Читать книгу The Wedding Dress - Kimberly Cates - Страница 8

“NOTHING LIKE HATE at first sight to make a lady feel welcome,” Emma muttered under her breath as Butler all but rolled his battered Mini Cooper on yet another hairpin corner. The right shoulder of the narrow road plunged down in a boulder-strewn cliff, while a dozen yards to the left, a mountain soared skyward. If it weren’t for the biting chill that had whipped her raincoat in the airport parking lot and the lowering thunderheads gathering on the horizon, she might have been tempted to get out and walk to Castle Craigmorrigan.

Her legs ached from bracing herself against the floorboards, her fingers clamped in the upholstery to keep her arm from touching his. For God’s sake, could the man take up any more room? It was like being wedged in a clown car with MacTavish the Pissed-Off Scot Giant. Not to mention the fact that Butler’s testosterone overload was sucking up all the oxygen in the cab of this ridiculously small vehicle.

“Getting us both killed isn’t going to do you any good,” Emma said.

“You’re right.” The corner of Butler’s sexy mouth twisted. “I’m already in hell.”

Before Emma could think of a comeback, a fuzzy brownish-red hill loomed in their path. Emma choked back a scream as Butler swerved with annoying expertise, the car bouncing over the road’s shoulder so hard the top of Emma’s head hit the roof in spite of her seat belt.

She whispered a Hail Mary, sandwiched for a heartbeat between mountain wall and the weirdest cow she’d ever seen. She glimpsed long horns and terrified bovine eyes all but buried under a shaggy red topknot as the car sped past. Butler wrestled the toy car back onto the road, spraying gravel in his wake.

No doubt about it, Emma thought. She was going to die. But damn if she was going to give Jared Butler the satisfaction of knowing he was rattling her nerves before they’d even reached the castle.

“So, in between trying to give the local rescue team practice with the Jaws of Life rescue tools, why don’t you tell me exactly what books I’m going to be reading?”

“Reading?”

“Or do I get to sit around with you feeling the bumps on the old chicken bones you dig up? Archaeology 101: Observe, Ms. McDaniel, this piece of broken pottery we found when Farmer MacSomething was digging a loo.”

“I’m not going to have you contaminating my excavation site, do you hear me?” Butler slashed her the look his highland raider ancestors must’ve fired off when they were about to burn and pillage. “You’re not to go near the sections of the castle that are being excavated unless I’m with you. I’ll pack you back off to America faster than you can say Hollywood Boulevard.”

“And here all the tour books said people in the British Isles were supposed to be charming.”

“You want charming, head across the channel to Ireland. I have work to do.”

Fat raindrops plopped onto the windshield. Butler flicked on the wipers and, with a low growl of irritation, slowed the car as the drops transformed into a cold, driving rain.

“Part of your job is teaching me,” Emma said, easing her death grip on the seat. “So why did you volunteer if you’re so all-fired busy?”

“Angelica Robards arrived in April to start training for the riding and swordplay. She was supposed to be gone by the time the summer’s work on the dig began.”

“But she fell off a horse and landed in traction. Rotten break for you, Butler.”

“Right, but it was your lucky day, wasn’t it?” he challenged. “Don’t you feel guilty at all? Knowing that you’ve only got the part because the director’s first pick is lying in a hospital somewhere? I’d have too much self-respect to—”

“I’m not the one who was supposed to train her to ride,” Emma snapped, stung. “You’re the genius who claimed you could turn an actress into the medieval version of an action hero and then put her over a jump she couldn’t handle. The press said she fell halfway down a cliff.”

Butler’s Adam’s apple bobbed in the corded strength of his throat. He stood his ground, but Emma could see rawness in his piercing gaze, a dogged sense of self-blame. Fine, Emma thought. Butler had been chipping away at her self-confidence from the moment they’d come face-to-face at the airport. He’d made it clear he’d use whatever weapons he could find against her. She’d just have to hone a few sharp points of her own.

“Considering what a stellar job you did with the actress you thought would do justice to the role of Lady Aislinn, you can surely understand my curiosity about how you intend to handle me. Now that you ‘own me for the next six weeks,’” she mimicked in a flawless Scots burr, “exactly what are you going to do with me?”

A muscle in Butler’s jaw jumped. “Unfortunately, nobody dared to lock Lady Aislinn in a scold’s bridle.”

“A what?”

“A metal harness that locked around a woman’s head so she couldn’t talk.”

“And we think we have all the modern conveniences.” Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“I suppose there’s some chance Lady Aislinn was locked into a chastity belt when her husband ran off to fight. We could give that a try.”

“Aw, Butler. I didn’t know you cared. But drastic measures are hardly necessary. I’m about as likely to be tempted by you as I would be to fly without an airplane.”

Why did an image suddenly pop into her head? Her role in the senior production at drama school—Peter, in Peter Pan. It must be the cliffs that were reminding her of that first, terrifying step she’d made into thin air.

Butler swore as he slowed around a corner. Lightning flashed, rain soaking the landscape, making everything slick and shiny. “Maybe you’re used to men falling all over you, Ms. McDaniel, but I won’t be joining your fan club.”

Emma didn’t hear a word. She gasped as a castle ruin reared up through the storm like a warhorse frozen by a sorcerer’s spell. A single intact tower thrust skyward from the broken curtain wall that had once enclosed all the buildings, livestock and people who owed loyalty to the castle lord: an entire world whose fate had hinged on the courage and wisdom of Lady Aislinn and her husband, Lord Magnus.

White canvas tents smudged the landscape here and there, reminding Emma of costume dramas, tournaments where visiting knights would fight for a lady’s honor. But no bold pennants whipped in the wind and the only thing under attack was the mound of earth that had been reclaiming the tumbled castle walls for centuries.

Precise trenches scored the turf like wounds. Even in the rain, the place bustled with activity. People in knee-high rubber boots and rain gear clustered under the shelters, busy with tasks Emma couldn’t see. A raised metal viewing platform with a railing around the top had been constructed near the widest cut in the ground. Contemporary machinery and a yellow trailer were situated under a copse of hazel trees.

It seemed strange that anything so modern could besiege this castle’s walls. And yet, Emma doubted Castle Craigmorrigan had ever felt at peace. For beyond the intact tower, the ground fell away at the castle’s feet, a wildly crashing ocean flinging itself against the stony outcropping below with the singleminded fury of an invading army.

Emma pictured the forces the villainous Sir Brannoc had brought with him—walling off this thin finger of land. What had it been like the day they set up camp, isolating the castle from the rest of the world?

No escape…the sea seemed to whisper, cutting off all hope of flight. Emma shuddered, imagining what it would be like to peer out the tower window, to see her enemy building trebuchets, the great siege machines that would soon start battering at the walls the way the past two years had battered at Emma’s heart.

She could feel Lady Aislinn, like a pulse, just under the heather-tangled ground, could see the castle as it must have been before time and tragedy left its curtain wall broken and all but one of its towers tumbled down.

For the first time since Barry Robards himself had called to offer her the part, she knew it wasn’t a make-believe world she’d inhabit. It was real. The awesome responsibility of telling this story pressed down on Emma like the fallen stones.

What if Butler is right? self-doubt whispered. What if you dig down into your soul and your best isn’t good enough? My God, look at this place. Think of this woman. No one on earth knows more about her than Jared Butler. If he’s sure you’ll fail…

Emma’s throat tightened, her hand suddenly unsteady. Don’t even think it, she told herself sharply. You’re not going to fail. You’re going to take whatever he can dish out and not give an inch. Think of this as your test. If you can make him believe your portrayal of Lady Aislinn, you can make the whole world believe it. And if they see you can play this role, they’ll know you can play all the others… The powerful dramatic roles she’d longed for. Feared were forever beyond her reach even before Barry Robards had made it clear that he’d given her this role chiefly because of her stunt prowess and physical training. But she’d hung up the phone, elated, determined to prove to the world that there was far more to Emma McDaniel than that.

And what if you find out there isn’t? Doubt trickled a chill down her spine.

“Why so quiet?” Butler broke in as he pulled up to the intact tower and put the car in Park. “Not quite up to your five-star hotel standards? You’re more likely to get a rat on your pillow tonight than a mint.”

She should have given him a verbal slap to put him in his place. But she sat, so overwhelmed for a long moment she couldn’t speak.

This was the last thing Lady Aislinn had seen—siege engines hammering the walls, inexorably pounding away at the stone. Her home, lost to her forever.

Emma remembered the home she and Drew had shared in Brentwood, their lives disappearing out of it one cardboard box at a time, just like their promise to love each other forever. But Emma had a life of her own. A career, her gift. What had Lady Aislinn had to cling to when this castle had fallen?

Rain drove against the stone walls like tears from time gone by. Butler opened his door and maneuvered his big body out of the car.

Emma climbed out, rain soaking her hair and sliding down the back of her neck as she made a run toward the door. Too late she realized Butler was ahead of her, intent on getting out of the rain, while her five-hundred-ton suitcase was still in the back of the car.

Bastard. He’d left it there on purpose, for her to manage herself. Fine. Emma slid into the car again and popped the hatch back. Gritting her teeth, she climbed back out into the rain, then slogged to the rear of the Mini Cooper. Heels sinking in mud, she grabbed the handle of the suitcase and pulled. Her knuckles banged against a bolt inside the car.

Emma’s eyes stung as she tugged on the case, wriggling it back and forth, working it toward the edge until it slid free. She squawked, unable to stop the momentum, the heavy case falling toward the mud puddle she was standing in. She swore, fought, but the corner of the case crashed to the ground with a miserable splat. Cold mud splashed up under her raincoat, her shoes soaked through.

Sodden hair clung to her chilled, wet face as she heaved the suitcase up out of the mud, staggering under its weight as she made her way toward the dark mouth of the door.

When she finally trudged into the dank chamber beyond, she waited for warmth to envelop her, for lights to blaze on, driving back the dank gray curtain of storm.

It was June, for God’s sake, but the place was still freezing. She started to shiver.

Butler grinned at her in the beam of a gigantic flashlight, the jerk. A real barn burner of a smile. “Dragging that out was a waste of time,” he said, gesturing toward her dripping suitcase. “Everything in it is off-limits for the next six weeks.”

“Excuse me?” Emma knuckled water out of her left ear, sure she couldn’t have heard him correctly.

“Call it method-acting boot camp. You don’t get to keep anything from the modern world.”

He was enjoying this far too much.

Pure devilment pricked at Emma. “I don’t even get to keep my stash of tampons?” she asked, itching to get a reaction. After years of marriage, Drew had still blushed when she asked him to pick up a box at the drugstore.

Butler only frowned.

“Come on, Butler. Don’t get all shy on me,” Emma sniped. “I’ll be here for six weeks. The issue is bound to come up.”

“I guess you’ll have to deal with it when the time comes.”

“No. My maid would have to deal with…well, whatever. Even you can’t be idiot enough to expect a modern woman to—”

“I expect anyone on this site to do what I tell them.”

“Fine. When my time of the month comes, I’ll announce it to the whole camp.”

Butler’s eyes narrowed. “You’d be just bullheaded enough to do it, wouldn’t you?”

“You betcha, mister.” Emma tried with all her might to keep from shivering. “After all, who died and made you Mussolini?”

“Your director, as a matter of fact.” Butler rubbed his chin. “All right, Ms. McDaniel. Keep your tampons if you must. In the end, one small concession on my part won’t make any difference. You’re not tough enough to survive without all your luxuries. I’ll wager there are plenty of other things in that suitcase you’ll be missing before your time here is finished.”

The glow of triumph she’d felt at unsettling him vanished as the reality of his ultimatum struck her. “There’s no way I’m giving up what’s…There’s something else in my suitcase I…I have to…”

“What? Designer drugs? Your silk knickers?”

“It’s none of your business.” Emma faced him down, hands on her hips. “It’s something I need. Got it, Butler? Isn’t there anything you need? Besides a personality transplant, I mean?”

Butler’s green eyes blazed even hotter, but something in the taut line of his mouth betrayed him. She’d hit a nerve and damn, it felt good.

“One thing,” he snarled. “Got it? You can keep one thing. Agreed?”

Emma tried not to let him see the relief flooding through her. “Agreed.” Instinctively she extended her hand to shake on it. Butler gave her a long look, then his large, work-roughened hand swallowed Emma’s much smaller one in a grasp that was brazenly masculine, surprisingly straightforward. Her fingers, strong in their own right, tested in countless stunts over the years, felt almost delicate for the first time since she’d left her hometown when she was just sixteen.

Heat pulsed between Butler’s palm and hers. The archaeologist’s eyes widened just a touch; Emma’s breath caught. She pulled her hand away and flattened it on the front of her slacks, as if trying to erase the feel of that strange, hot throb.

“Maybe we’ll be able to work together without killing each other after all.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Butler folded his arms over his chest, palms against the nubby wool of his sweater, and Emma wondered if he felt the same strange compulsion to buff the feel of her off his hands. It made him seem a tiny bit more human.

“I’ll give you this much, Butler. At least we know where we stand with each other. Hate at first sight.”

“You have to care enough about somebody to hate them,” Butler said.

“Well, all-righty then. That gives me something to aspire to. I assume you have some work to do besides irritating me. So if you could show me where I’ll be staying, we can take a break from each other, at least for a little while.”

“I thought you’d like to stay in Lady Aislinn’s chamber,” he said so pleasantly that Emma knew damn well not to trust him. And yet, how bad could it be? Emma reasoned. Aislinn was the lady of the castle. It had to be the best room of all. She’d seen those old movies where the beds were draped in velvet bed hangings and the walls were hung with tapestries and fires blazed in hearths the size of garden sheds.

“Terrific,” she said, her teeth starting to chatter. “I don’t suppose there are any flashing neon signs to show me the way.”

“No. Just take those stairs up to the top of the tower. I guess we’ll see what you’re made of, Ms. McDaniel. After Sir Brannoc took the castle, Lady Aislinn spent three months in that room. Until Sir Brannoc forced her out. If you can’t manage to stay there for six weeks…”

“I’ll manage,” Emma insisted, her chin bumping up a notch.

“Some even claim that she hid the fairy flag right there.”

Emma’s eyes widened in fascination. “The one that was supposed to keep the castle from falling to an enemy as long as the flag flew inside its walls?”

“No. The other fairy flag. The one with Tinker Bell on it.”

Emma ground her teeth, knowing the man was pulling her chain on purpose, knowing, too, that the less she rose to the bait, the sooner Butler would give up his efforts to torment her.

“What? Nothing to say, Ms. McDaniel?” Butler asked. “Did you expect me to be impressed that you bothered to read the script? The fairy flag is an integral part of the legend.”

“A gossamer-thin piece of cloth brought as Lady Aislinn’s dowry,” Emma supplied. “A gift of the fairies to be passed down to the most beautiful daughter born to the chief of Clan MacGregor. A hundred suitors filled her father’s hall, all vying to win her hand in marriage so they could become invincible.”

“A good way to be certain your daughter was well treated once she was married and beyond your care. Husbands had total power over their wives then. The woman who dared put a gold circlet on Robert the Bruce’s head was imprisoned by her angry husband for four years in a cage shaped like a crown hanging outside the castle.”

“Nice guy. But then, you did warn me to head across the water to Ireland if I wanted charm. What happened to the lady?”

“The countess survived. God knows how.”

“A life lesson you should take to heart. Never underestimate a pissed-off woman. She hung on so she could make her husband’s life a living hell. But this whole fairy flag thing—obviously you’re a pretty big boy to believe in the little people, Butler. So what’s the story? Exactly what was the fairy flag really?”

“We’ll never know.” An intriguing light sparked in Butler’s intelligent eyes and for an instant Emma glimpsed an enthusiasm, a warmth, a wonder that transformed his face. “If scientists could get their hands on a piece of it now, we’d be able to test it, hopefully date it, compare it to cloth samples from ancient times all over the world. We might be able to make an educated guess…”

Passion. He radiated it, so hot Emma couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be the woman who inspired that zeal, that intensity. Her tongue moistened her suddenly dry lips.

In a heartbeat, Butler seemed to remember who he was talking to. The stony mask of dislike fell back across his face, leaving Emma even colder than before. “It doesn’t matter. The flag was lost forever when Lady Aislinn disappeared.”

“Maybe I’ll spend my spare time having a look around the room,” Emma said. “Find the fairy flag after hundreds of years.”

“We archaeologists would really appreciate it. After all, nobody in the past six hundred years has thought to look for the flag in that room. All those treasure hunters over the centuries, countless teams of scholars and experts—we all just wanted to leave it there for you, so you could make the cover of Hello magazine.”

“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Emma tossed her hair. “Just think what a great promo it would be for the movie.” She snapped out the handle of her suitcase and started rolling it across the bumpy stone floor toward the stairs.

“There’s no point hauling that thing up three stories,” Butler warned. “Just take out whatever you need right here.”

Emma’s cheeks burned. Damn if she was going to let this jerk watch her rummage through her suitcase, let him see…things that were private, things that were precious, things that still made her heart ache. Chinks in the walls six years of living in the public limelight had forced her to build.

No way was she going to open herself up for more of Butler’s mockery. She was going to haul her suitcase far from his scornful gaze. She was going to slip out her treasure when she was safe, silent—alone.

If it was the last thing she did, she was going to get her suitcase to the top of the tower.

“Hey, I told you to open the damn thing here.”

“So you can sneak a look at my underwear?” Emma said, doggedly hauling the suitcase up the first stair. “Think again, bud.”

“I may be the one man on earth who doesn’t give a damn what color your panties are, you stubborn little…”

She smacked her bag against the stone as loud as she could to drown out whatever he’d decided to call her. But she hadn’t bumped the suitcase up half a dozen stone risers before she wondered if doctors in archaeology knew anything about CPR. The weight of the case was going to leave her with gorilla arms stretched down to her knees.

She heard a growled oath, heavy footfalls behind her. With an unladylike grunt, she was pulling the suitcase halfway up another stair when suddenly Jared Butler grabbed the handle away from her, his hand warm and rough, impatient and unyieldingly masculine.

For a pulse beat the narrow stairway pushed them together. His arm bumped against her breast. The smell of him—rain and spice and exasperation—filled Emma’s head.

“I can handle this myself!” she objected.

“Sure you can. Just like you can play Lady Aislinn.” He was already striding up the dim stairs, both his form and the beam of flashlight vanishing in the shadows ahead.

Emma did the only thing she could. Stormed up after him. Her lungs were sucking like bellows by the time she reached her room. But in spite of her vow not to let Butler see her sweat, she couldn’t hide the dismay that washed over her as he shone the flashlight over the chamber.

Moisture penetrated cracked walls with the kind of dampness that would never really get dry. A bed stuffed with God knew what was blanketed with…skins of dead animals…with the fur still on.

“What…what are those?” Emma asked, unnerved.

“Wolf pelts, stag skins. Whatever you could kill hereabouts in the fourteenth century. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Thinking those skins used to be on some wild animal?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m allergic. You can see the feet and—and holes where the eyes used to be in those things. God knows what else might be under all that fur.”

“Once we get the hearth burning the smoke should drive out most of the bugs.”

“Bugs?” Just the mention of them made Emma’s skin crawl.

“I know how important historical accuracy is to you,” Butler said. “So if you feel any bugs biting you tonight, just chalk it up to research.”

“You’re hilarious, Butler.”

“Come morning, you’re going to find out just how much fun I can be. Meanwhile, I’ll send one of the grad students up with your dinner once it gets too dark to dig. Make sure you find your iPod or PalmPilot or whatever is so damned important so that your suitcase is ready to be hauled out of here by then.”

“Fine.”

“Use tonight to settle in. I’ll be taking the flashlight with me.”

And then the room would be movie-theater dark. She’d probably break her neck tripping over something. No wonder Angelica Robards hadn’t survived the training process without a trip to the hospital.

“Terrific,” Emma said, still warily eyeing the animal fur. “It’ll be just me and Bambi here.” Alone. In the dark. With a whole colony of bugs, no doubt planted by Attila the Scot.

“I’ll light up the fire and one candle for you. After that, you’re on your own. Everything you’ll need for the next six weeks is in that wooden chest over there.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a medieval Porta Potti in it.”

“No hot water either. We jerry-built a garderobe in an area beyond the dig site. The student will show you where it is. Starting first thing in the morning you’re going to get a crash course in medieval life in Scotland. You’re going to eat, sleep and breathe the life of a Scottish chatelaine.”

“A chat-a-who?”

“A noblewoman caring for her husband’s castle while he’s off fighting for his king.”

“Isn’t that just like a man,” Emma quipped. “Running off to play with the other boys, leaving the responsibilities to the woman.”

“Despite all the twisted shite people get fed in movies, with fainting damsels in distress needing to be rescued, medieval women were a strong lot. I suppose we’ll find out what you’re made of.”

“Yes, you will. May I give you one little bit of advice?”

“I doubt gagging you with duct tape would stop you.”

“Try not to drop me over a cliff, Dr. Butler, no matter how great the temptation. Damaging one actress is an accident. Damaging a second would look downright suspicious.”

“Not by medieval standards. Men could go through a half dozen wives between accidents and disease and childbirth. And in desperate cases you could always lock her in prison somewhere.”

“Like Henry II did Eleanor of Aquitaine.”

Butler looked taken aback. “You read about…?”

“I saw the movie. Lion In Winter. Katherine Hepburn won an Oscar in the starring role.”

“You’re sure as bloody hell no Katherine Hepburn,” Butler scoffed, starting for the door.

Cold, wet and tired, Emma sobered. That was what she was afraid of.

THERE WAS NO QUESTION of escape. Jared glared out the office trailer’s window to where the mess tent blazed with lights, even more dancing shadows silhouetted against the canvas than there had been when he’d checked the same scene an hour ago.

It seemed that no matter how many times he paced the narrow aisle between his desk and drafting table, every student on the site was determined to wait out his appearance, no matter how physically and mentally exhausted this day full of mud and rain had left them.

He might as well get it over with, he reasoned, reaching for the cool logic of a scientist. Sooner or later he’d have to face his students and endure their barrage of questions about their famous guest. But damn if he wanted to listen to the kids whose intellect he’d prized raving about Emma McDaniel, dazzled by the glitz and glitter of a world Jared didn’t trust.

Having her here is the price you agreed to pay, he reminded himself grimly. He hoped he wouldn’t discover that cost was too high. Bracing himself, he stepped out into the night. A hunter’s moon sailed the sky, limning the world in silver.

Biting wind, still fresh from the afternoon’s storm, tangled invisible fingers through his hair as he removed the battered brown canvas hat he’d hung by its leather cords on the outer doorknob. The wide-brimmed hat dangling there was a signal every bit as dreaded by the students and staff alike as a skull and crossbones would be on the high sea.

Only someone with a death wish would disturb Jared those rare times the hat appeared on the door. But he’d bet that several of his students had considered braving his wrath tonight. Thankfully, nineteen-year-old Davey Harrison, Jared’s personal assistant and longest-running team member, had managed to dissuade them.

But damn if Jared was going to waste any more time trying to sort through the feelings Emma McDaniel stirred in him. The anger, the outrage, the sensation of being trapped. Between Angelica Robards’ training and accident and Emma’s arrival, he’d surrendered too many precious days already. With every hour that passed, the end of summer crept closer. And the end of summer meant the dig had to close.

At least not permanently, Jared reminded himself with grim satisfaction. The university that had sponsored the study for students from around the world might withdraw its funding, move its program on to some site in Greece—just for variety’s sake, to give the kids a different kind of experience. And the grant funds he’d hoped for might be promised elsewhere. But Jared had found his own way to keep the dig afloat. By selling the rights to his book to Hollywood, making a pact with the devil. It seemed even Jared’s soul had its price. The hard part was forcing his pride to pay it.

He’d imagined celebrity mania would poison the kids when they heard of Jade Star’s imminent arrival. The reality was even worse.

From the most insecure undergraduate to his most trusted assistant, they all but stampeded him as he entered the mess tent, the kids barely giving lip service to his questions about any finds that had been made in his absence.

“What’s she like?” a breathless kid on foreign study from Northwestern University pleaded.

Too brave. A little wild. Trying to protect that air-brained girl in the airport the only way she could.

“She’s a pain in the arse,” Jared said.

“Is she really as beautiful as she looks in the movies?” Nigel Sutherland asked.

Jared didn’t bother to hide a smug grin as he recalled Emma McDaniel’s rain-soaked million-dollar face, with ropes of wet black hair straggling across it. That picture made him feel better. The poor wee bairn, going to bed with sodden hair and not a blow-dryer in sight.

“With all those movie tricks they use, Hollywood could make me look like Prince Will i am,” Jared growled.

“That would be a crying shame,” a coed named Gemma whispered to Veronica Phillips, a fresh-talking doctoral candidate from St. Andrews who had made it obvious that the body she hoped to uncover this summer still had plenty of life in it and belonged in her bed, not some museum.

“Why tamper with perfection?” Veronica teased, flashing Jared a sultry grin.

Jared was man enough to be tempted on a purely physical level. It had been a long time since he’d let himself take what a woman offered, but he knew firsthand that the price was too high. The danger too great. That part of him was dead. He’d killed it, as surely as he’d killed Jenny.

Where had that thought come from? He’d buried Jenny, the way Vikings buried their treasure hordes, then tried to forget where he’d left all the memories, all the self-blame.

He’d become an expert at seeming oblivious to women’s flirtations, ignoring Veronica’s comment as he had all the other glances filled with soulful feminine longing that had been thrown his way over the past ten years. Damn, if they knew how much he hated it, that adoring light that told him what they were thinking—that they fancied him a modern-day Lancelot come to save his fair lady from the stake.

If only they knew that was one quest he’d already failed.

“Emma McDaniel’s coming here is quantitative proof that life is not fair,” Davey Harrison said at the edge of the crowd. The favorite student Jared wasn’t supposed to have shook his head wistfully, then plopped a canvas hat identical to Jared’s down on his flyaway dark blond hair.

“Exactly what do you base your conclusion on, Mr. Harrison?” Jared asked.

The kid actually smiled. “In the men’s dorms back home, every other room had a poster of Jade Star on the wall and the ones that didn’t only took ’em down because their girlfriends made ’em. And what does God do? Dumps the goddess herself into the lap of the one man on earth who hasn’t fantasized a hundred times what he’d do if he could get his hands on her.”

“Hey, Einstein’s right!” Sean Murphy jabbed his nearest cohort with an elbow. “That’s what I call a crying shame.”

Jared shot both kids a quelling glare. “What’s a shame is wasting time on this nonsense when we only have three months before this dig closes for the year,” he growled. “Fall term will start faster than you know and then it’ll be back to school for the lot of you. Of course, you can read about my brilliant discoveries in National Geographic.”

Davey grinned, worlds different from the anguished fifteen-year-old who’d first come to the castle on a field trip four years ago. “Internet’s faster, chief.”

“So you keep telling me.” Jared grimaced. Davey was right. The information superhighway put a wealth of research at people’s fingertips. And as a scientist, Jared had to learn to access it. But somehow all those flashy graphics never felt as right to him as the solid weight of a book. Computer-generated illusions, everything from dinosaurs to heroines like Jade Star, airbrushed so her body was centerfold perfect the way a real woman could never be. It was one more way to con people into believing the impossible existed.

And yet, there had been a moment when Jared had been struck by Emma McDaniel’s charisma just as hard as a green kid like Davey. That stomach-spinning, world-falling-away, dropkick-to-the-solar-plexus awareness that made him cadgy as hell when he’d felt the softness of her breast yielding against his arm.

When she’d defied him, those dark eyes spitting fire, her mouth ripe and passionate and real, without so much as a smear of lipstick. She’d faced him down with the fierce beauty of the wildcats that roamed Scotland’s hills. Confronted him with the dauntless courage he’d imagined in Lady Aislinn.

Don’t be a fool, man, he warned himself. She’s a spoiled brat with the depth of a rain puddle and she’s surly because you didn’t hit your knees the moment you first saw her so you could worship at her shrine. There’s nothing of Lady Aislinn in this pampered, no-talent excuse for an actress.

“Chief?” Davey’s concerned voice cut through Jared’s dark thoughts, reminding him of just how much the boy had had to worry about when he’d first set foot on the site years ago. How lonely Davey had been, isolated, outcast. A kid, troubled about grown-up things in a capricious world he had no control over. Worries that had faded to the back of Davey’s mind the deeper the kid was drawn into the history and artifacts, the research and legends that wove like mist about the ruins of Castle Craigmorrigan.

And now, enter Emma McDaniel stage right, to drag the healing boy back to a real world full of things he couldn’t have, security he’d never know, a present tense that could only suck him back to barren places. She’d shove Davey aside the way the pretty girls on the site did, giving the gawky kid a dismissive once-over, complete with that scathingly superior plastic smile. And from that moment on, she’d look right through him.

Just the thought made Jared’s blood boil.

“Chief?” Davey repeated. “Are you all right?”

He’d be a lot better once Emma McDaniel took her shapely backside across the ocean to Hollywood, where it belonged. “Aye. And since you’re all so curious about our new visitor, maybe you’d like to shake out of your tents at five in the morning instead of seven. Make up for the time you’re all wasting jabbering about her.”

A couple of the girls’ faces paled. Others beat a hasty retreat toward the tent flap door.

“Veronica, take Miss McDaniel some food,” Jared ordered.

Veronica pouted for a moment. “But I’ve got some work to catch up on.”

“Taking a tray up to the tower will take you all of twenty minutes,” Jared snapped. “You can spare that much time.”

“Hey, chief,” Davey interjected, eager as a puppy. “I’d be happy to do it.”

No kidding, Jared thought sourly. Davey would probably be so dazzled by the woman he’d trip on the uneven stone stairs and break his neck.

“I need you to go over the finds you made while I was stuck at the airport. We need to enter them on the site grid.”

“Oh. Uh, sure.”

“Veronica,” Jared said. “After you drop off her dinner, be sure you confiscate that suitcase of hers.”

Davey gave Jared the big eyes. “Isn’t that kind of heavy for a lady to…”

“As a matter of fact, it was heavy as a rock. Veronica, take one of the lads with you to handle lugging that monstrosity down the stairs. Not you, Davey,” Jared added sternly. “You I need. To do the job we’re here for.”

Even as he herded Davey back toward the trailer, Jared knew he was only postponing the inevitable. The kid would have to meet Emma sometime. Jared would put it off for as long as he could.

It was well past midnight when Davey headed to his own cot, still nattering on about Emma McDaniel. By then Jared’s very last nerve felt ready to snap. His blood seethed with edginess as he retired to his own roomy tent, dread banishing any hope of sleep.

Emma McDaniel’s heart-shaped face swam before him, that pugnacious chin, those flashing eyes. She’d challenged him, fighting to keep God knew what from that elephantine suitcase. Isn’t there anything that you need?

In the beam of a lantern, Jared went to the battered footlocker where he kept his few, most treasured things. Never weigh yourself down with more than you can carry… The thought whispered through him, a familiar refrain.

Jenny had claimed he’d never been the same after studying the excavations in Pompeii. Maybe she was right. The citizens of the doomed city, who couldn’t leave their precious things behind when the volcano erupted, had lost the only thing that mattered.

Jared lifted the trunk lid, his fingers running reverently over a flannel-wrapped bundle. Yes, there was something he needed. He’d just have to make damned sure Emma McDaniel never discovered what it was.