In Time For Christmas — Cheryl Alldredge

A Short Time Travel Story - Beth awoke, lying on the hard ground. Had she fallen off the couch in the night? The radio she'd left on seemed to be playing a foreign talk show. The crackle of the fire worried her. She'd never left a fire blazing in the hearth before. The air smelled of smoke and…baking bread.

Directly in front of her, men and women stood gawking at her as if she were a museum exhibit rather than they, themselves, being the oddity. The boy caught her attention first. Stick thin with yellow hair that capped his head like a bowl, he seemed perfectly fine despite his earlier shout. He smiled at her warmly -- a direct contrast to the man standing beside him with a hand resting protectively on the boy's shoulder. The huge, monster of a man scowled down at her.

To be fair, he was more giant than monster. He wore plain woolen trousers with a shirt and overtunic of woad-blue. They looked like they came out of a costume shop, only they fit his powerful physique as if they'd been tailored for him. His icy blue eyes, just a shade paler than his tunic, softened as he squatted down to her level. The tip of one long, blond braid brushed against his knee, then slid along his leg to dangle between muscular thighs. Despite her best efforts, Beth's attention strayed beyond the braid.

He was real. It was all real. The truth hit her like a punch to her chest. Her heart seemed to pause beneath her ribs, then pounded back to life at a rabbit's pace. Frantic, she looked around the room. A row of wooden tables and benches ran the length of the nearest wall. Behind the center table, a pair of wooden uprights had been carved and painted in vivid reds and blues. Along the opposite wall, a raised area was covered in tidy piles of woolen blankets. Every detail was as real as the man gently warming her toes. She'd gone to sleep in her living room and woken up in the Middle Ages. Impossible!

What did the future hold? Would she reawaken to find herself in her toasty warm â€" and very lonely â€" living room? Or was her future actually in the past? The past she currently shared with a ruggedly handsome Norseman?