…
Will squinted and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He’d been staring down this ramp so long, it had been burned in his brain. It was very much like other missions he’d been on, though. If nothing else, Will had a steady hand and patience.
The guard came by again and he shaded a section of his drawing a bit more. He was sure every day that this was the day one of two things would happen: either the guards would figure out he was not a history student sketching this temple in the middle of the fucking desert and tell him he couldn’t hang out here, or Claire would finally walk up that ramp.
He took a swig from his canteen and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He was almost out of provisions. He’d need to go back to that little village either tonight or the next day if she didn’t show up. According to Jim, she was still checked into the little hotel in Luxor, so his odds were good.
Stretching helped, but everything in him ached. Sitting hunkered over a sketchbook was awful. Add the desert in the mix and it was hell. He’d give almost anything for a soft bed and a cold beer. A little girl and her mother walked to the other side of the ramp to avoid him. He looked down and laughed. He couldn’t really blame them. His jeans were tattered and ripped and every inch of him was covered in sand or hair—or both. Okay, so a soft bed, a cold beer, a shave, and a hot shower.
He scanned the large group of incoming tourists who had just arrived as they approached the ramp leading up to the temple. Usually, he confined his field of vision to the twelve linear feet up and down the ramp from him to avoid redundancy and the potential for a slipup, but something had shifted. He studied the group from left to right, and stood. He’d read somewhere that there are people whose souls you could feel before you actually saw them. He’d always thought that was horseshit. Until now. He felt her. She was here.
Pulse pounding in his neck, he set his sketchbook down on his backpack, never taking his eyes off the ramp.
No, no, no, no, no, no… He ticked them off in his head. No, no, no… And the world came to a screeching halt. Yes. At the base of the ramp stood Claire. Like backup in a firefight, his future relied on her. What would she do? He had to calm his mind and stay steady.
As if she had heard his thoughts or sensed his presence, too, she turned and looked up the ramp directly at him. She was so far away, he couldn’t make out her features very well. The heat rising in visible waves from the stone ramp didn’t help either. Fucking desert.
She took a step forward, and then stopped, face still turned in his direction. Tourists passed her on either side as they climbed. She simply stood still like a rock in the stream.
“Come on, Claire,” he whispered. Still, she made no move to climb the ramp. He picked up his pack and strapped it over his shoulders. Sketchpad in hand, he took several steps down the ramp. She took several up.
Holy shit. She was going to meet him halfway. It was all he could do to not charge down the ramp full-speed.
A large group of people was between them, cutting off the visual. Still, he walked at a steady pace down the ramp knowing eventually they would meet. “Claire Maddox,” he shouted over the crowd.
People stared, but he didn’t care. His skin was burned and he was dehydrated and covered in fucking sand, and he didn’t care.
“Will?”
At the sound of her voice, he started to run. He couldn’t even imagine how many slaves and years it took that pharaoh to build this contraption, but it was way too big. “Claire?”
“Will!” She was running too. He’d caught a fleeting glimpse of her as she pushed her way toward him.
It was like a game of Marco Polo in a living sea of people. “Claire!” He sounded almost panicked. Well, hell, he was panicked. And then he saw her. She was about ten feet below him and both of them froze.
He approached her slowly, like you would a skittish animal, until he was close enough to touch her, but he didn’t.
She cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head up to look at him from under the floppy brim of her hat. “I thought I told you not to follow me.”
“I didn’t. I preceded you. I’ve been here a while. In fact, I’ve been camping in these very cliffs. Did you follow me?”
“I would have, if I’d known you were here.”
Will would’ve sworn that his heart had completely stopped. His chest sure hurt like it had. “I wish I’d known that two weeks ago.”
People passed them on either side, but the crowd from the last wave of tourists had cleared a bit.