Page 25 of Major

Magnolia smiled at the other women, nodding her head. Taylor stared at her, wondering if she was truly understanding what had to take place for her to get well.

“We all had a different experience, Mags. Yet they were all the same. Violent. It wasn’t about sex. You have to get that out of your mind. If you’re worried that you won’t be able to enjoy sex with Walker, I can assure you that you will. If. If you’re willing to put in the work.

“Being raped by my stepbrother was not something I thought I would survive. Then, being taken again and beaten again, I thought that was the end of my life as I knew it. And in some ways, it was. My life got better after that because I married a man with the patience of Job.” The other women laughed, nodding their heads.

“All he did was try to hold my hand, and I pulled away,” she sniffed. “Why?”

“Because you’re scared,” said Rachelle. “It’s real, and you know it, and you’re scared.”

“You’re scared that he’s going to wake up one day and say, ‘why in the hell am I with her.’ Except he won’t say that. Not now, not ever. It’s not who he is,” said Cait.

“Do you love him?” asked Elena, still clasping her hand.

“So much. I’ve loved him since the eighth grade. I’ve never stopped loving him.”

“I think he feels the same way,” said Elena, nodding toward the men as they walked toward them. Mags stood and looked at the others, then hugged each one.

“Thank you for talking to me. It helped more than you know,” she smiled.

“Actually, we do know,” laughed Cait. “Come to us any time, honey.”

Mags took off, running toward Walker as he did the same. He stopped in front of her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He gently wrapped his around her body, pulling her slowly against him. When she kissed him, he fell to his knees, sobbing as she rocked back and forth with him.

“Will they be okay now?” asked Elena.

“They’re on the right path,” said Rachelle.

“How did you all know what to say?” she asked.

“We’ve all been victims of sexual violence and abuse,” said Rachelle. “It’s my specialty in our practice here. She wants to forget, but she can’t. It won’t be possible. What she can do is move on and see what she has. I hope she will. If she doesn’t, it will kill Walker.”

“Did the communications team send you over here? Did they hear me?” asked Elena.

“No,” smiled Rachelle. “My mother heard everything.”

As the women walked away, Elena looked around the gardens, not seeing anyone except a few bees and some hummingbirds. Frowning, she whispered to herself.

“How?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“There’s so much more here than I remember,” said Elena. “I knew that my father kept meticulous records, but for some reason, I thought he put everything on a computer. These handwritten notes should really be part of the museum’s property or the university that sponsored the individual digs.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Major.

“Anything that might stand out as something someone would want now,” said May. “If the notes are on a dig that’s been closed or no longer viable, we don’t need that. It would all be public record. We’re looking for something incomplete, perhaps.”

“Like the dig he was working on when he died,” said Elena.

“Exactly,” said May. “I have a feeling this is something that perhaps no one, except his sponsors, knew about.”

“But why?” asked Elena. “Not letting others know what he was looking for left it wide open for scrutiny and the possibility of someone else taking credit for the work. It’s why so many archaeologists film their digs now. I wish I had.”

“What do you mean?” asked May.

“I was young and foolish,” said Elena. “I was working with one of my professors, whom I respected a great deal. He was determined to find the tomb of Cleopatra. He’d been searching basically his entire career when he invited his students to participate in a dig where he believed he’d found the tomb.

“I was young and naïve and believed him. The tomb seemed real, and he claimed that he had a number of things that would prove it to be true. When he asked me to present the items to the Department of Antiquities, I thought this was my chance to prove that I was as good as my father.”

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