Full Circle

by Shannon Hollis

  “I’m not your average academic. I’m hardly ever on campus. I’m the only prof who puts in expense reports for the worldwide-access coverage on my cell phone.”

  The most she ever put in for was the odd conference fee and her publication subscriptions. “That’s what I mean. Even that has an element of glamour to it.”

  “It’s practical. Cate, why do you see everything I do as some kind of attention-getting scheme?”

  Because it is. Because that’s the kind of man you are. Isn’t it?

  If it was, what did that say about her, having a fling with a man like that? In that case, she’d be as bad as any of his arm candy, latching on to him in the hopes that some of his glamour would rub off on her.

  Cate shifted uncomfortably and tried to formulate an answer. “Because everything you do seems to attract attention, whether you intend it to or not. How can you be surprised when someone thinks that way?”

  “Because I’m a serious scientist.” He straightened, and she was forced to straighten up herself or fall over. Cool air flowed between them. “I can’t help that my work attracts attention—that it appeals to something in the public psyche. In the end, it’s all about the work. The only thing real is what I am in the field.”

  For heaven’s sake, his entire career contradicted him. “Then what on earth possessed you to write that book?” she burst out. “What is a serious archaeologist doing, writing something like that?”

  He swallowed the last of the pear and wouldn’t meet her eyes. To her astonishment, ruddy color washed into his face under the tan.

  He mumbled something around a gulp of liqueur and she blinked. She couldn’t have heard him properly. She must have misunderstood. “What?”

  “I said, I didn’t write that book.”

  Cate’s jaw hung open for a moment before she collected herself enough to speak. “Who did?”

  He shrugged, as uncomfortable as she’d ever seen him since the day the class had laughed at him over the shark’s tooth. “Some ghostwriter my publisher dug up.”

  Well, if this wasn’t newsworthy, she didn’t know what was. “Do you mean to tell me that that book on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list wasn’t written by you at all? That some other person wrote it?”

  “Yep.” He drained the little bottle and opened the Glenlivet. “He spent a week in the field with me, then another week taping interviews with me in Long Beach, and then he took all my assistant’s scrapbooks back to Colorado with him and wrote the book. I’m surprised you couldn’t tell it wasn’t me.”

  “Daniel, until now I hadn’t seen you in eight years. How was I supposed to know what your writing was like?”

  “It’s not a bad piece of work, really, but you’re right, it definitely has a Hollywood tone to it. Not surprising when you know the last thing the guy did was a biography of Errol Flynn. Also put out by my publisher, if you’ll forgive the expression.”

  “It’s none of my business, but you might want to try a university press next time. God knows a dozen of them would jump at the chance.” She sat back against the cushions of the couch, and Daniel slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

  Across the room, cartons of books sat neatly piled on the floor, waiting for the next segment of the tour.

  Cate shook her head in disbelief. “Aren’t you supposed to have ‘as told to’ on the cover? So you don’t mislead people?”

  “It’s all about perception. My publisher figured people would expect an archaeologist to be able to write a coherent sentence. Which I can, but not the way the writer did. Hollywood or not, the guy knows how to hook a reader. So they paid him a pile of money and my name went on there instead of his.” He squeezed her shoulders. “So are you going to bust me out? Expose me as a fraud?”

  “Why should I? It’s your story—your life, whether you wrote the words or not. And, again, it’s none of my business.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that a serious academic might not want to be seen with a media hound like me.”

  “That part you bring on yourself. You don’t have to go prancing around in front of cameras with models, you know.”

  “You have to admit, it builds public awareness of what I’m doing.”

  “Yes, but what kind? The kind that gets you respect, or the kind that gets you tabloid coverage?”

  He shrugged and she bit back her frustration. She needed to remember that this was a fling. What he did with himself and his career would be nothing to her once they’d parted ways. It was just her natural inclination—talent, even—to try to help him see that if he wanted public recognition, there were better ways to manage it.

  If she’d been the one advising him, now, she would never have recommended a ghostwriter. She’d have gone to a university press, and while it might not have made the nonfiction bestseller list, it would have reaped him the kind of recognition that counted.

  The kind of recognition she’d been battling for all her working life. But obviously he wasn’t doing these things for that kind of respect. He was doing it for the publicity it would bring. For the funding. For the glory.

  She laid her head on his shoulder and he pulled her closer. If he had been different—or if she had—they might have ended up together long ago. Cate could hardly imagine having Daniel next to her every single day for the rest of her life. A sleepy Sunday morning, with orange juice instead of amaretto, and the New York Times all over the floor, with or without his book in the review section.

  But there was no point in thinking that way. Despite the mind-bending sex and their common love of antiquities and chocolate caramels, their views were too different. In her weaker moments she might not want it that way, but there was no getting around it.

  With her other love affairs, there was always some obstacle she couldn’t get over as well. Robert, with whom her friend Julia had set her up on a blind date, had stuck around for a couple of months, but since he was a stockbroker, he always had somewhere to be and someone to see. Byron, the visiting lecturer, had lasted a little longer—a whole academic year. She’d actually had hopes for him, but before he’d gone back to England he’d told her very kindly that if she wanted to sustain something long-term, she should consider being a little more feminine. After she’d gotten over her hurt and astonishment, she’d heard one day through the grapevine that he’d had an operation and was now to be addressed in correspondence as Bryony, with the honorific of Ms.

  And Charles Morton, the acting head of anthropology? Cate closed her eyes and breathed in the warm scent of Daniel’s skin to override the memory. Every sexual encounter they’d had was tainted and abbreviated by his guilt over cheating on his wife—who had divorced him the year before. When he’d taken a position at Northwestern, it was to move to the town she lived in, and the last Cate heard, they were getting remarried.

  No, considering her romantic history, and despite his love of the limelight, when you saw him just as a talented man, Daniel was the pick of the bunch.

  What a pity he could only be a fling.

  11

  BOTH OF THEM FELL ASLEEP on the couch, and when Daniel woke, one side of him was warm where Cate lay against him, and the other chilled. This close to the ocean, in late spring, buildings cooled quickly once the sun traveled past the windows. He moved a little, hoping to feel the blood coming back into the arm on which Cate leaned, and she murmured and slid back into sleep. Her blondish brown hair streamed over his skin, where the strands caught in the curly hairs on his chest.

  He loved how she’d made love last night—on the beach, under the tree, wherever he’d suggested it. What a long way she’d come. They had been so immature in Mexico. He’d been the more experienced, but as far as being ready for a relationship, he’d been no more capable of that than of jumping from one of the four-hundred-foot sandstone cliffs and surviving. Because what had making love been about, back then? Enjoying the shape and sensations of a
young woman’s body, enjoying what they did for him.

  Orgasm, in other words. He made love for the payoff, and while that might have satisfied many a woman, even at twenty Cate had known with some primal instinct that it wouldn’t satisfy her.

  He had to give her credit for leaving instead of taking second best from him. But what about now? Was he still that same guy, enjoying the chase and appreciating the prey, but leaving the moment he’d captured what he wanted?

  Not a chance. He’d been missing Cate for eight years, keeping her picture in his briefcase to remind himself that there was someone out there who had substance and meaning. Keeping him from making stupid mistakes. She’d influenced him even when she’d vanished from his life and picked up her own with no sign that she felt the same way about him.

  But here he was, a little older and hopefully a lot smarter about what he wanted out of life. The short-term girl didn’t satisfy him anymore, and neither did coming home to an empty condo that still, after three years, smelt faintly of paint and echoed because he never stuck around long enough to put proper furniture in it. Even if he had any, he couldn’t guarantee he’d be around to sit on it for more than five minutes.

  He entertained a brief fantasy of coming home to Cate, of rolling on a couch that belonged to them both and eating food they’d both chosen and cooked instead of takeout from the list of restaurants programmed into his cell phone.

  Well, if she feels the same way, why does this have to be a fantasy? Why can’t it be real?

  For one thing, Cate lived in New York and he lived in Long Beach. Both of them had successful careers and friends and things they loved to do. If he and Cate were together, he’d have to cut back the expeditions and concentrate on teaching a little more seriously than he had up until now. One of them might have to think about relocating. He had no problem with New York, so it would likely be him.

  It’s only been a couple of days. Don’t start choosing the china patterns yet.

  The only kinds of pottery he had been any good at until now were made by ancient civilizations, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t update his skills. What he needed to do was romance her. Woo her. Let her know that he was different, she was different, and together they might do things differently this time. So she had a little problem with the visibility of his career. They could work it out. And if they couldn’t, then so be it. At least he would have gone for what he wanted.

  The good thing was that what Daniel Burke wanted was usually what he got.

  Cate lifted her chin to peer at the clock in the kitchenette. “Does that really say one-thirty?”

  “Probably.” He didn’t care what time it was. There was nowhere he had to be today, and no one he’d rather be nowhere with than Cate.

  “But we missed the whole morning program! Not to mention the closing lunch.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Yes, it’s a problem. I wanted to hear Dr. Manov talk about female symbology in Middle Eastern art. I guess I’ll have to buy the tape.”

  Grinning, he hauled her up and wrapped his arms around her. “I’d love to talk about female symbology with you. Would you like to start with the vulva or the breasts?”

  “Neither. My leopard cults have made me interested in dentition. How do you feel about the toothed orifice?”

  “The what?”

  She lay against him, smug and warm, her arms looped around his neck. “Isn’t that what men fear the most? A woman’s mouth?”

  “They have a good reason to fear it. More than one good reason. Me, I just want to kiss yours. It’s not very scary right now.” He dipped his head and her lips parted with unhurried enjoyment under his. When he lifted his head again, he added, “Just don’t wear your fanged bunny slippers around me. Those make me really nervous.”

  Her face lit with laughter and a certain feminine knowledge that might have taunted a less secure guy. He traced the shape of one breast through her T-shirt with a finger.

  “Since the conference is over, what do you think we should do? Besides making love until the earth moves again.”

  “Checkout is three o’clock.”

  “And why am I not surprised that you know this?”

  “Daniel, honestly, how do you get yourself to your digs and appearances and presentations? A person has to pay attention to these kinds of details.”

  “My people know them. That’s what I pay them for.”

  She sat up, and he took a moment to admire the purity of the line from chin to collarbone. “You do not have ‘people.’”

  “No, I don’t,” he confessed. “Stacy Mills calls my cell phone constantly to make sure I’m where I’m supposed to be on this tour. I always know, but she figures I’m going to get distracted and forget to show up at some talk she has scheduled for five hundred people.”

  She relaxed a little, and he propped his head on his hand to watch her.

  “So where do you have to be next?” she asked.

  “San Francisco. By Wednesday. I’m supposed to be on some TV segment in Oakland that night, do a talk and a book signing the next day at the Museum of Art, and have dinner with some big shot. I forget who. A Rockefeller, I think.”

  “My word.”

  Her skin was so soft he couldn’t resist touching it, just a short trip down her jawline from ear to chin. “But until Wednesday night I have absolutely nothing on the agenda. Except probably a dozen calls from Stacy. Other than that, I can get there as fast or as slow as I choose.”

  “Really.” She waited.

  “How soon do you have to go back?”

  She shrugged. “It’s reading week. No official duties until exams start next Monday. I can play hooky until Wednesday, but I have to be back for a staff meeting on Thursday.”

  “So what do you say we throw your bag in the back seat and head on up the coast? Get a bed-and-breakfast in Santa Rita, browse the antique shops in Los Gatos, and generally goof off before we have to go back to work?”

  In a couple of days, who knew what might happen? Cate wasn’t a wishy-washy woman. She was smart and talented and knew what she wanted. A few days might not seem like much, but entire lives could change in that time. After all, between one day and the next, he and his team had discovered the Temecula Treasure, and his whole life had taken a ninety-degree turn and headed off in a direction he would never have imagined. Maybe these few days stolen out of time would have the same result.

  And if they didn’t, they would not have lost anything. If something wasn’t meant to grow between Cate and himself, then fine. But if it was, Daniel wanted to give it every chance.

  Who knew what treasure he’d bring home from this trip?

  CATE ACTUALLY FELT HER LEGS tremble as she rolled her discreet black carry-on across the lawn, under those prickly oaks from which her feet were not yet recovered, toward the parking lot where Daniel’s vintage Camaro was parked.

  Her muscles, which were prepared for everything from climbing the stairs on campus to scaling rocks in Colorado, had been totally unprepared for sex. In fact, there were a whole set of muscles in her inner thighs that felt like a bunch of drunken church ladies, wobbling and hooting instead of getting on with the job.

  She hoped that, like any muscle, they’d toughen up a bit with regular workouts. Because for the next three days—Sunday evening to Wednesday afternoon—she planned to exercise them at every possible opportunity.

  If she was only to have Daniel for three days, she’d make sure they were three days he wasn’t going to forget in a hurry. In fact, maybe they’d make him think the next time he jumped in front of a camera to sell his talent short.

  But thinking about cameras took a little of the shine off the afternoon, so Cate shoved them off the stage of her imagination. Instead, she tied her sweater around her shoulders and waved as Daniel strode toward her, his duffel slung over one shoulder and Stacy Mills running beside him, cell phone to one ear and a stream of what sounded like instructions floating over the lot as they crossed it.


  “Daniel, please remember you need to be in the KTVU studios in Oakland by five o’clock Wednesday afternoon for the taping, so make sure you dress appropriately. No white shirts, no busy patterns on the tie—what? Oh, yes, sorry, I’ll hold. I swear, the museum needs more than one person on the switchboard. I’ll have the copies of your books shipped from here to the museum, and you’ll need to be there at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday. Daniel, are you listening?”

  “Have a good trip north, Stacy. And thanks for all your hard work.” He tossed the duffel in the back seat next to Cate’s suitcase, slid behind the wheel and fired up the engine. Its throaty roar totally drowned out poor Stacy, who stood with her mouth still moving while he slung gravel around the tight turn onto the drive.

  The breeze blew in Cate’s face as they turned north onto the highway a moment later, and she relaxed as the sun poured down, glinting in a million chips of light on the ocean far below.

  “That poor girl is just trying to do her job.” She glanced at Daniel and pulled a flying strand of hair out of her eyes.

  “And she does it well. I think she thinks I’m one of her absentminded fiction people, though. If I can put together an expedition to the Turkish desert, I can certainly get myself to a TV studio four or five hours away.” He glanced at her and grinned. “Eventually.”

  That grin held the promise of sin and sensuality, and Cate felt a rush of desire that tightened her thighs and made her clit quiver in response. She pushed all unpleasant thoughts out of her mind and sat back on the old-fashioned bench seat of the Camaro as he navigated the looping curves of the highway, astounded that a simple movement of his face could trigger such a response in her own body. It was as if they were two parts of a whole, and his thoughts produced her reactions, instantly.

  Wow.

  She was discovering all kinds of interesting things about her sexuality—and that was only after twenty-four hours. If she kept her focus on simply enjoying herself, imagine what she’d know in three days.