Page 63 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

“Excellent.”

We walk to the nearby car park where she unlocks a nifty red Mazda MX-5. I get into the passenger seat, and we buckle ourselves in.

“Nice car,” I say as she reverses out.

“Dad bought it for me,” she says. “Or at least, he told me he’d buy me a car. I think he was hoping I’d get an SUV, preferably one built like a tank.” She laughs, obviously in love with the sports car. I’m not surprised. We all used to watch Top Gear together, and she’s always been into cars. “What do you drive?” she asks.

“I have a rather nice Audi S5 convertible.”

“Ooh.”

“You’d love it. I did think of you when I chose it, actually.”

She sends me a smile. “Really?”

“Yeah. I always think of you when I’m looking at cars. Or bones. Or composing haikus.”

That makes her laugh. “Yours was very rude,” she scolds, taking the road toward Miramar.

“I knew you wouldn’t mind. You always found innuendo funny.”

“Innuendo? I think ‘magnificent tits’ is pretty up front, actually.”

“I was talking about the Paridae family of birds,” I say.

“So you don’t like my boobs?”

My lips curve up. “New fruit-based haiku. Nice pear, marvelous grapefruit…’ I can’t think of a last line.”

“Honeydew melons? God, you’ve really thrown yourself into British seafront humor, haven’t you?”

We both start laughing, and that kind of sets the scene for the rest of the day.

In the morning we have a tour of Weta Workshop. We get shown around the Weta Cave, where our guide shows us how they make armor, weapons, creatures, and costumes for movies like The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Avatar. We spend ages looking at chain mail and double-handed axes and makeup effects, then take a good hour to get through the shop as we examine books, collectables, and games, and have our photos taken with some of the characters.

After this, we grab some lunch at a nearby café, then get back in the car, and Elora drives for about ninety minutes to the site of Stonehenge Aotearoa. I’d read about it, but it’s the first time I’ve been. Elora knows that astronomy is my second-greatest love after archaeology. My love of the stars also began with the Bell family, on the nights when Atticus used to take us camping in the mountains, and we’d lie back in our sleeping bags while he told us about the constellations. The fact that the area was a Dark Sky Reserve meant there was hardly any light pollution, so the Milky Way was visible as a wide splash of stars across the night sky.

I’ve been to the prehistoric Stonehenge in England, and I tell Elora about it as we walk around this modern copy, discussing how our ancestors must have used the heavens for navigation, marking the seasons, and the most overused archaeological word—ritual.

Although many of the girls I’ve met in Europe have been archaeologists, none of them had quite as wide a range of knowledge as Elora, and it’s fantastic to talk to someone who is as well-versed in and enthusiastic about the subject as she is. On the way back to Wellington in the car, we talk about archaeology—places we’ve studied, new excavation techniques, and aerial photography.

At no point do I mention the kiss we had last night, and neither does she.

“I haven’t asked you yet about this divvy thing,” she says. We’ve passed Martinborough and are heading for Featherston, with Lake Wairarapa on our left and the Pakuratahi Forest behind it. It’s a beautiful afternoon, and I’m enjoying both seeing my home country and her company.

“I Googled you last night,” she adds.

“And I didn’t even feel a thing.”

She nudges me with her elbow. “There are lots of stories about you on the Internet. I didn’t expect that. So, are you really some kind of archaeological wizard?”

“Complete with cape and wand.”

“Linc…”

“Come on,” I tease, “what do you want me to say? I’ve been exceptionally lucky. And maybe yeah, I have an eye for spotting small details that others might miss. Combined, the two things mean I’ve made a few interesting finds. People love to put an otherworldly spin on things, but I really don’t have magical powers.”

She smiles. “It’s strange to hear you refer to yourself as lucky, after everything you went through when you were young.”

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