“…cares about him,” Adam filled in deliberately.“She’s cared about him for a while now, even when she was justifiably furious at him back in Egypt.I know she’s talked about running off to have an affair with a trapeze artist, or a pirate captain, or whatever the hell else, but I don’t think that’s what this is to her.And not just because Neil’s about the furthest thing you could get from a pirate captain.”
Ellie thought of what Neil’s sock drawer looked like—extremely organized—and how many hours he could spend poring over Herodotus before looking up, blinking like a man waking from a thousand year sleep and wondering what century he had landed in.
“True,” she concurred with a grimace.
Adam slipped a comforting arm around her waist, and Ellie finally voiced the bigger fear that lurked inside of her.“What if she breaks his heart?”
“If she does, it’ll heal.”
“You sound awfully sure of that.”
“That’s because I am.But I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.”
“You don’t?”
Adam’s hand traced up her back in long, soothing strokes.“Nope.If I were a betting man—”
“—which you are,” Ellie dryly inserted.
“I’d put my money on the two of them getting married, and then having a whole lot of—”
“Don’t say it!”Ellie queasily pictured Constance’s legs around her brother’s waist.
“—kids,” Adam finished with an unapologetic grin.
Ellie stilled.
His prediction was perfectly reasonable.If Neil and Constance were involved in a more serious way, then children might very well be in their future—but not just any children.
They would be Ellie’s nieces and nephews.Herfamily.
The picture bloomed to vivid life in her mind.
Sturdy legs crawled over ruined funerary chapels in a sprawl of sand.Neil would be yelling at them to be careful, and Constance would show them where to find even more dangerous things to get into.
Ellie could hear exactly the groan her brother would make.She knew how he would give in with helpless laughter as one of those children—a little girl with a mane of gorgeous ebony hair—jumped into his arms and demanded a hug.
The vision was so vivid—soreal—that it stole Ellie’s breath, squeezing her heart like a clenched fist.
Adam lifted a scarred, calloused hand to gently brush the moisture from her cheek.
Ellie startled at the touch, bringing her own hand to her face.“Why am I crying?”she gasped out, her voice breaking.
“I think you’ve gotta tell me that,” Adam replied softly.
Ellie let herself fall against him, curling into his side in the chair with her legs across his lap.His arm cradled her warmly as she rested her face against his broad shoulder.
The words spilled out of her like a confession.“I want that for them.Adam… I want it for them so badly, ithurts.”
“Guess we know how you feel about it, then,” Adam commented warmly.“Though I thought you didn’t like kids.”
“I would liketheirchildren!”Ellie countered defensively.“I can do that, you know, and still not want any of my own.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Adam cheerfully agreed as he held her.“For what it’s worth, I think you’ll be a great aunt.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ellie grumbled skeptically—even as a more rebellious part of her brain gleefully imagined what that role might be like.
She could offer the children helpful instruction with their Latin conjugations.Lead them on an excursion across the Saqqara plain, pointing out the various layers of habitation visible in the exposed structures.
