I shook my head. “I would love to get you and my father together,” I said.
Connor grinned for the first time. “Anytime,” he responded. “Think I could shock him?”
“I’m sure of it,” I said.
“Especially if he knew you’re living with his daughter,” Tim said.
“We’re roommates,” I reminded him. “Just roommates.”
“If that’s what you want everyone to believe, that’s quite all right with me,” Connor teased.
One of the volunteers working down in the caves started yelling, bringing the entire excavation to a halt. “I’ve found something!” she shouted. “Dr. Raven, I’ve found something!”
I was already sprinting toward the cave. “Stop digging!” I ordered. “Don’t go any further!”
Connor ran after me, with Tim following closely behind. By the time they caught up, I was on my knees, using my bare hands to expose the find. I pushed the dirt away to reveal an object that appeared to be a piece of some kind of clay jar. Isabella photographed it as the rest of the team looked on.
I carefully withdrew fragments from the earth as Isabella switched to a videorecorder. I spoke to the camera, explaining what had been discovered. I was overcome with excitement as I held it in my hands.
“We did it, everybody,” I declared. “We did it!”
Whistles and cheers erupted as everyone started hugging and high-fiving each other. Tim took the fragments and placed them in a secure metal box to transport them to the lab for carbon dating and verification. I scrambled to my feet, wiping my hands on my jeans. I hugged Tim, Isabella and Elliott, then hesitated as I came face-to-face with Connor.
He smiled. “You did it,” he told me.
I shook my head. “We did it,” I said softly. “Without you, it would not have happened.”
“In that case, I think I deserve a proper thank you.” He pulled me into his arms, lifting me off my feet as he kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, responding enthusiastically, oblivious to our audience.
“Told you,” Tim said to his wife.
“Stop staring,” Isabella scolded him.
“I hope she marries him,” Tim said. “We’ll never have to beg for funds again.”
Isabella rolled her eyes skyward.
Tim only grinned. “I think they’re vapor locked.”
19
Connor
“We have to celebrate.” I went to the kitchen and returned with the bottle of Dom Perignon I’d kept on hand for the day we made an important find…or the night I finally got Lynne in the sack, whichever came first. I must admit, I was hoping for the latter.
“None for me,” Lynne said with a dismissive wave. “You go ahead, though.”
“You don’t like champagne?” I asked as I searched the cabinets for substitutes for proper glassware among the mismatched pieces Lynne owned.
“It doesn’t like me,” she lamented. “I don’t hold any kind of alcohol well.”
“One glass,” I urged. “I can’t celebrate alone.” I tried to imagine her intoxicated and suppressed a smile. Did I want to get her drunk and have my way with her? Of course not. I wanted a willing participant.
Lynne hesitated, then relented. “All right. One.” She flopped down onto the couch.
I half-filled two glasses and handed one to her. I sat beside her. "A toast," I insisted, raising my glass. "To discovery."
"I'll drink to that," she said, lightly tapping her glass to mine.
“Drink slowly. Savor it,” I advised.
She followed my instruction. “This is good,” she said, impressed.
I tried to kiss her, but she pushed me away gently. “You didn’t mind making out with me out there with everyone watching,” I reminded her. “Are you an exhibitionist? Do you require an audience? I’m a bit shy myself, but if this is what it will take, I’ll go along.”
“I was caught up in the moment, the discovery,” she said.
“You didn’t kiss Tim or Elliott,” I reminded her.
“You kissed me.” She reached for her glass. “Besides, out there it was safe.”
“Safe?”
“You wouldn’t go any further with everyone watching.”
“I’m a desperate man. I could be pushed to discard my modesty.”
“What modesty?” She started to laugh.
I attempted to kiss her again. This time, she didn’t protest.
“You taste like champagne,” she giggled, lying back against the couch. I kept kissing her. She ran her hands through my hair. I drew her closer, my touches more intimate. Finally, she pulled back. “You have the most beautiful eyes. I can see forever in your eyes,” she sang off-key.
I laughed. “You really can’t hold it, can you?”
“Nope.” She started to giggle again.
I nuzzled her neck. She started to squirm. “Stop that. Your beard tickles.”
I kept kissing her in spite of her halfhearted protests. I started nibbling at her earlobes. She was a willing, if intoxicated, participant, holding me tightly, wrapping her legs around me.
Then, abruptly, she stopped moving.
I drew back and looked down at her. She was out cold. Frustrated, I let out a loud groan and pulled myself upright.
Unbelievable.
20
Lynne
I woke early the next morning with a splitting headache. It took me a few moments to get my bearings and realize where I was. I lay on my back on the couch, my legs across Connor’s lap. He was shirtless, sleeping in an upright position.
I tried to remember what had happened the night before, but most of it was a blur. I did recall celebrating the find, drinking champagne, kissing Connor….
“Connor.” I nudged him with my bare foot. “Connor, wake up.” I nudged him again. When that produced no results, I kicked him. “Connor!”
He woke with a start. “What?”
“Refresh my memory,” I said. “Why are we here, like this?”
He regarded me with a lazy smile. “You don’t remember?”
“Obviously, no.”
“We had quite a celebration last night,” he said. “I’m hurt you don’t remember. Most women find me unforgettable.”
Was he saying we'd had sex? For a moment, I wondered. “I remember the champagne, but—”
He licked his lips. “You were delicious.”
“Nice try, Merlin, but I still have my clothes on,” I realized.
“Getting them off was simple,” he said. “Putting them back on presented problems. I suspect I put your underwear on backwards.”
I pulled at the waistband to check. He laughed. “Had you there, didn’t I?”
I snatched a pillow from behind my head and hit him with it. He took it from me and threw it back. I caught it and tried to hit him again, but he blocked the blow. I sat up, throwing a mock punch. He grabbed both of my wrists. “Bit of a hellcat, aren’t you?” he laughed as he twisted me around so that my back was pressed against his chest, my arms pinned to my sides.
“Let go.” My tone held a warning note.
“Turn you loose so you can assault me again?” he asked, kissing my neck. “I don’t think so.”
“What did we do last night?” I wanted to know.
“Got off to a brilliant start,” he said, still nuzzling me. “Making out, you were all over me.”
“Connor!”
“The champagne rid you of all those nasty inhibitions,” he told me. “Then you passed out.”
“Passed out? While you were—” I couldn’t finish. I was laughing too hard.
“You dealt a severe blow to my ego.” He nibbled my earlobe. “Now you’re going to make it up to me, aren’t you?”
“In your dreams, Merlin. In your dreams.”
21
Connor
“It’s old, just not old enough to have been from the Exodus.” I broke the news to Lynne. “The carbon dating shows it’s approximately two thousand years old.”
Lynne’s expression changed from disappointment to renewed hope. “Two thousand years old? Are you sure?” she asked.
I nodded. “No doubt.”
“It could be from the time of Christ, then,” she said slowly, her hope restored. She looked at me. “It’s possible.”
“What?” I asked, not understanding.
“When Joseph and Mary left Israel with the infant Jesus, Joseph had received a vision from God, telling him to take mother and child to Egypt, to safety. They crossed the Sinai to get into Egypt,” she explained. “It was a long, difficult journey. The exact route they took has never been known. They could have come this way.”
“You don’t see this as a total loss, then.” I said.
She smiled hopefully. “It could be an important find, after all. We need to photograph all of the fragments,” she said. I could tell her mind was already racing ahead to the next step in determining the degree of importance of the find. “I can work on the translation on the computer.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s written in Aramaic,” I reminded her.
She nodded. “I know.”
“You can read a dead language?”
She smiled, leaning back against the back of the worn couch. “Enough to know it when I see it,” she told him.
I nodded, smiling. “Everyone should learn a dead language, right?”
“This might very well answer questions mankind has been asking for centuries,” she said.
I grinned. “Or it could be some ancient grocery list.”
I emerged from sleep slowly. I opened my eyes and lay there for a few moments before catching sight of the thin ribbon of light under the closed door. I turned over and looked at the LED display on the alarm clock on my nightstand. Curious, I got out of bed, wearing only drawstring pajama bottoms—more than I wore in bed back home, actually—and opened the door. Across the hall, Lynne was at her computer, an image of the papyrus on the monitor.
She was unaware of my presence until I spoke. “Do you know what time it is?” I asked, rubbing the back of my head.
She didn’t turn around. “Sorry if I woke you,” she apologized.
“You’ve been at this for the past nine hours,” I pointed out. “You need sleep.”
She shook her head. “What I need is to complete the translation. I can't do it myself, so I just sent it to a colleague in Israel." She faced me for the first time. “Connor, this is why I became an archaeologist. This could be what I’ve always been searching for.”
“Go to bed,” I ordered. “This isn’t going anywhere tonight.”
She nodded. “A few hours of sleep sounds good.”
“Eight. At least eight.”
“I can’t.”
“You can, and you will. I’ll pull rank if I have to,” I warned.
She was too exhausted to argue with me. She stood up slowly, supporting herself by holding onto the table. “I think I was in that chair too long,” she admitted. “My legs feel like overcooked spaghetti.”
“Shall I carry you to your room?” I asked, taking her arm.
She managed a smile. “I can manage.” She took a few wobbly steps and let out a groan. I took her by the arm and steadied her.
“Have you made any progress at all with it?” I asked.
“It says, ‘the prophet shall come in advance of the Messiah’s arrival’. I’m assuming it refers to John the Baptist,” she said, “but there are parts that don’t make sense. It says the prophet will come forth from the island of the angels.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I have no idea.”
22
Lynne
“Looks like we’ve got a storm brewing,” I told Tim, observing the ominous dark clouds approaching from the west.
“I’ll make sure everything’s secure,” Tim told me. “Go on.”
He didn’t have to twist my arm. I was exhausted. Every bone and muscle in my body ached. All I wanted was a hot shower and a soft bed. I’m glad it’s Connor’s night to cook, I thought.
He was in the kitchen taking dinner from the oven when I arrived home. “Smells good,” I told him as I pulled off my baseball cap and tossed it aside. “Y’know, Merlin, you’d make somebody a great wife.”
He looked up and smiled. “Is that a proposal?” he wanted to know.
I sat on the couch and pulled off my shoes. “You don’t believe in marriage, remember?”
He took plates from the cabinet. “I could be had for the right offer,” he suggested. “Are you offering?”
I just laughed, not taking him seriously. Connor was not the marrying kind, no matter how good he was in the kitchen. “Do I have time for a shower?”
“If you make it quick. I don’t want this to get cold.”
“You sound like my mother.”
He gave me a look that I couldn’t quite read. “I won’t be long,” I promised.
I went into my bathroom and stripped off my dirty clothes, dropping them into the hamper. Once in the shower, I started to relax. It had been a long day. As I worked the shampoo into my hair, I was still thinking about Connor. It was getting harder and harder to resist him. The real problem was that I no longer wanted to resist him.
God help me, I love him.
Why do I always end up falling for men who are all wrong for me? Why can’t I fall in love with a nice, safe, boring man who wouldn’t turn my life inside out?
A psychiatrist would have a field day with me, I thought miserably. He’d probably tell me it all goes back to my problems with Dad. I keep seeking out men as unlike my father as I can find. And I end up with men who are even more trouble for me than he’s ever been.
Connor's right. We are both damaged goods. Does that make us a match, or a disaster waiting to happen?
He thinks that in taking her own life, his mother abandoned him. I guessed he sees all women that way. Leave them before they can leave him.
Connor had dinner on the table when I emerged from the bathroom, dressed in faded denim shorts and a baggy pink T-shirt. My hair was still damp from the shower, curling around my neck and shoulders. I guess most women would have felt self-conscious about having him see them that way, but I had two failed relationships behind me in which I'd tried to be someone I wasn't. For better or worse, Connor was getting the real me. “You’re not like any woman I’ve ever known,” he commented, pouring our tea.
I seated myself at the table. “Is that good or bad?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.
“Good, quite good,” he said. “Most of them, my sister included, would never allow themselves to be seen without full makeup, hair done and just the right attire. Get them into bed, and they’re more concerned with how they look than they are with pleasure. I have to say I don’t care at all for the taste of mascara. And lip gloss is quite greasy, actually.”
I had the fork halfway to my mouth, but that mental image made me stop short. I made a face.
“But you,” he went on, “I suspect I could roll in the sheets with you for a month straight and every part of you I tasted would be completely natural.”
The temperature in the room just went up thirty degrees, I thought, acutely uncomfortable. “I think we have a storm coming,” I said uneasily, changing the subject.
He wasn’t having any of it. “I’d like to put my theory to the test,” he told me.
So would I, I was thinking. “Maybe I should seduce you and make you marry me,” I said in a deceptively light tone.
“Maybe I should seduce you and make you marry me,” I said in a deceptively light tone.
“Why would you want to marry me? You know me too well,” he joked.
“True,” I conceded. “They don’t call you the Black Knight for nothing.”
He laughed. “The Black Knight? Who calls me that?” he asked.
“The rest of the team,” I said, taking a bite. “That’s how they see you. Dark, mysterious, revealing precious little of yourself, isolating yourself from the re
st of the group. Always in full armor.”
“Not always,” he disagreed.
“You’re never completely without it,” I said, getting up to get more tea. “That breastplate’s always in place.”
I turned and found his face inches from my own. “Breastplate?” he asked, resting his hands on my hips.
“Protecting your heart.” I tried to step past him, but he wouldn’t let me go.
“The food’s going to get cold.”
“Better it than me.”
I gave him a poke. “You’re so full of shit, your eyes should be brown.”
“All right.” Releasing me reluctantly, he took a step back and made a sweeping motion with his hands. “Remove my armor.”
I shook my head. “You wish.”
“I can’t do it alone.” He feigned helplessness. “I need your help.”
I leaned back against the counter. “And if I refuse?”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t?”
“How would you live with yourself if my poor, starving heart were to die sad and lonely because you refused to set it free?” he pleaded.
I ran my hand down the front of his shirt. “And how do I do that?” I asked. This is a mistake. Stop now while you still can.
He unbuttoned his shirt. “I think this needs to be out of the way. Try again.”
Exhilirated, I stroked his bare chest. I’m down for the count. No turning back now, I thought. I’m going to regret this.
He kissed me. “Keep trying,” he urged.
I put one arm around his neck, my free hand continuing to stroke his chest. I felt bold, sexy. “Anything happening yet?” I muttered against his mouth.
“Definitely. Keep going.” He reached down and unzipped his jeans.
Then the phone rang…
Chasing the Wind Page 9