His intake of breath was sharp. He pulled the zipper up again. He pulled it down. His eyes lifted to her, stunned.
She couldn’t help the giggle. “It’s a zipper.”
He pulled on the jeans over the stitches on his thigh and his boxers, jerked up the zipper tab, worked at the button. She swallowed. The jeans rode his hips. Which left ridges of muscle that disappeared into the waistband and the vee of light brown hair that pointed downward. The only thing that kept his body from perfection was the horrible stitches across his shoulder.
“Is good,” he said, looking at his reflection in the long mirror. “I look like your time.”
“How are they with your stitches—your wound?”
Galen shrugged. “Good enough.” However he spelled it in his mind, it sounded the same.
Steps sounded outside the dressing room. “Excusezmoi,” Brendon trilled. He peeked through the curtain with an armload of shirts, sweaters, and socks. “G-goodness. Well, those fit.” Galen turned and Brendon saw the stitches. “Ouch!” he exclaimed. “That’s one nasty wound.”
“Car accident,” Lucy improvised. “Which is why he only has the clothes on his back. His luggage was destroyed in the fire.”
“Car fire?” Brendon looked horrified. “He’s lucky to be alive.” Brendon averted his gaze, suddenly shy. “Well, uh. Here are some shirts that might work. I’m guessing seventeen-and-a-half collar with thirty-three sleeves and extra large for the sweaters and pullovers. He’s . . .” Brendon cleared his throat. “He’s a pretty big guy.”
Lucy sorted through the booty and picked out several. A work shirt, a pullover sweater with a collar and a zipper at the neck, a couple of thick waffled Henleys. Brandon had brought soft blues to match Galen’s eyes, a kind of gold/beige to match his hair, and chocolate brown. “Put on one of these,” she said to Galen, and slipped out to speak to Brendon.
“Can you dispose of these boots?” she asked, making a face. “And find us some Nikes.”
“Certainly, mademoiselle.” He picked them up with two fingers.
Lucy thought she probably owed him an explanation. “Gutting fish. A bucket overturned.” She was getting tangled up in her lies again. “Uh . . . before the car accident. You know how Scandinavians are about fish.”
Brendon rolled his eyes. “Herring. They all eat herring.” His eyes slid over to the curtain. “Apparently makes them big and strong, though. I’ll get him all the accessories.”
Brendon disappeared with only one longing backward glance. Sheesh, as bad as the nurse. Anyone would give their eyeteeth to hook up with this guy. Anyone except her of course.
Lucy returned to Galen. He was pulling his hair from under the collar of the work shirt. She held up the shirt-tail. “Inside your breeches.” While he unfastened his jeans and tucked, she buttoned all except the top two buttons. Her knuckles couldn’t help but scrape his chest hair. She chewed her lips and worked fast so she could step back. He fumbled at buttoning the jeans again. It took all his attention. That allowed her to look her fill. Whoa. The tenth-century Viking had disappeared, and in his place stood one hunk of a modern man. This guy would turn heads anywhere. Not good for hiding, but at least the beard and the braids were gone.
Brendon returned with a lined windbreaker that was just what she’d had in mind and a bomber jacket in chocolate brown, another pair of jeans and some brown cords, some Nikes, and a pair of Frye boots. A couple of belts in both brown and black leather with brass buckles hung over his shoulder.
“Leather,” Galen said, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the bomber jacket and the boots. He pulled on both carefully. She helped him get his other arm in the jacket. This might be the garment most familiar to him. Lucky he hadn’t spotted any leather pants or she probably wouldn’t have been able to talk him out of the sleazy rock star look.
She glanced back to find Brendon watching in fascination. “That should do it. We don’t have much space on the boat.”
Brendon bustled out ahead of them, his arms filled. “Hey, I’ve always wanted to live on a boat. Just sail away if you get tired of one place.”
“Storage is a problem. And then there’s the mold,” she said. “Boats are just plain damp.”
“Hmmmm. That couldn’t be good for my poster collection. I may have to rethink.”
She was betting Marilyn Monroe movie posters. And the fact that he could consider having a poster collection aboard a boat showed how little he knew about living aboard.
Brendon checked them out and distributed the many bags, Lucy thanking him profusely.
She was fuming by the time she and Galen got to the parking lot, though. He turned heads all right. Women were undressing her Viking with their eyes at every turn. And Galen might be exhausted, but he was looking smug. He had just discovered that women were women, whatever the millennia. But once in the car, he eased his shoulder against the car seat, letting out a breath.
“So, we will go back to the boat and you will sleep now.” Her speech had taken on an unfamiliar rhythm as she strove to use words they shared or that he had learned. Who was changing more, Galen or herself?
“Ja, Lucy,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “You speak sooth.”
But there was one more stop to make. They rolled into the parking lot of the Quik Stop about half an hour later. Lucy got out, motioning Galen to stay, and practically sprinted into the little store. The sooner she got him back to the boat and some Vicodin the better.
“Hey,” she greeted the clerk. The radio was blaring. Sounded like a basketball game.
“That package you were expecting showed up.” He turned to the boxes behind the counter, took out a key that unwound from a clip on his belt, and retrieved a thick package. There was no name at all in the address. It just said: Occupant, Slip 18. Talk about discreet.
She glanced up to find that the guy had a really curious look on his face. “It was delivered by messenger,” he said.
“Oh. Well . . . thanks.” She turned to go.
“Wally,” he called after her. “The name is Wally Campbell. And you are . . . ?”
She laughed in what she hoped was a carefree way, glancing over her shoulder at him. “The newlywed in slip eighteen.” Then she escaped, the bell of the door dogging her heels.
When she got to the car, she ripped open the padded bag and pulled out the contents. Two passports lay on top of a sheaf of papers, one the familiar navy blue with gold lettering and one red. She flipped open the navy blue one and saw her picture—the one Jake had taken in the apartment. Her name was now Lucinda Jane Gilroy. Great, Jake. Couldn’t you have thought of a nicer name? At least she could still be called Lucy. That prevented slipups. Today her name was short for “Lucia,” but “Lucinda” worked just as well. Her passport had some official-looking stamps in it, the latest from . . . Denmark. The other passport turned out to be Danish. And the picture was clearly Galen. The hair was short, the beard trimmed and neat. Good old Photoshop. He didn’t look fierce at all. Someone had retouched the circles he’d had under his eyes that night and given him a complexion that wasn’t ashen. He looked like a modern, very civilized denizen of Copenhagen. You’d never know he was a Viking from more than a thousand years ago. His passport was stamped with a U.S. entry.
Galen peered at the passports. He started when he recognized himself. “What is this?”
Of course he’d never seen a photograph. “That is a photo. It captures your reflection. Like the far-seer, or . . . like a mirror.” She took her compact mirror out of her purse.
“Ahhh. Like a sceawere. Mirror.” He peered more closely at his picture.
“It tells people who you are.” She pointed to his name. “See? Galen Valgarssen.”
“I can tell people who I am.”
“Everyone needs one of these in our time. People want you to have one.”
“Then I have one.” He peered over at the other documents.