Page 79 of Kiss of Wrath

It wasn’t a longboat, but . . .

A week after her “date” with Mordr, Miranda awakened on Saturday morning at seven a.m. to complete silence. No shouting kids. No banging doors. No running water. Not a peep.

It could mean the children were overtired and overslept past their usual break-of-dawn risings. Or it could mean they were in trouble or were causing trouble. Probably the latter. She recalled one time awakening to what sounded like a herd of mice—i.e., barefooted children running on tiptoes from one end of the house to the other, over and over. Turned out they were chasing Ben, who held a mixing bowl full of strawberry ice cream that he refused to share. Strawberry ice cream for breakfast? A mixing bowl full for one small person?

Roger had made no contact since that call more than a week ago. That didn’t mean he didn’t still represent a danger to her, especially since her neighbor Mrs. Edmonds from across the street and down a ways—she of the nude vacuuming—had reported two strange men in a plumber’s van parked in her driveway a few days ago when she’d returned from the hairdresser. They’d had binoculars pointed toward Miranda’s house. When Miranda had tried reporting it to the police, they told her she needed more than a suspicion that Roger was involved before investigating.

Equally alarming—yesterday’s Review-Journal reported a large number of missing persons in Las Vegas. The law enforcement party line was that gamblers often disappeared for a while if they didn’t want family or friends to know they’d bet the family farm, so to speak, and lost.

To her surprise, when she went downstairs wearing a quickly tied robe over her nightgown, she found four little souls in the den. Maggie was working on a puzzle, and the boys sat like wooden soldiers at attention on the sofa watching cartoons.

At her arched brows, Maggie said, “Mordr promised to take us on an adventure today if we were quiet for one whole hour.”

An adventure? Without consulting me first? I don’t think so! “That’s nice. What kind of adventure?”

“It’s a surprise,” Maggie informed her.

We’ll see about that!

The boys looked at her and made zipping motions on their lips, as if they couldn’t speak on pain of . . . something. So, bribery was Mordr’s secret tactic for silence. It never worked for her. Maybe she’d offered the wrong rewards.

She stomped toward the kitchen, though it was hard to stomp in fuzzy sheep slippers, a gift from the children last Christmas, but she stopped just outside the kitchen doorway at what she saw. Mordr, wearing shorts and a “Vikings Rule” T-shirt, was sitting side by side at the table with Linda. They were coloring in Linda’s new Barbie Princess coloring book. Coloring? A Viking coloring? Somehow the idea of those big fingers holding a tiny crayon just didn’t fit.

Or maybe it did.

Her heart swelled almost to bursting. You had to love—well, admire—a man who didn’t mind putting himself on level with children.

“You hafta color inside the lines,” Linda advised Mordr in a gentle reprimand.

“Why?”

“Because it looks better that way.”

“I like my way better.”

“And Prince Ken doesn’t have a mustache.”

“My Prince Ken does. Without facial hair, he looks like an untried youthling.”

Linda giggled.

“Hey, I didn’t know we had a silver crayon for Barbie’s crown. Did you hide it from me?”

“It’s not a crown. It’s a tiara.”

“You would look good with a crown . . . uh, tiara. I wonder where we could buy one.”

“Maybe at the mall. What’s your favorite color?”

Mordr glanced up just then, sensing her presence, and said, without skipping a beat, “Red.”

Miranda felt her face heat, with embarrassment as much as pleasure.

“Mine is blue. G’mornin’, Aunt Mir. Mordr is gonna take us all to McDonald’s for breakfast.”

“How nice!” Without asking me. Again. At least, Linda wasn’t calling him Daddy anymore. “Is that the big adventure I heard about?”

“No, there’s another big adventure.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.