Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (2 page)

           
“Well,
I will certainly do my best to pop out a few,” Ella said, grabbing her purse.
The whole silence thing clearly didn’t work very well when you were trapped in
a parked car. It was best they got into the store where there were lots of
distractions.

           
“And
then there is the little matter of the tainted gene pool,” Carol said,
straightening out her sweater and making no move to open the car door to join
Ella.

           
Ah, there it is.
Ella was surprised
Rowan had shared that information with them. That she had a grandfather who was
hanged at the 1945 Nuremburg Trials was not something she normally told people.
Her own mother died with the secret. Ella guessed in Rowan’s mind it just made
Ella all the more unique and he couldn’t see how other people wouldn’t see it
that way too. Especially his own people. Sweet, naïve Rowan.

           
“It’s
not just a matter of having a monster in your recent history,” his mother was
saying, “but combine it with the fact you are older, probably picked up a few
sexual diseases over the years, and your chances of giving my son a healthy
child are significantly diminished. Any doctor will tell you that.”

           
“Are
you coming, Carol? Because now we’ve got this awesome parking spot way out here
and I don’t want to give it up unless we really have to.”

           
“You
think you’re funny, don’t you?”

           
Ella
sighed, praying for patience or strength or both. “Are you coming?”

           
“Are
you determined to marry my son next month?”

           
“Isn’t
that why we’re here? To get the bridesmaids’ presents for when I marry your son
next month?”

           
“I
was hoping we might have a conversation about whether or not that was really
necessary.”

           
“I
take it you don’t mean the bridesmaids’ presents.”

           
Carol
turned a cold stare on Ella, so she leaned on the window of the car.

           
In
for a penny…
she thought.
“You know we’re as good as married,
right?” Ella said. “I mean, we live together in his apartment in Dothan.”

           
“Shacking
up is not the same as married.”

           
“No,
which is why we want to get married.”

           
“Did
he mention his first wife to you?”

           
Ella
felt the question hit her like an iron fist in the stomach.
First wife
?

           
Carol
smiled. “I take it by the expression on your face that he did not.”

           
“Without
kids, it doesn’t count,” Ella heard herself say. Her stomach was roiling now.
Why hadn’t Rowan mentioned the fact that he
had been married before?

           
“He
has a child.”

           
Ella
wrenched open the car door and sat down before her knees collapsed on her. She
felt a tingling sensation in her chest and a lightheadedness. It was difficult
to breathe.
 

           
“Would
it help to put your head between your knees, dear?”

           
“Rowan
has a
child
?” She could barely get
the words out. Her first instinct was to kick the old broad out of the car and
drive straight back to Dothan alone. Come to think of it, she didn’t have
anything in Dothan she really cared about. She could just drive the hell off
and end up as far as her credit card would take her.

           
“No.
More’s the pity.”

           
Ella
snapped her head around to look at Carol. “No? He does
not
have a child? You were messing with me?”

           
“You
do not look to me like a woman who has complete faith in her groom-to-be,
Ella,” Carol said. “You look to me like a woman who just believably imagined
her man keeping a very important item of his backstory from her.”

           
“An
item that you just made up.”

           
“Yes,
this time. But what other things has he not told you? You didn’t know he was
married before. To a lovely girl, by the way.”

           
Ella’s
head was spinning from the warmth inside the car and overpowering proximity and
abundance of Carol’s cologne. She rolled down the window and prayed she wasn’t
going to vomit.
God, it smelled like
cleaning fluid
. Was it possible Rowan’s mother had deliberately doused
herself in Mr. Clean just to make Ella sick?

           
“I
think you are not as close to picking out bridesmaids’ presents as you think
you are,” Carol said, flipping down the visor to access the passenger side
vanity mirror. She unscrewed a lipstick and applied it, making loud smacking
noises as she did. Ella watched in fascination as if watching someone gut a
deer on the highway.

           
“Why
are you doing this?”

           
Carol
snapped the visor back and looked at Ella. “I thought that was clear,” she
said. “I am not in favor of this wedding.”

           
“The
reasons being that I’m profane, immoral and too old for Rowan.”

 
          
“And
selfish.”

           
“
Because I took the last biscuit at lunch
?”

           
“It’s
the biscuit today, and tomorrow it will be insisting Rowan forgo a transfer for
promotion because
you
don’t want to
leave the town you’re living in. I do not see you as thinking of anyone but
yourself.”

           
“Is
that what
you
do with Mr. Pierce?”

           
“Make
a joke of it. I was sure you would.” She shrugged. “Rowan did too, truth be
told.”

           
“You
told all this to
Rowan
?”

           
“Yes,
of course. I see my son making the biggest mistake of his life, I’m not going
to stand back and say nothing.”

           
Ella
started the car and backed out of the space. “I think we’re done shopping,” she
said, clenching her jaw to try to strangle her fury.

           
Four
hours later, way too late to be driving back to Alabama, she and Rowan were
driving back to Alabama. He had barely spoken since he’d thrown their bags in
the trunk, hugged his parents goodbye in the driveway of their suburban Atlanta
split level, and joined Ella in the front seat for the five hour drive home.

           
“I’m
sorry, Rowan,” Ella said as he maneuvered the car onto Georgia 400.

           
He
held up a hand stopping her. “Just don’t.”

           
So
she didn’t. Although she honestly couldn’t understand how he could blame her
for the aborted weekend, she would let him drive home in miserable, angry
silence if that was really what he wanted.

           
Anything
beat one more hour trying to get along with that woman.

           
After
the fiasco of the meet-the-parents-weekend, both Rowan and Ella went through
the motions of their lives without venturing into the deep end emotionally.
Rowan immediately went out of town for three days to escort the brother of a
drug cartel leader in Mexico to testify in Nashville. Ella was appalled to
realize she felt relief when the door closed behind him and she knew she had
three days all to herself.

           
Her
wedding was two weeks away.

           
Ella’s
work involved using her social media skills to build up a customer base in the
southeast for her freelance writing business. Since her last job in Heidelberg,
she decided contract work was probably a better fit for her personality than an
office job. When she moved in with Rowan after their adventure in Germany, it
hadn’t occurred to her that they might have a rough patch adjusting to living
together. After all, last year they had endured freezing cold, bugs in hard mattresses
made of hay, and daily worry for their very lives—how tricky could a
gated apartment complex be? She and Rowan used to laugh at the thought of
advertising such fundamental staples but they had sworn never to take them for
granted again.

           
That
had lasted about a week.

           
Ella
was not prepared for the monotony and lack of purpose she now found in her
daily routine. Worse, she appeared to be infecting the usually content Rowan
with her malaise. She watched him now, newly returned from Nashville. He sat
sprawled in the living room, feet up on the coffee table, watching one of his
endless, boring television programs on the
History
Channel
. Or maybe today it was the
Military
Channel
or
Discovery
. To Ella,
who rarely watched TV, they all blended in together. Amazingly, Rowan seemed to
be addicted to them, and she never would have guessed that about her hero.

           
“What
is it this time?” she said as she stepped into the living room. His cowboy
boots were tossed in a corner and his feet in mismatched socks looked strangely
vulnerable. She cursed her word choice. She knew he would take it as an
indictment. But he said nothing. She saw him reach for the remote—
possibly to turn up the volume in order to
drown her out?

           
“What
are those? Pyramids?” She sat down next to him on the couch and he edged away
to give her more room. There was a time, she noted, that a couch and five
minutes alone would have provoked a different reaction in him.

           
He
still didn’t answer her.

           
“Rowan?”

           
“Yes,
Ella, they’re pyramids. It’s a documentary on Howard Carter.”

           
“Cool.”

           
“You
have no idea who that is, do you?”

           
“Nope.
But I know pyramids are in Egypt which is where we’re going next fall for Maddie’s
wedding. Are you thinking about doing a little exploring when we get there?
Like maybe going down to Luxor?”

           
He
glanced at her briefly.

           
“Maybe,”
he said. “I figure it’s a long way to go just for a wedding.”

           
“I’m
hoping to get my picture taken sitting on a camel. Be very cool to post it to
Facebook.”

           
Ella
waited several more seconds for a response that clearly wasn’t coming. Rowan
had obviously checked out of the conversation and recommitted to his television
show so Ella got up and moved back to her desk and her writing assignment on
the benefits of a premium vodka product. She heard the volume on the television
creep up a notch.

Chapter Two

Dothan, Alabama 2013

           
The
next morning, Rowan left for work after a quick kiss goodbye and Ella sat at
the kitchen table with a cooling cup of coffee. She could see his car back out
of their apartment parking space from her vantage point in the kitchen. As she
watched him drive out of sight, she had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t sure
what to do with.

           
I’m
getting married in ten days. Is this really going to be my life?

           
When
the phone rang, she gratefully snatched it up to avoid settling down to write
on her pile of freelance work.

           
“Hello?”

           
“Hi,
sweetie, it’s your dad.” No matter how many times she told him that he didn’t
need to identify himself, he always did. She’d given up telling him it was unnecessary.

           
“Hey,
Dad,” she said. “Everything okay?” After a certain age—
his
, not hers—Ella found the
health disclaimer helpful before she could proceed with any conversation with
him. It was entirely possible for darling dad to have an hour long visit with
her on the phone only to end it with ‘Oh, by the way, the doctor handed me some
disturbing news the other day when I went it to see him.’ Ella liked to clear
the decks immediately. If he was calling to impart bad news, she wanted it on
the table straightaway.

           
“Everything’s
just wonderful,” her dad said. “Suzie’s already packing for our trip to Dothan.
I do not believe I have ever been to that part of Alabama.”

           
“Well,
you’re in for a rare treat.”

           
“Really?”

           
“No,
Dad. I’m joking. It’s Dothan, Alabama.”

           
“I
have to admit to not totally understanding you sometimes, Ella,” her father
said, chuckling nonetheless.

           
That goes double for the guy I’m about to
marry
, Ella surprised herself by thinking.

           
“So
are you excited? Ten short days and you’re a married lady.”

           
“Yep.
Very excited.”

           
“And
your young man? Is he nervous?”

           
“Not
really. He’s been down this path before.”
Twice
before if you count his first marriage and then the one to me back in
Heidelberg a couple hundred years earlier
.

           
“Oh,
well, I’m sure it’ll feel like the first time when he comes home to you, my
darling.”

           
Ella
was positive she had told her father that she was living with Rowan but she
decided to let it go. An ex-CIA operative, her father had shown increasing
signs of forgetfulness as the years went by. She decided it wasn’t worth
reminding him.

           
“When
are you two getting in?” she asked, her eyes flickering to the calendar hanging
on the kitchen walls. Their wedding date was marked in a big red circle. Ella
tried to remember if she had done that or Rowan. Now that she looked at it, the
circle looked jagged and kind of angry.

           
“We’ll
get in two days before,” he said. “As planned. We’re booked at the Hampton Inn
near you. You know the one?”

           
“Yep.
So you’ll be here in a little over a week. That’s great. Listen, Dad, I’m
really swamped this morning—what with all the wedding stuff coming down…”

           
“Oh,
yes, don’t let me keep you,” he said. “Just wanted to call and say I love you
and we can’t wait to meet Rowan.”

           
“I
love you, too, Dad,” Ella said, feeling a sadness ignite in her chest and begin
to slowly emanate through her body. She realized she suddenly had the terrible
feeling that she was speaking to him for the last time. “So much.”

           
She
spent the day writing for her clients and running errands. She noticed that
every time she walked into the kitchen for something, the red circle on the
calendar seemed to jump off the page at her. It was always the first thing she
saw when she went in there.

           
She
looked at her cellphone and was surprised to see a text from Rowan.
Be home early today.
That could mean any
time before midnight, she thought, but she was pleased nonetheless.

           
She
pulled open the refrigerator to see if there was anything in there with which
to make a special dinner of some kind. As she looked at the half-frozen pork
loin and the fresh Brussels sprouts, she couldn’t help but think about how hard
it had been to eat properly in 1620. When she and Rowan had gone back to the
seventeen hundreds—
sounds so
bizarre to say it, even now
—the taste for packaged foods, sodas and
blended coffees had strangely gone away.

True, most of
their focus was on staying alive, but it always amazed her that she hadn’t missed
her twenty-first century luxuries more. After they returned to their own time,
she thought she would indulge in those things that were unattainable in their
other life: endless hot baths, anything that plugged in that made her life
better or more convenient, and especially the ease with which you could create
an amazing meal.

In the kitchen at
the convent in 1620 it took her all day to make and bake several loaves of
bread. Now she reached into her freezer to look at the package of yeast rolls. You
just tossed these babies, hard as snowballs, onto a cookie sheet and went and
did something else with your time.

           
She
hadn’t made Rowan a meal in the whole of the three months that they had been
back. They practically
lived
on
restaurant take-out and fast food.
What
does that mean?

           
But
tonight would be different. Tonight she would use every one of the modern daily
conveniences at her fingertips and create for her man—for the man who had
volunteered to sacrifice his life for her at one point—
wow, had she really forgotten that?
She
would make him a home-cooked meal and then remind him of who they were together.

           
The real Ella and Rowan.
Those people
who they were before their bodies were taken over by these automatons that just
went through the motions of making love, working, eating. Rinse and repeat.

           
She
went to the calendar, picked up a pink Sharpie and drew a heart around the
wedding date.
It doesn’t have to be like
this
, she told herself.
Whatever boll
weevil of discontent that has infected us, I refuse to let it change who we are
together
. As she punctured the pork loin with peeled garlic cloves,
drizzled it with olive oil, seasoned it and then tucked it away for Rowan’s
return, she thought:
maybe it’s Dothan?
Could it be we’re in the wrong place?
She turned on the oven before running
upstairs to shower and dress for her returning hero.

           
Rowan
wasn’t sure what the problem was but he knew he was part of it.
And his mother sure wasn’t helping.
He
left the florist with an armful of roses and checked his cellphone for the
time. Just a little after six. He drove to the wine shop and picked up two bottles
of Pinot Noir he knew Ella preferred. That was one of the things he had liked
about Heidelberg: No one hassled him about preferring to drink beer over wine.
He sighed. Not that Ella cared. She wasn’t like that, needing him to be a
certain way. God forbid trying to mold him or make him be different. His
mother’s anxiety seemed to come from the fact that that’s what
she
did with his dad.
If you’re knee-deep in the make-over project
of your spouse, you probably can’t see any other way of relating
.

           
He
set the wine bottles on the seat next to the roses. Ella wasn’t perfect but the
last thing she’d ever do was try to change him. He grinned ruefully remembering
a few times she had tried to circumvent him, but she had never tried to make
him be somebody else. In fact, he always had the distinct impression that Ella
liked him because he was the way he was. With that thought, his mood elevated
from the aftermath of the bad weekend home to Atlanta and their tentative
attempts not to step on any wounds or create new ones. Rowan pulled into the
parking spot out front of their apartment, gathered up his purchases and
fumbled for the key to the apartment. The door swung open as soon as he put the
key in.

           
Ella
stood in front of him, breathless and practically naked. She wore a black see-through
blouse that barely covered the fact that she was wearing no panties, or if she
was wearing them, they were very, very tiny. He took a breath and stumbled
across the threshold, struggling to close the door behind him as quickly as
possible.

           
“Good
God, Ella,” he said, dumping his armful of wine and roses onto the chair by the
door. “People are still coming home from work.” He watched her face fall a bit
and her hands move to cover her chest as if she felt suddenly vulnerable. He
didn’t let the moment escalate but reached for her and pulled her to him,
feeling the flimsy material in his hands give way as if it would dissolve on
contact. He was already hard as he pressed her to him, his hands going
instinctively to cup her bottom and lift her to him. She sucked in a small
breath and wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing her full breasts up. He
boosted her further up onto his hips until his mouth met the tip of her breast.
He covered it and sucked until he could feel her squirming with anticipation.

           
“Dinner
will be ready in a minute,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around his hips.

           
“Oh,
like hell it will,” he said turning and depositing her on the couch. He took
just the barest of moments to enjoy the sight of her beneath him, naked and
wanting him, her eyes misty with desire, before yanking off his clothes and
falling upon her to feast on his favorite dish of all.

           
That
night, for the first time in months, they talked with real excitement about
their coming wedding. After dinner, they slipped into the master bathtub to
talk and scheme, to plan and dream.

           
“Remember
the convent?” Ella murmured. “And Greta?”

           
“I’ll
never forget,” he murmured to the back of her neck as he held her in front of
him between his legs. The flickering votive candles lined the bathtub and
provided the only light in the room. Ella sipped from her wine glass but
Rowan’s sat untouched on the wide flat rim of the tub.

           
“How
can two people be so happy and yet so miserable?”

           
“I
know.”

           
“Maybe
our problem is we don’t know
how
to
be happy. I mean, unless we’re cold or exhausted or bleeding.”

           
Rowan
laughed and kissed her neck.

           
“I’d
hate to think that’s the case,” he said. “I
like
comfort.”

           
“Me,
too. Especially soap, you know? I think that’s what I missed the most.”

           
“For
me, it was the food variety. I just can’t eat the same damn thing day in and
day out.”

           
“You
did, though.”

           
“You
do what you have to.”

           
“I
guess so.”

           
“Rowan,”
she said tentatively.

           
“Hmm?”
Rowan was feeling more at peace and mellow than he could remember feeling in
months.

           
“I
am so sorry about how things played out with your mother.”

           
Rowan
was aware that this wasn’t actually an apology. He noted that Ella wasn’t
taking responsibility for how things turned out. She was just sorry that the situation
was the way it was.

           
“Yeah,
don’t worry about it,” he said. There must have been something unconvincing in
his voice because she turned around and looked at him. The humidity in the
closed room had made her hair curl around her face. She looked even prettier,
if that was possible. He worked to keep his face blank.

           
“We
need to not let outside forces throw us off kilter with each other.”

           
“Outside
forces?”

           
“Maybe
that’s not the right phrase,” she said, pulling away now and pushing the
bubbles up so they hid her breasts. “I mean, we need to be a united front.”