Carrie’s Christmas Viking Read online

  That felt right to her.

  “Did you ever get tired of fighting?” She was worn down by arguments, of always being put in the wrong by Jack. But I am getting better, living here, in silence save for the sea.

  She told herself it was enough and turned from her Viking to make up her bed.

  Tomorrow is my half-day off. I can sleep in, then decorate the cottage a bit, ready for Christmas. She had always appreciated simple pleasures, and now she relished them. Bundling her duvet, shaking her pillow, she grinned as a new idea rose up in her like a rainbow in the sky. Childish and foolish her thought maybe, but harmless. No one would guess it, since she had been forced, from her time with Jack, to develop a relentlessly calm expression. And Eric can’t spot my blush, seeing I have my back to him.

  The thought came again.

  Maybe my Viking protector will come to life tonight and we can go on an adventure together.

  Carrie slept soundly that night. If she dreamed, she had no memory of it, but a seed of thought and of magic had been set, all the same, and it would grow.

  Chapter 2

  His dreams were full of chatter, of rooks and seabirds endlessly competing, of soaring music on an instrument of wood and strings, until a woman’s voice began to speak. Slowly, her words began to make sense, and finally, he understood.

  She talked to him. He wished he could break the bonds of his enchantment to reply.

  She is the brat of the red-haired witch! The old part of Eric tried to rage, wanted to be indignant, but in the ages he had been trapped, his anger had slipped away. His epic memories of storms and seascapes, of battles and hungers, slowly faded until only a few bright scars remained, like painting on stained glass. More personal, intimate pictures took their place.

  Strange, but he had no memories of the old man as a child, in spite of Carrie’s assertion that her grandfather had played pirates with him. He had no memories of anyone but Magnus crusader, Elfrida, Hilde, Haakon, and Carrie, with Carrie now front and centre.

  As a little flaxen-haired girl, lifting him up so he could also see the bluebells flowering in the garden.

  As a coltish youngster, hugging her grandfather with a fierceness Eric envied.

  As a woman, turning him to face the distant sea, whenever she took a bath in the tin tub. How he regretted his frozen stillness then!

  Still, he was hers, because she spoke to him, not at him, but to him, as if he would answer. Pray the gods one day I will be able to. Over the years his feelings had changed, from paternal and protective to a yearning, a deep ache that grew more acute with each passing season. Is this what desire feels like? So long since I knew a woman’s touch...

  Companionship, freely granted, she gave him, and he treasured their every encounter.

  “Busy today, Eric,” she would call out, after re-entering the small cottage from a day away, and then she’d smile at him. She was some kind of servant, he knew, but since that did not matter to Carrie, it no longer concerned him.

  She is my lady and that is all that counts.

  This evening, she appeared giddy and sorrowful together, in shifting moods of joy and anger that made her blue eyes stormy and her bright blond hair crackle. Knowing she would tell him why, he watched her make a drink she called tea and tracked her to the bed that she also used as a couch.

  “Six months it is, Eric, since I left Jack, something I never thought I would do.”

  He hoped his face appeared supportive. Months of listening had made him less than impressed with his lady’s husband—she was served badly there, with having no father or brothers to protect her. Carrie’s beloved grandfather had been ailing when she and the useless Jack had married, and the old fisherman had died soon after, leaving his lady alone.

  Except for me, and how I wish I could help her.

  Something of his attitude must have shown through, for Carrie flung her slender self off the bed and stalked to the narrow table where she ate her meals—not often enough to Eric, for she was too thin.

  “I know, I was a fool to be taken in by Jack, he seemed so steady, solid, when I first met him.”

  So are trolls, Eric thought, though of course, he said nothing.

  “Millie warned me he was controlling, Alice considered him passive-aggressive and Tom called him a prick.”

  Tom has the right of it. Tom was married to Millie, or Eric would have been less accepting, more jealous of the other man.

  Carrie’s shining head lowered, and he knew she was examining her fingernails, a habit of hers when nervous. “I didn’t really see it, though,” she muttered, a soft blush flooding her features, “Not until he locked me in.”

  The blackguard dared to imprison her!

  “Jack said it was for my own good, that the party I wanted to go to was really a rave and that he’d heard from his police buddies it was going to be raided. He said it would make him look bad, as a counsellor, if I was swept up in any unpleasantness.”

  I can picture his smug expression.

  “I didn’t realize he’d actually locked me into the flat until I heard him stamp off and the key turning. He’d taken my key as well, and I was supposed to wait, like a good princess in the tower, for him to return and me let down my hair to him, or whatever.”

  Carrie tugged at her long locks and huffed. “I cried a bit, in shame, in shock, slung my purse round my neck and climbed out of the bedroom window and down to the street by way of the old drainpipe. Ran to the party and spotted Jack, arm in arm with his personal assistant Jocasta and clearly having a super night with no raves or police in sight. They never saw me.”

  Pity. I would have confronted the faithless pair.

  “You would have squared up to them, Eric, but I—by then I felt so useless, so stunned, I just wanted to escape. It was too late to go to any of my friends, so I went back to the flat and used the spare garage key under the flower-pot to drive ‘our’ car, the one he never let me drive, up here to Cliff Reach.”

  Somehow, perhaps through listening, Eric recognized what a car was, to the extent that he would never have chosen the over-priced Mercedes Jack had saddled himself and Carrie with, but something more useful, like a Volvo or Saab.

  Viking cars for a Viking.

  “I had to leave the car at the end of the track, of course, but it was worth it, just for the luxury. Jack later called me petty, when I took the car back and told him I was moving out, but by then I wasn’t too interested in heeding his complaints.”

  I’m glad you recovered your good sense.

  Carrie’s shoulders slumped. “I wish I’d had more courage sooner. You would have done.”

  You were brave, my lady. It takes courage to make change. You did well.

  Eric never felt more useless, but perhaps Carrie caught a little of his mental praise and concern. Or it might have been because she spotted a cobweb amidst the tinsel and hurried to find a duster to shoo the spider out. At least when she returned from the task she was smiling again, so Eric counted that as a win.

  If only we could meet and speak.

  Chapter 3

  Warm strong arms embraced her. A trailing rope of kisses, smooth as pearls, teased up the tiny hairs on her neck and shoulders. Cocooned in the silk of his cradling touch, Carrie knew she was cherished.

  “Adored,” whispered her lover, seeding more kisses along her spine, raising what felt to be fiery dragon wings across her back.

  “More,” she murmured, half-plea, half-command.

  A low laugh—Jack never chuckled in that deep, toe-curling way—and a piercing, sucking nip on the very tips of her ear, gave way to, “As you wish, my lady.”

  She rolled and stretched, opening her eyes—

  To see nothing but moonlight. The sweet cheat of a dream vanished and Carrie pounded and turned her pillow with rather more force than was needed.

  “Hey!”

  The voice was that of the lover from her dream, though his sentiments were less loving.

  “Move!”


  Reacting instinctively, Carrie tumbled off her couch, sprawling onto the floor.

  “Up here!” the voice scolded, as her vision swam, and the cottage was gilded with silver and shadow. “Hurry!”

  On hands and knees, she lifted her head and stared.

  The figure loomed, big and solid as a door, the stench of sweat and leather swirling round his massive shoulders, the tips of his helmet feathers scraping the roof beams. Even as she gasped, his booted feet skidded on the floor tiles and his knees buckled.

  He swayed alarmingly, like a huge tree in a gale, as words poured from his bearded mouth.

  “Are you blind? Help me!”

  Moonlight flashed over him, revealing trails of gold—no, chains of gold, Carrie amended, as her mind began to work again.

  “Eric?” she asked softly, scarcely believing what she was seeing.

  “Damnation, woman! You put them on—“ He rolled his shaking shoulders and the golden chains shifted and clashed. “Get them off me!”

  She had a Viking, a chained Viking in her house.

  Carrie wished she could do the damsel thing and faint. Do the horror movie scream. Run outside and climb down the cliff. Instead, her helping hands nature kicked in and she seized a length of chain.

  “Off!” Eric repeated, sweat streaming down his craggy face.

  “Trying!” Carrie panted, as she strained to lift the links. Gold is heavy, said Jack scornfully in her head, you’ll never shift it.

  I put it on him, I’ll take it off, Carrie reminded herself, saying aloud, “Drop the shield.”

  “Cannot,” Eric hissed, and she saw his fingers, clamped white and frozen on the leather straps.

  “Lower it, then,” she snapped back. “Stop posing!”

  Eric’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head, the feathers on his helmet scraping along the roof beams a second time. “Am not!”

  You sound like a six-year-old, Carrie almost countered, but that kind of answer was what Jack had always said, during their quarrels, and Eric was alternately paling and growing red-faced, the gold ropes clanking like a hedge-funders version of Marley’s chains as he struggled to stay upright.

  “There!” Spotting the clasp, Carrie struck it with her fist and the whole mass slithered off with the sound and force of an earth-slip. Freed, Eric tottered forward and crashed onto her bed, filling it completely.

  “What the—” Carrie demanded, but the infuriating toy-turned-man was already snoring.

  Typical! He’s asleep and I have to go to work tomorrow.

  Not questioning her own stubbornness at this point, nor her sense, Carrie elbowed her way onto a corner of the mattress and swept the duvet over them both. The scent of strong, husky male invaded her nose for an instant, and the comforting weight and warmth of another beside her, and then she, too, fell into sleep.

  In the morning, Eric was back on the windowsill, standing small, yet sturdy, and once more a statue.

  The gold chain, slender and delicate, pooled around his feet, sparkling amidst the sprays of holly and mistletoe she had collected.

  I must have dreamed everything last night. The necklace broke, that’s all.

  Telling herself it was nothing more, Carrie turned Eric towards the sea, washed, dressed and set off for The Scone and Seagull.

  Nothing more but an old fractured clasp. I’ll mend it and hang it back on him later. Maybe.

  So why did she spend the day thinking of a weary, lean face and why did she wonder, even as she bustled and served, if and what she would dream later?

  What colour were his eyes?

  I have to know. Perhaps tonight I’ll find out.

  “Why did I change into my best nightdress?” Carrie said aloud, watching the flickering shadows on the roof as beating rain drummed against the walls. Eric was not with her. It had been a dream, nothing more.

  “It is very pretty. The blue matches your eyes.”

  The bed shifted as he sat beside her. A tang of muddy salt from the estuary drifted through the slightly open window. Tonight, Eric smelled of citrus and dripped a few beads of water, not sweat, across his newly washed forehead.

  “Even your winter rain is warm,” he observed. Eric lifted a hand, showing a pair of trousers. “May I wear these trews? They will be short but covering.”

  Is he blushing? With the beard it was difficult to tell. It would be good to see him clean-shaven. “They were Granddad’s,” Carrie replied, “and yes, you may.”

  She turned her head and listened as this naked Viking shuffled into battered, patched cords, resolutely not concerned if he went commando or not. “Eric?”

  “I am.”

  “How do you know English?”

  She thought he smiled. At least, she saw a gleam of teeth. “I listened. You have a pretty voice, Caroline Armstrong.”

  “Carrie. And you?”

  He dipped his head. “Eric son of Karl and Gudrun.”

  “Do you remember your first language?”

  He replied with a string of phrases and added in English, “I have been asleep and half-awake for many years.”

  Why? Carrie almost asked, it was on the tip of her tongue, but then her companion’s stomach rumbled. “You’re hungry!”

  She scrambled past him, aiming for the kitchen. Eric followed, and as she turned back to the main room after placing one of her home-made stews in the microwave to defrost and cook, she watched his approach. He walked stiffly, stopping once and rubbing at his legs exactly as she did herself after a long day in the café.

  “More thirsty,” he explained. “Talking now... is strange.”

  She filled him a glass of water, staring at his throat as he drank. A memory of Jack trying and failing to sink a yard of ale flashed through her head, then it was Eric, clean and shining, swallowing another full glass after nodding his thanks.

  “Tastes good!” He smacked his lips and she laughed, hugging her elbows as she registered that she was chilly.

  Instantly, Eric gathered up the duvet and wrapped it about her, his touch gentle. He lowered his head. “Why do you trust me, Carrie?”

  The microwave pinged in the careful silence. From long habit of serving, Carrie dished up the stew one–handed—her other hand was clutching the duvet—and motioned her looming companion to the table. He turned after plucking two spoons from the drainer.

  “You eat, too,” he said.

  She nodded and drew a chair close to his. Together, their arms brushing against each other, their knees almost colliding, they dipped into the steaming pot.

  “Good!” Eric exclaimed, sucking on his spoon when the final drop was eaten.

  Carrie brushed his wrist with a finger. “This is why I trust you,” she said simply. “You are honest.”

  She glanced up, realizing his eyes were hazel, with green accents and pupils that were widening. He mumbled something, and this time, she knew he blushed. “What was that?”

  “I was not always. Honest, I mean.”

  She leaned forward again, deliberately into his personal space. “Will you tell me?” She made her question a request, a choice.

  He nodded once, sharply. “I will.”

  Carrie took in a deep breath, tucked the duvet around her toes and readied herself for a tale. A Viking saga, she thought, wishing her granddad could see them now.

  But what has Eric done? And how is he bound to my family and me?

  She almost dreaded to find out.

  His story, recited in a few stony sentences, was swiftly completed but difficult to take in. Numb, Carrie felt at a distance to herself and her tongue was hard to work in her dry mouth.

  “You envied Magnus and Elfrida their marriage.”

  The Viking crouching at her table slumped lower. “I did. I do.”

  His words were a horrible parody of the wedding vows, and worse was to be admitted.

  “You planned to kidnap their son to bring up as your own, to take the place of your dead child.”

  The hunched figure flinched. �
�Aye,” came the growled response. “He would have been mine.”

  She shivered at the possessiveness. “You did not care if they experienced the same abiding grief and loss you felt?”

  “Grief is selfish.” He shrugged. “Love is selfish.”

  The more cynical part of her agreed with both sentiments, and she wanted to smack him. After all, one of the reasons you rushed into a relationship with Jack was the grief and loneliness you felt because Granddad was gone. “No wonder Elfrida cursed you.”

  His shoulders twitched, like a horse stung by a wasp. “She enchanted me, the witch.”

  “You are sorry?”

  His head came up, handsome and proud as the prow of a dragon ship. “I was. For myself first, then, much later and far too late, for them. For my betrayal of their kindness.”

  The words flowed from him, quiet yet unforced, and she knew he spoke truth.

  “I understand now,” he went on, in the teeth of her silent astonishment, “I owe them—and you—their descendant.”

  He truly believes my so-many great-grandma was a witch. Nothing unreal there, then.

  Laughter, wild, bubbling, rose in her throat. Carrie fought it down.

  “Why me?” she said aloud. “I’m nothing special, a waitress in a café. All I own is in this cottage.” And Jack is trying to steal it from me.

  A warm hand clasped her shoulder. “If you were ugly, which you are not, you would still be renowned for your kindness. Indeed, you are,” Eric went on, before she could protest. “Who clears Mr Bammage’s paths for him every winter? Who goes with Miss Tickell to her hospital appointments? Who collects Liz’s library books whenever she can’t leave her disabled daughter?”

  He had heard her ramblings over the years. Those times she had chatted to Eric, he had listened. The small acts of support she had freely granted others, those Jack had scoffed at and called her Snowflake for, her Viking had valued.

  “You are the heart of this place, Caroline Armstrong, and sacred to me.”