Page 158 of Her Reluctant Hero
Chapter Fourteen
“A souvenir,” Mallory said, perplexed by Adrian’s sudden stillness. Yes, it was unethical to keep a souvenir from a dig, but considering the circumstances, she could understand Dr. Vigil keeping it.
“Odd that he’d have it. I thought everything from that dig was lost.” His gaze rested on the figure, as if he was looking through it into the past.
“Maybe he forgot he had it.”
“Maybe.” Adrian’s jaw tensed. “He usually packed fresh every time, but it’s possible. We hadn’t been on a dig since Tunisia, so, maybe.”
He didn’t sound convinced. The way he was staring at the carving unnerved Mallory, so she wrapped it in the chamois, crouched to replace it in the trunk. Adrian held his hand out. She hesitated, looked up.
“I don’t have anything else from that trip,” he said, his voice soft. “Let me have it.”
She placed the ivory in his palm and he curled his fingers around it, then whirled and walked out of the tent.
Mallory closed her eyes when Adrian tossed another book on the campfire. She’d stopped outright flinching, but still believed it sacrilege to burn books, no matter how ruined. Adrian, on the other hand, made a ritual of it, keeping the stack near at hand, throwing one on as soon as the one before was a pile of ashes, like he didn’t want the words to get mixed up.
“This would be much more fun with a bottle of tequila.” Mallory slumped in the sand, her back against the bench they’d turned on its side.
Adrian pulled a flask from behind him with a flourish. “Something else I found among Robert’s things. I’m sure he’d want us to share.”
She smiled and took it and sniffed. Just the aroma of the whiskey was enough to have her buzzing, so she took a small swallow. She welcomed the burn, the heat.
“God bless Dr. Vigil.” She passed the flask over.
“God bless Dr. Vigil.” He took a deeper swallow. “Why did you always call him that? You never called him Robert? Uncle Robert, even?”
She shook her head. “Habit. I grew up calling him Dr. Vigil. Calling him Robert felt wrong. Disrespectful.”
He lit a cigarette from the flames, then took a long drag. She’d seen Adrian smoke thousands of cigarettes, sometimes because of nerves or when he needed to think. This was a contemplative cigarette. Oddly, the scent of burning tobacco reassured her as well.
“He missed you, you know.”
Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t bear a guilt trip right now. “Adrian.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t blame me for driving you off, for making you leave your career.”
“You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.” Except file for divorce. She reached for the flask and took a bigger swallow.
“He loved having you here. He said it felt right. He said it was like old times.” His voice rumbled, low and thoughtful.
Her defenses went up, too late. “Don’t tell me we’ve got to stay together because that’s what Dr. Vigil would have wanted. Look how easy it’s been for us to fall into the same old patterns. Nothing’s changed.”
Adrian closed his hand over hers that held the flask, needing her attention, needing her to understand. As much as it pained him, especially after today, he had to bring this out in the open. “We’ve changed. I’m not the same man who screwed you on the kitchen floor.”
She turned her head away. She never had liked that word, but there was no other for what he’d done to her that day.
“We made love a lot of places,” she said.
“I’m not talking about when we made love. I’m talking about that last time we had sex, there in the kitchen.”
Her brow furrowed. “Which time in the kitchen?”
She must have blocked it out. Not that he could blame her. “We were fighting. I grabbed you and put you up on the counter.” He could see the marks his hands had left on her arms, squeezed his eyes shut against the vision.
She sighed. “We fought all the time those days. And we always had sex to make up.”
“But this wasn’t—” Did she really remember it so differently? “You were bruised.”
