Virtue Falls (18 page)

“Where did Elizabeth go?” he asked.

Margaret winced.

“God. Damn. It.” He pushed back the chair, stood, and paced away. “She went to her fucking dig, didn’t she?”

“Language!”

“You taught me that language.”

“That’s no excuse,” Margaret said. “But yes, she did. She called.”

“She
called
?” He spun to face her.

“She called, and it rang through.” Margaret relaxed and smiled. “It would seem cell service has been restored.”

Garik took his phone out. He shook his head. “Restored … sporadically.” He could hardly contain his annoyance. “Has it occurred to Elizabeth that there’s been a major earthquake and tsunami, and another one could arrive at any time and sweep her away?”

“She knows that, none better, but she also noted that since we recovered Kateri, the number of aftershocks have markedly deceased.” Margaret seemed bemused.

“When I was in Portland, I heard Kateri Kwinault was lost.” Garik knew her. Not well, but he knew her. “She’s found?”

“Here in the bay.” Margaret brushed a tear away. “Cracked spine. Both hips broken. Ribs, arms, legs, feet, hands … bones broken and crushed everywhere. She’ll require reconstructive surgery. She’ll never be the same.”

Garik scrubbed his face with his hands. “God in heaven. What’s the prognosis?”

“She may live, but if she does, she’ll never walk again.”

“The Coast Guard’s taking care of things?”

“For her care? Yes. She’s getting the best care Seattle can offer, and the newspapers are painting her as a hero. But the government…” With an Irishwoman’s contempt for authority, Margaret said, “What a bunch of morons.”

“What’s the government doing?”

“In town, there’s talk that the government is going to charge her with incompetence in the loss of the cutter.”

“Not surprised. I know the stupidity of the bureaucrats better than most.” Hated it more than most, too. “But I don’t understand—what would Kateri have to do with aftershocks?”

“Her Native American relatives are talking about their legends, especially the one about the frog god. They think she saw him and he gave her powers.”

“I’m so glad you told me. I feel one hundred percent better.” When Margaret didn’t answer, he said, “That was sarcasm!”

“Yes, dear. I’m not deaf or stupid. Push that ottoman up, will you?”

He did as he was told, and helped her lift her feet onto it. “I wish you would remember how old you are and make allowances.”

“I wish I could forget how old I am, but my body won’t let me,” she snapped. “Now—would you like a map of the canyon where Elizabeth is working?”

“Yes.” He looked down at himself and sighed. “But no matter what, I’ve got to shit, shower, and shave before I go see her.”

“You do have a manly aura.” Margaret waved a dismissive hand at him.

He grinned, and stood. “Eighteens hours of moving timber out of the road, sweating, and driving to get here from Portland, so don’t give me any trouble, Margaret.”

“Of course not, boyo. I put you in the Pacific Suite downstairs. I’m sure that when you’re presentable, Elizabeth will still be in the canyon.” Margaret sighed. “Give me a hand onto my bed. Now that you’re here, I can sleep. You damned kids keep me worried all the time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Elizabeth knelt in the drying mud at the place where twenty-five years of excavation had once been, and took photos and measurements, and treasured every moment of being alone, in charge, without the team … when a shiny pair of size eleven black shoes stepped into her field of vision.

She stared at those shoes, musing at her own immediate, visceral reaction: amusement that anyone had tromped down a steep, nonexistent wilderness trail wearing such inappropriate footwear, a probably futile hope she wouldn’t have to defend her activity here, and most of all, the hard, rapid heartbeat caused by breathing the same air as Garik Jacobsen.

Because she knew it was him.

His presence always made her heart beat faster, in anticipation of a fight, or of good sex, or in this case, of simply seeing him after more than a year of wrenching separation. She had known separation was the right thing to do, and she had known, too, that the anguish would gradually fade. But it hadn’t yet, and here he was, all shiny-shoed and spiffy.

Gradually, dragging out the anticipation, she lifted her eyes to examine the starched black khakis, the black golf shirt, the broad, stiff neck, and the handsome, disapproving face.

She couldn’t remember the last time Garik Jacobsen had looked at her with anything but disapproval.

Reason number one she had hiked out of their marriage.

He’d grown his hair out; the blond ends curled around his earlobes and down his neck, and that was weird. He’d kept his head shaved before, he said to avoid giving the bad guys something to hold on to. This look softened him a little, made him less action hero and more … whatever. He looked good.

His eyes were still the most striking gold-speckled green she’d ever seen, accented by lashes dark and so long they tangled when he blinked. He’d had the guts to gripe about his lashes once while she’d been applying mascara; he’d ended up with a black blob on his white shirt, one that never came out.

He had quite an aristocratic nose, pronounced, thin, and crooked. At some point before she’d met him, he’d had it broken. He looked down that nose now, without smiling.

“What’s wrong
now
?” It seemed as if she was picking up the conversation where they left off.

“Why would you say something was wrong?” His voice was the same; deep, dangerous, derisive. “Three days ago, there was an earthquake.”

“Almost four!”

“There are still a hundred aftershocks a day, some of them sizable. And you’re down in the canyon where the tsunami struck, looking at rocks.”

She considered the best way to answer him. “You have a point—”

“Really?”

“But I didn’t mean to come down here. I went for a walk and found myself at the canyon rim, and wandered down…”

“You have tools,” he said icily.

Busted
. “Well, yes.”

“The tools at the previous site have to have been swept away, ergo, you brought them with you.”

She admitted, “I did think I might need them if I spotted anything that required investigation.”

“You stole them from Virtue Falls Resort’s gardening crew.”

“I didn’t
steal
them! I
borrowed
them.” She put down her trowel, then defiantly picked it up again.

“You’re wearing gloves. You brought gardening gloves to protect your hands.”

“During the earthquake, I hurt my hand.” She looked at the glove on her left hand. “I cut it. I have stitches.”

“You have stitches and you came out here to work?” His voice rose.

“There hasn’t been an aftershock of more than five-point-zero for the last twenty-four hours. In fact, since yesterday afternoon, the seismic activity has markedly diminished.” Although she, as a logical scientist, did not believe the change was the result of Kateri’s rescue.

In a tone of exquisite sarcasm, Garik said, “A noted geologist of my acquaintance once told me an earthquake can occur anytime, especially along the Pacific Rim.”

“The descent to this site was easy and if climbing became necessary, the return could be swift.” Damn. She sounded defensive.

“That same geologist said that frequently one large earthquake triggers another, and landslides are a frequent consequence, which would make the ascent hazardous if not impossible.”

She tapped her saw-toothed trowel on the side of a displaced boulder. “Should another earthquake occur in the same location, I would have time to seek a way out before the tsunami arrived.”

“That noted geologist once told me—”

“Would you stop quoting me to myself?” She took a breath and pushed a dangling strand of hair off her forehead. No one ever made her lose her temper … except Garik. “I had to come down. There’s so much to see, to check on. Look at the exposed bare rock! The patches of mud!”

He lifted one shoe. The mud he stood in appeared not to impress him.

“Look at the displaced sea creatures that swept in from the tidal pools! No wonder we find their fossils in the rocks. My team is still MIA, and there’s no one else except me to…” She could see by his expression she hadn’t convinced him, would never convince him. “I brought all kinds of ropes and climbing supplies, and I’m healthy and will start up as soon as there’s the slightest sign of … Oh, to hell with it.” Sweeping her arm in an arc, she slammed it and the flat side of her trowel behind his knees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Garik had considered a grounding in self-defense necessary for the wife of an FBI agent. He had taught Elizabeth how to hit, how to fall, and most important, how to surprise her opponent.

But she’d never before gained the advantage of him.

This time, he stood on a downhill slope on the edge of a pool of mud. When she hit him, his knee buckled. He windmilled his arms. His leather-soled shoes slipped out from underneath him.

He slammed flat on his back in the soft muck. He splatted.

“Oh, dear,” she said.

He shook his head to clear it.

Mud flew from his goo-covered hair.

“Oh, dear.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

Lifting his head, he focused on her and glared.

She sputtered. Tried to contain herself. Snorted, and sputtered again.

Outrage blossomed on his face.

And she laughed until she couldn’t breathe. She laughed so hard she bent over from the waist, holding her aching ribs. She laughed so hard she had to contain tears with a dig towel pressed over her eyes. She laughed so hard, she was hiccuping.

Every time she started to slow, she looked up to see him leaning on his elbows, glaring, with black, sticky mud caking the back of his head, splattered on his shoulders, his arms, between his legs, all over those pristine, shiny black shoes … and she started cackling again.

He waited until she contained herself enough to search for a clean towel and silently offer it to him.

Grabbing her wrist—the wrist on her good hand—he pulled her on top of him and rolled.

Now she was on her back in the mud, staring up at him. And still laughing.

He was
not
laughing. He gripped her shoulders and shook her. “Do you know how scared I was that you and Margaret were hurt, were trapped in debris or swept away by a wave, were dying … and I wasn’t here to help you? Do you
know
the horrors I imagined?”

He was ranting—and the Garik she remembered did not rant. “Yes, it would have been very bad if I’d been in my apartment.”

He continued, “I drove for goddamn ever, had to throw my weight around as an FBI agent and a former Washington resident with an elderly relative to even get past the roadblocks law enforcement set up around the whole coast—”

“But I thought you weren’t FBI any—”

“—talk my way past that stupid fool of a sheriff who still thinks I’m a juvenile delinquent. Then I got to the inn, and Margaret’s all right, and she says you’re staying there, and I think my troubles are over.” His voice started rising. “Then you know what she told me?”

“She said—”

“She said you’d left to check on your rocks.”

“Not just rocks, but the results of—”

“The results of a million years of earthquakes and tsunamis that shake the ground and sweep up this river and destroy everything. Everything! For a million years!” He pointed his finger in her face. “Millions … of … years. And you have to come down here
now
to look at your rocks?”

She wasn’t laughing anymore. “I’m not careless, you know. I did call.”

“You were lucky to get through!”

“You always make me feel like the village idiot. But I’m not stupid!”

“Worse than that,” he said bitterly. “You’re dedicated.”

The injustice stung her. “You’re one to talk.”

“But when I walk into danger, it’s because—”

“I know. Because your job is important.” She could do bitter, too. “Mine is not. It can wait another million years or so.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. You’re not exactly a subtle thinker.”

He didn’t answer.

So she’d finally stumped him, finally won the fight. She didn’t feel triumphant, just let down and gray. Although perhaps she hadn’t won. For he was staring at her face, her body …

A lot of things occurred to her then, silly things: that the towel she’d used on her face had been dirty, that she had been shoveling rocks and was covered in sweat, that she’d tied a bandana around her head to try and keep her hair out of her way, that she hadn’t been sleeping well because every time she shut her eyes, she heard her father’s voice saying,
What about the bones?

“I must look like hell,” she said.

He shook his head. In a voice deep and rich and lavish with desire, he said, “You look absolutely … beautiful.”

“Ohh.” It was more of a sound than a word, a quick sip of breath as she recognized the look on his face, remembered the weight of his body, gloried in the scent of his desire.

No matter how they fought they had always been like this: balanced between anger and passion, between hurt and glory.

When they first got together, she didn’t understand how two people who had so little in common could be so madly, passionately in love.

When they split, she had realized madness and passion could never keep a couple together.

But the hunger … it still seethed between them.

The earthquake had given him reason to fear for her life.

And she had been lonely, an outcast among the townspeople and the scientific team.

Now the gold in his eyes intensified to a heated amber, the air grew thick and warm and so still it almost shimmered … and his lips descended to hers.

He kissed her.

He tasted like toothpaste and desperation. He smelled like cinnamon and teak wood and explosive need. He felt … oh, God, he felt right, his weight a memory of good times and bad, of long afternoons of leisurely sex and quick morning gropes in the shower. And the way he kissed her … familiar, with all the same moves, yet so intense it felt like the first time, a flashfire that could not be contained.