Page 124 of Hot & Heavy

To each of them in turn, Torolf said, "No. No. No. No." Then he addressed Magnus. "Father, I am the only adult male in our family with no wife or children. I will go."

Thus it was that a U.S. Navy SEAL made plans to go back in time. Some people said that SEALs were a little bit crazy. Torolf would for damn sure prove that to be true… or die trying.

Everyone needs to be needed…

Madrene felt useless.

There was nothing for her to do, especially since she'd been told in no uncertain terms that Torolf would be the one to go back to Norstead, that she was no longer needed to raise an army. "That beast Steinolf will be dead by year's end, that I guarantee," her father had told her with a patronizing pat on the back.

She was not all that upset about not going back to her own time. If she did not have Ian, it would be another story. Then, for a certainty, she would return to run the royal estate alongside Torolf.

For now, everyone told her to just relax. Well, she was relaxed up to her bloody eyebrows. She wanted

… nay, needed… work to do.

But when she offered to help oversee the household, Angela and her grandmother told her kindly that they had a housekeeper to take care of that.

"How about cooking?" she asked.

Turned out the housekeeper cooked, too. And used vast quantities of garlic. Angela came from an Eye-tally-on family which cherished the garlic cloves in most of their food. And once again, the garlic turned her stomach. Several times, she'd had to rush, without causing attention, to the bathing chamber to throw up the contents of her stomach into the toy-let. She must have developed some kind of bodily reaction to garlic, she supposed, just like Hilda the Dour used to break out in a rash when she ate strawberries.

Her father, Kolbein, Hamr, Jogeir and Njal were out in the vineyards trimming back the vines. When she'd offered to help, they told her it was man's work. That outrageous statement caused her to lash them with her tongue good and loud. It did her no good. In the end, they went off without her.

The uncles and their families had gone back to their respective homes, along with Storvald. Ragnor and Alison planned to drive back to Coronado this afternoon, where Alison was a doctor—the modern word for a healer—and Ragnor worked in Sandy-egg-go with computers, just like Geek. At one time Ragnor had planned to become a SEAL, too, but he'd decided he preferred working with his mind.

"Take me back with you," she said to Ragnor.

It was the first time she'd even hinted of her unhappiness here with her family.

Ragnor, who was helping his wife pack a leather carrying bag, looked up at her with surprise.

"Of course you can come, Madrene," Alison said, "but you know that Ian won't be back until the weekend."

"It matters not. At least I would have something to do. I could clean his house, even if he keeps it spotless. I could rearrange his socks and underbraies so that the vein pops out in his forehead when he sees they are not in their usual places. I could play with the cat."

"Have you told Father or Angela that you need something to occupy you?"

"Yea, I have. They tell me to relax."

They left without her, finally, when her father promised to go out on the morrow and buy her a loom to weave some fabrics. A loom! For the love of Frigg! I need a man, not a loom.

She went upstairs and sat on the bed, waiting for Ian's nightly call. Then she got a whiff of the red sauce cooking down in the kitchen… the red sauce highly seasoned with garlic… and ran for the bathing chamber.

At least it gave her something to do.

I've got a secret…

When Ian called Maddie that night, she kept blubbering stuff about looms, and garlic, and bullheaded men, and a family that no longer needed her.

"Slow down, sweetie, and tell me what's wrong."

"All these years I dreamed about how it would be if my family were still with me. What I failed to recall is what my father's households are like—full of disorder and noise and people and things I do not understand."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to go home."

Ian's heart stopped. He had to ask, but he didn't want to. "What home?"