Page 53 of Truly, Madly Viking

Police were called and an APB put out with his description, to no avail. Other patients were questioned.

He'd told no one of his plans, not even Steve, who was desolate without his new friend, especially with all the media publicity he'd reluctantly attracted as a result of the report at the Moving Wall. Area hospitals reported no injured Norsemen of his size in their emergency rooms. Maggie even searched the Orcaland site on several ocasions. Nothing.

Was he lost?

Had he died? Perhaps he had swum out into the bay, hoping to connect with his special killer whale, and drowned instead.

A heavy grief settled over Maggie, and over the hospital wing where Joe had touched so many people.

Suzy and Beth were devastated that they'd lost the man they had chosen as a father before they'd actually met him. She had talked to Harry about it, and neither of them could figure out what there was about this man that had affected them all so strongly.

So it was that one week passed, then a second, finally three weeks, with no sign of the mysterious man who had shown up in their lives suddenly, and just as suddenly disappeared.

Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. Maggie hated negativity, but she couldn't find much to be thankful for, not with Joe missing.

Where was Joe spending his nights? Was he cold? Was he hungry? Was he alone?

That night Maggie began a brand-new practice... one she would never admit to anyone, not even her daughters. She was wishing on a star, and her refrain was always the same.

"Come home, Joe."

At seven o'clock that night, there was a loud pounding at the front door. Rita jumped from her favorite perch on the window seat of the front bay window, where she had been snoozing. With a long mewling "Meeooow," she stretched and ambled toward the entryway. More persistent knocking followed.

Maggie assumed it was Suzy and Beth coming home from church choir practice. Even though November wasn't over, rehearsals for the annual Christmas concert were already in full swing.

But why hadn't they used their keys to open the door? Ha! Silly question. As usual, their arms were probably too full of the backpacks and whatnot that young girls felt the need to cart everywhere they went.

She swung the door wide. "Just in time. Dinner's about ready. We're having your fav—"

It wasn't her daughters. It was Joe. And, even through the light drizzle of rain, she could see that he looked awful.

She should have been angry that he'd left the hospital without notice, and had been missing for three long weeks.

She should have slammed the door in his face for breaking his therapy contract, thus barring him from returning to the clinic as a patient.

She should have been dismayed that he'd come to her home—a no-no for mental patients and their psychologists.

Instead she opened her arms wide and hugged him tightly. She was just so glad to see him again... to know he was safe.

He hugged her back just as fiercely. For several long moments they stood silently on her front doorstep, locked in the tight embrace, regardless of Rita hissing behind them, and a curious neighbor, Mrs.

Watkins, walking her Pekingese along the front sidewalk.

Finally she drew back and studied his haggard, whiskered face with concern. He must not have shaved since he'd left the hospital. His usually lustrous hair, which he normally tied back into a queue at his neck, was wild and matted, barely recognizable as being a pale blond color. He wore the same clothing he'd left with, blue jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt, both of which were dirty and torn in places. Most ominous was the lethal sword that he wore in a scabbard attached to the wide leather belt at his waist.

Had he used that sword on anyone or anything?

"Come in," she ordered, as she realized he was shivering.

He hesitated. "Are you alone?"

She cocked her head in question. Apparently, despite his need for care, he was reluctant to enter her house unless she was alone. Then she understood. Her daughters—her twin daughters—that was whom he wanted to avoid. "I'm alone."

His body relaxed visibly, and he stepped inside. There was a loud hissing noise, and a white ball of fur hurled itself toward Joe. Maggie's forehead creased with puzzlement and her hands went out instinctively to protect Joe. Rita wasn't usually hostile. He put an arm over his face to defend himself, but Rita had already attached her front claws to his shirt and her back claws to the lower part of his anatomy. Her tail thickened, her body stiffened, and her fur stood on end. She even began to shed fur like mad.

"Don't move," Maggie cautioned Joe as she began to gently extricate Rita's claws.

"Move?" Joe choked out. "I can scarce breathe for the proximity of the beast's talons to my male parts.