The Call of the Desert
Just as they approached the other women, though, Kaden cut in and handed Rihana to Samia. “Here you go, Auntie. I’m stealing my wife for a minute.”
Samia took her baby niece eagerly. “Be careful—you might not get her back. And I think Tariq has already been stolen by Dr Assan.”
They’d made Dr Assan their son’s godfather, and he was showing him off like a proud grandfather.
Kaden took Julia’s hand and led her out through a side door. He was dressed in gold and cream ceremonial robes, and Julia wore a cream silk dress. She let herself be led by Kaden through the shade of the old trees to the other side of the dig, feeling absurdly happy and content.
Kaden glanced back and smiled. “What are you looking so smug about?”
Julia smiled mysteriously, her heart full. “Oh, nothing much.”
Kaden growled. “I’ll make you tell me later, but first …”
They’d reached the corner, and Julia recognised the spot where they’d first met. Kaden brought her over to the ancient wall, and it took a moment before she could see what he was directing her attention to. A new stone had been placed amongst the older ones, and it held within it a fossil and an inscription.
She gasped and looked at him. “That’s not the same fossil—?”
He smiled. “Read the writing.”
She did. The inscription simply read: For my wife and only love, Julia. You hold my heart and soul, as I will hold yours, for ever. Kaden
It also had the date of the day they’d met. She looked at Kaden, feeling suspiciously teary, and saw that he was holding out his palm. She looked down and saw a familiar chain of gold. Her necklace. She picked it up reverently.
He sounded gruff. “I got it mended after that night.”
Julia’s eyes had filled with proper tears now, and Kaden said mock sternly, with his hands cupping her face and jaw, “I won’t have tears marking this spot.”
Julia smiled through the tears. “Kiss me, then, and make me happy.”
“That,” Kaden said, with love in his eyes and on his face, “I can most definitely do.”
And so they kissed, for a long time, on the exact spot where they’d first met almost thirteen years before.