Full Circle
It was bloody exhausting is what it was.
And here was Cate Wells, who couldn’t wait to see the backside of him going out the door. Never let it be said she wanted to fill her jar at his expense—no, she had her own well, thank you very much, and she was quite happy standing in front of it so nobody else could come near.
Or was she?
He’d thrown out those little innuendos on purpose. A woman who was comfortable with her sexuality would have taken him on and tossed them back—but Cate hadn’t. She’d been exactly the same way in Mexico. She hadn’t had the same experience that he’d found most women had by their sophomore year. In fact, the first time he’d kissed her, he’d wondered if it was her first time, period. It hadn’t been—that much she’d confessed in one of their late-night conversations on the cliff—but it hadn’t been the kiss of a woman who enjoyed doing the wild thing at every chance she got, either.
Far from it.
Had things changed? Except for a very interesting ring he’d swear was Georgian on the right fourth finger, she wore nothing on her hands. And that sense of self-awareness, of the knowledge that she was both desirable and desired, that some women wore like an ermine robe when they were committed in a loving relationship—well, that didn’t seem to be there, either.
But who was he kidding? He was used to reading soil matrices. The women he came into contact with were usually totally up-front and wide open about what they wanted. There was none of the reserve and mystery that was so intriguing in Cate. That reserve had challenged him back when and it was challenging him now. It was the same way with a new site. Just the presence of ancient clay walls with the wind whistling through them, silently keeping their secrets, drove him mad until he could gently tease their stories out of them.
He’d only been half kidding about the beds when he’d left her room. Now he wasn’t so sure he was kidding at all. The truth was he’d never gotten over Cate. Had never forgotten that last night, in the cave.
So yeah, she’d run out on him, taking her secrets with her. But that was then.
This, he thought, as he turned back up the path, away from the river he could hear behind the trees… this was now.
6
DR. HOOGBECK HAD THE GIFT of being able to send an audience into a state of complete catatonia, even after multiple cups of breakfast coffee.
Cate had told Daniel she was going to this presentation, so here she was, even though geologic fossilization processes were enough to put her out even without Dr. Hoogbeck’s soothing monotone. But instead of making her fall asleep, his voice sent her to that beta zone where she could think.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t thinking about useful things like feminine imagery in animal cults or the demise of desert kingdoms. No, she was thinking about Daniel.
Because the simple truth was that Julia had been right and Cate had unfinished business with him. She wasn’t a quitter. You start a degree program and you get a certificate. You start a paper and you reach a publishable conclusion. You start a relationship and you expect it to go somewhere.
Okay, so that last was something over which she didn’t have all the control, but the point was you couldn’t just drop something and run away and not have it bug you for years.
At least, she couldn’t.
Because she was now in her ninth year of wondering what sex with Daniel would have been like, and, to put it quite bluntly, it was driving her nuts. He was the root of erotic dreams that woke her in mid-orgasm in the middle of the night. He was the reason she had had such high expectations for Robert Novinsky and Charles Morton and probably the reason she had sabotaged relationships with both of them. It wasn’t that she was sexually dysfunctional, exactly, but what if somehow Daniel was the key?
What if she did take him up on his blatant offers and made him put his money where his mouth was? Would that unlock her sexuality? Would it break down this dam that seemed to hold her back in relationships with other people? If she had sex with him, maybe that would be the “kick galvanic” that got her back on track again.
And aside from the therapeutic effects of sex with Daniel, maybe it was simply time to have a little fun.
Fun was not a word she usually used in conjunction with sex. In her experience, sex was comfort, it was payment of an obligation, it was fulfillment of someone’s expectations…but it was very rarely fun. She had no doubt whatsoever that if a girl wanted to have great big dollops of fun with her sex, then Daniel was the guy to serve it up to her.
What would be wrong with having a little fling with him? It wasn’t as though he ever went into a relationship with the long term in mind. The endless string of girlfriends he’d paraded for the media over the years was proof of that. Not that she was keeping a scrapbook or anything, but every time she saw him in a circular for a benefit or in one of the scandal sheets, he was with a different “companion.” If he wasn’t going to commit to one of those beautiful and no doubt intelligent people, it was a safe bet he wouldn’t expect anything from her, either.
Besides, it might be exciting to have an affair with someone who was the next thing to a movie star. The man every woman wanted. He was clearly interested. And she was mature and intelligent and on birth control. Why shouldn’t she have a fling if she wanted to? It wasn’t as if she would lose control and fall in love with him or anything. It wasn’t like fieldwork, where the unexpected could throw your theories out the window or a freak storm could destroy months of work. She could have a fling under controlled conditions, having carefully chosen her subject, the way she might in the lab.
As long as she was the one controlling the conditions, what was there to be afraid of? There was no harm done to either of them, and they’d both enjoy it.
Cate straightened in her chair and slid her empty notebook back into her tote as Dr. Hoogbeck blinked owlishly under the stage lights, seeming a little bemused at the applause as he wound up his presentation. There was always the chance that she’d talk herself out of this, but at the moment it seemed like a fine plan.
Of course, once she’d made up her mind, Daniel decided not to cooperate. At lunch he sat at the faculty table, entertaining all six of his companions with some uproariously funny story that made heads turn and a little prick of envy at being left out needle its way through Cate’s heart. He didn’t go to the afternoon workshops, which made her wonder if that polished blonde who had been hovering behind him at the book signing was keeping him company in his private cottage, too.
It was merely speculation. Not jealousy. The man could have whomever he wanted in his cottage. But once she, Cate, had decided it should be herself, it was a little annoying to have him switch from being on her doorstep every time she turned around to playing hard to get.
She went to the afternoon seminar to hear the latest research on Cretan snake dancers to take her mind off him, and when she came out, there he was, walking under the oaks on the far side of the grounds.
He looked up when she was about fifty feet away. “Hey, Cate.”
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Decompressing. I just spent the last hour with my publisher’s rep, going over the plan of attack for flogging the book in Nevada and New Mexico. I need a drink.”
“Your publisher’s rep is here?”
“Yeah. Stacy Mills. Blonde. About this high.” He held out a hand near his shoulder.
So she had been right. The polished blonde had been in his cottage with him. Plan of attack indeed. Attacking each other, more like. Cate’s mood took a spiraling nosedive and crashed in flames.
“I won’t disturb you, then.” She turned on her heel, but before she could move more than a foot, he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Let’s get out of here, Cate. All these people are driving me nuts. How about dinner?”
Her muscles jumped with anticipation under his hand, but she kept her voice calm. “Where? I didn’t see anything on the way here but a café and some campgrounds.”
“A couple of miles south there’s a place called Nepenthe. Supposed to have a view off the terrace to die for, and good food. What do you say?”
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