by Rachel Grant
But damn, the thought of him submerged in bubble bath was enough to turn her mood around. Trina had said he was hot, but that came with the territory of the fix up and usually meant average—which was fine; there was nothing above average about Maddie either—but Josh Warner was heat-wave-scorching, five-alarm levels of hot.
She shook her head at the path of her thoughts. He was a security professional who showed up to help her out, nothing more or less. What a bizarre and disturbing day this had been.
She stepped into the driveway as he climbed from his vehicle, which still sported a Virginia license plate.
She wondered what his deal was. Guys who looked like Josh Warner and carried themselves with his confidence didn’t need blind dates to meet people. But then, he was new in town, and Trina had claimed it wasn’t a fix up. Right. Single, thirty-seven-year-old male friend, meet single, thirty-five-year-old female friend on the wrong side of a bad breakup. His interests are protecting women caught in weird situations at work, hiking, and skiing. Her interests are, oh, will you look at that…hiking and skiing. Plus, occasionally being rescued by handsome men who aren’t afraid to announce a claim on total strangers and lay down warnings.
She smiled and shook her head, remembering the shiver she’d felt when he’d called her his.
He cocked his head. “What’s so funny?”
“You watch out for what’s yours?”
He grinned. “It was warranted. That guy sends off some creepy as shit vibes.”
“Agreed.” She sighed and offered her hand. “It’s a little late, but I’m Madeline Foster. Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
He took her hand. “I enjoyed our initial meeting just fine. I’ve never jumped straight to the kiss hello like that before.” He pulled her toward him, and her heart fluttered as he exhibited extreme hot-guy confidence and competence, which was pretty much her weakness. “Josh Warner, at your service.”
She thought he was going to kiss her lips again, but he shifted at the last moment, and his lips brushed her cheek. Then he moved to her ear and whispered, “Your creepy friend followed us most of the way here. He turned off when we passed the shopping center, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he rolls down this street any moment. We need to take this conversation inside.”
His words killed the heady buzz that had been triggered with his performative flirting. The guy was damn good at his job, and she needed to wrap her brain around the fact that this was an act for him and remember why she’d called him.
That creep Troy followed us?
She shivered. “Of course.” She glanced toward the street.
Josh touched her cheek. “Don’t look. That’s my job.” He brushed his lips over hers again and said, “Does he know your address? Is it on your contract?”
“No. The company I work for is based in Seattle.”
“But he has your name, so he could google you.”
She nodded, her belly churning at the idea. “But I’ve only lived here a few months, and it’s a rental.”
“Let’s go inside.”
She led him in through the open garage and into her tiny rental home. Months ago, she’d been thrilled to find a place she could afford on her own. She’d always had roommates. Thirty-five years old, and it was past time to have her own space. But knowing the creep had followed them on the drive, suddenly living alone didn’t sound so great.
She led him through the small kitchen and entered the living room. One glance toward the big front window, and she shivered. Damn. She’d never felt like this room was a fishbowl before.
Warm arms surrounded her. She felt a rush of needy relief and pleasure. He smelled good. Felt safe. But of course, this was just a performance for the front window.
“I’ll order curtains tonight,” she whispered. “They’ll be here in a few days.” She didn’t have time to drive into the city to shop. Two-day delivery would have to suffice.
“Where can we talk that’s private?”
She nodded toward glass-paneled French doors. “My office has a love seat. And curtains.” She started to lead him in that direction, then stopped. “I’m going to have a glass of wine. Can I pour you a glass?”
He glanced at his watch. “Sure. But I need to make a call first.”
“Of course. Make yourself comfortable in the office.”
She was in the kitchen before she realized she’d forgotten to ask if he wanted red or white. His voice carried from the other room. He was already on the phone. Not wanting to interrupt, she decided to open a good bottle of pinot noir. It was from West Arch Estate, her favorite Willamette Valley winery, and at sixty bucks a bottle, she’d been saving it for a special occasion. Tonight wasn’t what she’d been thinking of as special, but there was no denying she deserved the good wine.
She’d opened vaults that contained the remains of over two hundred men, women, and children today. They’d been stolen from the ground by a man who would never have desecrated a white burial ground in the same way. Not surprisingly, Otto Kocher had been a Nazi sympathizer in the thirties and forties. Maddie would bet her next paycheck Troy Kocher was a branch from the same racist tree.
The early pioneers of her profession hadn’t been far removed from the Otto Kochers of this world. For decades, archaeologists had collected remains and funerary objects and shipped them off to museums, which were still full of the ill-gotten gains. She would do what she could to make up for that and make sure the Colville, Umatilla, Nez Perce, Cayuse, Walla Walla, and other tribes of the region got their ancestors back.
She poured the wine in the good glasses. After all, good wine deserved a nice presentation, and these glasses had been a wedding gift—one she’d kept after being dumped a week before the big day. They were beautiful, handblown, and hand painted, a gift from Trina, who knew the whole sordid story and had urged her to keep the present and use them to toast future triumphs.
Today had been more trial than triumph, but in the end, she’d survived, so she’d call it a win.
Her belly rumbled, and she remembered that she’d skipped lunch. She needed food. Fortunately, her cheese addiction meant she was prepared.
It took a few minutes to arrange a platter with four kinds of cheese, two kinds of crackers, olives, and prosciutto. Odds were this would be her dinner, but she wouldn’t admit that to the hot man in her office.
When you hit thirty-five, you were supposed to have moved beyond the appetizers-for-dinner stage, right?
She loaded the cheese platter, crackers, and wineglasses on a tray and crossed the living room to her office. She could hear Josh on the phone and hesitated, but the tray was heavy, and if she spilled two glasses of her favorite expensive wine, she might lose it in a way that was out of proportion with the loss. She pushed the door open.
“Not cool, Ava,” Josh said into the phone.
She kept her gaze averted as she set the tray on the coffee table.
Is he arguing with his girlfriend?
Her heart sank, and she realized she’d been harboring a little fantasy from the moment he kissed her in the crypt. An unconscious hope it would turn into some sort of meet-cute, a story they’d later tell friends when asked how they’d met. He must’ve met someone since he moved to Portland. It wasn’t like he was required to keep Trina updated on his relationship status.
He flashed a smile and picked up his glass from the tray, raising it in silent toast before taking a sip. After drinking, he paused and looked at the glass, then raised a brow, cocking his head toward the hand that held the wine and giving a nod of approval, even as he said into the phone, “I’ll be home in a couple of hours. We’ll talk then. Love you.”
Already at the casual “love you” stage? Damn. It was a fun hour while it lasted. Her brief crush was entirely based on Josh swooping in like a white knight and making her feel safe. She hadn’t minded the kiss or the hug either. Or the way he’d brushed his lips over her temple. And told Troy he protected what was his.
She was pathetic. And Josh Warner
was way too good-looking.
Damn Trina. Couldn’t she have sent a nice but unappealing guy to rescue her?
He tucked his phone in his breast pocket and said, “This is a very good wine.”
She smiled in spite of her disappointment as she dropped onto the sofa, trying to give him as much room as possible, wishing her office could accommodate something larger than a love seat. “I figured I deserve it after today, and you deserve it for coming to my rescue.” She took a sip from her glass and enjoyed the rich, herbal bouquet and earthy finish. She’d made the right call in the wine department, at least. She met Josh’s gaze over her glass. “You know wine.”
“I lived in Portland for a few years before I joined the Navy. Hung with a group of people who did wine tastings nearly every weekend. It’s one of the things I’ve been looking forward to doing again since moving back, but I’ve lost touch with all those old friends and haven’t made the time.”
“I go once a month.” She hesitated to say what she was thinking. He might believe she was asking for a date, and that would make everything awkward. “With a group of friends,” she added in a rush. “It’s a standing date.”
He smiled. He could probably guess at all the confused thoughts that raced through her mind. He was a handsome man who put off the best kind of protective, manly vibes. She’d bet clients threw themselves at him all the time. “If you ever have room for one more,” he said, “I’d love to join you.”
She felt a little flutter, but reminded herself he just wanted to go wine tasting, make new friends. His friends from the past were all gone. “Sure. We can always make room. Most of my friends are archaeologists or historic preservation specialists. We’re wonderfully nerdy, if you can handle that.”
He laughed. “I’m used to hanging out with archaeologist- and historian-types thanks to Keith being married to Trina. Plus, my friend and coworker, Ian, married an underwater archaeologist, and Rav—the owner of Raptor—married an archaeologist. I’ve met their friends who work for Naval History and Heritage Command. You’re all kind of hard to get away from.”
She smiled. “Yeah. We run in packs. Trina and I met in undergrad. I minored in history, and we ended up sharing an apartment our senior year and during grad school with two other history geeks.”
“Trina’s husband, Keith, is one of my best friends. He and I were on a SEAL team together once upon a time.”
She’d only met Keith once in the years he’d been with Trina, when she was in DC to conduct research at the National Archives and extended the trip a few days to visit with her old friend. It was before the couple had eloped, but it had still been more than clear they were the together-forever types. She was happy for Trina, even if she’d felt a little lingering envy.
She’d returned to her boyfriend in Portland and wondered if they had the same contentment and passion. One week before their scheduled wedding she’d discovered the answer to that was a definitive no.
“Trina didn’t mention you were a SEAL.” No wonder she’d felt all those badass but protective vibes from him.
He nodded. “Eight years on the teams before I left the Navy.”
There was so much she wanted to ask him. Why he quit, why he’d opted to move back to Portland. Who Ava was…
But this wasn’t a date, and none of that was any of her business. After finishing a cracker, she said, “That will be sure to scare the crap out of Troy after your parting comment. He might be big, but I don’t think he’s had any sort of security guard training.”
He nodded. “I have the feeling he’s relied on using his size and weapons to intimidate and get his way.” He leaned forward and plucked a slice of cheese from the tray. “Thanks for the wine and food.”
“It’s the least I could do. Thank you for dropping everything and coming to my rescue.”
“You going to be okay tomorrow?”
She bit her lip as she considered his question. After a long moment she said, “I think so. Now that he knows I have someone watching my back, I think he’ll retreat.”
“I’ll try to show up a few more times to keep him on his best behavior. I want you to tell me if he steps out of line again.”
“I’ll be at the house for the next ten days or so, but after that, it will be sporadic.”
He glanced toward the living room. “I don’t like that he followed us most of the way here—but it’s possible he was just going to get groceries.” He leaned forward. “Have you reported this to your boss?”
She took a sip of her wine, then explained why she couldn’t tell Sienna. “I can’t add to her stress when this all could be in my head.”
“I get your concerns. For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is in your head.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them again and met his gaze. Damn, he had great eyes. Warm brown. But even more than that, they were caring. Concerned. “Thank you. It means a lot to hear that.”
“I’ll do what I can to help.”
“I’ll pay out of my own pocket. Aubrey Sisters will reimburse me, most likely, and if they choose not to, that’s fine. It was my call to bring you in.”
He shook his head. “No. This is on the house. My rate is…probably way more than you can afford, and we have minimum number of hours required for contracts like this that are cost prohibitive. Easier if we keep it off the books.”
“You have to let me pay you for your time.”
He smiled and took a drink. “This wine is payment enough. You know how long it’s been since I had something this fine?”
She appreciated the offer, but it wasn’t right. “This is your profession. I’m not comfortable asking you to work for free.”
“It would be different if I were needed to guard you twenty-four seven. This is me showing up and calling you sweetheart and looking intimidating. Not exactly taxing, and not worth the amount I bill out for. If it makes you feel better, you buy the wine when you take me to a tasting.”
Was he asking her out or just being kind?
She needed his help and didn’t want to screw it up by asking questions that could make him regret his offer.
“You should be concerned,” he said. “I have expensive taste when it comes to wine.” He popped an olive into his mouth.
She laughed. “Okay. Deal for now. We’ll renegotiate if necessary.”
“Good. Before I leave, we’re doing a walk-through of the house so I can evaluate your security and come up with a plan. You don’t have an alarm system. If he hadn’t followed us on the drive, that wouldn’t concern me too much, but I think you need one.”
She nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing. “I’ll research it tonight and make calls tomorrow.”
“I don’t like that you’re without cell coverage in the crypt. I don’t suppose the house has Wi-Fi and you can use Wi-Fi calling?”
“No. I’m sure the house has internet—he lives in the turret tower—but he’s not sharing.”
“We could hack in, but that wouldn’t exactly be legal. Plus the Wi-Fi probably can’t penetrate the bricks anyway.” He piled a cracker with cheese and an olive and closed his eyes as if it hit his palate like a gourmet treat.
Damn. Even watching him eat was hot. She wished she hadn’t blown off Trina when she first called. Now it was too late.
“When you’re done at the house, what will your work entail? I’m not familiar with NAGPRA-related work.”
She explained the research phase, which would take weeks—probably months—visiting archives and consulting with tribes and historians and visiting the sites where Otto Kocher was known to have dug, in addition to trying to find information on the digs he didn’t record. “My primary job is to identify where the remains were collected from, because that will determine if a federal or state agency has jurisdiction. Second to that is to determine if there are groups of remains that can be repatriated together, as each location is its own repatriation. Third is matching artifacts that are funerary objects to
the remains they were buried with, because funerary objects are also subject to repatriation along with the remains.”
She would have stopped there, but he asked questions about how she’d conduct that particular research, so she gave him a quick overview of the process, surprised when he continued to ask questions, like he was really interested in her work.
Part of her wondered if it was a sign he was interested in her, but she quashed that thought. It wouldn’t be good to get her hopes up. She’d missed her chance, or maybe she’d never had one.
“Often, looters will label artifacts in terms of the burial they found them with,” she continued in her lengthy explanation. She’d been on dates with people who worked in a related field who would have begged to change the subject by now, but not Josh. “The most common way they did that was to use the abbreviation ‘B’ for burial. So if I find an artifact labeled B3-10, I will assume it’s the tenth artifact found with the third burial at a particular location.”
“People really wrote that stuff down when it was illegal?”
“Federal laws started being more strict in the 1970s, and by 1974, when the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act was enacted, the writing was on the wall…and many collectors chose to cover their tracks. They burned their notes to prevent anyone from proving they had collected from federal land. Plus, you’ll find a lot of people who sell on eBay are super cagey and vague about provenience. You see a lot of ‘Collected from the surface’ or ‘Collected in the 1960s.’ Much of Otto’s collecting was documented in the twenties and thirties—and therefore is not subject to NHPA, AHPA, or NAGPRA, unless he’d taken from federal land—and the family claims that was the end of it. But given his obvious obsession, I have a hard time believing he didn’t continue collecting until the stroke that disabled him in the seventies.”
His eyes hadn’t glazed over, so she continued. “I fully expect he burned the most incriminating of his notes—anything that indicated he dug on what was then federal grazing land. Even if the land is no longer under federal ownership, all that matters now is who owned it when Otto collected there. My best hope is looking for correspondence with others who might not have been so careful. My first order of business is figuring out who his friends were and hoping their descendants have letters they’re willing to share.”
