Full Circle

by Shannon Hollis

  “I supposed I haven’t, either,” she confessed.

  “That’s why I wrote what I did when I signed your book,” he said quietly. “Some things haven’t changed.”

  Cate closed her briefcase and set it in the closet, taking her time about sliding the door shut. “A lot of things have,” she said. “Most things, in fact.”

  “Have they?” His gaze changed from professional to speculative with one lazy blink. “You’re more beautiful. You didn’t have cheekbones like that at twenty. And there’s more confidence in your eyes. Makes me wonder if it’s all those publications that put it there, or some adoring stockbroker.”

  Cate felt the hot blood seething under her skin. Was it from irritation at his personal remarks, or something darker and more dangerous? Was he flirting with her? And if he was, how was she going to respond?

  She hovered in the middle of the room, uncertain whether to take her seat opposite him at the little table, where he’d probably think she was dying for more personal observations, or to remain standing in the middle of the room, where maybe he’d take a hint and find a lecture to go to.

  “Cate.” His eyes laughed at her, though his face remained serious. “Come and sit down. We were going to catch up, remember?”

  She couldn’t sit down. She couldn’t trust herself not to reach out and stroke his hand, or run her fingers up his sleeve. That same sexual magnetism that had enthralled her eight years ago hadn’t lost any of its potency, and if she got too close she just might lose it and become another one of his…what was that word Anne had coined? Oh yes—archaeologroupies.

  With a mental shudder, Cate forced herself to ignore the siren call of his pheromones and be sensible.

  “I’m afraid not, Daniel,” she said as steadily as she could. “The ten o’clock seminar starts in a few minutes and I don’t want to miss it.”

  “You’re not going to listen to old Andy Hogbreath? How much more do you need to know about fossils?”

  Was that who the ten o’clock speaker was? “Dr. Hoogbeck is highly respected in his field,” she said stiffly. “And I happen to be interested in the fossil beds I find when I’m excavating.”

  “Suit yourself.” He shrugged, then shot her a wicked glance. “But when you feel like thinking about any other kind of bed, fossil or not, you know where to find me.”

  She didn’t bother to reply as, laughing, he let himself out. She didn’t need to. Because her scarlet face had given everything away.

  DANIEL HAD NO INTENTION of taking in Dr. Hoogbeck’s seminar, or of returning yet another persistent call from a think tank in New Mexico, or even of returning to his cottage to tackle some of the logistics for the Asia Minor expedition. Instead, he stopped by the dining room to refill his mug of coffee and took an unhurried stroll down the nearest walking trail. It led through a stand of live oaks, their holly-like leaves spiky and rustling above him. Long native grasses nodded on either side, and a small stand of redwoods gave a bit of dark contrast at the bottom of the slope.

  Daniel couldn’t remember the last time he’d been completely alone out in the woods. You’d think that at this point in his career, he could say at any time, “Hey, all you hangers-on, get outta here,” and he’d have some peace. But no. The problem was, no one was hanging on. His students, his fellow academics, his crews—even Stacy Mills, his publicist—all of them had a job to do. He was like the well at which they all drew, to use a simile from the ancient world where his brain spent half its time. He provided the water, and they let their jars down, filled them and then took off to do what they needed to do.

  It was bloody exhausting is what it was.

  And here was Cate Wells, who couldn’t wait to see the backside of him going out the door. Never let it be said she wanted to fill her jar at his expense—no, she had her own well, thank you very much, and she was quite happy standing in front of it so nobody else could come near.

  Or was she?

  He’d thrown out those little innuendos on purpose. A woman who was comfortable with her sexuality would have taken him on and tossed them back—but Cate hadn’t. She’d been exactly the same way in Mexico. She hadn’t had the same experience that he’d found most women had by their sophomore year. In fact, the first time he’d kissed her, he’d wondered if it was her first time, period. It hadn’t been—that much she’d confessed in one of their late-night conversations on the cliff—but it hadn’t been the kiss of a woman who enjoyed doing the wild thing at every chance she got, either.

  Far from it.

  Had things changed? Except for a very interesting ring he’d swear was Georgian on the right fourth finger, she wore nothing on her hands. And that sense of self-awareness, of the knowledge that she was both desirable and desired, that some women wore like an ermine robe when they were committed in a loving relationship—well, that didn’t seem to be there, either.

  But who was he kidding? He was used to reading soil matrices. The women he came into contact with were usually totally up-front and wide open about what they wanted. There was none of the reserve and mystery that was so intriguing in Cate. That reserve had challenged him back when and it was challenging him now. It was the same way with a new site. Just the presence of ancient clay walls with the wind whistling through them, silently keeping their secrets, drove him mad until he could gently tease their stories out of them.

  He’d only been half kidding about the beds when he’d left her room. Now he wasn’t so sure he was kidding at all. The truth was he’d never gotten over Cate. Had never forgotten that last night, in the cave.

  So yeah, she’d run out on him, taking her secrets with her. But that was then.

  This, he thought, as he turned back up the path, away from the river he could hear behind the trees…this was now.

  6

  DR. HOOGBECK HAD THE GIFT of being able to send an audience into a state of complete catatonia, even after multiple cups of breakfast coffee.

  Cate had told Daniel she was going to this presentation, so here she was, even though geologic fossilization processes were enough to put her out even without Dr. Hoogbeck’s soothing monotone. But instead of making her fall asleep, his voice sent her to that beta zone where she could think.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t thinking about useful things like feminine imagery in animal cults or the demise of desert kingdoms. No, she was thinking about Daniel.

  Because the simple truth was that Julia had been right and Cate had unfinished business with him. She wasn’t a quitter. You start a degree program and you get a certificate. You start a paper and you reach a publishable conclusion. You start a relationship and you expect it to go somewhere.

  Okay, so that last was something over which she didn’t have all the control, but the point was you couldn’t just drop something and run away and not have it bug you for years.

  At least, she couldn’t.

  Because she was now in her ninth year of wondering what sex with Daniel would have been like, and, to put it quite bluntly, it was driving her nuts. He was the root of erotic dreams that woke her in mid-orgasm in the middle of the night. He was the reason she had had such high expectations for Robert Novinsky and Charles Morton and probably the reason she had sabotaged relationships with both of them. It wasn’t that she was sexually dysfunctional, exactly, but what if somehow Daniel was the key?

  What if she did take him up on his blatant offers and made him put his money where his mouth was? Would that unlock her sexuality? Would it break down this dam that seemed to hold her back in relationships with other people? If she had sex with him, maybe that would be the “kick galvanic” that got her back on track again.

  And aside from the therapeutic effects of sex with Daniel, maybe it was simply time to have a little fun.

  Fun was not a word she usually used in conjunction with sex. In her experience, sex was comfort, it was payment of an obligation, it was fulfillment of someone’s expectations…but it was very rarely fun. She had no doubt whatsoever that if a gir
l wanted to have great big dollops of fun with her sex, then Daniel was the guy to serve it up to her.

  What would be wrong with having a little fling with him? It wasn’t as though he ever went into a relationship with the long term in mind. The endless string of girlfriends he’d paraded for the media over the years was proof of that. Not that she was keeping a scrapbook or anything, but every time she saw him in a circular for a benefit or in one of the scandal sheets, he was with a different “companion.” If he wasn’t going to commit to one of those beautiful and no doubt intelligent people, it was a safe bet he wouldn’t expect anything from her, either.

  Besides, it might be exciting to have an affair with someone who was the next thing to a movie star. The man every woman wanted. He was clearly interested. And she was mature and intelligent and on birth control. Why shouldn’t she have a fling if she wanted to? It wasn’t as if she would lose control and fall in love with him or anything. It wasn’t like fieldwork, where the unexpected could throw your theories out the window or a freak storm could destroy months of work. She could have a fling under controlled conditions, having carefully chosen her subject, the way she might in the lab.

  As long as she was the one controlling the conditions, what was there to be afraid of? There was no harm done to either of them, and they’d both enjoy it.

  Cate straightened in her chair and slid her empty notebook back into her tote as Dr. Hoogbeck blinked owlishly under the stage lights, seeming a little bemused at the applause as he wound up his presentation. There was always the chance that she’d talk herself out of this, but at the moment it seemed like a fine plan.

  Of course, once she’d made up her mind, Daniel decided not to cooperate. At lunch he sat at the faculty table, entertaining all six of his companions with some uproariously funny story that made heads turn and a little prick of envy at being left out needle its way through Cate’s heart. He didn’t go to the afternoon workshops, which made her wonder if that polished blonde who had been hovering behind him at the book signing was keeping him company in his private cottage, too.

  It was merely speculation. Not jealousy. The man could have whomever he wanted in his cottage. But once she, Cate, had decided it should be herself, it was a little annoying to have him switch from being on her doorstep every time she turned around to playing hard to get.

  She went to the afternoon seminar to hear the latest research on Cretan snake dancers to take her mind off him, and when she came out, there he was, walking under the oaks on the far side of the grounds.

  He looked up when she was about fifty feet away. “Hey, Cate.”

  “Enjoying yourself?”

  “Decompressing. I just spent the last hour with my publisher’s rep, going over the plan of attack for flogging the book in Nevada and New Mexico. I need a drink.”

  “Your publisher’s rep is here?”

  “Yeah. Stacy Mills. Blonde. About this high.” He held out a hand near his shoulder.

  So she had been right. The polished blonde had been in his cottage with him. Plan of attack indeed. Attacking each other, more like. Cate’s mood took a spiraling nosedive and crashed in flames.

  “I won’t disturb you, then.” She turned on her heel, but before she could move more than a foot, he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “Let’s get out of here, Cate. All these people are driving me nuts. How about dinner?”

  Her muscles jumped with anticipation under his hand, but she kept her voice calm. “Where? I didn’t see anything on the way here but a café and some campgrounds.”

  “A couple of miles south there’s a place called Nepenthe. Supposed to have a view off the terrace to die for, and good food. What do you say?”

  An afternoon with his blond PR rep and now dinner with her? The man had stamina, she’d say that much for him. Well, she’d wanted a fling, hadn’t she? If anyone was perfect for the part, it was Daniel Burke.

  Cate ignored the little wail deep in her heart that reminded her of the heat and the connection they’d once had. Those days were gone forever. Some hot sex for a couple of nights was the key to her future, and nothing was going to stop her.

  Not even Daniel.

  “That sounds great.” She put as much heat as she knew how into her smile, and Daniel’s gaze narrowed with interest. “How soon do you want to leave?”

  AWAY FROM THE STUFFY ACADEMIC atmosphere of the conference and out of sight of their peers, Cate Wells seemed to have turned into a different woman.

  She tilted her head back on the headrest of his 1968 Camaro ragtop and let the wind blow over her face. She looked as relaxed as she had on the cliff ledge this morning. More in her natural element.

  And a natural Cate was all he could ask for.

  Despite the fact that it was a Saturday night, it was too early in the season for the crowds of tourists that would flock to Nepenthe in the summer. The hostess directed them to a table on the edge of the terrace at his request, though the evening was cool.

  Cate leaned on her elbows and gazed out into the vault of space between the plunging hills and the darkening sky. “I think I’ll chuck my job at Vandenberg and come here and be a waitress,” she said dreamily. “Look at that view.”

  He’d never seen that expression on her before—that sated, awestruck look that some women got after orgasm but that this one wore because of a view. He’d give a lot to know what she looked like in the afterglow. If it was anything like this, he wanted to see it.

  “It’s magical,” he said.

  “That it is.”

  “No, really. Nepenthe is supposed to be some kind of vortex—you know, the way Sedona is in Arizona.”

  “Why does it not surprise me that you’d bring me to a place like this?”

  All her previous antagonism and chilly standoffishness seemed to have melted away, and her smile was as warm as the last rays of the sun as it dipped below the rim of the ocean far below. Maybe the ad copy was true and there was something a little…different about this place.

  Maybe it was the atmosphere. Maybe it was the wine. Whatever it was, he didn’t care. Because the Cate he’d known in the Mexican desert was back, sparkling and sexy and giving as good as she got. It wasn’t even her face and body and that maddening mouth that had him gazing at her as spellbound as any high-school kid. It was her intelligence and the depth of her knowledge about the field they both loved that made him probe and parry, driving their conversation to where it had never gone before.

  Neither of them had been ready for something like this before.

  “I adore flan,” she sighed at the end of the meal, licking the last of the caramel-coated custard off her spoon. “I got hooked on it in Mexico, but it’s just not the same in New York. I think there must be something in the air out here.”

  “That’s not a very scientific hypothesis.” He grinned, enjoying the way she used her tongue to find every last molecule.

  “Cooking is not science. Cooking is talent. And clearly, cooking at Nepenthe is a little magic as well. That was the best meal I’ve had in months. Maybe years.”

  “It’s the best company I’ve had in months.”

  She waved the spoon in negation and put it on her plate. “Liar. I’ve seen who you’ve been keeping company with. Models. Starlets. Famous people.”

  “The trouble with famous faces is that’s the only topic of conversation they have. Which is why I am a certified expert in moisturizer, with a secondary degree in depilatories.”

  Her giggle was a little high and a little fast, and he eyed the empty wine bottle. But given the choice between a slightly tipsy Cate and a frosty one hightailing it across the lawn, he’d pick the first one any day. But her stride was straight as she walked to the car after he’d paid the bill, and her eyes glowed as he took the curves of the highway with one hand on the wheel.

  He parked in the conference center’s lot and held the passenger door as she got out. The night was cool but not uncomfortable, and over the ocean the stars winked
in a sky as clear and dark as port wine. A breeze flirted with the branches of the trees overhead and the very air seemed charged with possibility.

  “I don’t want to go in,” Cate said. She leaned on the door and crossed her arms. “If I go in, the night will be over.”

  Which was possibly the nicest thing a woman had ever said to him. “There’s always the beach.”

  With a grin, she said, “Let’s go.”

  “I DRAW THE LINE AT MOONLIGHT rock climbing,” Daniel cautioned her as they walked side by side down the path, the scent of damp greenery and wet kelp in the air. “I’ve had too much wine for that.”

  “Don’t worry. The beach is perfect.” Cate flung out her arms as they reached the river and turned right. The path, though narrow, was well maintained and with the moonlight it was easy to find their way.

  Cate felt as though she’d been transported into some alternate universe, where good food, good wine and the company of the man who had haunted her dreams for years were all it took to pull her out of herself. Because the real Cate Wells would not be running down a wooded path at midnight, laughing with Daniel Burke. She’d be tucked sensibly in her bed, getting the eight hours of sleep recommended by the National Institutes of Health.

  Just for tonight, she was determined not to be that Cate. She was going to laugh and tease and tear off her blouse and wave it in the air if she felt like it, and no one was going to spoil her fun.

  In fact, she thought as the path flattened out and led them onto the beach where the tide had gone out, she’d like it best of all if Daniel tore off her blouse and waved it in the air.

  To get the process started, she took off her sandals and swung them on two fingers. “I haven’t felt honest-to-goodness sand between my toes since I was in Spain. Our site was ten miles from the beach, so a friend and I would take the Jeep and go skinny-dipping in the Med.”

  “I’d have bought a ticket to see that.” He took her other hand in his strong, rough one as they walked slowly down the gentle slope to where the waves smashed themselves into creamy oblivion.