The Summer of Sunshine and Margot(54)

“I didn’t know that.” She touched the dusty glass. “You make this all so exciting. I know you love what you do and I hope you take this in the spirit I mean it, but you would have been a great professor.”

“I doubt that. I can ramble on. Ask my mother.”

“I don’t have to. I’ve heard you ramble and it’s fascinating.”

She was standing close enough for him to inhale the scent of her body. There was an underlying note of vanilla. A body lotion perhaps, or her shampoo? Once again he wanted to know what she looked like with her hair down around her shoulders. He wanted to see her naked and leaning over him as they—

He tore his mind away from the image. Control, he reminded himself. Control was how he survived. Without control there was chaos and then everything was at risk.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she told him.

The papyri, he reminded himself. Nothing more. She would be appalled if she knew what he’d been thinking.

“You’re welcome. We’ll set up a time to open the tins.”

“I can’t wait. Do I have to wear special gloves and a mask? Please say yes, even if I don’t.”

He chuckled. “You will need to wear gloves. A mask is optional.”

She surprised him by grabbing his hand and squeezing his fingers. “You are showing me the best time ever.”

“Then you need to get out more.”

“Don’t say that. This is wonderful.” She released his hand.

For reasons not clear to him he felt compelled to say, “Zina, my former fiancée, found the physical aspect of rehousing tedious.”

“She was an idiot.”

He glanced down at the glass-covered papyrus, then back at her. “She cheated on me while we were engaged. That’s why things ended. She didn’t tell me herself. The other man, a grad student, came and told me.”

Margot stared at him, her expression stricken. “I’m sorry. How awful. I know everyone says better to know before the wedding, but still, what a terrible thing for her to do.” Her mouth twisted. “There’s been a lot of betrayal in your life. I wish I had something brilliant to say to make it better, but I don’t.”

“Thank you. Obviously I broke things off with her immediately. Shortly after that, my great-uncle died and left me the house.”

He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t feel any pain about what had happened. That it was long enough ago that he could look back and wonder why he’d thought it would work out in the first place. He wanted to say that he didn’t trust many people anymore but he thought maybe Margot might be someone he could allow past the emotional gates he kept firmly in place. Only it had been so long since he’d shared any part of himself, he wasn’t sure where to start.

“I’m glad she didn’t live here,” Margot told him.

“Me, too.”

“Too bad neither of us knows how to make a little voodoo doll of her. We could stab it over and over again with a really big pin.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re vindictive. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“I have my moments. All right, enough talk of old girlfriends. I saw leftover chicken in the refrigerator and a package of crunchy taco shells in the pantry. I say you make us a big pitcher of margaritas and I’ll make tacos. You can sweet-talk me with all you know about ancient Egypt while I listen attentively and marvel at your brilliance. How does that sound?”

“Like I’m getting the better end of the bargain.”

“Not really, but I’m glad you think so. Come on. It’s tequila time.”

She led the way out of the archive room. He carefully locked the door behind them so the cleaning service wouldn’t go in and disrupt anything.

Margot was special, he thought. Not just beautiful and smart—she was also kind. There was a goodness in her he knew to be rare. He wanted...

He wanted a lot. Sex, of course, but other things. Intimacy, perhaps. But if he let her in, she could disrupt his world. In fact, she was certain to do so. And disruptions were dangerous. As much as he wanted to believe there was nothing of his mother in him, he knew there had to be some genetic essence of her hiding in some corner, just waiting to destroy his carefully constructed life, and that he would not permit.

Not that he had to be overly concerned about that happening in the near term, he reminded himself. For all that he found Margot a significant temptation, the truth was he had no idea what she thought of him. Considering his lack of luck when it came to women, no doubt she saw him as a doddering old uncle, as sexless as a lamp.

Better to be the brilliant professor. Anything else was too great a risk.

  Like most men, Declan didn’t want problems he couldn’t solve. Figure out how to cross a raging river? Sure. Defeat a fleet of marauding Vikings? Absolutely. But bring laughter back to Sunshine’s beautiful eyes or take away the reason her shoulders were slumped? He had no clue and he didn’t like that one bit.

He tried telling himself it wasn’t his problem to fix. That she had to get over the asshole Norris had been and move on. But thinking the words didn’t make him feel better and with any kind of action out of the question, he was left with too much energy and nowhere to put it.

Saturday morning the easiest solution seemed to be to take out his frustrations on his garden. There were hedges he’d wanted to get rid of for a while. He drove his car to the garage where his company kept their landscaping equipment and came home with a good-size pickup and all the tools he would need.