Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2)

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Ella started the car and backed out of the space. “I think we’re done shopping,” she said, clenching her jaw to try to strangle her fury.

  Four hours later, way too late to be driving back to Alabama, she and Rowan were driving back to Alabama. He had barely spoken since he’d thrown their bags in the trunk, hugged his parents goodbye in the driveway of their suburban Atlanta split level, and joined Ella in the front seat for the five hour drive home.

  “I’m sorry, Rowan,” Ella said as he maneuvered the car onto Georgia 400.

  He held up a hand stopping her. “Just don’t.”

  So she didn’t. Although she honestly couldn’t understand how he could blame her for the aborted weekend, she would let him drive home in miserable, angry silence if that was really what he wanted.

  Anything beat one more hour trying to get along with that woman.

  After the fiasco of the meet-the-parents-weekend, both Rowan and Ella went through the motions of their lives without venturing into the deep end emotionally. Rowan immediately went out of town for three days to escort the brother of a drug cartel leader in Mexico to testify in Nashville. Ella was appalled to realize she felt relief when the door closed behind him and she knew she had three days all to herself.

  Her wedding was two weeks away.

  Ella’s work involved using her social media skills to build up a customer base in the southeast for her freelance writing business. Since her last job in Heidelberg, she decided contract work was probably a better fit for her personality than an office job. When she moved in with Rowan after their adventure in Germany, it hadn’t occurred to her that they might have a rough patch adjusting to living together. After all, last year they had endured freezing cold, bugs in hard mattresses made of hay, and daily worry for their very lives—how tricky could a gated apartment complex be? She and Rowan used to laugh at the thought of advertising such fundamental staples but they had sworn never to take them for granted again.

  That had lasted about a week.

  Ella was not prepared for the monotony and lack of purpose she now found in her daily routine. Worse, she appeared to be infecting the usually content Rowan with her malaise. She watched him now, newly returned from Nashville. He sat sprawled in the living room, feet up on the coffee table, watching one of his endless, boring television programs on the History Channel. Or maybe today it was the Military Channel or Discovery. To Ella, who rarely watched TV, they all blended in together. Amazingly, Rowan seemed to be addicted to them, and she never would have guessed that about her hero.

  “What is it this time?” she said as she stepped into the living room. His cowboy boots were tossed in a corner and his feet in mismatched socks looked strangely vulnerable. She cursed her word choice. She knew he would take it as an indictment. But he said nothing. She saw him reach for the remote—possibly to turn up the volume in order to drown her out?

  “What are those? Pyramids?” She sat down next to him on the couch and he edged away to give her more room. There was a time, she noted, that a couch and five minutes alone would have provoked a different reaction in him.

  He still didn’t answer her.

  “Rowan?”

  “Yes, Ella, they’re pyramids. It’s a documentary on Howard Carter.”

  “Cool.”

  “You have no idea who that is, do you?”

  “Nope. But I know pyramids are in Egypt which is where we’re going next fall for Maddie’s wedding. Are you thinking about doing a little exploring when we get there? Like maybe going down to Luxor?”

  He glanced at her briefly.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I figure it’s a long way to go just for a wedding.”

  “I’m hoping to get my picture taken sitting on a camel. Be very cool to post it to Facebook.”

  Ella waited several more seconds for a response that clearly wasn’t coming. Rowan had obviously checked out of the conversation and recommitted to his television show so Ella got up and moved back to her desk and her writing assignment on the benefits of a premium vodka product. She heard the volume on the television creep up a notch.

  Chapter Two

  Dothan, Alabama 2013

  The next morning, Rowan left for work after a quick kiss goodbye and Ella sat at the kitchen table with a cooling cup of coffee. She could see his car back out of their apartment parking space from her vantage point in the kitchen. As she watched him drive out of sight, she had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t sure what to do with.

  I’m getting married in ten days. Is this really going to be my life?

  When the phone rang, she gratefully snatched it up to avoid settling down to write on her pile of freelance work.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, sweetie, it’s your dad.” No matter how many times she told him that he didn’t need to identify himself, he always did. She’d given up telling him it was unnecessary.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said. “Everything okay?” After a certain age—his, not hers—Ella found the health disclaimer helpful before she could proceed with any conversation with him. It was entirely possible for darling dad to have an hour long visit with her on the phone only to end it with ‘Oh, by the way, the doctor handed me some disturbing news the other day when I went it to see him.’ Ella liked to clear the decks immediately. If he was calling to impart bad news, she wanted it on the table straightaway.

  “Everything’s just wonderful,” her dad said. “Suzie’s already packing for our trip to Dothan. I do not believe I have ever been to that part of Alabama.”

  “Well, you’re in for a rare treat.”

  “Really?”

  “No, Dad. I’m joking. It’s Dothan, Alabama.”

  “I have to admit to not totally understanding you sometimes, Ella,” her father said, chuckling nonetheless.

  That goes double for the guy I’m about to marry, Ella surprised herself by thinking.

  “So are you excited? Ten short days and you’re a married lady.”

  “Yep. Very excited.”

  “And your young man? Is he nervous?”

  “Not really. He’s been down this path before.” Twice before if you count his first marriage and then the one to me back in Heidelberg a couple hundred years earlier.

  “Oh, well, I’m sure it’ll feel like the first time when he comes home to you, my darling.”

  Ella was positive she had told her father that she was living with Rowan but she decided to let it go. An ex-CIA operative, her father had shown increasing signs of forgetfulness as the years went by. She decided it wasn’t worth reminding him.

  “When are you two getting in?” she asked, her eyes flickering to the calendar hanging on the kitchen walls. Their wedding date was marked in a big red circle. Ella tried to remember if she had done that or Rowan. Now that she looked at it, the circle looked jagged and kind of angry.

  “We’ll get in two days before,” he said. “As planned. We’re booked at the Hampton Inn near you. You know the one?”

  “Yep. So you’ll be here in a little over a week. That’s great. Listen, Dad, I’m really swamped this morning—what with all the wedding stuff coming down…”

  “Oh, yes, don’t let me keep you,” he said. “Just wanted to call and say I love you and we can’t wait to meet Rowan.”

  “I love you, too, Dad,” Ella said, feeling a sadness ignite in her chest and begin to slowly emanate through her body. She realized she suddenly had the terrible feeling that she was speaking to him for the last time. “So much.”

  She spent the day writing for her clients and running errands. She noticed that every time she walked into the kitchen for something, the red circle on the calendar seemed to jump off the page at her. It was always the first thing she saw when she went in there.

  She looked at her cellphone and was surprised to see a text from Rowan. Be home early today. That could mean any time before midnight, she thought, but she was pleased nonetheless.

  She pulled open the refrigerator to see if there was anything
in there with which to make a special dinner of some kind. As she looked at the half-frozen pork loin and the fresh Brussels sprouts, she couldn’t help but think about how hard it had been to eat properly in 1620. When she and Rowan had gone back to the seventeen hundreds—sounds so bizarre to say it, even now—the taste for packaged foods, sodas and blended coffees had strangely gone away.

  True, most of their focus was on staying alive, but it always amazed her that she hadn’t missed her twenty-first century luxuries more. After they returned to their own time, she thought she would indulge in those things that were unattainable in their other life: endless hot baths, anything that plugged in that made her life better or more convenient, and especially the ease with which you could create an amazing meal.

  In the kitchen at the convent in 1620 it took her all day to make and bake several loaves of bread. Now she reached into her freezer to look at the package of yeast rolls. You just tossed these babies, hard as snowballs, onto a cookie sheet and went and did something else with your time.

  She hadn’t made Rowan a meal in the whole of the three months that they had been back. They practically lived on restaurant take-out and fast food. What does that mean?

  But tonight would be different. Tonight she would use every one of the modern daily conveniences at her fingertips and create for her man—for the man who had volunteered to sacrifice his life for her at one point—wow, had she really forgotten that? She would make him a home-cooked meal and then remind him of who they were together.

  The real Ella and Rowan. Those people who they were before their bodies were taken over by these automatons that just went through the motions of making love, working, eating. Rinse and repeat.

  She went to the calendar, picked up a pink Sharpie and drew a heart around the wedding date. It doesn’t have to be like this, she told herself. Whatever boll weevil of discontent that has infected us, I refuse to let it change who we are together. As she punctured the pork loin with peeled garlic cloves, drizzled it with olive oil, seasoned it and then tucked it away for Rowan’s return, she thought: maybe it’s Dothan? Could it be we’re in the wrong place? She turned on the oven before running upstairs to shower and dress for her returning hero.

  Rowan wasn’t sure what the problem was but he knew he was part of it. And his mother sure wasn’t helping. He left the florist with an armful of roses and checked his cellphone for the time. Just a little after six. He drove to the wine shop and picked up two bottles of Pinot Noir he knew Ella preferred. That was one of the things he had liked about Heidelberg: No one hassled him about preferring to drink beer over wine. He sighed. Not that Ella cared. She wasn’t like that, needing him to be a certain way. God forbid trying to mold him or make him be different. His mother’s anxiety seemed to come from the fact that that’s what she did with his dad. If you’re knee-deep in the make-over project of your spouse, you probably can’t see any other way of relating.

  He set the wine bottles on the seat next to the roses. Ella wasn’t perfect but the last thing she’d ever do was try to change him. He grinned ruefully remembering a few times she had tried to circumvent him, but she had never tried to make him be somebody else. In fact, he always had the distinct impression that Ella liked him because he was the way he was. With that thought, his mood elevated from the aftermath of the bad weekend home to Atlanta and their tentative attempts not to step on any wounds or create new ones. Rowan pulled into the parking spot out front of their apartment, gathered up his purchases and fumbled for the key to the apartment. The door swung open as soon as he put the key in.

  Ella stood in front of him, breathless and practically naked. She wore a black see-through blouse that barely covered the fact that she was wearing no panties, or if she was wearing them, they were very, very tiny. He took a breath and stumbled across the threshold, struggling to close the door behind him as quickly as possible.

  “Good God, Ella,” he said, dumping his armful of wine and roses onto the chair by the door. “People are still coming home from work.” He watched her face fall a bit and her hands move to cover her chest as if she felt suddenly vulnerable. He didn’t let the moment escalate but reached for her and pulled her to him, feeling the flimsy material in his hands give way as if it would dissolve on contact. He was already hard as he pressed her to him, his hands going instinctively to cup her bottom and lift her to him. She sucked in a small breath and wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing her full breasts up. He boosted her further up onto his hips until his mouth met the tip of her breast. He covered it and sucked until he could feel her squirming with anticipation.

  “Dinner will be ready in a minute,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around his hips.

  “Oh, like hell it will,” he said turning and depositing her on the couch. He took just the barest of moments to enjoy the sight of her beneath him, naked and wanting him, her eyes misty with desire, before yanking off his clothes and falling upon her to feast on his favorite dish of all.

  That night, for the first time in months, they talked with real excitement about their coming wedding. After dinner, they slipped into the master bathtub to talk and scheme, to plan and dream.

  “Remember the convent?” Ella murmured. “And Greta?”

  “I’ll never forget,” he murmured to the back of her neck as he held her in front of him between his legs. The flickering votive candles lined the bathtub and provided the only light in the room. Ella sipped from her wine glass but Rowan’s sat untouched on the wide flat rim of the tub.

  “How can two people be so happy and yet so miserable?”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe our problem is we don’t know how to be happy. I mean, unless we’re cold or exhausted or bleeding.”

  Rowan laughed and kissed her neck.

  “I’d hate to think that’s the case,” he said. “I like comfort.”

  “Me, too. Especially soap, you know? I think that’s what I missed the most.”

  “For me, it was the food variety. I just can’t eat the same damn thing day in and day out.”

  “You did, though.”

  “You do what you have to.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Rowan,” she said tentatively.

  “Hmm?” Rowan was feeling more at peace and mellow than he could remember feeling in months.

  “I am so sorry about how things played out with your mother.”

  Rowan was aware that this wasn’t actually an apology. He noted that Ella wasn’t taking responsibility for how things turned out. She was just sorry that the situation was the way it was.

  “Yeah, don’t worry about it,” he said. There must have been something unconvincing in his voice because she turned around and looked at him. The humidity in the closed room had made her hair curl around her face. She looked even prettier, if that was possible. He worked to keep his face blank.

  “We need to not let outside forces throw us off kilter with each other.”

  “Outside forces?”

  “Maybe that’s not the right phrase,” she said, pulling away now and pushing the bubbles up so they hid her breasts. “I mean, we need to be a united front.”

  “All these battle terms,” he murmured, reaching for his wine glass.

  “I don’t mean it like that,” she said. “It’s just that, of all the things we have had to deal with in our relationship, we’ve never really had anything drive a wedge between us before, you know?”

  “And that’s what you see my mother doing?”

  “Give me a break, Rowan! She came right out and told me that she doesn’t want us to marry. She didn’t make that clear to you?”

  Rowan had to admit she did. “They won’t be a part of our lives,” he said. “Hardly at all.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. “And maybe over the years,” she said, hopefully, putting a hand out on his knee, “she’ll get used to me.”

  “I guess it can’t all be perfect,” he said, lifting a strand from her neck and rubbing his thumb against h
er throat.

  “Is it just me, Rowan?”

  He frowned. “Is what just you, babe?”

  “How you’ve been lately. I mean, is it work? You just don’t seem happy.”

  “Funny you should say that,” he said, reaching for her and turning her around so she fit up next to him again. He pulled her hair back and wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. “That’s just what my Captain said to me this morning.”

  The next day was Saturday. After a loving start to their weekend, Rowan was up and showered and out of the apartment running errands and hitting the gym. Ella was especially glad for their bathtub conversation. Not only had they reconnected in a strong way but it was a relief to know she wasn’t the sole reason for Rowan’s moodiness.

  Ella grabbed a quick breakfast, then dressed for her yoga class, feeling more on track and centered than she had in weeks. She blew a kiss to the calendar on her way out the door. In seven days she would officially be Mrs. Rowan Pierce (again.) How her life would change after that, she wasn’t sure, but she believed—she had to believe—that the event would alter her life in some very significant way.

  After the yoga class, she spent a pleasant hour strolling the aisles of her local Whole Foods (who would have guessed that Dothan would have one!) and then returned to the apartment with more makings for another memorable meal with her sexy husband-to-be. Her arms full of the grocery bags, she struggled with the front door and felt a wave of pique that Rowan had missed her so little that he hadn’t been waiting to unlock the door. She shook off the twinge as irrational and called to him as she entered the apartment. He came out of the kitchen, his hand holding their landline phone to his ear. He frowned at her as if to say: do you have to be so noisy? Or maybe she imagined that.

  “Yeah, Mom, I know,” he said. “We’ve been over this.”

  With a sick feeling developing in her stomach, Ella parked the bags on the kitchen table and dropped her purse on a chair. She heard the front door open and then close as Rowan left the apartment to finish his conversation in private.