With This Fling...

She’d miss him dreadfully when he was gone. His zest for life and new experiences. His tenderness and his wit. His company, as daft as that sounded, for he had kept her company these long anxious nights. He’d helped her keep the tears at bay and given her the strength to face what was coming.

Aurora passed away right on time. Two months from the discovery of the cancer to the finish, just as the good doctor had predicted.

This time, the thought of Gilbert did not hold Charlotte’s tears at bay. She wept with relief that Aurora’s pain had finally ceased. She wept with grief for the loss of a mother and friend.

She just wept.

Gilbert didn’t make it home to Australia in time to meet Aurora—an unforgivable act of negligence as far as Charlotte was concerned. Poetic justice came swiftly.

Gilbert, in his haste to return to her, had ventured into territory he had no business venturing into. Once there, the reckless—yet noble—fool had tried to prevent the kidnapping of tribal daughters by a renegade hunting party, so it was said. Authorities had little hope of recovering his remains. The words ‘long pig’ had been whispered.

It was a double blow, his demise coming so soon after Aurora’s, and in the wee small hours of the night Charlotte mourned for him.

She really did.

CHAPTER ONE

‘CHARLOTTE, what are you doing here?’ Professor Harold Mead’s panicked expression didn’t quite fit his soothing fatherly tone. Then again, a lot of things about her boss didn’t quite fit. Like his version of Ancient Egyptian history as opposed to everyone else’s, for example. Or his idea of a regular working week, which was somewhere in the vicinity of seventy hours as opposed to, say, the fifty everyone else put in.

Granted, it was seven-thirty on a Monday morning and she didn’t usually start work quite this early, but still … she did have every right to be here. ‘Charlotte?’ he repeated.

‘Working?’ she offered helpfully. ‘At least, that’s the plan. Is there something wrong with the plan?’

‘No, but we were hardly expecting you in today. We thought you might take a few days to come to terms with your loss, what with your godmother’s funeral yesterday.’ Which he’d attended. Which had been nice of him, seeing as he hadn’t known Aurora well at all.

‘It was a good funeral,’ she said softly. ‘A celebration of a life well lived. That’s what I think. That’s what I know. And thank you for attending.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said the Mead. ‘And if you do need to take a few days’ leave …’

‘No,’ said Charlotte hastily. ‘Please. No leave. I’m fine.’ She tried on a smile, and saw from the deepening concern in the Mead’s eyes that he’d seen it for the falsehood it was. ‘Really. I’m ready to work. I think I have a lead on what the pottery fragments coming out of the Loess site might be.’

‘It can wait,’ said the Mead. ‘Or you could pass that work on to someone else. Dr Carlysle, perhaps? Seeing as he’s on site? Dr Steadfellow values him quite highly.’

‘I’m sure he does.’ Steadfellow’s reports had been full of the man. ‘But I’d rather not.’ The Loess site had been one of her finds. Hers and Aurora’s. She’d given Steadfellow that site—coordinates, preliminary work, everything—on condition that she took part in the analysis. Alas, the good Dr Steadfellow seemed to be in danger of forgetting their arrangement now that the highly valued Dr Carlysle had joined the team. ‘Harold, I know Dr Steadfellow and Dr Carlysle feel they can take it from here. I know they’re eminently qualified to do so but that’s not the point. I feel like I’m being sidelined and that wasn’t the arrangement.’

‘Charlotte, be reasonable,’ said the Mead soothingly. ‘Everyone knows you pulled together the funding for the Loess dig. No one doubts your claim to significant project input, but is this really a good time to be challenging your colleagues? Might they not simply be trying to help you through a difficult personal patch?’

Charlotte heard the words. She wanted to believe in them. Wanted to trust that Steadfellow would honour his word and acknowledge her contribution to the discovery, but in all honesty she just didn’t know if he would. Her judgement was shot, these days. Too many sleepless nights. Too much weaving in and out of imaginary realities because it had hurt too much to stay in this one. ‘I’ll talk to Steadfellow. And Carlysle,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ll sort something out.’

‘Excellent.’ The Mead beamed. ‘I knew you’d be generous about this. You already have more publications than most archaeologists three times your age. A tenured position is just around the corner for you.’

‘Even if I’m seen as a pushover?’ she asked quietly and Harold had the grace to flush.

‘Charlotte,’ he said. ‘I know your godmother was of great assistance to you when it came to contacts in the archaeology world. I know your family name engenders a great deal of goodwill. God knows, I’ve never seen an archaeologist pull funding from the private sector the way you do. But your godmother’s gone now, and a lot of people will be looking to see if your legendary contacts went with her.’ He took a breath and fixed her with what he probably thought was a kindly gaze. ‘Charlotte, you’re a wonderful asset to this department, but if you’ll take an old man’s advice—and I do hope you will—losing ground on the Loess dig is the least of your problems. You need to think about taking to the field for a while and renewing your contacts in person. You need to think about getting back out on site and heading up your own digs. That’s what I’d be doing if I were you and I really wanted to get back in the game. Your position then would be unassailable. If that’s what you want.’

If that’s what you want.

Truth was—Charlotte didn’t know what she wanted any more, when it came to her work.

And the Mead knew it.

‘Charlotte, I know you’re not given to discussing your private life with your work colleagues,’ the Mead began awkwardly. ‘But I heard what happened to your fiancé in PNG. Bad business, that. Terrible.’

‘You, ah … heard about that?’ Charlotte’s heart thumped hard against her chest, and if her smile was a little strained it was only because the situation warranted it. Thaddeus Jeremiah Gilbert Tyler was supposed to have lived only in her mind and Aurora’s. No one else’s. ‘How?’

‘One of the palliative care nurses up at the hospital is married to Thomas over in Statistics. He’s been keeping us abreast of various … things.’

‘Oh.’ Charlotte offered up another sickly smile, dimly registering the collision of planet fiction with planet reality but having no idea how to wrest them back apart. Why couldn’t she have simply broken her fictitious engagement to her fictitious fiancé in a sane and sensible manner, rather than killing him off? That way the formerly useful Gil could have gone paddling up the Sepik for ever, and she and Harold would not be having this conversation.

‘At least with your godmother you were prepared for her death. But with your fiancé, and without the body … Anyway, enough of that. Charlotte, I reiterate—if you need to take some extended leave, please do.’

‘I—thank you.’ Charlotte’s voice shook alarmingly. The Mead took a giant step back, as if downright horrified at the prospect of Charlotte in tears. He wasn’t the only one to be horrified by such a notion. Stop it, Charlotte. Shoulders back. Don’t you dare break down. A Greenstone never breaks down. Chin up, Charlie, and smile. The last was pure Aurora.

Slowly, very slowly, Charlotte collected her composure and offered up what she hoped would pass for a smile. ‘Thank you, Harold. I appreciate your concern and your advice, I really do. But right now, I’d really rather work.’

If Charlotte thought her early morning conversation with the Mead had been bad, morning tea in the staffroom was worse. Kind words cut deep when they weren’t deserved, and there were a lot of kind words for Charlotte this morning on account of her loss.

Losses.

She cut out fast, back to her little corner office, taking her cup of tea with her. Once there she slumped into her chair and stared at her computer screen without really seeing it. Surely things would be better tomorrow? Surely this overwhelming sense of loss on the one hand and guilt on the other would fade? All she had to do was ride out these next few days. Maybe she could resurrect Gil and then dump him? Or have him dump her. Mutually agree to part ways …

‘How’re you holding up?’ said a voice from the doorway. Millie, seeking entry, offering solace. Millie, who deserved better than lies from her.

‘So-so.’ Charlotte offered up a weak smile. ‘Sympathy on account of Aurora’s death I can handle. I’m not so sure I can handle any sympathy on account of Gil.’

‘It’s not so much sympathy as rampant curiosity,’ said Millie as she came in and perched her skinny rear on the edge of the table. ‘We’ve been friends and co-workers for, what, almost two years now? Why didn’t you tell me you were engaged? And why aren’t you wearing his ring?’

‘It was a fairly loose arrangement,’ said Charlotte awkwardly. ‘Really loose.’

‘How long since you’d seen him?’ asked Millie.

‘A while. Gil was very independent. Adventurous.’ For a moment, Charlotte let herself dream. ‘Gil was a law unto himself. Passionate and focused. Energetic. Patient …’

‘Stamina?’

‘That too.’

‘I’m beginning to see the appeal,’ said Millie.

‘Unless you actually happened to want him around.’

Charlotte snapped out of her Gilfest with a wry smile. ‘Well, there was that.’

‘Do I sense a shred of relief that you’re no longer tied to such an independent adventurer?’

‘You might,’ murmured Charlotte. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Millie and everyone else to think that she’d recover quickly from her fiancé’s demise? Why on earth, then, should she feel so disloyal to Gil?

‘Do you have a picture of him?’ asked Millie.