Page 128 of Her Reluctant Hero
“Okay.” Adrian couldn’t stop himself from looking to the dunes, waiting for sight of Mallory. What would she think of her fiancé’s violent reaction to having his heart broken? “I knew she was missing it, but I didn’t know she wanted to stay here.”
“Hell, why should you know?” Pain darkened the other man’s eyes before he turned away. “She doesn’t even know what she wants. But at this point, it’s not me.”
Past Jonathan, Adrian saw Mallory struggle over the rise of the sand dunes. He looked at Jonathan. “My one regret was that I never fought for her.”
“Now’s your chance.” Jonathan started for Robert’s tent. “I’d like to leave tonight.”
Adrian shook his head. “You’ll never find your way through the jungle in the dark. Toney can show you the way into town in the morning.”
Jonathan sucked in a breath as if to protest. Then he looked at Mallory, who stood still, watching the two men. Jonathan nodded and ducked into Robert’s tent.
Adrian looked up when Mallory stepped out of the tent she shared with Linda the following morning. He tried not to appear as though he’d been waiting to get her alone, to find out what her take was on the whole Johnny thing.
He didn’t expect to see her with her duffel over her shoulder, her face tear streaked and pale.
He pushed to his feet. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” She didn’t look at him.
She rested the duffel on the bench in front of her. He recognized her defensive posture but didn’t sense defensiveness in her calm tone, though he heard the tears.
“I thought—”
“I’m not staying.” She said it like he should have known all along.
“But—” He gestured to the tent behind him just as Jonathan stepped out, straightened, regarding them as if they were bugs he’d found in his shoes.
“I’m going home,” she said, quieter now as Jonathan passed them to get to the SUV he’d rented. “I don’t imagine it will be hard to get a job with my qualifications.”
Before he could twist that arrow from his heart, she widened her eyes, looking horrified by her thoughtless words.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” He did. Still didn’t hurt any less. After all, he couldn’t waltz in somewhere to get a job, not with his reputation in tatters.
“I just—as exciting as this find is, I don’t think it would be good for the two of us to work together. And if I go work on another dig, I can know for sure—” She glanced around, looking for Jonathan. Once she saw he was out of hearing distance, she continued. “—if it’s the archaeology I miss.”
Goddamn. Another bull’s eye. She’d always been a sharpshooter where he was concerned. “And if it’s not?”
She lifted her chin, met his eyes. “It is. Good luck, Adrian. Let me know—how it goes,” she said, a catch in her voice.
“Are you sure you want me to?”
She forced a smile. “Of course. I feel like I have a stake in this.”
He took her hands in his and leaned close to kiss her cheek. “Be happy,” he whispered.
The sentiment had her clouding up and turning away. Without answering, she climbed into Jonathan’s rented Range Rover and he drove off.
*
Adrian swam over and struck his brother’s shoulder. Toney turned sharply, looking past Adrian for danger. Adrian hit him again, to focus him, and gestured toward the silt.
A glint of metal.
This could be it. The ship’s hold, where he could have everything he wanted and more.
Together the brothers brushed at the sand, revealing more splinters. Adrian frowned. A medallion? The metal came into sight again. No, something was attached to it, another loop, so that the artifact was about the size of his palm. He dusted to reveal an engraving on the medallion—a square cross. He looked past it for more clues to what part of the ship they were in.
