Page 71 of Down and Dirty

“Of us having wild monkey sex?”

“Nay! I need no mind pictures to recall that.” She squeezed his hand tightly in reproval. “I believe I am having visions of things happening right now, in the past.”

“Are you talking about the nightmares?” He’d had to shake her awake from one of them.

She nodded.

“Maybe it’s just guilt or something.”

She shrugged. “Mayhap. But I am beginning to think there was some method to this madness of my time travel.” And it is a madness in itself that I am accepting the concept of time travel.

“And that would be?”

“Perchance the gods sent me here to learn modern fighting techniques so that I can gather an army and go back to fight against evil… in particular, the evil perpetuated by my father and his followers.”

Zachary was oddly quiet.

She turned in her seat to look at him. “What?”

“I don’t want you to go away.”

A thrill of pleasure coursed through her at his words.

By the light of the dashing board, she could see his face grow grim. “I don’t want you to go away… yet,” he amended.

She had to smile at that halfhearted amended statement of his feelings for her. “Dost think I could? Go back, I mean?”

“I have no idea.”

“Something is happening to me. Something even stranger than the time travel. I sense being tugged back.”

He flashed a quick glance of alarm. “It was just a dream. You can’t just go back,” he insisted.

She shrugged. “You and Torolf’s men went back.”

“That was an accident.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He arched his brows at her.

“Mayhap, where there is a need for a hero, the gods — or your One-God — send warriors hither and yon to fight the good battles.”

“You think I’m a hero, huh?”

She could tell he was trying to change the subject. “Would you go back with me?” she asked softly.

He drew back, taking his hand away.

She had surprised herself, not having planned to ask such a question. Not even sure she wanted to go back herself.

“Absolutely not! Are you crazy?” He must have realized how he sounded, because he immediately tried to take her hand again, which she would not allow. “I can’t risk going away, not with Sammy’s situation.”

She stared at him, unblinking.

“No way! I wouldn’t try to go back in time with Sammy, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if I could. He’s in enough danger here without me putting him in the middle of some Dark Age uncivilization.”

He pulled up in front of the women’s sleeping quarters. When she tried to open the door, he pressed a lever that locked her in. She turned her face away from him, not wanting him to see her tears. Tears, for the love of Loki! She was not a weeping woman, or ne’er had been till she met him.