dude!"

As she got up to go to the scullery and advise Frida on the meal to be served when the men broke fast in the morning, she heard Torolf murmur, "Oh… my…

God!"

Praying… the lout is praying at a time like this. Truly, I do not understand men.

MTV it was not…

Torolf watched Hilda walk away, head held high, hips swishing from side to side.

If she only knew that he was watching her heart-shaped ass, she would have a fit… probably clomp him over the head with a cooking ladle.

"What a woman!" he murmured. She surprised him at every turn, especially the way she'd taken all the disasters that had come her way and risen above them.

Steinolf hadn't defeated her and these other women… not totally. And Torolf couldn't help but admire that.

But offering to sleep with me? Holy shit! I was teasing, and she took me seriously. She's gonna kill me when she finds out.

In the distance outside, he could hear the dog, Stig, howling his opposition to being locked up. The animal had developed an unnatural attraction to his leg, much to the embarrassment of the women and the amusement of his buddies.

Hilda was talking now with another woman standing in the circle of people surrounding the lute player. He could tell by the way the other women deferred to Hilda that she held a place of great respect in this community.

"Hilda hoisted you on your own petard, my friend." Sitting beside him, Cage passed him another full cup of mead.

Torolf raised his mug to his friend. "Skál! "

"Ditto," Cage replied with a grin. "This stuff is great, by the way. Better than beer."

"Be careful. It's more potent. Its wallop can hit you like a grenade in a Taliban cave."

"Hey, after the day we've had, I deserve a wallop or two."

The guys still didn't believe that time travel had taken place. They honest-to-God thought this was some kind of loony reenactment place, like that pioneer village that Oprah went to one time. They probably hadn't thought it through yet; otherwise, they would've questioned the shipwreck and the missing people who'd been traveling with them and the unsettled terrain. He would have to set them straight soon.

"So, you gonna do the dirty with the nun-witch?" Cage asked with a big Cajun grin.

"Hell, no! I was just kidding. Threw me for a loop when she offered that. And I guarantee that these women are not witches. Definitely not nuns, either, by the way they're making moves on us."

"Yeah, isn't that great? Kinda nice to have the tables turned. Not that women don't hit on me all the time."

Something is fishy in paradise. Sex on a platter, no strings? Nope, I'm not buyin' it.

"Did ya know that some of these women have been here fer five years… without men?" Cage waggled his eyebrows at him. "And not even a vibrator available."

Torolf laughed. "Since when do you know women with vibrators?"

"You'd be surprised, big boy!" Cage took another drink of mead. "Like my maw maw allus says, 'Fer every old slipper there's another old slipper.' I think you and Hildy make a great pair."

Just great! Now I'm an old slipper. And Cage is back to the matchmaking crap again. "Why? Because she smells like sheep shit?"

Cage laughed. "You could hold your nose while she's holding your—"

"Enough! I'm not going to sleep with Hilda. I don't need to 'pay' to get laid."

"Does that mean we're not gonna teach these babes to fight?"

"I don't know." He rubbed his forehead with his hand. His head still ached, despite the good ministering and the "megrim powder" given to him by the resident healer, a woman missing her two front teeth. The whole time she'd been stitching the cut on his scalp, she'd been rubbing her voluminous breasts against his shoulder. Apparently, she eyed him as a potential bed partner.

Just then, he noticed Pretty Boy making his way through the crowd. All day he'd been bird-dogging Britta the Big, who didn't want anything to do with him.

Probably playing hard to get, which would be a switch for Pretty Boy. Pretty Boy was talking to the lute player. Then the lute player stood, and he sat down.

"What? Does he think a lute is the same as a guitar?" Torolf asked.

"I guess so. They're both string instruments that ya pluck with the fingers.

But

I cain't imagine they'd sound the same," Cage said.

Pretty Boy played the guitar as a hobby. When he was blitzed, he sometimes went up on the stage at the Wet and Wild and joined the band in a few numbers.

"Sit down, everyone," Pretty Boy ordered. When many of them were sitting on the hard-packed dirt floor, he began to strum, experimenting with different strings.

It didn't sound at all like a guitar, but it wasn't bad.

"I don't recognize that song. Do you?" Cage was into all kinds of music, especially Cajun. And dancing. Lordy, the boy could dance!

"Shiiit! That Pretty Boy is so freakin' smooth. How does he do it?" It was Geek speaking now as he came up and plopped down on a big chair on Torolf's other side.

Torolf and Cage gazed at Geek with frowns of confusion as Pretty Boy began to sing. Now they understood. He was singing Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl,"

and

he was staring at Britta standing on the other side of the room. Slowly, everyone began to grasp that Pretty Boy was singing a love song to his girl—or who he hoped would be his girl—and they alternately swooned over his singing or craned their necks to see Britta's reaction. Pretty Boy would wear her down eventually. He always did.

"Yep. That boy is smoother 'n gator spit." Cage grinned with admiration. "I thought I had smooth down to an art form, but he's got me beat by a bayou mile."

Torolf had to agree.

After that, Pretty Boy played a few country songs. "Your Cheatin' Heart" went over big with the ladies, who kept nodding their heads in agreement.

Apparently,

they'd met a few wandering boys in their day. Then he tried Ray Charles's "Hit

the Road, Jack," which also rang a few memory bells in these babes. Willie Nelson's "Always on My Mind" had them swooning again. When he sang "Sixty Minute Man," the women didn't understand, but they liked the ballad nonetheless.

After a while, Cage stood, put his hands to his mouth, and yelled, "Hey, guitar man, how 'bout some dancin' music?" Then he turned to Torolf and Geek.

"C'mon.

We cain't let Pretty Boy take over this party."

Torolf declined, but Geek limped off with Cage. JAM was at the far end of the hall talking earnestly with some woman. Knowing him, they were probably discussing religion rather than her preference for bottom or top. JAM had been pretty serious with a schoolteacher a year or so ago. Torolf had no idea what happened, just that JAM told them it was over.

The party really took off then, as Cage and a limping Geek taught the women how to twist to that old Chubby Checker song, "Let's Twist Again." Then, "Shake It Up Baby." The women were shocked at first, especially when the guys encouraged them to "shake it on out," but then they gave it the old college try, and soon, after a number of lively songs, many of them mastered the moves of the twist.

Torolf wished his brother Ragnor were here to witness these Dark Ages ladies lifting the hems of their gunnas to do the twist. Not to mention shaking their bonbons like modern women did.

After they all made fools of themselves for a couple more songs, laughing like hyenas, Pretty Boy called out, "This is the last song, folks." Then he played a few chords, starting with the lyrics, "People say I'm the life of the party…"

Torolf laughed. That was a cue, if there ever was one, in light of Hilda's criticism of him earlier. He saw Hilda standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen and walked over to her. "Wanna dance?"

"Nay!" She looked at him as if he'd asked her to strip naked and do the hula.

Cage and Geek, even JAM now, were attempting to teach some women how to slow dance.

"C'mon, Hildy." He held his arms out to her.

"I do not dance."

"Are you afraid if you get close to me, you won't be able to resist my charms?"

Her damn-the-torpedoes blue eyes practically shot sparks at him, and she stepped forward into his arms, taking hold of his hands, instead of letting him hold her in a dance position. She must think they were going to slow dance a yard apart.

With a chuckle, he pulled her flush against his body and locked his hands behind her waist before she could shove him away, which she tried hard to do, muttering such endearments as "Big oaf!" "Loathsome lout!" "Arrogant son of a maggoty flea!"

"Hold still. I'm trying to teach you how to dance."

They swayed from side to side.

"This is not dancing. 'Tis nigh fornicating."

I know. That's the only reason most men dance. Foreplay. "That's how they dance in my country."

"I can hardly credit that. 'Tis scandalous."

Only when you struggle and rub your breasts against my chest.

Eventually, she relaxed. She even let him put her hands on his shoulders.

"I see you changed your clothes."

Hilda had combed her pale blonde hair and rebraided it into a single plait down her back. Her gown was plain drab brown, but clean. She was tall, slim, with a narrow waist and small breasts. In a pair of tight jeans and a tank top, she wouldn't look half bad, despite the lack of cleavage. She wasn't beautiful by any means. Her lips were too large for her face, and there was that slight space between her two front teeth.

He sniffed her neck. "You smell good." She had bathed. He recognized the same pine-scented soap he'd used earlier.

"I didn't do it for you," she said defensively. "Stop holding me so close."

You ain't seen nothin' yet, toots. "Stop complaining."

"Stop smelling my neck."

He laughed and licked the curve of her neck, which was exposed by the collarless gown. And surprised himself at how good it felt. Okay, not just good. He'd felt an erotic shock shoot from his tongue on her neck down to his most favorite body part. Amazing! He was getting turned on by good ol' Hildy.

She gasped with shock.

In Torolf's experience, it was always good to make a woman gasp once in a while.

"I can feel your heart beating."

"No wonder. You're squashing me."

Liar! You're probably getting horny, too. Okay, maybe not horny, but slightly aroused. Okay, maybe not aroused. But not disgusted. That's something. "Are you listening to the lyrics of this song, Hildy? It's about a guy who's a clown on the outside, but inside he's crying."

She stopped struggling. "Are you crying inside?"

Hell, no! "Maybe."

"Are you going to start teaching us women how to fight on the morrow?"

He shrugged. "What would you do if I kissed you?"

"Do not dare. I agreed to let you tup me for a night. I ne'er agreed to any kissing."

Hilda, Hilda, Hilda! You do have a knack for stepping into my traps. "Didn't you know that kissing is part of… tupping?"

"Always?"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Is that another custom in your new land?"

"Yep!"

"I never know when you are teasing and when you are telling the truth."

Thank God!

"Exactly where is this new land where you live?"

"I told you. America. Far, far away." Like five thousand miles and a thousand years.

She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. "Have you been hiding out in the Arab lands? Perchance with a harem of your own? Swiving everything in sight?"

Sonoma, California, is a long way from the Arab lands, although I have been in Iraq and Afghanistan lately. "I'm wounded that you have such a low opinion of me." Actually, I'm more amused than anything.

" 'Tis not you precisely that I view in that manner, but all men who think with their dangly parts instead of their heads."

He just smiled. Hilda just blathered on, never realizing how some of the things she said came off.

"If not the Arab lands, then where is this Ah-mare-eek-ah?"

He hesitated, then leaned his head back so he could look at her. Pretty Boy had stopped playing, anyhow. "Do you want the truth?"

"Of course."

"I live a thousand years into the future now."

She made a snorting sound of disgust, obviously thinking that he teased again.

"I time-traveled."

She snorted again.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." He made the sign of the cross on his chest.

"A

dozen years ago, my family and I traveled into the future a thousand years.

And

now I have come back."

She shoved herself out of his arms. "You must consider me half-brained if you think I would believe such folly."