Well, at this point, all they knew was that Dallas had a theory that Cleopatra was buried in one of seven nearby temples and why. That was it.
Nothing on that SD card revealed that she’d narrowed it down to Taposiris Magna.
After a while, Dallas turned off the lights and crawled into bed, sleepy. But sleep eluded her. Instead, she lay awake in the dark feeling suddenly lonely and a little apprehensive for another two hours before falling asleep.
Colton couldn’t get here soon enough.
Nine
The next morning Dallas was waiting at the train station with two large coffees and a bag of Egyptian pastries when Colton stepped off the train.
Dallas couldn’t hide her smile and rushed over to kiss him on the cheek.
She drew back, her cheeks getting hot, but before she could speak Colton leaned in and kissed her long and hard full on the lips. Dallas forgot about the cups of coffee and the bag mashed between them until Colton pulled away and searched her eyes.
“I …” he began, but she interrupted him by handing him one of the coffees and the bag. “Here you go. I’m pretty sure I found the only donuts in Alexandria.
Dallas turned before he could see her flushed cheeks. Holy smokes. He’d just kissed her and boy, was it some kiss. Like fireworks-exploding-kiss. She was completely disoriented and felt a little weak. She needed time to compose herself. By the time, they exited the train station, she felt normal again and turned to him with a broad smile.
“I’m so happy to see you.”
Every word was true.
“Me, too.” His voice was quiet.
She quickly gulped some coffee and then scanned the streets.
“We can go straight to your hotel to dump your gear or I can give you a quick tour of the waterfront,” she said.
“Um, I don’t really have a hotel. In my rush, I …”
Awkward. “Oh.”
She thought for a minute. “Let’s go to my room, dump your gear and then we’ll grab some real food,” She gave the half-eaten pastry in his hand a smirk. “We have some time before we have to meet Abet. He’s our interpreter. He said he’s hired a car to take us to the site this afternoon. I can hardly wait.”
Over a lunch at a seaside café with the table overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, Dallas and Colton ate a cheesy meat fondue with baguette-type bread she while she explained her theory about Taposiris Magna and how she’d come to that conclusion after seeing the stele in the Cairo museum.
“You’re onto something, Jones,” Colton said shaking his head. “It all makes so much sense.”
“We just need to find something, anything, to place Cleopatra at Taposiris during her lifetime and I think we can convince the minister to grant us an excavation permit.”
Colton broke off another piece of bread, dipped it into the fondue and smiled. “That sounds great.”
Colton and Abet hit it off like old college buddies reunited. Apparently, Abet had family in Minnesota and seeing Colton’s Twins baseball cap made them instant BFFs. Dallas rolled her eyes as they talked about baseball.
Abet only carried a backpack and said they should go straight to meet their driver at the city centre.
A man in a—dress—Dallas didn’t know what else to call it—leaned against a beat-up old white Volvo.
He grunted at Abet. They stood speaking for a few seconds while Colton and Dallas waited nearby. He cast a few suspicious glances at the couple waiting nearby and then spit on the ground. Dallas gave Abet an alarmed look but he winked at her.
As they got settled into the car, Dallas tried to make conversation, introducing herself to the driver and asking how he was. The man, however, ignored her or grunted so Dallas leaned back in her seat while he fiddled with something on the dashboard. She didn’t want to be the annoying dumb American tourist, but this dude clearly didn’t want to talk
As Colton and Abet settled in, reaching for seatbelts, they continued chattering away agreeably, talking football now. As they discussed the merits of zone defense and tight ends, or something that Dallas tuned out, her thoughts drifted to their destination. The only thing about Colton she couldn’t tune out was the pressure of his leg pressed against hers. The backseat of the car was small. Dallas had offered to sit in the middle when Abet had climbed into the back instead of taking the empty passenger seat. Dallas didn’t question why. Maybe he knew the driver was grumpy and stand offish.
But now the pressure of Colton’s thigh against hers was threatening to drive her mad. So instead of thinking about Colton naked, she turned her thoughts to the temple.
Then the car jerked to a start and Dallas flew back against her seat.
The quiet driver was suddenly a madman behind the wheel, cursing and banging on the steering wheel and honking.
Dallas clutched Colton’s knee so hard he yelped.
“What the?” he said.
Abet was leaning casually against his door facing them and continuing to talk about the Dallas Cowboy quarterback’s injured wrist. Dallas cringed as they came up on a car in front of them that was going at least twenty miles per hour slower than they were. More honking and yelling from the driver and then she was thrown against the window as he swerved quickly into the opposing lane and then swooped back into his lane second before smacking into a honking car coming at them.
Dallas felt the blood drain from her face.
Then, to her astonishment, the driver came to a screeching halt at a stoplight when they had a green light. Dallas whipped her head behind her and sure enough a car was barreling toward them and most likely going to rear end them.
“The light is green!” The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. The
