London for his exhibit.” He would be, if he remembered the event was about to take place. Which he didn’t, having freaking Alzheimer’s. Of course Dylan would know that if he’d really paid any attention to her father or cared about him. Isis’s entire body bristled with resentment. Directed at whom, she wasn’t quite sure, but since Dylan was standing in front of her, he’d do.
Dylan frowned. “Ah.” He glanced from Thorne to Isis. “Fiancé?”
“It’s very recent,” she said dryly. Like a nanosecond ago. “You look well.” He did, annoyingly. Tanned, fit, and ridiculously handsome. A Ken doll, dressed in ironed khakis and his usual affectation: a brown felt Indiana Jones fedora. Indiana Jones could cream his ass with his whip hand tied behind his back. Thorne could do it with both hands tied behind his back and his eyes closed. Isis would buy tickets for that match.
“Seriously, how’s the professor after that incident?” He fingered a length of purple silk piled haphazardly on the table. To avoid eye contact? Oh, yeah. He quickly dug into his breast pocket, took out mirrored aviator shades, and slid them on, effectively blocking where he was looking and the expression in his eyes.
Ass. “Curious as to why you haven’t inquired after his health in all this time,” Isis told him coolly.
Dylan’s face darkened. “I was quite ill, and then he returned to Seattle…”
“That’s right, you weren’t able to go with him on that last dig. What was it? Food poisoning?” Her face, reflected clearly in his glasses, showed her disbelief. She’d never been good at poker. What she thought came through loud and clear in her expressions. Fortunately she didn’t care if Dylan saw them or not.
“Right, bad fish. Awful.”
Thorne glanced down at her with a small frown, then directed his X-ray eyes at Dylan, like a death ray right through his sunglasses. “I heard it was the flu.” His tone was cool and clipped.
“Right, right. Both, actually. It was touch and go.”
“One has to be careful what one eats here, that’s for sure. Are you here on a dig?” Thorne asked conversationally.
Dylan moved into the shade of the awning, out of the hot sun. “I am. I came to hire a few more men…” He glanced over at Husani, who gave him a stony look in return. There’d never been any love lost between them. Husani had a keen nose for bullshit. Now that she’d gotten a whiff of it off Dylan, it was easy to sense. What exactly had she seen in him beyond his Ken doll looks?
“Oh?” Isis said curiously. If the son of a bitch was anywhere near her father’s site she’d—she’d sic Thorne on him. “Must be something important to work here at this time of the year. Who’s lead on the dig?”
“I am.”
“Really?” She made sure her contempt of that notion came across loud and clear. “And where is it?”
“Abusir,” he answered smoothly, trying to brush a fly off his cheek. Unintimidated, it stayed put, as flies here had a tendency to do. Apparently the fly knew bullshit when he smelled it.
She narrowed her eyes, jaw tight. “Abusir?”
Thorne squeezed her hand when her entire body jerked in reaction. “And what’s there?” he asked her calmly.
“A two-thousand-year-old temple to the god Osiris,” she said through gritted teeth, giving Dylan a death stare. “It’s an ancient site at the third-century BCE Taposiris Magna temple.
“My father dug there a year ago and found nothing of note,” she continued. “What a strange coincidence that you’re back in the exact same place without him, especially since I believe you were the one who said it was a ‘colossal’ waste of time.”
“We were off by half a mile,” Dylan said with a defensive shrug. “And even if he had found this particular tomb, he never went deep enough. Besides, he dug elsewhere that year, remember? He had several digs going at the same time. I told him then, and I’m telling you now. He spread himself too thin, spread our resources too thin… You must admit patience was never the professor’s strong suit.”
“Here’s a good idea,” she snapped. “You don’t talk about my father, and I don’t punch you in the nose for stealing his find.”
Dylan rotated his shoulders, a sign he was uncomfortable. “You were never prone to violence, babe. What’s wrong with you? You know how this business works.” He leaned against the heavy metal pole supporting the awning, the picture of nonchalance and innocence as he tucked his fingers in