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year. I supposed it wouldn’t have been at all the sort of thing he was used to. No gorgeous, tanned go-go boys shaking their booty in gold shorts and little else—Icelandic summers were too cold for that.
    The people on these floats weren’t gorgeous, not most of them. They were just…people. Ordinary people, taking a day out to celebrate something they had in common. I felt oddly protective of them. I was sure they’d be pathetically grateful for the dubious protection of a limping amnesiac.
    The back of my neck prickled, and I spun around. A man was staring at me from across the street, and something about him sent an icy thrill shooting through my chest. He looked familiar—but wrong, somehow. He was of stocky, powerful build, most of his face hidden by his overlong dark hair and beard.
    Overlong? I wondered where that thought had come from. His hair didn’t even reach to his shoulders. I frowned and started towards him. His face broke into a smile, and he waved, calling out something in Icelandic. A man pushed past me, crossed the street—and then the two of them were hugging, clapping each other on the back. It hadn’t been me he’d been staring at after all. Just someone behind me. Crushed, I turned back to watch the rest of the parade.
    My leg was aching by the end of it, and I considered going back to the car and driving home. Maybe it was childish, but the raised hopes followed by disappointment had made me feel like an idiot for seriously expecting to come across anyone I’d known. Then a low, mellow voice rang out in my ear.
    “Paul! I didn’t know you were back in Iceland.” A large hand clapped on my shoulder, arresting my progress. Startled, I turned so fast my neck cricked.
    The man now in front of me was…hot. Tall, bronzed and muscular. With his sun-bleached hair and short golden beard, he looked like a well-trimmed, modern-day Viking.
    “Has the cat eaten your tongue?” he asked in lightly accented English.
    I rubbed my sore neck, trying to collect my scrambled thoughts after the double whammy of the Viking and the dark man before him. “I—you know me?”
    “Of course! You’re Paul, from the university. You must remember me.” His smile was confident. I hated to dash it.
    But then again…there was something about the tension around his ice-blue eyes that didn’t seem to fit that smile. Or was I just imagining things again?
    “I’ve forgotten everything,” I explained, my throat tightening on the words. “I had an accident. It was eight months ago now. I lost my memory.”
    If we were friends, how come he hadn’t known about it? My eyes narrowed, and I took a clumsy step back from his overwhelming physical presence. My neck was itching again—was the dark man still watching me? Watching us? I felt a strange reluctance to turn my back on the Viking to find out. “Who are you?” I asked bluntly, too rattled to think of a polite way of saying it.
    “Viggo. You don’t remember me?” His weathered brow creased, and he closed the gap between us, putting a hand on my shoulder again.
    I didn’t want him touching me. It confused me, made me feel all kinds of emotions I wasn’t prepared for—like guilt. Why did he make me feel guilty? Because I couldn’t remember him? “I’ve been in England,” I said, as if it were an answer to his question. “In hospital and at my sister’s. Recovering.”
    And now his left hand came up to rest on my right shoulder, trapping me there. My heart pounded as his touch seared through my thin shirt. Had I been cold before? I wasn’t cold now. “What happened?” he asked softly.
    “I told you. An accident. At Gullfoss.” I forced myself to look into his eyes. His blue eyes, with lines at the corners from laughter and squinting into the sun. Was it he I’d remembered in my dream? “My partner died.” How had he not known this? Even if we hadn’t been all that close, surely the accident would have made the news?
    His hands tightened