Birthright (43 page)

“I thought you'd run for the hills if you thought I did. You weren't known for your long-term commitments. Neither was I.”

“It was different for us.”

“I knew it was different for me. And it scared me. If you turn over, I'm not saying another word.”

Cursing under his breath, he settled down again. “Fine.”

“I never expected to feel what I felt with you. I don't think people, even people who have a romantic bent, expect to be consumed that way.

“I could read you perfectly, when it came to the work, or other people, general stuff.” She sighed. “But I could never read you when it came to us. Anyway, some of it has to do with what you'd call my family culture. I don't know a couple more devoted to each other than my parents. As in tune. And still, I always saw that it was my mother who had the need.

“She gave up her music, moved away from her family, made herself into the perfect doctor's wife because she needed my father's approval. It was her choice, I know that. And she's happy. But I always looked at her as a little less. I always promised myself I'd never put myself second for anyone. I'd never need someone so much that I couldn't be a whole person without him. Then you exploded into my life, and I had to rush around and pick up the pieces just so I didn't forget who I was supposed to be.”

“I never wanted you to give anything up.”

“No. But I was terrified I would anyway. That I wouldn't be able to think without asking myself what you'd think first. My mother used to do that. ‘We'll ask
your father.' ‘Let's see what your father says.' Drove me crazy.”

She laughed a little, shook her head. “Stupid, really, when you think of it. Taking that small part of their marital dynamic and making it personal. I didn't want to need you, because if I did, that made me weak and you strong. And I was already crazy because I loved you more than you loved me, and that gave you the edge.”

“So it was a contest?”

“Partially. The more I felt at a disadvantage, emotionally, the more I pushed you. The more I pushed, the more you closed up on me, which made me push harder. I wanted you to prove you loved me.”

“And I never did.”

“No, you never did. And I wasn't going to tolerate somebody who couldn't cooperate enough to love me more than I loved him so I'd have the controls. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to cut you deep. I wanted that because I didn't think I could.”

“It must make you feel better to know you broke me into small, bloody pieces.”

“It does. I'm a failure as a human being because it makes me feel so much better to know that.”

“Glad I could help.” He pulled her arm around him, then carried her hand to his lips.

“You can barely choke out that you love me. I'm afraid to love you. What the hell are we supposed to do?”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven to me.”

She pressed her face to his back and laughed. “God, you're probably right.”

L
et the dead stay dead, Callie thought as she gently brushed soil from the finger bones of a woman who'd stayed dead for thousands of years. Would this woman, one Callie judged to have been at least sixty when she died, agree? Would she be angry, horrified, baffled at having her bones disturbed by a stranger who lived in another time, in another world?

Or would she understand, be pleased that these strangers cared enough to want to learn from her? Learn about her.

Would she be willing, Callie wondered as she paused to write another quick series of notes, to allow herself to be unearthed, removed, studied, tested, recorded, so that knowledge about who she was,
why
she was, could be expanded?

And still, so many questions could never be answered. They could speculate how long she'd lived, what had caused her death, her diet, her habits, her health.

But they would never know who her parents had been, her lovers and friends. Her children. They would never know what made her laugh or cry, what frightened her or angered her. They would never know, truly, what it was that made her a person.

Wasn't that what she was trying to find out about herself, somehow? What made Callie Dunbrook who she was beyond the facts she had at her disposal. Beyond what she knew.

What was she made of? Was it strong enough, tough enough, to pursue answers for the sake of knowledge? Because if she wasn't, her entire life had been misdirected. She had no business being here, uncovering the bones of this long-dead woman if she backed away from uncovering the bones of her own past.

“You and I are in the same boat.” She sighed as she set her clipboard aside. “And the trouble is, I'm the one at the oars. My head's in it. Too much training for it not to be. But I don't know if my heart's in it anymore. I just don't know if my heart's in any of it.”

She wanted to walk away. Wanted to pack up her loose and walk away from the digs, from the deaths, from the Cullens, from the layers of questions. She wanted to forget she'd ever heard the names Marcus Carlyle or Henry and Barbara Simpson.

She even thought she could live with it. Wouldn't her parents be less traumatized if she just stopped? Put this all aside. Buried it, forgot it.

And there were other archaeologists who could competently head the Antietam Project. Others who hadn't known Dolan or Bill and wouldn't be reminded of them every time they looked at the sun-spangled water of the pond.

If she walked away, she could start to pick up her life again—the part of it that had been on hold for a year. There was no point in denying that now, at least to herself. Part of her had just stopped when Jake had walked away.

If they had a second chance, shouldn't they take it? Away from here. Away where they could finally start learning each other—those layers again. Layers they'd simply bored through the first time around without taking the time to study or analyze in their rush to simply have each other.

What the hell was her responsibility anyway—here, or to somewhere she'd been for barely two months of her life? Why should she risk herself, her happiness, maybe even the lives of others just to know all the facts about something that could never be changed?

Deliberately, she turned away from the remains she'd so carefully excavated. She boosted herself out of her section, wiped at the soil that clung to her pants.

“Take five.” Jake put a hand on her arm, tugged her away from the boundary of her section. He'd been watching her for several minutes, measuring the weariness and the despair that had played over her face.

“I'm done. I'm just done.”

“You need to take a minute. Get out of the sun. Better yet, take an hour in the trailer and get some sleep.”

“Don't tell me what I need. I don't care about her.” She gestured toward the remains behind her. “If I don't care, I don't belong here.”

“Callie, you're tired. Physically, emotionally. You're pissed off, and now you're beating yourself up because there's nobody else to kick.”

“I'm resigning from the project. I'm going back to Philadelphia. There's nothing here for me, and I've got nothing to give anyone here.”

“I'm here.”

“Don't put that on the line again.” She hated hearing her own voice shake. “I'm not up to it.”

“I'm asking you to take a couple days. Take a break. Do paperwork, head to the lab, whatever works best for you. Then, after you've cleared your head a little, if you want off, we'll talk to Leo, help him find replacements for us.”

“Us?”

“You go, I go.”

“Jesus, Jake. I don't know if I'm up to that either.”

“I'm up to it. This time you're going to lean on me if I have to kick your feet out from under you.”

“I want to go back home.” There were tears in her throat, tears behind her eyes. She had a moment's panic she wouldn't be able to stop them. “I want to feel normal.”

“Okay.” He drew her against him, then shook his head quickly as Rosie started toward them. “We'll take a few days. Let me get in touch with Leo.”

“Tell him . . . Christ, I don't know what to tell him.” She drew back, tried to steady herself. And saw Suzanne pull to the side of the road. “Oh God. That's perfect. That's just perfect.”

“Go on to the trailer. I'll get rid of her.”

“No.” She swiped a hand over her cheeks to make sure they were dry. “If I'm taking off, the least I can do is tell her myself. But it wouldn't hurt my feelings if you stuck around.”

“In case you haven't noticed, I've been stuck for some time.”

“Callie.” Suzanne actually seemed happy as she came through the gate. “Jake. I was just thinking how much fun all of this looks. That never occurred to me before, but it must be fun.”

Callie rubbed her grubby hands on her work pants. “It can be.”

“Especially on a day like this. Gorgeous day, so fresh and clear. I thought Jay would beat me here, but I see he's running late.”

“I'm sorry. We were supposed to meet for something today?”

“No. We just wanted to . . . Well, I won't wait for him. Happy birthday.” She held out a gift bag.

“Thanks, but it's not my birthday until . . .” Realization came with a quick jolt that had her staring at the pretty little bag with its shiny blue stars. Jessica's birthday.

“I realized you might not think of it.” Suzanne took Callie's hand, slid the strap of the bag over her fingers. “But I've waited a long time to wish you happy birthday in person.”

She saw no sorrow or regret on Suzanne's face. Only a joy that left her unable to turn away. “Well.” She stared down at the bag again. “I don't know how to feel about this. It's a little annoying to be another year older to begin with, the last one I've got before the big three-oh. And now I have to do it earlier than I expected.”

“Wait until you hit fifty. It's a killer. I made you a cake.” She waved a hand back toward her car. “It might help it go down easier.”

“You made me a cake,” Callie murmured.

“I did. And I don't mind telling you that not everyone gets a cake baked in Suzanne's actual kitchen by Suzanne's actual hands these days. There's Jay now. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

“I'll have him get the cake out of the car for me. Be right back.”

Callie stood, the shiny bag dangling from her fingers. “How is she doing this? Jesus, Jake, she was bubbling. How is she making it a celebration?”

“You know why, Callie.”

“Because my life matters to her. It never stopped mattering.” She looked down at the gift bag, then back toward the bones of a long-dead woman. “She's not going to let me walk away.”

“Babe.” He leaned down to kiss her. “You were never going to let yourself walk away. Let's go have some cake.”

T
he team descended on the cake like locusts on wheat. Maybe, Callie thought as she heard the laughter, it was just what they'd all needed to push away the guilt and depression over Bill's death. Some careless greed, a half hour of simple human pleasure.

She sat in the shade at the edge of the woods and took the wrapped package Jay offered her. “Suzanne will tell you picking out gifts isn't my strong point.”

“Car mats. For our fourth anniversary.”

He winced. “And I've never lived it down.”

Amused, Callie finished ripping off the wrapping. They seemed so easy together, like different people than they'd been the day she'd seen them in Lana's office.

“Well, this beats car mats.” She ran her hand over the cover of a coffee-table book on Pompeii. “It's great. Thanks.”

“If you don't like it, you can—”

“I do like it.” It wasn't so hard to lean over, touch her lips to his cheek. Harder, much harder, was to watch him struggle to control his stunned gratitude for one small gesture.

“Good.” He reached out, a little blindly, and closed his hand over Suzanne's. “Um. That's good, but I'm used to having my gifts returned.”

Suzanne let out an exaggerated huff. “Didn't I keep that ugly music box with the ceramic cardinal you gave me for Valentine's Day? It plays ‘Feelings,' ” she told Callie.

“Wow, you really do suck at this. I lucked out.” She picked up the gift bag, riffled through the matching tissue paper for the jewelry box.

“They were my grandmother's.” Suzanne kept her fingers twined with Jay's as Callie drew out the single strand of pearls. “She gave them to my mother on her wedding day, and my mother gave them to me on mine. I hope you don't mind, but I wanted you to have them. Even though you never knew them, I thought it was a link you might appreciate.”

“They're beautiful. I do appreciate it.” Callie looked back toward the square in the ground where ancient bones
lay waiting. Jake was right, she thought. She'd never be able to walk away.

She put the pearls gently back in the box. “One day you'll tell me about them. And that's how I'll know them.”

S
ane and enjoyable outdoor activities, as far as Lana was concerned, included shady summer picnics, sipping margaritas at the beach, a nice morning of gardening and perhaps a weekend of skiing—with the emphasis on the
après.

She'd never envisioned herself camped out in a field, eating a charred hot dog as she updated a client. But nothing about her attorney-client relationship with Callie had been usual.

“Want a beer to go with that?” Comfortable, Callie flipped the lid on a cooler.

“She doesn't drink beer.” Doug crooked a finger at the cooler. “But I do.”

“Well, we're all out of pinot noir at the moment.” Callie tossed Doug a can of Coors. “This is getting to be real cozy. Like we're double-dating.”

“When we all go to the car to fool around, I call the backseat.” Jake dipped a hand into an open bag of chips.

“I'll make sure to note the time when that activity begins.” Shifting to try to find a soft spot on the ground,
Lana swatted at a mosquito. “It wouldn't be ethical to bill you for it. Meanwhile . . .”

She scooped her hair out of the way, then pulled a file out of her bag. “I've verified the death certificate, and spoke personally with Carlyle's physician. As he received permission from next of kin, he was willing to give me some of the details of Carlyle's medical condition. His cancer was diagnosed eight years ago, and treated. Recently, it recurred. The chemo cycle began last April, and in July Carlyle was hospitalized as his condition worsened. He was terminal, and was released to hospice care in early August.”

She set the file down, looked at Callie. “I can extrapolate from this that Carlyle was in no shape to travel, and there's no evidence he left his home on Grand Cayman. He may have been able to communicate to some extent by phone, but even that would've been limited. He was a very sick man.”

“And now he's a very dead one,” Callie stated.

“It's possible we can put together enough evidence to take to court and persuade a judge to subpoena his records. There are probably records, Callie, and it may help you to see them. But it would take time, and I can't guarantee I can make it happen with what we have so far.”

“Then we'll have to get more. We found the connection between Barbara Halloway and Suzanne, to Simpson, to my parents. And those connect to Carlyle. There'll be others.”

“How important is it to you?” Doug lifted a hand, let it fall. “You know what happened. You may not be able to prove it, but you know. Carlyle's dead, so how important is it?”

Callie reached in the cooler again and took out a small package wrapped in aluminum foil. She opened it, offered it. “She baked me a birthday cake.”

Doug stared at the pink rosebud on white frosting, then made himself reach out and break off a corner. “Okay.”

“I can't love her the way you do. Or him,” she said, thinking of Jay. “But they matter to me.”

“People worked for Carlyle,” Jake put in. “In his offices, in his network. He had a wife during the time Callie was taken. Two wives since. And he very likely had other intimate relationships. No matter how careful a man is, he talks to someone. To find out who, and what, you need to get a clear picture of the man. Who was Marcus Carlyle? What drove him?”

“We have some of that from the investigator's report.” Lana flipped through the file. “The name of his secretary in his Boston and Seattle offices. She's no longer in that area. We believe she remarried and moved to North Carolina, but he hasn't been able to locate her as yet. There was a law clerk, whom he has spoken with. There's no indication he was involved. I have reports on a few other employees, and again, there's no indication that any of them continued contact with him after he closed down in Boston.”

“What about associates? Other lawyers, other clients, neighbors?”

“He's had interviews and conversations with some.” Lana lifted her hands. “But we're talking about over a twenty-year gap. Some of these people are dead, or have moved, or simply haven't been located yet. Realistically, if you want to spread out this way, it's going to take a team of investigators, and a great deal of time and money.”

“I can go to Boston.” Doug broke off another corner of the cake. “And wherever.” He shrugged when Callie just looked at him. “Traveling's what I do. And when you're hunting up books, determining whether they are what they're advertised to be, you talk to a lot of people, do a lot of research. So I'll take a trip, ask some questions. Do me a favor?” he said to Jake.

“Name it.”

“Look after my woman and her kid while I'm gone?”

“Happy to.”

“Just a minute.” Flustered, Lana shut the file. “Jake has enough to do without worrying about me, and I'm not sure how I feel about being referred to as ‘your woman.' ”

“You started it. She's the one who asked me out.”

“To dinner. For God's sake.”

“Then she just kept reeling me in.” Doug bit into a hot dog, talked around it. “Now she's hooked me, she doesn't know what to do about it.”

“Reeling you in.” Speechless, Lana picked up Callie's beer and drank.

“Anyway, I'd feel better knowing you're looking out for her and Ty while I'm gone. When I get back,” he added, “maybe you'll have figured out what to do with me.”

“Oh, I'm getting some pretty good ideas right now.”

“Kind of cute, aren't they?” Callie swooped a finger through icing, licked it off. “You lovebirds are really perking me up.”

“Then I'm really sorry I can't stay until you're rolling with laughter and cheer, but I need to get home to Ty. The updates are in the file. If you have any questions, call.”

“I'll follow you home.” Doug rose, then offered a hand to help Lana to her feet.

As if surprised to find it in her hand, Lana handed the beer back to Callie. “How long will the two of you be here tonight?”

“Matt and Digger relieve us at two.”

Lana looked toward the mounds of dirt, the holes and trenches, the pond, the trees. “I can't say I'd enjoy spending the best part of the night out here. Whatever the circumstances.”

“I can't say I'd enjoy spending the best part of the day in Saks. Whatever the circumstances.” Callie lifted her beer. “We all have our little phobias.”

D
oug waited while Lana settled Tyler in for the night. He spent the time studying the photographs she had scattered over her bookshelves. Particularly one of Lana leaning back against a fair-haired man with his arms snug around her waist.

Steven Campbell, he thought. They looked good together. Relaxed, easy, happy.

The kid had his father's eyes, Doug decided, and slid
his hands into his pockets to stop himself from picking the photograph up. And the way he was grinning, the way he rested his chin on the top of Lana's head transmitted fun and affection, and intimacy.

“He was a terrific guy,” Lana said quietly. She walked to the shelf, took down the picture. “His brother took this. We were visiting his family and had just announced that I was pregnant. It was one of the most perfect moments of my life.”

She set the picture down gently.

“I was just thinking how good you look together. And that Ty's got a little of both of you. Your mouth, his eyes.”

“Steve's charm, my temper. He made so many plans when Ty was born. Ball games and bicycles. Steve loved being a father, and was so much more immediately tuned to parenthood than I was. Sometimes, I think, because he was only going to be given such a short time to be one, he was somehow able to pack years into those short months with Ty.”

“He loved you both. You can see it right here, in the way he's holding you both.”

“Yes.” She turned away, surprised and shaken that Doug could see and understand that from a snapshot.

“I'm not looking to take his place with you, Lana. Or with Ty. I know a lot about how impossible it is to step into a hole that's been left behind. When I was a kid I thought I could, even that I should. Instead, all I could do was watch my parents break apart, and that hole grow deeper and wider. I had a lot of anger because of that, anger I didn't even recognize. So I moved away from the source of the anger, geographically, emotionally. Stayed away for longer and longer periods.”

“It must've been so hard for you.”

“Harder now that she's back, because it makes me look at my whole life differently. I didn't stand by my parents, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Doug, that's not true.”

“It's absolutely true.” It was important she knew that, he realized, understood that. And understood he was ready to
change. “I walked away from them because I couldn't—wouldn't live with a ghost. Because I figured I wasn't important enough to keep them together—and I blamed them for it. I blamed them,” he admitted. “I walked away from every potential relationship since. I've never, as an adult, had a real home or tried to make one. I never wanted children because that meant responsibility and worry.”

He stepped to her now, took her hands. “I don't want to take his place. But I want a chance to make a place with you, and with Ty.”

“Doug—”

“I'm going to ask you to give me that chance. I'm going to ask you to think about that while I'm gone.”

“I don't know if I can let myself love someone like that again.” Her fingers gripped his, but they weren't steady. “I don't know if I have the courage.”

“I look at you, at this place, at that boy sleeping upstairs, and I don't have any doubts about your courage.” He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. “Take some time and think about it. We'll talk when I get back.”

“Stay here tonight.” She wrapped her arms around him and held on. “Stay tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I'm sure.”

C
allie worked on her laptop until dark, then stretched out to stare up at the stars and plot out her next workday in her mind. She would complete the excavation of the woman's skeleton, then supervise its transfer to the lab. She'd continue to work horizontally in that sector.

Leo was due in, so she would pass all film and reports on to him.

She and Jake needed to do another survey and update the plotting.

She'd have to take a look at the long-range weather forecast and prepare accordingly.

Right now it looked to continue warm and clear for the next few days. Perfect digging weather, with temps rarely
getting past the low eighties and the humidity returning to civilized levels.

She let herself drift, automatically tuning out the country music Jake had playing on low and concentrating on the night sounds. A quiet whoosh of a car on the road to the north of the field, the occasional plop of a frog or fish in the waters of the pond to the south.

The beagle from the farm just west was beginning to bay at the rising moon.

Lana didn't know what she was missing, Callie thought, enjoying the cool fingers of air tickling her cheeks. There was an utter peace here, in the night, in the open, that couldn't be found anywhere within walls.

She was stretched out on ground where others had slept. Year by century by era. And beneath her, the earth held more secrets than civilization would ever find.

But what they did find would always fascinate.

She could hear the faint scratch of Jake's pencil over paper. He'd sketch by the light of his Coleman lantern, she thought, sometimes late into the night. She often wondered why he hadn't pursued art rather than science. What had caused him to choose to study man instead of translating him onto canvas?

And why had she never asked?

She opened one eye, studying him in the lamplight.

He was relaxed, she thought. She could tell by the line of his jaw, his mouth. He'd taken off his hat, and that light breeze danced his hair back from his face as he sketched.

“Why didn't you make a living out of that? Out of, you know, art?”

“Not good enough.”

She rolled over on her stomach. “Art wasn't good enough, or you weren't?”

“Both. Painting, if that's what you mean, didn't interest me enough to give it the time and study it required. Not to mention it wouldn't have been macho enough for me when I started college. Bad enough I never intended to work the family ranch, but then to work at becoming a painter? Jesus, my old man would've died of embarrassment.”

“He wouldn't have supported you?”

Jake glanced over, then flipped a page on his sketch pad and started another. “He wouldn't have stopped me, or tried to. But he wouldn't have understood it. I wouldn't have either. Men in my family work the land, or with horses, with cattle. We don't work in offices or the arts. I was the first in my family to earn a college degree.”

“I never knew that.”