after making passionate love, and he’d had to call in a local masseuse so he could even get up on his feet. Olivia wished she hadn’t brought it up. She was beginning to think there were no safe topics. Nothing to say that didn’t bring back painful memories.
“Never mind,” she said, hoping he didn’t remember what had happened that night and what had caused it. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Oh, come on, Olivia, you’ve always argued with me. Don’t quit now. First it was the bodies of the Bog People of the late Iron Age. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten you thought that girl had died of natural causes a few thousand years ago.”
“She did.”
“With a rope around her neck? It was clearly a ritual sacrifice.”
“It might have looked that way, but it wasn’t.” Olivia sighed loudly. “Did you read my analysis in Archaeology Today?”
“Did you read my rebuttal in my letter to the editor?”
“No, I must have missed it,” she said blithely. Instead she’d seethed when she’d read it. He knew just how to annoy her. He knew where she was vulnerable. She sometimes ignored little details to make her point. So Jack had poked holes in her thesis. The editor was delighted she’d caused some controversy in the ranks. He didn’t know it was partly personal.
Jack would never let her get away with anything. She would never admit it to him, but she missed that. He’d made her be more careful, he’d made her test her theories before exposing them to view. He’d made her a better scientist than she was. He’d made her a better person, too.
But she was on her own now. She liked being on her own. No more hurt feelings, no more arguments, no more feeling inadequate taking those home pregnancy tests. It wasn’t easy month after month to stifle the tears and hide her disappointment at the results.
“Liar,” he said, turning his head to grin at her. “You never miss anything.”
She refused to let him goad her. He knew how hard she’d worked on that paper. She didn’t appreciate his attacking her in print. It was as if he’d stabbed her in the back. After that she didn’t write any more papers for a while. He called her and left a message apologizing and telling her she was too sensitive. She didn’t call him back.
She hoped they could stop talking about the past. Tomorrow when they were out in the field at least they’d each have their own tent and their own sleeping bag. There’d be other people around. They’d work together as they had in the past, but that was it.
“Are you going to take a bath or not?” she asked, standing with her hands on her hips.
He waved an arm toward the bathroom. “You go ahead.”
Jack sat alone on the deck and stared out into the dark night. Far out to sea were the lights of fishing boats like the ones that had rescued him and Olivia. He wasn’t lying when he’d told her thoughts of her had inspired him to keep going when the waves threatened to overwhelm him and fatigue was beginning to overtake him.
As he struggled in the cold water not really knowing if he’d make it or not, not knowing if he’d ever see her again, he thought about how sweet life had been when they were together. The memories kept him going. The ones he’d been trying to keep at bay, like how beautiful she was when she got mad at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright.
How she’d stand up to his wildest plans, his far-out ideas, cutting through his rambling theories with her bright insight, always spot-on. No one else could do that. No one else was willing to criticize him, not since he’d been named department chairman at his prestigious university.
Before he got rescued tonight, he was terrified he’d never have another chance to joust with her again, never even see her again. Never be able to tell her how much he’d missed her.
Now, of course, he couldn’t tell her that. Not when she felt just the opposite. She hadn’t missed him. She was doing just fine without him. In fact she wanted a divorce. If he couldn’t convince her to change her mind this summer, that was it. It was over.
These days she was publishing regularly, she had a book in the works and she didn’t need him to make her life complete. Or a baby. It was just as well they’d stopped trying. What would they have done with a baby on this dig? What about when the ferry went down? Who takes care of the baby? Not Olivia. She didn’t even want to share this room with him.
Now here they were, under the same roof for the first time in years, almost the same as when they first got married. At that hotel in Italy above the harbor. Tomorrow morning she’d be here, hair tousled, cheeks flushed, nightgown rumpled, just as she once was. When life had seemed so perfect, so full of promise. How could he get those days back? How could he make her see they belonged together? If they belonged together.
He took a deep breath and tried to keep from thinking of the past. When he did it felt like someone had reached inside his chest and squeezed his heart dry. It must be the stress. He wouldn’t admit it to Olivia, but he’d had a few rough hours out there at sea. It was a reminder that though he and Olivia were together in the same hotel room, nothing was the same at all. It never would be. Too much had happened. Too many harsh words, too many hard feelings stood in their way.
There was a soft knock on the door to the room. When Jack opened it Marilyn was standing there with a white cotton nightgown in her hand.
“This is for your wife,” she said. “Helen found several of them downstairs and I’m going around delivering them to the women.”
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