Page 110 of Her Reluctant Hero
“No!”
He glanced over. “You forget how well I know you.”
He was right but she’d never admit it. “Not anymore.”
“Maybe this site is cursed,” Linda murmured.
Mallory glanced at Adrian. He merely shrugged, though a grin tugged at his lips.
They rolled in first gear for what seemed like hours. She felt the press of gravity as they moved up an incline. She prayed that the mud didn’t carry them down into camp.
No one in the backseat spoke at all, and after Adrian’s admonition, the two of them no longer spoke, either. Mallory couldn’t keep her eyes closed long, though. When she opened them, she saw Adrian looking out the side window instead of the windshield. He rubbed the window with his elbow and inched forward.
“Looks like we’ll be okay.” He shut off the engine, pulled the brake and reached under his seat for a bottle of Scotch. “Anybody thirsty?”
“No, no. You’re getting it all mixed up.” Mallory held out the Styrofoam cup for Adrian to refill. She’d decided not to think about how the cup had ended up under the seat since the first glass of Scotch had washed it clean. “Thailand was the typhoon and Madagascar was the mudslide.”
Adrian poured, his hand shaking from laughter—and probably none too steady from the Scotch he’d consumed. He gestured with the bottle to the backseat, but Jacob and Linda declined—they were likely too young anyway—so he tilted his head back and poured the last drops in his mouth.
“Nah, you’re wrong. Thailand was the mudslide because we stayed in that little hut, remember? The one with the real bed? It was a good thing we evacuated. When we returned, nothing was left.”
“Mm.” She swallowed. “No. Madagascar was the mudslide because I lost my—” She stopped, not quite drunk enough to blurt out their history in front of Jacob and Linda, both who leaned forward to hear over the pounding rain.
Adrian glanced at her and in the shadows she saw his eyebrow quirk.
“And then we—”
The other eyebrow lifted.
She rose up on her knees and leaned over to him. He turned to allow her better access to his ear, and she took a moment to inhale his scent, rain and man, gathering the courage to remind him. “My diaphragm was lost.”
“Ah.” He dragged the syllable out as he leaned his head against the window of the door. “Yes. You’re right. We had to get—creative until we could replace it.”
Even though she only saw his face in flashes and knew he couldn’t see hers, she sensed he was watching her. Not knowing what he could be thinking made her uneasy. She shouldn’t have brought the idea of sex into his thoughts.
“We had some good times, Mal.” The tone of his voice told her just where his thoughts had headed. She needed to divert him.
“So are there any continents you two haven’t been on?” Linda leaned between the seats, a welcome interruption.
“Antarctica,” they answered together.
“And the best?”
“China.” Another answer in unison and this time Mallory looked over in surprise. He watched her steadily. Were his reasons for loving the China expedition the same as hers? If she could see his face, she might be able to tell.
“Why?”
Adrian finally turned to look at the girl. “There are these ancient towers in western China, star shaped, over two hundred of them, and no one knows what they were there for. No one knows who built them or how long ago. When we were students,” he said as he flipped a finger between Mallory and himself, “we were part of the team trying to figure it out.”
So he didn’t think it was the best for the same reason she did. Of course he wouldn’t. If such things had been as important to him as they were to her, they would still be married.
“So did you?” Linda asked.
“We think so. We think the string of them represent the ‘dmu’ cord, which in Buddhism is said to connect heaven and earth.”
“So if you don’t know the answer, why was that your favorite? You both said so.”
Adrian reached over and lifted Mallory’s hand from her lap, surprising both women. “We’d just gotten married when we went to China. It was like a honeymoon.”
