The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (12 page)

"Let me go," she
grunted. "I have nothing more to say!"

His answer was to pick her up and
carry her, like a dangling doll, down the shaft, into Main Chamber A, and down
a steep, dangerous stairwell designated Stairwell B. He almost lost his footing
half way down because she was squirming so much. He carted her into long
passageway named Corridor C, partially destroyed by sabotage the previous year
but still structurally sound. Kathlyn kicked and twisted, struggling against
him with all her might, but he was just too strong.  When they entered a large,
high-ceilinged chamber designated Chamber D, she managed to trip him up and
they fell together on the hard-packed ground. Marcus took the brunt of the
fall. But he didn't let her go and he didn't get up. He just lay there, with
her against him.

"Now," he tasted blood
in his mouth where he had bit his tongue when he fell. "I don't know how
this got so out of hand, but it's going to stop right now. I'm not going to let
you risk your life because you're mad at me."

Kathlyn's head was back against
his shoulder. She could feel his hot breath on her left ear. "Let me go,”
she said through clenched teeth.

“Not until we hash this out.”

She knew him well enough to know
that he would not release her until he was satisfied. For the longest time, she
didn’t say a word. “I'm not doing anything I haven't already done at some time
in the past,” she said finally. “Danger is a part of my game and you know
it."

"You don't have to keep
reminding me of what you've done in the past. I know what you've done. But that
was then; this is now. I am asking you, as your husband, to respect my wishes
on this Iraq thing. I'm not trying to control you or manipulate you. I just
don't like the feel of the whole thing."

"You liked it well enough yesterday
when we were doing things your way. Now that we're not, it's like you're
throwing a temper tantrum just to get your way. And I'm not going to give in on
this, Marcus. You might as well know."

"And you might as well know
that the only reason I agreed to go along with this in the first place was
because we were doing it the right way; taking the time to properly excavate.
Don't you see what you're doing? You're going to go crashing in there, tearing
up the place, and then leaving. It's just not right, Kathlyn. Can't you see
that?"

 In his grasp, she had relaxed.
Now she just lay there, staring up at the string of lights that illuminated the
massive chamber with paintings of Nut and Geb across the ceiling in rich shades
of blue and gold.  Their father, the air god Shu, stood beneath his children
and lifted them up with his long snaking arms.

"You need to have more faith
in me than that," she said quietly. "I'm not an idiot, Marcus. I'm a
trained archaeologist, just like you. I know what is right and what is wrong.
If you want to know the truth, the only real reason I'm going with Fayd is to
make sure he really doesn't rip up the site. I don't trust him. I feel the need
to watch him, because truthfully, it's a fact of life that he's going to have
the chance to excavate the angel before me. I don't have any funding or any
permits, and no real hope in the near future of getting any. So if I can't do
it, I need to watch over the person who is."

Their anger was cooling. Marcus
began to see the motivation behind all of this and cursed himself for being
stupid enough not to have realized it sooner. Still, he wished she had told him
rather than assuming he could read her mind.

"So the bottom line is, even
if you stay here with me like I want, Fahdlan is still going."

"Exactly."

"And you need to keep an eye
on him."

"Yes."

Marcus blew out a heavy sigh.
"So why don't you tell me any of this? Why do you just turn your back on
me and act like I'm trying to manipulate you with my genuine concerns?"

"Don't turn this all around
on me. You're explosive and demanding. It's not a matter of my turning my back;
when you reach a certain point, you just refuse to listen.  Come hell or high
water, you were going to forbid me to go to Iraq, and that's not fair. This is
a marriage, Marcus, not a dictatorship. If you really don't want me to do
something, talk to me rationally. Don't blow up and start throwing around
ultimatums."

His grip on her loosened.
"Maybe I blow up because I see no other way of communicating with you.
Once your mind is set, there's nothing I can do or say to change it. I know I
have a temper, but in your case, it's a release of frustration. Sometimes I
feel like nothing I say matters to you at all so I have to resort to brute
strength to get my point across, like now."

It struck her that he was very
correct. She expected him to understand her completely, yet she didn't give him
the same courtesy.  With a sigh, she sat up and looked at him.

"I'm sorry," she said.
"Call it stubbornness, or independence, or whatever, I guess I don't like
to be told what to do. Not even by you."

He sat up next to her. "I
don't do it to be mean. But sometimes I just don't understand you."

She looked away, her gaze moving
over the treasured trappings of the ancient chamber. "I’m not asking you
to. But I do wish you would just trust me.”

“And I wish, for once, you would
act like I have a say in something as serious as this.”

Now she was feeling bad. “You
have a say in everything, Marcus, whether serious or inconsequential.”

“You don’t act like it.”

“I respect you and your opinion
more than anyone else on this earth. You’re my most powerful voice of reason.”

“Then prove it. Listen to what I
say sometimes.”

“So you don't want me to
go?" she asked softly.

 He thought carefully about his
reply. He could see two legitimate sides to this argument and was trying to be
as unbiased as possible. "More than the methods you guys are going to use,
I don't like the fact that you'll be in the midst of the Iraqi military. That
scares the hell out of me, Kathlyn."

"But Fayd's grandfather is a
general. They wouldn't dare touch me."

"It just takes one
idiot."

"So what do you want me to
do? Tell me and I'll do it."

He gazed at her profile, feeling
himself relent. He knew how much this meant to her, how passionate she was
about her work. He was such a weakling because he knew he couldn’t deny her
anything, right or wrong. "We'll go together," he reached up and
stroked her long hair. "If you're going to watch over Fayd, then I'm going
to watch over you."

"Will you excavate it?"

He cocked an eyebrow. "If I
only have ninety six hours, I'll do it my way. And no argument from you or Fahdlan.
Understood?"

"Understood."

"Okay," he kissed her
on the forehead, stood up, and pulled her to her feet.  "And next time,
don't get so mad. You know I don't deal well with that."

She smiled. "You've just got
to know how to handle me."

"Ha! There is no way known
to Man proven to handle you."

She wrapped her arms around his
waist, leaning in to him. She was incredibly glad they were talking again.
Marcus was her heart and soul and she would be lost without him.

“You’ve got a pretty good grip on
it,” she assured him. “Manhandling me seems to work when all else fails.”

He rolled his eyes, leaning down
to accept her kiss. “Too much work. You put up too much of a fight.”

She kissed him again because he
tasted so good. “Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t give you much of one this time.”

He became aggressive in returning
her kisses. “Why do you think I pinned your arms? If you get one of those hands
free, I’ll have a black eye or missing teeth.”

She laughed softly and he kissed
her hard, snaking his tongue into her mouth and tasting her sweetness.  “I’m
not that bad,” she murmured.

“Oh, yes,” he breathed, a hand
moving to her full breast. “You’re that bad.”

Her bright green eyes glittered
as she unbuttoned his jeans. “So spank me if I’m that naughty.”

He couldn’t think as her hands
began to explore the sensitive, warm places inside his briefs. “I can think of
other things I’d rather do.”

“Oh, yeah?” she had a grip on his
arousal. “Like what?”

He couldn’t even answer her. All
he wanted to do was taste her. Under the gaze of the ancient gods, Marcus
turned his wife around, put her hands on the walls of the tomb, and took her
from behind. He felt kind of strange making love to her in the gloom and dust
of the tomb, but on second thought he actually found it very arousing. Kathlyn
didn’t mind at all. Any way he wanted to have her was just fine with her. She
wanted to be dominated by him, to feel his strength and power. Kathlyn clung to
him, relishing every exquisite movement and wishing they had all night to enjoy
each other.

But there were people waiting in
camp for them. An entire army of workers and archaeologists waiting to excavate
perhaps one of the more revolutionary finds ever discovered. They had already
been gone nearly forty-five minutes. Marcus helped Kathlyn straighten her hair
as she pulled up her shorts, smiling at her when her zipper got stuck and she
cursed like a sailor.

 “Temper, Dr. Trent,” he said.

 She cast him an intolerant look.
“This coming from a man who has reinvented compound four-letter words.”  The
zipper was up and her hair was straight. “My lipstick is gone, isn’t it?
They’re going to know what we’ve been up to.”

He turned her around in the
direction of Corridor C. “They’d be stupid not to.”

She took his hand and smiled.
Their teams saw them returning to camp from the dark shadows of the distant
valley and immediately hustled everyone into the vehicles in preparation for
departure. They had known what the outcome would be and they knew exactly what
had been done to achieve it. Kathlyn and Marcus were, if nothing else,
predictable. By the time they hit the motor pool, the motors were screaming and
the excitement was palpable. The time for the adventure had come.

Once they got into the backseat
of the Humvee, Kathlyn and Marcus never let go of each other, much to the
displeasure of Dr. Fahdlan. He had been hoping the tiff would last for his own
particular reasons.

Now he could see an added
complication.

CHAPTER
SIX

The trip into Iraq couldn't have
been worse if they'd tried.

The flight from Luxor to Riyadh
had gone smoothly enough, but the flight from Saudi Arabia into Iraq had been a
disaster the moment they landed in Basrah. About fifty Iraqi regular-army
soldiers were waiting for them and, as Fayd tried to reason with the commanding
officer, confiscated their equipment and began tearing through it.

This meant personal baggage as
well as professional. Kathlyn, Lynn and Juliana found themselves in the not so
unique position of calming down Marcus and Dennis as the Iraqis ripped through
their possessions. Only Tony remained moderately calm, watching the men he had
once fought against through those brilliant blue eyes. He could only hope they
didn't try to body search everyone; he was packing two Beretta 9mm handguns and
a substantial quantity of ammunition. If he was going to go down, then he was
going to take a load of them with him.

But body searches apparently
weren’t what they had in mind. They were searching the baggage out of pure
spite and curiosity. Once Fayd managed to convince the commanding officer that
the Americans were peaceful scientists, the baggage was sealed back up and
loaded on the old military trucks by, no less, the Iraqis themselves.  It was a
weird, apologetic action. When the Americans finally climbed into the trucks,
Tony and Marcus stuck with Kathlyn, while Lynn and Dennis went with Juliana.
Mark, Otis, Larry and Andy trailed behind Kathlyn's truck.

Frankly, it was a more
frightening experience for Kathlyn than when just she and Marcus had come. Too
many guns and unfriendly faces. Although she had excavated in hostile territory
before, she had never done so in Iraq and the animosity was palpable. She worried
more for Marcus and the guys than she did for herself. One wrong look and
someone would have an AK-47 shoved up his nose. And she was terrified for Tony
if he was discovered.

Fayd was aware of the tension; it
was difficult not to be. He and his brothers tried to smooth things down as
much as possible, while de Tormo perspired and complained.  He wasn't the most
pleasant man to have around and it added to the discomfort of the situation.

  They bumped and sweated over
fifty long kilometers of Iraqi desert. The sun was already up, rising along
with the temperature gauge. It was flat and desolate, almost like the barren
deserts of Southern California where the dusty land seemed to bleed into the
horizon.  At one point, Kathlyn fell asleep against Marcus, finding great
comfort in his big body.  He held her as she slept, protectively, like a great
mother bear. Tony sat on the other side of her, his brilliant eyes taking in
every movement.