Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Oh man, having a personal driver—a really good personal driver—who also carried your bags for you and, incidentally, was a sex god, was definitely the way to go.
Instead of making the trip in a sweat of anxiety because there were few signposts and dozens of backroads to take, and it was so easy to get lost, Parker was whisked in enormous comfort directly there.
Somehow, Nick navigated his way unerringly to the archeological park with only GPS coordinates and that weird male sense of direction she hadn’t been blessed with.
And she’d been able to catch up with her email. It had taken an hour to get there—traffic was hellish—and she read with increasing fascination something her little group of nerds in Oxford had found.
The vehicle had stopped, and Parker pulled herself out of her study trance.
“End of the line,” Nick announced.
“What?” She lifted her head and looked around. They were at the entrance of the park. “We’re not there. The villa is still two and a half kilometers away.”
“We’re as far as we can go without busting our way in. And the guard isn’t here.” Nick pointed at the barrier across the road into the site.
“What?” Parker was fully oriented now. “It’s past ten. Matteo is supposed to be in the guardhouse by eight. He’s either an hour late or he’s off having a second breakfast.
Nick turned his head, frowning. “That’s the security at this place? One guy who scampers off?”
Parker sighed. “Pretty much.”
Nick took in the view. This part of the Campi Flegrei was flat and as far as the eye could see there wasn’t much except for the odd pile of rocks denoting a dig. Most of what was interesting was underground.
There wasn’t much of anything. Certainly no people.
It had been creepy as hell working here two days ago. Parker could finally admit to herself that truth.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said quietly.
“I’m glad I’m here,” he replied. “How do we get in if the guard has gone to Naples to get his coffee?”
“Magic trick.” Parker reached into the side of her backpack and pulled out a remote control. The guard had been gone the last time she’d been here, too. Luckily, she’d been assigned the remote. She clicked and the long arm barring the entrance creaked and started lifting slowly.
“That’s not a steel barrier,” Nick said angrily. “It’s wood. This car could crash through it without scratching the hood. Anyone could get through it.”
She sighed. It was true.
“Drive down this main road for a kilometer and a half and turn right where it says SCAVI. Excavations.”
The road was rutted but Nick somehow managed to make the ride as smooth as possible. When she’d gone down it in her Smartcar, it had nearly rattled her teeth out of her head.
“You were really engrossed in what you were reading.” Nick was driving slowly and carefully.
“Yeah.” Parker shot a glance at him. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t very good company.”
He shook his head. “No. Didn’t mean that at all. It’s just that you looked absorbed. Good news?”
“The best, actually.” Parker smiled. “Do you remember I told you about a group of baby nerds I had working for me in Oxford? Going through archives?”
“Yes.” Nick looked over at her, face serious. “I remember every word you’ve ever said to me.”
Oh. The words, spoken in his deep voice, hit a chord. It took her breath away for a moment.
“Well, my nerdlings found a possible correspondence between the owner of the villa we’re going to study and a friend of his who was stationed in Britannia.
The owner of the villa, Lucius Varrus, quit Rome under Caligula, frightened of the emperor’s craziness, though of course he couldn’t say that.
He came close, though, in what he obviously thought was a private correspondence.
He was clear that he wanted out of Rome in the worst way and that he thought Caligula was going to burn Rome to the ground.
As it happened, that was Nero. Oh! Turn right here—”
But Nick was already turning.
“Caligula. Wasn’t he the guy who elected a horse to the Senate? Though I’ve met some senators and a good horse would definitely be better. Smarter. Saner.”
“He threatened to make his horse a consul, yes. And he declared war on the sea. Lots of craziness. No wonder Lucius Varrus, if he’s our guy, wanted out.” She pointed out the window. “See that outcropping with the shed? That’s our spot.”
Nick drove them to the spot and parked.
They sat for a moment in silence, listening to the ticking of the cooling engine.
Parker reached out and covered Nick’s hand on the wheel with her own. “Thanks so much for driving us. I was in a sweat of anxiety the whole way when I did it. You made it seem like a walk in the park.”
Nick moved his hand and clasped hers, bringing it to his mouth. He kissed the back of her hand. “It was nothing.”
“Not nothing.” Parker shook her head. “And now you have a whole day of waiting around watching me taking photos and notes. It’s not going to be fun.”
“Wouldn’t be in any other place in the world.”
Nick was being really nice, but she knew what he was in for. Immense tedium, in blazing heat.
Well, he was a big boy. If he didn’t want to be here, he wouldn’t be.
He helped her down, though she had on trousers and could have managed on her own. But it was really nice to be helped down. It was really nice having been driven here. It was really nice having someone carry her gear.
She remembered a friend in college who dated a guy her friends just didn’t get. He was incredibly boring…but super reliable. When her friends asked why him, she said life was easier with four hands instead of two.
Life was easier with Nick. Last time she’d been here, she’d arrived stressed because the traffic was its usual hellish Neapolitan self. She’d had to wrangle her gear out of the car and lug it around, never able to leave it because she had expensive gear that was very attractive to thieves.
She did not have to worry about thieves with Nikolai Garin looking after her stuff.
The villa was surrounded by scaffolding, with a small steel corrugated hut, its door secured by a padlock.
“So,” Parker said with a wave of her hand at the square excavation. “Voilà.”
Nick stowed her gear neatly and looked with interest at what, at first view, was a big hole in the ground. “Roman villa, huh?”
She smiled at him. “Two thousand years have added about twenty feet of material to the site. At the bottom is the street level in Roman times. We think it was a villa that was also fortified. That was the entrance.” She cocked her head as she looked at the dig. “Do forts always face the same way?”
“No.” Nick started walking the perimeter and she walked with him. “A fortification always uses surrounding geography, the shape of the site. If there is a hill or raised rocky outcropping, that will be used as one of the walls. Rivers and forests can be used as defense mechanisms.”
“All of southern Italy was covered in forests which were cut down. There was probably a forest or at least woods nearby. Though wood wasn’t used much in construction. The Romans used stone.”
Nick nodded. “Smart. Are you going in? I don’t see any stairs. And I don’t have any rope with me.”
Parker smiled. “I don’t have any rope with me either. But I do have something else.”
They’d walked around the site and were back at the hut. Parker opened the door with her key and waited for her eyes to adjust.
Inside was shelving holding the tools of the archeologists’ trade—shovels and brushes and sifters. And a ladder.
“Let me.” Nick picked up the ladder and placed it into the excavation. “I’ll go down first,” he said and waited. He wanted her approval.
“Okay,” she said. He wanted to go down first? Fine. The ladder wasn’t rickety, but it did rest against friable soil.
“You’re going to need your gear.” His raised eyebrows made it a question.
“Yes. I can get it later.”
“I’ll get it.” And he did. Two satchels, the cooler and a bag were heavy and bulky, but he went down that ladder smooth as cream. She’d had to awkwardly wrangle her way down and it had taken three trips.
She went down smoothly too, since she wasn’t carrying anything, and smiled up at him. “Am I glad you’re here. You’re making everything easier for me. Thanks.”
He waited a beat then ran a long forefinger down the side of her face. He’d done that last night, too, only while he was inside her. The memory of that made her thighs clench.
God, she’d thought herself almost asexual, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t at all.
“Happy to do it,” he said, his voice low. “Happy to be here.”
They stood for a moment inside the hole in the ground that hid a Roman villa, in the shade of a frescoed wall.
Everything was in sharp focus for Parker.
The bright late morning sun outlined the rocks and low brick walls and remnants of frescoes.
The villa smelled of earth and the plants growing out of the walls.
They were standing where humans had stood two thousand years ago.
Maybe just like this? A man and a woman facing each other, far from home.
The extra focus was all Nick. Clearly, hormonal overload kicked something into gear. It was a good something, and useful, and she planned on using it to the fullest.
She smiled up at him. “Right. You going to be okay? I’m going to take photos and videos and dictate notes.
” She pointed to a doorway with wooden lintels.
“I’ll be going through that door, there are several other rooms. Don’t freak if you don’t see me.
I can hear you if you call out. Please don’t touch anything, including the dirt walls.
That’s Roman dirt, two thousand years old. ”
There. She’d covered various possibilities.
“Will you be ok?” Parker was still worried he’d be bored.
As an answer, Nick sat on the ground and pulled from his backpack a ruggedized tablet that looked like it could withstand gunfire and settled against the ladder, not touching anything.