Eventually they returned to the tent they shared and Sid pulled aside the flap to allow him access. She followed him inside and secured the heavy-duty zip and mosquito net.
King sat back on his haunches in the centre of his thick sleeping mat and, when she lit a rechargeable lantern, Sid noticed him staring at her. His dark eyes had suddenly sobered and the levity she had seen in him moments before had vanished.
“McKinney fired me,” he said without preamble.
Sid was surprised not to hear bitterness in her boyfriend’s tone. Instead, it was a simple statement of the facts.
“I know,” she admitted.
“Gloating, was she?”
She should have known it wouldn’t take long for that bitterness to break through. “She came here looking for me,” she explained, curling onto the mat beside him. “Believe it or not, she heard what had happened in the mess tent and came to explain the probable cause for your actions.” She smiled sadly and laid her warm hand on his shoulder. “Baby, I’m so sorry your theory didn’t pan out.”
He pulled away from her. “Who says it didn’t pan out?”
“Nadia’s analysis of the remains—”
“Suggested that the human remains were from a white man,” he finished for her. “That doesn’t take my theory out of the running. We have a piece of the Moon Mask. There’s no denying that…” He trailed off, aware of his girlfriend’s scrutinising gaze. “What?”
Sid removed her hand from his shoulder and took King’s hands in hers. “Ben. I love you, you know that. And you know I’ve always supported your theories and I’ve defended your crazy ideas,” she laughed but King did not return the gesture. “But its over—” she put a hand up to stop his response. “This quest has gone far enough. You’re a great man, Ben. You have a great mind! Say you’re right. Say the ‘Black Death’ was a real man, say he was a pirate obsessed with finding a relic from his tribe… then what?”
“Then I show McKinney and—”
“What? What do you show them? That you were right and they were wrong? Whoohoo! So you’ve saved face! But at what cost, Ben? At what cost?” She looked at him longingly but his face remained as impassive as the Moon Mask itself. “Your reputation? Your life?”
She saw the flash of agony in his eyes. The loss of his father was still raw, a recent wound yet to heal. Reginald King had died for this insane quest. Ben’s entire family had died, one way or another, all to prove the Moon Mask was real. Now, he possibly had a physical piece of that mask. But what did it really prove?
Sid spoke before King could reply. “I’m coming with you Ben,” she said. “Tomorrow, when you leave.”
He opened his mouth to protest but Sid put a finger to his lips to silence him. “It’s done,” she shrugged. “I’ve told McKinney.”
“Why?” King asked, shocked. She had worked hard to get a place on the UNESCO expedition. “This place was your dream assignment!”
The answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming. Sid’s eyes drifted to the top of the tent, as though peering through the canvass to the starry night sky beyond.
“Because I love you,” she told him at last. “Because I will sacrifice anything, anything, for you.”
There was an unspoken question which lingered in her dark eyes. King read it. But will you sacrifice anything — Kha’um, the Moon Mask, the Bouda — for me?
It was something he had thought a lot about, especially since his father’s death. That loss had made him open his eyes to what he had. A career, prospects — however few — and a beautiful, intelligent woman who he couldn’t stand being without.
He kept telling himself that the moment just hadn’t presented itself to reach into his satchel and pull out the ring-box concealed within. Yet, somewhere deep inside, he feared the answer to his girlfriend’s question. And it was that fear that had stayed his hand and kept the engagement ring hidden in his bag for over six months.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love Sid. He did, deeply and truly. Since the day she had walked into the library at Oxford University all those years ago. It hadn’t been some fairy-tale romance. There had been plenty of ups-and-downs, trials and tribulations. Like any relationship.
Yet, for all the love he felt for her, he knew that a husband needed to be committed, one hundred per cent. He needed to be ready to sacrifice anything, anything, for her. But there was one thing he feared he couldn’t sacrifice.
The Moon Mask.
He had thought he could. Following his father’s death, he had sworn to forget all of his ‘crazy’ ideas. Sid had convinced him not to follow his father’s path. He thought he had put the world of the ‘maverick archaeologist’ behind him. Yet his mind always searched for clues to the Moon Mask’s location. His nightmares always replayed that terrible afternoon in Lagos.
His quest for the Moon Mask was far more than mere scholarly one-upmanship. It was more than fame-seeking, it was more than proving that his father wasn’t a nut-job.
It was about proving to himself that his mother and sister hadn’t died for nothing all those years ago.
Could he sacrifice that?
He knew he needed to tell Sid something. Saw the desire in her eyes. Felt the longing in his heart.
He reached for his bag. “Sid, I’ve been meaning to ask you something—”
“Don’t.” She caught his hand and pulled it back. It was as though she had read his mind, his thoughts. She knew his fear.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. “Don’t say what you don’t mean,” she pleaded.
“But I—”
“Just kiss me,” she demanded, cupping his chin in her hands and bringing their lips together.
In that brief meeting of flesh, all of King’s worries evaporated. The passion grew, the heat intensified.
Piece by piece their clothing was removed. Inch by inch her hands explored the hard ridges of his muscular body. Kiss by kiss, his lips caressed her silk-smooth cocoa skin.
For tonight, at least, Benjamin King knew, he could sacrifice himself, if nothing else, to her.
The dream was the same as the previous night, and the night before that, and every night for as far back as he could remember.
Nathan Raine ran through the dense underbrush, his athletic legs pumping hard, branches tearing his clothes, whipping his face. The sound of automatic gunfire drilled into the dark sky, accompanied by the screams of the dying and the wails of the mourning—
“It is not healthy to sleep in such a position.”
The words jolted him awake and he sat bolt upright in the canvass chair.
He was in the mess tent, tendrils of sunlight creeping under the canvass as it flapped in the strong morning wind. Stood three feet away, a severe expression blanketing the natural beauty of her face, was Nadia Yashina.
A mischievous grin split through his sleepy daze. “I can think of a few better positions to sleep in, if you’d care for a demonstration.” He scanned the Russian woman’s body, clad in tight fitting black trousers and a form-hugging khaki vest-top which revealed the merest glimpse of the top of her full, rounded breasts.
“No doubt you could conjure up numerous experimental bedtime positions more comfortable than that, but I believe you have a number of other candidates who are first in line to be your… guinea pig.”
Her scathing remark and nonchalant attitude, in fact her complete lack of interest in him whatsoever, only made Raine’s blood boil hotter.
“Why, you sound almost jealous, Nadia,” he accused.
The Russian scientist turned away and headed to the small kitchenette area. “I am merely stating an observation, Mister Raine. I would have thought by now you’d have realised I have no interest in becoming another one of your… how you Americans say? Conquests!”