Delia felt badly about taking the fragment from the women. She had grown fond of Servilia. Guilt ate at her. She was going to betray the woman’s trust. Damn it.
“Are males allowed into the temple of Diana?”
“Yes. I saw men making offerings at the main altar. It appears to be gender neutral, welcoming all who want to worship the goddess.”
“Servilia and her group of women remind me of a band of feminists living long before the word was coined.”
“Yes,” Delia said. “I really respect her for what she’s trying to achieve in bringing equality to women. If she’d been successful, would we have avoided some of the darkest moments in history? I wonder….” Was it possible because she and Jake were going to take the fragment that the women’s attempt to equalize the genders was unsuccessful? Delia knew it was possible and it left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Servilia sees the damage of inequality,” Jake said quietly, holding Delia’s gaze. “That alone makes her a very important woman in her story, not his tory.” He smiled gently. “I’m glad we were able to save her life.”
“That’s for sure.”
“We need to scout out that temple,” he stated, getting back to business. “When’s the best time for you to see auras? Dawn or dusk?”
“Either is fine. But we’d probably draw less attention if we go wandering around at dusk. Romans work all day and usually go to the temple to give their offerings before heading home at night to their families.”
“Okay, then the day after tomorrow, why don’t you and I go individually to the temple? I can map out one half of it and you the other. We can meet back here and put the blueprint together. And while you’re there, if you pick up any energy from that fragment, you can note the vicinity and check out who is guarding it.”
Delia gazed at him quizzically. “You read minds, Jake. I wonder if you can get close enough to the high priestess to read hers?”
Chapter 8
“I have to get within twenty feet of that priestess.” Jake frowned. “They aren’t stupid. Many were considered clairvoyant or supersensitive. If the woman feels me trying to get inside her head, that could hurt our chances of retrieving the object.”
“Mmm, you’re probably right.” Looking up at the low ceiling, Delia said, “I’ll do some investigating, Jake.”
“What if we don’t find anything?”
“Then somehow, with you at my side, I’ll have to distract the high priestess so you can try and read her mind.”
Shaking his head, Jake said, “Everyone thinks mind reading is easy, but it’s not. Do you know how much mental garbage I have to sort through in order to find the one thing that will lead us to what we’re looking for?”
Delia nodded sympathetically, feeling for him. She saw the concern on his face. The shadows in the room only made Jake look more ruggedly handsome. Her gaze came to rest on his pursed lips. That mouth… Sighing inwardly, she tried to ignore the sensations and memories that arose from simply focusing on his mouth.
Sitting up, Jake muttered, “We’re tired. Let’s hit the rack and get a good night’s sleep. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a tough day tomorrow.”
He wanted to stay, to ask her to share his bed but he saw confusion in her eyes. The fragment had done something to Del and he knew sleep, not lovemaking, was the required Rx here.
Withdrawing her legs so he could pass by, Delia said, “Yeah. I’m just wondering how to approach Servilia about this ceremony tonight. Will she discuss it? Will she get angry if I try to talk about a topic that’s taboo outside the temple? I don’t know the protocol and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve got a million questions for her, Jake. And we need every bit of info at our disposal before we try and take that fragment from the temple.”
Leaning down, Jake rested his hand on Delia’s slumped shoulder and pressed a chaste kiss on her forehead. Her soft curls tickled his nose. “Get some sleep, sweetheart. We can’t solve a puzzle like this when we’re so tired. Good night…”
Before she could respond to his impulsive act, he was gone. She heard the door between their rooms open and then quietly close. Frowning, she rubbed the spot tingling wildly in response to his kiss. Delia hungered to follow Jake, but under the circumstances, she had to get sleep. Maybe then, Delia would feel more like herself in the morning. If she slept with Jake, she’d get no sleep.
Mouth quirking, Delia got up, went over to the table and poured water into a bronze basin. Removing her tunic, she stood naked in the warm room. Grabbing a cloth, she quickly washed up as best she could. There was herbal soap in a dish nearby and soon the scent of lavender was floating around her like a fragrant cloud. Lavender could mask a lot of body odor, Delia was discovering. What she needed to do was visit the baths at the rear of the house and really get clean, but time wasn’t on her side right now.
Her mind spongy, she patted herself dry with a towel made of soft woven cotton. After shimmying into a long muslin gown, she stretched out on the couch and pulled a heavy wool blanket across herself. Two gold silk cushions became a pillow for her head. The braziers sputtered out, the last of the oil finally consumed by the flames.
As the room fell into darkness, Delia sighed and closed her eyes. The fragrance of lavender rose from her body, heavenly to inhale. It masked the olive-oil scent that always hung in the apartment. Burning oil was the main way to create light in the ancient world. Delia longed for electricity.
As she lay there, feeling sleep slowly descend, she longed to have Jake at her side. The room was warm due to the heating conduit below the floor, but the February night outside was cold, with ice covering puddles on the cobblestone street in front of Servilia’s home.
Jake was like a big, warm bear, and Delia smiled softly at the thought. The only times he’d really held her were after they had made love. The warmth and intimacy he shared with her after the fireworks were over had been Delia’s favorite moments. He would talk of his dreams, of her, of their future. It was the only time Jake ever opened up.
Delia had needed more than that fleeting connection and intimacy. If having sex was the only way they could communicate, she knew their relationship had been doomed before it ever got off the ground.
Jake would always revert to his bossy, arrogant, superconfident self shortly afterward, putting on that mask he usually wore. It was as if he were emotionally dressed in armor.
Frowning, Delia snuggled into the golden cushions. Why couldn’t he open up? She’d shown him for two years that she was trustworthy. But in the end, Delia had discovered, Jake trusted no one but himself. It had shattered her love and ruined their relationship.
As sleep pulled her over the edge into oblivion, Delia ached to love Jake once again. It was a special hell being around him all day. How thrilling it would be to reach up and touch his wonderful male lips. Feel the warmth of his hard muscles beneath her grazing fingertips!
Once more, Delia wished she’d never been forced to take this mission with him. It was like being tempted over and over again with the one thing she’d always wanted and never could truly have—Jake.
“I meant to ask you if you enjoyed my impromptu kiss the other morning,” Jake teased as they walked around the rear of Servilia’s home the day of the banquet. They wanted to make sure everything would be secure. The February morning was frosty, the limbs of many of the bushes growing up against the pink stucco wall covered in a thin sheet of ice from the rain and snow of last night’s storm.
Delia’s breath came out in a misty white cloud as she laughed. She had pulled the hood of her cloak over her head for warmth, and wrapped her arms around her torso as they walked the perimeter. “I like kissing you. I always have.” Shooting him a glance, her mouth twisting in a wry smile, she added, “Our problem isn’t physical and you know that, Jake. That’s what stops me: you refuse to open up and be intimate with me.”
Jake absorbed her teasing smile and the dancing light in her golden eyes. Black curls peeked out from beneath her
dark brown hood, emphasizing her ruddy features. “You’re right,” he said contritely. And then he grinned. “Must be the times we’re in?”
Delia’s laugh was explosive and echoed against the wall. “You’ll use any excuse, Tyler, for your closed up ways of looking at the world. No matter what era you’re in, you’re never going to change. Which is a pity.”
“Hmm.” He caught up with her, his gaze ranging across the wall, seeking possible places where bandits might breach it in order to get inside. “And if I could change?”
Shaking her head, Delia muttered under her breath, “Listen, Jake, you’ve had two years to change and I don’t see that having happened.” She swung toward him. “You haven’t changed. You’re too closed up, too protective, for whatever reason, and you’ll never trust anyone outside yourself. That’s what I see.” She halted, resting her hands on her hips, the handle of her sword brushing her fingertips. “You don’t see it, but I do. And we’ve had a lot of heated discussions over this very thing—communication, trust, intimacy. You just refuse to hear me, because I think inside you’re scared, and that fear is greater than any desire you have toward me.”
Jake slowed and glanced toward Delia. He saw her golden eyes turn dark and passionate to match her softly spoken words. Smarting, he lost his smile. “Maybe you’re right,” he murmured. “But I want you, Del. I’ve never stopped wanting you, even after you walked out of my life in Afghanistan.”
Frustration thrummed through Delia as she searched his now serious-looking features. Jake had his cloak wrapped around himself, but his head was bared to the cold. Unable to ignore how handsome he was or the shape of that wonderful mouth, she felt her anger cool. “Well, if you want me, you’re going to have to change. I don’t want to be around a man who’s so controlling he can’t open up to me and be vulnerable. For whatever reason, Jake, your past made you that way. And you won’t even talk about your growing-up years, so I might try and understand why you are the way you are. You trust no one but yourself. In the two years we were together, I showed you I was trustworthy, yet you refused to let down your walls and let me know the man inside.”
He kept his voice low as he said, “And if I did that, would you give me another chance, Del?”
Jake had often baited her like this in their two-year affair, and she’d get suckered in by the ploy. Later she’d find out he was manipulating her.
That blew Delia’s mind. Things had to be his way or no way, and she wasn’t about to become a slave to him. She thinned her lips. “Listen, Jake, we’ve been here before. And every time you tantalize me with something about your secretive past, it’s like a game you’re playing. I’m not going to get pulled in like I did before. I can’t. Don’t you understand how much it hurts me?”
Holding up his hands, he said, “We’re both hurting. No, no game this time, Delia.”
Eyeing him skeptically, she muttered, “Well, you’re going to have to prove it, Jake, because I’m not going there with you.” She turned and continued her appraisal of the wall, checking the many olive trees with gnarled and scrawny limbs reaching toward the rain-swollen sky.
“How about after we get done with our security check, we go back to my apartment and enjoy some warm wine?”
“It’s only 8:00 a.m., Jake. I don’t drink wine in the morning.” Delia sighed. “What I’d give to have a mocha latte right now. Romans didn’t have coffee in this era and I’m suffering caffeine withdrawal.”
“Yeah, you are snarly and irritable,” Jake agreed with a chuckle.
As they rounded the front of Servilia’s home he noted the guards at the entrance. They looked cold, and he felt sorry for them. Their cloaks obviously weren’t made of the heavyweight wool fabric Jake and Delia’s were. The guards leaned their rectangular shields, made of leather and metal, against the wall near the gate. Each carried a spear and wore a gladius tucked in a scabbard in his belt.
Delia gave Jake an evil smile as they finished their circuit and headed into the beautiful dwelling. She said in a low tone only he could hear, “You make me snarly, Jake. And you can’t blame my coffee-withdrawal symptoms on that.”
Taking it all in good humor, he eyed the slaves going about their duties. The atrium was beautiful, the impluvium full because of the rain last night. The water magnified the mosaic on the bottom, of dolphins cresting blue-green waves. “Can we continue our talk in my apartment? Wine or no wine?”
Delia wanted to say no, but she remembered the power of Jake’s unexpected kiss the other day. She wasn’t about to tell him how much she’d enjoyed it; that would only make him bolder. If he had any inkling, he’d be preening like the cock of the walk. “I’ve got a few minutes,” she mumbled.
Brightening, Jake said, “Great!” and rubbed his hands together as they moved into the warm part of the domus. In the basement, slaves kept a fire going twenty-four hours a day. The heat moved through clay pipes, warming the floors of all the rooms.
Shaking her head, Delia pushed her hood back and quickly dragged her fingers through her curls. She shouldn’t care about Jake, but she did. That fact hit her hard, because she had worked for two years to get him out of her mind and heart. It hadn’t worked, she was realizing with panic. The awareness had been sharpened by holding that powerful talisman in the ceremony last night. It wouldn’t allow her to lie to herself about her feelings for him.
Jake opened his apartment with a flourish and bowed as she walked in. As he shut the wooden door, he said, “See? I can act like a gentleman and not the Neanderthal you accuse me of being.” He pulled off his cloak and tossed it over the arm of the red silk couch. Helping Delia off with hers, he admired her firm, womanly form beneath the pale blue tunic she wore. It wasn’t high fashion, but it didn’t have to be to look good on her.
He poured water from a clay pitcher and offered it to Delia, but she shook her head. Jake drank deeply from the wooden cup. Watching her over the rim, he saw that her features were set, her mouth thinned as she sat down on the couch and waited, hands folded tensely in her lap. Finished drinking, he set the cup next to the pitcher and turned toward her.
“I realize I haven’t been the most forthcoming guy on the planet,” he began, opening his hands. “And I know I avoided all your questions about my family when we were over in Afghanistan.”
“That’s an understatement,” Delia said, watching the mask Jake usually wore fall into place. “You acted as if your childhood years were for Q clearance only.” That was the top security level authorized by the government.
“I’m uncomfortable discussing personal things,” he muttered.
“Jake, that’s not normal. When two people meet, they explore one another, talk of their families, their brothers and sisters, their growing-up years. It’s a natural part of becoming intimate and establishing a connection.”
Jake had heard this argument from Delia many times before. “Men aren’t open books by nature,” he argued.
“Give me a break. That’s society hammering that little mantra into your brain. And it’s wrong.”
Chuckling briefly, he saw Delia’s mouth hitch into a slight grin. “One of the many things I like about you is your honesty.”
“Yes, well, it hasn’t gotten me anywhere with you, Jake. You prefer that icy tower you choose to live in. You wore me down emotionally with your lack of intimacy. The only times you were open and available to me were after we made love.” Delia gave him a flat stare. “And I had to have more than that.”
Jake stood with his hands behind his back, in the typical “at ease” posture of a soldier. She could see fleeting emotions in his eyes, but his face remained unreadable.
Delia frowned, then stood up and shook her head as she paced across the room. “Jake, this is getting us nowhere! I remember having this very same discussion when we were together. You’re a closed book that will never open up to me or anyone else.” She stopped and said, “Something awful happened to you when you were little. I just know it in my heart and my gut. But d
amned if you’ll share it with me. You don’t trust me enough to do that.”
Shrugging, Jake stared at the travertine marble floor tiles with their pink, brown and cream striations. “I can’t remember anything awful happening to me, Delia.”
“Then tell me about your childhood, Jake.” Why did she even care at this point? Delia felt suffocated by the past coming back to haunt her all over again. Jake was a good man, and no question, he was very intelligent and attractive. Any woman would love to have him in bed with her. Delia wanted more, however. Much more. And she wasn’t about to settle for what he thought was the right amount of intimacy between them. Outside the bedroom, he closed up like Fort Knox and was completely unavailable to her emotionally.
“Well,” he murmured, “I was an only child, but I don’t think that was bad.”
“If I recall, your mother was a professor of history and your father a professor of medicine at Cornell. Is that right?”
Nodding, Jake sauntered toward Delia. She moved away from him, distrust clearly written in her eyes.
Turning instead to the couch, he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between his thighs. The tunic’s rough wool weave felt like sandpaper. “That’s right, they were.”
Delia crossed her arms. “Jake, what one memory stands out in your childhood?” She’d asked this question several times before. And he would never answer her.
“Well,” he said, studying his clasped hands, “probably my most vivid memory from being a kid is of my father. He was a tough man. He was never pleased, and crying or any sort of emotion always set him off. If I showed any feelings, he’d make fun of me. I was a sissy or a little girl. Eventually, I just closed up, Del.”
Delia saw a wisp of pink color swirl through his aura, briefly lightening the darkness around him. He was telling the truth! With her heart thudding in response to his quietly spoken admission, Delia tried to put on hold her impatience and distrust of where this chat might lead them.
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