Page 131 of Hot & Heavy

He was getting tired of this game. "Hell if I know! You've given me so many countries that you're from."

"Madrene Olgadottir, born in the Norselands in the year 982, daughter of Olga Gerdsson and Magnus Ericsson, former wife of Karl Ivarsson." She lifted her chin, daring him to contradict her.

What could he say to that? Deep down, he wondered if she wasn't just coming up with this goofball story to get out of marrying him… again. Well, he was not going to beg. With a grunt of disgust, he got out of bed and pulled on a pair of jogging shorts, then sat back down to put on socks and athletic shoes.

"Where are you going?" she asked. She was still sitting on the bed behind him.

"Running." He stood and looked down at her. There were tears in her eyes. He wished she would rail at him like she usually did. Shrewishness he could handle. Tears would do him in.

"Why?"

"I need to clear my head. I'm in love with a wacko. That's gonna take a little getting used to."

She winced at his words. Before he could take them back, she said, "Running away will not solve anything."

"I'm not running away." But inside, he wondered if that wasn't exactly what he was doing.

For more than an hour, he ran on the beach. It had started to rain, but he didn't care—he needed a cold shower. By the time he'd made the return run, he'd come to a conclusion: He would take Maddie any way he could get her. Even if she claimed to be Cleopatra coming down the Mississippi on a barge, he loved her, pure and simple. She could get psychological help, or not… he didn't care.

But when he got back to the house, it was deathly silent.

Maddie was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Freedom is just another word for…

Ian needed running to clear his head. Madrene needed absence to clear her head.

For two weeks, Madrene had been staying alone in a temporarily vacant apartment in Coronado which Ragnor and Alison had found for her. Hiding out would be a more appropriate description, since no one but the two of them knew she was there. With Ragnor's help, she'd left a short message on the answering machines at Ian's home and Blue Dragon, stating that she was all right but needed time alone to think.

She'd sworn Ragnor and Alison to secrecy.

The apartment was merely the living quarters on the second floor of a house owned by a lovely elderly woman named Lillian, who had an adorable horse of a dog named Sam, the same name as Ian's cat, except this animal really was a male. Apparently, Alison had lived here before marrying her brother. Now they owned a house in another part of town.

Since Ragnor was out of town at some kind of come-pewter meeting, Alison had come over to spend the afternoon with her. She was not on duty at the base hospitium on Saturdays, although she could be called in an emergency. They planned to watch a tape on the tea-vee of Sex and the City repeats.

Alison was a fan of the old show, too.

"How are the lessons going?" Alison asked as they sat down in the kitchen, which overlooked the backyard. The apartment was sparsely furnished, but it served Madrene's purposes for now.

"Very well." Ragnor had hired a tutor to work with her three hours a day, not just teaching her reading and writing, but history and biology, and geography, and numbers, and so many other important things. "I don't know how Ragnor, and all the rest of my family, did it. My mind gets fuzzy at all there is to know just to live here."

"Ragnor has only been here three years, and look how well he's adjusted. He speaks like a native,"

Alison pointed out.

"Pfff. Ragnor always was more intelligent than the rest of us."

Alison patted her hand. "It will come to you, too."

"I love this apartment and its location," she told Alison. "I can walk everywhere. To the ocean. To the bay. Downtown Coronado and all its shops. Even the base, if I wanted to." Which she did not want to do, for fear she might run into Ian.

As if reading her mind, Alison asked, "Are you ready to talk about my brother yet?"

Madrene had refused to discuss Ian or her reasons for leaving him. Apparently, Ian had been just as close-mouthed.

She had deliberately not allowed herself to ask before, but she had to now. "How is he?"