“No, I believe in my family, my friends and my work. I’m grateful for what I have, and I’m trying to enjoy it, if you’d just let me.” She ran a hand over her hair, struggling for control “I have to go. Chaz is waiting for me.”
She stole another glance at him. He was sitting at the table, staring into his wine, perfectly still. He’d definitely heard everything.
“You’ve mentioned Chaz a lot lately.” Christina’s voice softened. “Is something going on between you two?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She would have argued further but didn’t want the subject of the question to realize what had been asked. “Look, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“OK. Try to get some sleep tonight. I’m sorry I upset you.”
Without responding, Winnie hung up and tossed the phone on the bed. She swallowed her frustration and went outside.
Chaz handed her a glass of wine, pointedly meeting her gaze.
Sitting down, she said, “I’m sorry about all the melodrama. Christina has a way of pushing my buttons.”
“Funny how easily family members do that.” His scrutiny felt intense, and she had to look away.
She took a swig of Valpolicella and gazed out across the estate grounds toward the volcano. The sun had dropped behind it, and magenta streaked the partly cloudy sky. The beauty of the sunset began to calm her.
After a moment of hesitation, he asked, “Your sister’s still upset about what’s going on with Sam?”
She picked up her fork and jabbed at a wedge of tomato. “Yes. He’s still missing. She’s been calling all of his friends, but no one has heard from him.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you hear from him tonight.”
“Thanks.” Crunching on her salad, she handed him a panino, then took one for herself and set it next to her plate.
He unwrapped his sandwich, reviving the aroma of prosciutto. “I’m sorry about ... the other stuff as well. I couldn’t help overhearing.”
“Oh. Don’t worry about that.” The smell of the food made her realize how hungry she was. Opening her panino, she tried to look composed. “Christina likes to pick at old wounds, but when she’s not goading me, I’m actually past all that. My life is good. Look at the dig we’re working on. It’s amazing.”
She took a bite and chewed daintily on it, because she could feel him watching her.
“Yes, it is. And we’re here only because your book got Dunk’s attention.”
“Weird, isn’t it? That of all the books out there, he should pick up mine and it should make an impression?”
“I’m not surprised, having read both of your books. The analysis you put into the new one made me feel like a slacker for still researching my dissertation after a year.”
“A year is fine. You’re on track.”
He winced. “My father believes I should have flown through it in a couple of weeks. Archaeology is a soft science, he says. He’s a laparoscopic surgeon.”
It wasn’t like him to display a lack of confidence, and knowing that his father had caused the insecurity made her angry. “Archaeology isn’t soft. It entails geophysics, GPS, hard dating technologies like dendrochronology, infrared light to read obscured texts ...”
“All topped off with heaps of interpretation. And all nonessential, in Father’s opinion.”
“He’s wrong.” She set down her sandwich. “Understanding the past is integral to human progress. As they say, ‘Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.’ Maybe interpreting the data is somewhat of an art, but you’re damned good at it.”
He gave her an uncharacteristically shy look. “Thank you. Still, to a workaholic like my father –”
“He’s a workaholic? Then that must be where you get it from. You practically live at the university museum. Now you’re burning through your summer break here. And I’m grateful that you are, because you’ve been my buffer with Farber. I don’t know how I’d get by without you.”
Their gazes locked. He looked surprised.
She regretted her words. They made her sound weak and put pressure on him. “It’s not your job to be my buffer. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I’m glad you did.” He let out a short laugh. “For a moment, I felt like a responsible person.”
She opened her mouth to point out more examples of his responsible behavior, but she stopped herself. So far they’d indulged in nothing but mutual admiration, and the direction of the conversation felt risky.
Picking her sandwich back up, she changed the subject. “So you’ve been studying ancient religion for your dissertation. Do you think Cybele is the goddess who was worshiped here?”
He took the wine bottle and topped up her glass, then his. “Cybele is a good possibility, but it could also be Isis, who was popular in Pompeii at the time of the eruption. We need more to go on.”
“Maybe the new room will hold some clues, if not the missing statue itself. Do you still want to go back out there tonight?”
“If that’s the best thing you can think of doing.” He slid her a sly look.
A wave of raw lust broke inside her. This time she couldn’t muster up a retort or even a laugh to make light of his flirting. She looked into her glass, afraid of what her eyes might reveal to him. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
He didn’t respond, but pheromones danced between them. She knew he could sense that she was weakening, because she could sense he wasn’t joking anymore.
It was insane. And getting dangerous.
She cleared her throat. “Let’s finish up and see if they got into the room.”
A long moment passed until she could meet his gaze again.
When she did, he was looking at her squarely. He nodded slowly. “OK. We do have only three days left on the dig of a lifetime. I suppose everything else can wait that long.”
Everything else. She studied his face, trying to determine what that meant to him. A one-night stand with her? The thought made her dizzy, much to her shame. It was impossible. Even if she weren’t in an authority position over him, how would they work together afterwards?
He looked so serious. She almost wished she could ask him what he wanted from her. But if he turned the question around to her, she wouldn’t be able to answer.
Looking down, she took another gulp of wine. He had given her a short reprieve tonight, but when it ended, could she resist him?
UNDICI
THE EVENING SKY had clouded up and darkened, and they were tired, so they took the Punto to the dig site. As Winnie pulled into the makeshift parking lot next to the excavation area, a panel truck with ladders and other equipment passed on its way out.
Chaz watched it drive by. “That structural engineer of Dunk’s is dodgy-looking. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t think I’ve seen him.” She steered the car into a spot close to the gate leading into the site. “What do you mean by dodgy-looking?”
“He dresses all in black with mirrored sunglasses and has his hair slicked back. He also holds himself in an unnatural-looking way – sort of hunched over.”
“As long as he knows what he’s doing, his sense of style doesn’t worry me.”
“I just expected an engineer – especially an Italian one – to be better pulled-together. Perhaps I don’t know many engineers.” He opened the door and got out.
Meeting him outside, she laughed. “There are a couple of engineers in my family, and I’m sorry to say, they rarely look pulled-together. Of course, they’re not Italian, so the expectations are lower.”
They picked their way along the shadowy path. As they got closer to the temple, visibility improved, thanks to two lightboxes set up by the entrance. In the glow ahead, she saw Dunk interviewing Jack as Hank filmed and Amara stood by, holding a clapboard.
As they approached, Amara snapped the clapboard. “That’s a wrap.”
“Looks like we missed all the excitement,” Winnie said, stepping into the lighted area.
&
nbsp; Dunk pulled off his microphone wire. “You didn’t miss a thing. We got the door open, and the downstairs is clear of debris, but there are no frescoes or statues, just stacks of amphorae.”
Still balancing his camera on his shoulder, Hank held up his free hand, palm upward. “I think I felt a drop of rain. Should I put away my equipment?”
“Yeah, I felt something, too.”
Hank took the camera off his shoulder, eyeing Amara’s legs as she packed her things into a bag. “I like your shoes.”
“Thanks.” Turning on the stilettos, she lost her balance and stumbled, but he caught her arm. He continued holding her elbow as they walked toward the car lot.
Dunk rolled his eyes, then looked back at Winnie and Chaz. “You weren’t planning on digging now, were you?”
She shook her head. “We’re too tired for that. But can we see the new room?”
“Sure. Take lanterns down with you. There are still some lit ones in the temple.”
Inside, they found four electric camping lights on the floor casting tall shadows on the frescoes. She looked around and let out a nervous laugh. “This room sure is creepy at night. In this lighting, that painting with the theater mask gives me chills.”
Chaz stepped up to the one showing the priestess with the flailing man. “I suppose you and I will act out this scene tomorrow night,” he deadpanned.
She smirked. “You better hope not.”
He shot her a grin. “Oh, I’m hoping for it.”
Once again hyperconscious of being alone with him, she forgot about the eeriness of the room. She stooped and picked up one of the lanterns. “Just for that, you’re going downstairs first.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He grabbed a lantern and started down the steps. “I can’t have you doubting my manhood.”
She followed him down the stone staircase. “I have no doubts about your manhood.”
“Are you sure? Because I’m willing to demonstrate it further.” When he reached the stone floor below, he spun around and grinned up at her.
She came to a halt on the last step to avoid running into him. With the boost in height, her eyes were even with his. They were so close she could feel the heat from his body. So much for the three-day reprieve she had thought they agreed on. She gave him a wry look. “Am I going to have to ask Jack to assign me a new digging partner?”
“Such as the ostensibly celibate Father Giampiero?”
She smiled. “That would leave you with Dr. Farber.”
“OK, OK,” he said, laughing. “I’ll back off.”
He moved into the room, and she trailed, stifling a sigh.
Lifting her lantern, she observed a long, plastered storeroom lined on one side with stacks of amphorae of standard Roman size – about ten gallons each, she believed. Neither the room nor its contents bore decoration, and she didn’t see any doors or windows. The wall at the far end bulged inward but had been braced with modern scaffolding. “What a disappointment after the room above.”
Chaz squatted beside the nearest vessel and held his lantern close to a line of Latin text carved into the side. “Can you read this inscription?”
She leaned in. “It says, ‘Horconian, First Year of Titus.’ ”
He nodded. “Wine, vintage the year 79. One of the better local ones at the time.”
Spotting an inscription on another amphora, she held her light up to it. “ ‘Dried figs,’ ” she read. “ ‘Send to the Temple of the Mother.’ ”
“ ‘The Mother,’ ” he echoed. “I wonder if any of them spell out the name of the goddess.”
They checked as many containers as they could without actually moving them, since the room still needed to be labeled and documented as found. All of the inscriptions they located turned out to be similar to the first two.
After a few minutes, she stood back up. “I don’t see any that reveal a name, but some of the amphorae probably have writing on the underside. If the team clears the room tomorrow, we can get a better look. Ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
When they got back outside, the light boxes had been removed, and everyone else had left. The site that had bustled with so much activity all day stood quiet, except for a chorus of crickets.
She shivered. “It smells like rain. We’d better move.”
“Just one more thing.” He took a votive candle out of his pocket and stooped by the temple entrance.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“I know you’ve been lighting candles for your brother. It can’t hurt to enlist the Great Mother’s help.” He set the votive inside the arch and pulled out a packet of matches.
She put her hands on her hips. “I only do that to appease Christina. Hocus-pocus isn’t my thing. Working with academics has taught me that life is less disappointing when you only trust in things backed by evidence.”
“Rubbish.” He sounded amused. “One of the academics you work with is the bane of your existence, and you’re a pro at ignoring the most evident of truths when you want to.”
His point about Farber was spot on. She didn’t know what he meant by the second part, but something told her he might be right about that, too. “When have I ignored evident truths?” she asked.
“Next time you do it, I’ll mention it. Shouldn’t be long.”
She stared as he struck a match and held it to the candle. The wick caught and flared, then settled into a warm glow. Watching the gentle flickering had a soothing effect on her, but that wasn’t her only source of comfort. Just having someone join her in her private ritual felt good for a change instead of having her sister condemn her for her spiritual inadequacy. Being accepted went a long way.
Without warning, her eyes teared up. She blinked rapidly and tried to hide her emotion with an attempt at humor. “If Father Giampiero sees us doing this, we’re in big trouble.”
A crack in her voice gave her away.
He looked up at her and smiled. “But Magna Mater may favor us for it.”
“Then it must be worth a try.” She held her hand out and helped him to his feet. The physical contact felt a little too intimate, so she let her fingers fall from his but held his gaze. “Thanks, Chaz.”
“Di niente.”
A movement in her peripheral vision drew her attention away from him. The gray cat she had seen on her first visit to the site climbed out of Trench 2 and sat down, staring at her with yellow eyes.
Winnie smiled. “Hey. You’re back.”
She moved toward the animal, but it shot into the brush behind the small building.
“Come back!” Going to the edge of the brush, she made coaxing noises, but the cat had vanished. She turned back to Chaz. “It let me pet it the first time I was here.”
He looked distracted. Something about the wall they’d been excavating had caught his eye. He walked up to the closest corner and studied it. “This wall is so much shorter than the ones on the temple that I had thought the top half of it was missing. Now I think this may be a corner of the roof. Doesn’t this look like roof tiling?”
The broken chunk of terracotta he indicated convinced her he was right. “Yes, it does. But why is the building so short? Could it be a root cellar or springhouse?”
He glanced over at the temple, then back at their building. “Maybe is not as short as it seems. The temple would have been raised on a high platform, while this structure was at ancient ground level.”
“Ah, yes.”
He rubbed his chin. “Funny that you should mention a springhouse, though. This could be a purgatorium – a small building that held sacred water for cleansing rites. There’s one outside the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.”
She nodded. Though they’d left the Pompeii tour early, she knew the structure he meant. Not enough of the building here had been uncovered to compare the two, but its size and relative position to the temple suggested similarities. “You could be onto something.”
While they considered the new idea, thunder rumble
d in the distance. A second later, fat drops of rain splattered down on them.
He looked at her, shielding his eyes. “Inside the temple or to the car?”
“To the car!” She yanked the hood of her cardigan over her head, and they stumbled down the path to the parking area, getting sprayed with cold rain.
As they jumped into the Punto, the rain got harder, pelting the roof of the car. Chips of ice hit the windshield and slid down the glass, melting.
“Hail!” She started the engine. “I can’t drive in this, but I’ll get the heater going to dry out our clothes.”
Once the car was running, she stripped off her damp sweater. Turning between the bucket seats to toss it into the back, she brushed his shoulder with her arm. Their proximity, combined with the act of taking off clothes, shot the atmosphere with sexual tension. As she turned back around, her gaze caught his.
To her surprise, he looked away. He opened the glove box and pulled out a stack of fast-food napkins, handing her half of them. “We can use these to dry our shoes.”
“Thanks.” Dabbing at her sneakers, she wondered why he hadn’t seized another perfect opportunity to flirt. If he had, the setting would have been irresistibly intimate. This time she might have given in. Was he having second thoughts, or just giving her the reprieve he’d agreed to?
The burst of rain stopped as quickly as it had started. Being on private property, the dirt roads would still be pitch-black, but there also wouldn’t be any traffic. She put the car in gear and drove back to the house.
By the time they pulled up in front, exhaustion hit her. “I’m ready for bed,” she said as they climbed out. “We have to get up early again tomorrow.”
He didn’t respond.
In the foyer, they took off their wet shoes and carried them up the stairs. Apart from the muffled sounds of clean-up coming from the kitchen, the house stood quiet.
Outside her door, she thought of his candle-lighting gesture and felt another rush of gratitude toward him. Not wanting to get emotional in front of him again, she just said goodnight.
A little later, as she climbed into bed, her phone buzzed with an e-mail. She stretched to reach inside her purse on the floor and accidentally pulled out the tyet-shaped amulet from her father. Setting it aside on the nightstand, she found the phone and checked the screen. To her surprise, Sam’s name showed up.
The Five-Day Dig Page 11