The Unforgiven (7 page)

“Enoch isn’t literal history,” Maddie protested. “It’s a myth created by an ancient scribe. I hardly think the archangel Raphael actually swooped down from Heaven with a flaming sword to wipe out a band of rogue angels. Though I concede that the story might contain some small grains of historical truth. Dr. Ben-Meir believes a group of ancient human warlords called themselves the Watchers. Maybe the band came to a violent end—at the hands of their enemies, or fighting among themselves. Over the centuries, the story was embellished with angels, magic, fiery swords, and eternal curses. Makes for much better reading than everyday mundane violence, you have to admit.”

Cade moved suddenly, abandoning his relaxed pose against the boulder. “If that’s the case—if it’s all so simple—why did you come here? Why waste your precious time?”

Her precious time.
She felt sick, suddenly. But no, she reasoned, he couldn’t know she was dying. It was just a figure of speech. But the spell was broken.

“I think I’d better go,” she said.

“No.” His tone was one of quiet command. “No, I think not. Not quite yet.”

Stunned by his audacity, she opened her mouth to protest. Before she quite realized what had happened, he was standing close. Too close. His hands, warm and large, cupped the back
of her skull. His lips were barely an inch from hers. He inhaled her startled breath and gave her a slow, wicked smile. Then he took her mouth in an aching kiss.

The ground under her feet seemed to fall away. She grabbed for him, her fingernails digging into his bare shoulders. A guttural sound vibrated in his throat. His hands tightened on either side of her head, holding her still for the invasion of his tongue in her mouth.

A burning finger of lust stroked down her body, touching her breasts, curling into her belly, contracting her womb. A hot wetness gathered on the insides of her thighs.

Her first coherent thought was that this could not be happening. This beautiful man could not possibly want her.

The second was that if it
was
happening, she didn’t want it to stop. Instinctively she found herself returning the kiss. She opened her mouth and tangled her tongue with his. He tasted so good, she thought in a daze. Like freedom. Like life.
Why not have him?
she thought recklessly. She’d vowed not to waste a minute that was left to her. Why not let him . . .

Abruptly, he released her and stepped back. Cool desert air rushed between them. It felt like a slap in the face. She stared up at him, her lungs heaving. She was appallingly aware that her knees were on the verge of buckling. She reached backward; her trembling hands found the edge of the stone table.

For several moments, she fought to regain control over her breathing. All the while, his eyes, shadowed and inscrutable, did not leave her face.

At last she pushed free of the prop to stand on her own unsteady legs. The outline of Cade’s body silhouetted a faint glow of dawn.

“I . . . I’ve got to get back.”

He held out a hand. “Come to my tent.”

She almost said yes. Every muscle, every nerve in her body
urged her to accept his offer. In fact, she’d already begun to lift her hand, to place it in his, when an aura of red light appeared about his head and shoulders.

Her lust evaporated, annihilated by a wave of debilitating fear. She spun away, clutching her midsection, gagging on a surge of bile. Oh God. It was back. Suffocating fear descended, paralyzing every other reality but the one she least wanted to face: death.

“Maddie—”

“No,” she choked out. Tears blurred her vision. She held up a hand, as if to ward him off. “No. I can’t. I . . . Please. Don’t ask me.”

“
Caraid
, wait—”

She didn’t. She ran.

He didn’t follow.

“So where did that new laborer come from?” Maddie asked Hadara with studied calm the next morning over breakfast. They sat at an outdoor table set up under a shade canopy near the trailer that served as their kitchen. “You know, the hot one with all the tattoos?”

Hadara sipped her coffee and smiled. “The god, you mean?”

Maddie spread more jam on her bread. “Yes. He’s not Israeli. In fact, he’s Welsh. What’s a guy like that doing hauling rocks in the Negev?”

The Israeli woman shrugged. “All I know is that he showed up a few days ago asking for work. I don’t think Dr. Ben-Meir asked too many questions. He wants the new site cleared quickly, and that Welshman is strong as an ox.” She grinned. “And . . . how do you say it? Eye candy?”

Maddie laughed.

Ari and Gil joined them. Hadara shifted over to make room. Maddie hid a smile. From the sour expression on Ari’s face, he’d overheard Hadara’s last comment.

“We will open the new area in a few days, I think,” he said, pulling up a chair very close to Hadara’s. “Then the laborers will be dismissed.”

Hadara caught Maddie’s eye and smiled. “Perhaps not,” she said. “Dr. Ben-Meir may have other tasks for such strong men.”

She sent a significant glance across the excavations,
seemingly oblivious to Ari’s scowl, though mischief danced in her dark eyes.

Maddie followed Hadara’s nod. Sure enough, Cade Leucetius was already at work, his dark head wrapped against the sun. Her body responded, tensing and softening in various places. She couldn’t quite remember why she’d run from his unexpected proposition last night. So what if she was seeing weird lights? So what if she was scrawny and nothing great to look at? In a few months she’d be dead. If she could only stop thinking about the end, she might be able to enjoy all that strength and beauty. At least for a little time.

Why not?
Because he frightens me so badly.
She wasn’t exactly sure why. She only knew that as strongly as Cade drew her, an instinctive fear tugged her in the opposite direction.

In a few days he’d likely be gone. The thought set her stomach churning. But why should it? He was nothing to her. As for his kiss—In the light of day, the whole episode had taken on the quality of a bizarre dream. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if it had even happened. Maybe she’d been asleep in her bed the whole time.

Her gaze crept back to him. He had his back to her. An angry red scar angled above his left shoulder blade. A recent injury? It looked like a knife wound. She sucked in a breath. She knew nothing about Cade Leucetius. Nothing. Just what kind of man was he?

He inserted a crowbar beneath a stone and applied force. Muscles rippled. He shifted his grip and half turned, revealing the tattooed dagger on his chest. The jeweled hilt looked real enough to grasp.

Hadara laughed softly. “Still watching our friend, I see.” With some difficulty, Maddie tore her eyes away. Ari and Gil had moved on, leaving her alone with Hadara.

“It’s kind of hard not to.”

Her roommate inhaled a long drag of her cigarette and
exhaled a stream of smoke on a sigh. “So large! And what muscles he has.”

Maddie stirred her cooling coffee and tried to look nonchalant. “If you like that kind of thing.”

“If I like? If I like? What, I ask you, is not to like?”

The way I feel when he looks at me, as if I’m something he’s about to consume.

Maddie forced a nonchalant laugh. She and Hadara carried their cups—and Ari’s and Gil’s, damn the lazy males—to the wash station. Hadara left to prepare for the day’s excavations, but Maddie lingered by the trailer, her gaze once again drawn, quite against her conscious will, to Cade Leucetius.

He heaved another stone into the wheelbarrow. Her pulse raced. He straightened and looked toward her, as if he’d known all along that she was watching. Which, she realized, he probably had. Their eyes met. Hers, she was sure, showed her chagrin. His were laughing.

Mortified, Maddie spun around. She headed toward the parking lot where the volunteer bus, just arriving, churned up a cloud of fine white dust. It was Day One for this week’s crop of American volunteers. The group, mostly teenagers, hailed from a synagogue on Long Island. Their parents had paid a steep program fee for the privilege of having their offspring work Dr. Ben-Meir’s dig. Housed for two weeks at a hotel in the nearby village of Mitzpe Ramon, the kids would dig during the day and swim in the hotel pool each evening. Trips to local tourist sites had also been arranged.

This group consisted of a dozen teens and two adult chaperones: a young rabbi and his wife. Fourteen helpers-to-be divided among Maddie and the three grad students. Dr. Ben-Meir himself never claimed a volunteer group. He preferred to visit each team briefly, schmoozing the adults while laying the groundwork for future contributions of time and money.

Introductions were made. The morning was given over to
basic instruction on archeological methods and a lecture on the history of the Negev.

After lunch, Maddie led her group of three teenagers to their assigned area. As luck would have it, the section was on the eastern edge of the site, very close to where Cade was clearing the new quadrant. As she descended the ladder into the shoulder-deep pit, she caught a glimpse of the brawny Welshman in the act of vanquishing yet another boulder.

The rock didn’t stand a chance. Maddie was very much afraid she didn’t, either.

Another headache.

A throb sprang up behind Maddie’s right eye, a small pain, one she wouldn’t have even noticed before her diagnosis, and she tried to blame it on the glare of the desert sun. The brilliant rays spilled past the edge of the shade canopy, striking her in the eye whenever she snuck a glance at Cade.

He must have cleared twice as many rocks as the two Israeli laborers working with him. His bare torso gleamed with sweat. His midnight-sexy voice whispered in her memory. She knew he’d seen her staring. Every time she accidently caught his eye and hastily looked away she could feel his amusement. Still, she couldn’t seem to stop her eyes from sliding back to him.

Didn’t the man care about sunburn? Skin cancer? No one went shirtless under the desert sun, especially not a fair-skinned Welshman. But the relentless rays didn’t seem to faze him. He worked steadily, hardly stopping for a breath or a drink.

The throbbing pressure in her temple increased. Her vision blurred. She took off her glasses, cleaned them on her shirt, and readjusted the sides.

With effort, she refocused her attention on her charges: three boys, ranging in age from thirteen to sixteen. Two of
them—Josh and Jake—were brothers. Not twins, but alike enough to keep Maddie guessing. The third boy, Ben, was skinny and awkward.

Armed with trowels and stiff-bristled brushes, the three teens had spent the last few hours diligently scraping layers of dirt and gravel into shallow buckets. At regular intervals, they’d climbed out of the pit to sift the scrapings through a sieve. But Maddie could tell the drudge work was already getting old.

She sighed. It was only Day One. And they were lucky enough to be working in the pit that housed the dig’s most exciting find, the rock-lined foundation of an early Canaanite well. Other relics had been unearthed in the pit as well: pottery shards, a charcoal pit, a bronze taper with a chiseled end, a small cache of bronze blades. Nearby, they had discovered an oblong stone Simon was sure was a primitive anvil. Ben-Meir theorized an ancient forge had once been located near the well. He was eager to discover more, to find some proof that the settlement had belonged to the Watchers.

Maddie glanced again in Cade’s direction, then muttered a curse and looked away when she realized he and his loaded wheelbarrow were headed in her direction. The path to the rubble pile ran along the edge of Maddie’s pit.

She held her breath as he passed, his knees level with her eyes. The snake tattoo winding his left calf was so lifelike, it looked as if it might slide down his leg and slither away. The creature reminded her of the snake she’d shooed out of the hut the night before. She made a mental note to be sure that tonight the door remained firmly closed and latched.

Cade dumped the wheelbarrow’s contents. The axle creaked as he retraced his steps. His eyes caught hers as he passed. The subtle flare of his nostrils, and the challenging shift in his stance as he eyed her, caused Maddie’s stomach to flip. The reaction was part sexual awareness, part fear. It wasn’t a far
reach at all to imagine Cade Leucetius as predator, herself as prey.

At the moment, however, Cade’s only attack was his slow, wicked grin. A direct hit. Raw desire stabbed downward from her breasts to her womb. Her thighs contracted. Her knees actually wobbled. He tossed her a smug look.

Blue, she realized. His eyes were blue. The most vibrant blue Maddie had ever seen. An absolutely piercing color. Those eyes held her completely captive for five erratic beats of her heart.

Finally, he was past. She jerked her head around, cheeks burning. How humiliating, to have no control over her body’s response to a man. How frightening. If she was ever alone with him again . . . Just the thought of it produced a confusing mixture of raw arousal and suffocating terror.

What, exactly, was she afraid of? She couldn’t put a finger on it. And she was afraid to examine the feeling too deeply. She just knew that Cade Leucetius disturbed her on some instinctive level. At the same time, she was attracted to him like crazy. Oh, why couldn’t the man just vanish?

He would, she reminded herself, in a few days. Or at most a week.

A lot could happen in a week.

The teens, plugged into their iPods, chattered loudly as they worked. Maddie bent her head and concentrated on scraping dirt into her bucket. It was nothing but dust and grit; the largest pebble was the size of a pea. She made a note in her field log and moved a few steps to the right, hoping for more fertile ground.

Her headache made it harder and harder to concentrate. The vise constricting her scalp tightened. The pain was impossible to ignore. She muttered a curse and tore off her glasses. Even before her diagnosis, they’d given her headaches.

Of course. That was the problem. Her glasses. Not the tumor. Please God, not the tumor.

She pressed her fingers to her temples. The throbbing eased. When she opened her eyes, she froze. The entire world had changed.