Nefertirioc- Hehe…I love your reviews, they make me smile.
Everyone else- THANK YOU! I love you guys.
I have now seen Runway Jury 3 times…I need to stop going…
Anyway, happy belated Turkey Day and all that jazz. Hope you enjoy!
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Chapter Nine
When you get married, little things start to become standard. Take sex for example. For last five months or so, I had been used to being able to do it with Evelyn at least, on most weeks, every other day. We couldn't get enough of each other and the constant lovemaking got to be routine. Not that I didn't enjoy it. Lets just put it this way: didn't miss how things were before hand, not one bit. But this little trip through the desert, not to mention the stress leading up to the whole deal, had left a bit of a void in that part of our relationship. It began to wear down on me; sometimes I wanted her so bad I couldn't stand it. So when Evelyn suggested, and not to subtly either, that we have an afternoon quickie, I wasn't about to say no.
Ah, but the "quickie" was not as short lived as you would think. Sure, we took a little break for dinner and to discuss some of the next day's proceedings with Jonathan, but by eight we were back at it. Neither Evelyn nor I seemed to really care, or notice even, that Mr. Logan could pop in, or worse Jonathan. It was nice to just forget about all that crap and be with each other for a time. We simply needed some time alone. And it worked, because afterward I felt calmer and Mr. Logan didn't seem to piss me off as much as he had been.
Its things like that that I'm talking about, the simple things that you miss once they become absent. Like when Evelyn stopped wearing her little blouses and skirts all time about a month after we were married. For weeks that's all I had seen her in. And when she stared wearing reveling, sexy clothes once in a while, it was a big shock to me. For years my life had been chaotic, an intense tornado of events. But since marring Evelyn, I begun to like routine: I liked my coffee every morning, I liked how Evelyn folded my shirts a certain way, how both of us had to be on our respective sides of the beds, and how she was always there when I woke up. Her face was usually the first thing I saw in the morning, her body was the first physical thing mine came into contact with, other then the obvious sheets or other bed things.
So the next morning, when I rolled over and found no one to take in my arms, I sat up quickly, alarmed, heart racing. I was scared out of my mind… until I heard her happy giggle drift through the tent walls followed by Jonathan's banter. I groaned softy, dreading getting up, wishing my wife would come back. But I reached over, pulled my pants off of my duffle bag, where they had landed during some action of the previous night, and stood up, pulling them on and zipping them up. The damn tent was short, so I had to hunch over while I looked around for my shirt from last night, which was nowhere to be found. Before I even thought about just grabbing another one, I flung open the tent flap and marched outside. That was my favorite shirt, if we lost if I was going to be very pissed.
Evelyn and Jonathan were gathered around the campfire. I noticed he had a plate in front of him, she, on the other hand, did not. If she didn't watch it she was going to get sick again. And that was the last thing I wanted. What I also noticed, though, was that my shirt was out here- on Evy. It was way to big for her, but she'd put it on and buttoned it up, letting it fall, almost down to her knees. She'd put on a pair of work pants she'd bought just for the damn trip. I had to admit, she looked a little sexy, especially the way she turned her head quickly when she noticed I was approaching her.
"Good morning," she chirped happily.
I grinned, unable to be mad at her, and sauntered over. "Morning sweetheart," I greeted, leaning down and kissing her on the top of the head. I straightened up and then nodded toward my brother-in-law, "Jonathan."
Jonathan nodded back, his mouth otherwise occupied with whatever he was eating. It looked like a cross between eggs and oatmeal, so I didn't ask. No wonder Evy wasn't eating. I sat down next to her on the sand and playfully tugged at the shirt collar.
"You're wearing my shirt," I whispered, wondering if maybe the desert was getting to her senses.
"I know," she said, grinning at me. "It looks better on me then it does you." She giggled at her own comment, playfully leaning against me. Yep, I think a good nights sex and sleep was all we really needed. God I missed her being like this.
"I think it looks better off both of us," I whispered, leaning close to her so that Jonathan couldn't hear. Evelyn's eyes lit up and she raised her eyebrows.
"Hmm, that's true," she whispered back. Breaking into another grin she added, "Actually, I didn't want to wake you by looking through my bags."
"I wouldn't have minded too much," I confessed, leaning down to kiss her sweetly. "I would have made you stay in bed."
Evelyn's grin widened at my suggestion and she nodded slowly. Our eyes remained locked for a good while as we both privately reminisced about last night. I missed it already.
"For goodness sake!" Jonathan's very loud, annoying voice broke through our private moment and I tore my gaze away from her to frown at him. "Can you spare me the lovey stuff, thank you very much? If you want to do it on your own time, fine by me, but we've got business here."
"Actually," Evy said, pushing my hands off of her thighs, "Jonathan is right. We need to get started as soon as possible today."
I scowled and poked the fire with a stick I found lying next to my feet. Actually, I wanted to say to her, we could still go back to bed if we wanted to.
"What are we going to do about what-his-arse," Jonathan asked, finishing off the rest of whatever he was eating.
Evelyn looked at me and gave me a sad smile. We had tried to talk about it last night, but kept getting distracted by one thing or another. I sighed loudly and shrugged my shoulders.
"Go with it," I suggested.
"Of course not!" Evelyn interjected, standing up in that defiant way she had. Uh oh, here we go; I could practically hear the lecture she was going to deliver in about two seconds. You know, for as much as I love her, she can really get on my nerves sometimes. "Now, c'mon you two, we've been through a lot worse then this. We can surely thing of something. I mean, he's just one man. What could he possibly do?"
"Hurt you," I answered.
"Rat on us," Jonathan added, throwing his plate in the sand where it landed with a thump and a cloud of dust.
Evy glared at both of us for a minute and then suddenly got very pale, her frown turning to a surprised nothing. Alarmed, I jumped up and put my hand on the small of her back.
"I'll be right back," she said weakly, and then without so much as another word, she ran off. I watched her go, confused out of my mind.
"What's with her?" Jonathan asked.
Slowly, I turned and started at him for a long minute. Honestly, I had no clue and it was really starting to piss me off. She'd been acting really strange the last couple of days, last night especially. What had all that business about the date been about anyway? Something was definitely up.
"I'm not sure," I answered my brother-in-law after a minute.
Jonathan shrugged, standing up and brushing the sand off of his pants. "You know," he said musingly, coming over to where I stood, "we could just ignore Mr. Logan and not tell him what's going on."
Again, I stared at him for a minute or two. Duh. "Don't you think he would run back to Cairo and make Hamunaptra headlines?"
"Maybe, but maybe not."
I shook my head, turned away from him, and scanned the area for my wife. I couldn't see her anywhere and I was getting worried. With the way she had been acting, and especially with Mr. Logan around, I didn't think it was to safe for her to be running off by herself. I was about to go look for her when Jonathon spoke again.
"You could just threaten him."
This made me stop mid-thought and I turned back toward Jonathan. He was standing there, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun, the other hanging loosely at his side. What he said had actually, strangely, made some sense. I could just march right over there right now and tell him a thing or two. Without Evelyn to get on my case about language or something stupid like that, it could easily be done. Never mind the fact that I still didn't have a shirt on, the idea actually might work.
"Ya know," I mused, "I might just do that."
Jonathan looked sickeningly proud of himself as he started grinning at me. He pulled out his own pistol from his holster and handed it to me, the silver barrel catching the morning sun as I took it carefully. I checked it out for a minute, spun it around a few times, and then with a nod to my brother in law, started off in the direction of Mr. Logan. The closer I got, the more pissed I felt. This guy had no right at all to do this to us.
I must have caused a big scene as I came stomping in with a gun, no shirt, rumpled pants and hair. But I found Mr. Logan quickly and marched right over to where he stood. When I was standing over him, I grabbed his collar and forced him up against a nearby wall, shoving the pistol warningly into his side.
"You get near my wife, your ass is going to be hung, ya got that Logan? And I don't want to hear a word about Hamunaptra or else I'll hunt you down and beat your ass into the ground. Just pack up your God damn shit and get the hell otta here!"
The poor little man (and I do mean little, I was at least ten inches taller then he was…geez…Evy was taller then he was…even without her shoes) trembled under my hold. "Don't hurt me O'Connell," he whimpered.
Jesus, what a fruitcake. This guy wasn't as threatening as he came across. What the hell had I been so worried about?
"I'm not gunna hurt you, damn it," I told him harshly, just for effect.
Oh, but in the next second I wanted to. His scared little grin slowly slid into a malicious one. "Oh, you wouldn't do that…would you?"
Tightening my hold on him, I dug my fingernails into his shoulder and pushed the gun deeper into his side. "Give me one reason not too," I said evenly, my voice low.
Patting me good-naturedly on the shoulder, Logan gave me a smug smile. "You hurt me…and one of those men over there," he pointed towards his little band of followers "will get you in return. Simple as that, my boy."
"You think I can't handle a man in a dress?" I asked, scoffing at his comment by rolling my eyes.
"You could O'Connell, I don't doubt that. Your wife, on the other hand…"
My loosing grip once again tightened around his shoulder. Pushing the gun even further into his side, I narrowed my eyes. An intense rage was welling up inside my body. Treating me was one thing, but no one, and I mean no one was going to hurt Evelyn. I didn't care if it was physical, psychological…whatever. If someone wronged her, they were going to answer to me. The last thing I wanted to see was her harmed.
"Leave Evelyn out of this," I growled. I had no doubts that if he wanted to, he could more or less sic one of his workers on her. And while I doubted that they would kill her, I didn't rule out the possibility. Most likely they would break her leg or something.
"Ah…that I can't do O'Connell," Logan chocked out and I realized I had been pressing my thumb closer and closer to his windpipe. Heh. Whoops. I couldn't kill him; I couldn't do that to Evy. She'd be mortified. Plus, then someone would come after her.
"You see," he continued when he could breathe regularly again, "your wife not only stole the position I was next in line to obtain, she also is well on her way to stumbling across one of the next biggest archeological discoveries, thus promoting her stature further. I was prepared to let the fact that the three of you got Hamunaptra slide. But this? Well, that's out of the question."
Damn it. The only thing I could think of doing was shooting him and since I couldn't do that, I just stood there. What the hell was I going to do? It was a no win situation, if I hurt him, he would hurt Evelyn. And if I let it slide and let him stay, he would be there. His slimy little presence would be all over us like flies on a carcass.
Hmmm…what was that thing Evy was always talking about? A compromise? Yeah, that was it. That might work. Now all I had to do was thing of one that was reasonable enough.
"Look," I began, loosing my hold a tiny bit, enough to where he could stand on the heels of his feet again, "what's about we make an arrangement?"
"Go on," Logan responded.
"You leave Evelyn alone- and I mean alone god damn it. If one hair on her head is so much as touched I'll have your ass. I'd don't want you talking to her, being near her, so much as looking at her from a distance? You got that? You do that and…" I took a deep breath, racking my brain for ideas.
"…I'll make sure you're there when- if, if we find anything." My voice lowered and I looked at the ground. This sucked. When I glanced back at Logan, he had a stupid grin painted on his face.
"And I'll get equal recognition?"
"If there is something, then we'll talk."
Mr. Logan broke out into a grin as he chuckled to himself. "You're not half bad O'Connell," he said as I pulled my gun away from his side.
"Wish I could say the same."
A look of hurt crossed his face momentarily, but then he stuck out his hand. "It's a deal," he pronounced.
Reluctantly, I shook his hand and then, giving him a hard slap on the back for a reminder, took off in the direction of our camp. I didn't look back; he wasn't worth anymore of my time. But how was I going to explain this one to my wife? She would be mad as hell if I told her I'd struck a bargain with Logan, much less agreed to let him join in our finding. And knowing her, she wouldn't see the logic behind it, or what little logic there was behind it.
By the time I arrived back, I had more or less decided not to mention it to Evelyn unless she asked or when Logan made himself known, whichever happened first. Growling to myself, I stalked back into camp and glanced around. Jonathan was making a racket in his tent, no doubt trying to change, but Evelyn still wasn't around. This worried me. I knew she could take care of herself, but I was still anxious anyway. I loved that girl.
Just when I was about to go looking for her, I heard a shout that made my blood turn to ice.
"Rick!"
I took off in a mad dash in the direction of her voice, which was distinctively coming from my north right. After only a few moments, I came across her with my gun poised and ready to take on whatever was there. Unless, of course, what she was yelling about was some immortal mummy thing again.
I found her standing next to a pillar, jumping around excitedly. A quick glance around told me that we were alone, that it was just something related to this stupid myth, and I lowered the gun.
"Don't scare me like that," I mumbled gruffly.
Evelyn ignored my comment, but turning toward me she grinned. "Look!" she exclaimed, running her hands over the limestone. "It's the pillar I was reading about in that book!"
Peering over her shoulder, I looked to where she was pointing.
"There, it's the same people on my ring. Ohh, and Tuya's cartouche!" her voice squeaked in excitement. She started running her hands over the hieroglyphics around the pictures, reading them out loud to me in plain English.
"If you seek it, there is a place…"
"That's all it says?" I asked, my brow furrowing in confusion.
Nodding, Evelyn pulled her hands away, resting them on her hips. Her eyes glazed over as she began to get that look she got whenever she was thinking really hard. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted into a little grimace, and she sighed a lot. Just when I was about to ask her what was up, she gasped and threw her hands up in excitement.
"I've got it!"
Raising my eyebrows expectantly, I looked at her.
"It's a sort of a trail…and this is where it begins. We just have to follow the little pictures like the ones on my ring and then put all the little phrases together."
"It can't be that easy." Honestly it couldn't. Other people would have figured that out by now.
Evelyn, who shrugged off my suggestion, turned her attention back to the pillar. "We just have to figure out where to look next."
I sighed loudly. "You must be feeling better," I mumbled, plumping down onto the ground. I threw the gun out in front of me and, after rubbing my eyes, stretched back and propped myself up with my hands and arms.
"Mmm hmmm," was all she responded with.
Yeah, she really had a one-track mind. There was going to be no talking unless it involved Egypt for the next ten minutes or so, when something else would captivate her mind or she would move on by herself. I yawned loudly, most of my energy still zapped, and closed my eyes. Evelyn started mumbling incoherently to herself and I began to tune it out. That it, until I heard something that again got me restless. My eyes flew open and I stared at her for a long moment before repeating what I thought I had heard her say.
"The, uh, Ramesseum?" Ugh, I know what that meant. I'd paid attention to some of what she'd said the past week.
She nodded slowly.
"As in…"
"Across the Nile," Evelyn said, sighing for the both of us.
Well damn.
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