Restless Soul - Alex Archer [5]
Annja had been in South America, filming a segment for Chasing History’s Monsters on the fossils of ancient penguinlike creatures that had been discovered in the mountains. She’d met Luartaro Agustin at one of the dig sites there.
He was charming and smart, and when he’d surprised her by suggesting that they spend some more time together, she’d hesitated only a moment.
She desperately needed time off—from the show, from her life, from everything. So right there in his lavish office, she’d twirled the huge globe that took up most of one corner, closed her eyes and pointed her finger.
Luartaro had come over to see where her finger had landed. Northern Thailand. She’d surprised him by walking over to his immense oak desk and calling the airline to make a reservation. For two.
As she watched the rain, she thought that perhaps Luartaro had fallen in love with her, though he wisely hadn’t said the words.
Would those words frighten her away? Did she love him? Not yet. But perhaps…with time… She’d only known him a handful of days before they’d recklessly packed their bags and flown here. She’d learned through difficult circumstances that life was terribly short, and she decided to take a chance on joy for once.
Could she love him? Perhaps if she let herself. The attraction, physical and otherwise, was strong.
She watched the way the rain distorted his handsome reflection.
He had a rugged face weathered by long days in the sun, a shock of black hair with the faintest hints of silver at the temples, broad shoulders and considerable muscles from years spent digging at sites throughout the mountains and foothills of South America.
He had flashing eyes that she could easily lose herself in. Had lost herself in, she corrected herself. He was intelligent—in addition to being an archaeologist, he taught at a college during the regular academic year, had written three textbooks and was fluent in half a dozen languages. Though, unfortunately, Thai was not one of them. They had a lot in common.
Perhaps she was reading too much into his actions. After all, he knew very little about her, which was a plus, as far as she was concerned.
He didn’t know that danger too often surrounded her and that some mystic force seemed to have chosen her to battle evil.
She hadn’t told him that she was an orphan with little sense of a real connection to people. Nor had she told him—and never intended to—that on a whim she could summon Joan of Arc’s sword from some nether-dimension to fight whatever malignant force had crossed her path.
She had been on a dig in France when she found a piece of the legendary sword. She didn’t know how, but in a heartbeat, magically reformed by her touch, it had appeared in her hand, whole and shining, more than five hundred years after its famous wielder had been put to death by fire. Now the sword was poised just beyond this world, waiting for her call. She sometimes thought of it as waiting in a closet in her mind, though armory might be a better term.
Because of the sword and her risky life, she never allowed herself to become too attached to people. She had Roux and Garin, but they were associated with the sword, Roux claiming they had witnessed Joan’s horrific death and had existed in a kind of decadent limbo in the centuries since.
Luartaro was different. Like so many others, he wasn’t a part of that life. Normally, she would have kept her emotions in check. But there was something special about him. She felt things for him that she hadn’t intended.
And what does he think of me? she wondered. Did he consider her merely a television personality with a flair for archaeology? Or was she just another woman who had quickly succumbed to his boyish grin?
She watched his reflection in the window again. He had moved close enough that he was stroking her hair again, but he, too, was staring out at the rain and the mountains beyond.
The view was the reason she was paying eight hundred baht a night for their cabin, four times what the average room cost. It was more lavishly