The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (8 page)

Juliana gave her a strange look.
"Okay," she said slowly. "Did you get my text?"

Kathlyn shook her head. "My
battery died before we left the States. What's up?"

Juliana's answer was interrupted
as Lynn gave Kathlyn a bear hug. Dennis did the same and then Marcus came up,
doling out the baggage until he didn't have a piece left. Light conversation
went all around but Kathlyn knew something was up; Juliana had an almost
panicked look on her face.  She excused herself to use the restroom and took
Juliana with her.

"What's wrong?" she
asked as they crossed the warm, dark sands en route to the privy.

"Fayd is here," Juliana
didn't pull any punches.

Kathlyn came to a dead stop.
"What?"

Juliana could only nod her head.
"It gets better, Kat, so you'd better brace yourself. Apparently, he found
out about your angel."

In the moonlight, Kathlyn paled.
"Oh, my God...
no
."

"Yes."

"How?"

Juliana hated being the bearer of
such bad tidings. "As I understand it from him, word of it somehow leaked
out to a relative of his in Iraq, a guy who's like the local tax collector of
the province. He called Fayd's mother about it and, abracadabra, Fayd's got permits
and funding to excavate. But he hasn't even seen it yet; he knows you've been
there and he's come to ask you to join him in the excavation. And there's
more."

It was too much for Kathlyn to
absorb after a twenty hour flight with no sleep. She stood there, dazed. 
"What more could there possibly be?"

"He's got a Vatican
representative with him."

If she didn't think she could be
any more stunned, she was wrong. "You've got to be joking," she
hissed. "They know about this, too?"

"That's the gist of it,"
Juliana watched her closely. "What do you want to do?"

 Kathlyn couldn't even answer.
She started to wander away, aimlessly. Juliana followed.

 "This just doesn't make any
damn sense," Kathlyn muttered. "The village elders were so protective
of it, so concerned. It just doesn't seem right that Fayd would have everything
he needed so soon to go in and excavate. Besides, that's why they called me in-
they wanted me to handle it, or so I thought. Damn him; this is my find."

"It can get real ugly here,
Kat," Juliana said softly. "More than likely when the Iraqi
government found out about it, the village elders didn't have any choice. And
think about this; how did Fayd even know you were there?"

"A lot of people saw me. It
wouldn't have been that big of a secret."

"Maybe."

Kathlyn stopped and looked at
her. "Do you think they tortured the elders about my presence?"

"It's very possible."

"But where does the Vatican
come into this?"

"Who knows? It's considered
a Biblical relic, like Peter's Bones or something."

"But I've excavated other
Biblical relics and they've always kept a distance. Why would they be
interested now, in something like this?"

"I don't know. But I'm sure
we'll find out."

Kathlyn was beginning to feel
ill. "Damn it," she hissed. It was a struggle to clear her thoughts
and focus. "Where is Fayd?"

"We put him in the VIP tent
for tonight." She put a hand on Kathlyn's arm. "Look, Lynn and Dennis
know the background on this guy, but they won't say anything to Marcus. They
promised me that. But you need to tell him immediately."

Kathlyn took a deep breath.
"No kidding," she said. "He's going to explode."

"They know he asked you to
marry him, too."

Kathlyn threw her arms up.
"You didn't tell them that!"

"I felt they had a right to
know everything about this guy. It wouldn't be long before they figured out how
Fayd feels about you."

"But that was a long time
ago."

"He's always had the hots
for you, Kat."

Kathlyn turned back for the
tents. "Marcus is going to lose his mind," she was suddenly more
afraid about that than losing her angel. "I've got to tell him right
now."

No soon had she entered the
cluster of tents than she saw Marcus storming toward her with Lynn and Dennis
on his heels. Since the VIP tent was behind her by about two hundred yards, she
had no doubt where he was going. It seemed that Lynn and Dennis didn't keep
their promises very well.

"Where are you going?"
she put herself in front of her husband.

Marcus' lips were white,
indicative of his level of emotion. In fact, his entire face was strained and
pale and his body was so tense he looked as if he was about to snap.
"Where do you think?" he snapped. "I'm going to pay our guest a
visit."

"No, you're not,"
Kathlyn threw her arms around his neck.  When that didn't stop him, she
literally jumped up on him, wrapping her legs around his hips. "Marcus,
look at me. Look at me!"

She was wrapped tightly around
him. It would have been extremely arousing had he not been so blinded by fury. 
With her face in his, he couldn't look anywhere else but into her brilliant
green eyes.

"Kathlyn, let go," he
grumbled. "I'm in no mood for this."

She wouldn't release him.
"You're not going anywhere until you calm down."

Lynn and Dennis were also
blocking his path, very gently pushing him backwards. They were responsible for
his state; one thing had led to another and it was really by mistake that they
had told him about Fayd's presence. Well, for the most part. Secretly, they
wanted Marcus to smash the guy in his arrogant mouth and toss him into the
Nile.  Like a couple of bad kids, they now felt extremely guilty.

"I am calm," Marcus
assured her through clenched teeth.

 "No, you're not," she
laughed bitterly. "You're going to turn around right now and go back to
our tent. Please, Marcus. I don't need a major brawl on my hands our first
night back. We've got more important things to deal with."

He wasn't even holding her; his
arms hung down at his sides. She was latched onto him like a leech purely by
her own power. "Nothing is more important than this guy claim jumping, Kathlyn."

"You mean nothing is more
important than your satisfying your ego."

His eyes narrowed, an expression
that frightened even her. But she could see that he knew she was right. Marcus
had a very low tolerance level of jealousy when it came to his wife and he was
more than ready to physically release his frustration. She'd seen him glare at,
snap at, and just plain harass anyone of the male persuasion that he felt any
sense of competition from. Sometimes he was like a high school kid who hadn't
yet learned how to control all of that testosterone. She'd always dealt with it
patiently and rationally. But tonight, she simply didn't have the will to slug
through it yet again. She was exhausted and her mind was whirling with an
overload of information. She let him go.

"Fine," she said
quietly. "I'm sick and tired of this chest beating routine, Marcus. We go
through it every damn time you feel threatened. This has everything to do with
you and nothing whatsoever to do with me. So do whatever you want. If it makes
you feel better to beat up Fayd, go for it. I don't give a damn anymore."

She was already several feet away
from him by the time she finished. Juliana cast a long look at the three men
and followed.  Marcus watched his wife go, an expression of confusion and
frustration on his face. Lynn and Dennis were afraid to move, waiting to see
which direction Marcus would go.  He finally turned away from them and walked
off into the darkness.  They let him go, alone.

Welcome back
, Lynn thought wryly.

***

Marcus returned to the tent he
shared with Kathlyn close to dawn.  The tent was empty, and the bed hadn't been
slept in. His guts were churning with emotion, his anger and weariness from the
previous night overloading his senses until all he wanted to do was forget
about the whole thing.  Suspecting she had slept in Juliana's tent, he lay down
on the bed and tried to catch some sleep before the sun rose.

  He dozed off, sleeping heavily
for about an hour and waking up just after sunrise feeling worse than he had
before he had gone to bed. After a quick shower and a change of clothes, he
headed up to his dig site, curious to see what progress had been made since he
had left a couple of weeks before.  Workers greeted him respectfully and Lynn
eventually joined him. He felt as if he had come home again. But all the while,
however, his senses were acutely tuned for signs of his wife.

Juliana was already on the site,
at the top of the thirty -three stairs cut into the hill between KV 2 and KV 7
at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings.  Marcus caught sight of her as they
entered the long, low-ceilinged shaft that led into the burial chambers.

"Good morning," Juliana
said.

Lynn responded pleasantly; Marcus
merely grunted. "Where's Kathlyn?"

Juliana shook her head. "I don't
know. She's not with you?"

Marcus stared at her a second, a
gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I thought she spent the night
with you."

"No. She wandered off last
night, to be alone, and I just assumed she went back to your tent."

Marcus was out of the shaft
quicker than the blink of an eye. A platoon of United States Marines was
assigned to protect the dig under United States jurisdiction and Marcus went
directly to the sergeant in charge of the morning watch, a man that he and the
team had befriended over the course of the past year. Master Sergeant Tony
Bubalo smiled pleasantly as Marcus approached him.

 "She's in the West Valley,"
he said before Marcus could open his mouth.

Marcus stumbled on his words for
a moment; his answer had come too quickly. "Is she... I mean, what's she
doing over there?"

Tony had incredibly bright blue
eyes that twinkled. "My men saw her march off last night," he said.
"One of them followed her, just far enough behind so she didn't see him.
Apparently, she went over to the west valley and curled up on the ground over
there. I sent a couple of other guys over there at dawn to relieve the night
watchman, just to keep an eye on her."

Marcus let out a sigh of relief.
"Christ," he hissed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I just found out about it
this morning, not a half hour ago. I figured you come around soon enough
looking for her."

He figured right. "She's
okay, then."

"Physically, I'd say
so," Tony said. "Emotionally, I don't know. The man that watched her
all night said he could hear her sobs echoing off the hills."

Marcus rolled his eyes, despair
and anger directed at him.  He put a big hand on Tony's shoulder in a rare
gesture. Marcus wasn't the touching kind. "Thanks, man," he said, his
eyes turning toward the road that led into the west Valley of the Kings. The
sun had just cleared the horizon and the hills beyond had a pinkish cast to
them.  Without another word, he walked in the direction of the valley.

The West Valley of the Kings was
considerably smaller and less traveled than the more publicized east valley.
The cliffs rose up around him like great stone walls and he caught sight of the
two Marines up on the rocks. He waved at them and they took the hint that their
watch was now over. He watched them slide down the hill and into oblivion.

  His cobalt blue eyes focused on
the valley as it came into view, the narrow walkways and the marked tombs.
Immediately, he spied his wife near KV 22, an unfinished tomb at the mouth of
the narrow valley.   She was lying back on one arm, in the dirt, using the
slope of the hill to prop her up. Her clothes were covered with dust, her
beautiful hair untamed over her shoulders and arms. Marcus walked up, quietly,
noticing her eyes were closed.  He stood there a moment, gazing down at her,
feeling his heart leap and twist in all directions. He'd never loved someone so
much in his entire life.

 Carefully, he lowered himself
down beside her. He probably should have let her sleep, but he couldn't help
himself. With the gentleness of a baby, he lay his face down in the crook of
her neck, smelling her sweetness, inhaling the dust and musk from days of
travel. The pure reverence of it made bolts of painful current race through his
body. Beneath him, Kathlyn stirred.

"Marcus?" she whispered
hoarsely.

He kissed her neck, tenderly.
"It’s me, sweetheart. Please don't be mad anymore."

She put her hand up, holding his
head as he laid it on her neck and shoulder. He was apologizing as only Marcus
could, his great brawn and power humbled. She had forgiven him long ago.

"I'm not mad," she said
softly. "Just frustrated. I didn't need that last night."

"I know."

"I need your level head. I
need you to tell me what I should do. I don't need you running off and trying
to kill the guy because he had a crush on me long before you even knew me. And
to use the claim-jumping excuse to validate your actions was really beneath
you, Marcus."