The Viking's Heartwish, page 5
She took the ring out of the box, holding the gleaming, weighty piece of jewelry in the palm of her hand. The ring’s detailed craftsmanship was amazing and the stone was just as mesmerizing as she remembered.
Since Bekka loved extolling the virtues of magic to everyone she knew, Delaney wouldn’t be too surprised if this ring was one of several the old woman kept tucked away in a drawer. She’d probably left instructions for her executor to dole out heartwish rings to all her relatives and friends, complete with her mystical tale of supernatural powers and one-time use. Delaney smiled. Everyone in Glassfloat Bay probably wore one of her grandmother’s magic rings.
She slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, which was interesting because Bekka’s fingers were at least a size larger than Delaney’s.
~<>~
Delaney drove to work on her birthday in the midst of a fierce February blizzard that subsided only after she’d been blanketed in white while trudging across the parking lot to the office. Her hat, scarf, gloves and boots provided little protection against Chicago’s near gale-force winds. By the time she got inside the building, she was caked with ice crystals and chilled to the bone.
While married to Roger she’d insisted on working, against his wishes. He was old school in his thinking that a woman’s place was in the home, plus he feared his colleagues might think he wasn’t a good provider.
They’d be right. He wasn’t. Roger was a damn cheapskate.
She used her income to pay for her clothing, phone, internet access, cable TV, books, magazine subscriptions, and anything else that didn’t come under his list of absolute necessities. She also treated herself to the pricey coffee she preferred, and to occasional real food instead of subsisting on Roger’s rigid health nut diet twenty-four seven.
Since the divorce she was responsible for the townhouse’s mortgage payment, which ate up the major portion of her earnings.
Happily, after Paul learned of Delaney’s predicament, he promoted her from receptionist to executive secretary, which brought a substantial raise. While on pregnancy leave, his former secretary decided to quit and be a stay-at-home mom. The extra money Delaney made from her weekly column added enough to keep her living in the townhouse and affording the monthly bills.
One thing she loved about her new position was having her own office. This morning she sat at her desk, gazing out the window as she sipped her favorite coffee while enjoying her birthday breakfast, one of Laila’s almond cherry scones from Griffin’s Café in Glassfloat Bay. The package from Oregon had arrived at the office early this morning. It was a breakfast fit to make Roger gasp in horror, which is one of the reasons she enjoyed it so much.
The box also included several whimsical hand knit and crocheted animals created by Delaney’s sister, Reen, to add to her collection. Café owner Annalise Griffin had written a lovely letter and tucked it into a large Valentine’s Day card which was signed by many of the townspeople.
“Bekka told me how much you miss your sister’s scones,” Annalise wrote, “so Laila baked a birthday batch just for you. She said to tell you these are new. They’re lower in calories, fat and sugar than her original ones and she wants your feedback on the new recipe. Personally, I can’t tell the difference and think they’re scrumptious!”
“Mmmm...” Delaney’s eyes fluttered shut as she took another bite. “She’s right.”
Annalise told Delaney of their sadness at losing Bekka, and offered some favorite memories of their times together. They hoped Delaney would visit soon, and maybe even decide to move into Bekka’s vacant house.
Delaney held the letter close to her heart and cried. They were happy tears because, as difficult as it was losing her grandmother, Delaney felt certain the years Grandma Bekka lived in Oregon had been happy ones.
Her office window presented Delaney with a clear, sunny day after she’d braved the morning blizzard. Moments before she left work, the heavens opened again. Scraping ice and snow from her car’s windshield, she muttered a string of curses when the plastic ice scraper snapped in half.
“As soon as I save enough money for a cross country move,” she promised herself, grunting as she used a portion of the broken scraper to clear away enough ice so she could see well enough to drive, “I’m moving to Glassfloat Bay.” The scraper remnant broke into an even smaller piece, which had Delaney swearing like a sailor. “God, I’m sick to death of this winter weather!”
Finally behind the wheel, she reached for the glove compartment, eager to sink her teeth into a chocolate truffle, knowing the sensation of rich velvet creaminess melting on her tongue would soothe her ice-savaged psyche.
“Mmm...birthday chocolate...” She salivated with expectation as she reached inside, only to suffer icy terror at the realization the cupboard was bare. She’d forgotten to replenish her emergency stash after eating the last piece of chocolate.
“No. No! Nooooooo!”
Leaning forward, banging the heel of her hand against the steering wheel, she felt the heartwish ring’s band dig into her finger.
“Lot of good you’ve done me, you cheap chunk of costume jewelry.” Removing her glove, she blew on her frozen fingers before trying once again to yank the ring off, but the darn thing wouldn’t budge since she’d first placed it on her finger.
The melancholy of birthday chocolate deprivation eased when she thought about her other emergency chocolate reserve tucked in her nightstand drawer. She smiled...no, grinned, confident she could hang on to her sanity until she got home and ripped into her chocolate stockpile.
After crawling through bumper to bumper traffic, snarled by throngs of rush hour drivers, Delaney finally pulled into her driveway. She smiled when she heard her best buddy, Thursday, whimpering as she closed the garage door and entered the house through the kitchen. At least her faithful dog would be with her for her Valentine birthday.
Her ex-husband found the dog on a Thursday, the day of the week named after the Norse god, Thor, son of Odin. With all the imagination and creativity of a thumbtack, he named the dog Ruff. Delaney changed the dog’s name the day after Roger walked out.
He’d demanded custody of Ruff when they divorced, which was fine with Delaney, saying he’d return for the dog once he was settled. That was twelve months ago. She and Thursday hadn’t seen Roger since.
And then a funny thing happened.
Delaney and the monster dog got to know each other. They got to be friends. Really bonded.
“Do you know why I love you so much, Thursday?” she’d asked him. “Because you listen to me when I need to talk. You watch my favorite movies without making fun of them and don’t glare at me like I’m a moron when I cry at the happy parts. You eat whatever I’ve prepared without grumbling. You don’t leave clothes strewn all over the house for me to pick up. You don’t insist I drink muddy shakes with brewer’s yeast, desiccated liver, and beet tops. You don’t shudder when I make a grammar faux pas. And you don’t love me any less because I wear a double-digit size.”
Then she’d massage the back of his ears, getting a juicy face lick in return.
Yes, she’d even come to tolerate dog spit.
“I swear,” Delaney said now as she entered the kitchen, lovingly and enthusiastically greeted by Thursday, “if I’d known at twenty-five what I know now, I would have opted for a dog instead of a husband.”
Squatting on her heels, she mussed his fur and gave him a hug. Thursday was her sweetie pie, her loving, adorable, attentive pal. “I missed you today, Thursday, did you miss me?” He gave her a big sloppy lick in reply.
Stepping through the kitchen and into the living room, Delaney’s heart stuttered. Her eyeballs popped out of her head, dangling on springs as she viewed the catastrophe before her. She zeroed in on the remnants of the bag of Oreos that trailed from the living room to her bedroom. And then she saw the Snickers, Hershey’s, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups wrappers. It was every bit of chocolate from her nightstand drawer.
Clutching her hand to her chest, she surveyed the room and screeched, “Thursday!”
A quick scan of the floor revealed he’d christened the shag carpeting with dog vomit. Dark, crisp, scattered patches of mustard yellow with black cookie crumbs and chunks of regurgitated chocolate embedded in the midst of it all. It was a gruesome reminder of what the monster dog had done to her a year ago when he’d pilfered her birthday breakfast.
The idiot dog, who was probably on a sugar high, had toppled the silver aluminum Christmas tree, leaving her treasured family heirloom ornaments resting in splotches of dog puke. Granted, the artificial tree and its multi-color rotating light wheel shouldn’t still be up in the middle of February, but she’d been deprived of any holiday trappings all during The Roger Years.
This was the first tree she’d had in ten years and Delaney hated to box it away just yet. Each day she contemplated taking it down but decided she wanted to look at it a little while longer. It made her smile. She found the tarnished vintage aluminum treasure at the curbside on a garbage pickup day last spring. It reminded her of the one Grandma Bekka had when Delaney was little, so she dragged it home. Some of the branches were bent and the tree leaned slightly to one side but once she’d cleaned it up and made some repairs it was almost good as new.
After hearing Delaney’s anguished cry and glimpsing her crazed expression, Thursday hastily skulked off, tail between his legs, to some hidden corner.
“Yeah, you’d better hide, you fiend, because at this very moment I’m planning your grisly demise.”
As if navigating through a minefield, Delaney gingerly sidestepped the barf and padded into the bedroom. Her shoulders slumped and she groaned. Not only had Thursday vomited on the granny square afghan she’d recently crocheted, but he’d deposited a nasty clump of poop on the carpet. And there wasn’t a single uneaten cookie or piece of chocolate left anywhere in sight.
“Damn it, Thursday! Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
How in the world he’d managed to open the drawer of her nightstand was beyond her. And how he could so selfishly devour her precious stash without leaving anything for her made her see red. Like a cat with nine lives, once again her dumbass dog had miraculously managed to avoid death by chocolate. She supposed she should be relieved that he barfed it all out, but at the moment...
As Delaney stood slump-shouldered in the midst of the mess, grieving the loss of her chocolate and bemoaning the fact that she’d be stuck on her hands and knees with her face mere inches from dog puke for hours as she scrubbed, there was a knock at the front door.
“Hell,” she grumbled. “Now what?”
She wasn’t going to answer...but what if it was some kid selling chocolate bars for scouts or a school event? They were always coming to her door hawking their oversized bars of chocolate, laced with her choice of plain, crisped rice or nuts. She usually turned them away. As every chocolate connoisseur knows, resorting to cheap, waxy fundraiser chocolate meant you’d hit rock bottom. Delaney had never stooped that low.
There was more knocking, then the doorbell rang. Desperately in need of chocolate, she dragged her frazzled nerves across the room. Reasoning that stooping to a new low was justifiable under the circumstances, Delaney opened the door.
Uttering a gasp of astonishment, she clapped her hand to her chest, the metal band around her finger suddenly growing warm.
Standing across her threshold was a living, breathing golden-haired, half-naked hunk of a man in full Viking regalia.
And she was pretty damn sure he wasn’t selling fundraiser chocolate.
Chapter Four
~<>~
“HALLO. I SORRY to bothering you,” the tall, astoundingly handsome man said in broken English. His deep, accented voice was sexy as hell. “Need to play. You help?”
Gawking at the towering presence filling her doorway, it took Delaney a long moment before she was capable of speech. His flowing mane of sandy hair fell just beneath his shoulders, glistening in the winter sunlight. A well-manicured mustache and beard highlighted his strong jaw.
Like a Viking warrior of long ago, the muscular man looked fierce, rugged and boldly masculine. Powerfully built arms, broad pecs, robust thighs, sun-bronzed skin, striking ice-blue eyes...
Oh my God...it was Varik the Bold, her childhood fantasy come to life!
“What?” she eked out breathlessly, doing her best to dismiss the alarm clanging inside her head—the one telling her she was in the throes of a complete mental collapse.
“English not so good, my pardon I beg. I be lock. Need to play.” He gestured to his skimpy Viking getup. “You help play?”
Delaney twisted the ring around her finger, unable to focus on his words because she was too busy worrying she’d end up in a straitjacket before morning.
The tall stranger had a sword sheathed across his back and carried a round shield. He was breathtaking and she was mesmerized.
Good God...she was actually salivating.
If she had to go crazy, this awesome hallucination wasn’t a bad way to do it.
Her fingers reached out, feathering a touch across the animal hides he wore. They weren’t fake, they were real. She glanced up to catch one of his eyebrows hiking at her familiarity.
Logic told her it was ludicrous to verbalize her inner thoughts because he wasn’t really there. He couldn’t be. He was just a fabrication of her sudden insanity...a magnificent illusion brought on by a second straight year of birthday chocolate deprivation. But Delaney couldn’t help herself.
“Is it you?” she whispered, just as she had each time she’d dreamed of her Viking. “My Viking? My Varik the Bold?”
The Viking cocked his head. “You knowing my name?”
She blinked hard. The guy’s name was Varik the Bold?
No. Uh-uh. Totally, completely, one-hundred-percent impossible...unless... The verdict was in. Delaney Malone had finally graduated from being a little squirrelly to full-blown nut case.
“There’s no other explanation,” she muttered. Unable to tear her gaze from his chiseled features, she said, “I don’t suppose you’re here to sell fundraiser chocolate?”
He gave her a clueless look.
“I didn’t think so.”
This wouldn’t do at all. She had to get a grip. Whether she was loony or not, drooling like a hormonal teenager over a perfect stranger could lead to...well, the guy could be an ax murderer for all she knew. Her gaze fell on his weapon. Or a sword murderer.
Maybe she wasn’t crazy. Maybe she’d died and gone to heaven without realizing it. The shock of chocolate withdrawal combined with the loss of her grandmother had been too much for her heart.
Or maybe it was Nordic magic and her dead grandmother had sent Delaney her promised Viking, straight from the great halls of Valhalla.
Grandma Bekka. Of course...that was it! Delaney wasn’t insane after all. Relief washing over her, she felt her dazed, dubious expression morph into a grin.
“I get it. My grandmother set this up, didn’t she?” The guy gazed at her with the same oblivious expression Thursday had when she spoke to him.
“No inner stand.”
Delaney’s features twisted. “What?”
“Eh...not inner stand.”
“You mean understand?”
Looking relieved, he smiled. “Ja, ja, not understand.” He clapped his hand against his chest. “Need to play.”
Delaney looked him up and down, uttering a throaty chuckle. “Oh, I just bet you do, big guy, but not with me you don’t.” She started to close the door, but the Viking’s hand caught it.
“Please. Help Varik play.”
His mouth was sensitive, his jaw sturdy. Lust, pure and potent, coiled deep in Delaney’s belly. She hadn’t felt anything like this since...well, ever. Unable to drag her gaze from his mesmerizing eyes, she was so turned on by this walking, talking embodiment of her fantasies she could barely breathe.
“Yes,” she said, trying to maintain her composure, “this would fit perfectly with Grandma Bekka’s romantic mindset. So my grandmother arranged for the executor of her estate to send a Viking to poor lonely Delaney for her Valentine birthday. Is that it? Well look, buster, I’m not that lonely. So—”
“Gratulerer med dagen!” The Viking’s smile was radiant as he wished her happy birthday. It was one of the few Norwegian phrases she knew.
She felt her cheeks heat.
“Glad Valentinsdag bursdag!” the Viking amended.
“You-you just wished me happy Valentine’s birthday...in Norwegian.”
“Ja. Happy Valentine birthday.” The Viking’s head bobbed and Delaney could have sworn she saw his ocean-blue eyes sparkle, just like in a Saturday morning cartoon.
Along with a sigh, the words “Thank you” escaped her lips. She was unused to a man who actually recognized the holiday, much less her birthday. His words and engaging expression warmed her heart. How sweet. How endearing. How utterly...
And then reality dawned.
Well of course the big pretend Viking knew how to wish her happy Valentine’s birthday in Norwegian—just the way her grandmother had taught her friends at the café. After all, he’d been paid to say just the right words upon delivery, hadn’t he? The muscled, near-naked idol of her girlish dreams stood there smiling across her threshold, having the audacity to look abnormally perfect.
Model perfect.
Movie star perfect.
Paid uptown gigolo perfect.
Her eyebrows knitted. The impossibly perfect guy was schmoozing her, doing his damnedest to charm the pants off her with fake Norwegian charm. All because her misguided grandma thought her lonely granddaughter needed a fantasy roll in the hay on her birthday.
Delaney drew in a breath to stave off impending tears.
Presenting what she hoped was an aloof, confident air, she told the man in no uncertain terms, “As I was saying, I’m not that lonely. So you can take your phony accent and your animal pelts and your horned helmet and your big sword...”
