He bent his head down so as not to bump her doorframe and went to the armchair where he dropped his backpack on the floor and then took his coat off. He laid it over the backpack and kept the fingerless black gloves on his hands.
She frowned at the tattoo on his muscled biceps that peeked out from under his black T-shirt. "I thought that was on your forearm."
He glanced down at the tattoo and shrugged. "Should we get started?"
Before she could shut the door, his cell phone rang.
He let out a tired sigh before he flipped it open. "It's Ash. Go."
She went to open the beer and handed it to him while he listened.
He gave her a grateful smile as he took the beer. "Uh, no. That would be really unwise. Trust me, she has no known sense of humor about anything male . . . Okay I'll see what I can do." He hung up and dialed the phone at the same time he took a swig of beer.
"I'll be right with you," he told her, then he spoke to someone else on the phone. "Hey, Urian, I need you to ride herd on Zoe in Seattle. She's one step away from running afoul of Ravyn who's threatening to behead her . . . No, I won't be able to get up there for a few days." He took another swig. "Thanks." Hanging up, he put the phone in his back pocket.
Tory frowned at him. "So what exactly is it that you do?"
"I'm a wrangler."
"A wrangler?" she asked, amused by the mere thought of him on horseback with a black cowboy hat decked out with skulls. "Like a cowhand?"
He laughed. "Yeah, only I wrangle people with nasty attitudes. You'd like them. Most are real jerks."
"Ah, a true meeting of the minds then."
"Something like that." His phone rang again. Growling, he pulled it out and looked at the number before he opened it. "No . . . You don't have to ask it, I know what you want. The answer is no. Hell, no, since it's coming from Dominic." He hung up and then dialed another number. "Hey, Alexion. I'm forwarding some calls to you for the next hour or so. I'm not in the mood to deal with it right now." He flipped the phone closed again, then dropped it into the pocket of his coat on the floor.
Raking one insanely large hand through his black and red hair, he sat down in her armchair and looked up at her. "I'm ready when you are."
"You sure? You look a little tense and I don't want to make any sudden moves in case you've had a lot of caffeine or something."
One corner of his mouth quirked up into a charming half smile. "I'm fine."
Tory went to the coffee table and picked up her journal so that she could hand it to him. "What's the best way to do this?"
He took the journal and carefully opened it before he balanced it on his thigh. "How much ancient, ancient Greek do you know?"
"Extremely fluent."
He spoke to her again and she recognized it as Greek, but had no idea what he was saying. It was beautiful gibberish.
She frowned. "Is that the same dialect as the journal?"
"No . . ." he said in English before he switched back to Greek, "Can you understand what I'm saying to you now?"
"That Greek I fully comprehended."
"Okay," he said in English. "You're good with the Iron Age language. That'll help."
Tory crossed her arms as she tried to understand the time period the journal covered. "So the diary is from the Bronze Age."
He rubbed his thumb over his brow. "What did your dating tell you?"
Her cheeks heated as she was forced to admit the fact he'd pegged her correctly in Nashville. The troll. "It was basically inconclusive."
"I'll bet," he mumbled, then louder he said, "Brace yourself. The journal is from the Stone Age. The Mesolithic period to be precise."
Tory sputtered in disbelief. There was no way it was that old. Not even slightly possible. "You're screwing with me."
He shook his head slowly.
Tory stared at it. "No. You're wrong. Completely and utterly. It's just not possible. Do you understand what you're saying?"
"I understand totally."
Still she refused to believe him. "They didn't have books then. They weren't civilized. They didn't have writing . . . they didn't even have houses! People were still living in caves. They barely had fire."
He remained completely stoic under her tirade. "And you know this how? 'Cause you lived during that period?"
"Well no, but the archaeological record tells us that writing isn't that old."
"And the archaeological record is only as sound as the latest find." He held the journal up. "Congratulations, Dr. Kafieri, you just extended it."
Stunned, Tory couldn't do anything other than stare at the book in his hand. "It's too well preserved to be that old."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "It is what it is."
"Yeah, but if it is that old, how do you know the language when we've never had anything from that period in written form before now?"
"I told you, it's basically the same language I was raised with. I lived in a pocket community where our Greek isn't the same as what you were raised speaking." He inclined his head to the book. "This is my language."
Tory shook her head as she tried to fully comprehend the importance of her discovery. Of what he was telling her. It was so mammoth. So much more than she'd ever hoped to discover. "Do you understand the significance of finding a diary this old?"