Relentless (Lodestone)

by Cherry Adair

  Body flooded with heat, he gritted his teeth and kept his tone even and cool with effort. “I’ll use this”—he held up a handheld device similar to a GPS, but government issue—“and we’ll know where he was. I’ll compare artifacts to digs. Anything that doesn’t match up might—and I stress might—be from the tomb at the mystery location.”

  This, he knew, was an exercise in futility. He’d humor her for today. Tomorrow he’d return to Seattle with or without her.

  She chewed the corner of her lower lip, the pen poised over the pad as she tried to remember. “The Hor-Aha dig was 2008 and well into 2009. That was near—can you show me a map?”

  Thorne removed the map he’d procured from his office last evening, unfolded it, and spread it on the floor in front of her. When she leaned over it, he had a glimpse of the lightly tanned swell of her breasts. Jesus God. He was as randy as a schoolboy. He rolled his chair far enough away so that parallax hid her attributes from his avaricious view.

  He’d endured Boris Yermalof’s brand of retribution with more equanimity than dealing with Isis Magee. She affected him more than she should. More than he wanted her to.

  She glanced up to give him an inquiring look. “Do you usually carry a map in your pocket?”

  “I carry whatever is required for the job.” Be it a map or an Uzi. He had to roll the chair closer to see where she was pointing on the large unfolded map. He inhaled cinnamon, which made him dizzy, which in turn annoyed him. The smell of her wasn’t seductive in any way, shape, or fucking form. Someone should send a memo to his dick. “Give me my pen back. I’ll write down the coordinates.”

  She did so, and he managed not to brush her fingers with his, and even managed not to inhale the warm scent of her skin. Waiting until she moved away to take a breath, he wrote down the approximate location of each of the professor’s findings. In this case, approximate was good enough. He didn’t need to go there, just eliminate each as he touched the artifact. Whatever remained unaccounted for, would, in a perfect world, be the tomb of Queen Cleopatra. Since Thorne knew how damned imperfect the world was, he wasn’t holding his breath.

  “Is that it?” he asked when she’d finished identifying where her father had been for the past five years. That should be far enough back.

  “Oh! Wait, I think he helped a friend on the Neferirkare dig for a few weeks three years ago. It’s right… here.” She pointed at the location on the map, then met his gaze. “Yes. That’s everything.”

  There was a gap of a few months where he’d been stateside, and then the months he’d spent nailing down the location and ostensibly found the tomb.

  Ready to go to work, Thorne made a makeshift desk from a stack of boxes, then placed his map, GPS device, notepad, and pen out. He sat down to make some notes, glad to get off his leg for a minute or two. It ached and burned.

  Two seconds later Isis walked her chair right up beside him. “Now what do we do?” Thorne didn’t get it. He’d lain in a swamp in Central Africa, oblivious to the stench surrounding him as he out waited his quarry. He’d smelled his partner’s blood as well as his own when Yermalof had tortured the crap out of them. Why the bloody hell couldn’t he ignore the fragrance of this woman’s skin?

  “We do nothing. You feel free to read whatever you like to your heart’s content. I’ll touch an item and eliminate it. The faster I go, the faster I—we—can get out of here.”

  “I know a way to speed things up,” she told him, leaning forward so that his entire body clenched in response to her closeness. “We can eliminate anything bigger than a bread box. The artifacts he brought back will be small.” She gave him a cheeky smile, which chipped another flake from the rock of his heart.

  He stared back at her for a beat or two—debating—then decided that if he put his mouth anywhere near her mouth, he’d be screwed. He’d been hired to do a job. He’d do that job. No more. No less.

  That meant no fraternizing with the client.

  No touching.

  No inhaling.

  Absolutely no kissing.

  “Small enough not to declare when he came through customs? Then they wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out, trying to get out of her gravitational pull, but without success. “The museum wouldn’t countenance—”

  “Small enough to have in his pockets when he was knocked out. He had handfuls of small rocks and things in his pockets, notes and little bits of pottery. I didn’t really look. The museum asked that I send them everything. I just tossed the last bits and pieces into a box and shipped it. I’ll look for the box. Maybe they haven’t had a chance to go through it yet.”

  “Right.” He checked the map a couple of times, broadening the latitude and longitude for each location to be eliminated, then got to his feet, pulling on the white cotton gloves given to them when they’d been let into the storage area. She was sitting far too close. He’d been attracted to a lot of women—some even at first sight. But never like this. Attraction was a mild word for it. He was in a state of semi-arousal all the time. Uncomfortable as hell. “You can go shopping if you like. We can meet back at the hotel later.” Where, given half a glance of encouragement, he’d have her naked and flat on her back in minutes flat. Mutual satisfaction guaranteed.

  No. Fucking. Fraternizing.

  What did he need to remind him? A two-by-four across the head? There was somewhere a lot lower where a hard blow would be more effective. Unfortunately, he was far too conscious of that region of his body already.

  “I didn’t come all this way to go shopping,” she responded cheerfully. “What?” she asked, when he gave her a pointed look.

  “You’re blocking my workspace,” he said briskly, wondering how long before she realized this was a hopeless task and called it quits.

  She grinned. “You do your thing, and I’ll see if any of his papers give us a clue.” He waited for her to roll her chair back across the room, then observed her graceful return to her cross-legged position among the boxes.

  She left a drift of spicy cinnamon in her wake.

  FOUR

  Isis adored her father. But Holy Mother of God, the man loved writing notes. Copious, rather dry notes, hundreds and hundreds of pages of them, many of them accompanied by extraordinarily bad sketches. She read until her eyes crossed, then persuaded Thorne to take her to lunch in the cafeteria, since they weren’t allowed to eat in the storage rooms.

  He’d been taciturn while they ate, then hurried her back downstairs. “I really appreciate how dedicated you are to helping me; it’s very sweet of you,” she told him as they walked downstairs. His slight limp and the use of the cane didn’t impede his speed, and she suspected that without his injury he’d take the stairs three at a time and leave her in the dust.

  He paused midstep to raise a brow. A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Sweet?”

  She smiled at his clear distaste at being called that. “Kind of you.”

  “I’m neither sweet nor kind. You paid for my services, I’ll do my best to ensure you get your money’s worth.”

  “Does your leg hurt?” She knew it hurt—she wanted to know to what degree. Isis was pretty sure he wouldn’t be so bad-tempered and surly if he weren’t in pain.

  He glanced at her as they reached the landing. A group of teachers and a gaggle of schoolkids clattered past them, and they stepped aside to let the herd pass. “No,” he told her succinctly when they resumed their descent.

  She was worried about him standing for hours, but the only way she could get him to sit down had been to insist she was hungry so they could go upstairs to the cafeteria.

  They unlocked the door and turned on the lights. “Why is your injury such a big secret?”

  “It’s not a secret. It’s none of your business.”

  “Apparently,” she said, unoffended. Her father was grumpy a lot of the time because he was distracted, or hungry, or too hot. “Too personal?”

  Thorne took a fresh pair of cotton gloves from the box by the door. “Is anything t
oo personal in your book?” he asked, pulling on a glove while giving her a less than friendly look.

  He had nice hands. Big and strong-looking. The bright overhead lights shone on several scars across the back of his right hand before he pulled on the other glove. Part of the same accident?

  “How did your brother die?”

  “Jesus—”

  “I just wondered if your injury and your brother’s death were linked, that’s all.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his eyes looked black. “Garrett was swept overboard m—the family yacht. There was a squall, he… died.”

  “That’s terrible.” Her heart ached for him. What a tragedy. She stopped what she was doing to look at him. He continued working as if she weren’t there.

  “We were alone on the Breeze.”

  “God. That’s even worse. You must’ve fought so hard to save him.”

  “I did. Other people didn’t see it that way. He was the heir, and I was glad for it. He liked everything that entailed. It worked out well for everyone.”

  “And then he died, and now you’re the heir.” Neither Thorne nor his father appeared to be very happy about it.

  “I have absolutely no interest in being a wealthy dilettante. I have a job. I pay my own freight. If you’re going to chitchat and waste my time, you can go back to the cafeteria and read a guidebook while I work.”

  Isis turned an imaginary key against her lips. “Just Thorne” was not amused. He went straight back to the drawer of artifacts he’d been touching before they left for lunch and before she’d started asking questions.

  She too pulled on a pair of gloves. Being an only child, she couldn’t fathom what it was like to lose a sibling. Hideous, she imagined. “How much older was Garrett?”

  He was quiet for so long, Isis thought he wasn’t going to answer. “If I tell you will you shut the hell up?”

  “How do you get to know someone if you don’t ask questions?”

  “One ruddy question. Choose wisely—it’ll be the only one you get.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Twenty-one when he died. And bonus answer? He was seven minutes older than I.”

  “Dear God. You were twins.” The distance between Thorne and his parents now became a little clearer to her. They blamed Thorne for his brother’s death.

  “Are you going to dog my footsteps for the rest of the day?” he demanded with a scowl as he rested his hand briefly on each item in a wide drawer, multitasking by giving her an irritable look as he did his work.

  The question had been rhetorical, and since she could almost smell brimstone in the room, she backed off. “I like watching you work,” she told him easily. She liked looking at him. His shirt still looked crisp and fresh; he looked like a man on a mission, with those sleeves rolled up his muscular forearms. He had a nice straight nose, almost Roman, and his ears lay flat and neat against his head. Very sexy.

  The planes of his face were hard, but she liked the soft look of his military-short haircut, and the no-nonsense, almost fluid way he moved. Even though he was a large man, and even with the limp, his movements were almost graceful. He was aware of the space he took up and filled it to capacity. Isis found it very sexy. He intrigued her.

  Wanting to reach out to feel if the dark hair on his muscular forearms was crisp or soft, she instead folded her arms around her waist and said, “You have a very delicate touch for a man with such big hands.” She leaned her butt against the cabinet next to where he worked. “Are the scars on the back of your hands from the same accident?”

  He didn’t look up as he touched a gold and glass scarab bracelet she vaguely remembered her father letting her wear when she was about five or six. It had been way too big, and heavy on her wrist, but she’d loved the colors of the glass beads. Thorne moved his hand to a solid gold pendant studded with lapis lazuli. “What about ‘I don’t talk about it’ do you not understand?”

  “Now, see, you never actually said that. Implied, perhaps, but not stated.”

  He turned a steely look on her. “I have two things to say to you. Both are statements. One: I do not now, nor will I ever, discuss my injuries with anyone, and you in particular. Two: if you want this done, then you have to leave me the fuck alone to do it. Is that clear enough for you?”

  Lord, the man was cranky. But it was hard to be pissed off at a guy with a bad limp wearing white cotton gloves. “I could sit over there and read my father’s diaries. Would that help you concentrate?”

  “As long as you don’t talk, or breathe, or hum.”

  “I’ll breathe just enough to keep me conscious in case you find something,” she told him cheerfully, backing up with both hands raised as he gave her the evil eye.

  It was companionable working silently among her father’s things. Thorne was pretty fast as he opened a drawer, ran his hand slowly over each item, and moved on to the next. Starting to get sleepy from the inactivity, Isis took out her camera and framed some shots of him as he worked. Without looking over at her, he snapped. “Three: no pictures of me.”

  Unoffended, Isis put her camera back in the camera bag and picked up one of her father’s ubiquitous small black notebooks, flicking through what were mostly rough sketches. It took her a moment to recognize what she was looking at.

  “Oh, my God! Of course. Damn it, why didn’t I think of this before?” She jumped to her feet, not waiting for his response. “My father was always paranoid that someone would steal his notes and trump him on his discoveries. When he wanted to keep things close to his chest he’d draw a tyet, the hieroglyph knot of Isis, somewhere on the page. He always left himself cryptic clues to jog his memory.”

  “Let me see that.” Thorne held out his hand. He’d taken the cotton gloves off, and Isis had a moment to admire how strong-looking his hand was, before she gave him the book. Normally she wasn’t that fond of people telling her what to do. She’d pretty much raised herself, running wild in whatever camp her father was digging in during the summers, and living with her aunt in Seattle during the school year.

  She could either choose to be thoroughly annoyed by his crappy bad humor or else be sympathetic and give his overbearing personality a pass while he was helping her. Besides, honey was more attractive than vinegar. Isis considered his crankiness almost part of his charm, because he did it with such grim deliberation. The more he pushed, the more curious she became, so if he thought that by being rude, she’d be turned off, he was sadly mistaken.

  His eyes ran over one page, then another as he flicked through the book. “This doesn’t tell us any—” He stopped talking so abruptly, Isis took a small step toward him, putting a hand on his wrist with concern. His skin was hot to the touch. “What is it?”

  “Cairo. Not just a general direction. I know specifically where he had this diary last.”

  SIX HOURS LATER THEY landed in Cairo. The city was hot, muggy, and filthy for most of June through August. Even the locals fled the fly-ridden city for cooler climes, not that anyone could tell from the insane traffic, a mixture of vehicles with engines, vehicles that were animal powered, vehicles that were being pushed, and pedestrians who considered they had right-of-way—everywhere. Driving in Cairo was a contact sport and no one was chicken.

  It was in the mid-seventies at ten at night, but the daytime temperatures would rise to the nineties, and the thick, odoriferous air still held high humidity due to the city’s location in the Nile delta valley.

  After Isis flatly refused to hire one of the more reputable—and high-priced—taxis, he’d agreed to a local cab company and negotiated the fare from sixty pounds to fifteen.

  “Brace yourself,” he warned as they lurched out of the taxi line and did a wheelie out of the terminal at breakneck speed—miraculous considering the vintage of the vehicle.

  In passable Arabic, Thorne gave the driver directions to the Zamalek region, where he’d booked them into the Marriott hotel while waiting for their flight from Heathrow. Isis would protest the
cost, but he didn’t give a shit. He wanted a clean bed and a decent night’s sleep. His leg hurt as if fire ants were crawling in and out of his thigh. He’d been crouching and standing on a hard cement floor at the museum for hours, followed by a six-hour flight in coach. He’d pay for the rooms himself, which would please his pinchpenny client.

  The ubiquitous black, white, and rusty taxi had no springs—either on the chassis, or beneath the blanket—and probably flea-covered seats. They were lucky there were bloody seats at all. They passed through the security checkpoint, where Thorne signed their names in the book, showed his fare receipt, and proceeded without incident.

  They passed a burning car, and the thick, oily smoke filled the vehicle, making Isis cough. Thorne silently handed her his handkerchief and she pressed it to her nose.

  She was way too bloody perky. Too cheerful, too… fresh and appealing in an annoying, girl-next-door way that made his teeth ache. None of that had any kind of adverse effect on his dick, which liked her a great deal. Of course, he hadn’t had sex in almost a year, which would account for his irrational attraction to a woman he wouldn’t have given the time of day to a year ago.

  He had a preference for tall, bosomy blondes who disliked commitment as much as he did. This woman was all up in his face as if, by paying Lodestone’s fee, she had a goddamned right to ask him questions that were none of her bloody business. She smelled wholesome, not sexy at all. Like something one should eat, he thought with irritation. Well, yes, there was that, Thorne thought wryly.

  Out of sorts, and anticipating staying that way for the duration, Thorne braced one hand and his good leg on the seat back as they screamed around a corner, narrowly missing a pack of ragged kids darting across the busy street. The kids scattered like buckshot.

  Isis shouted, “Thanks.” And Thorne realized too late that he’d slammed his forearm across her chest to prevent her from being thrown through the windshield. He removed his arm, but not before he felt the imprint of her soft breasts as a tingle on his skin. Bloody hell. He glared out his window.