She’s sure he knows it’s there. Smithson would’ve double- and triple-checked.
She hesitates, then walks on. Dignity is the least she can give him, even if it makes her feel the same way she did last night.
Like she’s surrounded and completely alone at the same time.
An hour later, Geraldine’s dining-room table looks like a pack of raptors has stormed through the frybread and grated cheese. Shredded lettuce dangles from the floral centerpiece. Ripley’s told Geraldine not to bother with the pretty tablescapes, but the older woman insists she’s shaping the younger generation whether they know it or not.
“I’ll clear the dishes.” Jordin always volunteers first, taking one of the harder chores.
“I call leftovers,” shouts Matteo. He definitely plans to eat at least as much of the remaining food as he puts in containers.
“Dishwasher,” chorus the twins, earning a suspicious look from Matteo for their synchronization. Griff waits to see what Cara will pick, then takes mopping to go with her sweeping.
“You get the sink again, Rip,” Cara observes.
“It’s lonely at the top.” The kitchen’s not big enough for everyone, so Ripley waits for the crew to finish before she starts filling the sink. They need their own space sometimes so they can call her a hard-ass and air their petty complaints. If she’s lonely, that’s the price of being the boss.
“Do you always do the washing-up alone?”
Smithson should never be allowed to say words likealways,with that falling note that makes him sound like he ate smoke. He dressed for dinner again tonight, like this is an English countrymanor instead of an Indigenous farming outpost. His tan is deepening despite the sunscreen Ripley pushes on everyone. He’s undone a whole two buttons on that robin’s-egg-blue shirt, and the V of exposed skin is as golden as an August field against a June sky. There’s no excuse for how hard she has to work to tear her eyes away from the dip and swoop of his collarbones.
“I’ll survive a few pots and pans.”
“I’m sure you will. In the zombie apocalypse, Ripley Adams will be strolling the countryside, dispatching the undead, surviving perfectly well.” He cracks a barely there smile, nothing but a twitch, not even on both sides of his mouth. Its warmth hits her like a spring breeze that makes people dig out their summer clothes when there’s still a foot of snow on the ground.
She wonders if he’d bloom like summer if she gave him a little sunshine.
“If you’d like company, though,” he goes on, “I could dry.”
“Suit yourself,” she says with a steadiness she wishes she actually felt. “Aprons are on the hook.” He joins her at the sink, smelling like warm skin and that grassy scent she doesn’t know the name of; layered under that are whiffs of pencil shavings and Montana clay. She busies herself checking the water so as not to see him fastening the apron with the same loop-and-tug movements he used on her shoelaces.
There’s something too tight about her breathing.
She reaches for a pot at the wrong moment, and his elbow bumps her arm in a firm, electric brush of fabric on skin that makes her twitch.
His body tenses almost like he’s in pain. “Sorry.” He steps away to finish the knot, then turns his attention to unbuttoning his cuffs.
“Don’t worry about it,” she chokes out. She’s seen his sleevesrolled up, but never the act of rolling. Each graceful, unrushed turn of his cuff precedes a crisp snap of an elegant wrist. Long, lean muscles ripple under his skin like water.
Oh God. James Smithson has slutty forearms.
This is Smithson,she reminds herself. He embarrassed her in Atlanta. He’s not simply a paleontologist; he’s one of the most famous paleontologistsin the world.At summer’s end, he’s going back to London. Presumably forever.
She’s too old to catch dig fever, and if she does, there are a million reasons it shouldn’t be for him.
She plunges the nearest pan into the soapy water. “Don’t run the water into the drain,” she tells him. “Use the basin.”
He pulls a sink-size teal basin from the cabinet she’s tapped with her toe. “This is for…”
“Geraldine’s flowers.”
“Ah.” He looks out the picture window. There’s a modest pond a couple hundred yards away, the water level already markedly lower than the banks. “We have water shortages in England these days too.”
Ripley passes him the pan. He dips it in clean water, turning it until the bubbles are gone.
“After last night, I thought we were done avoiding each other.”
She stiffens, clutching the scrub brush. “I’m not avoiding you. We just don’t coincide.”
