Читать книгу Into the Badlands - Caron Todd, Caron Todd - Страница 8

THE LIGHT AT THE MOUTH of the sinkhole was fading. Susannah shivered. A chill had crept into her bones. She wished she were at home, in her bed, with soft blankets around her. Books and sweet-smelling flowers on the bedside table. Music—something slow and tragic? Billie Holiday? Something calm and balanced? Bach, Pachelbel? Chocolate bars…

She went still. There were scraping, dragging sounds overhead. Bobcat? She sprang to her feet, setting off a new wave of pain. “James?”

A head blotted out the light, and a familiar, teasing voice drifted down to her. “Whatcha doin’, angel?”

“Oh, bit of this, bit of that.” Her voice shook. “What about you?”

“Nothing much. I’ve been out walking.”

“The flashlight died, James. I’ve been here in the dark.”

His tone changed. “We’ve brought the tent poles. We’ll get the rope secured right away. It has knots every couple of feet…can you climb a rope, Sue?”

“Sure.” It had sounded like a good idea a while ago, when she was still awash with adrenaline from jumping in after Matt. Now it seemed ridiculous.

“It’s all yours.”

Susannah felt for the rope and reached above her head for a knot. Stifling a groan, she pulled herself up until her feet clasped a knot, too. She waited for protesting nerves to stop yelling, then, trying to keep most of her weight on her good arm and leg, she felt for the next knot and pulled with her arms and pushed with her feet again.

Getting out of the hole was worse than staying in it. The rope dug into her hands, scraping her skin. Sharp pains stabbed through her ankle and shoulder with each push and pull of the climb.

Her face drew closer to the light. She could feel fresh air tantalizingly close. One more knot, then the poles. All I have to do is grab them and swing. Up and out. She knew she couldn’t do it. If she let go of the rope to reach for the metal tent poles, she would fall.

“James?” Her voice wavered. “I can’t—”

A pair of strong arms reached toward her and grasped her securely. Her right arm hooked around his shoulder, but the left, weakened by the climb, dangled. She felt his muscles flexing under the soft cloth of his shirt as he pulled her over the edge. They both fell to the ground, and she half lay on a pair of denim-clad legs. She kept still for a moment, feeling the burning of her muscles and the firmness of the ground beneath her. As she rested, she realized this couldn’t be James, unless a massive dose of steroids had transformed his build in the past few hours.

She looked up, knowing whose face she’d see, but needing proof. The eyes were the clincher, intensely blue—too blue to be real, she’d always thought. His arm was firmly around her. When she drew away, he let go.

Cobalt-blue? She didn’t really know what shade cobalt was, but that was the color that occurred to her. Those eyes had emptied her mind thirteen years ago. She’d seen them while she carefully chiseled and brushed. She’d seen them while she waited to fall asleep in her tent at night. Then the field assignment had ended and she had forgotten all about them. Not true. She’d seen them in the pages of her textbooks that first term back at the university. Eventually, she had forgotten all about them.

He hadn’t changed…hardly at all. Sandy hair, traces of red highlighted by the evening sun…she had always wanted to touch it, slide her fingers through it. An outdoor face, tanned, with laugh lines in the corners of the eyes…the lines were new. She had forgotten what it was like to be near him. Magazine photographs, showing him three inches tall and frozen in two dimensions, only hinted at his energy and strength.

She realized she was staring. Aware of his hard, warm body half under hers, she moved sharply, grimacing when pain shot through her shoulder.

“Hang on. I’ve got you.” His voice was kind. That was new. He’d sounded different in Australia—edgy, intense. He untangled his legs from hers and his arms came around her again as he helped her sit up. “You’re chilled through.” He pulled a blanket from his backpack and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her skin tingled where he touched her.

She heard James’s anxious voice behind her. “Are you okay, Sue?”

“I’m fine.” She hadn’t expected to feel like this. It was as if no time had elapsed since the Australian quarry ended. She felt twenty again, bowled over by the most charismatic man she’d ever met, and too inexperienced to figure out how to handle it.

“I’m sorry we were so long getting to you,” James said.

“That’s okay.” An odd cloud around her muffled everything. She closed her eyes, willing it away. If it were just the two of them, just herself and James, she’d be all right.

“It took a while to organize the kids and get the tent poles,” he continued. “It’s amazing how similar all these hills look when there’s a person you want to find in one of them. We climbed several—didn’t we, Alex?—till we found the right one.”

Alex. So he and James were already friends. Bonding quickly in a crisis. She didn’t want James to like this man. “Are Matt and Melissa all right?”

“Safe and sound. Everybody’s back at the camp, except Matt. Diane took him to town so the doctor could have a quick look at him.”

“Diane was here?”

“She showed me the way to the bonebed,” Alex explained. “We got there at the same time as the kids. She was alarmed when they told us you were down a sinkhole. She said you’re afraid of the dark.”

It was true, but an embarrassing thing to hear said aloud.

“I should introduce myself—I’m Alexander Blake.”

“Yes.”

Her vague answer provoked an exchange of worried glances between the two men. Susannah wondered why Blake had come to the quarry and why Diane had agreed to bring him. She edged closer to James. “Trust Matt to find a sinkhole.”

James grinned. “I’ll bet he could find one anywhere. Like those pigs that nose out truffles.”

Susannah meant to smile. Instead, she started to cry. She stopped right away, but a few tears were there for Blake to see. He sat back on one heel, leaning an elbow on one bent knee, looking at her assessingly. What was he thinking? That she was a lot of trouble? That she was a mess? That she’d really screwed up the day, running off in a snit and needing to be helped out of a sinkhole?

“I don’t like the look of this,” he said to James. “She seems dazed and emotional. That could indicate a head injury.”

“I didn’t hit my head.”

“Are you sure?” His voice was gentle, warmer than the blanket. “Sometimes when things happen quickly, dangerous things, the mind can’t handle all the information at once. You could hit your head and not be aware of it at first.”

“I’m sure I didn’t.” Was her behavior so odd that only a head injury could explain it? Susannah tried to pull herself together. She’d wanted to meet Blake while she was at work over a prize hadrosaur skeleton or busy at her desk, on her territory, on her terms. Not like this.

“I suppose it’s shock, then,” he said. “It’s no wonder, after the evening you’ve had. I’d like to check you over before you move around too much, just to be on the safe side.”

He reached into his backpack again and brought out a first-aid kit, then scanned her body from head to toe. He’d never really seen her before, not even when she’d put on blush and lipstick before heading to the quarry each day all those years ago, but he was taking a good look now. Now, when dust and sand clung to her, and her ankle was puffed up like a huge white slug. He didn’t seem to recognize her. Not so great for the ego, on the one hand, a relief that her fiasco of a summer had slipped his mind, on the other.

His long, tanned fingers curved around her hands, turning them over to expose abrasions inflicted by the rope. “It’s probably best to leave those alone for now. There’s not much bleeding. Let’s have a look at your arm.”

Alex unfastened the top two buttons of her blouse and eased the cloth away from her shoulder. “Ouch,” he said quietly, when he saw the bruises that reached toward her neck. “I doubt anything’s broken, or you wouldn’t have been able to climb the rope as far as you did. I’ll fasten a sling to take the pressure off your shoulder. James, would you wrap a tensor bandage around her ankle? Figure eight. Right over the shoe for now.”

He was taking charge, just as expected. James ran the science camp; James knew the canyon. If anyone was going to get bossy, it should be James.

“It’s a long walk out of here,” Alex said. “Good thing we brought the truck.”

“You brought the truck?” That news jolted Susannah out of her daze. For years she’d protected the delicate fossils that might lie just under the surface. Now Blake had threatened them his first day on the job. “Think of the damage you’ve done!”

He seemed surprised by her outburst. “We thought you might be hurt.”

“And you are,” James pointed out.

Susannah looked past the two men and saw the roof of the pickup’s cab at the base of the hill. If it had been just one path, two tire tracks from the bonebed to the hill, at least the damage would have been limited, but James had said they’d taken a few wrong turns looking for her. Who knew what specimens they’d crushed under those tires…a juvenile hadrosaur, a nesting site, a clue to the dinosaurs’ extinction…

Still, they had a point. She couldn’t have walked all the way back to the parking area.

Leaning on James, she pushed herself up, putting her weight on her uninjured foot. Alex rose, too, keeping a steadying hand under her elbow. Susannah was tall, accustomed to being as tall as many of the men she met, but when she turned to thank him, she found she was looking directly at his stubble-covered chin. She had to tilt her head to look into those steady blue eyes. Steel-blue?

Almost as a reflex, she felt for her backpack. When she realized she didn’t have it, she glanced toward the sinkhole.

“Did you leave something down there?”

“My backpack…”

Before she could add that she didn’t really need it, Alex had pulled on a pair of leather work gloves and eased himself down between the tent poles. Dangling from one hand, he gripped the rope with the other and disappeared. Moments later, she saw his hands on the poles again. He easily swung himself up onto the ground, her backpack hanging from one shoulder. “Cold and nasty down there.”

“It could have been worse.”

He nodded. “You could have had some dangerous company. Now we’ll get you to the doctor and then home. A couple of pain pills and bed sound good?”

“I’d just as soon skip the doctor.”

“You could wait and see how you feel tomorrow, but I think it’s safer to go tonight.”

She knew he was right. What if something were broken, rather than sprained? The main thing was getting some distance from Blake. Once they got to the road, he and James could go their own ways, and she could get to the hospital by herself. Then, after a good night’s sleep, she would turn back into a thirty-three-year-old scientist who was perfectly capable of handling anything life threw at her.

“HAD A RUN-IN with a tyrannosaurus, did you?” Bob Smythe made a variation of the same joke every time someone from the museum came in with injuries.

“If you think I look bad, you should see the T-Rex.”

The doctor shone a flashlight in Susannah’s eyes. “Headache? Nausea? Faintness?”

“No, nothing like that.” She was beginning to feel normal again. Stiff and aching everywhere, but herself. “Bob, did you see Matt, the boy from the camp? Is he all right?”

“He’ll be fine. From what I could tell, he couldn’t wait to get back and entertain the other kids around the campfire.” Bob turned his attention to her ankle. “Who was that who brought you in? He looked familiar.”

“That’s my new boss. Alexander Blake.”

“Of course. I saw him on TV a while ago, on a program about a carnivore that was bigger than the T-Rex. Hard to imagine.”

Bob picked up a chart and began writing. “You were lucky this time, Susannah. I wouldn’t recommend that you try a jump like that again. A nurse will bandage your hands, and I’ll order a strong painkiller for tonight. We’ll get you a crutch, although with two sprains on the same side of your body, walking will still be difficult. Get in touch with Outpatients if you decide you need a wheelchair. You’ll have to take it easy for a while—keep your foot elevated, your shoulder immobilized, your hands clean and dry.”

Take it easy? The consequences of her injuries hadn’t occurred to Susannah yet. “No digging?”

“You’re joking, right? Absolutely no digging.”

SUSANNAH WATCHED DROWSILY as the headlights swept past the town, the stands of cottonwood, clusters of rounded hills and the occasional hoodoo. Soon she would be home, and Blake would disappear. He hadn’t disappeared when they’d got to the parking area outside the gully, but he would disappear after he took her home. She would crawl into bed and stay there till Christmas.

“Friendly emergency room.” His voice sounded soft in the darkness of the leather-upholstered car. No edge at all.

Susannah closed her eyes, too tired to talk. If she had gone to his meeting, she would be at home sleeping by now. She wouldn’t have told Matt about taking lots of long walks to find fossils, and he might not have wandered so far from the bonebed. The worst part of her day would have been listening to Blake’s plans for the museum. The next time she had an impulse, she would make a point of ignoring it.

“Everyone I’ve run into in town seems interested in the work we do,” Alex went on. “On Saturday, I was in that little grocery store on Main. The lady who runs it— Dorothy—packed my groceries, told me the history of paleontology in the area, and brought me up-to-date on world events, all at no extra charge. Several other people, who didn’t seem to be there to shop, wanted to know what’s going on at every quarry.”

Reluctantly Susannah opened her eyes and tried to do her part for the conversation. “It’s a small town. Everybody knows one another.”

“And one another’s business, I suppose.”

“I’m not sure about that. People probably manage to keep a few secrets.”

“Where do I turn?”

“At the next road. Left.” Five minutes, tops, and he’d be gone. It would be a relief to let her guard down. “Here we are.”

Susannah hadn’t expected to be out after dark, so she’d left the yard light off. It was difficult to see where the road ended and the ditch began. Alex nosed onto the driveway and drove slowly to the front of the house. “I’ll leave the headlights on so you can see to get in.”

Susannah swung the passenger door open as soon as they stopped. “Thanks for everything, Dr. Blake.” She tried to maneuver her way out of the car, but the left half of her body was no help at all. Alex was at her side before her good foot hit the ground. He helped her to stand, and waited while she struggled with the crutch. She leaned her whole weight on it, hopped a few inches forward, then rested.

“Can you manage?”

“I think so.” Inch by inch, she made her way to the house. She stopped when she reached the porch steps. They looked impassable. They were impassable.

“Need a lift?”

She tried to smile. “I’m being punished.”

“For what?”

“For skipping your meeting.”

After a brief silence, he said calmly, “You must have really wanted to avoid me.”

“I really did.”

“So…if that had worked better today, what were you going to do about tomorrow?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead.” She took a deep breath. “It was a mistake. A very childish mistake. I apologize.”

“It’s probably not as bad as all that. Shall we just get this transportation business over with, then?”

Susannah nodded. Alex lifted her easily. He carried her up the few steps and through the screened porch to the front door. He set her down, holding her until she regained her balance.

“I don’t have my keys. They’re in my desk.” She always locked her valuables in her office when she went to the quarry, just taking the truck’s keys and her driver’s license with her. She kept an extra house key hidden, but she didn’t like to broadcast where.

Alex looked around the darkened porch. Two wicker chairs sat at the far end, separated by a round wicker table. “I’ll pull a chair over so you can get off that foot while I look for a way in.”

Susannah hesitated, then pointed toward the wall of the house. “There’s a spare key behind one of those boards.”

“One of these?” Alex touched several of the wide cedar planks. One responded, just barely moving inward. He hooked his fingers underneath and pulled. It came away in his hand revealing a small cavity, and a key. He unlocked the front door, felt for a switch and flicked it on. Soft light filled the living room.

Most of the house—the living room, the shadowed kitchen and dining area beyond and the bedroom loft above—could be seen at a glance. Light sandy walls, hardwood floors and a few patterned rugs in shades of burnt sienna and ocher repeated the colors found in the layered stone of the badlands. Through the living room’s large window, distant pillars and giant toadstools of rock glowed in the moonlight. The house’s interior had a soothing effect, but the view outside was eerie and unsettling.

“Thank you for all your help, Dr. Blake. Again, I’m sorry about the meeting.”

“Will you be all right now?”

“I’ll flake out on the sofa. Anything more complicated can wait till tomorrow.” He was standing just inside the house, and she couldn’t shut the door. Shutting it would be tricky, anyway—her one good hand was clutching the crutch and her one good foot was keeping her upright.

“I think I should stay until you’re settled. You could fall—”

“Dr. Blake,” she began, making an effort to keep her voice civil, “I appreciate your help. But I managed to deal with life before you arrived today, and I can continue to do so.” Her voice started to rise. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. “James could have helped me out of the sinkhole and taken me to the hospital and brought me home, and when I said good-night, he would have known that meant he should leave—”

She stopped abruptly. Part of her wanted to keep going; part of her wished she hadn’t said a thing. She sank onto the sofa’s soft cushions.

“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” Alex said slowly. “Is this about the job? I heard you were short-listed—”

“I was more than short-listed.”

He nodded as if he understood. “It was down to the two of us, was it? Well, that would be a disappointment.” He stared at her, frowning. “I can see I should have let James take care of things tonight. I tend to jump in headfirst, and find out later whether or not it’s a good idea. Like you, I suppose.”

Susannah’s sudden anger faded, leaving her more tired than before. She didn’t bother explaining that she almost never jumped headfirst into anything. This had been the least typical day of her life. “We’re letting bugs in.”

Alex shut the door, leaving himself on the wrong side of it. “Look, Dr. Robb, it’s clear you’re going to need help. Why don’t you just give me directions? After you’re settled in, I’ll get out of your hair.”

It was past midnight. She couldn’t call anyone else to help her. If she only needed to sleep, she could manage, but she was filthy and hungry, too. “I’d like to wash. While I do that, would you mind finding something for me to eat?”

“No problem. Can you walk to the bathroom by yourself?”

“I think so.”

She struggled to her feet and made her way to the kitchen, pausing by the aquarium to feed the fish. Their dinner had never come so late. She watched the surface feeders leaping at the flakes and wondered where she would find the energy to walk the rest of the way to the bathroom.

“Alex?”

He had started rummaging in the fridge. He straightened, a bag of oranges in hand. Without a word, he picked her up, crutch and all, and headed to the bathroom. He set her down carefully, then leaned over to put in the plug and turn on the taps. An assortment of bottles crowded a shelf over the tub. “Do you want bubbles?”

She nodded. Without the use of her hands, bubble bath was as close as she’d get to soap. He chose the bottle closest to him and poured a generous amount of liquid into the water gushing from the faucet. Soft bubbles started to form, and a lavender scent filled the room.

He gestured toward the window, almost level with the side of the tub. “That’s unusual. Don’t you feel like you’re onstage when you bathe?”

“It’s the back of the house. No one ever goes by. I can close the blind if I want more privacy.”

He stared outside. “You can see hoodoos from here.”

“And stars.”

When the tub was three-quarters full, with bubbles reaching to the rim, Alex turned off the taps. “I guess you can…look after the rest of the procedure?”

Susannah blushed. “I’ll be fine.”

As soon as the door closed, she struggled out of the shoulder sling, the tensor bandage and her sand-encrusted clothes. Balancing on one foot, and holding her left arm across her chest, she sank thankfully into the soothing water. Dust and dirt from the quarry and the sinkhole had settled into her skin, glued to her by the sunscreen she had applied so liberally. She could only hope the grime would dissolve on its own.

She gazed tiredly at the view framed by the window. The whitish wash of the Milky Way, made pale by the moon, curved through the sky. Absentmindedly, she found the Big Dipper and used it to trace an imaginary line toward the huge, far-distant star, Deneb, and the two other stars of the Summer Triangle, Vega and Altair. She tried to visualize the different constellations to which the three stars belonged: Cygnus the swan, Lyra the harp and Delphinus the dolphin, but, as usual, the fanciful shapes eluded her imagination.

Blake hadn’t just taken the job she wanted—he had rescued her. She didn’t know which was worse. He didn’t stay in his own space like most people, at his own desk and his own quarry, quiet and focused. When he was on the scene, he was everywhere. And there was a complication. He was kind.

WHY HAD HE THOUGHT he was the obvious person to help a strange woman get ready for bed? He hadn’t thought about it, that was the problem. He’d just swooped in on his jungle vine. That was Heather’s phrase, from the early days, when she’d still liked his tendency to do that.

At least he knew why Dr. Robb hadn’t made it to his meeting, or prepared a project report. In a way, her obvious resentment was refreshing. Some people would have hidden their anger behind cold eyes and a tight smile, and waited for a good chance to trip him.

The confusing thing was, when they’d talked on the phone last week, Bruce Simpson had told him Susannah was reliable, the person Alex could count on most for any help he needed. How could he count on someone who was so mad she couldn’t stand to be anywhere near him?

He knocked on the bathroom door and heard a startled splash. “Dr. Robb? I’ve pulled out the sofa bed. Can you tell me where to find sheets?”

“In the cupboard upstairs.” Her voice sounded strained. “Fourth shelf.”

He found the cupboard easily, tucked between the sleeping area and a computer nook. His hand hovered over a plain white sheet set, then moved to a pair with pink rosebuds. His mother liked flowery things. Maybe they’d cheer up Dr. Robb.

Now for a blanket—the sinkhole had chilled her, and the nights could get surprisingly cool. There were two deep drawers under the shelves. One was full of scarves, mitts and hats; the other held blankets. He felt his way through the pile and chose one that was relatively lightweight. As he pushed the drawer shut, something not quite covered by the blankets caught his eye. He crouched to look closer.

Reaching into the drawer, he picked up a stonelike object. It was a coiled ammonite, about twelve inches in diameter, a common fossil whose presence in a rock sample could help date it. Other fossils sat at the bottom of the drawer: a trilobite, a cluster of clam shells imprinted in limestone, a fern leaf in a flat slab of coal, another piece of limestone bearing a rough pattern that looked like fish scales.

An odd collection for a Cretaceous herbivore specialist, and an odd place to keep it. One by one, Alex lifted the pieces to get a better look. They were real, not copies. Not rare, not particularly valuable. He pushed the drawer shut and stood frowning at it. Most paleontologists kept a few fossils around. They probably weren’t important.

Grabbing a couple of pillows from the bed, he returned to the living room. He could hear the bathtub water draining, so he made the sofa bed quickly, leaving the top sheet and blanket untucked so they wouldn’t be tight against her injured ankle. He was fluffing the pillows when Susannah hobbled into the living room.

The sight of a blanket that had shared space with hidden fossils didn’t seem to worry her. She looked vulnerable—exhausted, struggling to keep her composure, her hair still full of sand and a soft, blue nightgown draping her body. She brought a faint scent of bubble bath into the room with her. Alex felt an unexpected surge of desire, complicated by an even less expected tug of tenderness. Surprised at himself, he shut the feeling down.

Avoiding his eyes, she eased herself onto the bed and leaned back against the raised pillows. She’d slipped the sling back on, but she hadn’t been able to manage the bandage around her ankle. Alex found it in a pile of sandy clothes on the bathroom counter. He shook most of the sand into the sink, then returned to the living room.

“That’s really not necessary,” she said, as he approached the bed. “I’ll have to shower in the morning to get the sand out of my hair, and I’ll just have to take it off again.”

She seemed flustered, and she was blushing again. There was something familiar about her, but Alex was sure they hadn’t met before. “Your ankle will swell more overnight without support. If that happens, you’ll have to wait even longer before you can get back to the quarry.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“It won’t hurt to put it on, you know. It’ll feel better.” He lifted the covers away from her ankle and began rolling the bandage around her foot. When his hand brushed her toes, she shivered.

“Cold? I’m almost done.” He kept his eyes on her ankle, away from the curve of her leg above her knee, and the flimsy nightgown that didn’t cover her all that well. Halfway up her calf, he fastened the end of the bandage with two thin metal clips, then pulled the covers back in place. “Comfortable?”

“Yes. Thanks.” She lifted a bandaged hand to cover a yawn.

“Think you can stay awake to eat your dinner, such as it is?”

“I’m starving.”

“It’ll just be a minute.”

A peeled and sectioned orange, and a raisin scone cut in half and spread with butter and strawberry jam already waited on a tray in the kitchen. Alex poured simmering soup into a mug and carried the tray to the living room.

“I strained the noodles out of the soup, so you could drink it. A spoon seemed a bit much for you right now.”

“Thank you.” Holding the mug awkwardly, she sipped the warm broth. “You’ve been very nice, Dr. Blake.” She sounded grateful, but surprised, as if the big bad wolf had declined to gobble her up on the way to her grandmother’s.

“I’m glad to help.” Alex relaxed in an armchair near the sofa bed. He was tempted to mention the fossils in her cupboard drawer. Almost certainly, she’d have an innocent explanation and he could forget about them. The trouble was, her explanation could be a lie, and then he’d have warned her of his suspicions.

“Why did you go out to my quarry this evening?” she asked. “Were you looking for me because of the meeting?”

“Someone from your team called the museum for help. Amy, I think? When you didn’t get back to the bonebed after looking for Matt, she went out to the road, away from the gully, where her cell phone would work.”

“I guess we should have done that earlier.”

“You rescued Matt. That’s the main thing. I just wish it hadn’t taken us so long to find you.”

Susannah yawned and the mug tilted. Alex jumped up and caught it, then lifted the tray to the end table. She slid down in the bed and curled up on her uninjured side.

“I can’t stay awake anymore,” she muttered. “Could you bring my alarm clock down, and set it? For seven?” Her eyes closed. In seconds, she was asleep.

Quickly Alex did a few chores. He shook her clothes out the back door to get rid of the worst of the sand, then put them in the laundry room. He swept the bathroom floor and rinsed away the sand he’d left in the sink. She hadn’t managed to eat much of her meal. He put the leftover food in the fridge and washed the dishes.

Was there anything else she needed? Painkillers. He found a bottle of acetaminophen and set it on the table beside the sofa bed, along with a glass of water. Remembering how weak her left arm was, he removed the bottle’s childproof lid. There was a pen and some paper by the phone. He scribbled a quick note and propped it against the water glass. Gently, careful not to wake her, he pulled the blanket around her shoulders.

The blanket rose and fell slightly as she breathed. She looked soft and unprotected, as if she didn’t have an angry or defensive bone in her body. Tangled, sand-filled hair had escaped here and there from her braid. Alex was surprised by an almost overwhelming urge to trace the pattern of freckles over her nose.

There was no way she was a fossil poacher.