“On sabbatical; under investigation; lost him to medical school,” he says. “Thanks, though.” He nudges the horse, and Hoodoo breaks into an easy walk.
Ripley argues with herself about Will for a good few seconds while Matteo probably eats the first slice of her dinner. Her ex is the reason she doesn’t want her name mentioned in connection with a male paleontologist’s ever again.
But Smithson might be the only person on earth other than Ripley who still thinks about her lost paper. And he liked it.
“What about Will Stone?” Her gut hitches hard, givingStonean odd squeak in the middle. Saying his name feels like speaking a curse into existence.
“Unfortunately, Dr. Stone is not a possibility.”
“He knows dino-avians.” Or he should, after what happened.
Smithson makes that same wistful cowboy face as he heads off. “Will Stone wrote the abstract in question, Ms. Adams.”
It takes Ripley a good minute to recover the power of speech—not that she has anything helpful to say. Her thoughts are stuck in a sickening loop:Not Will. Not again.
4
June 6:
Eighty-Three Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
Ripley doesn’t sleep well.
Neither do a number of her crew members, judging by the grumpy morning faces and post-sex hair on Griff and Cara, and is that—yup, Matteo and Jordin are taking spoonfuls of each other’s breakfasts. God. That’s going to leave a mark.
Ripley’s seen the aftermath of these relationships at all the digs she’s crewed on. Everybody thinks it’s a great idea to hook up with their polar opposites until the inevitable breakup. Next summer, the flippant one will still be stealing tape measures from the anal-retentive one, only there won’t be any orgasms to turn the infuriating habits cute.
Time hasn’t done much to dull Ripley’s regret over falling for Will under those exact circumstances. She was young and dumb and beyond excited to be on a crew in Hell Creek, where—like every new grad student—she dreamed of finding the world’s most completeTyrannosaurus rexskeleton and having it nicknamed for her, like Sue and Stan and Trix. She was far too impressed by Will’s favorite excavation tool: a Bowie knife, which seemedsomuch cooler than her basic chisel. While she hesitated before every brushstroke, Will shrugged when a fossil crumbledunder his blade.Bones break,he’d said.That’s the restorers’ problem.
FuckingWill.She’d tossed and turned all night, her mind changing every ninety seconds:His find is fake—no, it’s real. It’s a different species—fuck, it’s the same.
Cara ambles up and hands Ripley a mug of camp coffee. “Think it’s gonna rain?” This is a perpetual joke in this part of the state, where the mountains catch morning clouds but the prairie sun burns them off before they can make good on their promises.
“You betcha,” Ripley says, which is Montanan for anything fromYestoYou’re incredibly annoying but I don’t feel like arguing.
“Still thinking about that guy?” Cara’s fascinated by the idea of scientists indignantly investigating each other, but as Ripley explained last night, this is how it works. Academic paleontology is basically two hundred years of people with grudges trying to discredit one another. Fun times.
“A little. Not the guy specifically,” Ripley adds when Cara arches a brow. “More like the whole…situation,” she says, making a stirring motion.
“Oh, yeah. I also noticed his”—Cara stirs much lower than Ripley did—“situation.”
“Ha-ha. Very—hold on.” She plucks her buzzing phone from one of the many pockets in her cargo pants. “Maury,” she says, reading the display. “Come listen in, C.”
Next year, Cara will be running the site without her. While Clever Girl Fossils will ideally be self-funding, it wouldn’t hurt for the incoming boss to get some experience with high-maintenance donors.
Ripley takes a second to adjust her mindset before putting the call on speaker. She believes supporting small businesses andadvancing the progress of science are good uses for a billionaire’s money, but she isn’t so naive as to trust said billionaire. She made sure to put safeguards in their contract so he can’t whisk a critical piece of the fossil record off to a climate-controlled vault, never to be studied.
She wouldn’t admit it to Smithson, but she still cares about science.
“Hi, Maury.” In the background, Ripley can hear theclinkof free weights. Cara rolls her eyes and makes a jerk-off gesture.
“Ripley. Ripperrrr. Rippity-doo-dah,” he singsongs.
Ripley doesn’t understand Maury’s obsession with riffing on people’s names, but she long ago decided it was prudent not to tell the guy with the money that whatever long-dead meme he’s referring to, nobody her age gets it.
“How are you?”
“Fantastic. Fucking A. My body fat is down to eight percent. My trainer says I have the bone density of a twenty-year-old.”
