The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (22 page)

"So what? I'm crazy in love
with him and could care less."

 "And you think he returns
those feelings?"

"That's a ridiculous
question I have no intention of answering."

Fayd stood up from the bed again.
"You've made every concession in the world for him, haven't you?"

She just looked at him; she
wasn't going to play into his envy.  Fayd went over and stood next to the
window. "Before I let Burton come onto our dig, I had some checking done
on him. With him being an Egyptologist and not in my field of expertise, I knew
little about him so I thought it wise."

Kathlyn didn't like the sound of
that. "He's a celebrity since the discovery of Ay's tomb. His picture is
in magazines all over the world. His research papers on the discovery have been
published twice in the past three years.  He's absolutely brilliant. What more
do you need to know?"

Beyond the window, a hawk rode the
heated drafts.  Fayd watched the bird for a moment.

 "Let me ask you something,
Kathlyn; how do you feel about his illegitimate child?"

Kathlyn's brow furrowed.
"His what?"

Fayd looked at her, surprise and
amusement on his face. "His bastard daughter."

Kathlyn could see by the look on
his face that he was completely serious. As much as she wanted to punch him
right in the nose, something made her stop. For some reason, she wanted to hear
him out before she clobbered him.

"That's a load of crap,
Fayd. Marcus doesn't have any other children."

Fayd snorted softly. "I beg
to differ, Kathlyn. I'm sorry if I have to be the one to tell you that he
fathered a child out of wedlock several years ago."

"How in the hell would you
know that?"

"Records are not difficult
to trace if you have the right tools."

"And you went digging on him
until you found something?"

"You could say that."

Kathlyn knew she shouldn't
believe him. But knowing Fayd, he was probably right on the money. He wouldn't
have told her such a bold-face lie. She suddenly felt as if she had been hit in
the stomach.

"So I didn't know about
it," she was disgusted to realize her voice was quivering. "It's no
big deal. If he didn't tell me, he must have had a good reason."

He snorted. "Certainly he
had good reason. He knew you would not have stood for him supporting a second
family."

Her control was quickly
evaporating. "Supporting a second family? Look, I really have no idea what
you're talking about. Stop standing there like a smug bastard and just tell me what
you know."

"I'm sorry to be the one to
tell you, Kathlyn. You're wonderful, dedicated husband should have done it a
long time ago." Fayd tried to move closer to her but she moved away.
"If we in the Middle East have one thing, it's good intelligence. It was
fairly difficult to dig up any dirt on Burton other than his bastard child, so
you should be glad to know that he's a reasonably clean man. The girl
apparently lives in Oregon with her mother. Traceable bank drafts from Marcus'
parents to the girl's account can only be assumed to be coming from Marcus. 
They're fairly substantial amounts. Other than that, I can't tell you more.
That seemed to be enough."

   "There's got to be
another explanation."

"Ask him."

Kathlyn felt sick. She turned
away from him, quickly dissolving into a world of confusion and anguish. She
could hardly believe that Marcus would keep such a thing for her when there was
no reason to do so. She knew that Fayd had pulled out all the stops on this
one, desperate to convince her to join him on his freakish endeavor. He was
trying to turn her away from Marcus and into his light. She knew this, but it
didn't stop the pain of what she had been told.

"Get out," she
breathed. "Just... leave me alone."

"He's been dishonest with
you, Kathlyn," Fayd hissed. "He controls you like a little puppet. 
Why can't you see that?"

"Shut up."

"He's destroying all that
you have done. He's turned you into a weakling!"

"Shut up!"

She hauled off and slapped him as
hard as she could. The blow was enough to knock him seriously off balance.
Though stunned, Fayd took comfort in the fact that a great deal of damage had
been done. He could have tried to convince her to stay until he was blue in the
face, but it would have been of no use. Throw in a bit of betrayal from her
adored husband, and she would make the decision herself. As always, he was
unscrupulous and sly. And he always got what he wanted.

"You're in Amman," he
said quietly. "There's a taxi waiting downstairs. If you want to go, the
choice is yours.  But I sincerely wish you would stay and be a part of
something great, something Burton can never take away from you."

Kathlyn was in a fog; a crazy,
agonizing fog. She put on a pair of shoes and ran downstairs. There was indeed
a taxi waiting. She jumped in and the man drove off. He didn't speak English,
and she didn't speak Arabic. He stopped off at a busy marketplace and she leapt
out in search of a phone.

 Jobe McGrath was out of the
office. His secretary took the call.

***

"Marcus!" Jobe burst
into the administrative tent where Marcus had been trying to distract himself
with a little work. "She called!"

Marcus stood up so fast that his
chair fell over. He almost tripped over it in his haste. "Kathlyn? Is she
okay?"

Jobe reached out to steady the
big man before he fell over completely. "I don't know how she is,
physically, but she was at least well enough to make a phone call. She called
my office at SCU, but I obviously wasn't there. My assistant arranged for her
to fly back to California. Marcus, she's free!"

"Christ," Marcus was
having a difficult time grasping the news. "Did she say where she
was?"

Lynn and Dennis had heard the
shouting and had come rushing into the tent just in time to see McGrath lower
Marcus onto a chair.

 "She called from
Amman," Jobe said.

"Fahdlan," Marcus
hissed. "Just like we suspected. He had her all along.

"We don't know that for
sure," McGrath cautioned him. "At any rate, her flight leaves in the
next half hour from Amman to Athens, then Athens to New York, and finally New
York to Los Angeles.  We put her on first class all the way. I thought she
deserved it."

Marcus was pale with shock and
relief. He just sat there a moment, trying to compose himself. Lynn and Dennis
had already fled the tent with the news that Kathlyn was free.

 "Why didn't she call me
here?" Marcus said after a moment. "Christ, she knows how worried I'd
be. I don't understand why she called you first."

McGrath shrugged. "Maybe she
did call you first. Cellular phones aren't always the most reliable, especially
out here in the middle of the desert. Even the Iridium phones have blind areas,
sunspots and all that.  So maybe failing to get you, she tried me on a more
secure line."

Marcus accepted that explanation.
But there was something else. "Why is she flying back to California? Why
isn't she flying here?"

"I don't know. She didn't
say."

Marcus' relief was tempered by
the nature of his wife's behavior. It wasn't like her not to make every effort
to contact him, or at least get a message to him. This entire kidnapping thing
was bizarre enough. But something wasn't right.

"I need to see her," he
stood up, his mind whirling in a hundred different directions. "Can your
assistant get in touch with her?"

If Jobe thought something was
amiss with Kathlyn's actions, he didn't say so. Marcus was agitated enough
already. "As far as I understand, she's at Queen Alia International
Airport. She's booked on a Transnational Airlines flight to Athens. I'm not
sure we can contact her, except to have her paged at the airport."

Marcus thought quickly.
"Let's try it," he said. "But first, call your assistant and
have her cancel the reservation. Then put her into a hotel near the airport.
I'm going to Amman to get my wife."

Jobe did as he was told. Marcus
had Debra Jo arrange his travel while he packed a bag with his and Kathlyn's
stuff in it. He was on his way to the airport in Luxor within the hour.

***

Oddly, Kathlyn wasn't
particularly concerned that her reservation back to California had been
cancelled due to overbooking. At least that's what McGrath's assistant had told
her. She didn't even bother to check in with the reservation's desk. She was so
exhausted and muddled that a night in a four star hotel, the Amman Marriott,
and not a plane, seemed particularly appealing. McGrath's secretary had
arranged for everything, including a tentative reservation on a flight that
left the following afternoon so Kathlyn could sleep long and late if she wanted
to.

But sleep wouldn't come. Her
thoughts were spinning like a maelstrom. All she could think, feel or hear was
Marcus. Fayd's words had cut into her like a scalpel and the more she dwelt on
them, the more hurt she became. She knew she needed to call Marcus and talk to
him, but her thoughts were too wild at the moment for her to think clearly. 
She needed to know why he hadn't told her about his daughter, and why he
apparently didn't think she was trustworthy enough to know.  When she was
calmer, perhaps in a few hours, she would call him and then they would talk.
But not right now; she was verging on a breakdown of sorts.  Too much had
happened in a short amount of time for her to rationally deal with it.

The evening was warm and she
ordered room service. Steak, scallops, shrimp cocktail, chocolate cake, and
anything else she could think of. Since SCU was paying, she was going to
indulge. Seated on the balcony facing the sunset, it was a beautiful view. But
it made her miss Marcus that much more. When she was almost finished stuffing
herself, someone knocked on the door.  The Concierge desk had sent up several
clothing items Kathlyn had ordered earlier from the exclusive Ladies shop in
the lobby. A couple of cute pantsuits, a simple black sheath dress, a pair of
black pumps, a pair of black mules, and a pair of shorts and a shirt rounded out
her seven hundred dollar purchase.  The Hotel, knowing who she was, was also
nice enough to send up pajamas, a robe, and other incidentals at no expense.
The Ladies shop had even sent up a carry-all bag and cosmetics free of charge,
for which Kathlyn was grateful. She was beginning to feel human again.

With everything spread out all
over the bed, the bathtub was calling to her. She was so tense with emotion
that the warm water would be relaxing. She ran a full tub, complete with
bubbles, and climbed in. It was comforting and wonderful, and she struggled to
keep her thoughts off her husband for the moment. She would never relax if she
kept fretting about him.

Closing her eyes, she drifted
away on a warm cloud, listening to the music she had turned on back in the
room. Glimpses of things flitted through her brain, the smile of her husband
when he was teasing her, his magnificent form when he was working in the
field.  She saw him rubbing her swollen feet when she was enormously pregnant
with the twins, and then in the delivery room as the doctor handed him the
first of his two sons. She relived conversations they had, arguments that she
had always won, and finally his body in the dim light as he made love to her.
All of these things passed before her half-lidded gaze. They were wonderful,
settling memories. When she finally opened her eyes and saw him standing in
front of her, she thought she was dreaming.

He looked exhausted and
frightened. His chiseled face was drawn and covered with stubble. He just stood
there, in the doorway of the bathroom, with a bag in one hand and the key to
the room in the other. She had never heard him enter.

 "Kathlyn?" he sounded
horribly hesitant.

It took her a moment to realize
he wasn't a ghost. All of Kathlyn's hurt and frustration disappeared in an
instant and she was flying out of the tub, hurling her wet, naked body into his
powerful arms. The bag hit the ground, the key went flying, and Marcus slammed
back against the closet with the momentum of her rush. He held her so tightly
that he squeezed the breath from her. Over the soft sound of radio music,
Kathlyn's sobs filled the air.

"Oh, Christ," Marcus
gasped, trying to maintain his grip on her as her wetness caused her to slide
from his arms. "God, sweetheart, are you okay?" He began kissing her
face, her hair, anything his lips could come into contact with. "Sweetheart,
what happened? Tell me what happened!"

She cried like a child, unable to
speak. Marcus continued to kiss her, hold her, feeling tears sting his eyes.
Next to the birth of his sons, he couldn't remember having ever been so
incredibly joyful about something. She began to tremble and he picked her up,
slippery and all, and grabbed the robe that was lying on the bed. Wrapping her
up, he sat down on the edge of the bed and held her on his lap.