Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (2 page)

“I’m not asking
you to. It’s just that sometimes this life…it doesn’t really let me
do
anything.”

“You always seem pretty
busy.”

“Giving tea
parties and dinners for people I don’t have anything in common with is not the
kind of
doing
I’m talking about.”

“How’s Tater
today? Any firsts?”

Ella couldn’t
help but smile. Just the thought of Tater had that power on her.

And Rowan knew it.

“Not really,” she
said. “He did learn a new word, though.”

“I can’t wait for
my mother to meet him.”

Ella sipped her
brandy and let the moment pass. Rowan’s mother hated her. And while she assumed
the old battle-axe wouldn’t pass on that sentiment to her only grandchild, it
still didn’t cheer her much to think of her.

“You think we’ll
go back soon?” she asked.

“Back to our own
time? I hope not. I mean, I’d love seeing my folks with Tater and all, but he’s
still too young to make the trip.”

“Have you talked
to Olna recently?” Olna was the seer who helped guide Ella and Rowan in their
travels from 2013 to 1925. It was Olna who suggested it might be dangerous for
Tater to skip timelines at his age.

Hell, it felt pretty dangerous even at thirty-five
, Ella thought, remembering the pain and
nausea of passing over to 1925.

“No, no. I guess
I was thinking more like when he was seven or eight. Or even older.”

Ella set her own
glass down and slipped her shoes off. “Do you ever wonder if there’s any of my
grandfather in Tater?” she asked, not looking at him.

“Where did that
come from?”

“They are blood
related, you know.”

“But so what?
Your grandfather probably wasn’t
totally
evil.”

“You mean as
evidenced by the fact that even Hitler liked dogs?”

“Ella, you only
have to spend five minutes with the boy to see that Tater is
nothing
like your grandfather. Whoever
he was and whatever he did,
none
of
that got passed on. Tater’s cheerful and smart and kind,” he said.
 
“He’s the best of both of us.”

Ella felt tears
welling up in her eyes and thought of her mother, who had found it difficult to
live as the daughter of a man executed at Nuremberg.

“Okay, so what
were you celebrating tonight that was so incredible you missed out on dinner
tonight with Lord and Lady Lardbutt?” she asked, determined to get herself in
hand.

She watched his
eyes glitter with pleasure and felt a combination of envy and pride in him. She
was glad for everything he’d made for himself—more than glad. She hated
that it served to remind her that she was just a wife and mother now. Even
thinking the words made her blush with shame.
Just a wife and mother
. As if that wasn’t a full, complex and
immensely satisfying role.

Wasn’t it?

She could feel
the excitement pinging off Rowan in palpable waves.

“I’ve been
invited to give a paper at the British Museum this spring,” he said.

She frowned.
“Isn’t that in London?”

“It is. They want
me to preface my work on the book I’m writing. It’s an incredible honor, El. I
really feel like I’m doing important work and this shows that people are
noticing. I can’t tell you how big this is.”

“No, I can see
that,” she said, taking another sip of brandy. “That’s totally amazing. And well
deserved. Good show, jolly pip-pip and all that.”

“I want you and
Tater to come with me. We’ll make a holiday of it. Three weeks in the UK.”

“I don’t think they
call it that yet.”

“It’ll be great.”

“Just so great,”
she said, smiling broadly and hoping with every fiber in her being that it
looked like she meant it.

The next morning,
Ella dressed and descended the stairs to the dining room to find Rowan already breakfasted
and gone.

She remembered
what it felt like to be eager to go to work. There had once been a time when
she also had a career with places to go and important things to do.

As she stood on
the landing between the upstairs bedrooms and the downstairs and paused,
listening, she heard the gentle clinking of plates and silverware as Mohammed
and the cook’s girl reset the table for her breakfast. The townhouse she, Rowan
and Halima shared belonged to their friend, Marvel Spenser. It was on a quiet and
leafy residential street a comfortable walking distance to both the American
University and the center of Cairo.

Rowan talked
occasionally about buying their own place, but Marvel, a wealthy American
heiress, insisted she didn’t need the townhouse and was never in Cairo long
enough to use it anyway. Besides, she and her new husband, Josh, were always either
on safari or archaeological dig. Ella had to admit it was a convenient
situation for everyone.

“Ella? Is that
you?” Halima called up to her from the dining room. Ella could hear the muted
rumbling of Tater’s chatter in the same room. “Are you ready to go to the park
this morning? Or do you have a painting lesson?”

Ella’s stomach
muscles clenched.
What is wrong with me?

“Nope, I’m
ready,” she said, forcing her voice to sound light. “Just let me grab a cup of
coffee and we’ll be off.” She descended the stairs toward her two dearest ones,
watching the dust motes dance lazily in the air before her.

Halima sat at the
breakfast table feeding a biscuit to the toddler. She looked up when Ella
entered. “
Effendi
Rowan has already
eaten and gone,” she said.

“I figured.”

Ella sat next to
Tater and pulled him onto her lap. “Hello, muffin boy,” she said, kissing his
ear. He squealed with laughter but turned back to Halima, who held his cookie.

 
“Do you want to talk about it?” Halima
said.

Ella poured a
coffee for herself and sighed. “What’s to say? Rowan’s excited about going to
London and I’m trying to be supportive, but just between you and me I don’t
want him to go. He said we’d never be separated again.”

“Then go with
him.”

“Does the word
Titanic
mean anything to you? Just last
week Emily Swanson’s lady’s maid went back home for her father’s funeral and
the whole boat sank. It doesn’t matter that they were all rescued,” Ella said
hurriedly before Halima could say it. “Emily said it was horrible.”

Tater knocked
over his milk cup and Ella grabbed a napkin and mopped up the spill. “I can’t
believe ship travel is still so dangerous in 1925. For crap’s sake, you people
need to work out the kinks.”

“Well,” Halima
said, smiling at her, “you know Tater will be perfectly safe here with me, and
it would be a lovely second honeymoon for you—”

“Have you been
talking to Rowan?” Ella narrowed her eyes.

Halima laughed.
“I have not but it does seem like a logical suggestion.”

“I’m not leaving Tater,”
Ella said firmly.

***

Rowan jerked his
tie out of its knot and squinted into the bedroom mirror. Normally he hated
these kinds of work dinners—especially with Ella in the kind of mood
she’d been in lately. But tonight he found he was actually looking forward to
it. He glanced over at her as she sat at her dressing table. She’d done
something with her hair for a change, he noticed. That was good. It didn’t do
to be too different in 1925.

He watched her
fasten a string of pearls around her neck. His eyes were instantly drawn to the
ample cleavage that now set the necklace off. Ella’s complexion was flawless,
and that complexion went all the way down to her pretty little toes. He felt a
stirring below the belt and dragged his attention away from her. First, they
didn’t have time, he reminded himself. And second, well, they didn’t have time.

“Do you need help
with that?”

He looked up to
see she was watching him now. He put his hand to his tie and turned back to the
mirror. “I’ll get it,” he said. “You look beautiful by the way.”

“Thanks.”

He watched her
through the mirror as she moved to the bed to gather her wrap and her clutch.
He felt his cock take control again as his eyes watched her hips and bottom in
that dress—dark lavender silk that moved over her curves and hugged her
snugly where it counted. When she leaned over to pick up her bag, he caught his
breath to see the fullness of her creamy white breasts straining against the
low bodice.

Surely they had fifteen minutes to spare?

A light tap at
the door ended that thought, accompanied by a silent groan from Rowan.

“You okay?” Ella
stood next to him, frowning. She had enveloped herself in her matching silk
wrap, looking once more only a mere goddess and no longer the lush succubus he
couldn’t resist.

“Never better,”
he said as he finished knotting his tie. “I assume that’s Mohammed alerting us
the car’s here.” He held out his elbow. “Milady?”

She took his arm
and he breathed in her scent. It wasn’t French. Knowing Ella, it was probably
something she picked up at the bazaar. Something bewitching and foreign, just
like her.

***

The night could
not have gone better.

Normally, Ella
didn’t love these evenings out with his colleagues and their wives, he knew. It
was a testimony to her love for him that she endured them and performed so
believably for his sake. They dined at Shepheard
 
Hotel, where else?

Rowan’s boss, Matthew
Dunbar, and his wife, Betsy, were good people. Older than him and Ella and so a
little on the paternalistic side, but that was fine. They were from the
Midwest. They’d raised their kids back in the States and then bolted for their
first love—Egypt. Well, at least, Dunbar’s first love. Betsy was clearly
just along for the ride although she came stoically. Rowan couldn’t help but
wonder if the constantly wistful look in her eyes was for the children and
grandchildren who lived an ocean away.

Benjamin Johnson
and his wife, Cynthia, and Hector Davis and his fiancé, Lydia, filled out the
group. Rowan had worked with them both for two years now. Johnson, who might
have been a close friend, regarded Rowan with suspicion and outright competitive
malice. Davis was pleasant but insipid. Rowan had tried on several occasions to
advance the friendship but was constantly thwarted by the man’s insecurity and
shyness. If there was a way to penetrate his reserve, he hadn’t found it.

The minute the
three couples were seated in Shepheard’s grand dining hall, Dunbar lifted a
glass of champagne in Rowan’s direction.

“To Rowan, for
giving all Americans in Egypt the honor of his accomplishment with this
invitation from the British Museum.”

“Hear, hear,” Davis
said automatically.

Rowan noticed although
Johnson reached for his glass, he remained silent. Everyone drank and Rowan felt
an instant flush of satisfaction. Being lauded by his boss in front of their
wives—and Johnson—was great stuff in itself. But the fact was, he
had yet to come down from his high over the accomplishment himself.

During what
historians will certainly call one of the most exciting times in
British-Egyptian history, he, Rowan Pierce from Sandy Springs, Georgia, was
being recognized as contributing something extraordinary.

Out-fucking-standing.

Dunbar turned to
Ella. “I hope you know how amazing this feat is,” he said. “What your husband
has done is single-handedly open up the possibility for a coordinated effort in
the sharing of the subject of Egyptology that puts the Americans front and
center. For a change.”

“I’m very proud
of him.”

“As well you
should be. He’s our up-and-coming young Turk, is Rowan.” Dunbar laughed and
leaned over to squeeze his wife’s shoulders. Betsy smiled on cue, but Rowan
noticed her face relaxed back into an expressionless stare as soon as the
conversation and attention moved away from her.

“There’ll be no
stopping us now,” Dunbar continued. “With this invitation—and the book,
of course, following soon after—we’ll be uniquely placed to influence
attitude and styles of thought in relation to antiquities going forward. And I
see that as everything from their discovery to their display. I’ve already received
a request from The Field Museum in Chicago to see if we can help coordinate a
possible loan of artifacts for a tour there. Very exciting stuff.”

“Well, we all
worked to make this happen,” Rowan said, flapping his napkin out across his
lap.

“Nonsense,” Dunbar
said. “It was your idea for this book that did it. Pure and simple. Total
genius, Pierce. That’s what it is.”

Rowan forced
himself not to look at Ella. He knew the
total
genius
of his in-depth knowledge of 1925 archaeology methodology after the
King Tut find had more to do with a marathon session in front of the Discovery
channel a few years back than any brainchild on his part.
 
And while he could hardly pretend to
not
know what he knew, neither was he a
hundred percent comfortable with taking credit for it.