Free Relentless by Cherry Adair Page A

to feel if the dark hair on his muscular forearms was crisp or soft, she instead folded her arms around her waist and said, “You have a verydelicate touch for a man with such big hands.” She leaned her butt against the cabinet next to where he worked. “Are the scars on the back of your hands from the same accident?”
    He didn’t look up as he touched a gold and glass scarab bracelet she vaguely remembered her father letting her wear when she was about five or six. It had been way too big, and heavy on her wrist, but she’d loved the colors of the glass beads. Thorne moved his hand to a solid gold pendant studded with lapis lazuli. “What about ‘I don’t talk about it’ do you not understand?”
    “Now, see, you never actually said that. Implied, perhaps, but not stated .”
    He turned a steely look on her. “I have two things to say to you. Both are statements. One: I do not now, nor will I ever, discuss my injuries with anyone, and you in particular. Two: if you want this done, then you have to leave me the fuck alone to do it. Is that clear enough for you?”
    Lord, the man was cranky. But it was hard to be pissed off at a guy with a bad limp wearing white cotton gloves. “I could sit over there and read my father’s diaries. Would that help you concentrate?”
    “As long as you don’t talk, or breathe, or hum.”
    “I’ll breathe just enough to keep me conscious in case you find something,” she told him cheerfully, backing up with both hands raised as he gave her the evil eye.
    It was companionable working silently among her father’s things. Thorne was pretty fast as he opened a drawer, ran his hand slowly over each item, and movedon to the next. Starting to get sleepy from the inactivity, Isis took out her camera and framed some shots of him as he worked. Without looking over at her, he snapped. “Three: no pictures of me.”
    Unoffended, Isis put her camera back in the camera bag and picked up one of her father’s ubiquitous small black notebooks, flicking through what were mostly rough sketches. It took her a moment to recognize what she was looking at.
    “Oh, my God! Of course. Damn it, why didn’t I think of this before?” She jumped to her feet, not waiting for his response. “My father was always paranoid that someone would steal his notes and trump him on his discoveries. When he wanted to keep things close to his chest he’d draw a tyet, the hieroglyph knot of Isis, somewhere on the page. He always left himself cryptic clues to jog his memory.”
    “Let me see that.” Thorne held out his hand. He’d taken the cotton gloves off, and Isis had a moment to admire how strong-looking his hand was, before she gave him the book. Normally she wasn’t that fond of people telling her what to do. She’d pretty much raised herself, running wild in whatever camp her father was digging in during the summers, and living with her aunt in Seattle during the school year.
    She could either choose to be thoroughly annoyed by his crappy bad humor or else be sympathetic and give his overbearing personality a pass while he was helping her. Besides, honey was more attractive than vinegar. Isis considered his crankiness almost part of his charm, becausehe did it with such grim deliberation. The more he pushed, the more curious she became, so if he thought that by being rude, she’d be turned off, he was sadly mistaken.
    His eyes ran over one page, then another as he flicked through the book. “This doesn’t tell us any—” He stopped talking so abruptly, Isis took a small step toward him, putting a hand on his wrist with concern. His skin was hot to the touch. “What is it?”
    “Cairo . Not just a general direction. I know specifically where he had this diary last.”
    SIX HOURS LATER THEY landed in Cairo. The city was hot, muggy, and filthy for most of June through August. Even the locals fled the fly-ridden city for cooler climes, not that anyone could tell from the insane traffic, a mixture