Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 01] Read Free Page B

forgot. Jack wouldn’t be there when she returned. Would he?
    A brutal headache began to throb behind her eyes, especially when a giant of a man, who smelled like a bear she’d once whiffed at a zoo, pulled her and her companions out of the boat and shoved them roughly into a group at one side of the wharf.
    “Hey,” she protested loudly. “Watch it, buster!” The rest of her motley group looked aghast at her temerity,as if she were even more daft than they’d thought. The Goliath glared down at her.
    “What’s your name?” Ruby persisted, sputtering with indignation. “I’m going to report you to your…supervisor.”
    “Olaf,” he snarled and gave her another rude shove.
    “Olaf. That figures. The name matches the face.”
    Rhoda pulled her back and cautioned, “Shhhh! Ain’tcha afeared? Do ya wanna git kilt?”
    Then Ruby saw Jack.
    Oh, his brownish-blond hair had lightened and hung down to his shoulders, and his black tunic covered a younger, more powerful body—one that would put Arnold Schwarzenegger to shame—but the face was definitely that of the man she’d been sleeping next to for the past twenty years. Thank God! This dream business got stale quick. She wanted to wake up.
    At the same time, Ruby’s heart thudded wildly at this first glimpse of her husband’s new golden, hard body. She felt like a breathless girl of eighteen again.
    “Jack,” Ruby called out happily, while Rhoda tried to hold her back. The dolt! He ignored her. He was mad at her, of course. Hadn’t he just walked out on their marriage?
    He seemed to have arrived on one of the big ships, and the attention he aroused indicated that he was a man of importance. When he stopped to talk to someone, Ruby realized that his right arm encircled the shoulders of a buxom, blond “Vikingess” in a green silk tunic with enough gold and jewels at her neck and arms to ransom a king.
    Ruby’s initial hurt turned quickly into jealousy and then a white-hot anger. Furious, Ruby yelled “Jack” again, but he still looked the other way. Lying pond scum! He’d said there was no other woman.
    “Two-timing sonofa…” Ruby muttered on a sob, breaking away from Rhoda and Olaf to approach Jack.She’d show him. She picked up a clump of mud the size of a cantaloupe, took careful aim and hurled the clod, hitting him square in the face. She smiled widely in satisfaction. She hadn’t been an ace softball pitcher in high school for nothing!
    The tall figure swiveled, azure eyes wide with shock, but before he could react, Ruby pointed a finger at his stunned companion and warned, “Stay away from my husband if you know what’s good for you.”
    Looking as if she’d seen a ghost, the wide-eyed woman backed away, slipped in the mud and fell flat on her rear.
    Ruby laughed at the comical picture until Olaf came up behind her, lifted her off the ground with massive arms wrapped around her like steel bars and squeezed until she thought her ribs would crack.
    “Put me down, you oaf,” Ruby shrieked. Then she turned to her husband, demanding, “Jack, tell this goon to put me down. He’s hurting me.”
    “Not Oaf. Olaf ,” the giant corrected Ruby.
    Ruby grimaced with impatience and looked up over her shoulder. “Put me down, Oaf .” He reacted by lifting her higher in the air, as if she weighed no more than a feather.
    Jack studied her icily, his jaw clenched with suppressed violence. He slowly wiped the mud from his face with a square of linen cloth. His girlfriend wailed loudly at his side until one of his companions reached over with a burly arm and cuffed her into silence.
    A deathly quiet surrounded Ruby. The crowd stopped all activity to watch the spectacle.
    Well, okay, maybe she shouldn’t have hit him, especially in a public place, but he had no right to look at her so angrily. After all, he was the one in the wrong. Adultery was adultery—even in a dream.
    With a commanding air, the Viking walked purposefully over to where Olaf