Full Circle

by Shannon Hollis

  She knew she should have read that conference brochure more carefully. “Ah—”

  “I’m the dean of the School of Natural History and Science at UNMLB. A rather cumbersome title for a very rewarding job—but my plesiosaur is going to make it impossible for me to continue there. I would like to know if you would like to come out and talk with the board of regents about taking the position.”

  Cate’s whole face went slack and she forgot how to speak. Below her, the birds settled back into the trees while she held the cell phone to her ear and tried to form a coherent reply.

  “Dean? Me?” she finally managed to say.

  “Indeed, yes. I can’t think of anyone more qualified than yourself. Of course, it’s a state school and not a private one, so you’d be surrounded with less luxury than you’re no doubt used to, but northern New Mexico is a beautiful place. And the opportunities for study far outweigh its more spartan working conditions.”

  “Yes, I know.” Northern New Mexico was full of deep blue skies and red sandstone cliffs and endless vistas of space. Mountains and mesas instead of skyscrapers and traffic. Hawks instead of airplanes. The sound of the wind instead of the honking of irritated cabbies. And through it all, that sense of being rooted in ancient history and traditions and spirit. There was a reason the tourist board called it the Land of Enchantment. “But—”

  “And it wouldn’t be a lonely place by any means. One or two of the archaeologists you met at the conference are based in Albuquerque. And your colleague Dr. Burke would be close by.”

  “What?” Lucky thing her equipment was still in place or she might have pitched over the edge in sheer astonishment.

  “I understand a federal think tank for the preservation of domestic antiquities has been pursuing him for quite some time. They’re based in Los Brazos as well. His media contacts will be invaluable in such a job, I would think.”

  “Yes,” she agreed faintly. This was all too much. How had it all come about? Was the atmosphere up here thinner than she’d thought? Could she be hallucinating the whole thing?

  “I’m sure you’ll want to give this careful consideration, do your research and whatnot,” Dr. Hoogbeck told her, “but I hope in the end that I’ll see you in New Mexico. Do you think a week will be enough time?”

  It would take her a week to recover from the shock of all of this. And to decide whether she wanted to be within five states of Daniel Burke when all was said and done. “Yes. Thank you, Dr. Hoogbeck. I’ll call you in a week.”

  He signed off with happy noises, among which she detected the words delighted and plesiosaur. Shaking her head, she tucked the phone back in its zippered pocket, checked her pins and began to rappel back down the cliff. Behind her, in the windy silence, she heard the crunch of gravel on the rocky trail, which meant someone was coming and it was time to go in any case. Somehow, when she was forced to share her therapy wall, it never had the same benefits as when she was alone.

  She bounced gently down the last ten feet and touched ground again. She could hear clearly the sound of a pair of booted feet on the trail, and she coiled her lines quickly and unbuckled her harness. The carabiners clanged as she dropped them into their pocket in her backpack.

  The footsteps stopped at the edge of the clearing and she turned to greet the climber—he had to be a climber, not a hiker, because the trail pretty much terminated here.

  “Did you know there are three different kinds of hawks up here?” Daniel Burke said and smiled at her as though the past few days had never happened.

  “FOUR, ACTUALLY,” she corrected him, then closed her eyes briefly as if she were giving herself a mental slap at being tricked into speaking.

  Daniel’s hopes of a rapturous reunion, which had been more of a dream than an actual hope, wavered and then recovered. He hadn’t come all the way across the country and driven four hours into the wilderness to be put off now. No way. He’d say his bit and if that still didn’t work, then at least he’d know inside that he’d done his best.

  It was all up to Cate now.

  “How are you?” he asked. It was a legitimate question—she looked like one of his students had on the brink of a cliff before someone had let Daniel know the kid was terrified of heights. But Cate had no such fears.

  A closer look revealed that her eyes were reddened with the wind and he could swear she’d had about as much sleep in the last twenty-four as he had. Which was next to none.

  She didn’t bother to answer his question, legitimate or not. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to find you.”

  Her jaw tightened in a way that was becoming distressingly familiar. “Anne had no right to tell you where I was.”

  “She didn’t.” Not really. “You hadn’t said where you were going, so we figured out a couple of the most likely places. This was one of them.”

  She brushed past him and slung her pack over her shoulder. He hoisted his own—which contained not much more than a bottle of water and a Pocket Guide to North American Birds that he’d picked up in the airport in Denver—and followed her.

  “Aren’t you even a little glad to see me?” he asked as she marched ahead of him. Her booted feet were sure on the path, as though she’d walked it many times. According to Anne, she had. This was the place she came when the pressure got to be too much. Daniel regretted the part he’d played in adding to that burden.

  “Why should I be?” she replied without bothering to turn her head. “Because of you, I lost something I really valued.”

  “I heard.”

  That stopped her. “I suppose Anne told you that, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “I swear, I am going to murder that woman. How dare she tell you confidential things about my life. My career is none of your business—or hers, either!”

  She took off so fast it took him twenty feet to catch up. “She dares because I told her I loved you. She cares about you, so she told me everything I needed to know in order to find you.”

  They had reached the parking lot in record time. He had parked his rental car next to her modest little sedan. After tossing her pack into the trunk, she slammed it and snapped, “How nice. You tell her but you don’t tell me. Not that it matters.”

  “Cate.” He took her by both arms and held her the way a person might hold an injured wild bird so that it won’t hurt itself anymore. “I told you when we were in California. And it’s still true. I came here to say how sorry I am that my past ruined your career at Vandenberg. Andy Hoogbeck told me when I discovered his plesiosaur that if he could ever do anything for me, I was to call him. So when I was waiting for my connection in Denver, I did.”

  The angry color was fading from her cheeks, but her eyes were still red, as though she were on the point of tears.

  “Were you looking for a job?” she asked.

  “Not for myself. The folks at this think tank in New Mexico have been after me for at least a year about taking a directorship and becoming a spokesman for the government about land use and preservation.”

  “Dr. Hoogbeck told me.”

  Hope bloomed inside him. “So he called you already about the vacant position. And?”

  “I have a week to think about it.”

  It was now or never. Either she wanted to be with him or she didn’t, but Daniel would never know unless he stepped out, like Indiana Jones, into the air over the chasm of distrust and discovered for himself whether there was anything there to walk on.

  “I’ve had a few days to think, Cate, and hold up a mirror to myself to see the guy I really am. And the truth is, I’m not so happy about that guy. I figure it’s time to take control of the media with this new job, and do some good with it instead of using it to get the next grant for my own research.” He took a breath. “After the expedition in Turkey, I’m definitely moving to New Mexico. And I would love it if you chose that path, too. It’s completely up to you, but I wanted you to know how I felt.”

  “It’s…a very tempti
ng offer,” she said slowly.

  “It’s a great school, with all kinds of excavation possibilities right in your backyard. And you’ll make a terrific dean.”

  “I didn’t mean the job.” She looked up and at last her gaze met his. “I meant you.”

  “I’m glad I still tempt you,” he said softly. “For the last couple of days I was sure you hated me.”

  “I did,” she said with all the bone-scraping honesty he loved in her. “But what I hate even more is not being in control of my future. Of fearing other people more than having confidence in myself. Of making academics more important than love. That’s a terrifying quality in a person.”

  “And now?”

  “Do you remember that scene in The Last Crusade where Indy steps into the air over that sheer drop?”

  Great minds really did think alike. “That was me, a minute ago.”

  She moved into his arms with a suddenness that surprised him…but his body knew what to do. He hugged her fiercely.

  “And this is me, now. I’m going to do it, Daniel.”

  “You’re going to head for the desert? The Land of Enchantment?” Better check, just in case she was talking about something else.

  “I wouldn’t want you out there all by yourself. You might fall off a cliff. Or mistake a shark’s tooth for a potsherd.”

  It was hard to form a proper kiss when you were grinning.

  But Daniel managed it.

  21

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG SHORTLY after 8:00 a.m., Morgan Shaw was already in the antique shop, though she wouldn’t flip over the Open sign for another two hours. The truth was, she was too jumpy to sleep. While Adam had lain sprawled on the sheets with his enviable ability to conk out no matter what the circumstances, she’d dressed, made coffee and, cup in hand, had headed over to the shop.

  Dr. Wells might call at any time in response to her messages, and Morgan meant to be there when she did.

  When the phone finally rang, even though she’d been expecting it for days, she still jumped as a zing! of adrenaline shot through her.

  “Morgan Shaw.”

  “Ms. Shaw, this is Catherine Wells from Vandenberg University, returning your call.” A pause. “Calls. Sorry about that. I just got back to the office this morning.”

  “No problem. I should probably apologize to your assistant for driving her crazy.”

  When the professor replied, Morgan could almost hear a smile. “She’s got a pretty tough skin. So. I know you’re very anxious to hear what I was able to discover about your carved box.”

  Morgan’s heart rate picked up a little with anticipation. “Yes, I am.” Understatement of the year. “I really don’t know why I care so much.”

  “Probably for the same reason I care about images of the female under a thousand years of dirt and Da—other archaeologists care about bits of pottery and stone.”

  “It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my lunacy. So…what did you find out?”

  “I consulted with Dr. Daniel Burke, of whom you may have heard.”

  “The name rings a bell, but I don’t know where from.”

  The professor chuckled, as if this were funny. “He’s a well-known symbologist specializing in the ancient world. I believed the carvings would interest him, and I was right. They did.”

  “And?” Morgan’s chest was feeling tight. Would she never get to the point?

  “The carvings have similarities to Egyptian images, but he said they definitely weren’t Egyptian. However, around 3000 BCE, Egypt expanded its borders pretty significantly, and a number of desert kingdoms were conquered. Their royalty, if they were still alive, were taken prisoner and their assets seized. The common people were assimilated into the Egyptian population. But before this happened, what we call culture bleed occurred.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Elements of Egyptian culture were adopted by the artist who carved the box before his culture was overrun. In this way we can date it pretty accurately and my expert postulates it was created in the El Gibi kingdom by someone from the educated class. Not royalty and not a laborer, but someone who would have had a number of years of schooling, especially in mathematics, and possibly some training in his chosen means of expression.”

  “Wow,” Morgan breathed, taking notes in rapid shorthand. “Your expert is pretty good.”

  “Yes, he is.” Another pause. “There’s more.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “He noticed something in the photos that you and I completely missed when we had the real thing in front of us. Some of the carvings on the top connect to form the shape of a star.”

  “A star?” Could that be where a key might fit? Morgan’s thoughts flew to what the papers were calling the White Star amulet—the valuable ivory artifact that had been stolen from the Stanhope auction house in New York not long ago. “It wouldn’t be about the size of a silver dollar and have five points, would it?”

  After a moment, Dr. Wells said, “Yes, it would, as a matter of fact. Have you found out more about it?”

  Morgan felt a little short of breath, and a strange, prickly feeling was tiptoeing down the back of her neck and across her shoulders. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the papers around here—”

  “No, I’ve been in California, and then I took a couple of days upstate—rock climbing in the same area where I met your sister.”

  “Right,” Morgan said. “Well, an ivory amulet they’re calling the White Star recently came to light and I guess there’s been a regular treasure hunt over it. But Cate—” she forgot formality in the excitement of the moment “—what if it’s the key to this box?”

  “That…seems highly unlikely.” The other woman’s voice sounded a little breathless, too.

  “Not if you know about the book.”

  “Book? There’s a book about it now? Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “Because I didn’t know enough when I saw you.” Morgan took a deep breath, willing her heart to slow down. “A couple of months ago I got a shipment of rare books, and among them was this French text that was practically crumbling apart. When Cass and I were looking through it, we saw a picture of a star amulet that was identical to the one stolen from the auction house.”

  “Coincidence. Or maybe there is more than one amulet floating around. It’s a pretty common shape.”

  “It’s possible,” Morgan allowed, “but not in view of the legend.”

  “Okay, I’m listening,” Cate said, her interest obviously caught.

  “I’m planning a trip to France shortly, so I’m taking language lessons,” Morgan went on. “For practice, I took a stab at translating the text around the illustration of the star. Turns out it’s the story of two sisters, one of whom is the queen of this little kingdom, who marries her younger sister’s true love because he’s the most famous soldier in the land.”

  “Poor girl. The younger one, I mean.”

  “But before he marries her sister, the younger princess gives him a gift.”

  “Let me guess. The White Star.”

  “Right. I have it right here.” Morgan had written out the legend, with her translation interspersed between the lines. “La petite princesse a donné l’étoile blanche à son amour vrai. Mais elle n’a pas su qu’elle devait être la clef à un trésor précieux.”

  “Okay, you’re going to have to translate that one for me,” Cate laughed. “I’m fluent in Greek and Latin but French defeats me.”

  “It says, ‘The little princess gave the white star to her true love. But she did not know it was to be the key to a most precious treasure.’”

  “What could that be? A jewel of some kind?”

  “I doubt we’ll ever know. The soldier gets killed in battle and the queen and her sister take what they can carry and flee into the desert.”

  “And then what?”

  Morgan looked down at her translation. “I don’t know. I haven’t translated any more after that. Things seem to get a little fuzzy,
historically speaking.”

  “So you think this ivory amulet is the key to a box you found in your shop at the same time as you discovered a French legend about it. Morgan, doesn’t this all strike you as just too coincidental to be believed?”

  Trust a scientist to be skeptical. But the woman had been an enormous help. Morgan could hardly blame her for not believing something that was, in its essence, pretty far-fetched.

  “Maybe it is coincidence. But what if it isn’t? What if it’s fate bringing all three things—amulet, box and legend—together?”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something in this box that’s meant to be shared with the world. Maybe not. But what if it’s all come full circle for some higher purpose? Like maybe I’m supposed to do something with it?”

  “I guess you’ll need to figure that out. But for now, my assistant tells me that I have an exam to supervise, so I’m going to wish you luck and say goodbye.”

  “Thanks for all your help, Cate. It was a lucky day that my sister got lost in the woods and ran into you.”

  “And because of that, you brought me the box and I was reunited with my true love. Maybe there’s something in that legend after all.”

  Morgan knew she had to go, so she didn’t press Cate for details. Instead, she wished her well and hung up.

  She got up and fetched the box from the safe. Turning it over and over, she traced for the hundredth time the images carved into its surface. And for the first time, she ran a finger slowly over the top of the box, discovering the star shape where the amulet might fit.

  Common sense urged her to be satisfied with what she knew and leave it at that. She had other things to think about—the health of her marriage being at the top of that list. And the trip to France.

  But great adventures never began with common sense. True love was never won on logic.

  Carefully, Morgan wrapped the box in soft shipping material and took it out to the car. She’d sacrifice a pair of shoes to give it room in her suitcase. When she and Adam got to France, she would find a way to put the magic back into their relationship. To restore that deep sense of all-consuming, eternal love she’d been craving practically all her life.