by MJ Fredrick
“I can’t help it my body doesn’t know we’re divorced.” Hell, part of the reason he was aroused was because he hadn’t been with anyone since he left their house in Pensacola.
She wasn’t looking at him anymore, but he could see her blush along the part in her hair. “Your body should know you just got bitten by a moray eel.”
“My body prefers pleasanter sensations.”
She jabbed the needle in a little sharper than he cared for. “Tell your body to get control. We have a long way to go here,” she said through her teeth.
Forty-two stitches. Mallory flexed her cramped hand against the rail of the boat and glanced at Adrian, who rested with his head against the pilothouse and his eyes closed, his skin pale beneath his tan. He needed to get into town, to a real doctor, though she hoped her stitches wouldn’t have to come out. She didn’t want him to endure that pain again.
Part of her had relished the revenge of sticking a needle repeatedly into the man who had hurt her, kind of a direct voodoo effect. Part of her—the part that she wasn’t ready to set free—wanted to bury her face in his chest and take a deep breath, feel his arms around her while he assured her he was all right.
Funny how easily her old instincts kicked in. All of them, especially the ones she felt around Adrian.
But now Adrian wouldn’t be able to dive for a few days; the muscle in his arm was damaged. He’d be short a diver and they’d fall behind schedule. They couldn’t afford to do that, either time-wise or budget-wise.
“We need to go into town, today. Get you checked out by a doctor and get those divers.”
He opened one eye. “Afraid you might lose your investment?”
She drew back. “That’s a pretty awful thing to say.”
He groaned and twisted away, keeping his arm still at his side. “Yeah, I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
“No, I didn’t. And if you weren’t in so much pain, I’d pop you in the arm.”
He sucked in his breath through his teeth. “By the time we get to the city, it will be too late. The doctor’s office will be closed.”
“It’s barely ten in the morning.”
“I can’t drive standard, not with this arm.”
“I think I can find the way.” Whoa. Had she just volunteered to take him? To be alone with him not only for the eight-hour round-trip drive, but overnight as well? They couldn’t go and come back in one day. Driving back through the jungle tonight would just be foolish. “Or Toney could go with you. Or Linda.”
“Linda gets lost the minute she steps out of camp.” His voice was slurred, either with exhaustion or the poison. Mallory knew that no matter her protests, she would be the one to go with him. “And I need Toney here to watch the site. It won’t be so terrible, you and me. Like the old days.”
Chapter Nine
Yep, the bad old days. Mallory’s last time to drive a stick shift was when Jonathan was shopping for a BMW Roadster. The linkage had been much tighter than in this old Land Cruiser. Calisthenics were required every time she shifted. With the state of the roads, she couldn’t get above third anyway, especially without jouncing Adrian about. She couldn’t even hope that he might fall asleep, since every time he bounced in his seat, he sucked in a breath through his teeth.
The tension in the car stretched as the miles passed slowly.
“How’s the book coming?” she asked, too loud, and they both jumped.
He chuckled. “It’s not.”
Was he laughing at her skittishness or her question? “You never were particularly patient when it came to things where you had to sit down.” He had barely been able to sleep inside their little house in Pensacola. One would have thought she’d put him in a cage, the way the house vibrated with his restless energy. He’d signed on for the first dig that came along. Her choice had been between being left behind in her little house and going with him. She’d gone, abandoning her house, her dream. That time. “You must have been pretty desperate for the money to agree to write a whole book.”
“Once I knew what I’d found, I had to.”
“If you announce this find, you’ll get all the funding you need for excavation.”
He grunted, and her stomach clenched. “I’m not announcing until I find the box and it’s safe. I don’t want anyone else to get their hands on it.”
“Anyone else meaning Valentine Smoller.”
“He has the other three boxes and if he knew I was after this one, he’d be all over it.”
“Why? Just to foil you? He doesn’t hate you, Adrian.” Gears ground as she pulled the Land Cruiser into second.
“That’s what he told you. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He wants the boxes. That’s why he partnered with me in Tunisia.”
She’d spent time with Valentine after the Tunisia disaster, when Adrian had been so driven to find the box. Mallory had found Valentine nothing but supportive. “But why do you think he wants the boxes?”
“Aside from the fact that they’re priceless on their own? Clearly Theophilius believed they needed to be separated. Smoller believes they need to be reunited, for whatever reason.”
“That’s only a myth. How many myths have we heard in our lifetimes?”
“They’re what drives us, these myths, finding out how true they are.”
Stubborn Scot. “But it won’t get us funding to get more divers. Only facts will do that, and we have to stick with that. We’re scientists, Adrian.”
“More divers means more chances for a leak.” Frustration tinged his voice. “That’s why I have Toney and Robert. I know I can trust them. And I checked out Linda and Jacob before I brought them on.”
“And me?”
He turned so his back was against the passenger door. He considered her a moment before he said, “I trust you the most.”
His words staggered her to silence. He observed the effect of his words, then turned to the jungle.
After everything, the hurtful words, the accusations, the ultimatums, he trusted her? She fought the tears of loss that burned her eyes. She couldn’t let him see her cry.
“The publisher,” she said after making certain her voice wouldn’t crack, and she chanced a look sideways. “You trust them as well?”
He lifted an eyebrow as if he would be that stupid. “Of course not. They think I’m diving off the coast of Africa.”
“Are you sure we’re going the right direction?” Mallory asked a short time later, battling through low-hanging vines and a road barely wide enough for a bicycle, much less a full-sized SUV. “I have no desire to be stranded and live on a diet of Spam.”
He grinned, looking up from the map jostling on his lap. “It’s a wonder you came back to archaeology, then.”
She tightened her grip on the wheel. “It certainly was easy to get used to hot water and refrigeration.”
“And diamonds the size of my eyeball.”
She gritted her teeth at the comment he’d made under his breath. “I wasn’t marrying him for money. I thought we’d decided to leave the past in the past.”
Adrian reached for his beef jerky and grimaced as his shirt sleeve pulled against the wound. She’d noted a ton of packages of jerky in his duffel when they’d loaded the car. Quitting smoking after nearly two decades must have been driving him out of his mind. She was glad she hadn’t been around for the early stages.
“This isn’t the past so much as me figuring you out all over again.”
She sighed and cranked up the air conditioner, which struggled to combat the humidity. He had never been much for introspection, not where their marriage was concerned. He could dig for hours on an ancient artifact, but he’d expected their marriage to come easily. “I became a different person after we split.”
“You were a different person before the split,” he retorted without hesitation.
She swung to look at him, braking at the same time. “What?”
He lifted his good hand, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he
hadn’t meant to say it. “All you talked about was the house, what we could do to the house, what we could buy for the house. You changed.”
God, not this argument again. After all this time, didn’t he get it? “Adrian, it was my first house. Ever. Mine.” The one she’d planned to live in for the rest of her life, with Adrian. The one she’d planned to raise their children in.
The one she sold after he left.
“You had houses before.”
“Rent houses, temporary, wherever my parents stopped long enough to teach before the next grant came through. Never something that was my own, that I could put my stamp on. Surely you remember how much that meant to me.” He had to remember—she’d told him this a hundred times—how she was tired of never having a home base. And he’d been willing, even excited when they found their little house. He’d been so happy she was happy. That hadn’t lasted long. She glanced over to see the muscle in his jaw working as he stared out the window, before he turned to her, his eyes dark, sad.
“I didn’t know you anymore.”
She smacked her palm against the steering wheel in frustration. “You didn’t try. You didn’t stick around. The first call that came through, off you went. You’re a good man, Adrian, a dedicated scientist, but you were a lousy husband.”
“Not what you needed, you mean.”
“You knew me best. You knew what I needed and why. You just weren’t willing to give it to me.”
“I would have given it to you.” He scrubbed a hand over his hair and looked out the window again. “I just wanted to wait a little longer.”
She shifted and eased off the clutch as sweat trickled down her back. Stupid air conditioner. “A woman doesn’t have all the time in the world. After my parents died, even then it seemed too late. Every time you promised something would happen, you never followed through.”
“Like what?” he asked, disbelief in his tone.
“The house.”
“I bought you the house.”
“Which we left for a year.” She didn’t even try to avoid the next rut in the road.
Adrian grunted as the truck jounced. “It wasn’t going to pay for itself. We had to make money.”
He could have taught. She could have stayed behind and taught. But she’d chosen him over her home. Why hadn’t he chosen her over his career? If he’d even tried, would things have been different? “But you tried to take a home-equity loan out to fund another dig.”
He held out a hand as if to stave off the accusation. “I thought about it. Thought. That was all.”
“You had the paperwork. You’d filled out your part!” God, she’d forgotten how much that had hurt, to find that paper buried in his other work. Not that he’d been hiding it, but that he had made such a big deal about buying her the house, then wanted to risk it for his job—that had crushed her.
He turned and scowled. “So I was a selfish bastard who put my career first.”
“You know you were.”
He didn’t take his gaze from her, making her jittery and secure all at once. “Have I changed?”
“Not where your career is concerned.”
He whipped his head around and she caught a whiff of his breath, spicy, different than she was used to, but that immediately brought the taste of his kiss to her lips.
“It never mattered to you as much as it mattered to me, finding the box, finding the truth.”
She met his eyes. “No.”
“Why not?”
The emotion she’d held back since she’d arrived in Belize broke through. “Because you were more important than a damn box, because we were more important.” Her throat strained as she pushed the words out while choking on tears. “But you couldn’t see that and you let it eat through you. Let it eat through us as well.” She wished for a radio, a CD, anything for a distraction.
“I needed it. You knew that.”
She swallowed so her voice wouldn’t break. “You used to need me more.”
“You couldn’t be everything for me, Mallory.”
She could almost hear the snap as he lost control of his temper.
“And clearly, I couldn’t be everything for you. I couldn’t make the sacrifice you needed me to make. I guess Jonathan could. What did he give up for you, Mallory? How did he prove to you that he loved you more than your parents did?”
Damn, he’d taken it too far. Adrian pulled himself back, physically, emotionally, hating himself for making her eyes sheen, her jaw clench. Her parents had been killed in a mudslide in Nicaragua a few years after she’d married him. Her devastation had slain him. She’d cried for months, leaning on him for the first time in their relationship. He could still feel her in his arms, smell her tears. Never had he felt so helpless. That was when he’d bought her the house, hoping to make everything better. Instead, it had been the beginning of the end.
“I’m sorry, Mal, I didn’t mean—”
She waved off his concern, bumping his forearm and snatching her hand away. “It’s been five years since they died.”
And he’d thought she’d meant to leave archaeology, leave him, after only a few years of marriage. She’d been that upset. Her parents had been archaeologists who carted her around the world before she decided to follow in their footsteps. At that point, he would have done anything to keep her with him. What changed in the intervening years?
The silence that followed was interminable. Damn it, he didn’t want to hurt her again. He didn’t want her to regret returning.
Okay, yes, he knew she hadn’t come back to him, but here she was, with him, working side by side with him again, something he’d never thought would happen, something he’d missed more than he cared to admit.
See, this was why he wasn’t good at communicating. He’d tried a conversation and ended up at an uncomfortable dead-end. How did he get out of this topic? “That was a stupid thing for me to say,” he ventured.
She waved him off, her jaw so tight he thought she’d crack some teeth. He’d just wanted her to see she was being unfair. His timing was shit—they were alone, unable to escape each other’s company for another few hours. She was probably tempted to drop him in the jungle, though.
Back in the old days, he’d make it better by nuzzling her throat, seducing her out of a bad mood. He could count on one hand the number of fights that hadn’t ended in sex. But maybe it was good that he didn’t have that crutch, that neither was able to walk away. If they hadn’t walked away from each other three years ago, maybe they would have had this discussion then, maybe they would have worked things out.
Maybe they’d still be together.
“Your parents weren’t bad people. Just single minded.”
She cast him a look that singed his good intentions. “You’d know about that.”
“I’m sorry, Mallory,” he said. Again she waved him off. “I’m apologizing here. Pay attention. I think it may be a first.”
A smile twitched her lips. “I suppose I should be honored.”
“You should be.” He nodded emphatically, relieved that his charm had worked, if not his seduction.
She eased the car out of gear and pulled the parking brake. Automatically, he looked around, though he knew there were no cars for miles.
“What?”
Mallory shifted to look at him. “Look, Adrian, we share a past, but if this is going to work between us, we can’t live there, all right? We have to start fresh, like we were never married, never—” She bit off whatever she was going to say and looked around. “We can’t be taking trips down memory lane. It’s too painful. So I’m just here as an archaeologist, no different from Dr. Vigil.”
He tried the smile again, but she looked away before he could offer her that comfort. “I hate to tell you, but the prof and I often discuss the past. It kind of goes along with being an archaeologist.”
“You and Dr. Vigil don’t have the past we do. Don’t be a stubborn ass, Adrian. Can we just keep our conversations professional?”
Damn, he loved a challenge. He wondered if she realized just how she was challenging him. He nodded, not agreeing to what she thought he was agreeing to. “No more stubborn ass.”
She snorted and put the car into gear.
She didn’t talk for a long time and he wondered if she remembered how he had loved her or if she only remembered how he’d hurt her.
“You did an admirable job of stitching him up,” the doctor told her after inspecting Adrian’s arm, four hours after they’d left camp. Mallory’s own arm was sore from shifting, her leg cramped from the clutch. At least Adrian wouldn’t have to relive forty-two stitches.
The doctor, a bearded American in a tropical shirt, walked over to the aluminum-fronted cabinet to put away the gauze. “I’ve given him another antibiotic shot and have rewrapped the arm so he doesn’t tear anything loose. He needs to keep it that way at least a week. No diving for at least two. And see that he takes these antibiotic pills.”
Mallory stepped back, her ears ringing with the news. They couldn’t afford to lose their most experienced diver, no matter how many other divers they hired.
Adrian took the bottle of antibiotics, bounced them in his palm. “Doctor, I can’t stay out of the water that long. We have a limited window here, and I have to go in.”
The doctor shook his head. “You shouldn’t get those stitches wet, and you won’t have full use of your arm, in any case. The two weeks will go quickly enough.” He walked out, dismissing them.
Adrian pocketed the pills and hopped off the exam table. “Let’s go get checked into a hotel.” He looped a companionable arm, his good one, around her neck. “It’ll be a nice change to get a real shower, yeah?”
The weight of his arm across her shoulders was so familiar, she almost found herself tucking her head in the crook of his neck, a move as natural as breathing, once upon a time. Pulling away would be the smart thing to do, but that would let him know her thoughts had veered into dangerous territory. Best to play it off, pretend it didn’t matter. But the gesture put her on guard. Was it casual, or did he plan to take advantage of their time alone to make her want more than just the ship?
