The Lies Uncovered Trilogy (Books 4, 5, and 6 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (29 page)

When Adam looked up from Erik's body, he saw that Emily had gone inside the cabin, and he wondered, for one last bitter moment, if she was bothered by the site of Erik lying dead, and maybe would have gone back to him because the old pull was still there.

Entering the cabin, he found Emily sitting on the mattress with Jesse in her arms, rocking him and pressing his head to her chest. He also saw that her eyes were filled with tears. He hated himself for the question he was about to ask. Still he had to ask it. Kneeling beside her, he said, "When you told Erik you'd go back to him did you do it because he still had a hold on you, or did you do it for Jesse?"

Emily looked up at him, with something akin to disbelief, or maybe disappointment, and said, "When you found out Erik had full custody and I hadn't told you about it because I was afraid, you told me I had to have faith that you'd take care of me. Well, I need that same faith from you." She set Jesse aside and put her arms around Adam's neck and kissed him, and said, "I love you. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, even go back to a man who terrified me because we have a son who needs your protection. But I would have left Erik after you had full rights to Jesse. Nothing could keep me from you now, if you still want me."

Adam closed his arms around her, and said, "Has there ever been a time I didn't want you?" He didn't wait for an answer, just covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply, a long heartfelt kiss that held so long, a little voice finally interrupted them saying, "Daddy Mommy kiss." Which had them breaking apart and laughing.

Adam curved one arm around Emily and the other around Jesse, gathering them into the family circle, and said, "Yeah little buddy, you'll be seeing a lot of that." About the same time Adam kissed Jesse on one cheek, Emily kissed Jesse on the other. Jesse laughed and patted his cheeks and looked from one parent to the other and smiled, a wide happy smile that went all the way to his big brown eyes.

***

As the helicopter descended in a hovering path toward the open area between the lodge and the stables, Emily looked out the window and saw a crowd gathered below. At first she thought the press and half the town was there, but as they slowly landed, she realized it was everyone in Adam's family as well as all the ranch guests. She wasn't ready for all of this, and she wished she and Adam and Jesse could somehow poof into thin air and find themselves back at the cabin in the mountains, and be alone as a family, alone to enjoy each other and the little Christmas they'd set out to have. The idea of facing the family now, after what she'd put them through again, made her stomach queasy.

Adam covered her hand with his, and said, "It's okay, honey. They're all friends."

"How long will we have to stay here?" she asked.

"Would the rest of our lives be asking too much?" Adam replied.

Emily thought about that too. Rick and Sophie had a new house on the ranch because Rick's father parceled off a piece of land and everyone on the ranch pitched in and helped build it. Sophie had practically been a member of the family since she was not much older than Jesse, and Emily remembered Jack joking that they needed a vet on the ranch and as soon as Rick finished school, not to plan on living anywhere else, so the entire family welcomed Sophie and Rick with open arms...

"Em?" Adam said. "Could you be happy here?"

"I don't know," Emily replied in all honesty. "I've put you and all of your family through so much. Every time they look at me they'll remember. I want us to have our own place."

"We would have our own place," Adam said. "Dad plans to parcel off a piece of land for each of us."

"Away from the ranch," Emily said. "Where we could lead our own lives."

Adam's face became solemn. And troubled.

If you put your son's needs first and Adam's second you'll never have to worry about your own needs because they'll always be met. That's the way a man like Adam works...

The helicopter landed with a little jolt, and one of the men stood, and said, "We'll let you folks out here. We'll be going back for the body." The men hurled the rolled tarps to the ground.

As Emily stepped out of the helicopter, it seemed like the entire crowd was closing in around them, making her feel as if she were suffocating. Adam, who was behind her, holding Jesse, put his arm around her and moved her with him through the crowd, and said to everyone in general, "We'll tell you all about it later, we need some quiet."

"It's okay," Emily said, pulling herself together. "It was just a surprise, seeing everyone."

Adam took her arm and guided her toward the far end of the lodge.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The end cabin where we can be alone," Adam replied. "I need some space too."

They had just entered the cabin and had not yet shut the door, when Jack and Grace arrived. Jack stepped into the cabin after Adam, and said, "Adam, and you too Emily, we need to talk for a few minutes."

"Talk about what?" Adam asked.

"What happens now," Jack replied.

Adam stepped in front of Emily, as if shielding her from any barrage of questions, and said, "For starters, Emily and I are going to crawl in bed and not get out for two days."

"You know the rules about unmarried couples staying together," Jack said.

Adam eyed his father with annoyance. "Emily's the mother of my son, we plan to get married as soon as we can and we've been through hell these past two days. We'll either stay here or go to town and stay in a motel, but we are staying together."

"Honey," Emily said, reaching out to place her hand on Adam's arm. "Jesse and I aren't in danger anymore. I'm okay staying alone here."

"Well, I'm not," Adam said. "I'm not going to be away from either of you tonight or any other night from now on." He looked at his father and waited. 

"How soon until you marry?" Jack asked.

Adam looked at Emily. "How soon, honey?"

"This afternoon if we could," Emily said, "but there's a three day wait in Oregon, so we can't get married until next week."

Jack seemed to be considering that. Turning to Grace, who had a disturbed look on her face, he said, "Honey, we know what these two have been through. Maybe we could bend the rules some and let them stay together. I'll talk to the boys and you can talk to Maddy. We bent the rules some ourselves."

"You did?" Adam asked, surprised.

"I said bend the rules some," Jack replied. "Your mom was almost nine months pregnant with you. There were some limitations."

Adam looked at his mother for confirmation.

Grace gave him a contrite smile, like she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have, which made Adam also smile. He wasn't sure what the limitations of lovemaking entailed with a nine-month-along pregnant woman, but from the flush on his mother's face, it must have entailed some pretty serious petting.

"I think under the circumstances it would be okay," Grace said. "Maybe you could stay here and we'll say nothing."

Adam looked at Emily, who still looked very uncomfortable with the arrangement, and said to her, "Honey, are you too tired to ride up to the cabin? Our Christmas was cut short and Jesse's tree is up and you had a dinner planned."

"But aren't you exhausted?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, but I have enough energy to get back up there. The horses will be doing all the work anyway." He looked at his dad. "Max and Major did make it back, didn't they?"

Jack nodded. "They were standing at the stables when I got there this morning, which was just before the police arrived with the news of what was going on."

"You will be back for New Year’s dinner, won't you?" Grace asked, her eyes shifting between Adam and Emily.

Adam touched his hand to Emily's face, and said, "Are you okay with that?"

When Emily didn't respond right away, Grace said, "Emily, honey, you're about to become family, and Jesse has an aunt and a whole pack of uncles who promised to stop staring at him the next time you bring him over. We all want you there." She opened her arms to Emily and added, "And maybe you could give Jesse's grandmother a hug."

Emily's only response was to walk into Grace's arms.

***

When they stepped into the cabin and were greeted by the Christmas tree, which was standing untouched and looking just as it had been when they left, Adam said, "I could wire a few branches in those bald places and make it a little fuller."

Emily went over to the tree, and touching one of the spindly branches with its lopsided ornaments, said, "Don't you do one single thing to it. I think it's the most beautiful tree I've ever seen." Looking around the cabin, she said, "It's funny, but I feel like we're home."

Adam took her hands and put them around his neck, then clasped his own hands together behind her waist, and said, "We're still on Dancing Moon property. You were against that a couple of hours ago."

"I'm sorry, honey," Emily said. "It was all the people. I could get used to a place like this."

"We wouldn't have any electricity and we couldn't fit in the tin tub together," Adam said. "When we have our own house, I want a double tub."

"Like Rick and Sophie have?" Emily asked.

Adam looked at her with a start. "How did you know about that? You've never been to their house."

"Jayne told me about it. She said Rick left all the planning of the house to Sophie but requested only one thing, and that was the double wide tub. But we really don't have to do everything they do just because you have this little jealousy thing going with Rick."

"I don't have a jealousy thing going with him anymore," Adam said.

"But you admit you did," Emily replied."

"Yeah, maybe some, but not anymore. I've got everything in the world I want with you and Jesse."

"Except a double wide tub." Emily replied. "But I'm with you on that."

"You didn't sound like it a minute ago," Adam said, sounding disappointed.

Emily kissed him lightly. "Of course I want a double wide tub," she assured him. "How else could Mommy play with Daddy's ducky and bathe at the same time?"

Adam glanced around at Jesse, who looked up at him in curiosity, and said, "Mommy play with Daddy's ducky?"

"Oh, honey," Emily said, crouching down to look at Jesse, "you just said a five-word sentence. That's wonderful." She looked up at Adam to see his reaction.

Adam gave her a rueful smile that lit up his eyes, and replied, "Yeah, wait till he tells the family at New Year's dinner. Maybe by then he'll have extended his vocabulary to include Mommy playing with Daddy's balls too. Lots of playtime fun in the tub."

"Mommy play with Daddy's balls," Jesse repeated.

"Nice going, Daddy," Emily said. "Now please don't mention what Daddy does."

"Like sucking on Mommy's—"

Emily clamped her hand over Adam's mouth, gave him a sharp look, and said to Jesse, "Daddy's being silly, honey. Let's get all your toys out of the big tarp and put them under the tree like Santa did so you can play with them."

After a belated Christmas dinner of canned ham, accompanied by canned yams, canned cranberry sauce, and canned corn, Jesse fell asleep while playing with his toys, and was now curled up on his little pad on the floor of the bedroom, sound asleep.

Emily looked at Adam, who was sitting on the couch, eyelids heavy, head beginning to nod off, and said, "If I heat the boiler will you fill the tub with hot water for a bath?"

Adam looked at her, a little bleary eyed, and said, "I was just thinking about going to bed. Can I do your bath in the morning?"

"I wasn't thinking about me in the tub," Emily said, "I was thinking about you, that is, if you don't mind Mommy juggling Daddy's balls and playing with his ducky."

Adam raised his head from his hand, and after a moment to absorb what he'd heard, a slow smile began to spread. "Honey, can we skip the bath and go right to bed? Daddy's ducky just came wide awake."

"Mommy's ducky did too." Emily took both of Adam’s hands and tugged him upright, and said, "I love you, sweetheart, but while our duckies are getting reacquainted you'd better watch what you say. There's a pair of little ears on the pad in our bedroom that might pick it up and add it to Jesse's growing vocabulary."

"Like Daddy sucking on Mommy's milk juggies?"

"That too." Unable to contain the wide grin, Emily took Adam's hand and led him into the bedroom. It was a long time coming, but life was good at last.

###

BOOK 6: DANCING MOON RANCH SERIES

CHAPTER 1

Kulkulkan Archeological Site: Belize, Central America 

Kit Korban ducked beneath a tarp shading a sixteen-foot-wide excavation site from the tropical sun and stepped inside. Three weeks earlier, the site was little more than a hump covered with jungle growth, whereas twelve hundred years before, the house of a high-ranking Mayan stood. Now, the house was rising again, but in the form of stub walls and stone benches emerging from a multi-level excavation pit in the ground.

Stepping over an array of trowels, whisk brooms and shovels, Kit spotted Marc Hansen, field supervisor for the project, crouched on one knee, eyes focused on something he held in his hand. He was a handsome dude, she gave him that, and there was no question he made her heart race some whenever he touched her for whatever reason, which would have nothing to do with a male making an intentional physical contact with a female, and gazes connecting, and breaths quickening, and miracle of miracles, the man becoming aroused because his underling was a pretty hot little number—at least she'd been told that by the guys on the archaeological team—because with
Professor Hansen
, as her teammates jokingly referred to him, no world existed above ground. The guys on the team called him other names too, which bothered Kit some, but not enough to challenge her peers.

But as Marc stared with rapt attention at the object in his hand, Kit felt a little frisson of amusement. She could probably strip naked as he peered down at whatever he was holding, and if he happened to glance back he'd no doubt tell her to cover up because the mosquitoes could carry malaria or she could get bitten by a venomous spider. The man was like an archaeological automaton, so proficient at what he did he could probably rewrite the text-book in her tent and do it without reference material. But Marc Hansen also carried far too much personal baggage for her to think in terms of a romantic relationship and beyond.

She had no idea what his hang-ups were, but his daily life was all about fieldwork and excavating and documenting every minute detail of the procedure, and having no personal involvements, so no one tried to get close to him and just let him be—a man obsessed with proving himself, she'd reasoned some time back—yet she had no idea what was driving him to do so, and with the project wrapping up in less than a week, the motivation behind the man would remain veiled in mystery, like the thousands of unexcavated pyramids rising as jungle-covered mounds from the forest floor.

"So, what did you find?" she asked, as she watched him rub a toothbrush over the object.

"A tooth," Marc replied. "A third molar, probably from a male between age seventeen and twenty." He turned, and looking beyond her said, "Hand me a Ziploc."

Kit stepped into the excavation pit and walked between what had once been facing, plaster-covered stone benches in an upscale Mayan house, then grabbed a Ziploc bag from a box and handed it to him. "Something different about that tooth?" she asked.

"Maybe," Marc replied.

She peered over his shoulder, her eyes diverting from the yellow-white tooth he held between his thumb and index finger, to his large work-hardened hand and sinewy forearm and up to focus on a muscular sun-bronzed bicep. Forcing her attention back to the tooth, she said, "What's different? It looks like any other tooth we've found."

"It pretty much is," Marc replied. He labeled the Ziploc and dropped the tooth into it, then dropped it in a box with jade beads and ceramic shards and other finds, and added, "By analyzing strontium isotope ratios in the enamel we'll find out what the guy living here ate and drank when his tooth was formed."

"Might have been a woman's tooth," Kit challenged, just to get a rise out of the man.

"It's a man's," Marc insisted. "There's beef jerky stuck in it."

"You're kidding!"

Marc looked at her with irony. And Kit realized he'd overheard her telling the guys on the archaeological team, when she refused to sleep with any of them, that they were nothing but a bunch of oversexed carnivores who probably got that way from subsisting on beef jerky. She sincerely hoped Marc hadn't heard the rest of the exchange because when one of the guys accused her of having the hots for
the professor
, her response had been to laugh, and say, "Why would I have the hots for a guy who probably sits in his tent and plays with himself at night?" She'd said it to nip that whole line of thinking in the bud.

"So, Korban," Marc asked, "what are your plans after we finish here?"

For an instant, Kit wondered if he might be interested in her. Then she realized he was just making small talk. When he wasn't talking archaeology that's what he did, though it was always on a non-personal level. Inquiring about her future plans deviated from the norm.

"I want your job," she said.

Marc picked up a pointed trowel and began prodding at something embedded in the sidewall of an excavated layer, while saying, "In other words, you want to spend a crapload of time trying to get grants so you can sit in the mud and use the smallest tools available to move craploads of dirt to get to something buried under yet more craploads of dirt, and if you don't find anything, you're effectively nothing more than an extremely overeducated ditch digger."

"Sounds pretty jaded," Kit said. It was also an answer that threw her some. She'd expected an educated accounting of what a field supervisor's job entailed.

"Just giving you a reality check," Marc replied. While scanning a low section cut into the excavated wall, he said, "So, do you plan to hang around here with the mosquitoes and snakes and tropical diseases, or go find a cushy site somewhere else?"

"Still sounding jaded." Kit slapped at the umpteenth mosquito to land on her in the last five minutes. "Actually, I've had my fill of these things—" she flicked the dead mosquito off her arm "—along with tarantulas, poisonous snakes, venomous scorpions, and all the other jungle creatures I've shared this pit with. I'm ready to cross the northern border again."

"All in a day's work," Marc said. "So what does the US have that guarantees a sterile excavation site?"

"I don't mind ordinary bugs," Kit replied. "It's the ones that stick their pointy abdomens in me and squirt venom that I'm opposed to. There are too many here. But bugs aside, I'm interested in the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest and I'd like to supervise the excavation of a midden or an Indian mound, maybe uncover the site of a village."

For the longest time Marc said nothing, just remained crouched, his hand with the trowel motionless, but the look on his face was distant, and troubled.

After an inordinate amount of time, Kit said, "If you stay like that too long, the world will turn on in the lathe of time and cover you up, and some futuristic archaeologist will have the tedious burden of using tiny lasers to move craploads of dirt a grain at a time to dig you out."

"The world will turn on the lathe of time," Marc mused, repeating a line she'd just said. "So, you know the poem too." He looked up at her with curiosity.

Kit was more than just a little intrigued, not only with the man, who'd just thrown her a curve in the form of knowing a poem, but with the look on his face. It actually indicated a hint of interest. "I memorized it for a poetry reading competition a decade ago," she said.

"Can you recite it?" Marc asked.

Kit shrugged. "Probably the first few lines."

"Go ahead."

"Are you serious?" When Marc said nothing, she realized he was. "Umm, it starts...
When you were a tadpole and I was a fish in Paleozoic time, side by side on the ebbing tide we sprawled through the ooze and the slime. Or skittered with many a caudal flip, through the depths of the Cambrian fen, my heart was rife with the joy of life… for I loved you even then
..."

She paused, distracted by the intense look in Marc's eyes, and their color. It was unusual, gray-green that seemed to darken into greenish-brown as she'd recited. Until then, she'd never looked directly at him long enough to notice his eyes. It wasn't only the color, but the intensity, like he was peering into her soul. Which, if anyone could, it would be Marc Hansen.

The man was an enigma.

When she didn't continue, because she'd completely lost track of the lines, Marc picked up where she'd left off, saying, "
Mindless we lived and mindless we loved, and mindless at last we died, and deep in the dirt on the Caradoc drift, we slumbered side by side. The world turned on in the lathe of time, the hot sands heaved amain, till we caught our breath from the womb of death and crept into light again
." Returning to dragging his trowel, he said, "So, you want out of the rainforest."

Kit slapped at another mosquito. "Definitely. I've applied for the job as curator of archaeology at the Museum of Indian Arts in Santa Fe, but it's a long shot. Minimum qualification’s a masters, which I have, but a PhD’s preferred, and they want five years field work and I'm short on that. So, to be ready next time an opportunity like that comes along, I need supervisory work overseeing an excavation. If I can find an Indian mound in a region where there isn't 140 inches of rain a year, at least I won't be trailing my tail through the ooze and the slime."

"Yeah, but if you start excavating an Indian mound you'll piss off the locals by digging up their forebears' graves and shipping the good stuff off to a museum somewhere."

"No," Kit replied, "I'll be an efficient field supervisor and get my team to move the museum to the dig site to make things easier." To her shock, Marc smiled. She didn't know he could. And man, did that smile heat things up.

"There's a washcloth in a bucket by the entrance," Marc said. "You look hot."

Which was true, but not in the sense he thought. Then maybe Marc Hansen wasn't used to women getting the hots when he was around. Nothing about his demeanor hinted of a male come-on. Ever. After mopping her face with the washcloth she said, "So then, what are your plans when we're done? Do you want to stay around here sharing your space with snakes and spiders and killer bees, or move on to a cushier site?"

"Stay around here." Marc stood, and her attention was drawn to the sizeable amount of bare muscular chest exposed by his unbuttoned shirt.

"Stay around here and do what?" Kit asked. At least the man was talking.

Reaching for a shovel he said, while slicing off a sliver of dirt, "I've applied to head a team of archaeologists working with a group of physicists at Cahal Pechto. If I get the position, it'll pave the way for heading digs all over Central and South America and other parts of the world."

"I take it you don't plan to put down roots anywhere," Kit said, and tried not to sound disappointed. But after three weeks of observing and studying the man she'd hoped to spark his interest. Actually, she'd hoped to generate a lot more than that, but time was running out.

"I have put down roots," Marc replied. "It's a storage unit in Austin, Texas."

Definitely not a family man, Kit decided, but that didn't necessarily mean he was a lost cause. "So what's going on at Cahal Pechto?" she asked.

Marc shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it aside. "The head of the project believes the pyramid there has rooms and chambers inside and he plans to use muon tomography to map them."

Kit moved around to the opposite side of the excavation to where she could watch Marc from a distance, not because she wanted to put space between them, but because she simply liked the way he looked. "I've heard about muon tomography, but it's too technical for me," she said, intrigued by the play of muscles in Marc's abs each time he shoved his foot against the shovel. His chest wasn't half bad either, and with the sheen of perspiration on his skin bringing his torso into high relief, she noticed there wasn't an ounce of flab on him. Anywhere.

"It's not all that complicated," Marc said. "Cosmic-ray muons are penetrating particles that rain down from the upper atmosphere to sea level as they're created in the decay of light hadrons that get produced in energetic collisions between primary cosmic rays and the nuclei of nitrogen or oxygen of air."

"Pretty basic stuff," Kit replied, with irony.

"Yeah," Marc agreed, seeming oblivious to the fact that she was being sarcastic. "The team's building particle detectors that will track the muons and reconstruct tomographic images of the structures, which will enable the archaeologists to know what's there before starting in."

"Interesting," Kit said, while staring at the hunkiest guy she'd ever seen, wishing he wasn't such an android.

"The way it works," Marc continued, "since the energy frequencies of muons change, depending on the density of the material they've encountered, muons tell a story about what’s in the layers of the ground."

"Remarkable," Kit said, wondering if he lifted weights in the evening while the rest of the males in the crew were hunting females.

"Yes it is remarkable," Marc replied, failing completely to get it, which had Kit smiling.

He set the shovel aside and walked over to the bucket. Dragging the washcloth from the water, he mopped it over his face, and around his neck, and down his chest, making a swirl over it, then dipped the washcloth again and ran it across the hollow beneath his ribs, drawing Kit's eyes to the beads of water collecting along the waistband of his khakis and down to a dampen a masculine bulge that was getting dark from the dribble. "It's pretty exciting," he said.