Ripley doesn’t love driving at night out here. It’s all too easy to lose the road and end up axle-deep in sandy soil or tangle with the plentiful nocturnal wildlife. She didn’t catch any glowing eyes in her headlights tonight, but fifteen more minutes and she might have.
“It’s a loose rule.”
“Nevertheless, you should have been back ninety minutes ago.”
Ripley raises her eyebrows. “The package wasn’t at the big house, so I made a run to the post office.” She also spent a long five minutes in the family-planning aisle at the pharmacy. She had no reason to stand there staring at the condoms. For one thing, she’s on continuous birth control so she doesn’t get her period on the dig. For another, there’s the small matter of James not wanting to have sex with her. Or have anything else with her.
She bought them anyway, feeling ridiculous. Maybe Cara will need some.
“The post office closed hours ago.”
“Geraldine invited me for a cup of tea.” She’s trying to spend more time with the elder Yellowtail. Geraldine’s great at listening, and Ripley feels a thousand times better now that Geraldine has agreed that James is acting like an idiot.
“You should’ve texted if you were going to be late.”
“Hard to text when I don’t have your number.”
He huffs out a breath that’s barely this side of exasperated. “You could’ve texted Cara. You could’ve textedanyone.”
“Cara wasn’t worried, I’m sure. I hope you weren’t either.”
This is a lie.
Since they got back from Drumheller four days ago, he’s been exactly as kind and lovely to Ripley as he is to everyone else. And as if to forestall questions about why he’s staying on the dig if it’s not helping him work and she’s not helping him investigate, he’s busting his ass on every front.
On Tuesday, he kept his head down and cleared more windfallen branches than anyone except Griff. He spent Wednesday on the phone, then casually informed Ripley that his museum contacts unearthed at least four more places Will’s been nosingaround in research collections. Thursday, he busied himself helping the twins rig a pulley system to bring soil up from the canyon to fill in the runoff-eroded spots up top.
Only when the two of them are alone do things get tense. Today, he wouldn’t take a refilled water bottle from her.
“I’m giving these to everybody, James. It’s practically ninety degrees,” she said.
“It’s eighty-seven.” He took a conspicuous swig from his half-full bottle. “I wish you wouldn’t linger, Ripley. Someone’s going to get the wrong idea about our road trip.”
She couldn’t help whispering, “Don’t you mean someone’s going to get therightidea?”
“Precisely,” James said, bending over his excavation as if she weren’t there.
Whenever she turns his way, his eyes are pointed elsewhere. This makes her watch him more, trying to catch him in the act of looking away. She wants to know whether she’s the only one who hearsBefore there are deeper feelings involvedechoing in her head like a shout down the canyon. She can’t stop wondering if she’s imagining that, underneath his controlled vowels and precise consonants, he sounds hungrier than ever.
Now that he’s standing here glowering like someone who’s spent ninety minutes embellishing worst-case scenarios, she finds she likes the idea of James fretting over her. She likes thinking he felt a shock of relief when she pulled into view, the emotion so sudden and sharp that he needed a minute to collect himself before striding across the clearing to give her hell. She wants him to care differently for her than he does for everyone else.
More. She wants him to care so much more.
“Nigel!” Cara yells, emerging from the trees that screen the parking lot. She’s taken to calling James all the most British-soundingnames she can think of, trying to find a button she can push. So far, no luck.
“I told you she’d be fine. You didn’t have to stare into the sunset for an hour burning holes in your retinas watching for her.”
“The sun was behind me,” he points out stiffly. “And I wasn’t here for an hour.”
“Okay. Make that twenty minutes of ruining the poker game with your fidgeting and forty minutes out here.” Ignoring his indignant scoff, Cara turns to Ripley. “Well?”
Ripley sighs. “As far as the post office can tell, the cabin hardware is in a black hole somewhere in New Jersey.”
Griff drifts over. He’s on a time-delay circuit with Cara; anywhere she is, he’ll soon show up. “So, are James and I building tomorrow morning?”
“No,” Ripley says gloomily.
James’s paleobotanist buddy is arriving tomorrow for a weekend of sample collection, and as of right now, the accommodation situation is dire.
