Bittersweet Return (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 6)

by Patricia Watters

  That's the other word that got him. His mother had always been a honey person, but she was his mother, and all her kids were honeys, along with his father. But Kit wasn't a honey person, so maybe he really was her honey.

  I'm trying to make you understand that you're a lovable man, even if you don't see it...

  Maybe some. Little Marc took to him, and Jesse too. He even got a quick hug from Maddy the day before. And his mom had been depressed when he arrived, and she looked happy again because he was there, and his dad read his journals.

  What if I didn't want sex but just wanted you to sleep with me and hold me...

  Which he just did, and it made the night better, even without the sex. It made him want what they'd had every night, along with the choice of having sex a half dozen times, or just holding her, because there was more.

  Would you be having sex with me because of basic physiology, or maybe something deeper, and a little bit scary...

  There was nothing scary about having sex with Kit. That was a slam dunk. It was the thought of having sex with any other woman now. He didn't want to because it would be meaningless, but with Kit...

  A committed relationship is about filling voids in another person's life in a way that also fills voids in your own. Maybe after you've unloaded some more baggage you'll be ready...

  And just maybe he was finally beginning to get it.

  He moved to a sitting position, and said, "Okay, I'll talk to Sam. Will you be around to pick up the pieces if it doesn't go well?"

  Kit put her arms around his neck, kissed him soundly, and said, "Sweetie, that's what filling voids is all about. You're almost there."

  She was right. He was almost there. The scariness in commitment seemed to have vanished. So, it seemed, the only thing standing between him and Kit was a jungle in Belize.

  If you want to hold onto her you might have to do a little compromising...

  CHAPTER 12

  When Marc went in search of Sam, he was surprised when Sam intercepted him as he was walking from the house to the lodge, and said, "We need to talk."

  Marc looked at Sam, dubiously. His words almost sounded like a confrontation was brewing, which wasn't the way Marc was planning to start out. He assumed Sam intended to voice his opinion about excavating the mound, a message that had already come through loud and clear. He couldn't imagine what else Sam could add.

  "Okay. Where do you want to talk?" Marc asked, then realized his tone had been curt.

  "The winery," Sam replied. "No one's there and we need to talk in private."

  Marc agreed. Hashing out Sam's opposition to digging up the mound and how the ranch would be impacted because guests wouldn't want to come where bodies were being dug up, and his defense that maybe it was time to give history a shot and uncover a whole lot that had been buried untouched for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, was best done behind closed doors. "We might as well get Dad in on this too," he said, although his father seemed to have backed down some, like maybe digging up a body wouldn't really close down the ranch.

  "This needs to be between us," Sam said. "You're twenty-five now and it's long overdue."

  Which didn't make much sense, Marc thought. But then, he'd been digging in the mound since he'd graduated from a kid's plastic shovel to an adult metal one, so maybe Sam intended to start back then.

  Once they were seated in a couple of leather chairs in the office at the winery, Marc said, "As soon as the Indians decide what they want to do with the bones, Kit and I will be filling in the mound, well, Kit wants to finish the exploratory excavation first, but after that's done, that'll be the end of digging around here. I don't want to be responsible for shutting down the Dancing Moon Ranch. Besides, there are thousands of unexcavated mounds in Central America. I don't need to hang around here to do what I love to do."

  "Then you intend to go back there?" Sam asked, his tone worried.

  Which surprised Marc. His being in the jungles of Belize should have no impact on Sam. He could understand his mother being upset, and maybe even his father, and Rick and Adam seemed glad he was back. And Maddy. But Sam and Jayne's life would continue to be the same marital utopia it had always been, regardless whether their pseudo nephew hung around the Dancing Moon or not.

  "Marc?" Sam said. "Can't you stay here a while? Do you have to leave right away?"

  Marc looked at Sam, curiously. "Why would I stay?"

  "Because you have family, and you're an archaeologist, and there's a mound out there that needs to be excavated," Sam replied.

  Marc looked at Sam, baffled. "Look, I'm sorry to sound like a cretin, but yesterday everyone was giving me hell because I was excavating the mound. What changed?"

  "We were all impressed with the way you took charge and handled things, so we got together last night and talked about it and we don't have a problem if it's an organized dig," Sam said. "But the main reason is we want you here excavating the mound is because it's a reason for you to stay."

  Marc was still baffled as to the change in attitudes about the mound. But there was still one among them who wouldn't budge. "Grandma Hansen would be against it because she knows our grandfather didn't want the mound disturbed, or people digging around looking for arrowheads. Which seems odd," he said, almost as an afterthought. "Whenever I showed her something I'd dug up when I was a kid, she always encouraged me to keep digging."

  "That's because she didn't whole-heartily agree with my father," Sam replied. "She was there last night too, and after listening to the pros and cons, she surprised us all when she announced that she's been sharing this ranch with the ghosts of Indians for almost sixty years, some of them probably being her ancestors, and it was time to get to know them by digging up the mound."

  If you want to hold onto her you might have to do a little compromising...

  Like maybe excavating an Indian mound on the Dancing Moon Ranch instead of dropping muon detectors down holes near a pyramid in Belize.

  It occurred to Marc then that Grandma Hansen could be a matchmaker!

  Looking at Sam, he said, "There's another issue though. My dad might have been impressed with the way I handled things out there yesterday, but that doesn't mean he'll sign off on allowing a crew to come in and set up camp and take up residency here for months."

  "The way he talked last night, he doesn't have a problem with it," Sam replied.

  "That may be," Marc said, "but excavating doesn't come cheap, so the only way we could do it would be if we got a grant, and that takes time."

  "There's college money set aside for you kids," Sam said. "Since you never used any, there's probably enough to get you well into the project."

  "Mom and Dad have four other kids to educate," Marc said. "I don't expect anything."

  "I'm talking about money Jayne and I set aside for you."

  Marc looked at Sam, baffled. "Why would you do that?"

  "Because you were my son when you were born and I never wanted to give you up," Sam said. "I only did it because, at the time, I had no choice."

  Marc stared at Sam while mulling over Sam's words.

  I never wanted to give you up. I had no choice...

  "I don't understand," Marc said.

  Sam drew in a long breath, let it out slowly, and said, "Susan, your biological mother, never wanted kids. Rick was a mistake. But after Rick was born she was a good mother, even agreed to become pregnant with Jack's sperm in order to have a baby that might be a cord blood match for Rick. We expected Adam to be the match and were pretty devastated when he wasn't. But then it turned out that, even though you weren't a complete match, they were able to restore Rick's bone marrow function by expanding the cord blood cells and raising his white blood cells."

  "But you still gave me up," Marc pointed out.

  "There's more to it," Sam said. "After Susan learned she wasn't pregnant with Jack's child, and the baby she was carrying wouldn't be a match, she wanted an abortion. The only reason she didn't go through with it was because
your mom told her she'd fly to New Jersey to have Adam there where the hospital was set up to do transplants, if Susan agreed to carry you to full term."

  "Okay, so my bio mother didn't abort me," Marc said, "but it's pretty ironic that she bonded with Rick but not me, even though I was the reason Rick was alive."

  Sam placed his hand on Marc's arm, and said, "Some women are not cut out to be mothers. Susan was one of them. Your dad's first wife was another. Lauren went to jail for smothering their son when the baby wouldn't stop crying. We were all afraid Susan might do the same with you and we couldn't take that chance. Signing the papers that gave you to your mother and father was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The only thing that softened it some was that your mother wanted you from the start, and your father was fine with that. It was your mother's idea to raise you and Adam as fraternal twins so you'd never feel like you didn't completely belong. But even though you're your mother and father's legal son now, you're also Rick's brother, and I still think of you as mine too."

  Marc considered what Sam said, and for the first time in his life, began to connect some dots. Along with Maureen, Sam also showed an interest in his digging. In fact, it was Sam who bought him his first book on archaeology. It was shortly after he'd found an arrowhead in the mound. Sam even made the comment that maybe one day he'd become an archaeologist and come back and dig up the mound. Marc had almost forgotten about that. And there were other times when he and Adam had concurrent activities, and because Adam's activities usually meant hauling his horse somewhere, their dad had to drive him, and Sam would step in as alternate dad, as he'd referred to himself at those times.

  Marc looked at Sam and said, "You've always been around for me, haven't you?"

  Sam smiled. "From the beginning. I was the first one to hold you after you were born. You were my son, and I never wanted to give you up, so I just kind of stuck around while you were growing up. You were an interesting kid. By the time you were five you'd memorized every dinosaur in your book, and by then you were wondering about the stars."

  "Did you get me the dinosaur book?" Marc asked.

  Sam nodded.

  "And the book on astronomy?"

  "That too," Sam replied.

  "What about your dad's telescope? Did you have something to do with Grandma Hansen giving it to me?"

  Sam shrugged. "Not only were you the only one interested in stars, you were the only one of the Hansen boys, including Rick, who took care of your things." He reached over and covered Marc's hand with his, and said, "You've made us all proud."

  Marc couldn't help thinking that just maybe everything Sam told him had come from the heart. It was a strange, but gratifying feeling.

  ***

  Kit peered out from beneath the eight foot square canopy that she and Marc had set up over quadrant four that morning to protect the site from rain. In Belize, sites were covered to shield diggers from the scorching sun, but Oregon didn't present that problem. But with quadrant four excavated in step-like levels down to over two feet now, Kit didn't want to end up slogging in mud if the weather changed. For quadrant one where the skull was dug up, they'd covered it with a tarp held in place by several big rocks, which was the way it would remain while awaiting the decision of the tribal council. She had no idea when that would be, but whatever decision they made—whether to remove the bones to the tribal cemetery, or cover the area where they were found—they'd still be able to continue working.

  Marc left midafternoon to find Sam, and a little while after that Kit saw the two of them enter the winery. She wasn't sure how long Marc had been there because she never noticed when he left, but depending on how things went, Marc could be ready to pull up stakes and return to Texas. But for the moment, he was standing a short distance from the winery, talking on his cell phone. She wondered if he might be talking to his grandparents in Texas, maybe informing them that he'd be returning soon. He had a close bond with them, although he seemed to have reconnected with his family at the ranch too.

  Climbing down into the pit, she picked up a trowel and continued where she'd left off earlier, which was scraping around a darkened area of soil that was more compacted than the surrounding dirt, and which appeared to be the sidewall of what could have been a pit house. If so, she'd want to excavate further to see which direction the area would run. If they were inside the dugout area of a pit house, artifacts would be uncovered, but if they were outside, and they didn't hit the pit house midden, the digging might not be as productive as she'd want it to be in order to get a grant to excavate the entire mound. If that would even be allowed. Jack Hansen gave his blessing for two, five-foot square exploratory excavations, as a means of keeping Marc around, but digging up the place might not be so welcome, especially if Marc would be in Belize and not involved with the mound dig, which was entirely possible. He'd be moving backwards in his career by working as her assistant.

  A few minutes later, while she crouched on her knees, scraping around the darkened dirt, Kit saw Marc coming toward her. His face looked troubled, and she wondered if it was because his earlier confrontation with his uncle had gone badly or because of something he'd learned from his phone conversation, maybe bad news about one of his grandparents.

  As he approached the site, she stood, and said, "Is everything okay?"

  Brows gathered, Marc replied, "Yeah, I got the job offer in Belize."

  "You don't look very happy about it," Kit said, while trying to dislodge the lump in her throat that Marc would be leaving soon and she wouldn't be a part of the team.

  "It's pretty long term," Marc replied.

  "I thought that's what you wanted," Kit said.

  "It is. I just need to think about it some."

  "Then, you didn't accept it yet?"

  Marc shook his head. "I have a few days before deciding."

  Kit said nothing because she'd decided in advance that she wouldn't put any pressure on Marc. Whatever decision he made would have to be entirely his.

  "So then, how did it go with Sam?" she asked.

  Marc looked at her, a frown on his brow, like he wanted her feedback on the Belize position and wondered why she'd dropped it, and said, "It went okay." After relaying to her what he'd learned from Sam, he added, "Rick knows he was a mistake and he's come to terms with it so I guess I can too. As for Sam, he offered to put up the money to get things started here. Even Grandma's in favor of it. She claims she wants to get to know the ghosts she's been sharing the ranch with. My father's also okay with it. The whole exchange with Sam was pretty unexpected."

  "Does that mean you're through being an omega wolf and you're ready to acknowledge you're one of the pack?" Kit asked.

  Instead of answering her question, which Kit hadn't really expected him to do, Marc said, "You feel pretty smug don't you," which was actually the kind of answer she'd hoped to hear.

  "I admit, I think I called things right," Kit replied. "As for Sam putting up the money to get a dig started here, I know I can get grant money. Come see what I found." She took Marc's elbow and tugged him down into the pit and pointed to the darkened area. "It's a wide band of dark compact soil. I think we've hit the site of our first pit house."

  Marc took a closer look, and said, "I think you're right." He picked up a trowel, and with the point, scraped away at the dirt surrounding something stuck in the sidewall of a layer. Prodding a little further, he uncovered what looked at first glance like a river cobble. Wedging it out of the soil he studied it closely, turning it around in his hand.

  Kit traced her finger over the outer edge. "It's chipped along here," she said, "so it's some kind of chopper." She took it from him, and closing her hand around it, said to him, "It actually fits my hand, like a chopper for a woman, but it's large enough so the shock would be absorbed. This is definitely an occupational level, and I think we're inside the pit house."

  Marc glanced up from where he sat on his heels, and said, "Someone's coming. I hope he's not the first in a long string of ama
teur archaeologists."

  Kit stood and saw a tall, heavily-muscled man walking toward them. Shading her eyes and taking a closer look at the man, she said, "I can't believe it. Why would Wally show up here?"

  "I don't know but I'll go sort debitage," Marc said, in a disgusted voice.

  "You don't need to," Kit replied. "I'll go see what he wants." She handed the stone chopper to Marc, climbed out of the pit, and started toward Wally.

  As Wally approached, he smiled, like he was glad to see her. "This arrived at the house for you and I thought you might want to read it," he said, holding out an envelope. "Your folks gave me the address of the ranch here."

  Kit took the envelope from him and read the return address, noting it was from the Museum of Indian Arts in Santa Fe. "You drove 1400 miles to deliver my mail?" she said.

  "Well that, and to talk to you," Wally replied. "Look, I know I have a few hang-ups that bother you, and maybe I'm not the easiest guy to live with, but I've been thinking about us."

  Kit turned the envelope over. "You opened my mail."

  Wally shrugged. "You never minded before."

  "That's because we were a couple. We aren't now."

  "It's from the museum," Wally said. "They're offering you the job as curator, a full-time permanent position with a generous benefits package. It's what you've been wanting, and I wouldn't mind moving to Santa Fe."

  Ignoring Wally, Kit removed the letter, which reaffirmed what he'd just told her, while also outlining duties of the Curator of Archaeology... a professional position to carry out research leading to interpretive exhibitions... reports directly to the Museum Director... publications and educational programming... involves ongoing tribal consultations.

  "I've changed since you left me," Wally said.

  "I didn't leave you," Kit replied, while continuing to review the letter. "You're the one who asked me to leave. I have this problem remembering how to hang up clothes."

  "It doesn't matter," Wally said. "I really have changed. I wouldn't have any trouble getting a job in Santa Fe either. I wouldn't even care if you brought the clothes home to wash. Well, that wouldn't matter now since you'd be working for the museum. We'd both have good jobs. We could buy a house and start a family like you wanted."