Page 145 of The Outlaw Viking

The next day, Selik showed up at the hospitium, looking absolutely gorgeous in a gray wool tunic with black braies and mantle. His eyes sparkled almost as much as the twelve children who stood beside him in brand-new clothes and shoes, their faces spit-clean from recent baths—even Adam’s hair was slicked back wetly. She wondered how Selik had managed that. Even she had trouble luring the children to bathe.

“I threw them all in the horse trough,” he remarked dryly in answer to her unvoiced question.

“What do you want, Selik?” she asked, looking over to Bernie and Father Theodric, who were frowning in her direction, not liking all the company in the hospitium.

“You,” he said somberly, his eyes no longer glittering with mischief. “Just you.”

The following day Ubbi came, shifting uncomfortably. “Please, mistress, will ye not come home? He is driving everyone mad with all his demands.”

Rain didn’t need to ask who the “he” was.

“He finished the house, fixed up the leaks in the barn, plowed two hectares of land, took in five more orphans, is fixin’ to—”

“He took in five more orphans?” Rain asked.

“Yea. Saw ’em in the streets and said he could not resist. Next, he plans to build a house jist fer the orphans.”

“He does?”

“Yea. Plans to call it Rain’s House. Now me, I be thinkin’ of goin’ to Norway.”

“Ubbi! You would never leave Selik.” Rain’s House?

“Yea, I would. Like a bear, he is, when he is not workin’. Cannot stand to be still. No doubt, he starts thinkin’ ’bout you and—”

“Ubbi, did Selik send you here?”

He glanced from side to side, everywhere but at her intent eyes.

“Tell the jerk I’m not coming back.”

He groaned and turned back for home with slumped shoulders.

The fourth day, Adam came alone and followed her around, grumbling, “Yer poisoning him, ye know?”

“Who?”

“Me father. Who else?”

Rain frowned, then realized that Adam was referring to Selik.

“He keeps eatin’ all them god-awful Lifesavers ye made, even when they make ’im gag. They be crampin’ his stomach somethin’ terrible, but he sez if a man loves a woman he should be willin’ to eat her cookin’.”

Rain couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Adam, you are making that up.”

“Are ye accusin’ me of lyin’?”

“Like a rug.”

The fifth day, Gyda came, complaining about Tyra and all the time she spent at the farmstead helping Selik with the children. “I fear the neighbors will begin talking of her unseemly conduct. How will she find a husband if she spends so much time alone with Selik? Can you talk to her, Rain?”

Not in a million years!

Rain shouldn’t have been jealous of Tyra. But she was.

She should have wanted Selik to find another woman to love after she was gone. But she didn’t.

The sixth day, Ella arrived with a beautiful green silk tunic with gold embroidery along the edges and sleeves.