Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

really had anything drive a
wedge between us before, you know?”
                “And
that’s what you see my mother doing?”
                “Give
me a break, Rowan! She came right out and told me that she doesn’t want us to
marry. She didn’t make that clear to you?”
                Rowan
had to admit she did. “They won’t be a part of our lives,” he said. “Hardly at
all.”
                That
seemed to satisfy her. “And maybe over the years,” she said, hopefully, putting
a hand out on his knee, “she’ll get used to me.”
                “I
guess it can’t all be perfect,” he said, lifting a strand from her neck and
rubbing his thumb against her throat.
                “Is
it just me, Rowan?”
                He
frowned. “Is what just you, babe?”
                “How
you’ve been lately. I mean, is it work? You just don’t seem happy.”
                “Funny
you should say that,” he said, reaching for her and turning her around so she
fit up next to him again. He pulled her hair back and wrapped his arms around
her and held her tightly. “That’s just what my Captain said to me this
morning.”
     
                The
next day was Saturday. After a loving start to their weekend, Rowan was up and
showered and out of the apartment running errands and hitting the gym. Ella was
especially glad for their bathtub conversation. Not only had they reconnected
in a strong way but it was a relief to know she wasn’t the sole reason for
Rowan’s moodiness.  
                Ella
grabbed a quick breakfast, then dressed for her yoga class, feeling more on
track and centered than she had in weeks. She blew a kiss to the calendar on
her way out the door. In seven days she would officially be Mrs. Rowan Pierce ( again .) How her life would change after that , she wasn’t sure, but she
believed—she had to believe—that the event would alter her life in
some very significant way.
    After the yoga
class, she spent a pleasant hour strolling the aisles of her local Whole Foods
(who would have guessed that Dothan would have one!) and then returned to the
apartment with more makings for another memorable meal with her sexy
husband-to-be. Her arms full of the grocery bags, she struggled with the front
door and felt a wave of pique that Rowan had missed her so little that he
hadn’t been waiting to unlock the door. She shook off the twinge as irrational
and called to him as she entered the apartment. He came out of the kitchen, his
hand holding their landline phone to his ear. He frowned at her as if to say: do you have to be so noisy ? Or maybe she
imagined that.
                “Yeah,
Mom, I know,” he said. “We’ve been over this.”
                With
a sick feeling developing in her stomach, Ella parked the bags on the kitchen
table and dropped her purse on a chair. She heard the front door open and then close
as Rowan left the apartment to finish his conversation in private.
                It
was a quiet evening. Although Ella felt the chicken stuffed with forty cloves
of garlic had been a rousing success, she felt that Rowan had eaten it
mechanically, almost as if not tasting it. She prayed Carol’s call was simply
unsettling him and that his reaction was not the result of some ultimatum or
new strategy on her part to split them up. Ella was amazed at how effective the
old bat’s methods seemed to be working—even from a distance of four
hundred miles away.
                Rowan
and Ella did the dishes together until Ella recognized that she was babbling
about any inane topic that came to her head—and he wasn’t really
listening anyway. While she hoped watching television together would be a good
segue to getting them snuggling on the couch and eventually kissing, she soon
discovered that Rowan was more interested in interacting with the remote
control