She came to an abrupt halt two feet before him. Her gaze dropped to his hand, before lifting to his face. Amber eyes widened for an instant, then narrowed just as quickly. “You were supposed to be here this morning. It’s almost five, almost dark, and my team’s sat idle all day waiting on the Church’s representatives to supervise what we’re perfectly capable of not only excavating, but also documenting, cleaning, and preserving for shipment. But it seems the Church didn’t trust our integrity.”
Lucan clamped his teeth together, silencing a defensive bark. God’s teeth, for once ’twould be nice if Gabriel made the bonding of seraphs easy.
Lucan’s eyes hardened like steel and clashed with Chloe’s annoyed scowl. She turned her back on the three imposing men, unwilling to let Lucan’s handsome face sway her into better spirits. Held back by the insistence from the Vatican that she wait until their representatives could be present, her team had missed a full day. A delay that would cost them dearly if the overcast sky made good on its threat of snow.
She stomped inside the trailer, letting the door bang shut behind her. Determined to ignore the twinge of guilt her unprofessional attitude brought, she dropped into her desk chair and folded her arms across her chest.
As expected, Lucan and the other two blocks of stone ducked through the doorway and entered the singlewide’s makeshift office. They formed a triangle in front of her desk—two blond corners at the rear, with Lucan as the point man. She let her gaze wander across the masculine faces. At Lucan’s right, the slightly taller, sandy blond wore a haggard expression. As if he had seen more from life than his midthirties warranted. He regarded her with subtle curiosity. Like a colleague who assessed a competitive peer. Beside him, the other blond’s expression brimmed with humor. Soft brown eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he enjoyed some inside joke.
Her gaze shifted to Lucan, and a strange tightness possessed her skin. Her work took her to the four corners of the world. She’d seen, spoken to, and even worked with handsome men. For that matter, her brother had been known to make women titter stupidly when he walked into the room. But this man…His broad shoulders screamed strength. His narrow waist said he knew the meaning of a hard workout. Yet, the way he looked at her, as if he could read her very thoughts, made her wholly uncomfortable. Behind the unmistakable sharpness of annoyance, interest fringed his unusual gray eyes. And the raven hair that fell almost to his shoulders suggested an uninhibited nature that contradicted his neat attire.
A shiver raced down her spine as the word naughty flitted through her thoughts.
He quirked a dark eyebrow. One corner of his mouth threatened to yield to a self-assured smile.
Heat crept into Chloe’s cheeks. She quickly averted her gaze and shuffled a stack of papers from one side of desk to the other. Handsome maybe. Cocky she could do without. Particularly if she had to work beside him for the next several months. She’d had her fill of trying to prove herself among her colleagues.
Fixing her stare on the less threatening face to Lucan’s left, she cleared her throat. “Is there a particular reason you decided to show up today?” Sarcasm crept into her voice. “Why not tomorrow? By then we might have a foot of snow to dig through and three extra pairs of hands would be welcome.”
With the smoothness of brandy, Lucan’s deep British accent washed over her. “I fear we are both victims of miscommunication. We were instructed to arrive this evening, milady.”
Milady? Chloe blinked. The antiquated title prickled her arms with goose bumps. She left her chair to give herself a bit of breathing room and drifted to the long countertop behind her. Picking up a printed copy of the Vatican’s communication, she flicked the corner of the paper. “It says here Sunday the nineteenth. I assumed we’d start the week promptly this morning.” Turning, she strode back to the group of men and thrust the paper at Lucan’s wide chest.
He pushed it gently aside. Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew a folded square of paper. As he pressed the creases smooth, Chloe groaned inwardly. She didn’t have to look to know what that sheet of paper would say. Inevitably, his copy would read Monday the twentieth. Her luck wouldn’t have it any other way.
She accepted his outstretched offering and scanned the paper, confirming her suspicion. Her angry sails deflated, she let out a heavy sigh. “I apologize.”
“No apologies are necessary.” Lucan’s mouth lifted with a smile. His eyes sparkled with the gesture, not unlike silver beneath bright sunlight. “’Tis understandable you would be upset.”
For a moment, Chloe could do no more than stare. If he’d been handsome moments ago, that warm smile made him breathtaking. Her gaze skipped down to his boots, making note of the thick expanse of his thighs, the way the denim fitted snug. As she again met his discerning stare, and that dark eyebrow quirked as it had before, her cheeks heated once more. Good grief, he wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable by her appreciative appraisal. If anything, she half suspected he’d have no qualms mentioning it aloud if his friends weren’t present.
He took a confident step forward and extended his hand a second time. “Shall we try this again? I am Lucan.”
Swallowing hard, Chloe slid her palm into his. His fingers tightened just enough to make the strength in his hands obvious, but his grip came nowhere close to painful. Pleasant almost. If it weren’t for the overwhelming masculine presence that flooded her awareness. She tugged on her hand, anxious to be free of the unsettling sensations that accompanied the scrape of his skin.
The pressure around her fingers strengthened, trapping her in place. Lucan nodded over his left shoulder. “This is Caradoc.” He tipped his head at the other man.
“And Gareth.”
Chloe offered the other two men an uncomfortable smile. “A pleasure, gentlemen.”
Lucan’s thumb brushed across the back of her hand. The light gesture carried entirely too much intimacy for her liking. She pulled back, and this time, Lucan’s fingers let go. Her palm slipped free, but his gaze imprisoned her. Suggestion glinted in those steely depths. A silent, yet bold statement that invited her to enjoy a bit of wickedly sinful abandon.
She broke free from the rush of heat that infused her blood by returning to her desk. He might be drop-dead gorgeous, but colleagues and sex didn’t mesh. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. Nothing short of absolute desperation would let her entertain the notions Lucan’s eyes conveyed. And she hadn’t reached desperate yet. Two years without a man left her a bit hungry for physical satisfaction, but the lack of orgasms hadn’t erased all sense from her head.
Determined to communicate strict professionalism, she summoned her no-nonsense business demeanor. “So, gentlemen, since it’s so late, what do you say to an early start in the morning—assuming the weather cooperates?”
Lucan glanced toward the door. “There is nothing you require of us this evening?”
Chloe shook her head and forced her irritation aside. “No, we’ve done nothing today. I was instructed to wait until you arrived before we excavated any more relics that could belong to the Church.”
Caradoc gestured at the closed crates stacked on the countertop. “We would like to see the artifacts you’ve already unearthed.”
“Those?” She chuckled softly. “Those aren’t what you’re here for. Anything that could possibly carry religious significance is in the other trailer. My brother, Julian, already left for the hotel. He has the keys, I’m afraid.”
Lucan’s gaze narrowed with suspicion. “But the cars outside—no one is here with you?”
At the reminder she’d have to close up the field office alone, Chloe’s chest tightened. Out here, especially at night, the presence that had hounded her the last eight years intensified. She didn’t know what, exactly, it was, but she understood one thing clearly—it didn’t like her.
She ignored the chill that inched down her spine. “I’ve been doing paperwork all day. I’m used to working alone.” Just not at night. Never at night.
A
slight frown pulled at Lucan’s brow. “Do you have much work remaining?”
“Oh, not much.” She gestured at the open record book on her desk. “I need to transfer notes on three more artifacts into the computer. Then I’ll head on back.” Forcing brevity, she laughed. “Just me and the trees. The quiet’s nice.”
The tight downturn to Lucan’s mouth evidenced his disbelief. He twisted to address Caradoc. “Go on. I will stay with her.”
“No!” Chloe blurted out. Lord no, not alone with him. She’d take the presence in the darkness over ten minutes alone with him. He posed a far greater risk. “I mean, thank you, but that’s not necessary. I’ve been here for a full month. I’m quite capable of locking up on my own. Rest assured, I won’t be fiddling with anything that would interest you.”
Lucan eased out of his coat and draped it over the back of a nearby chair. “’Tis not the Church’s interest that concerns me, milady, but your safety.” Leather creaked as he sat down.
“Till morn then,” Gareth chimed, his eagerness to be free of the trailer evident. He exited swiftly.
Caradoc clamped his hand on Lucan’s shoulder in a brotherly gesture of support. “I shall inform Merrick we have arrived.”
To Chloe’s horror, he too vanished out the door. Unable to look at Lucan, she stared at her blank laptop screen. “Maybe work can wait until tomorrow.”
Her feeble excuse met a wall of determination. “Nay. Do what you must. I will . . .” Trailing off, he glanced around the trailer. On spying Chloe’s coveted, specially shipped from Tucson, latest edition of Cosmopolitan, he picked up the magazine and scanned the cover. A smirk drifted across his sensual mouth. “I will learn how to turn a weekend getaway into an erotic paradise.”
Sheer mortification scalded her face. With a fierce push, she swiveled her chair around so she wouldn’t have to look at him and pressed the button to bring her laptop out of sleep mode. Torture. Not only did the Church seek to insult her ethics by demanding she cease excavation until their representatives arrived to oversee her work, they sought to torture her with a man who could define erotic paradise.
Tor Books by Claire Ashgrove
Immortal Hope
Immortal Surrender
Immortal Trust
Claire Ashgrove is an author and a mother to two wonderful boys. In her copious spare time, she raises and trains Oldenburg, Thoroughbred, and Arabian horses.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this story are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
IMMORTAL PROTECTOR copyright © 2013 by Valerie Hatfield
Excerpt from Immortal Trust © 2013 by Valerie Hatfield
Cover art by Scott Grimando
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
e-ISBN 978-1-4668-4077-5
First Edition: March 2013
Immortal Protector Page 14