Alex uncrossed her legs which caused the loud thump of her heel on the polished wood floor. “Well, he wasn’t attractive enough and he wasn’t charming enough.”
“I wasn’t?” Mitch gripped the arms of his chair.
“No, I can’t be manipulated by fluff.” Alex stared down Nicholson and ignored Mitch mouthing the word, fluff?
“The fact that I fell in love with Mitch has nothing to do with his looks or his charm, so don’t sit there and cast yourself as Cupid.”
Alex was still busy admonishing Nicholson who looked quite contrite, but Mitch couldn’t get past, fluff.
“Why did you fall in love with me?” He hated that his voice inclined. What the hell−he was thirty-six years old, not fifteen.
Alex gaped at him as if she just discovered he was in the room. In this mini-mausoleum the ever-shifting easel of colors in her eyes picked up on the gold painted walls. The amber irises came into focus and though she was not smiling he saw a glimmer of affection in them.
“Because you never once tried to impress me.” She put on a tone of affront, but he could tell she was earnest. “You treated me as big of an inconvenience as I treated you.”
“And that turns you on?”
“In my field I am the equivalent of a movie star. I have groupies. Everyone wants a piece of me, and I don’t mean physically.”
He had to snort at that one.
“You know what I’m saying, Mitch.” She reached up and touched the bandage on her neck. “You were the first person to actually talk to me like I was a normal person. You didn’t seem fazed by the enigma.”
“Actually it was your modesty that I was attracted to.”
Alex scrunched up her nose and then smiled.
“So see?” Nicholson clapped his hands together with a broad grin.
“Oh no.” Mitch dragged his gaze from Alex to the smug director. “That is all a quaint summation, but there is more to this tale, Phillip.”
“Mitch is right.” Alex chimed in. “You owe us the full story. You say you have known my father for a long time. I realize everyone knew of Franklin Langley, but you make it sound personal. Why didn’t you mention anything before?”
***
Phillip sighed. On the desk, his wrinkled hand trembled and he gripped the Asian cattle artifact to steady himself.
“I always wanted to talk to you about it.” He looked at Alex. “But I kept putting it off. I figured as long as I could help you along the way I would be honoring my word.”
“Honoring your word?” she repeated. “I don’t understand.”
Phillip discarded his plaything and splayed his hands out flat on the leather blotter. “Alex, I knew your father for many years. Our paths crossed when he returned from Egypt and I was an assistant curator here. We attended many of the same galas…and at one of these galas I met Angelique.”
Alex felt her heart fumble inside her chest. It labored to resume its pace. She could not speak and Phillip mercifully continued after he measured her reaction.
“Your mother was breathtaking−a regal beauty who rarely spoke. When I first saw her, she was standing next to a fountain, close enough that the mist dusted her arm. She didn’t move. She was staring at a painting of Venice with such intensity−I thought she might be trying to transport herself into one of the gondolas.” Phillip’s smile was introspective. “She wore an ivory dress with crystals embedded in the fabric, and in her hand was an untouched flute of champagne. I thought that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and I stepped up to her to introduce myself…” he hesitated, “−and then she introduced herself.”
Phillip’s smile fell. His hands on the desk trembled anew. Alex was tempted to reach for them but did not want to disrupt his tale.
“The disappointment on my face when she revealed her last name must have been so apparent that Angelique just laughed. I mean she laughed so hard that she had to set her champagne glass down on the rim of that fountain. She told me she was not accustomed to such a look of horror at the sound of her husband’s name. I−” Again Phillip was lost in the past, smiling, but smiling to Angelique Langley. “I told her that the horror was to find that she was married, because if she were not I was going to drop on a knee right there and propose to her. She just laughed again and we ended up talking about the painting and her upcoming trip abroad.”
Mama, Alex cried inside. She tried to envision her mother laughing−such a rare site.
A scowl darkened Phillip’s face. “And then he appeared. It was a silent duel of which I lost, so I walked away.”
Phillip’s eyes were rimmed with tears when they looked up to meet hers.
“Alex−” He shook his head and his mouth moved, but no words came out. Finally he cleared his throat with a quick cough. “I met her again. There were many meetings. I fell in love with Angelique and she with me, but she was afraid of Franklin. She said that if it was just herself she would not care, but she had to keep the peace for your sake.”
Alex felt her throat contract.
“I told her I would take you and her away,” Phillip said. “I told her it was okay, and that she could leave Franklin. But it was time for her trip to Egypt.” Reading her eyes, Phillip nodded. “Yes, that trip. She asked that I wait…that she would use that time abroad to confront Franklin with her feelings and that she would come home to me.”
A tear boldly trailed down one of Phillip’s cheeks and the sight staggered Alex. In her mind, Phillip Nicholson was an icon−a man of great power and benevolence−a giver of grants.
“She wrote to me.” His voice was barely audible.
Alex leaned forward in her chair.
“She told me that she had confronted Franklin and that he was furious. To make matters worse, she told him that−oh God−” Phillip cupped his head in his hands and now openly wept.
With no hesitation Alex scrambled around the desk and rested her hands on his arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you relive this.”
Phillip waved off her touch and struggled to compose himself. Angrily he swiped the back of his hand against his cheek.
“She told him−” his voice caught again, but he struggled to go on. “She told him that she was expecting my son.”
Alex gasped and sagged against the desk. She sensed motion from Mitch and shook her head to negate it.
“Alex.” Phillip looked up. “Your mother was ill. She did not tell anyone that, including me or I would have never let her travel to that godforsaken desert. Hell, had I known she was pregnant I would have done everything in my power to keep the both of you here. Franklin knew she was ill, though. He knew she was pregnant. He might as well have pulled a trigger.”
Phillip was obscured behind a veil of tears−her tears−but she did not raise her hands to cast them aside. She sensed he was not done and waited in earnest.
“Angelique’s closing line in that note was a plea to watch over you. She did not want you to take the path she had chosen…one of complacency, a defeatist stance, were her words. She wanted you to thrive, and she wanted me to assure her that Franklin would not destroy you as he had destroyed her.”
Still blinded by tears, Alex heard a desk drawer opening and blinked to restore her sight. She saw Phillip extract a frame, and he held it in both his hands with the reverence she might extend an exceptional relic. It was a photo of her mother. Angelique had long golden hair tumbling across ivory shoulders. As outdated as the photograph was, the vivid shade of her emerald eyes was permanently captured in this small 5x7 snapshot.
“I talk to her.” Phillip’s voice was husky. “And I tell her that she doesn’t have to worry. I tell her that you are so strong−”
Mute, he handed the picture over. Alex swiped away a new round of tears and reached for it. She looked up and met Mitch’s eyes and he read her silent plea, rising to join her.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, hoarse. He wrapped an arm around her and urged her to lean into his side. She was grateful for the
sanctuary.
“Alex,” Phillip rose. “I have always tried to honor your mother’s wishes. I did not create your career. You’ve done well and your success has made me so proud. I have tried to protect you from Franklin, and I am so sorry−so inconsolably sorry that I almost failed. If anything had happened to you−”
Untangling from Mitch’s hold, Alex reached forward and looped her arms around Phillip’s neck. The man hesitated with his hands on her shoulders.
“I wish you could have been my father,” she whispered into his ear.
Phillip’s arms circled around her and he ducked his face into her shoulder.
“I wish that too.”
Epilogue
Six months later…
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“But Alex, can’t we just take a little break? Just a little one?” Mitch held his thumb and pointer with an inch of space between them. “This big?”
“Phillip restored your career with the Associated Press. You chose to join this dig.” Alex held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear it. We have only an hour of daylight left, so man up.”
Mitch came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist, lifting her off the ground. “How can I possibly persuade you?”
“Mitchell Eugene Haslett, if you don’t set me down and start shooting some of these pieces−” She dislodged from his embrace, but Mitch caught a glimpse of her grin.
“Doctor Alexandra Hasslet, they are just sitting here and you can’t upload your documentation until we get back to Belize City so you have a little time for R & R.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
She tried to refrain, but a snort escaped her nose. “If I knew you were going to be this much a pain in the ass I would have never enlisted you.”
Alex’s hair dusted her collarbone, veiling the small scar that he kissed religiously. Vanquished were the ghosts of the woman and daughter with long black hair. They fled into obscurity that fateful day on the streets of Ramonez. He had some new nightmares, but when he woke, Alex was beside him, slipping her hand across his chest to settle him back to sleep. They needed each other.
Nicholson was a major participant in their lives. He had walked Alex down the aisle the day they got married, and she had never looked more beautiful in her ivory dress with crystals sewn into it.
Today they were camped on the bank of the Macal River in Belize. Alex had two months before she needed to return to teaching, but he knew she would seize the next possible chance to head out into the field, and he would be there with her. Aside from the photographical documentation of her discoveries, he was selling wildlife pictures to National Geographic which was a lot more motivating and less dangerous than the assignments for the New York Chronicle. Besides, the Museum of Historical Art and Antiquities had given him a rather sizeable retainer for his efforts in tracing their heisted consignment.
Franklin Langley had never surfaced and that sobering thought was pivotal in Mitch staying on as her staff photographer.
“I can’t get this thing leveled.” Alex griped, positioning the total station transit on its spindly yellow legs.
It was a device similar to what land surveyors employed, but Mitch knew Alex used it to determine potential excavation sites. Her laptop was plugged into a generator as the CAD program awaited feed from the RS-232 cable attached the unit. Once they got back to Belize City she would email the information to the students, and their time alone in the jungle would come to an end.
“Let me help with that.” Mitch stepped up behind her. “It’s just like my camera tripod.”
He reached around her to steady the device as she was swallowed inside the cocoon of his embrace. Mitch could feel her tremble. For as much as Alex never vocalized her sensuality, her body sang out a tune, and right now it was humming a spicy marimba.
“You’re distracting me,” she whispered but nudged backwards, tighter against him until a groan escaped him. Mitch coughed, reminding himself that he asked for this sweet torture.
“Are you happy, Alex?”
She did not respond, but he felt her head bob and she said quietly, “More than you’ll ever know.” Then as if to redeem herself she added, “Don’t let that go to your head, Mitchell.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”
Stooping down to orient the optical plummet, Alex straightened, nearly cracking her skull against Mitch’s jaw. She bent again, squinting at the panel.
“Mitch.” She shot up straight and this time Mitch was quick to retreat and hold a protective hand over his jaw.
“Look through there, what do you see?”
Mitch stepped up alongside her and focused on the crosshairs, viewing the scene as he would through a camera lens. Lush flora hugged the ground in a verdant carpet nearly a foot thick. He had gotten past the fear of what lingered beneath that fertile veil…well, mostly. To the right of the cross hairs, gnarled tree roots reached out like arthritic fingers. Limestone boulders tumbled across the earth as if gravity slowly drew them towards the river bed.
“You know I’m going to say I see the jungle.” He was curious now, challenged that he could not figure out what was making Alex frown.
She leaned in next to him for one final look.
“The roots and the boulders both take an unnatural trek as if something beneath them has altered their normal course. You see those two tree roots?” She stepped back from the viewfinder and pointed at the path of the buttresses, which seemed to defy gravity and in some cases extended over limestone boulders, locking the rocks perpetually in place.
“This is it, Mitch.” Her eyes gleamed. “We’re setting up here. It’s time to call Chuck.”
“Ah Chuckles.” Mitch rolled his eyes, but despite the portrayed antagonism, he actually liked the guy. They worked well together.
As far as Hollywood, he was released from Guatemalan authorities−and like the ghosts of Alex’s past he disappeared into the proverbial jungle.
Mitch’s thoughts dispersed when Alex stepped up and hugged him.
“What if this is it, Mitch?” She talked into his chest. “What if we find the lost civilization I’ve been looking for?”
“Then you will be the one with the ego in the family.” He kissed the top of her head.
She looked up at him, her blond hair sliding back, the scar a faint hook on the side of her throat. In those eyes he saw the vitality of the jungle and discovered the peace and beauty of the rain forest.
Every discovery would forever pale in comparison.
About the Author
Maureen A. Miller's first endeavor into romantic suspense yielded her a Golden Heart nomination for the novel, Widow's Tale. After that, there was no turning back. Short to follow were back to back romantic suspense releases, Rogue Wave, Borrowed Time and Emotional Waves. And just this May, Carina Press released her latest romantic thriller, Endless Night.
www.maureenamiller.com
Jungle of Deceit Page 22
