“Wait, you made this for me?” Riley’s heart squeezed. “Holy crap. You really are sugar.” After peppering kisses along his rough jaw, she leaned closer, squinting to read the small location names near the flags. “Well, what are you waiting for? Show me what you’ve got.”
As Clark clicked to zoom in on the nearest flag, his gentle blush perfectly complemented the traces of crimson lipstick she’d left on his face.
“Based on what I’ve read so far, this one looks rather promising.”
“That one, really?” Riley squinted. “Isn’t that like southwestern France?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, okay, small problem there.” Riley laughed. “I don’t speak French.”
“Oh.” Clark pulled her into his lap so her legs were across his. “Well, I suppose I just thought”—he pressed his forehead into her shoulder—“that might be okay, because I do.”
Riley caught his face in her palm, not letting him hide. “Are you saying you’d go with me?”
“If you wanted,” Clark said, his beautiful eyes impossibly earnest. “You see, I have this camper. I believe you’re acquainted with it. And as you know, I’m between jobs at the moment.”
They both knew that was temporary. Especially with his dad’s promise to sort out the situation with the HES. No, this was a choice. To leave the field he’d loved since he was a boy, the one he’d stuck with when it would have been so much easier to quit.
“Are you sure you want to take a detour from archaeology just when professional redemption is finally within reach?”
Clark’s gaze fell to the corner of the desk where an earlier copy of his final report on Arden Castle sat with his notes scribbled in the margins.
“I went into the field for two reasons that have nothing to do with my family,” he said. “The first is, I love the mystery. Searching for clues, putting the pieces together. You’ve seen all the pulp novels. I think we can both agree curse breaking delivers on that count in spades?”
Riley nodded. A couple months with her and he could live out all his fantasies about Hardy Boys hijinks.
“The other is company. I love the collaborative, sleepaway camp feeling of being on a dig, everyone working together, taking care of one another. After Cádiz, I didn’t just lose Patrick. I lost everyone. And I wasn’t sure I could get back there, to that place of trusting someone I worked with so completely. But that’s how I feel, working with you.”
She knew how much it meant to her, to share this family practice she’d long ago convinced herself came part and parcel with alienation. Riley hadn’t considered that it might mean just as much to Clark.
“I feel that way too,” she said softly.
“I hope you’ll agree I have applicable skills.” He must have mistaken her sudden shyness for lingering reluctance because the next thing she knew he was listing them. “Obviously I have extensive experience with research and excavation, but I also excel in map reading and—”
“Stop trying to sell me.” Riley grinned so wide, it was a wonder her mouth didn’t swallow her whole face.
“Are you saying I’m hired?”
It was a good thing she hadn’t bothered putting on underwear before coming over because the cheeky smile he was giving her right now would have melted them clean off.
“I’m saying let’s go to France.”
“Well, good. Glad that’s settled.” He nuzzled her neck. “Imagine how difficult it would be to break a curse if you didn’t speak the right language.”
Speak the right language.
“Oh my god.” Riley shoved to her feet. “Clark, you absolute, perfect genius.”
“What just happened?” His brows came together.
Riley kissed him smack on the lips before patting her pockets frantically. “Where’s my phone? I need my phone.”
After a few seconds, she remembered she’d tossed it in the bag with the groceries. Fumbling open the trusty translation app, Riley keyed in the words racing through her head with unsteady hands.
“Okay, yeah,” she said when the translator populated. “We’re definitely gonna have to pull up some pronunciation tutorials on YouTube.”
Forty-five minutes and two boxes of mac and cheese later, they had the sentence down pat.
“Do I need to change?” Clark looked down at his sweatpants despairingly.
“No. We delivered all that fanfare this morning. The fae got their festival. There’s only one thing left to do.”
One missing piece.
When they entered the castle, a trail of moonlight greeted them, illuminating a path up the central staircase. The curse, probably tired of waiting for them, must have decided they needed a map.
This time while they climbed to the guard tower, Clark and Riley held hands.
She had never been up here after dark. The view was enough to steal her breath. For once the night sky was clear, a perfect black canvas for twinkling constellations. Waves crashing against the cliffs enveloped them in a bittersweet soundtrack of ascent and retreat.
It was impossible to stand here now and not think of Malcolm Graphm. How torn apart he must have felt waiting for the attack of his own people. He might have stood at this window, given a signal for Philippa to run as his clan descended. She might have looked back at him, just once, hoping he’d make it out to follow her while knowing every odd was stacked against them.
It was hard to blame the curse for campaigning for a happier ending. Maybe even ancient supernatural forces needed hope in the face of relentless death and destruction.
Riley stood in front of the beam where they’d found the dagger lodged.
She hoped Malcolm’s last thought was of love. The kind of impossible love that challenged everything. Even death.
Turning to Clark, she held out her hand. “Ready?”
They took their places.
Without the hum of the crowd, the pageantry of the swirling leaves, Riley could give herself fully to the feeling of his hand in hers. The air crackled, restless, around them, making the back of her neck prickle like pins and needles.
It turned out, the curse did want a kind of sacrifice, just not the one Riley first assumed. She didn’t have to hurt Clark, or even herself. Instead, the curse asked her to cast aside the belief she’d clung to for so long like a security blanket—that she had to choose between calling and partnership.
It was like the universe wanted her to know that the sense of peace she strove to deliver wasn’t just for other people. It was for her. And Clark. And maybe, after tonight, in some small way for Philippa Campbell and Malcolm Graphm.
Riley had never had any particular aptitude for languages, but as she made her vow to Clark in the Gaelic words they’d practiced, she felt them deep in her bones.
“Tha gràdh agam ort.”
There was something amazing about looking at someone you’d once thought you loathed and realizing how wrong you could be—about other people, about yourself.
“Tha gràdh agam ort,” Clark said back, his low voice becoming a tether between her restless heart and his.
As the last syllable fell from his lips, Riley held her breath, pulling Clark forward and wrapping her arms around his neck, the foot of space between them suddenly too much. When she let herself inhale, deep and long, there was the scent of stone and mist. Of cobwebs and dust. There was Clark’s detergent. The warm orange spice of his shampoo mingling with the faded perfume at her wrist.