Forever Wife (19 page)

Vidar could see the evidence right before his eyes that she had been devastated by what she saw.  Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and she was a pale, pasty white.  All he wanted to do at that moment was to tug her into his arms and get them back to the house, to their bed, where he could tell her exactly what was going on.

She didn’t look in the least inclined to go along with that, and a muscle began to tic in his jaw as he wrestled with what to do.  She was pulling on her arm, and screaming at him to let her go.

An instant later, they were in their bedroom, and she had no idea how they got there.  One moment she was halfway up the drive, trying to extricate her arm from his strong grip, and the next they were standing at the end of their bed.  She saw that Vidar still had the original papers in his left hand when he raised his right and a new set appeared.  “If you’re going to condemn me for something, at least let it be the right thing.  Read these.  They came through at my office.  The ones you read weren’t intended to come here because I didn’t want you to get wind of what I was going to do, but my assistant apparently got the numbers screwed up.”

Liz couldn’t believe what was happening.  She thought she must be dreaming, or having a nightmare – which was much more as this bizarre situation would dictate.  First they get transported somehow from outside to indoors, and then papers start magically appearing right in front of her.  What in hell was going on?

“Go ahead.  Read these.”

She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to touch pages he had conjured from thin air, but he seemed very adamant, and she supposed she owed him at least that much.

She was glad she did.  He
was
selling the properties.  To her.  For a dollar.  Liz sank down on the end of the bed as she continued to read.  He was in the process of transferring deeds of ownership of the whole shebang into her name – the casino project, the camps along the lake who had sold out to him, and the cabin.  Everything of any import to him in the state of New Hampshire.

All of the rest of the paperwork was there – documents they needed to sign, deeds, title searches, everything, including a letter from his lawyer and several people who were his partners in the project, going up one side and down the other
to him about how stupid a move this was, and raving about how much money he – and they – were going to lose if he went through with his plan.

“Why?” she asked as she looked up at him.

Vidar sank down onto the end of the bed.  “Because I love you, and I don’t want anything stupid like this to come between us.”

“It’s not stupid to want to protect your home from something you think is going to harm it,” Liz protested.

He could see he was screwing this entirely up somehow.  Nothing he said was coming out right.  “I didn’t mean that you were stupid for feeling that way, I meant that the idea that a business deal might be a wedge between us – I just couldn’t have it.  So I had my lawyer draw up the necessary paperwork so that I could transfer control of the whole mess over to you, to do with as you pleased.”

Her pocketbook appeared in her lap.

“Got a dollar?” he asked.

She didn’t have a bill – she never kept actual money on her any more – but she gave him enough change as he watched her scrape the bottom of her purse for pennies.

When she poured it all into his waiting palm, he handed her a wad of paperwork to sign, saying, “Congratulations.  The Scrimshaw Lake Casino – or lack thereof – is entirely in your hands.”

Liz was a bundle of nerves and tears as she launched herself into his arms.  “I love you, you crazy, domineering, incredibly stupid yet adorable, adorable man!  Sh!  Don’t argue with me.  Just shut up and make love to me immediately!”

Vidar should have spanked her for any number of reasons – jumping to conclusions, damning him without a trial, swearing, or even daring to order him about.  But he was too pleased at the outcome of this latest disaster that he, for once, obeyed her.

Later, as they lay naked and relaxed in the peach-and-blue cabbage rose bedding of their new cherry wood four-poster bed, Liz had other serious thoughts on her mind.  Vidar could see the slight scowl on her forehead, sense her nervousness, and waited – somewhat impatiently – for her to bring it up. 

“Tell me how you do it, Vidar,” she whispered softly.

He could play dumb, try to make her verbalize what she was beginning to realize about him… but he had insisted on complete honesty between them.  Now it was time for him to keep his end of the deal. He tugged her in closer, kissing her forehead more to for his own comfort than hers.  “I am ready to tell you now, Beth.  You may find it hard to believe, but please hear me out.”

He just wished he knew where to start. “There are more papers to come, you know,” he began.  “I know you won’t like the idea of becoming a joint owner on my personal accounts, but I’m putting you on all of my business stuff, too.  I want you to have access to everything I have.”

“I don’t want all of that.”

He smiled down at her.  “I know.  In that way, you’re different from almost every other woman I’ve ever known.”

“Do tell,” Liz said sarcastically.  “I guess I should be glad I came out near the top of the heap, huh?”

Vidar colored, and it was so unusual for him to blush that Liz couldn’t help but smile.  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know you didn’t,” he grumbled.

“Get on with the story already.  I still haven’t heard anything that explains what’s going on.”

“I know.  But it’s important that you understand that I don’t want any secrets between us, of any kind.  Not business secrets or personal secrets.  And that, in telling you how I was able to do what you saw me do, I’ll be giving you information that could very easily be used to kill me.”

Liz sobered up immediately.  “I would never do that,” she vowed, and meant every syllable.

Vidar caught her eyes.  “Even when you thought I was going to sell the cabin out from under you?”

She gulped painfully, but said, “Even then.  I love you.  I couldn’t do anything that would get you killed. But why, Vidar?  Are you in some kind of trouble?  Did you do something wrong?”

He shifted to sit up in their bed, fluffing the pillows behind him as he adjusted position.  Liz scooched up with him, resting her head against his shoulder.  He was stalling, she knew, but she didn’t understand why.  She was beginning to realize how impatient it must make him when she did the same thing, when she didn’t
tell him something immediately when he asked her about it.  No wonder why he spanked her for that!  If he didn’t start talking soon, she was tempted to give him a few well-places swats as well.

He closed his eyes at her words, then opened them again to gaze at her closely for a long moment, before saying, “I believe you.”  Then Vidar reached behind her
to the nightstand, where her current bouquet of apricot roses was displayed.  He plucked a long stemmed bud out of the vase, and turned back to her with it in his hand.  And as she watched, he turned it into a kitten.  A fluffy, calico, purring ball of fluff. 

“Aww,” she cooed, as most women did when they saw kittens.  She sneezed, and was about to pull it up to her face to rub noses with it, when he turned it into a puppy, then a parakeet, and finally a box of chocolates. 

“For you, my lady,” he said, presenting them to her.

Liz couldn’t believe her eyes, and wasn’t at all sure she wanted a box of kitten-puppy-
parakeet-chocolates.

Vidar could see how hesitant she was, so he reached in and grabbed a chocolate himself, dropping the entire thing into his mouth all at once and sighing.  “Mm.  Caramel.”

Caramel was one of Liz’s favorite things in the whole world.  “Hey, I want one too!”  She popped one into her mouth and it was, indeed, a scrumptious caramel encased in the deepest, richest milk chocolate she’d ever tasted.

Then he took the box of candy back into his palm and it began to transform again – despite her whimper at its loss – first into a remote controlled car, then a bunny, an mp3 player, and finally into a large bottle of very expensive champagne and two gorgeous crystal glasses.

He poured each of them a glass, then wrapped his arm around hers in a lover’s toast.  “To you, Beth.  The wait was almost interminable, but you brought me something I never thought I could have – love.”

She wanted to say something in response about him, but he pressed his finger over her lips, saying, “Drink the toast.”

He put the champagne aside, then turned back to her, his palm open in front of them both.  As she stared at it, a box appeared.  A ring box. 

Liz just continued to stare at it, afraid to consider what it was.

“Open it,” he coaxed.

Inside was a huge princess-cut diamond, with complementary baguettes both around it and down either side of the band.

“I’m going to ask you to marry me, Liz –“

“Yes!” she answered eagerly, even before he’d asked her the question. 

He was wearing the look she least liked to see on his face.  “If you interrupt me again, you’ll be wearing both an engagement ring and a very red bottom.”

“Yes, Vidar.”

“I won’t ask you until I’ve told you what I am, and how all of this is possible.  It might make you change your mind.”

Liz highly doubted that, but he could try.

Vidar took her hands in his and looked her directly in the eye as he said, “I’m a warlock.”

“A warlock.”  She had to think exactly what that meant.  She would have been much more prepared if he had said he was a vampire, or a werewolf, or even a zombie.  But he was way too pretty for the latter.

It took her a moment, but eventually she came up with it.  “Oh – you’re a male witch!  Like Darren on Bewitched – no, not like Darrin, like Samantha’s father.  The one played by Maurice Evans.”

He had always been of a mind that she watched entirely too much television, and here was his case in point.  “No, not like anything you’ve ever seen on TV, or in a movie.”

“Oh.  Well, then, what does it mean that you’re a warlock?”

“Warlock isn’t exactly the right term. There isn’t a word in your language for what I am.  But I will try to make you understand, anyway.  I was born in Iceland, in the year 942. My mother, Dagmar, was the daughter of a Chieftain, the head of a large, extended family.  We all lived in a long house together – parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, slaves, and unmarried farm workers who had no home of their own. There was always the threat of being attacked, it was a violent time.  So it was a common practice to procure the services of a Vardlokker – a spell-singer, the Norse equivalent of a magician.  The spell-singer was bound by oath to protect the family at all cost, using any means necessary – including magic. To be a Vardlokker was a great honor, they were treated with respect, second only to the chieftain.  My father was a Vardlokker.  And so, too, I became one as well.”

“Then you’re…”

“Hush, dear.  Let me finish.”  Vidar closed his eyes, thinking back on those long ago days, the happy childhood he experienced, loved by all in the tribe.  He was mortal, growing up as normal, mortal boys did, as was his mother.  His father, though, like most Vardlokkers, was basically immortal.  He could be killed in battle, but he would not die a mortal’s death from old age.  Magic would heal him from the usual ravages of time.  His father tried to teach Dagmar to recognize magic and be able to control it, but she refused, having been recently converted to Christianity.  And so, she died in childbirth, attempting to bring forth another son. 

His father had been devastated.  For a long time, it looked like Vidar was going to lose him, as well.  Finally he rallied, and devoted the rest of his life to training his son.  Vidar had become Vardlokker, too. 
His life was sworn to the protection of his people.  And at some point, he realized that he too had stopped aging.  He did not know exactly when it had happened, only that when the son of his chieftain died an old man, Vidar still looked like a young man. 

He had been
quite a womanizer in his time.  The Vikings had been a lusty lot.  They lived hard, fought hard, and their passion was legendary.  But he had been careful to guard his heart, lest he fall victim to the dark depression that haunted his father the rest of his life.  Somewhere in the thirteenth century, his father had followed his current people into the crusades and never returned.

Vidar was passed from one kingdom to the next, a valued asset, but no longer honored or quite trusted.  As Christianity spread, so to
o did fear of magic.  Any who practiced it was said to be in league with the devil.  Eventually, Vardlokkers learned to live in secret, and when they broke the ancient “vow” to protect those around them, they became known as “vow breakers” or warlocks. 

They really were not the “male equivalents of witches”.  The correct term for a male witch was “male witch”.  Vardlokkers were always Norsemen, their use of magic as different from
Wiccan culture as Christianity was from Judaism.  The magic was the same, but the control of it was completely different.

“So, now you know,” Vidar whispered, finishing his long tale.  “It means I can do pretty much anything I want… as long as I keep under the radar.”