Until Forever by Johanna Lindsey

hand.”
    Her, go to Valhalla? she mused. Be surrounded by brawling, drunken Vikings in Odin’s mythical feasting hall? Not in this lifetime or any other, thank you.
    She realized he could just be telling her what she wanted to hear. He could be lying. She had no way of determining the truth until it was too late, and he and her sword were gone. But, of course, that’s if she was willing to believe that his home was Valhalla, that he was exactly who he said he was. How could she believe that? How could she believe what was happening? She pinched herself hard and definitely felt it. There had to be some logical explanation for all of this.
    Facts. She needed facts, proof, and she intended to get it. The information she was going to get from him about the past could be verified, at least most of it could, and he would have to pull that information from his memory. That would prove, or at least support his claim that he’d really lived in those times, or been summoned to them.
    “That’s enough of that subject for now,” she said as she tossed her first handful of scrapsinto the basket, then went back for more. “And by the way, I’m not comfortable with the ‘lady’ you keep calling me. I know it’s a title of complete respect where you come from, but some Americans tend to give it a different meaning, especially in moments of frustration, and anyway, my name is Roseleen. You may call me—”
    “Rose?”
    He laughed as soon as he said it. She blushed profusely. That even a thousand-year-old—whatever he was, could see the connection between their names…Or was that what was amusing him? She decided to find out.
    “Care to share the joke?”
    “Joke? Nay, ’tis only that I thought ‘professor’ was your name. What then, do you profess to, that you are called professor?”
    She grinned now at herself for drawing the wrong conclusion. He didn’t see the connection between their names, and she wasn’t about to mention it herself.
    “History,” she answered. “I went to college to study it, now I teach it.”
    “All history?”
    “I’m most familiar with the Middle Ages, particularly the eleventh century.”
    He was still grinning himself. “Aye, I know that time well. I much enjoyed their wars.”
    Hearing that was nearly as thrilling as—well, not quite that thrilling, but damn close, and Roseleen was filled with excitement. She had a thousand questions for him. But somehow she was going to contain them until they got back to the cottage and she had a notebook in hand.
    Yet her smile was generous when she said, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that, Thorn, and I’m going to want to hear much, much more about it later.”
    “I could show you—”
    Misunderstanding, she cut in, “Demonstrations won’t be necessary, just facts.”
    She didn’t see the disappointment on his face because she was staring at what she’d just picked up, a sandwich wrapped in cellophane with a single bite taken out of it. That the bite went right through the cellophane had her turning back to him to ask, “You couldn’t figure out that the wrapping had to come off of this before you ate it?”
    He was standing there watching her complete her task, having just completed his. He spared only a brief glance at what she was holding, though, before his blue eyes came back to meet hers and stayed there. His shrug was so slight it was barely noticeable.
    “I was looking at you, not at what I was eating,” he told her. “And be warned, Roseleen. I like looking at you.”
    The heat came flooding back, and she groaned inwardly. How could she get him to stop saying things like that, and stop looking at her like that? She knew she couldn’t. She’d already stated her demands. No touching. She had nothing more to bargain with now.
    And besides, she was the one insisting thathe stay, keeping him here against his will, more or less. She couldn’t deny him everything that he liked. So how was she going to survive what