Free The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) by Kathryn Le Veque

don't be mad anymore."
    She put her hand up, holding his
head as he laid it on her neck and shoulder. He was apologizing as only Marcus
could, his great brawn and power humbled. She had forgiven him long ago.
    "I'm not mad," she said
softly. "Just frustrated. I didn't need that last night."
    "I know."
    "I need your level head. I
need you to tell me what I should do. I don't need you running off and trying
to kill the guy because he had a crush on me long before you even knew me. And
to use the claim-jumping excuse to validate your actions was really beneath
you, Marcus."
    "I know, I know," he
murmured. "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot."
    "No, you're not. But you do
go off half-cocked at the slightest provocation. What was it you called me? A
loose cannon?"
    He lifted his head, gazing down
into her dirty, beautiful face. "So I'm half-cocked and you're a loose
cannon. Nobody's perfect."
    She lifted an eyebrow. "If I
want you to kick someone's butt, I'll ask. Right now, we need to deal with this
rationally. Then, if that doesn't work, you can tear him limb from limb.
Okay?"
    He gave her a lop-sided grin.
"Okay."
    He pulled her to her feet,
slowly, helping her brush off her rear end until it turned into a groping
session and she giggled.  Marcus took her in his arms and kissed her long and
hard, tremendously relieved that all was well between them again. He just
wanted to hold her.
    "So tell me about this Fayd
guy," he said as they caught their breath. "All I got was the Lynn
and Dennis version of how this guy lusted after you."
    They released each other and
started walking back to camp. "Not much to tell, really," Kathlyn
said truthfully. "He's a Biblical Archaeologist like me, about my age, and
we've worked together a couple of times, briefly. Fayd is very smart, very full
of himself, and very unscrupulous. At least I have some ethics in doing my
work; he has none at all."
    Marcus looked at her.
"Honey, you'll do anything to gain your wants. You've admitted it. What makes
this guy any different from you?"
    "I won't destroy a
site," she said pointedly. "Fayd has been known to rip a place apart,
which is really unheard of in this day and age.  But because of his
connections, he is given fairly prime choices in excavation. They had a lot of
trouble with him at his latest site on the Temple Mount because he was more
concerned with excavating the biblical-related cisterns beneath the mount and
basically tore through some Roman ruins to get to them. So when I think of
someone like this being given permission to excavate my angel, it just makes me
shudder."
    Marcus' gaze moved over the
hills, now golden as the sun rose. "So he's here to see if you want to
jointly excavate the angel?"
    "According to Juliana."
    "We really need to talk to
him. The sooner the better."
    "She also told me that he
has a Vatican representative with him."
    He cast her an odd look.
"What the hell do they want?"
    Kathlyn shook her head. "I
have no idea. They usually stay far away from anything I do, although they make
it a point to denounce me at every turn. I'd like to know what has them so
interested in particular find that they've got to come all the way to Egypt to
talk to me."
    There was no use discussing it
any longer since they had no real answers.  They returned to their tent where
Kathlyn used their private shower, which was really just an outdoor shower they
had converted to use inside. They had done that when they figured out someone
in the media had put a sophisticated little camera in the community shower to
get shots of her. She washed her hair, scrubbed every inch of her, shaved,
dried, lotioned, and finally put on her makeup. Using a little butane powered
hair dryer, she blew her hair dry and gave it a bit of spritz. Marcus sat in an
old folding chair, watching her dress, appreciating the lines of her body.
     Kathlyn had a very specific
style of dress in the field. Usually, it was heavy-weight shorts, a tee shirt
of other light weight shirt, big black