Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (36 page)

And he was
calling her name.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

           
It
was when he saw the pony that Rowan knew she was near. It was like a telepathic
beam had led him from Carter’s camp in a direct line to where she now sat
huddled on the ground in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert.
He was at her side in two strides and then she was in his arms.

           
“I
knew you would come,” were the first words out of her mouth and he nearly wept
to hear them because he very nearly hadn’t.

           
“Ella,
my sweet girl,” he said cradling her beautiful face in his hands and hungrily
devouring every inch of her with his eyes. His hands moved swiftly over her
body to see if she were hurt but also to reassure himself, to feel her familiar
form in his hands again, to feel the life they had created together. She
stopped his hands on her belly and held him there. Her eyes held his.

           
“Tell
me it’s really you,” she said in a whisper. He stroked her cheek, realizing
that she thought she was dreaming.

           
“It’s
me, babe,” he said, kissing her face, her neck, her cheek. “It’s really me.”

           
She
clutched at his shirt and made a terrible hacking sobbing noise without tears
and began to shake so hard he was suddenly afraid he had found her only to lose
her in his arms. He turned to Ra who was still mounted.

           
“Throw
me the water,” he barked.

           
He
shifted her in his arms, feeling her weight and worried she should weight more.
A lot more.

           
Ra
jumped down and handed him the water pouch. Rowan saturated his handkerchief
with the water and wiped Ella’s face. He held the pouch to her lips while she
drank. When she finished she looked at him.

           
“My
pony,” she said.

           
“Ra,”
Rowan said, without looking at him. “Water her horse.”

           
Ella
sat limply in his lap and he could feel her trembling. He pulled his jacket off
and wrapped it around her shoulders.

           
“Don’t
let go of me, Rowan,” she said.

           
“I
won’t, beautiful,” he said. “Never again.”

           
After
he had given her a little food and more water and Ra had built a small
campfire, she lay in his arms and he told her how he had found his way to
Carter’s camp the day before and been told of a rumor of a pregnant white woman
being held at an Austrian’s duke’s palace deep in the Sahara. Carter had given
him two horses and provisions and he had left immediately.

           
“But
how did you know where to find me?”

           
“I
didn’t, sweetheart,” he said. “I was on my way to the Austrian’s palace. I
found you first.”

           
“Then
I was going the right way,” Ella said in wonder. “I was finally headed in the
right direction.”

           
“Right
to me,” Rowan said, touching a long strand of her hair.

           
She
closed her eyes and felt his arms tighten around her. “I wanted you to come so
bad,” she murmured into his shirt. “I was so afraid and half the time I was
lost.”

           
“I
know, babe,” he said hoarsely into her ear. He turned her face to him and
kissed her. “I’m here now. I’m here now for good and forever.”

 
          
“I
am so sorry, Rowan,” she said.

           
“Nothing
to be sorry about.”

           
“There
is. Your mother was right. I didn’t deserve you.”

           
“You’re
wrong about that. So was she.”

           
“Maybe
it doesn’t matter any more. Through the whole time we were apart, I always found
you in my dreams.”

           
“I
found you, too, babe.”

           
“I
knew it. I knew you did.”

           
He
touched her belly. “How far along are you?”

           
“I
think a little over eight months. It’s a boy, Rowan.”

           
He
laughed. “And how do you know that?”

           
“It’s
a long story and trust me, you’ll hear every bit of it,” she said. “But I
know
.”

           
Ella
slept after that and Rowan never moved his arms from around her. There was a
change in her, she was right about that. It wasn’t just the baby. There was a
maturity and a strength—beyond even what she had shown in Heidelberg. He
gazed at her face and wondered what she had experienced, what she had done.
What had been done to her.
But he knew,
somehow without knowing how, that her new strength had come from a source he
never would have guessed. He kissed her sleeping face and she moaned lightly.

           
It
had come from sacrifice.

           
The
next day, they were up and mounted before daylight. Rowan was concerned about
Ella riding this late in her pregnancy but there was no help for it. He had an
extra pith helmet that he affixed a long veil to that would shield her from the
worst of the sun. She didn’t want to wait another day to travel by night and he
agreed. Ra rode ahead of them.

           
She
looked rested and more herself this morning, Rowan noted. While she could
hardly take her eyes off him, she smiled more. He noticed she rode with her
hand resting lightly on her pregnant belly.

           
For
awhile, they talked of nothing serious. But he could tell there was something
bothering her. He also knew she would tell him when she was ready.

           
“You
okay, El?” He frowned at her as they rode side by side. “Need water?”

           
She
shook her head and then took a long breath. “Rowan, you know I never killed
anyone in Heidelberg.”

           
“I
guess that’s right.”

           
“I
mean, I only ever used a Taser, you know?”

           
“Ella,
you had to do it,” he said. “You know that, right? If you hadn’t killed
Zimmerman and his goon, you and Tater both would’ve died.”

           
“That’s
what I keep telling myself.”

           
“And
that’s the truth of it, darlin’.” Rowan leaned over from his horse and smoothed
her hair out of her eyes. “Because I couldn’t be there, you had to do it. You
saved our child and yourself.”

           
“But
Rowan, I thought about it first. I
pre-meditated
it.”

           
“And
thank God for it,” he said. “Those men were evil, Ella. I’m sorry you had to do
it but the fact is…” He looked at her meaningfully. “…you had to do it. There
was no way I was going to get to you in time.”

           
They
rode in silence for a while before she spoke again. “This is the second time
you’ve traveled through time to find me.”

           
“Yeah,
about that.” He removed his hat and scratched his head. “I gotta say I’m
getting a little tired of always needing to do that.”

           
“I’ll
never leave you again, Rowan. Ever.”

Josh Spenser sat
opposite Marvel at the breakfast table set in the shade of one of the few Egyptian
balsam trees. He never stayed for breakfast. He always grabbed a roll and
chugged down a cup of joe and was at the dig site long before now. He knew
Carter didn’t care. The man was in his own private world. Barring every bit of
scaffolding coming crashing down on his head, he didn’t take notice of much
around him. Josh assumed that that kind of fanatical focus was probably
required to get to where he had gotten in his profession. He, himself, was a
big believer in not letting things distract him from the job at hand.

Which is why he
was so surprised to find himself sitting at a breakfast table at eight in the
morning drinking tea and chewing cold toast. He watched his dining companion
whenever she shifted her gaze to the horizon or some other object of interest
to her other than himself.

By God, she was gorgeous. How did she keep that skin looking
like that out here in all this dry heat? She looked like a flower that just
stepped out of a garden.
He
flushed at the thought. He sounded like an idiot even to himself.

“I wanted to thank
you again, Mr. Spenser,” she said reaching for the milk pitcher to add to her
teacup, “for allowing Mr. Pierce and myself to join your society. I very much
hope we are not interrupting your work.”

There it was again. That whole “we” thing she had going with
Pierce. What was the story with that? Wasn’t Pierce off looking for his wife?

He cleared his
throat. “Not a problem,” he said. “Remind me again of your connection with
Pierce? He a relative by marriage or something?”

He watched her
squirm then and suddenly the pieces of their situation begin to shape up to
create a picture.

“No, no,” she
said, stirring her tea. “He works for me.” She paused and then blushed darkly
which Spenser noted he did not like
at
all
. “But we are friends.”

“And you met over
here?”

“We did. He has
been of service to me while I was living in Cairo.”

“In between him
looking for his wife.”

“That’s right.”

He had to admit
she was cool. If there
was
something
going on between those two, she wasn’t about to admit it. Not yet anyway. Not
with Pierce off making a fool of himself racing around the damn Sahara trying
to find someone who had probably died and been eaten by jackals months ago.

“But I am an
amateur student of archaeology,” she said, obviously trying to change the
subject. “So when Mr. Pierce told me he had an
entre
into Mr. Carter’s operation here at KV62, well, I jumped at
the opportunity.”

“Yeah, there’s
been a lot of interest from the outside,” Spenser said, nodding in the
direction of the perimeter of the camp where Carter had posted guards to keep
the media and tourists away.

“Five months ago,
that was
me
you were keeping off the
dig site,” Marvel pointed out to him.

He vaguely
remembered her from that first visit. At the time, he’d been in a lather about
the two women who had just run off. If he’d taken the time to actually
look
at Marvel, he knew he would’ve
reacted differently.
Then
she was
just a pest to be gotten rid of.
Now
…

“Would you…I
mean, do you have an interest in seeing the actual dig site?” The words were
out of his mouth before he knew he was forming them. All he really knew was
that he needed to get back to work.

And he didn’t want to leave her.

She dropped her
teaspoon against her teacup in a musical clang and looked up at him, her mouth
forming a perfect
O
of surprise. “Really?”
she said.

He saw her
delight spread to her face and her ample bosom within her khaki blouse heaved
with excitement. Knowing that
he
had
caused that reaction in her …it was all he could do not to lean over and kiss
her right then. Instead, he looked down at the table and found himself
mumbling. “Sure. If you want. We could go now.”

She stood up and
swept her pith helmet off the table and into her hands. “I am ready when you
are, Mr. Spenser,” she said brightly.

Life was so funny
,
Marvel thought as she wound her long hair up into a chignon and secured it with
pins.
Just when she thought she and Rowan
were finally breaking past his obsession with his wife—that night on the
boat had been positively magical even if it had ended with just a few
passionate kisses on the deck—he runs away on some hare-brained excuse.
Obviously he felt more for Marvel than was comfortable for him—at least until
he accepted the fact that his wife
wasn’t
coming back. So while it was mildly humiliating for him to rush off like
that—and certainly discouraging after
the
kiss
—she had to admit—and she put her hairbrush down on her
table when the thought hit her:
she
didn’t care all that terribly much.

Now why would that be?

She patted her
coif and picked out a pair of dangling earbobs to wear at dinner. She liked how
they drew attention to her long neck, one of her best attributes, she knew. The
great man, Howard Carter, hadn’t dined with them yet which, as it turned out,
was just fine. Marvel found him distracted and unforthcoming. Perhaps that was
due to the first evening when she had bombarded him with questions and
flattery. But she couldn’t help it.
He
was Howard Carter!
They were going to
discover the tomb of one of the wealthiest pharaohs of all time!
There was
a
reason
the crowds lined up three
people deep to get a glimpse of Mr. Carter and his dig.