Page 153 of Her Reluctant Hero
These men, always putting their careers first. What the hell was wrong with them? She stuck the spoon in the Spam and slammed the can against the tailgate. “Instead of taking care of himself?”
“Mal, you knew the man.” He swept a hand over his hair. “What was more important to him than archaeology?”
Just like Adrian.
He wiped at his nose. “I’m mostly just pissed off that he died this way, that he died alone.”
“That you weren’t here to stop him,” she added softly, wanting to touch him, afraid he’d shake her off. “Do you think it got so bad he had to end it?”
Adrian shook his head. “I was keeping an eye on him, keeping an eye on his pain meds. Nothing seemed to change.”
“He could have been hiding it from you.”
“Could have. Wouldn’t be the first time. And that he waited until I was gone, that makes sense. Though damn it, I don’t think he could have thought it through. He knew someone would find him. You’d think he’d realize that?”
Dr. Vigil would have considered the consequences and the trauma for the ones who found him. Which meant maybe he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger. God, she didn’t want to think about that, because that meant someone had murdered him, then set the scene to look like suicide. If true, it could explain the disappearance of the others. The thought made her stomach drop like a weight. For the first time, Mallory was afraid. She opened her mouth to say something, but Adrian was already too agitated, and there was nothing they could do about it now, not tonight. She’d keep her suspicions to herself until morning. Perhaps in the meantime she could figure out the next step.
Adrian was restless. Mallory could hear it in his breathing, even as he tried to keep still. They lay side by side in his tent, on top of the sleeping bags they’d zipped together, too warm to crawl inside.
After several moments his tension seeped into her, and he shifted onto his back, muffled a curse when he slid off the edge of the air mattress. He pushed to a sitting position, then out the flap of the tent. She rolled over as he stood in the opening, and saw him wipe his nose.
“Adrian?”
“I can’t get the smell out of my nose.” He squeezed his nostrils, wiped at them again. He dragged his hand over his face before bracing both hands against the poles above the opening of the tent. “I can’t get the picture out of my head.”
Wanting to touch him, she crawled to the opening, but he spun out of her reach. She dropped her hand helplessly. He didn’t want her comfort, wouldn’t accept it.
“I should have been here. If I’d been here, he wouldn’t have done it. Why the hell did we have to stay so long in the city?”
Mallory finished the thought for him—enjoying each other, reveling in each other’s bodies while their friend suffered and died.
He shoved away from the tent. “You rest. I’m going down to the beach. Will you be okay here on your own?” he asked, almost as an afterthought.
She hesitated, thinking about the wildness, the emptiness around her, the place not twenty yards away where her friend had died. But Adrian clearly didn’t want to be near her. “I’ll be all right.”
He nodded in acknowledgement and turned away. She lay back on the sleeping bag but couldn’t relax.
He wasn’t back by the time the rain started again, pelting the taut nylon roof. Suddenly cold without his body heat, she curled on her side and waited a few minutes to see if he’d come to his senses. Well, hell. She’d better go look for him.
The rain drenched her before she reached the corner of the tent. Lovely. He couldn’t have gotten deranged on a nice, cool, dry evening. She’d barely dried off from earlier.
Of course he wasn’t at the beach. She shoved her wet hair out of her face and looked around, squinting against the rain that pelted her hard enough to sting. Shit. Shit. Where was he?
Then she knew. She ran over the dunes, sand sticking to her wet shins, ran through the camp toward the cliffs. There he was, beside Dr. Vigil’s grave. He’d covered it with a tarp and knelt beside it, head bowed, water running from his bent head to the tarp. She dropped to her knees beside him and he looked up. In the dim light she could see his eyes were red rimmed. He was crying.
Once again she opened her arms to him. This time he snatched her up against his body, banding his arms tightly about her, and buried his face in her hair. She felt his shuddering sobs, the heat of his tears against her neck. She only held him, let him cry, let him take comfort in her embrace.
