Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2)
Read Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) Online
Authors: Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Journey to the Lost
Tomb
BOOK 2 of the Rowan & Ella Time
Travel Adventure Series
Ella Stevens is a woman on the eve of
her wedding when a frantic phone call from an old college pal sets her on a
course that takes her away from the altar and any semblance of life as she
knows it. Unfortunately, rescuing her friend means losing herself when Ella
stumbles through a time portal in the bazaar of Old Cairo that sends her back
in time at the moment just before the greatest archaeological discovery of the
age: the opening of the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
Desperately trying to get back to her
own time and her fiancé—a sexy US Marshal who, contrary to popular
belief,
doesn
’t have all the patience in the world—Ella discovers
that evil is
not
limited to any one
timeline. With the shocking discovery of what will be the most precious
treasure she will ever own, Ella risks her life to protect it while fighting to
find her way back to her man.
Journey to
the Lost Tomb
Book 2 of
The Rowan
& Ella Time Travel Adventure Series
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Part I
Chapter One
Atlanta 2013
“Well,
it’s not so much about taking the last biscuit, is it?” Carol Pierce frowned at
her prospective daughter-in-law, repositioning her glasses on her nose as if to
examine her more closely. “It’s more what it says about the
character
of a person.”
“Give
it a rest, Mom,” Rowan said, signaling to the waiter. Ella wouldn’t have been
surprised if he’d thrown down his money and just walked out. His impatience was
bristling off him in waves. “Everyone was finished eating. No one wanted the
last damn biscuit. Dad, you ready? Walk with me to the check out?”
Oh, hell no,
Ella thought.
You are not leaving me alone with your
mother
. She stood and pointed in the direction of the restrooms.
“I’ll
meet you at the car,” she said, forcing herself to smile at Rowan’s mother
before leaving.
What was with her? Was she really going to
rake Ella over the coals for reaching for the last biscuit?
A biscuit that
now lay cold and uneaten on Ella’s plate? Wasn’t this just one more brick in
the case she was building for Rowan to not marry Ella?
Ella
pushed open the door to the Ladies’ rest room and steadied herself by leaning
against the sinks and watching her reflection in the mirror.
This whole trip was such a disaster
, she
thought. She was supposed to be getting to know Rowan’s folks on their home
turf of Atlanta, and they her. The wedding was in less than a month. She looked
in the mirror and grimaced. She looked less like a blushing bride-to-be and
more like something hunted and trapped.
She
was sure Rowan’s mother had taken one fast look at the woman her son had
presented to her as his future wife and dug in her chubby little heels and said
no, way
.
More
like
no effing way
.
Carol
Pierce was an alien creature in Ella’s world.
Domestic, stable, content, comfortably
locked into her ideas she’d held since high school. Not only was she at the
furthest end on the personality spectrum from Ella, she didn’t even register on
the Ideal Mother barometer. To be fair, Ella had no real experience with loving
mothers, having lost her own at age five, but even her best girl friends’
mothers were a different breed from this.
Maybe
it’s just mothers of sons,
she found herself thinking as she washed her
hands.
At any rate, the old man seemed cool,
she thought. Or, at least noncommittal. Guess that comes from thirty years of
letting Carol tell him what he thought and why he thought it. Mr. Pierce looked
like an older version of Rowan—a tall man, needing to fold his lanky legs
under him to negotiate a restaurant booth or chair. He was barrel-chested, full
of good humor and ready to erupt in a giant laugh any minute. Rowan was
definitely a quieter version of that, she thought. As a US Deputy Marshal, his
job was routinely dangerous and Ella could never get over the fact that every
day he went to work he might end up shooting someone. Or getting shot.
She
had moved in with him in Dothan after her return from Heidelberg, Germany, and
after a failed adventure in overseas living that could well have shaken the sexy
Marshal out of her mind but in fact had served to make her realize how much she
couldn’t live without him.
Knowing
she’d stalled long enough, she dried her hands and exited the room to find Mrs.
Pierce standing outside the bathroom waiting for her. The woman held her purse
in both her arms like she was afraid Ella might try to snatch it from her. Her
lips were crimped shut as if she smelled something unpleasant and was trying to
reduce the number of orifices the odor could come in.
“We
are waiting, Ellen,” she said tightly.
“Jeez,
Carol,” Ella said. “Are you really going to pretend you don’t know my name?”
Ella
had the pleasure of watching the older woman startle at Ella’s bluntness, but
quickly felt guilt at the cheap shot. This was Rowan’s
mother
. No good could come from baiting her.
“We
are waiting for you,” Carol repeated, then turned on her heel to lead the way
through the restaurant lobby to the parking lot. Ella followed, feeling as if
she were walking to her own execution.
They’d been in
Atlanta exactly four hours of a weekend-long visit.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
“I’m
just saying, she’s set in her ways and you could do a little more to placate
her.”
“What
you
mean
is I should just fake it to
make you happy.”
Rowan
sat on the edge of the double bed in his parents’ guestroom watching Ella
unpack her suitcase.
“Would
being nice to my mother really be a matter of having to fake it?”
“She
hates me, Rowan!”
“Oh,
give me a break. And lower your voice. These walls are thin.”
“She
threw a fit because I took the last biscuit!”
“I
was there, Ella. Do we have to relive it?”
“She’s
doing a character test on me. Do you get that? If I were to cough after someone
sprays cologne in the air, she’d jot down my reaction.”
“That’s
an exaggeration. She will love you when she gets to know you.”
“Rowan,
if you’re holding out for her loving me, you have some serious reality issues.”
“It’s
just one weekend, Ella. Can you not just grin and bear it for one damn
weekend?”
Ella
took a long breath then sat down next to him, putting her hand on his. She was
silent for a moment. “Promise we’ll leave right after lunch tomorrow?”
“I
told you we would.”
“I
can hang on that long,” she said, resuming her unpacking. “It’s easy to see why
she behaves like this. They want the best for you.”
He
stood, took the silk panties out of her hands and tossed them on the bed, and
drew her into his arms.
“And
when they get to know you,” he said softly into her ear, brushing her long dark
hair out of her eyes, “they’ll know that’s what I got.” He reached down and
gave her bottom a squeeze. “I’m going to go play some one-on-one with my dad.
You gonna be okay?”
“Of
course,” she said kissing him and secretly wishing he wouldn’t go. “After I
finish up here I’m gonna go have a coffee with your mom and tell her a few
different things she can do with her hair.”
Rowan
stopped mid-stride and turned to face her.
“Kidding,
Rowan,” she said. “I’m kidding. You mother says she doesn’t drink coffee.”
It had been pure
folly from the start.
Carol Pierce
suggested that she and Ella spend the afternoon at Lenox Square shopping for
bridesmaids’ presents. Ella had no idea what possessed Carol to suggest it, but
the look of unbridled hope and joy on Rowan’s face combined with the fact Ella
hadn’t known she needed to buy bridesmaids’ presents quickly had the two of
them in the car heading to the mega shopping center in Buckhead.
Ella
figured out early on the key was not to speak. Since everything she did and
said seemed to royally piss the woman off, it was best to just go through the
motions of shopping. They made it to the parking lot okay, fueled directly,
Ella believed, by her policy of not talking unless absolutely necessary.
Because she was driving, she accepted with as much good grace as possible every
time Carol corrected her timing, second-guessed her decisions, or made the most
annoying grunting noises to indicate—as far as Ella could
decipher—that Ella had committed a gaffe beyond what words could express.
When mere silence didn’t seem to be helping her tamp down the rising
indignation Carol was igniting in her, Ella began to mentally chant:
she’s Rowan’s mother, she’s Rowan’s mother,
she’s Rowan’s mother.
That
hadn’t been effective for long either.
As
Ella pulled into a parking spot in front of Pottery Barn, Carol sucked in a
breath that made Ella slam on the brakes. Fearing she’d just run over a small
entourage of baby strollers at the very least, Ella asked: “What? What
happened?”
Carol
looked away, as if vastly disappointed she had to state the obvious.
“You’re
parking next to a handicapped spot, dear,” she said tightly as if this was
pertinent if not obvious.
Ella
was confused. “I’m not parking
in
the
spot,” she said.
“Rowan’s
father and I know several people who need to use these parking spots,” Carol
said, concentrating on sorting out her handbag in her lap and not looking at
Ella.
Ella
turned off the ignition and looked at the handicap sign next to her spot.
“But
I’m not
in
the handicap spot,” she
repeated. She pointed to the sign. “See? It’s—”
“Parking
this close to the line next to a handicap space is nearly as bad as parking in
their spot,” Carol said. “It’s not illegal so you may, of course, do it if you
really need to be this close. I, for one, am not crippled in any way and am
perfectly capable of walking.”
“You’re
saying I’m too close to the handicap spot?”
“I’m
saying by parking here you are creating one more barrier that people with
handicaps have to overcome before they can park and get into the store.”
“No
problem,” Ella said, starting the car back up again. “I am happy to park a
little further away.”
See, Rowan? See
what I’m doing here for your whacked out mother? Are you watching?
“Please
do not move on my account,” Carol said. “I am sure that would be out of
character for you and I do not want to inconvenience you while you are visiting
with Rowan.”
Holy
shit. Direct shot across the bow. Full-on attack, that one.
“I
am happy to change my personality in any way that I can to keep peace in the
family,” Ella said sweetly.
“I
wasn’t aware you had a family.”
“It’s
a figure of effin’ speech.”
Damn. That
just slipped out
.
“I
have to say I find you profane and lowbrow, my dear.”
“You
don’t have to keep calling me
my dear
,
Carol, when it’s the last thing you feel about me.”
“It
isn’t the last thing,” Carol said smugly, gripping her purse tightly on her
lap, looking everywhere in the parking lot but at Ella. “I am not comfortable
with you calling me by my Christian name.”
“You
rather I call you
Ma Pierce
?”
Carol
twisted in her seat to glare at Ella. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it?”
“Not
a very fun one, if that’s any consolation.”
“I
am not happy with the idea of my son marrying someone like you.”
No
shit.
“And
by
someone like you
, you mean…”
“Worldly,
loose, shallow.” She paused. “Old.”
“Old?
I’m thirty.”
“Rowan
is an attractive, well-educated Deputy in the United States Marshal Service,”
Carol said proudly. “He can have anyone he wants. A younger woman would have no
trouble giving him children.”