Page 88 of Viking Unchained

“That we are going to live together and raise Mike, as good as wed without the ceremony.”

“Without marriage?”

He nodded slowly.

“Oh, that’ll go over great.”

“Assuming I am accepted into the teams, my BUD/S training would not start ’til September, then last for many months. I intend to spend every minute of that time getting to know my son. That means living in the same keep. With or without you.”

Finn’s insistence that Mike was his biological son continued to distress her. She could see his wanting to be close to Mike because he reminded him of his own son. She was even able to concede the time-travel stuff as one of those God-made miracle thingees. But Mike could not be Finn’s actual son. He just couldn’t be.

Unless . . .

Unless he is Dave inside that Viking body.

Which he is not.

Of course not.

But if there could be the miracle of time travel, why not the miracle of reincarnation?

And then he dares to say he thinks he cares for me. Not love. Just caring. And then only a maybe.

And based on that flimsy offering he expects me to open my home . . . and my legs . . . to him. We shall see about that.

“You have no rights, Finn.”

“I have every right. Dare to defy me on this, and you will find how strong-willed a Viking can be. And that is what I will tell your father. I will be living with his daughter henceforth.”

“You have a thicker skull than I thought if you think any red-blooded American dad would agree to that, without marriage.”

“Marriage, again!” He snorted his disgust. “I will not be coerced.”

“Neither will I be, big boy.”

A squeal of laughter came from upstairs, and she realized that Mike must have finished his bath. He always protested taking a bath, but it practically took a bulldozer to get him out. “I need to go read to Mike and put him to bed.” She turned stiffly for the stairs.

“I will come with you. But do not think this conversation is over.” Under his breath he added something that sounded like, “Nor is the bedsport.”

Pulling on a father’s heartstrings . . .

“Come and sit with us while Mommy reads us a story.” Mike patted the thin strip of mattress available.

Lydia and Mike were sitting on his bed, propped against two pillows each, a pile of children’s books betwixt them. He sat on a rocking chair by the window, just watching.

“I would never fit,” Thorfinn said with a laugh.

“I can sit on your lap,” Mike offered. "C’mon. Mommy reads real good.”

So it was that Thorfinn found himself sitting on the small bed, his shoulder and thigh rubbing against Lydia’s rigid shoulder and thigh. She was angry with him, though he could not fathom why. Mike cuddled on Finn’s lap, wearing a sleeping garment adorned with images of purple dragons. The boy’s skin smelled of mint and of Miklof as he had been soon after his birth.

Thorfinn blinked several times, fighting the strong emotions which nigh overwhelmed him. This is my life as it should have been. Then, girding his loins with resolve, he added, This is my life as it WILL be.

Sensing his distress, Lydia squeezed his hand, then immediately dropped it, recalling that she was supposed to be angry.

Inroads, he thought.

Then she began to read, “Once upon a time, there was a grizzly bear named Pete . . .”