Читать книгу Their Greek Island Reunion - Carol Grace, Carol Grace - Страница 7

THE HOTEL Argos was doing its best to cope with the arrival of the survivors of the ferry accident, the archaeology team and their usual clientele of summer tourists. Clearly the little hotel high on the hill overlooking the harbor was stretched almost beyond its capability. Though harried, Helen Marinokou, the longtime owner, made everyone feel welcome, and from the kitchen came the comforting smells of roasting meats and oven-baked pastas.

The charm of the wood-paneled dining room and the mouthwatering platters of food were lost on Olivia. She sat at a long table in the corner, surrounded by the members of the group, her eyes glued to the door, her stomach in knots, unable to eat even a bite of the traditional mezedes like green peppers and octopus salad the waitress set in the middle of the table. Yes, they were all there, picked up by a passing fishing boat and taken to the island. All but Jack.

Fred Staples, one of the young grad students from Jack’s university, poured glasses of retsina, the pineresin-flavored wine, for everyone at the table. When Olivia didn’t lift her glass for the toast, he gave her a puzzled look.

“You’re not worried about Dr. Oakley, are you?” he asked. “He’ll be along on the next rescue boat. Or he’ll swim to shore. I’ve been on digs with him before. Never missed a day of work. Blistering heat or hail storm. He’s amazing.”

Olivia managed a weak smile. Amazing, he was. At least to his students. They worshipped him. But he wasn’t indestructible. No one was. Not even Jack. He often said he had nine lives, but by now he must have used them up. This wasn’t the first time he’d risked his life during one of their adventures. But it was the last as far as she was concerned. The last one she’d be party to. She’d had it with Jack and his heroics.

“I’m sure he will,” she said. But she wasn’t sure at all. No one had seen him jump into the smoke and flames the way she had. No one had seen him since. No one but she knew exactly what Jack was capable of or would admit that even he was vulnerable. He was human, after all.

She’d pleaded with the captain of the fishing boat that picked them up to go back to the sinking ferry to look for him. But he refused, saying they were full but other boats were still out there looking for survivors. And not to worry about her husband. Easy for him to say.

She was sick of worrying about Jack, sick of watching him risk his life. If they weren’t married, she’d finally be able to break this bond between them and stop worrying, stop thinking about him and stop wondering what he was doing or if he was alive.

She couldn’t sit there another minute while she pictured Jack at the bottom of the sea or fighting off sharks. Was it her imagination or were the others looking at her, thinking she should be out searching for him, or at least down at the dock watching for the next boat?

Too nervous to stay there while everyone talked and laughed and ate and drank as if it was a normal dinner, she jumped up from the table and edged her way across the noisy, crowded dining room. She’d almost reached the door when Jack walked in. His face was caked with grime, he was wearing somebody else’s white T-shirt and dirty overalls, as well as his usual cocky grin. She gasped and grabbed a fistful of his grimy shirt.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

“Oh, just out for a swim. Miss me?” he asked.

“No.” She dropped her hands. “Yes.”

“Sorry I’m late.” He acted as if he’d just arrived at a faculty cocktail party. “Save dinner for me?”

Olivia choked back a storm of tears and clenched her jaw to keep from exploding in angry frustration. “Why didn’t you come with us?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with you? Did you have to wait for every last passenger to get off? Don’t you realize that this group depends on you?”

“Me? Come on, Olivia, it’s Dr. Robbins who is the head of this dig.”

Olivia looked over her shoulder at the man he was talking about. Dr. Robbins was enjoying a glass of wine at a table in the corner as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Dr. Robbins might be renowned in his field, but he’s all but retired,” she muttered. “He’s no help at all in a crisis. This whole expedition would be lost without…” She shook her head. “Never mind.” What good did it do to rant and rave? Jack would do what he had to do. He always did, he always would. She’d run out of steam and words.

“Calm down,” Jack said, taking her hands in his.

“Calm down?” she sputtered. “That’s easy for you to say. You knew where you were. We didn’t. We thought you were at the bottom of the sea. Isn’t it time you thought about someone besides yourself?”

“I was. I was thinking about you nonstop. I was thinking if I didn’t make it, you’d have to uncover that tomb by yourself. You’d get first crack at the coins and the jewelry and take all the credit. Then you’d write all the articles, get your name in National Geographic, give papers at the conferences. You think I’d let that happen?” he asked with a half smile. “Not a chance.

“Nope, I got picked up by a very nice fisherman in a trawler who supplied me with the dry clothes I’m wearing. Before that I thought I might have to swim to shore. Every time I saw a shark or a wave hit me in the face, I thought about you and what you’d do if I didn’t show up. You might say the thought of you finding those artifacts and discovering who was buried there without me motivated me.”

Olivia swallowed hard and pulled her hands away. So he’d thought about her. She’d motivated him to stay alive. Yes, that’s what he always said. But she couldn’t go through this again, watching him risk his life for someone or something else. She hadn’t known if he was alive or dead. She’d feared the worst, but he was making jokes. Good thing he didn’t know how devastated she would have been if he hadn’t made it or how racked with worry she’d been.

“I should have known what kept you going—it was your usual naked ambition, and your supercompetitive nature,” she said. “It’s you against nature or it’s you against the elements, the dust storm, the flood, the rain, whatever. So far you’ve always won. But someday, Jack, someday…” She choked. Someday he wasn’t going to make it and she was not going to be around when it happened. She’d had enough. No more heroics. No more Jack.

“Enough about me, Olivia,” he said. “What happened to you?” A small worry line crossed his forehead. “I thought you’d make it, but…I wasn’t sure.” His gaze held hers for a long moment. Just briefly she thought he might feel the same intense connection she did, that invisible thread that had joined them once. It was so strong they thought it would last forever. Now she knew that nothing lasts forever.

He scanned the room and the thread snapped. “Everyone else got here okay?”

“Yes, yes. Everyone’s fine. It’s just…I…You were the only one missing. People worry. People care about you.” The truth was no one else was as worried as she was. No, because they weren’t his wife.

“That’s good to know. You know me so well. I’m never late for dinner. Unless the boat goes down. Otherwise I wouldn’t miss the souvlaki or moussaka. I’m starving. Where’re you sitting?”

She pointed to the table in the corner just as the word went around that Jack was there. Before he got to the table, everyone got up to hug him, pat him on the back and congratulate him on escaping the burning ferry boat. Not that they’d had any doubts. Jack was a superhero. He was tough and he was charming. It was up to her to resist that charm…all summer long.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him deep in conversation with Dr. Robbins, who looked vastly relieved to see him. Perhaps he had realized he was getting too old for this kind of adventure.

The rest of the evening progressed as if the boat sinking and their rescue were just the first glitch in the summer program. There would be others, but once you’ve been on a dig, you almost expect them, and you cope. Olivia knew that. She just didn’t know how to cope with Jack at the bottom of the Aegean. Not anymore.

The food kept coming, the bouzouki music began and the dancing started. Olivia managed to relax enough to nibble on a crisp spinach-stuffed spanikopita, and make conversation while Jack made the rounds of the room to speak to everyone in the group as well as some other tourists who’d apparently heard he’d been missing. She was once again struck by his boundless energy, his ease in handling a crowd and his confidence no matter what got in his way. Confidence or not, if he thought he was going to talk her out of a divorce, he was mistaken.

It would be better for her determination to end the marriage, to forget his attributes and focus on his flaws. Like his single-minded pursuit of his career. So single-minded he’d left her behind as soon as he’d gotten the offer from California to be department head. And, of course, there were her flaws, which Jack had enumerated for her in no uncertain terms.

A few of the older group members, like Robbins, were going off to the quiet stone bungalows tucked behind the pines and olive trees. Exhausted and emotionally drained, Olivia sneaked away right after them and checked at the front desk of the hotel to find out where her room was.

“Ah, Mrs. Oakley,” Elena, the young woman at the desk said, “we’ve put you and your husband in room 203 upstairs.”

“What? Oh, no, I really need a separate room.” Certainly Jack did, too. “We…we’re really not together. No, not at all.”

Elena gave her a puzzled look. Olivia didn’t blame her. They had the same name, and legally they were still married. Should Olivia have to explain why she was separated from Jack? Why they’d drifted apart? Surely it happened everywhere, even in Greece. Not everyone lived happily ever after. Not every couple with the same last name wanted to share a room.

“I’m sorry, someone in your group mentioned that you were married and said you wouldn’t mind sharing. I’d like to help you,” Elena said, “but we’re overbooked tonight because of the ferry boat accident. Some people are still missing. Everyone is sharing, making sacrifices. The students have been placed with families in town, but we just don’t have enough rooms for everyone. We’re trying to accommodate you all. I hope you understand,” she added stiffly.

“Of course,” Olivia said, quickly chastened. She felt as if she’d behaved like a pampered American tourist.

“It’s a very nice room. With a large bath. The hot springs on the edge of town have been routed to several hotels including ours. But if you don’t want the room…”

The thought of a large hot bath made Olivia’s skin break out in goose bumps. “No, of course we’ll take it. Thank you. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.” For one night she could put up with anything. Anything for a hot bath. Tomorrow she’d find a room for herself if she had to move out of the hotel. She took the room key, and when she turned to go Jack was standing behind her.

He was so close she got a good look at a long scratch on his cheek and a bruise under one eye. She had to clench her hands into fists to keep from reaching up to touch his face. To smooth the skin, to reassure herself he was really all right. The way an ordinary wife might. One who lived under the same roof as her husband, saw him every day, taught at the same university in the same town.

“I…They’ve put us in the same room by mistake, but it’s just for tonight,” she said, wishing her voice was more steady. How many times was he going to surprise her and catch her off guard?

“I heard,” he said. He wasn’t grinning anymore. In fact, he looked beat. He probably didn’t want to room with her, either. Lines of fatigue creased his face, and his eyes were half-closed.

“Jack, you look terrible. Why don’t you…we go upstairs? At least you have to get out of those clothes.”

It occurred to her he didn’t have any other clothes. Neither did she. Neither did anyone who was on the boat. The luggage had all sunk or had burned up. A shared room. No clothes. It sounded like a recipe for a personal disaster. At least a very personal embarrassment. She straightened her shoulders. If Jack could face it, so could she. Thank God they’d shipped all their equipment ahead.

The room was small with hardwood floors, a hand-painted dresser, a closet and the promised large porcelain tub in the adjoining bathroom. And a double bed covered with a hand-sewn quilt. Well, what did she expect? Greeks didn’t know about king-size beds. They didn’t know any married couples who didn’t sleep together, either.

After a quick look around, Olivia opened the doors to the balcony and inhaled the smell of the sea in the distance and the scent of thyme growing wild below them and tried to put the image of the bed out of her mind. She told herself to calm down. Not an easy thing to do with Jack standing next to her. He was too close. Way too close.

“Go ahead, take a bath,” she told Jack. “It’s a beautiful night. I’ll sit out here.” Sit out there and pretend he was in another room, another hotel, even another country. That way he wouldn’t be able to torture her with the memories of happier times. Of bathtubs big enough for two. Of beds so small they slept in each other’s arms, even their breathing in perfect sync.

“We’ll both sit out here,” he said, dragging two deck chairs toward the railing.

“Aren’t you tired?” she asked desperately. Go to bed, please go to bed.

“Are you?”

“Yes.” She was tired of pretending she didn’t care about him. Tired of pretending she wasn’t worried about spending the night in the same room, in the same bed as Jack.

“Enjoy this luxury while you can. We’ll soon be back in our tents at the site.”

“Will we? I thought…”

“Yeah, I know. Staying here at the hotel was Robbins’s plan. He likes to be comfortable and it’s his dig. But I want to be out there in the field like last time. Otherwise we lose too much time going back and forth. You’re with me on this, aren’t you?”

Like last time. The words echoed in her brain. It wasn’t going to be like last time. Last time they’d shared a tent as well as their hopes and dreams. Those times were gone for good.

Did she really have a choice of accommodations? Sure, she could stay at the hotel with the oldsters, taking hot baths every night and letting Jack get first crack at the contents of the tomb, maybe even discovering whose it was.

Or she could even board with a family in town the way the students did. That way there would be a large distance between them. It would definitely be easier on her psyche. But that would be counterproductive. It didn’t make sense. She’d come all this way to take part in a major discovery. She wasn’t going to let her emotions get in her way. Jack didn’t. This was work. It wasn’t supposed to be a vacation.

“Of course I want to be out there. It won’t be just you and me, will it?” She gnawed at a broken fingernail.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.” Except being alone with Jack out on a grassy field, under a blazing sun by day and a starry sky by night. Afraid wasn’t the word for it. She was terrified. She’d have to pray others would give up their comfortable beds here and choose the field option, too. Of course, this time she’d have her own tent and sleeping bag that had been sent on ahead. How hard could it be to keep her emotions under wraps?

“The only thing I’m afraid of is gossip,” she said. “Already people are talking about our relationship.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” he said. “As long as we’re clear on us.”

“I’m clear. We’re not a couple anymore. We just have to be sure everyone else knows it, too.”

He sent her a sharp look. Obviously, their muddled status didn’t bother Jack. He never had cared much what people thought. And still he didn’t bring up the divorce.

“Anyway, tonight the bed’s all yours,” he said, quickly dropping the subject of them.

He was resting his head on the back of the chair and he just looked extremely tired, while she was tied up in knots. For him, he was merely sharing a room with a fellow scientist. It was the way things were. Perfectly normal procedure. Except when the fellow scientist was your wife.

“After what you’ve been through, you deserve the bed,” she said. If she let Jack make all the decisions, even the small ones, she was in for a long summer of frustration. He loved being in charge. She did, too.

“I’m taking the floor,” he said firmly.

It was clear she’d have to pick her battles. This was one that wasn’t worth fighting, and she wasn’t going to win anyway.

“Okay, if you won’t take the bed, out of some misguided sense of chivalry, I will. But don’t complain when your back hurts in the morning when we start digging.”

There was a long silence. The last time he’d thrown his back out was at a small hotel near the pyramids in Egypt after making passionate love, and he’d had to call in a local masseuse so he could even get up on his feet. Olivia wished she hadn’t brought it up. She was beginning to think there were no safe topics. Nothing to say that didn’t bring back painful memories.

“Never mind,” she said, hoping he didn’t remember what had happened that night and what had caused it. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“Oh, come on, Olivia, you’ve always argued with me. Don’t quit now. First it was the bodies of the Bog People of the late Iron Age. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten you thought that girl had died of natural causes a few thousand years ago.”

“She did.”

“With a rope around her neck? It was clearly a ritual sacrifice.”

“It might have looked that way, but it wasn’t.” Olivia sighed loudly. “Did you read my analysis in Archaeology Today?”

“Did you read my rebuttal in my letter to the editor?”

“No, I must have missed it,” she said blithely. Instead she’d seethed when she’d read it. He knew just how to annoy her. He knew where she was vulnerable. She sometimes ignored little details to make her point. So Jack had poked holes in her thesis. The editor was delighted she’d caused some controversy in the ranks. He didn’t know it was partly personal.

Jack would never let her get away with anything. She would never admit it to him, but she missed that. He’d made her be more careful, he’d made her test her theories before exposing them to view. He’d made her a better scientist than she was. He’d made her a better person, too.

But she was on her own now. She liked being on her own. No more hurt feelings, no more arguments, no more feeling inadequate taking those home pregnancy tests. It wasn’t easy month after month to stifle the tears and hide her disappointment at the results.

“Liar,” he said, turning his head to grin at her. “You never miss anything.”

She refused to let him goad her. He knew how hard she’d worked on that paper. She didn’t appreciate his attacking her in print. It was as if he’d stabbed her in the back. After that she didn’t write any more papers for a while. He called her and left a message apologizing and telling her she was too sensitive. She didn’t call him back.

She hoped they could stop talking about the past. Tomorrow when they were out in the field at least they’d each have their own tent and their own sleeping bag. There’d be other people around. They’d work together as they had in the past, but that was it.

“Are you going to take a bath or not?” she asked, standing with her hands on her hips.

He waved an arm toward the bathroom. “You go ahead.”

Jack sat alone on the deck and stared out into the dark night. Far out to sea were the lights of fishing boats like the ones that had rescued him and Olivia. He wasn’t lying when he’d told her thoughts of her had inspired him to keep going when the waves threatened to overwhelm him and fatigue was beginning to overtake him.

As he struggled in the cold water not really knowing if he’d make it or not, not knowing if he’d ever see her again, he thought about how sweet life had been when they were together. The memories kept him going. The ones he’d been trying to keep at bay, like how beautiful she was when she got mad at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright.

How she’d stand up to his wildest plans, his far-out ideas, cutting through his rambling theories with her bright insight, always spot-on. No one else could do that. No one else was willing to criticize him, not since he’d been named department chairman at his prestigious university.

Before he got rescued tonight, he was terrified he’d never have another chance to joust with her again, never even see her again. Never be able to tell her how much he’d missed her.

Now, of course, he couldn’t tell her that. Not when she felt just the opposite. She hadn’t missed him. She was doing just fine without him. In fact she wanted a divorce. If he couldn’t convince her to change her mind this summer, that was it. It was over.

These days she was publishing regularly, she had a book in the works and she didn’t need him to make her life complete. Or a baby. It was just as well they’d stopped trying. What would they have done with a baby on this dig? What about when the ferry went down? Who takes care of the baby? Not Olivia. She didn’t even want to share this room with him.

Now here they were, under the same roof for the first time in years, almost the same as when they first got married. At that hotel in Italy above the harbor. Tomorrow morning she’d be here, hair tousled, cheeks flushed, nightgown rumpled, just as she once was. When life had seemed so perfect, so full of promise. How could he get those days back? How could he make her see they belonged together? If they belonged together.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep from thinking of the past. When he did it felt like someone had reached inside his chest and squeezed his heart dry. It must be the stress. He wouldn’t admit it to Olivia, but he’d had a few rough hours out there at sea. It was a reminder that though he and Olivia were together in the same hotel room, nothing was the same at all. It never would be. Too much had happened. Too many harsh words, too many hard feelings stood in their way.

There was a soft knock on the door to the room. When Jack opened it Marilyn was standing there with a white cotton nightgown in her hand.

“This is for your wife,” she said. “Helen found several of them downstairs and I’m going around delivering them to the women.”