by Jane Stain
Of course he was glad she’d grown up, but seeing her cultivated mannerisms always caught him off balance. Well, if he was honest with himself, then he would have to admit that what bothered him was how much more educated she was than him. He felt intimidated by her, and his manliness didn’t know what to do with that feeling, let alone the envy he felt. She had attended school like a normal child, while he and his twin brother and their two cousins had taken lame online classes, with no one to hang out with between weekends except the kids of the few other traveling Renaissance faire workers.
She tilted her head to the side, crossed her arms, and stood there waiting in return. Maybe she was even tapping her foot, but he didn’t dare look. If she was, that would make him laugh, and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate that right now.
Gradually, it dawned on him, what she wanted him to say.
“Okay. I guess there is something to your doctorate degree.”
She sighed.
“About time you realized that.”
But then she turned and looked at the room again, then back at him. She grinned from ear to ear, and her whole body jiggled a little bit. She pulled two fists toward her with a sudden jerky movement.
“Yes! Look what we found! It was so fun Tav, studying for real all the stuff you and I could only dabble in at the faire.”
Pride in her accomplishment surged through him, and he did his best to show it in his smile.
“It shows on your face whenever you talk about it. I’m glad you’ve found work you love, Kel.”
At the word ‘work’, the smile left her face and she started to meticulously check all of the artifacts and garments and tools in the room. He didn’t know what she was checking them for, but she sure seemed to know what she was doing.
And this was Kelsey.
Her prim tailored suit, warm parka, and hiking boots covered most of her, but he was still transfixed by the way she moved and by how absorbed she was in what she was doing. And then she started digging in her bag, and he knew she was after her phone. To take pictures.
He held the wrist of her hand that was digging in the bag.
“Kelsey.”
She tried to pull her wrist away.
“I have to document this, Tavish.”
“I can’t let you do that, Kelsey.”
“What?”
“I just—”
“You know what?” She was huffing, and the two of them struggled, both of them talking at the same time.
“I know you really want to take pictures of this stuff, Kelsey, but you can’t just go—”
“Tavish, I’m not just some stupid girl who wants to take pictures of this stuff—”
“—barging into places you don’t know are safe and—”
“—I’m an appraiser who Mr. Blair hired to go over anything discovered here—”
Oh yeah, Mr. Blair.
Tavish eased off his hold on her wrists, and she pulled away, caught herself before she fell against a large standing figurine, and took what must have been her professional lecturing stance, because she started lecturing him.
“—and taking pictures of how artifacts are found is part of the process. I need to post them to Celtic University’s site to document the way they were stored. It might give us insight into Celtic beliefs and technology. I don’t expect a construction foreman to understand, but I do expect him to show me the professional courtesy of getting out of my way.”
“Kel, I’ll get out of your way, but you need to call Mr. Blair and get his permission before you post any of those pictures online. Can we agree on that much? This is his property. He has rights.”
She took a deep breath as if to argue with him, but then let it out and kind of deflated.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
She dug some more and finally got out her phone.
“Kel, that’s not gonna work down here.”
But she held it up for him to see, pointing at three bars.
“Wanna bet?”
Huh. That was one extensive set of windows down here. They weren’t letting any light in, just wind, so how were they letting the phone work? Oh well, it was working.
She put her phone to her ear. A huge grin broke out on her face just before she started speaking.
“Mr. Blair? It’s Dr. Ferguson. I am so sorry I got your voice mail. Guess what. Tavish and I found an entrance to the underground castle!”
Tavish smiled back at her when her eyes found his, and he pointed at her and nodded and then pointed at himself and shook his head no.
She wrinkled her forehead at him and held her hand out to the side, as if to say, “I give you credit and then you don’t want it? What’s wrong with you?”
He whirled his finger around in a circle to indicate all the stuff in the room and then pointed at the phone.
She nodded quickly.
“We’re down in it right now, and you won’t believe how much stuff, I mean how many artifacts, are preserved just in this one small room. I’m taking pictures to document the find in its pristine condition. We won’t disturb anything until you give us the okay, but I’m itching to post these photos to Celtic University’s password-protected site so that my colleagues can see them. Please call me back about that as soon as you can. Thank you so much for letting me look around without you here, but I am so sorry we actually found this in your absence. I’ll stay here tonight in your trailer, and hopefully you can come by in the morning. I’m so eager to show you this. Bye for now.”
She hung up and proceeded to take her pictures.
Good, she wouldn’t disturb anything, and that would have to do. He hoped it would be enough to pacify them. But as usual, they wanted him to find something for them here at this site. This room seemed as likely a place for it to be found as any, so he came back into the room with her and joined in her examination.
He asked her what he knew must be annoying questions, but he needed to keep her engaged so that she didn’t do anything he’d regret.
“What are all these little tools for?”
She didn’t get annoyed, though, just answered as a teacher would, reveling in sharing knowledge.
“I’m pretty sure they’re to carve designs into the stonework.”
“Like the designs you showed me in the root cellar?”
“Yeah, just like that. They’re all over the tunnels. That’s how I found my way down here.”
He looked at the old iron tools neatly lined up in their case, wondering why they hadn’t rusted away.
“So with these tools, you could make some more of those designs?”
A look of wonder came onto her face, and she stooped to look at the tools longingly.
“Yeah, I think I could. They wouldn’t be as good as the ones that are already there, though, and of course they wouldn’t be as old, so they wouldn’t fool someone who knew what to look for.”
“Someone like you?”
“Yeah!” she said with joy, “Someone like me.”
He scanned the room for their precious item, throwing out comments as they occurred to him, to keep her from noticing.
“What’s all of this white cloth over here?”
“Those are ceremonial druidic robes. The druids are the Celts’ priests, you know.”
“The druids are Celtic?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
She gave him a smug look and continued photographing everything. She kept her word to the client and didn’t disturb anything, but she went over everything very closely, so he was 99% sure that what they wanted wasn’t in this room. Well, you couldn’t expect it to be that easy, or those who sent him wouldn’t need him.
Every once in a while as the two of them looked at the stuff, they would brush against each other, and the old passion would threaten to flare up in him. Aw heck, it did more than threaten. He would need a cold shower tonight.
Finally, she was finished with the room and turned toward the doorway, lit up fro
m head to toe with excitement.
“This room is great, but it’s a dead-end. Let’s go on back up the stairs and look closer at that old laundry room. I’m positive there are more secret passageways that go out of it.”
“Naw,” he said, looking at his own phone, “it’ll be dark soon, and this area is full of wild animals like that dog you saw earlier. We really don’t wanna be outside once it gets dark. And while it’s really cool down here,” he said, “the part we’ve found so far doesn’t look very comfortable, and I doubt there’s running water in any case, let alone flushing toilets.”
She groaned.
“You’re right. Okay, walk me back to Blair’s trailer?”
“You got it.”
They started up the stone staircase. He stayed behind her so that he would block her if she fell, but to his relief, she looked quite nimble.
“Tavish.”
“Yeah?”
“When Mr. Blair comes tomorrow, let me take him up to that room.”
“I’ll let ya, but I’m coming with.”
“No.”
“No?” He tried to keep the amusement out of his voice when she turned around to look at him sternly.
“No.”
He reached toward her at the same time as she started walking down toward him. He’d meant to tap her leg to get her attention so that she turned around, but now she was falling toward him.
Her breasts collided with his face.
That wasn’t the worst of it though. Suddenly, he was holding her in his arms. She felt so good there, just like old times. He cleared his throat and looked into her soft brown eyes with regret as he slowly steadied her on her feet again.
“Sorry. I just meant to stop you so we could talk.”
“I know.”
Darn it. He could see the old passion stirring within her, too. This was the last thing he’d meant to do, make her want him again. He couldn’t be with her. She didn’t know how dangerous that would be for her, and he couldn’t tell her. He wished his parents had told him sooner, so that he hadn’t let her get close to him in the first place.
Oh well. Done was done, but he wasn’t going to let her get trapped in this life. Besides, she had changed. He didn’t trust the professional appraiser she had become. She seemed like someone who would sell off the seven wonders of the world to the highest bidder, rather than make them museums for everyone to enjoy. She wasn’t the Kelsey he used to know, and he needed to remember that.
He released her and took a step down, which was awkward because he was talking to her breasts, which were clearly outlined by her form-fitting parka. He did his best to look into her eyes.
“Kelsey, I know you think I’m just a construction worker, and officially, that is all I am. But I have a duty here to… to protect the Scottish national heritage. I have to be along with you wherever you go in Scotland.”
She gave him a look of incredulity, and then she crossed her arms over her breasts—thank God.
“Wherever I go in Scotland? Like, even in the cities? You think there’s ancient items of Scotland’s national heritage in the cities, too? Oh, and then hadn’t you better meet me at the airport next time I come to Scotland? We wouldn’t want me to disturb any precious national heritage items in the terminals, now would we?”
He sighed.
“You know there aren’t. You know I mean just out in the countryside, at castles and other ruins.”
Her face cracked into the slightest grin.
“In other words, about ninety percent of the country.”
Despite himself, he chuckled a little at that. At least she still knew how to have fun and wasn’t always this stuck-up, hoity toity, ‘doctor’ person.
“Come on, Tavish. You aren’t really out to protect the Scottish national heritage. What’s this really about?”
“Like I said before, I can’t tell you.”
She sighed.
“So we’re back to that, huh?”
“Afraid so.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I can walk myself to the trailer.”
She stiffly turned around and marched up the stairs. He waited until she was five steps ahead and then followed her as quietly as he could.
There really were animals about. And worse.
Ceithir
Kelsey knew Tavish was following her, but she pretended not to notice. Let him be the ignored one for a while. Too bad she didn’t have seven years to ignore him and not answer his calls or emails to even let him know she was alive. That would be payback.
She continued to ignore him even as she got to the door of the trailer, then went inside and set her backpack down and closed and locked the door behind her. If he wasn’t going to be friends with her and tell her what was going on, then why should she talk to him at all? No reason, that was why.
So she took a quick shower, and then while she microwaved some canned ravioli, she called Sasha instead.
“Hi Kelsey. So are you away from Tavish and free to talk yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh Kelsey. You let him get to you again, didn’t you.”
“Well he was different this time, Sasha.”
“Not different enough, or you wouldn’t sound so sad.”
“True.”
“You didn’t—”
“No, of course not. I didn’t even let him in the trailer, even though he followed me all the way back here right after telling me he couldn’t explain what was going on.”
“He was probably just being a gentleman, Kelsey. And I’m glad he was. You’re basically in the wilderness out there and really shouldn’t be outside alone after dark.”
“You’re probably right. I mean, about him being a gentleman. But it’s so confusing. One second we’re staring intently into each other’s eyes and I’m sure he’s gonna kiss me, and the next second he’s not wanting to explain to me what’s going on with him.”
“Kelsey, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: you can’t go by what a man does. If you think a man cares about you and wants to be with you in a meaningful way, wait for him to actually say so.”
“Uh… yeah. Well, now that we’ve gotten that over with, let’s talk about you for a while.”
“Ha! Fair enough. Well, it’s time I admitted it: I envy you, getting to do field work. A professorship sounded so prestigious when I accepted the job, but you’re on the verge of a real discovery there, I just know it.”
“Oh Sasha, I’m so stupid. I should’ve told you right away.”
“What?”
“We do have a find. Here, let me show you the pictures.” She fiddled with the files in her phone, working to bring up the pictures she’d taken with Tavish earlier.
“Hurry up and tell me already, don’t make me wait for the pictures. I’m dying of curiosity.”
“Here they are. I took tons, so I’m just gonna flip through them slowly and let you look. Stop me if you need to.” She flipped through the pictures for several minutes, and all the while, Sasha ooh’d and ah’d. And then when they were done, her friend groaned.
“Oh, why did I take this professorship? All I do is lecture and read papers. Boring! I’m the wild and crazy one and you’re the calm cool collected one. We should switch places.”
“No way, but if you want, come on over tomorrow and check it out.”
They talked for an hour, and then Kelsey fell into bed exhausted, but feeling a lot less alone and frustrated.
But Tavish was waiting for her in her dreams.
She dreamed of his parents’ Renaissance faire, where she and Tavish used to dance folk dances together, run around the field in games of rounders and relay races—which was difficult in her long skirts and his kilt—act in plays, walk arm-in-arm in parades, and cuddle in his family’s trailer while his parents were busy elsewhere.
Tavish had been so nice back then, the perfect boyfriend for four years, even though he didn’t go to her high school and she only
saw him during the summers. During the school year the two of them would text constantly.
So it had been all the more hurtful when he’d stopped responding to her texts that first fall she was at college.
Fast-forward to three months ago, when she’d gotten her first field assignment here in Scotland. There he’d been, acting like a stranger. And here he was now, not acting much better than a stranger. And sometimes it looked like he thought she was his enemy.
But in her dream, the two of them were snuggling in a trailer much like Mr. Blair’s. They were seventeen again, but somehow they were talking about what had happened today, when they were twenty-five. Well, it was a dream…
Kelsey broke off their hot french kiss and sat up away from Tavish, giving him a serious face.
“What the heck is going on, Tavish?”
He looked confused.
“What do you mean?”
She mimicked him.
“What do you mean?”
He looked just a tiny bit annoyed, but mostly amused, and he gave her his best and sexiest smile.
“Come on, quit acting like a kid.”
She pointed at her heart with her finger.
“Me act like a kid?”
He shrugged, apparently resigned to keep playing her game.
“Uh, yeah.”
She took a deep breath and tried to be twenty-five, but she stayed seventeen. Darn this dream. She let the air out of her lungs and felt sort of deflated. But then she got an idea. She gave Tavish her sweetest smile and caressed his face the way that used to drive him crazy.
“You’re the one who’s keeping secrets.”
Something weird was going on now though, even for a dream. She could see it in his eyes. He was twenty-five inside too, and he knew what she was talking about.
“Aw, come on Kel. I can’t tell you.”
She let the hurt show on her face, which was something she would never do with the real twenty-five-year-old Tavish. No way. She wasn’t going to play the fool to someone who couldn’t be bothered to tell her what was going on.
