by Naomi West
“I’ve come to give you last chance, little scientist.” His eyes crawl all over me, lingering on all my lady parts. Blech.
I cross my arms over my chest and say nothing. I’m not taking the bait. But he continues on anyways. “Your last chance to come out with me tonight. So I show you good time for both of us.”
“For the last time, Stavros. No. Never. As in never ever. So please get the fuck out of my protected dig site and don’t come back.”
His hand is around my arm almost before I’m done talking. His grip like a vice. Shock pulses through me. And then the pain. He’s hurting me, his fingers intentionally digging into my skin.
“You listen-,” Stavros starts.
“Maybe it’s time for you to listen, boy.” My father stands over my shoulder, and I hear the distinct click of a bullet sliding into the chamber of the handgun he has pointed directly into Stavros’s face.
Stavros goes white as a sheet, his greasy black hair standing out like an oil slick. He lets go of me quickly, and when I stumble backwards, I realize how far up on my toes he’d been dragging me.
“You make mistake, old man,” Stavros hisses as he turns to stalk out of the dig site.
As I watch him go, motion flicks in the corner of my vision. Yankees cap man is hopping back over the ropes surrounding the dig site. Hmmmm. He must have jumped in during all the commotion. He doesn’t look back at us as he strides away. And after two blinks, it’s almost like he’s pulled a cloak over himself, melted into the town.
I turn to my dad. “It’s ok, Papa,” I say as I gently place my hand over the top of his gun, still pointed at Stavros’s retreating back.
He lets the weight of my hand lower the weapon as his eyes clear, and he looks back at me. I notice the rest of the crew ducking their heads back to their work like prairie dogs.
I study my father for a moment. And he does the same for me. I take in his lined face. Clear brown eyes and the tuft of wiry hair that peeks out from under his safari hat. It used to be red, like mine, but these days it’s mostly white. His expression is thoughtful, as if he didn’t just have a gun cocked at a man. And as he looks at me, something else flickers across his face. Love. For me.
“I know it’s ok, turtledove.” He puts the safety back on his gun and slides it back into the gun belt he wears under his shirt, at his lower back. “I don’t think he’ll be back.”
I shrug. I couldn’t begin to predict Stavros’s whims. I turn back to my work area and I feel my father at my shoulder still. He crouches down to study my work. All my field notes, the way I’ve methodically marked out the dig site, the things I’ve uncovered, fossilized bone shards and two round sections of a pot, like quarters.
He hums in the back of his throat. He’s considering my work. As the world-renowned archaeologist, I gave up seeking his approval a long time ago. It was a battle I was only ever fighting against myself. But as my father, I still yearn after a word of encouragement here and there.
“Interesting choice you’ve made here.” He gestures to where I’ve stopped gridding out the cut into the earth and gone with a different, more self developed strategy of marking my progress.
“It was to accommodate for the-,”
“Striations in the rock. Yes, I think it’s smart. If you’d gone on the traditional way, you may have risked destroying the pieces of pot when you found them.” He turns back to me, he’s in full on professor mode. “Have you considered-,”
“That the break pattern of the pot is very similar to that of the bone shards? Of course.”
A flash of pride transforms his inquisitive face for just a moment. “And your deductions?”
I wave a hand through the air. “Mere guesses at this point. They’d only cloud our vision for me to say them aloud.” I’ve heard him say this to me nearly a hundred times in my lifetime. My father doesn’t like for his crew to make guesses during the point in the process. He believes it leads them on wild goose chases and ultimately causes them to miss what’s actually there. “No postulation during excavation.”
Another flash of pride over his face. “Yes. Well. This is good work, doctor.”
“Thanks, Papa.”
“And it’s quitting time for you tonight,” he says as he gently presses a hand over the shoulder that Stavros has just grabbed. I wince involuntarily.
“But I haven’t even packed up my site.”
“I’ll see to it. You go get something to eat. I’ll be along in a few hours.”
I open my mouth to argue but clap it closed again when my father gives me a look he’s been giving me since I was three years old. “Come now, turtledove. We’ve had enough scenes here to last us quite awhile. Now, take the bike, and get something to eat back at our hotel.”
Experience tells me that it’s absolutely no use to argue with my father. So I don’t. I merely un-strap my tools from my work belt and lay them back on the stand where I keep them.
My father quickly helps me get ready to leave. Organizing my tools and putting my bag over my shoulders like I’m a kindergartener off to her first day of school. One quick pat of my hair and then my father has disappeared back into Dr. Rourke. I can see he’s forgotten me already as he drifts back over to his own work site. He’s jumps down, knocking over his tool stand on the way, but he’s already leaning over, studying something with intense scrutiny.
I sigh and head over to the motorbike I use to get around town. Some things never change.
And some things do. I find, as soon as I get back to my hotel room, that I don’t want to be there. Normally, I’d order something from the small hotel restaurant, and eat it at my desk, poring over my notes. But tonight, after a quick shower to get all the dust off of me, I find I really don’t want to do it.
Maybe it was the jittery feeling I got when I took off my shirt and saw Stavros’s handprint on my shoulder, the blues blooming like a dyed carnation. Or maybe it was the fact that I had quit before the sun had set for the first time since we’ve arrived.
But either way, I find myself slipping on a simple jersey dress and heading back out into Greece.
Chapter Four
Kennedy
So, the old man keeps a gat strapped to his back. And he looks like he knows how to use it. Good thing I didn't try to ambush him last night.
I sit in the back corner of the little dingy bar around the corner from their hotel and consider the two of them. They're interesting, despite the fact that I try not to get too interested in people I'm about to hand deliver to a torturous mobster. But I can't deny that there is interest there.
The father/daughter relationship. The absent-minded archaeologist and his brilliant, scrupulous daughter. The internet searches I did on them before I got to Greece told me that much. That he was world renowned, and she was fast building a reputation for herself. They're good at what they do. But I could find no record of their current dig. But what do I know? Maybe that kind of thing isn't public knowledge yet. I'm no scientist.
The internet did tell me that they've worked side-by-side for a decade. Even before she had her Ph.D.s he allowed her free reign on his dig sites. But the web search didn't tell me how much he loves her. That I saw with my own eyes in the way he sprang to her defense this morning.
It was really something. To see the dreamy, clumsy, professor type in a safari hat and spectacles suddenly transform into a hardened, ready warrior. He would have killed that man this morning. That was obvious. I recognized it in his eyes.
I had the same look in my own. The guy, Stavros, is obviously a real dickhead. I've asked around town about him and he's into dirty shit. I didn't like seeing him up against Rowena like that. Not anymore than her father did.
The waitress sets down the gyro and fries in front of me and I shoot her a little smile. She's cute. Long dark hair and sweet little smile. She blushes when I smile at her. Score. She's feeling it. With any luck, I'll get a little company tonight.
I lean forward to whisper something to her, anything, I
’ve found it doesn't really matter what you whisper as long as you lean in close enough to scramble a woman's brains. But I go on alert as I feel the air in the bar change.
There's a quiet tension zinging around the other patrons and looking up, I realize it's because a beautiful woman has just walked in. Her long purple dress swishes around her legs, almost touching the floor, but it hugs her breasts and ass. An ass that I've come to know well. It's Rowena.
The men in the bar start whispering and elbowing one another as she makes her way toward an empty table. A protective instinct is rising up, inexplicably within me. The same feeling that had me hopping the fence at the dig site when that dickhead grabbed her today. The waitress moves to go tend to Rowena, but I grab her by the arm. "Seat her with me," I tell the shy little woman.
She nods, immediately acquiescing, like the request isn't that unusual. I think I may really be passing up on a treasure in that one. She seems like she takes directions well.
Rowena looks up, surprised, when the waitress guides her to my corner booth, dark and tucked away. She stands above me, a confusion that fades when she realizes that she recognizes me. I can see her hesitating. And who can blame her? She hasn't had the best time with strange men today.
"Look," I say, raising my hands as she starts to step back. "Just sit. We don't have to talk, or even acknowledge one another. But that's probably the most polite offer you're gonna get tonight. Especially if you sit out there by yourself."
Rowena glances around the bar and seems a little surprised by the number of eyes currently boring into her. She glances at the door, but then at the food in front of me. Shrugging, she plops down next to me unceremoniously.
"Miss?" the waitress asks. "What food for you?"
Rowena just points to my plate and then to my beer. The waitress nods and immediately heads to another table.
The silence stretches out between us, and I can smell that scent again. It tangles in the air and makes my mouth water. Coconuts and roses or something. I shove my untouched food toward her. She looks up at me, surprised.
"You look hungry." I shrug. "You can have mine, and I'll wait for the next round."
She mirrors my shrug and digs into the food without a single hesitation. I try not to wince. If she were mine, I'd have to teach her not to take food from a strange man in a dark bar. But she's not mine, I remind myself. She's Esposito's.
She swallows a big bite of food and follows my face with her eyes. I nudge my beer forward, and she takes a swig. Huh.
"You don't care about cooties?" I ask, intrigued by her.
She shrugs again, indelicately, and starts working on the fries. After a minute or two of her absolutely mowing the food down, she wipes her mouth and looks at me. She picks up the beer and watches my face.
"You were at the dig site today."
Her voice hits me like a sack of bricks, and I feel the wind get sucked away from me. First of all, her voice is sexy as shit. All husky and velvety. She sounds like she's trying to talk me into bed. Even with a mouthful of gyro. But that's not what really has me discreetly adjusting myself in my pants. It's her accent.
"You have a Cajun accent," I say in surprise. I can feel my eyebrows disappear into my hairline.
She nods. "So they tell me."
"How'd you get it?" I can hear the idiocy of my question the second the words leave my mouth.
Now she's the one who is raising her eyebrows. "I lived there. That's generally how people get their accents."
"When did you live there?" I'm leaning toward her now. I can't help it. She really smells fucking amazing.
But she leans back, away from me, and slaps what's left of the gyro back on her plate.
"You were at the dig site," she repeats and I can tell she's done with the 20 questions.
I keep my pose casual. "I like to watch."
Her eyebrows raise even higher. "You're interested in archaeology?"
"Sure," I say, tipping my cap back and rubbing at my hair for a second. "But I really meant that I like to watch pretty women do stuff they're obviously really good at."
The expression on her face could have sunk the Titanic.
Ok. So she's not into the whole flirty thing. Note taken.
The waitress comes back with the new plate of food and beer. She sets it all down in front of us. Rowena slides the plate across the table to me, but gives me back my old beer and keeps the new one for herself. I like her style.
I take a fry and casually chomp it down. I wasn't that hungry before. And now, I find myself completely distracted from anything other than her.
"So, then. What are you doing in Korinos?" she asks me. Her voice. Jesus. It's really doing a number on me.
I tip my Yankee’s cap back again and take another swig of beer. "You don't have any guesses?"
Her look is inscrutable. I take the opportunity to really study her face. She truly is exquisite. I had thought her face was just “nice” before. Pleasant. But I see now that there is a softness to her features. A fluid roundness from her eye to the curve of her cheek to her plump mouth. It's very appealing.
"I don't make guesses until I have as much information as possible. It clouds the judgment."
"Alright. So what information do you have so far? Maybe I can fill in some blanks for you." Not that I would ever actually tell her about myself. First of all, I don't tell anyone about myself. And second of all, what's the point? I'm about to deliver her to Esposito.
Her eyes scan up and down my body, and it makes my dick jump in my pants. "You have an American accent. Bland. neutral. So either you're from somewhere in the Midwest, or you've trained your natural lilt out of your voice. You're wearing a Yankees cap, but it's new and it looks like airport quality, not regulation stitch. So you're not a real fan. You've got naturally fair skin but a good tan. And no sunburn on your nose or ears. So you've been in the sun a lot lately, regularly. So you've maybe been traveling a lot. Whether or not that's in Greece I don't know. You're comfortable in this bar. Which most people wouldn't be, considering it's a little… unsavory. And you are sitting in a dark corner by yourself, without talking to any locals. So I don't think you're actually a tourist. I think you're dressed up as a tourist. And that you're here for another reason. Oh. And you're trying to sleep with the waitress."
She finishes her assessment of me with a sizable gulp of beer.
I shift, a little uncomfortable at how right-on-the-money she is. "If I'm pretending to be a tourist, then what am I actually doing here?"
She lasers me with her eyes again. "Like I said, I think prejudgments cloud the information, but if I had to guess," she cocks her head to one side. "I'd say you were a graverobber."
I inhale half my beer. "What?"
She stares at me another second before she shrugs. "Maybe not, then."
"No, seriously. Is that real? Do people really do that?"
"Of course. We've had plenty of run-ins before. People who show up at dig sites and wait for us to dig up something valuable. Why do you think my father has a gun strapped to his back?"
I lean back and grin at her. "To scare off overzealous assholes that lay hands on you, of course."
She furrows her brow at me. "That was a very unusual situation and I-. Oh Jesus Christ superstar," she breaks off and swears as she stares at the front of the bar where three men have just come in.
"Friends of yours?" I ask, draping my arm over the back of the booth, trying to seem casual and proprietary of her at the same time.
"The tall one with the earring? That's Vasilis. Stavros's brother. And the other two, I don't know by name but they come by the dig site as often as he does."
I’ve only been in Korinos for two days, and already I know that these are not guys somebody like Rowena would want to cross. They’re small time compared with the kind of people I work with. But they’re probably pretty scary to her.
As evidenced by the panic racing across her face. I drop my hand to her shoulder, meaning to comfort her, b
ut she winces. She pulls her arm away from me and the sleeve of her dress pulls up, revealing a ring of purple bruising.
From where Stavros grabbed her. Rage lances through me, hot and angry. What a fucking dickhead. I want to reach out and brush a hand gently over her bruises, but I never want her to flinch from me like that again.
I look up at the men and see that they’ve already spotted her. Smirking and scowling, they start to make their way across the bar toward our booth. My hand automatically goes to the Ruger at my hip, but apparently Rowena has a different idea.
Swiveling toward me, she tosses one leg over mine and grabs a fistful of my shirt.
I regain control of the moment just long enough to pause a breath away from her face. From a distance, I had thought her eyes were brown. But I can see now they’re more green. Like looking down at a forest from overhead. I could get lost in a forest like that.
