wrinkled his nose. ‘I’ve had offers, but to be honest I don’t really want to teach.’
Isobel frowned. ‘What’s wrong with what you do now?’
‘Nothing. I love freelancing. But I’m thirty-five, Bel. I need to be realistic about the future. In ten or twenty years I’m not going to want to spend hours at a time on my knees in a trench in the pouring rain. So I want to make the right career move now, while all my options are still wide open.’
It was a fair point, although Isobel thought Alex had enough strength of personality to make his own opportunities. She had a feeling there was a bit more to it than what he was telling her, but she couldn’t work out what. A relationship that had gone wrong? Surely not, because Alex kept his relationships light and very casual and in all the years she’d known him she couldn’t remember a girlfriend lasting more than half a dozen dates.
Maybe she was asking the wrong questions.
‘I still don’t understand where the married bit comes in.’
‘Apparently, the guy who owns the company wants a married man for the job.’
She snorted. ‘No way. That’s discrimination. It’s against the law, Alex.’
‘They’re not going to be able to ask me outright about my marital status,’ he agreed. ‘But it seems the last two guys they hired lasted all of six weeks before they got an offer they couldn’t refuse for—I quote—a really glamorous dig abroad.’
They both laughed, knowing that real archaeology wasn’t glamorous in the slightest. The stuff Alex did on TV accounted for a tiny fraction of the hard graft behind the scenes, and certainly didn’t take account of being on your knees in a muddy trench for hour after hour, or the long gaps between finds.
‘So third time around they want someone settled,’ he continued. ‘The word is they’re looking for someone who’ll commit to the project for at least two years. And, you know as well as I do, a married man’s seen as more dependable than a single guy because he’s already made a commitment.’
She flinched. ‘Marriage doesn’t always mean commitment.’
He winced. ‘Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to rip open old wounds.’
‘I know you didn’t.’ Alex didn’t always think. Mainly because he did things at a hundred miles an hour and his head was stuffed full of the past—just like her own. Which was one of the reasons why she’d always got on so well with him.
He took her hand and squeezed it briefly. ‘But you know what I mean. My reputation’s going to count against me. The Hunter, a gypsy vagabond.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re hardly a vagabond, Alex.’ Even though he did have itchy feet and didn’t tend to stay long in one place.
‘But I’m part gypsy. My mother says I’m a throwback to her grandfather—’
‘Who met your great-grandmother when she accompanied your great-great-grandfather to a dig in Egypt in the nineteen twenties, and your great-grandfather fell in love with her,’ Isobel finished. She knew the story, and she’d always privately thought it really romantic.
Archaeology was in Alex’s blood. And so too was the gypsy heritage. Which was why ‘The Hunter’ was his perfect screen persona: dressed in jeans with a white shirt, and a battered Akubra hat worn at a rakish angle, Alex Richardson made women swoon. That and his dark curls, his hair worn slightly too long, his exotic olive skin, and those piercing light grey eyes, completely unexpected with the rest of his colouring.
‘Look, I’ve spent the last few years travelling the world. On digs or for the show, admittedly, but still travelling.’
‘Which shows commitment to your job,’ she pointed out.
‘It’s not enough.’ He shook his head in apparent frustration. ‘The series played me up as the sort who won’t obey orders—a maverick who’ll go his own way regardless.’
She couldn’t argue with that. Besides, that was exactly what Alex was like—not that there was any point in telling him.
‘So that’s why I need a wife. To prove I’m settled.’
‘I still think it’s a crazy reason to get married. And why ask me?’
‘I already told you. Because you’re settled.’
That stung, and she couldn’t help sniping, ‘You mean I’m staid and boring.’
He laughed. ‘No. Just I’ve known you for ever. You’re the girl next door.’
‘Strictly speaking, I haven’t lived next door to you since I was thirteen and you went to Oxford,’ she said dryly. ‘Which is the best part of seventeen years ago.’
‘You were still there when I came home for the holidays,’ he reminded her.
The girl next door. As familiar as wallpaper. Alex hadn’t noticed her as a woman.
At her continued silence, he sighed. ‘Look, I never planned to get married. Archaeology’s my life—just as the museum is yours. There isn’t room in my life for another relationship.’
She raised an eyebrow.
He winced. ‘Sorry, Bel. That came out wrong. Mouth in gear, brain not. What I mean is, if I’m going to get married, I want to marry someone I like a lot. Someone I’ve got a lot in common with. Someone I trust.’
It should’ve warmed her that he felt that way about her. Trusted her. Liked her a lot. Exactly the way she felt about him. But she couldn’t help asking, ‘What about love?’
He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘I don’t believe in it.’
She knew where he was coming from. She didn’t believe in love any more, either. She’d loved Gary, but it hadn’t been enough to make their marriage work. Though at the same time, marriage without love seemed … wrong, somehow. ‘All three of your sisters are married,’ she remarked. ‘And if they weren’t happy and in love with their husbands—’
‘I’d take their husbands apart,’ he admitted. ‘Very slowly. And remove their hearts with a rusty spoon.’
Although Alex rolled his Rs and his eyes, she wasn’t sure that he was being entirely dramatic.
‘But it’s different for the girls.’
Sexism? From Alex? Now that she hadn’t expected. ‘Since when did you turn into a chauvinist?’
He frowned. ‘I’m not. It’s got nothing to do with gender. Just that …’ he lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug ‘… I’m not like them.’
‘So this marriage business—you’re looking for someone you like, someone who shares your interests, and who’s not going to tie you down.’
‘I’m not planning to have a string of girlfriends or be unfaithful to my wife, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Alex
