Besides, they’d been over this same little speech so many times, Abby could almost give it herself. After all these weeks, she seriously doubted that the item Jonathan sought was even here to be found.
Her head snapped up when she realized Jonathan had already launched into his description, only to find his eyes fixed on her as if he spoke directly to her.
“I have faith in your ability to locate the stone marker we seek, even though it likely will be in small pieces since the site has been so thoroughly damaged by time.”
Damaged by time? Abby was willing to bet a full month’s salary there was more than time that had gone into the deteriorated state of this particular site. With an undergraduate degree in archaeology, she’dseen thousands of photos from more than her share of ancient sites located all over the world. This one looked like none of them. Granted, she had never been to the British Isles before, but she had firsthand knowledge of dig sites all across the southwestern United States and she’d never seen any in this shape. In fact, this site looked as if a wrecking crew had been here with sledgehammers, paid to pound the place to dust.
The effects of a thousand years of warring tribes and wet weather, according to Jonathan. That might well be, but Abby had her doubts. This destruction looked intentional to her. Intentional and absolutely complete.
She tuned out the drone of Jonathan’s voice and began her mental preparation for the day’s work. As she always did, she visualized herself sending out delicate tendrils of fluorescent green energy. They curled across the ground, lashing out like lizard tongues testing the air. They probed the rubble and beneath, deep into the earth under her feet, determinedly seeking their prize, the Marker Stone.
According to Jonathan, centuries ago the stone would have stood as tall as a man, its surface engraved with strange Pictish markings. He’d shown them a rough hand-drawn sketch of what he expected to find based on his research. The drawing had reminded Abby of a snake curling around a Do Not Enter sign.
She filled her mind with the image of the drawing but, again today, she felt nothing other than her own frustration. If the marker was here, it wasn’t in the location where she was assigned to dig today.
Their standard pep talk ended, Abby made her way to the spot where she’d been working for the past weekand stepped gingerly into the taped-off square. Down on her knees, she laid her hands on the dirt, spreading her fingers in her own private ritual.
There were archaeological treasures somewhere below her hands. She could feel them. Lovely bits and pieces of past lives, clues to a people long gone, calling to her to expose them to the world once again.
But no Marker Stone. Nothing with the design Jonathan sought.
Neither was her own special treasure here.
For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted to travel to Scotland on an excavation. Something here had called to her. Something ancient. Something special meant for just her to find.
Ah, well. There were still two months left. She might yet locate that special something.
The locals had told them there were a few small caves in these mountains and she had hopes that she’d have a chance to explore those areas to see what they might hold. Who knew? One of them might hold the treasures she sought.
For now, though, their dig site was centered in this little glen, which was just as well, really. As much as she wanted to see what history the local caves might hold, the idea of actually going inside a small, dark hole in the ground made her almost physically ill. It was that fear of small, dark places that had led her to study early Native American and Ancient Celtic peoples rather than to venture into Egyptology.
The whole idea of being sealed in a pyramid was more than she could bear to entertain.
In a matter of moments, her mind filled with variations of what might await her on this particular day. As always, she was lost in her work, completely absorbed in digging away the thin layers of dirt and debris separating her from the treasures calling to her.
“Give me your opinion on this, Abigail?”
Abby dragged her attention from the little trowel in her hand, so completely immersed in her work it felt as if she were swimming up from the bottom of a deep, dark pool into the bright sunlight.
When had all the clouds burned off?
Jonathan towered over her, clutching some small find in his hand. Light glinted off the sunglasses he’d pushed up on his forehead as he smiled down at her and held out a hand to help her to her feet.
He really was an attractive man. Tall and broad-shouldered, with long blond hair pulled back and tied at his neck, he looked like he belonged in a commercial for expensive big boy toys. If she squinted just right, she could almost picture him standing on the deck of a yacht with some fancy drink in his hand.
And yet, here he was, smiling down at her, his shirtsleeves rolled midway up his forearms, some muddy little prize clutched in one hand as he reached out to her with the other.
She accepted the help willingly, realizing as she stood that she had no idea how many hours she’d spent on her knees, only that, from her stiff legs, it had apparently been a good long while.
“What do you make of this, love?”
Her cheeks heated as several sets of eyes turned intheir direction and, not for the first time, she wished he’d stop calling her that. Initially she’d assumed he used the endearments for everyone simply because he couldn’t be bothered with remembering their names. But it had quickly become apparent that not only did he remember everyone’s names, he used them. It was only her he singled out for the pet names.
She took the small dirt-encrusted stone from him and rubbed her thumb over it to examine it more closely.
“I don’t see . . .” Anything. Nothing at all. It looked like just a plain old stone to her. She ran her thumb over the surface, detecting no irregularity of any kind.
“Don’t you think that could be a bit of engraving?” He pointed the tip of the little gold pocket knife he held at a particularly mud-caked spot. “Just there. On the edge.”
