Rebel Betty Read online

  He shook his head. “I should probably get to work,” he said. “I just wanted to say good morning.”

  “Good morning to you. How was your run?”

  “Long.” He answered, trying to avoid staring at the edges of a tattoo that peeked around the edges of the bikini. It appeared to be claws, flexing about her rib cage. A strange, large tattoo for someone as unassuming as Lara.

  “Taddy,” Mackenzie whispered, holding on to his hand and leading him to the rim. “You come swimming.” Then she jumped.

  He could have let go of her hand at any time. Her fingers had no more strength than a kitten. What held him was her mischievous look, the shared glance with Lara that told him she had known exactly what the child was going to do and approved.

  Kenzie popped up, buoyant as a cork. Thad stayed submerged until his lungs burned, then exploded upwards in a shower of droplets, startling screams out of the girls. Afterwards he floated in the water, black t-shirt billowing like a cloak.

  "That's was very naughty, Mackenzie," Lara chided, and he intercepted a look between them that took any sting from the words. "Now the nice professor is all wet." Her hair was slicked back from her face into a wet ponytail. Its color was darker than he would have expected, edging toward black.

  The nagging sense of familiarity he experienced each time he saw Lara finally resolved itself into a name, and he had to resist the urge to wolf whistle. "Bettie Page."

  Christ, how had he not realized it sooner? Bettie Page was an American icon, the most famous Pin Up model of the 1950's. A woman with a wholesome, innocent face and a body made for sex. And although she was missing the trademark bangs, Lara resembled her to a remarkable degree.

  Behind the screen of sun glasses, Lara rolled her eyes. "Honestly, you just figured that out? I have been hearing how much I look like her since I was fourteen years old and put on my first bikini."

  "I will need photographic evidence of you in a bikini, just for comparison."

  The water was warm, and it caressed his tired muscles. He allowed himself another blissful moment of resting in the water’s embrace before pushing upward.

  “Would you like to stay for breakfast?”

  The idea was tempting, but breakfasting with them smacked of a degree of intimacy he had no right to. Yet.

  “I have to get to work,” he said, then pulled himself, still dripping, from the pool. His shoes made squishing noises as he walked to the gate.

  Mackenzie paddled over to Lara, held up by her floaties. “Why he leave?” She asked.

  “He’s got to go to work, sweetie,” she said, then began towing the child through the pool. When she turned, Thad got his first full view of the tattoo. The stylized Chinese Dragon stretched the entire width of her back, eyes like glowing emeralds between her shoulder blades.

  “Can I come see? You go there all the time," Mackenzie asked with an unmistakable note of petulance in her small voice.

  Lara looked up at him with her eyebrows raised. He nodded his assent.

  “Maybe we will bring him down some iced tea in a little while, if you are good,”

  It was hard to concentrate on the intricacies of excavation after that. At every sound he looked up, hoping to see Lara and Mackenzie walking through the field.

  He shifted through soil that had been darkened by fire. There were chips of animal bone, probably deer. Once this area had been inundated with wild game, though the hunting here had never been as rich as could be found one hundred miles south in Kentucky. The excavation he had worked on during the finalization of his divorce had been an incredibly rich find. A hillside crack that led to a cave used by the Native Americans as trap for hundreds of years, it resulted in a diverse collection of artifacts, everything from the bones of extinct species and flint tools to the cooking pots used to prepare food.

  He was using a brush to whisk the soil away when a rounded edge caught his attention. Round and carved from stone beneath the layer of dirt, he felt an electric shock run up his spine. Compared to the other fragments they had unearthed, this was large. As he reached for his camera, he noticed Lara and Mackenzie approaching and waved them over.

  Lara was holding a basket in one hand.

  “We thought a picnic sounded in order.” She sat the basket down. Her face changed when she saw his expression. “Did you find something?”

  He nodded. "Do you have your phone with you?" he asked. At his suggestion, she had begun taking video footage of their progress on the dig when her help was not needed to dig or work the sieve.

  She nodded, immediately understanding. "Why don't you set up the picnic, sweetheart?" She asked Mackenzie, who nodded happily before taking the basket. Turning back, she took out her phone and began filming as he took several pictures and recorded the time and location.

  Bit by bit, he unearthed the object. Lara was leaning so close to his shoulder that he could feel warm breath on his skin. He talked in a low murmur as he worked, hoping that his voice did not betray the blood pumping in his veins.

  When the leering face of the figure was exposed by the paintbrush, Lara gasped and almost dropped the phone. Six inches long and carved from silky black stone, it emerged from the surrounding soil with an expression of such ferocity that the figure appeared to have been buried alive. And what could be seen of it, beneath the remaining layer of soil, was pristine, lacking any discernible damage.

  "What's that?" piped Mackenzie from behind Lara.

  Thad looked up, and he and Lara shared a look that communicated shared elation more effectively than shouted words.

  "The professor has found something amazing," Lara said, unable to keep the tremble from her voice.

  The next day, Thad had loaded the data and the artifact into his jeep and headed south. When he returned that night, Lara was sitting on her back patio listening to the radio and drinking a glass of wine as the sun disappeared into the line of trees. He collapsed in the chair next to her and propped his feet up so that their boots touched.

  "By the time I got off the phone with Johnson at the Cleveland Museum, I had three emails from other archaeologists offering to assist. It's an important find, Larry, the best Adena artifact that I have ever seen. The only other effigy pipe of this kind was found over a hundred years ago, and it is one of the most famous artifacts in Ohio history. We will have no problem getting the funding for a dig next year."

  "It looks like a bong," Lara said, shaking her head and giggling. "And its face is repulsive."

  Thad reached over and took her hand. "We have really found something here," he said, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles.

  Lara felt a glow of contentment bloom at his words, the casual use of "we." She left her hand in his and smiled. She had missed him when he was gone, their emotional connection stronger than she would have believed possible after only a few weeks.

  "Yes, we have."

  Chapter 10

  It was time for a break . Thad could feel the need for one behind his eyelids, manifesting itself in a pounding headache.

  The last two weeks had been productive. After the discovery of the pipe, artifacts of lesser importance had been unearthed in a steady stream. He was now receiving daily emails from other archaeologists working in the area, and tentative plans were being formed for a dig next year under the auspices of the Natural History Museum in Cleveland.

  All in all, things were progressing better than he could have hoped. The computer file with his notes was approached novel length, and he would need serious time in the lab once he had finished the excavation. Though he could not be certain without further radiocarbon dating, he was beginning to doubt his original assessment of the age of the site. All of the signs pointed to the early Adena, a thousand years earlier than he had supposed.

  He straightened from a crouched position and looked across the field. Lara was in her garden, moving through the rows with precise strokes of a hoe. Kenzie was nowhere in evidence, but from the faint noise that whispered across the grass he though
t she might be in the house, entranced by the TV.

  Thad gathered up his tools and notes and deposited them in the trailer. Birds called from the trees, darting out to scavenge amongst the newly tilled clods of earth. He unlatched the garden gate and walked along the neat gravel path, fingers trailing against the thriving vegetation. Feathery stalks of vivid green sprouted from the soil, ending in orange carrots. Hog panels had been curved over raised beds, forming a high arch where spidery veins danced. Bright green tomatoes the size of golf balls clustered on vines.

  Thad had a sudden memory of his mother in the cluttered kitchen of their old house, a bandanna tied around her head to keep curly blonde hair back. She had been beautiful, his mother, though not conscious of it, and fiercely devoted to her family. Rather like Lara, now that he thought about it.

  “BLFT sandwiches for lunch.”

  “Thad?” Lara’s voice shook him from the reverie, and he realized that he had picked a green tomato and was smiling at it. The memories were no longer sad, but he could not deny a wistful longing for the life he might have known had his parents lived.

  “Sorry,” he apologized, now awkwardly holding the unripe fruit. “I was just remembering something that my mother used to make.”

  “What was that?” Her eyes were very understanding, and Thad suddenly remembered that she had lost her mother as well, though in a different way. She just left, she had told him during one of the after dinner conversations that had become his favorite part of the day. After finishing typing his notes and eating a sandwich, he would walk up the driveway for a word with his hostess, sometimes staying for hours. In the last week, she had begun bringing out a second wine glass in anticipation of his visits.

  “Bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato sandwiches.”

  “I’ll have to try that, it sounds yummy.”

  “If you do, I will storm your kitchen.”

  “Lunch is at noon, every day, and you are always welcome. Was there something you needed?” Lara pushed her canvas hat back and rubbed a gloved hand across her forehead.

  Thad realized that the original reason he had for seeking her out had slipped his mind, temporarily buried beneath the avalanche of memories. “I was wondering if you wanted to join me for a short field trip to another mound. I need a break from the site for a few hours. I can’t concentrate anymore.”

  Lara shook her head, face regretful. “I would love to, but Maria has to leave early today.”

  “We’ll take Kenzie with us. We can have lunch on the way and make a day of it.”

  “That would be wonderful, but are you sure? Traveling with a toddler…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Is something that I have done before. But can I borrow your shower?” He pulled his t-shirt away from sweat soaked skin and flapped it. He smelled like hell, and knew it. There was a tiny shower in the trailer, but at the moment, the idea of not having to squeeze his tall frame into the stall sounded unbearably appealing.

  “Sure.” She sounded as excited as he felt about the idea of a field trip.

  She stowed the hoe in the garden shed and walked into the house while Thad retrieved clean clothing from the Airstream. By the time he had knocked on the back door, the housekeeper had left and Lara was dashing about after a giggling Mackenzie, trying to put her shoes on.

  Mackenzie saw him and squealed, her blonde pigtails dancing as she flew across the kitchen. “Go for a ride?” she asked, grasping him around the knees.

  “Yes, Kenzie Bug. After I get a shower.”

  Kenzie rubbed her nose against his jeans. “You ‘ways smell nice. Like dirt.”

  Lara choked off a laugh. “Let him go, sweetie. The sooner he gets cleaned up the sooner we can go.” She looked up at him. “I could use a shower too, when you are done.”

  “Why don’t you go first? Bug and I can watch Tom and Jerry while you are getting ready.”

  “Jerry, Jerry!” Kenzie clapped, and ran into the other room.

  Lara pretended to think about it. “An unhurried shower. What a strange concept.”

  Thad followed Mackenzie into the living room. Mackenzie was bouncing with impatience by the time he had located the remote and turned on cartoons, settling next to her on the brown leather sofa. Curled up next to him, the little girl smelled like bubble gum and sunshine on the grass, and it made him smile. Only two years separated his age from Marcus, and four from Logan and Lucas, the twins who had made his life miserable. Though he had raised them after his mom and dad died and he had more experience with kids than he liked to admit, he'd never been around a little girl. Kenzie Bug was small, even for a three year old, and so heartbreakingly fragile, like a stray wind could blow her away.

  Or a car crash. He shut the thought down. It had taken him years to admit that driving with people he cared about scared him. By himself, he was fine, but with someone that he loved, he had to make an effort to control his breathing so that it did not betray the icy terror running through his veins. How interesting that the little girl and her aunt could produce the same reaction in him, that fear of losing people that he cared about.

  He heard the muffled sounds of a shower turning on overhead and tried to block out the image of a naked Lara beneath pounding spray. Looking around the rooms, he found plenty to divert his attention. Dozens of pictures were arranged in groupings on the four walls.

  Sliding off the sofa, he went to examine them. Most of the photos were older, the men and women of previous generations arrayed in their Sunday best on the wide porch of the farm house. Stern and unsmiling, he could see little resemblance to Lara until he came to a small picture in a silver frame on a side table showing a black haired young man whose arms were covered in tattoos next to a lovely blonde girl who did not look old enough to have borne a child.

  “My brother,” came a voice from behind him, and Thad straitened, knowing he had been caught snooping. Lara was dressed in jeans and a simple black shirt, her long, wet braid of hair hanging down her back. She wore no makeup and needed none, her skin touched with gold and summer. Her skin smelled of honeysuckle soap and something else he could not place.

  “Sorry”, he apologized. “It's just…he looks like you.”

  “I know. Kenzie looks like her mother.”

  Thad cocked his head, looking at the photo. “You are going to have your hands full in a few years. You'll have to fend boys off with a stick.”

  “Don’t I know it. Follow me, Professor, and I’ll show you the shower.”

  Thad collected the pile of clean clothes and trailed after Lara as she went up the carpeted staircase and down the hall. Glimpses of her family history kept catching his eye as they passed, military discharges and newspaper clippings from World War II. He longed to stop and study them, learning all their secrets. An award in a shadowbox frame caught his attention, and he whistled.

  “That's a Navy Cross.”

  Lara stopped, and her voice was full of amusement. “My grandpa. And you want to know something terrible? I have no idea what it was for.”

  He was horrified, and sputtered in indignation. “That’s the second highest honor for military service.”

  “Oh, I know. But Grandpa would never talk about it, and I have no idea where his military records are.”

  "Maybe after I have completed the dig I could help you look into it."

  Her eyebrows arched, and she rested her shoulder against the cream-colored wall. "Planning on sticking around after the summer is over?" she asked, and there were layers to the question that he had no difficulty in interpreting.

  He stepped in close and drew a finger along her cheek, finding it still damp from the rushed shower. "Wild horses could not keep me away.”

  The resulting smile was Cheshire bright and sexy, and he had to force his hand to leave her skin. She stepped back, flushed face and sparkling eyes telling him that her control was similarly tested, and opened the door to a bedroom that appeared to take up half the second story. A king sized sleigh bed in rich cherry rested ag
ainst one wall, and above it he could see several sky lights that illuminated the honey colored walls and blue bedspread.

  “Beautiful,” he said, eyeing the furniture. The years he had spent working with his father had given him a good eye for well-made pieces.

  Lara gestured to the door across the expanse of the room. “Bathroom’s over there.”

  It was another surprise. Ultra-modern with sleek granite tile and a glassed in shower and a deep tub, it was the type of bathroom he would have expected to find at a pricey hotel, instead of a farmhouse.

  A call from downstairs sent Lara scurrying, and he stripped and got into the shower, loving the feel of the dozens of jets caressing his aching muscles. The stall was large enough for two, and heat rose in his body as he pictured Lara in this shower only minutes before. Perhaps, after the hearing, he could convince her to join him.

  Thad finished his shower and was buttoning his jeans when he heard a tentative knock at the door.

  He opened it to find Lara holding his phone.

  “It kept buzzing. It must have fallen out of your pocket in the living room,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he replied, looking at the screen, which showed a picture of two young men with strikingly similar features. “My brothers.” He looked at the message. “Nothing major, they just landed in DC.”

  Lara was not looking at the phone. Beneath the screen of her eyelashes, she was studying his chest, and in particular the eagle, globe, and anchor tattoo emblazoned across it, larger than her spread palm. “Marine?”

  “No, I just liked the tattoo,” he deadpanned, and then laughed at her face. “Yes, for four years,” he explained. “How else would I have paid for college?”

  Her fingers reached up and touched the tattoo. Unlike some men, he had never felt the need to shave or wax his chest, his hair being sparse and blonde. But now he wished that he did, that the body displayed by jeans was more like his brothers, with a tendency to be buff as opposed to lean.