Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3 (22 page)

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked.

“Your necklace, I could not help noticing. It is a very nice piece of work. I’m guessing Celtic in origin if I’m not mistaken. Possibly late Bronze Age, but I’m leaning more Iron Age, probably somewhere between 600 and 300 B.C. Is it a reproduction?”

Jamie was impressed at the man’s knowledge wondering if he were a collector, dealer, or professor. Realistically speaking, there could be very few other reasons why the man would have such detailed and accurate knowledge of the artifact she had always worn around her neck since a baby. She still wondered how it never set off the security detectors.

“I’m impressed, Professor?” she questioned fishing for a name and dodging the question of its authenticity.

“Goff. Darren Goff, Ph.D. in pre-Roman British History.” He extended his hand. She shook it.

“Jamie Gillman, forensic anthropology. It is nice to meet you.”

It is not often she came in contact with someone knowledgeable enough to see this artifact not only for a fabulous piece of jewelry, but also for its significance to the history of the time period.

This gentleman was distinctly from southern England, she thought, asking what brought him to Lubbock and tucking the amulet inside her shirt.

He was not from the natural or cultural sciences department. She knew most all the faculty and staff, if not well, then by face and reputation. She did not recall ever seeing this man before today. She would have remembered because he did not fit the typical moldy, stuffy, old professor. He was a handsome man in his late thirties, sharply dressed
GQ
style. Great skin, was her first thought. Definitely a metrosexual, she thought, right down to the manicured and highly-buff nails. She found she preferred Josh’s more rugged look. She quickly pushed the unsettling thought aside willing Josh to leave her brain.

“I applied for the position vacated by Professor Duncan. I was sorry to hear about his passing. He was my mentor and I his greatest follower.”

He offered up that he had the pleasure to attend one of the late professor’s seminars the previous summer focusing on the ancient realm of the Titans and their supposed banishment to the underworld by the younger gods of Olympus. She almost choked on her drink.

“He had some very interesting theories in regard to the ancient realms of both this world and one we cannot begin to comprehend. Personally, I do not disdain these theories just because we cannot prove them.”

She agreed wholeheartedly. “Charles was well loved by student and faculty alike. He was definitely a one-of-a-kind, and as to his theory, I am not going to dismiss it outright. The theories cannot be disproved either,” she added sheepishly. “Even Einstein and Hawking believe there is more out there then meets the eye.”

“Ah, a follower I see. Me, too. His will be some very sizable shoes to fill. I can only hope that when I die, I have raised enough questions in my time that I too can be considered an eccentric.”

She nodded feeling his loss as a friend and colleague. “I know. I will miss him. He was quite insightful and a wealth of information for me in some time periods I am not as well versed in as others. How did the interview go, by the way?”

“I completed the final interview this afternoon. Tough crowd,” he smiled.

It had gone very well he told her, and he was expecting a contact to be forthcoming. The preliminaries were already in motion with a verbal contract extended before he was dropped off at the airport.

Jamie welcomed him. She knew why she was here. It was the last place anyone would look for a Sidhe Princess. Yet, she wondered why such an esteemed professor would select Lubbock leaving Oxford in the process. There had to be a personal reason driving such a drastic change. It certainly was not a career move.

They continued to converse as the small regional jet made its way eastward. As a highly specialized sector of academia, neither found it strange they were both on the agenda as guest speakers for the seminar in Cambridge. They parted in Dallas, Darren just making his connection to London’s Heathrow Airport with the promise to share a cup of tea once she was settled at Cambridge for the lecture.

Jamie did not have as tight a connection for the second leg of the journey, so she leisurely made her way to the next terminal to await her flight to Miami.

She was completely unaware Josh was already a step ahead of her.

Jamie exited the Miami airport to a balmy seventy degrees. Palm trees gently swayed in the ocean breeze as gulls passed overhead making their way to the nightly roosting grounds. She did not get very far.

“Dr. Gillman?” the officer asked.

“Yes?” Jamie was faced with three armed officers almost the moment she stepped out of the terminal in Miami. “What's wrong?” her heart pounded as thoughts racing through her mind of all the people she loved and who could be hurt. Like it or not Josh was top of the list.

“If you will please come with us?” the taller one of the three asked politely, but with authority and undertones giving Jamie the impression he certainly did not expect her to refuse.

“Who's hurt?” she demanded again.

“It is not our intent to alarm you, Dr. Gillman. There is no emergency. Now, please come quietly.”

“No,” she shouted, drawing the attention of several road-weary travelers. “I will not come with you! And I certainly will not come quietly. You have not even identified yourself. And you will tell me what I’ve done wrong.” Remembering her lessons from Josh, Jamie stayed where there were people and away from the curb. She would not be snatched as Debbie had been.

“He said she would be difficult,” Officer Walters matter-of-factly reminded his coworkers.

“Who said I’d be difficult?”

Then it sank in just exactly who she felt this “he” was they were referencing.

“He called you, didn’t he? He called you because he used to work down here. What did he say? ‘Hold her, so I can accuse her of kidnapping my kid,’ or maybe charge me with child neglect'? Well, you can all just go straight to hell. Taxi!” she yelled for a cab, flagging one down. If she were under arrest, then they would have done so already. They were here on a fool’s errand and she told them so in no uncertain terms.

The cab pulled up and she got in the back seat with her computer bag. Before the cabby closed the door, she delivered her own message.

“Well, you can report back to Josh he has no idea what difficult really means, but if he really wants to find out, tell him to come himself the next time instead of sending his goons. Oh, and while you’re at it, tell him if he wants to find me, just look for Trey.”

That ought to get him, she thought, feeling the need to twist the knife, as she slammed closed more than just the taxi door.

Jamie dug through her purse and paid the bellhop after he placed her bags in the suite of rooms she had managed to secure on such short notice. She could ill afford to do much haggling of the price. This time of year the area was busy with families on winter break enjoying the beautiful weather Southern Florida has to offer, so it was either stay in a fleabag with questionable linens, or pay the going rack rate for more suitable lodgings at Loews Miami Beach Hotel.

She paid the price.

However, after opening the room’s curtains, she admitted the view was worth the three-hundred-and-forty dollars a night she was shelling out. Looking out over the beach, she had a perfect third-story balcony view of the emerald green and turquoise of southern Florida waters. The moon was still large and bright; its light reflecting off the waves as they leisurely rolled onto the beach. She could hardly wait to see what the view would look like at sunrise.

No wonder people flocked to this part of the United States and paid ridiculously high prices for six hundred square feet of living space in a glorified apartment disguised as a condo.

She had declined to pay for a snack box on the plane and was not inclined to venture out after dark, so she unpacked while waiting on room service.

Maybe tomorrow night, she told herself, after she had a chance to explore the immediate area. However, tonight she would stick to the safety of the hotel, order room service, sulk, and lick her wounds.

Deep in thought and losing track of the time, she jumped at the knock on the door.

Peering out the room’s security peephole, she opened the door to the crisply dressed porter in his black and hunter green uniform. Stepping aside to allow him to push the cart containing a covered tray, two glasses, and a bottle of wine she wondered at the added items.

“Are you sure this is my order? I did not order wine.”

“Compliments of the house, Ma’am. It comes with the romantic adventure package you bought,” he responded politely.

He instructed her to just slide the cart into the hallway after she was finished and bid her a good evening.

“Thank you,” she said after digging again through her wallet for a tip, quietly closing the door behind the young man.

“Romantic adventure, my ass. Maybe romantic disaster is more like it,” she snorted uncorking the wine.

She figured why not commit the crime that he accused her. Pouring herself a small glass, she sat out on the balcony listening to the steady rhythm of the waves. There was something soothing about the water that helped to settle her nerves. She dined alone using the silence and quiet of the evening to collect her emotions that until that moment had been all over the board. It had been exhausting.

She was hungry, much to her surprise, and the food smelled good having not eaten since earlier in the day before her encounter with Josh. It was warm enough, considering it was room service. It definitely could have been worse, she conceded.

And what to do about him?

She pondered the question as she slowly ate the cuisine not ever really tasting it. She was still very hurt from his stinging rejection and low opinion of her. Normally, the opinions of others were of no consequence to her. She set her own standard. Having lived a life in the Fairy Court, she was accustomed to constant ridicule or insincere flattery. She had developed the ability to let it roll off.

Not so where Josh was concerned.

She was in love with him, and that love gave him power over her in ways no otherworldly creature could ever possess. His opinion mattered, she concluded, all the while still puzzling out how he could be so dimwitted when it came to the lies of his child, guessing it was the forest and tree thing where Jesse was concerned.

“And what was with sending the police to get me?” she pondered aloud downing her second glass, letting the alcohol seep into her brain.

Secretly, she was amused. Not at the time, but now that she had a couple of glasses of wine floating in her blood and a chance to step back, she wondered if maybe he was having second thoughts. That prospect made her feel better.

However, she meant what she said. If he thought she was difficult before, he had another thing coming. If he wanted her back, he was going to have to work for it. Besides, even if she was madly in love with the big jerk, she was not even sure she wanted to give him another chance. He had shattered the faith she had in him, and her heart was not strong enough to take Josh’s vacillation.

She may be strong on certain points, but he just had a way of crushing her feelings. No magic could counter that. Love had a strong magic all its own.

Jamie was not sure what to think. He had called, several times in fact. She had the phone switched off in flight and had forgotten to turn it back on until it was too late to return the calls.

They needed to talk, he said.

He was worried, he said.

He had not said he was sorry.

Let him stew a little, she decided, as she poured herself another glass, upending the small bottle and letting the last drop fall into her glass before she tossed the empty bottle back into the ice bucket. In that moment, she wondered just how much of her father she had in her to hold a grudge.

Not much was the final outcome of that internal debate. It took too much effort.

She picked up her cell and called the one number she should have called long before now.

“Hello?”

Jamie head the familiar voice and let the dam break.

“Mamma?” she cried as she felt her mother’s voice slide over her hurt feelings. Years in the United States had taken the sharper edges off her mother’s brogue. However, it was still very pronounced with few placing it correctly. It was no surprise. Language had made lots of changes since 1960 B.C. The fact she and her mother had adjusted as they slid through the ages was a testament to her mother’s will to survive and tenacity to keep her safe. She prayed she had just a little of her mother’s warrior heart and pride.

“Jamie, my baby, thank the goddess. You are safe? Where are you now?”

Jamie spared none of the details. This was her mother, the one person in this universe who would risk life and limb to protect her and had done just exactly that by leaving the land of the Fae.

“Jamie, I really wish you had come here to me for several reasons. The first being I am your mother and I love you above all else.”

However, Queen Brianna, Ruler of the tribe of Kale, knew the other more pressing reason was she could help to shield and protect Jamie from the forces now building against her only child, the only child she shared with her one true love whom she missed terribly with each passing day.

“I have been trying to call you since Thursday,” Brianna said, relieved she, at the very least, knew where Jamie currently was hiding out. Having heard the details of her brief affair with the sheriff, she understood why Jamie was running away. Something she, herself, had done years ago. She was not going to rub salt into Jamie’s wounds by telling her it was futile to run from this man. Fate was fate, and Brianna had foreseen this day many years ago, long before she had married her husband, even longer before she bore his child. Jamie’s destiny was already intertwined with the man from this world.