Laurey Bright - Her Passionate Protector

Resolutely Sienna closed her eyes. Images of the day imprinted themselves on her lids like a moving slide show. Camille’s radiant face, the sunlight that had flashed briefly on the gold band Rogan placed firmly on his bride’s finger, Granger reaching to catch the bouquet that now sat in a vase on the low table by the window. She had no idea what she was going to do with it. Probably leave it for the hotel staff to take care of.

The last clear picture she saw before drifting off was of Brodie Stanner looking at her with studied concentration when she threw back at him his question about ever having been in love. And she heard again the strange intensity in his voice as he lifted his gaze to watch Rogan and Camille and said, “Not like that.”

Rogan had arranged for Granger to drive Sienna to Auckland where he had his home and legal practice, and she was booked on a flight to take her from there farther south to Palmerston North, where she’d pick up her own car and drive to her house near the Rusden campus.

On the way he told her what terms the company could offer an archaeologist, and at the airport insisted on carrying her bag to the counter. He bought a newspaper, and while she checked in, he glanced over a couple of pages.

As Sienna turned back to him with her boarding pass in her hand he gave a soft exclamation and frowned down at something he was reading.

“What is it?” she asked.

Granger looked up, his mouth hardening. “James Drummond’s broken his bail conditions. Apparently he hasn’t been seen for two months.”

It was a moment before she connected. Then a cold shiver attacked her spine. James Drummond had been indirectly responsible for the death of Granger and Rogan’s father.

“Damn.” Granger’s voice held unusual force. “And damn the judge who let him stay out of jail until the trial. Now there may not be one.”

“He threatened to kill Camille and Rogan!” He’d been prepared to stop at nothing to get at the Maiden’s Prayer and her treasure before the Brodericks. Even murder.

“Yes,” Granger agreed grimly. “Though I don’t suppose they’re in any danger now that there’s nothing he can get from them. He’s probably only concerned with saving his own skin. He’ll be lying low somewhere. Maybe out of the country.”

In a way Sienna hoped so. “Didn’t he have to hand over his passport?”

“As the police said when they opposed bail, he has contacts in the shipping industry from illegally exporting prohibited heritage items out of New Zealand. Let’s hope Rogue and Camille don’t find out about this until their honeymoon’s over. It could put a damper on it.”

He refolded the paper and handed her a card, saying, “Call me if you need any more information about the job, and I do hope you’re going to join us. Camille would be pleased.”

A few days after Sienna’s return to the dig with her students, the team unearthed a cache of carved Maori weapons that might date back as far as pre-European times, and she invited Aidan to visit and give his advice.

After agreeing with her assessment and helping secure the site, Aidan offered to treat the team to a drink in celebration, and at the conclusion of a couple of hours in a pub she found that her car wouldn’t start. “My own fault,” she admitted ruefully to the young men who fruitlessly opened up the engine and peered at the interior, jiggling wires. “It’s been iffy lately but I was just too busy to get it checked.”

Rain began to fall, it was dark and she didn’t fancy sitting around waiting for help. “I’ll get a taxi,” she said, “and call the AA in the morning.”

“I’ll run you home,” Aidan offered, having already piled several students into his car. One of them got out and insisted on her having the front seat.

Aidan dropped off the students first at their hostel, and then in silence drove her to the small house she rented in the center of the city.

Drawing up outside, he sat frowning through the wind-screen as she unfastened her seat belt. “I’m sorry,” he said, “if I’ve not been good company tonight.”

“You’re always good company, Aidan,” she assured him, pausing as she fumbled for the door handle.

He gave a strained laugh. “Tell that to my wife,” he muttered. “She thinks I’m a bore—I don’t know what kind of life she expected with an archaeology lecturer, but it’s not lively enough for her. And my salary won’t stretch to the sort of lifestyle she’d like.”

Sharon Rutherford always gave an impression of being restless and bored at any university function she attended, and it was fairly obvious she didn’t want to be there.

“I’m sorry,” Sienna murmured uncomfortably. Her fingers closed about the handle.

“Don’t go yet.” He turned to her with a pleading expression.

“Won’t your wife be wondering where you are?”

“I phoned her, said good night to Pixie and promised to give her a kiss if she’s still awake when I get home.” His daughter’s name was Priscilla, but he called her Pixie.

“Give Pixie a hug for me,” Sienna said, beginning to open the door.

“That’s very sweet of you.” As she turned away he said her name in a desperate undertone. “Sienna, I—” He grabbed at her free hand, holding tightly, then pulled the other one into an equally fierce grip and lunged toward her.

Sienna sharply turned her head to the side. Dragging herself away, she said firmly, “Good night, Aidan. Thanks for the lift.”

As she hurried to her front door, he restarted the engine and roared away with an uncharacteristic screech of tires.

Her heart was pounding, and she felt a shivery dismay.

Aidan was close to the ideal man she had quite consciously set up in her mind, a man she could respect and admire. Who seemed to respect and like her. But although they worked closely together, at times she’d almost forgotten that he was male.

It crossed her mind that Brodie Stanner would never have allowed her to forget that important fact. When she was with him she hadn’t been able to put it out of her mind for a minute. He’d simply exuded masculinity and hadn’t bothered to hide his interest in her. Not that she supposed it was exclusive. There’d been that blonde at the wedding reception, and no doubt if nothing had come of that he’d found another woman to take his fancy by now. Perhaps more than one…

Impatiently she dragged herself back to the immediate problem.

She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Aidan to endanger his marriage and embroil her in the resultant mess. The thought of following in her father’s footsteps made her feel sick.

She’d been fifteen when her parents’ marriage had been torn apart by his affair with a woman he’d worked with. Two families had been shattered by the inability of two people to stand by their vows.

No way was she going to be the cause of another man making the same mistake. Why couldn’t he have maintained the comfortable working partnership of the past two years?

She went to bed torn between pity for Aidan and a muted anger that he’d clumsily tipped the neutral balance of their relationship. Once that balance had shifted, they could never regain their previous equilibrium. And the tension would spill into her work.

Next morning she phoned Granger Broderick and said, “I’m interested in that job with your company.”

Sienna allowed the university authorities to believe that her health was the main reason for her requesting indefinite leave of absence from the end of the semester. Her normal appetite hadn’t returned and she was aware that her colleagues worried about her. The professor emeritus who had filled in while she was hospitalized was happy to return for the next semester. But when she confessed to Aidan that she was going to work on a marine archaeology project he was taken aback, even shocked. Sitting opposite her at his desk, he dropped the pencil he’d been idly playing with and stared as though he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is connected to those artifacts your friend from the history department brought to you that were stolen?” Surprising her with his vehemence, he said, “Sienna, I’d advise you to have nothing more to do with that!”