She has to let go even if what she wants is to stare into his eyes until she feels better and then stare into them some more. Especially if that’s what she wants.
She slides her hands down to his shoulders and grips them hard. She’s had any number of close calls in the field. Rock slides, unstable cliffsides, other people’s dropped tools tumbling past her skull. Once, she and her dad got lost in the Hell Creek Badlands for ninety not-great minutes.
When bad things happen, don’t get stuck in the fear, Pip,he told her the next weekend, loading up the Charger.Find one step you can take, and take it.
To Ripley’s eye, it looks like James Smithson has both feet stuck in the tar pit of their near-miss.
“This wasnotyour fault,” she says firmly. “This was bad luck and bad weather and someone who doesn’t have the right tires. And maybe not the right skills,” she adds, wrinkling her nose. “Okay? Not your fault.”
A knock comes from the driver’s-side window. A brown-skinned woman peers into the car, rain sluicing off her wide-brimmed hat.
“You all okay in there?” She’s got a trace of an accent in her western drawl. Spanish, maybe? Ripley’s not sure.
“Fine, thanks,” she replies, remembering that the Charger wasn’t the only vehicle involved. A rush of cold envelops her body. “Is everybody else all right?”
“No injuries, luckily. Don’t know about the axles on that one.” The woman jerks her chin toward the sedan. It rests crookedly on the median, one wheel in the air. A few people have pulled over to help.
“All right. Okay. That’s good,” Ripley says, aware that she’s a millisecond from becoming a babbling mess. “Thanks for checking in.”
“I can check on your husband if you’re still a bit shaken up.” Her eyes crinkle with friendly sympathy.
Ripley frowns. “He’s not my—oh!”
His seat is empty. His door is open.
James Smithson is walking away.
It takes a minute for Ripley to catch him.
She grabs her boots and raincoat from the back seat—convenient—then vaults over the guardrail and scrambles down the embankment. With his long legs, he can step easily through the scrubby evergreens and tangled grass, but she gets caught.
“Stop! Wait for—fuck.” Her shorts are covered in spiky brown burrs from a burdock bush she didn’t even see. It’s raining so hard, the water feels like an endless bucket being dumped over her head. A puddle comes up over her boot and into her sock, but now is not the time to be a princess about dry feet.
She catches up to him at a post-and-wire fence encircling a field of some grassy crop, the spiky green heads trembling under the onslaught. He’s absolutely ruined, hair plastered to his face, shirt transparent in places. She must look the same.
“Hey, big guy,” she says, horse-whisperer-style. “Everything okay?”
He spins, eyes wild. “Everything is notokay,Ripley. We were almost killed.Youwere almost killed.” He grips his thigh convulsively, looking at her like sparks are flying from her skin.
He closes his eyes and reaches out; his hands unerringly find her waist. She must be in shock, because she lets him draw her in, tuck her against his chest, and rest his face against her soaking hair.
Suddenly she’s exhausted and trembling. She wants nothing but to stand here, let the breath eddy in and out of her lungs, and not have to manage anything or worry about anyone or keep one eye on the ticking clock of Beauty and Will and the dig.
“Are yousureit wasn’t my fault? You would tell me, wouldn’t you?” He sounds lost, desperate, and somehow very young.
“James, I am more than capable of driving a car while having a conversation with someone I happen to be attracted to. People do it every day.”
He sucks in a breath, his chest rising against hers.
Oh, Jesus, Adams.“I didn’t mean—”
He unwinds his arms from around her body and takes a half step back.
God, it’s cold without his warmth. “Please disregard my…just disregard,” she finishes weakly.
He reaches out, picks up one of her braids, and rubs the end between his fingertips as if he can’t help himself.
“When I saw you in Atlanta, Ripley, I reacted in a way that was…very unscientific. I’d read your paper, and when I saw you—took your hand—you simplyfell into placefor me, like a missing link. I’m not given to that kind of thing, you understand. I’d always thought myself safe from that appalling cliché of the supervisor and his graduate student. Potential student, in your case.
