Page 79 of Viking Unchained

She opened the front door and went out on the porch, then plopped down with shock onto the top step at what she saw. It wasn’t just Finn. More than a dozen men emerged from the limousine and two rental SUVs. Navy SEALs, some of whom she recognized, and honest-to-God Vikings, if their attire was any indication. All of them were bickering about one thing or another, as would be expected when grown men were confined in small spaces for too long.

“Where’s my AK-47?” Sly grumbled. “If my weapon is back at that frickin’ rinky-dink airport, I’m gonna kill someone.”

"Holy shit, F.U.!” Geek exclaimed. “Why did you bring a grenade launcher? We’re hunting for one tango, not a herd of buffalo.”

F.U. said his name back at Geek.

“I have my broadaxe, but where’s my battle-axe? Do you have it, Rolf?” One Viking man was speaking to another Viking man; they were both older men, dressed in belted tunics over slim pants with cross-gartered ankle boots. Their hair, threaded with gray, was long, with thin braids on either side of their faces, like Finn had worn the night she’d first met him.

Her eyes shot to Finn then. He stood in the background, just staring at her. She walked up to him and whispered in an undertone, “Who are all these people?”

“Your private hird of soldiers,” he said with a shrug. Taking her by the forearm, he led her over to the three older “Vikings,” who were still arguing over swords. “Lydia, these are my uncles: Rolf, Jorund, and Magnus.” And to the uncles, he said, “This is Lydia Denton.”

“Greetings,” the three replied.

“The rest are my cousins . . . Magnus’s sons. You can meet them later.” Said sons were carting boxes up to the porch. Some clearly holding wines from Blue Dragon Vineyard. Another containing something called Gammelost. Fresh grapes . . . purple, green, red, and blue.

She nodded to the young men, who nodded back, a few with more than casual interest, which caused Finn to glare at them, and them to just grin back at him.

Then the third of the older Vikings, Magnus, who she recalled ran some winery in Sonoma Valley, sighed, “This is a wonderful farmstead. Do you have cows?”

Her eyebrows arched. “Three hundred of them.”

“I noted vast ploughlands, as well.”

“Four hundred acres.”

He clapped a hand over his burly chest as if she’d just announced that there was a pot of gold in the back pasture.

“He is a farmer at heart,” Jorund explained with a grin.

“Has manure in his veins,” Rolf added, also grinning.

Magnus shoved the two of them so hard they almost fell over, then walked away with a long sigh, presumably off to find a cow.

Geek walked up then and told her, “Half of us are going over to the Denton place, half will secure the perimeter here. The cavalry has arrived, baby.”

She gave a little wave to Sly and F.U., two other SEALs she did not recognize, Ragnor, three more of Magnus’s sons, and the two uncles, who crawled back into the two SUVs and took off, following the limo, which was presumably returning to the airport.

“What’s going on?” she asked Thorfinn then.

“The SEALs are here because of Dave Denton, and they will stay ’til the miscreant is caught and ’til the honoring ritual is over.”

“And you?”

He gulped several times as if searching for the right words. “I am here for you.”

She launched herself at him, then burst out crying. His neck was wet from her tears, but he just held her tight, running a soothing hand over her back, shoulders to waist, over and over, crooning, “You are safe now. No one can hurt you.”

When she finally calmed down, he stared at her and asked the question she had been dreading.

“Where is he?”

She didn’t need to ask who he meant.

Mike.

“Come,” she said, holding out a hand to link fingers with him. “I’ll take you to him.”