Her Reluctant Hero: A Romantic Suspense Boxed Set

by MJ Fredrick

  He wouldn’t express any of these fears to Mallory, who knelt beside the ruined books, searching for something to salvage.

  Books, texts on everything from Maya culture to shipwrecks to tourist books on the Yucatan Peninsula, were swollen with water, their words distorted. Some of these books Adrian remembered had been old when he’d started working with Robert.

  He crouched beside Mallory, who hid her face behind her hair. The hitches in her breathing told him she was crying. He slid a soothing hand over her shoulder.

  “They’re only books.”

  “You know what they meant to him.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s insult to injury. Was he studying when he died? Is that why they’re like this?”

  “I don’t know, Mal. We’ll never know. Is there anything that isn’t damaged?” He dropped his hand and leaned to look in the trunk, pulled out a stack of books and placed them on the cot. “The ones at the bottom aren’t so bad. Look, here’s The Cordemex.”

  She almost smiled as she took the big leather-bound book from him, ran her hand across it. “My dad gave him this.”

  Ah, geez, how could he have forgotten that her connection with the man went back even farther than his own? Even though she hadn’t worked with Robert in years, she had worked with him longer, loved him longer.

  She widened her eyes. “What? I’m okay.” Since he wouldn’t stop looking at her, she leaned forward to rummage through the trunk. “Anything else in there?”

  Adrian pulled out a couple more texts, on the bottom given that Robert didn’t use them as much, but the professor hated to travel unprepared for any possibility. Removing the last book from the box was disappointing, like after opening gifts on Christmas morning, only to not get what you wanted.

  “Where’s his dig journal?” Mallory asked.

  “What?” Adrian had just dropped a book on top of another book with a thud and hadn’t heard.

  “His dig journal. The one I saw him using the other night was red, with kind of a paisley design.”

  He sorted through the books even though he knew he hadn’t seen it. He swore. If someone had killed Robert, that person had his notes. It could be the same person who had taken his manuscript. How much time had passed between his room being ransacked and Robert’s death? Had the killer used his notes to find the camp?

  “He always had it with him.” Panic tightened her voice, making her movements jerky as she looked around the tent.

  Adrian reached out a hand. “It’s not here.”

  Her eyes, when she turned her attention to him, were wild. “Someone took it.”

  “Probably.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “To see what we were up to? I don’t know.” It was too late now anyway. His secret was out. He eased back on his heels. “What do you want to do with the ruined ones?”

  She sighed and trailed her fingers over the spines, reading the titles. “They’ll mildew in no time. We’d better burn them.”

  He knew what that cost her and wanted to touch her, let her know he understood. But she stood abruptly, bumping the cot, and the books he’d stacked there fell to the sand.

  A scrap of cloth tumbled out from between the spines. With it, a piece of delicately carved ivory.

  A familiar piece of delicately carved ivory. Adrian’s blood went cold.

  Mallory crouched, picked it up carefully with the cloth and inspected it before looking at him.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s from the Tunisia dig.” And had no business being here.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “A souvenir,” Mallory said, perplexed by Adrian’s sudden stillness. Yes, it was unethical to keep a souvenir from a dig, but considering the circumstances, she could understand Dr. Vigil keeping it.

  “Odd that he’d have it. I thought everything from that dig was lost.” His gaze rested on the figure, as if he was looking through it into the past.

  “Maybe he forgot he had it.”

  “Maybe.” Adrian’s jaw tensed. “He usually packed fresh every time, but it’s possible. We hadn’t been on a dig since Tunisia, so, maybe.”

  He didn’t sound convinced. The way he was staring at the carving unnerved Mallory, so she wrapped it in the chamois, crouched to replace it in the trunk. Adrian held his hand out. She hesitated, looked up.

  “I don’t have anything else from that trip,” he said, his voice soft. “Let me have it.”

  She placed the ivory in his palm and he curled his fingers around it, then whirled and walked out of the tent.

  Mallory closed her eyes when Adrian tossed another book on the campfire. She’d stopped outright flinching, but still believed it sacrilege to burn books, no matter how ruined. Adrian, on the other hand, made a ritual of it, keeping the stack near at hand, throwing one on as soon as the one before was a pile of ashes, like he didn’t want the words to get mixed up.

  “This would be much more fun with a bottle of tequila.” Mallory slumped in the sand, her back against the bench they’d turned on its side.

  Adrian pulled a flask from behind him with a flourish. “Something else I found among Robert’s things. I’m sure he’d want us to share.”

  She smiled and took it and sniffed. Just the aroma of the whiskey was enough to have her buzzing, so she took a small swallow. She welcomed the burn, the heat.

  “God bless Dr. Vigil.” She passed the flask over.

  “God bless Dr. Vigil.” He took a deeper swallow. “Why did you always call him that? You never called him Robert? Uncle Robert, even?”

  She shook her head. “Habit. I grew up calling him Dr. Vigil. Calling him Robert felt wrong. Disrespectful.”

  He lit a cigarette from the flames, then took a long drag. She’d seen Adrian smoke thousands of cigarettes, sometimes because of nerves or when he needed to think. This was a contemplative cigarette. Oddly, the scent of burning tobacco reassured her as well.

  “He missed you, you know.”

  Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t bear a guilt trip right now. “Adrian.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t blame me for driving you off, for making you leave your career.”

  “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.” Except file for divorce. She reached for the flask and took a bigger swallow.

  “He loved having you here. He said it felt right. He said it was like old times.” His voice rumbled, low and thoughtful.

  Her defenses went up, too late. “Don’t tell me we’ve got to stay together because that’s what Dr. Vigil would have wanted. Look how easy it’s been for us to fall into the same old patterns. Nothing’s changed.”

  Adrian closed his hand over hers that held the flask, needing her attention, needing her to understand. As much as it pained him, especially after today, he had to bring this out in the open. “We’ve changed. I’m not the same man who screwed you on the kitchen floor.”

  She turned her head away. She never had liked that word, but there was no other for what he’d done to her that day.

  “We made love a lot of places,” she said.

  “I’m not talking about when we made love. I’m talking about that last time we had sex, there in the kitchen.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Which time in the kitchen?”

  She must have blocked it out. Not that he could blame her. “We were fighting. I grabbed you and put you up on the counter.” He could see the marks his hands had left on her arms, squeezed his eyes shut against the vision.

  She sighed. “We fought all the time those days. And we always had sex to make up.”

  “But this wasn’t—” Did she really remember it so differently? “You were bruised.”

  “So?”

  “Mallory, I—” He couldn’t say the word, swallowed it.

  She sat up slowly to look at him. “Adrian?”

  “Damn it, Mal, I raped you!” He whispered the word even though there was no one around to hear it.

  She stared, and
her mouth opened and closed for a minute. “You never did.” Her voice was hard, as if she had blocked it out, didn’t want to accept it.

  He had to turn away, though she was riveted to him. “I did. I was angry and I hurt you.”

  “Adrian, you never hurt me, not that way.” She laid a hand against his cheek but he pushed it away.

  He wasn’t ready for her forgiveness. He hadn’t earned it. “I did. I saw the marks on you. I saw the look in your eyes when I left.”

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder, as if this was the most casual of conversations. “You left marks on me before, and I on you. We were never much for being gentle.”

  “But I’d never been that mad before. When it was over, I wasn’t—anything. Not relieved, not happy, not angry. Just empty.”

  She went still, sad. “Like our marriage.”

  “Jesus, Mal.” He drew his legs up, dropped his head between his knees. “It was the nastiest feeling, you know? Feeling that way, and looking at you and seeing you hurt. And you don’t even remember.”

  “Those days kind of blended together. We fought, we had sex, kind of like we were trying to hold on to each other the only way we knew how.”

  As they were doing now. And with that, Adrian knew to win her back, he had to break that pattern. If only he could figure out how.

  One question first. “Did you stop loving me?”

  She took a deep breath. “I hated you for a while, but no. Not for a long time.”

  “But you stopped.”

  Mallory wished he’d stop pressing this, when both their emotions were in such turmoil. She let her pent-up breath out on a sigh, wanting to lie to him, wanting to protect herself. So she had no idea why instead she said, “No.”

  “Mal.” He leaned toward her, eyes glinting in the firelight.

  Hopeful.

  God, she wanted to kiss him more than she wanted to breathe, more than she wanted to live, but she’d already opened herself too much.

  To break the mood, she reached past him for a book to toss in the fire. As she heaved, a piece of notebook paper fluttered out. She was about to toss it in, as well, but Adrian closed his hand over her wrist.

  “What?”

  “It’s Robert’s handwriting. And it’s torn from his journal.”

  She ran her finger over the ragged edge of the page. “So? His book, his notes.”

  He held up the paper so she could see it. “It’s numbers. Big numbers. Money.”

  When she took the paper, he grabbed a stick they hadn’t yet tossed on the flames and dragged the burning book out of the fire, scooped sand on it to extinguish it. Mallory turned her attention to the numbers on the spiral paper she held.

  Four columns lined the page. The first was dates, the second letters, abbreviations. The third was ratios. The last was dollar amounts, some with minus signs, some with addition signs. Minus signs outnumbered addition signs four to one.

  Adrian leaned close and took the paper from her, swearing softly.

  “What?”

  “I thought he’d quit.”

  “Quit what?”

  “Gambling.”

  “These are gambling debts?” she asked in disbelief, checking the last column again. Some numbers were five and six digits! “When did he start gambling?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I don’t know when he started, but I thought he’d quit. He got into some big trouble a few years ago, owed the wrong people too much money. He swore he would quit, that he’d learned his lesson.”

  “It’s not that easy with an addiction.” She didn’t mean to sound accusing, but Adrian had to know the older man couldn’t overcome an addiction like this on his own. Did he not see these numbers?

  He bristled. “He was a grown man, Mal. I wasn’t going to check up on him.” He dragged the cooling book toward him with the stick, flipped it open to look for more papers.

  “No, of course not.” She took the paper. “Where did he get this kind of money? You said he took out a trust fund for this dig.”

  “He did.”

  “Are you sure it was a trust fund? Not a big win? Maybe if he’d had a big win, that would spur him to gambling more. And he would have lied to you to keep the gambling secret. Adrian.” She dropped her hand to her lap, suddenly weak with a realization. “You don’t think he owed someone money and they followed him out here and killed him?”

  “No.” Adrian shook his head abruptly. “Why would they come all this way? And if they kill him, they’re not going to get any money, right?”

  “I suppose.” Mallory had no experience with it, outside movies, but it made sense. Still, if someone had come to kill Dr. Vigil, that made the most sense. And if the others had seen him… They could be dead, too?

  Adrian didn’t respond as he turned the charred book upside down and fluttered the pages. He did the same with the next book, and the next, his movements becoming more agitated when he didn’t find anything. Mallory reached past him for a book, opened the cover, smoothed a hand along the binding inside, front and back. On the third book she found what she was looking for. A pocket he’d made inside the lining of the back of the book.

  A pocket with more spiral papers. More codes. More numbers.

  Mallory’s stomach pitched as the darker side of Dr. Vigil was revealed.

  “How did you know to find it there?” Adrian leaned over to skim the sheet.

  “He showed me how to make that compartment when I was about twelve. I didn’t always have a diary, you know, in all the places we traveled, but that way whatever I wanted hidden was hidden.” She should have known he kept secrets of his own.

  Adrian skimmed a finger down the last column. “Damn, Mallory, he owed something like a half a million dollars.”

  Blood rushed out of her head, leaving her chilled. She couldn’t even envision that much money. Owing for her student loans had almost sent her into a panic. “That can’t be right.” She took the paper. “Maybe these are old debts.” But the dates didn’t lie.

  “Mallory.” Adrian’s voice sounded hollow as he pointed to a date three years ago, then traced the row across to an addition sign. A big addition sign. One that wiped out all the previous minus signs.

  “Three years ago,” Mallory murmured through numb lips. “Tunisia.”

  Adrian flipped through the other papers faster, searching, searching. Mallory dove across him for the stacked books, sliding her hands over the inside covers, finding nothing. She pushed to her feet and ran toward the truck, where they’d stored the salvageable books.

  If someone had paid him for information at Tunisia, had they paid him for information about this site? Had he betrayed Adrian not once but twice?

  She’d barely flung open the passenger side door when Adrian ran up behind her, breathing hard, and not just from the exertion. With shaking hands, she reached for the first book, found nothing, flung it to the ground, reached for the second.

  The sixth book had it, the damning evidence. Mallory recognized it for what it was before she drew it out a quarter of the way.

  A check. For a huge sum of money.

  Adrian sank to the ground at her feet, the uncashed check in both hands. A check made out to Robert Vigil, Ph.D. A check for six figures.

  Betrayed. By the man he’d looked to as a father.

  He barely heard Mallory asking him something over the pounding in his ears. She crouched before him, looked into his eyes, touched his arm and repeated the question.

  “Who wrote it?”

  He shook his head. “Cashier’s check from a bank in San Francisco.”

  She met his gaze. Valentine was from San Francisco. “What’s the date?”

  “Last month.”

  “He didn’t cash it.” She scrambled for an excuse, a reason, anything to lessen the blow. “He may have changed his mind, may have tried to back out.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t give out the information. It doesn’t mean someone didn’t come after him to get the information. Som
eone may have killed him because of it.”

  Mallory dropped her head to her knees. “Oh God.”

  “Whoever it was could have killed the others because they saw, or they recognized him.” His voice tightened as he spoke about his brother.

  “Oh God,” she said again, her voice choked.

  But something occurred to him and he shoved himself to his feet. “Come on.” He held a hand to her.

  She looked up, her face tear streaked. “What?”

  “I want to look at those papers again.”

  And there it was. He was right to suspect. The initials on the spreadsheet, next to the sum from three years ago, same bank. Not V.S. for Valentine Smoller, but V.E. for Valentine Enterprises, Smoller’s company.

  “Smoller,” Adrian growled and turned to kick the fire out. “Get ready for bed, Mal. First thing tomorrow we’re risking the roads. We need another boat.” He waved the check. “And Smoller is going to pay for it.”

  Mallory woke to the sound of tearing paper. She shifted to see Adrian sitting at the opening of the tent, going through books, ripping open the covers of the salvaged books and tossing them to the ground at his feet.

  “Adrian?”

  He looked at her, his eyes red from lack of sleep, his hands shaking from it. “I want more proof.”

  “Adrian.” She crawled to the edge of the mattress to put her arms around him and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why would he do this to me, Mal? Not once, but twice? Didn’t he realize what he was doing? That he was sacrificing me?”

  The strangled sound of his voice squeezed her heart. Was this how he’d suffered after Tunisia, and she’d walked away? What an idiot she’d been. How much extra pain she’d caused, being selfish. She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, determined to make it up to him, because damn, this was going to do a number on his ability to trust anyone. “I think he did realize. That’s why he didn’t cash the check.”

  “Well, he was too late.” Adrian shifted away from her. “He already gave them the information that got him killed. I cried for the bastard, Mallory. He was my best friend. I cried for him, and he was stabbing me in the back.” He got to his feet and walked away.