Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(75)
She knocked on the old oak door of Carson’s office. “Enter!” he called out. She opened the door and went in; at least he was alone. How many hours had she spent in here, soaking in every word, entranced, challenged? The first time he’d kissed her, she’d been backed up against the wall, fondled and propositioned, and, like a fool, she’d thought it was wonderful.
He finally looked up from his laptop computer—then quickly shut it.
“Kate! What a surprise! You should have called, darling. Come in. Close—and lock—the door.”
“This is business, Carson,” she said, simply closing the door and pulling out the chair next to his cluttered desk and sitting to face him. He had the copy of the Beastmaster mask Kaitlyn had made hanging over the desk. It was mounted in a sort of glassed shadowbox, glaring down at them, the symbol, she thought, for all her failures.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Grant was so impressed with your mica dig that he’s agreed to let you excavate the mound, and you wanted to tell me in person so we can lay plans.”
She dropped her big purse on the floor as a barrier at his feet where he’d wheeled his swivel desk chair closer to her.
“How about this?” she countered. “I’m totally unimpressed and appalled with your new Toltec theory, which you hadn’t told me you were promoting in classes and who knows where else. And I’m here to tell you I’m still not ready to excavate Mason Mound.”
“Ready or able? Kate, you’ve got to either get into that mound now or get out of Cold Creek! Once your sister and the sheriff return this weekend, I don’t suppose you’ll be sticking around. Back to Celtic digs in England?”
“Did I tell you they are back this weekend?”
“I think Kaitlyn mentioned it. That you wanted to continue the mica-seam work with her help even though they’d be home Saturday.”
“She reminds me of myself.”
He rocked back in his chair, planted his elbows on its arms and steepled his fingers before his face. His forehead had furrowed the minute she’d come in and refused to lock the door. She’d never bucked him like this—on anything. It was time to stand up to him.
“I knew she would,” he said. “She’s the best of you—bright, eager, willing...”
“I’ll bet.”
“That’s unworthy of you. But I can understand how you’d be upset with yourself for having the opportunity to make the find of your career and have it fizzle out over female emotion, because you’ve fallen for Grant Mason.”
She surprised herself that she had no desire to deny that. “I have made some finds, established some facts.”
“Facts? Haven’t I taught you anything? So-called facts—and artifacts—are elusive, subject to interpretation—to theorizing. Facts do not speak for themselves, and you’ll need help on that. But I heard about the silhouette of the ax head Kaitlyn spotted. What else?”
She wanted to blurt out more about Jason’s drawing and his admitting his father and Grant had found the relic itself. And that she’d seen the silken shape of what she was certain was an Adena mortuary arrowhead and had hope of tracking those items without even having to excavate the mound. But, to her own amazement, she didn’t. “I’m theorizing that chips from the mica seam are the size to be used on funeral garments or shamans’ masks,” she said.
He sat up straighter. “Such as that?” he asked, pointing back at the mask watching them from over his desk. Carson’s eyes narrowed at her as if he could probe her thoughts. “Kate, if you could ever find an identical or even similar mask to Celtic ones, like the Beastmaster, it would make your reputation. What are your last-ditch plans to get in that mound before you leave the area? Kaitlyn says what appears to be the shaft entry has nothing but some dead trees blocking it. Let’s make an entry—make our move.”
“Dead hawthorn trees that someone poisoned, and it wasn’t me.”
“So I hear. The lab test will find out what but not by whom. If it had been you, I’d give you one of those gold stars you found. Any more information on those?”
“Not really. I’m quite sure—that is, I theorize,” she said, sarcastically, “Bright Star Monson left them there with hopes of either saving or damning the souls of whoever lies within those mounds. But you don’t really believe some of the Toltecs journeyed all the way from Mexico and turned into the Adena, then later were progenitors of the Aztecs, do you?”
“It makes as much sense as the Celts—especially since you can’t prove otherwise. When I was in Washington for that Smithsonian talk, I went to the American Museum of Natural History. Kate, there’s a fantastic Toltec orange clay vessel that has a face on it that could be linked to the Adena pipe shaman. His earrings are identical, and the face is similar. We know both groups had human sacrifices with smashed skulls. Look, darling, I don’t want us to fall out over this. How about I come down to Cold Creek and together we make our last-ditch case to Grant Mason to get in that mound? The clock is ticking.”
Her inner turmoil nearly swamped her. She loved Grant, wanted to work with him, not against him. But if he cared for her, why wouldn’t he let her have what she needed and desired, to dig in that mound? He’d been so helpful letting her work on the mica wall, so was it just the mound itself that was untouchable?