Kathlyn Trent, Marcus Burton 01 - Valley of the Shadow (19 page)

He gazed at her for a long moment. "So we're not getting married?"

She cooled a bit, pain evident in her expression. "Only if you and I come to an understanding."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I agree completely and here are the terms. Number one, I will let you go at it when you do these crazy things you do. I'll learn when to jump in and when not to jump in. Number two, you said you wouldn't mind having somebody take charge of you. I'm willing to do it. But in order to do it, you need to listen to me once in a while. You don't listen worth a damn."

She looked like a scolded child. "You need to listen to me, too."

"I do, sweetheart,” he insisted. “But when you're down in a pit full of bugs, the only thing I'm thinking of is scorpion stings and we're miles from the nearest doctor. I'm not listening to you tell me that there's an injured woman you need to save when forty Marines are ready and willing to help her instead."

"All I could see was a woman who needed help. I wasn't waiting around for anyone else to do it."

He sighed. "And I admire that. But as we've said repeatedly, you and do things differently."

"Is that bad?"

He shook his head. "No. But it's going to take some adjustment."

She could feel herself relenting because he was. "I know."

"Still want to marry me?"

"Do you still want to marry me?"

"I love you,” he said softly, sincerely. “There's no doubt I want to spend my life with you."

She was silent. Then, she took a couple of steps and fell right into him. He put his muscular arms around her, holding her tightly.  Her warmth, her softness, overwhelmed him and he closed his eyes at the pure sweetness of it, burying his face in the top of her head.

Lost in his big arms, Kathlyn was feeling the same relief and contentment that he was. "I don't know if you can handle a wife like me," she mumbled into his shirt.

Face still planted into her head, he grinned. "It's me or nobody. I'm probably the only one willing to put up with it."

"Don't be mean," she snuggled close to him. "I'll try to do better, I promise. But I'm used to doing my own thing without anyone to answer to."

"I'm not asking you to stop. Just listen to me once in a while."

"I promise I will. Just don't be so stubborn about it."

"I'm stubborn? Christ, woman, you invented the term."

He continued to hold her, listening to her giggle, thankful that the storm had blown over. But there was one more thing.

"What's this I hear about Israel?” he asked quietly.

She looked up at him, rather guiltily. "I was mad at you. I told Dougray I'd go immediately."

“Are you?

She shrugged. "I finished the article. Andy and Larry are doing preliminary filming that will be incorporated into the cable program. Dougray doesn't want to call in a film crew for the rest of it until you start excavating the sarcophagus and that's not going to be for some time yet. So he wants me to go to Israel and do some preliminary work for a program he's going to call 'The Discovery of the Escarpment'. It shouldn't take more than three or four weeks, and then I'll be back."

Marcus remembered his promise not to stop her from doing her work. Three or four weeks seemed like an eternity. "When will you be leaving?"

  "Probably in the next few days. He already has an Israeli film crew standing by waiting for me."

His jaw ticked as he struggled not to become upset. "Abrahams can't be too thrilled about it. He wanted you to do the same thing and you quit."

She shrugged. "He and Dougray are working something out. I've been associated with SCU for a long time and it's always good to have a university affiliation, as you know.  I've agreed to renew my association but under Dougray's sponsorship. It's kind of complicated, but it basically means I can do whatever I want."

"Just the way you like it."

"Don't be so quick about that. Dougray has expressed interest in you, too. Apparently your little question and answer session at the press conference got a few female pulses racing. You’re well-spoken, brilliant and blindingly handsome. Who knows? Someday you may have my job."

He didn't say anything, apparently unimpressed that women around the world had just had their first taste of him and liked it. They began walking back toward the dig site, hand in hand.  She sensed his silence as something of a brooding mood.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him softly.

He gazed up at the slope in the distance, his cobalt blue eyes the color of precious lapis lazuli under the brilliant Egyptian sun.

"I'm thinking that I want to go with you to Israel,” he said quietly. “But I can't shut this dig down to do that."

"Maybe we should get married before I go."

He looked at her, startled. "Really?”

"Really."

He smiled timidly. "I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.  I'll put McGrath on finding a justice of the peace or someone that will come here and do it."

"I don't think they have those guys in Egypt."

"We'll find somebody. A witchdoctor for all I care."

“Can we get married in the tomb?”

His smile grew. “That’s the most perfect place I can think of. It’s where it all started for us.”

She smiled broadly at him and he swung her up in his arms, hugging her tightly as he carried her up to the shaft.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Eight weeks later

"Marcus, you have to see this!" Lynn popped his head into Marcus' tent. "Your wife is on WNN news!"

Marcus had been working on a diagram of the sarcophagus chamber, doing load calculations of the weight of the massive granite block so they could figure out what it would take to secure the lid. But Lynn's excitement was catching and Marcus leapt up, turning on the small television in his tent. He had talked to Kathlyn on the phone only yesterday but he hadn't seen her in more than a month. He almost didn't care what she had to say; he just wanted to see her.

The World News Network's familiar logo was lodged in the bottom of the screen in big green and white letters. Kathlyn's face filled most of it, looking as beautiful as ever as she calmly discussed the progress her team had made on the Calvary Escarpment.  It was a prerecorded tape. Dennis blew into the tent, back from Europe and skin grafting, and began telling them the same tale about Kathlyn, but Marcus and Lynn shut him up in a hurry. Marcus turned up the volume as he stared at the screen.

"Dr. Trent," the reporter was saying," what about the speculation that the blood of Christ can be found in the caves beneath the escarpment. Any comment?"

Kathryn smiled as if it was a ridiculous question. "The only thing my team and I managed to find in the cave system beneath the Escarpment was a few Roman-era relics and nothing more. What an amateur archaeologist previously indicated as the blood of Christ was, in actuality, run-off from a sewage pipe."

"But he claims to have tested it, Dr. Trent."

"His claims were false."

"So there is nothing holy beneath the escarpment?"

"That depends on what you categorize as holy. This is a very history-rich area.  What you and I would consider holy might not be applicable to someone else."

"Then the Israeli Government misled you to believe their relics were buried here?"

"I wouldn't say that they misled anyone. We certainly wouldn't know anything for sure unless we dug deep to take a look."

"So you're returning to Egypt now?"

"Yes, the dig at the Valley of the Kings is progressing and I need to return to my husband."

It was apparently an impromptu interview. Kathlyn appeared somewhat exhausted and dusty, as if they had just caught her off the dig. Glimpses of Juliana, Mark and Ed could be seen behind her as they all apparently tried to push their way through a mob of reporters. Somewhere in the distance, the distinct sounds of hecklers could be heard. In the crowd, one man began shouting loudly and naturally, all cameras turned toward him.

"Blasphemer!" he shouted. "Liar!"

The man was holding up a sign written in Hebrew. Kathlyn, however, evidently ignored the man because the cameras remained on him as he spouted off how God was going to punish her for slandering the holy covenant. He began rolling off scripture and the press was eating it up. Kathlyn was usually so cool, so knowledgeable, that a little controversy was exciting to them. And excitement got more airtime.

The cameras were in the man's face as he shouted. "Exodus 40:34 states that 'There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put at Horeb, when Jehovah made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it came to pass when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud  filled the house of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud.'" He shook his fist in the air. "You blaspheme my country with your very presence. You create a cloud that distorts the word of God."

The cameras suddenly swung around at a dizzying rate. Kathlyn had come to within a few feet of the man while their backs were turned and by the look on her face, she was about to rip the guy apart with a verbal barrage. She cocked a well-shaped eyebrow at the man.

"The scripture also states in Matthew 21:13 "And the Lord said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.'" She walked up to the man and looked him squarely in the eye. "Why do you want me to find the ark so badly? To enrich your country's wallet or to further His glory?"

On the other end of the television, Marcus and the others watched the situation unfold with awe. Marcus could only sit there and shake his head in wonder.

"Christ, she's good," he turned to Lynn and Dennis. "Try winning an argument with her. She'll kick your ass and never give it a second thought."

"That's for sure," Dennis said.  "How do you manage it?"

"I just yell a lot and hope I can get the first lick in before she plasters me."

Sitting next to the television, Lynn scratched his bald head. "I don't understand all of this. Bible study was never my strong point. How does she remember it all?"

Marcus shushed them, riveted to the screen when the conversation continued. Three months ago he would have changed the channel on her. Now, he found himself touching the glass as her face appeared. But then the heckler's face appeared and he wanted to smash the screen out.

"You shame us all with your lies," the man snarled. "God will punish you."

Kathlyn remained cool. " The Apostle John, in one of his Patmos visions, caught a glimpse of the ark and said in Revelation 11:19  'And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of the testament'. Did you stop to think that I'm not lying at all and that the Ark isn't even on earth?"

The man didn't have an answer and reverted to shouting more about her lies and blasphemy. It was at that point that the reporter came back on and signed off at the site of Kathlyn's Escarpment dig. When the news anchor appeared and started chatting, Marcus turned the television off. They all sat in silence a moment before Marcus began to snicker.

"What's so funny?" Lynn demanded.

"Nothing," he said, returning to his sketches of the sarcophagus lid. "I just didn't realize how much I missed her until I saw her just now. We've been married for two months and I've seen her exactly eleven days out of sixty."

"She's due back here in a few days," Lynn said. "You two will be fighting it out again and everything will be normal."

Marcus picked up a compass and a pencil. "Fighting wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

Lynn watched Marcus draw a careful arc on his sketch and scribble out some complicated mathematical equations as easily as if he was writing his own name. Marcus' Bachelor of Science degree had been in Physics but his love of history and digging had drawn him into a Ph.D. in Archaeology. Therefore, when calculating the weights and measurements of a project, there was no one better than Burton himself.

Lynn had some work for him up at the site and reluctantly rose from his chair. "Well, I suppose I ought to go see how much progress they've made in with the excavation of the food stuffs," he said. He gave Dennis a shove towards the door. "Let's go, man. You've got work waiting, too."

Dennis pulled his sunglasses down from his head and put them over his eyes.  On his hands he had big heavy gloves that protected his tender new skin from the elements. Although he wasn't completely healed, the doctors couldn't keep him any longer unless they wanted a mutiny on their hands. Dennis was determined to get back to Egypt and continue with what had become the lead story on every newscast for the past several weeks. He, like Kathlyn, wasn't going to let the tomb beat him.

"Gary wanted me to help him in the antechamber." Dennis turned to Marcus. "Have you noticed how weird he's gotten over that room? He's there sixteen hours a day, sketching and brushing at the mummies, but he hasn't made any real progress. It's really strange."

Marcus looked up from his drawing, thumping the eraser end of his pencil against the table. "Kathlyn will get him moving. That room affects everyone."

"It affected her worst of all."

"Which is why it will probably be the first thing she tackles,” Marcus reminded them. “Since we all have our assignments; Dennis, you're Chamber D, Lynn is Chamber E, and I have the sarcophagus room, I'll leave the antechamber to her and Gary.  Mark and Juliana can split up the Chambers A through C, and I'll bring Ed and Otis in with me." He pointed the pencil at them. "But once I'm ready to start rigging that lid, I'll need all of you."

Lynn wriggled his eyebrows. "That won't be for a while. With all of the cataloging and excavating we're doing, it's going to take years to get through all of this."

"One month," Marcus looked back to his drawing. "I'll be ready to start building a frame for lifting the lid in one month."

Lynn and Dennis looked at each other. "If he puts Kathlyn to work on it, maybe," Lynn said to Dennis.

Marcus glared at them and they beat a hasty retreat from the tent. When they were gone, he found himself staring at the television screen as if he could see Kathlyn again. He'd never missed anyone so much in his life.

***

Two days later, Kathlyn and her team arrived in the Valley of the Kings in a convoy of vehicles. It was a blazingly hot day, the sky above as clear as blue crystal. The flies were heavy in the valley and the tourists were thick, making it somewhat of a busy, chaotic scene. Adding the arrival of Dr. Kathlyn Trent and the stress level in camp on this particular day was off the scale. Everyone knew she was coming and there was great anticipation.

No one’s anticipation was greater than Marcus'. He stood in the large storage area/parking lot as the roadies pulled in the big heavy trucks carting their gear. Walter Dougray and Ronald Abrahams, who had accompanied Kathlyn to Israel because of the diplomatic significance of the dig, drove up in an air conditioned taxi while Kathlyn, Juliana, Mark and Otis pulled up in an old jeep loaned to them by the SCA. Dressed in short white shorts, a white tank top, her big boots and worn duster, she looked almost the same as she had when he had first met her. This time, however, the reception was quite different. She got out of the jeep and started walking toward him, thought better of it, and started running. He met her half way.

She was up in his arms before she realized it. She was so glad to see him that she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Crying won out until he kissed her so deeply that it drew wolf whistles from the rest of the team and then she started laughing again.

"Oh, my God," she gasped. "I'm so glad to see you, you have no idea!"

"I think I do," he hugged and kissed her furiously. "Don't think this separation was any picnic for me."

"I missed you so much."

"Me, too.” He paused to take a good, hard look at her. She looked absolutely gorgeous. “Last time I saw you on television, I just about crawled through the screen."

She just wanted to hold him. He felt bigger and harder and warmer than she had remembered and she buried her face in his neck, smelling deeply of his manly, musky scent. The roadies started to bring her gear around and she finally let him go, grabbing a couple of bags while Marcus took the rest. They carted it all off into his tent.

It was just as hot inside the tent as outside, even with the swamp cooler blowing.  Marcus set her three big suitcases to one side while she bent over to set her two smaller ones next to them. Before she could stand up and face him, he was embracing her from behind.

"You know what's going to happen now?" he murmured in her ear.

Chills raced up and down her spine. "What, besides the obvious?"

He grinned, his mouth on her tender neck. "Aside from that, you and I are now Siamese twins. I'll be damned if you're going to go anywhere again and leave me behind."

She laughed softly, savoring the feel of his lips against her flesh. It had been far too long since she’d felt him.

"God, Marcus, all I did was think about you. For the first time in my life, I felt so alone." She turned around in his arms, facing him with her hands on his face. "I feel so guilty because I did the classic Dr. Trent hit-and-run. Move it, look around, make a determination, and move out. I didn't even do my best work.  I just wanted to get back here."

"So there really wasn't anything there?"

"I didn't say that," she said softly. "I just said I wanted to get back here."

He looked at her curiously. "But you said that you didn't find anything."

"I said I didn't find anything,” she lifted her eyebrows at him. “I never said that I didn't find the ark. The Israeli Government swore me to secrecy."

Marcus was shocked. "Do you mean to say it was actually there? You found the damn thing?"

She shrugged. "I found something. I had Israeli archaeologists all over me, hounding my every move. Once we uncovered whatever it was they thought I was looking for, they shut down all the cameras and swore me to silence."

"But what about all of that scripture you recited on the news?"

"You saw that?"

He grinned. "Of course I did. You were brilliant. Now you're telling me that was all bullshit?"

She cast him a long look. "Scripture is never bullshit, Marcus. I had to do it to throw them off the trail. That was the day we had located the thing and I'd spent most of the afternoon with several diplomats on the upper levels of the government echelon. By that time, Dougray, Abrahams and I had been instructed very clearly on how I was to respond to the reporters."