Читать книгу Forbidden - Ellen James - Страница 7

N ICK WAS OUT OF practice with this sort of thing, and it didn’t go well. Dana was stiff and unyielding in his arms, as if he’d caught her by surprise and she didn’t know what to do about it. Hell, he’d caught himself by surprise. But he went on holding her a second longer, moving his cheek against hers, feeling the softness of her skin. She smelled faintly of soap–clean, fresh soap. It made Nick imagine her bathing under the hot island sun. It made him imagine too much….

The way he figured it, they both pulled away from each other at the same time. Dana frowned at him, her cheeks flushed.

“Darn it, Nick–what do you think you’re doing?”

“You tell me,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Look…just forget it happened.”

She stood quickly, and her silly canvas hat went tumbling down. Nick bent to retrieve it.

“Thank you,” she said acidly and she jammed the hat back on her head. It was the kind of hat straight out of a safari movie. Nick could imagine Dana marching into a store and requesting a full complement of adventure gear, right down to the patch-pocket shorts and mosquito netting. For a moment, that almost made him smile. He had to get a grip on himself.

“You shouldn’t have come looking for me,” he said.

Her flush deepened. “If you think I wanted this to happen–dammit, I didn’t want anything from you. I didn’t intend for anything to happen!”

“Neither did I.”

She took a deep breath. “It was a mistake.”

He didn’t say any more. He just went on standing there with her in front of the altar room of the temple. Against his will, his gaze lingered on Dana’s face…on the creamy rose of her skin, the deep brown of her eyes, the sensual curve of her mouth….

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, almost in a whisper. She turned and hurriedly began making her way down the temple steps. She didn’t seem to be watching where she was going. Nick came along beside her and halfway down he reached out to steady her.

She pulled away from him. “Don’t.”

“You’re overreacting just a little, don’t you think?” he said gruffly.

She stared at him, a variety of emotions seeming to cross her expressive face. That she was angry, there could be no doubt…maybe even a little embarrassed. In the end, Nick had the feeling that pride won out.

“I didn’t come looking for you, Nick,” she said in a cool voice. “All I wanted to do was climb the temple steps.” With that, she descended the rest of the way, refusing any assistance from him.

When they’d reached the base of the temple, Dana started veering off toward the trees. “Goodbye,” she said.

He didn’t allow her to escape, falling into step beside her. “You’re not going anywhere alone–remember?”

“I wish you’d realize that I can take care of myself,” she muttered.

“Just follow orders, Ms. Morgan, and you’ll make it easier for both of us.”

He could tell she was still fired up. She made a point of striding ahead of him, finding her own path. Even as she pushed through the thick undergrowth of the forest, she moved with that graceful posture of hers. When they reached the excavation site, she stalked over to the knapsack she’d left propped near one of the huts. She pulled out some insect repellent and slathered herself with the stuff, glancing defiantly at Nick. Maybe she was trying to send him a message. Then she went back to work at the sifter.

Nick got to work himself. He wanted to forget what had happened with Dana…. He just wished it was that simple.

* * *

DANA HAD NEVER REALIZED that her body possessed so many muscles–and that they could all ache with such simultaneous insistence. By now she’d spent two weeks on the island, and her main activities seemed to be crouching to dig in the soil, crouching to carry the soil, crouching to sift the soil. This morning, her knees hurt. Her elbows hurt. Her back hurt. The insides of her thighs hurt. Hell, her whole body hurt. Perspiration trickled down her back. And she thought she’d throttle Pat if she had to listen to the woman one more minute.

Today Pat and Dana were working at the new site. Pat was marking off measurements on the ground while discoursing on her career prospects–clearly a favorite topic.

“I’ve applied to every Ivy League school–including a few with poison ivy.” Pat gave a smirk. “The job market is very tight, let me tell you. That’s why I’m here. This job is only a stopgap….”

Dana did her best to tune out Pat. She pulled the brim of her hat down lower, squinting at the grid chart she was trying to map. The sun seemed to bounce right off the page and into her eyes. She was learning just how precise and nitpicky archaeologists had to be. Findings of any type had to be categorized down to their minutiae. Pottery shards, scraps of obsidian, bone fragments, traces of ancient seeds and kernels–these were the treasures accumulated on the dig. No discovery was too small to go unrecorded. Dana’s own particular skills as a soil scientist also required precise documentation. Soil profiles, soil maps, soil surveys and chemical analysis charts all fell within her purview. When Dana wasn’t crouching and digging and sifting, she was writing and graphing and cross-referencing.

But who was she kidding? No matter how she occupied herself, her thoughts kept returning to Nick Petrie. Dr. Nicholas Petrie, her irascible boss.

Two days earlier she had sat beside Nick on the temple steps and he’d taken her into his arms. It had been the briefest of embraces, and they hadn’t even kissed. Why, then, did Dana keep replaying those few seconds in her mind, over and over? It was almost as if Nick had imprinted himself on her senses. Even now she remembered the feel of his arms around her, his gentle strength, the touch of his cheek against hers, the warmth pervading her body at his nearness….

She stared unseeing at the grid chart before her. Vaguely she tuned in to Pat’s voice.

“You really have to watch yourself,” Pat was saying. “You can’t get desperate. I mean, if you take the first job that comes along, you could be making a big mistake. I still tend to wonder if I made the right move, signing on at this–”

Dana simply didn’t have the patience for one more word. “You’re an archaeologist. You’re doing archaeology. What’s the problem?”

Pat seemed nonplussed for a moment, but then she started up again. She was hardly ever at a loss for words. “You have to understand, Dana. It’d be wonderful if I could just forget about everything else and enjoy what I’m doing. Really, it would be. But I have to think about my future. Who doesn’t? The academic world is such an incredibly narrow-minded place, and you have to take careful steps while building your career.” Whenever Pat mentioned the academic world, she did so with a mixture of reverence and scorn.

“And make no mistake about it, Dana. That’s why I’m here–I’m building my career. Despite the relative unimportance of this dig, Nick’s name still carries with it a certain amount of weight–although even that’s starting to wane….”

Nick again. Perhaps in the larger world his influence had waned, but here on this island he dominated. His crew members might resent his autocratic methods, but they invariably obeyed his instructions. He demanded the best from people and he worked the hardest himself. For all his apparent cynicism, this project had to mean something to him.

Dana glanced around the small clearing, where they’d barely started the preliminaries for the new excavation–the surface survey and the plotting out of test pits. If they were very lucky, eventually they’d find evidence of Mayan crops–maize, beans, squash. This would tell them more about ancient settlement patterns on the island, but it would probably not add significant new information to knowledge of Mayan farming. In many ways, it was tedious, thankless work. That couldn’t be denied….

“This island is important,” Dana said. “All you have to do is think about the people who walked here a thousand years ago. And now we’re trying to re-create their lives–it’s very exciting.”

Pat gave Dana a condescending glance. “I suppose I sounded like you on my first dig. Overexcited, overenthusiastic. You’ll get over it–trust me.” Another smirk. Then, in an emphatic manner, Pat tied a string to a marker in the ground, her sandy hair falling into her face. Pat always looked as if she’d grown impatient halfway through the task of straightening her collar and combing her hair; she was perpetually a bit rumpled and scattered in appearance.

“Nick’s the one who really had it made,” Pat remarked after a moment. “With everything he’d accomplished on Mayan hieroglyphics, he had tenure before he was thirty–can you believe it? At Deacon University, no less. A very exclusive, very pretentious school. Anyway, Nick was on top of it. He was set for life…and then he just tossed it all away. Of course, after what happened to him, I guess it’s understandable.”

Dana gritted her teeth in frustration. Was there no way to shut Pat up? Was there no way to escape the subject of Nick? It was bad enough for Dana to be dwelling on the man, but now Pat was making mysterious comments about him. Dana had to erase a few lines on her page and start over. She resisted for a short while, but then at last she gave in.

“Okay, out with it. Exactly what happened to Nick?”

Pat shrugged. She obviously enjoyed having the inside story, as well as dangling her knowledge before the less informed. “Family tragedy,” she said enigmatically.

Tragedy… Dana thought of the pain she’d seen shadowing Nick’s face now and again. “What was it?” she asked, almost fearful of hearing the answer. But now Pat was hedging.

“His wife left him over it, that much is for sure.”

“Just spit it out, Pat!”

“I’m not aware of all the details,” Pat said defensively. “That wasn’t the point I was making. The fact is, whatever the reason, Nick threw away his career.”

So Pat didn’t really have the inside story–she just liked to pretend that she did. Dana felt like an idiot for taking the bait. She reminded herself firmly that Nick’s private life was none of her business and tried to concentrate once again on the grid sheet in front of her.

Pat went back to her measurements, but nothing seemed to dampen her zeal for conversation. “I’ll bet Jarrett knows more about Nick. Jarrett’s always dropping little hints about people. You know the type of thing–nasty little gibes, backhanded compliments.”

Dana glanced up in surprise. “I’ve never heard him say anything like that. Jarrett strikes me as…courteous. That’s really the only word to describe him.”

“He must be trying to make a good impression,” Pat said shrewdly. “I think he’s sweet on you.”

“Not likely,” Dana muttered. But Jarrett did seem to pay her a lot of attention, helping her with her work, making sure all her questions were answered.

Pat placed another marker in the ground. “Tell the truth, Dana. Jarrett’s a good-looking guy, and there isn’t much entertainment on this island. Can’t you see yourself and him–”

“No.”

“How about one of the others, then?” Pat sat back on her heels; obviously she’d embarked on a subject of real interest. “Okay, there’s Tim. A little wet behind the ears, unfortunately. He must be what–all of twenty?”

“More like eighteen, I’d think.”

“No, he’s been in college too long,” Pat pronounced. “The way I understand it, anthropology is at least his third major–he just can’t make up his mind what to study. He lives off some kind of trust fund, can you believe it? Just a monthly stipend, of course, but still–”

“Pat, I’m trying to draw this damn grid.”

“You’re as curious about the guys as I am,” Pat said imperturbably. “But you’re right, Tim isn’t much of a prospect. As for Nick…well, he is very sexy, with all that brooding disillusionment. Suppressed intensity, that’s Nick. It might be interesting to be around when he stops suppressing–don’t you think?”

Dana made a great effort to concentrate on her graph sheet. She needed to replicate on paper what Pat was marking off on the site. All measurements would be checked for accuracy against their original calculations….

It was hopeless, of course. Dana now had a more vivid image than ever of Nick imprinted on her mind. According to Pat, he was a man who had endured some type of family tragedy, and that only made him seem more…compelling. A man who guarded some deep sorrow behind that gruff exterior….

“The way I understand it, Nick’s ex-wife is completely out of the picture,” Pat went on inexorably. “There’s no other woman in his life that I can tell. In a manner of speaking, he’s available–in spite of that don’t-touch attitude of his.”

Dana tightened her grip on her pencil. “I’m not interested in Nick or anyone else,” she said, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

“You will be. After you’ve been on a dig for a while, you find out things get pretty chummy. It’s the isolation, and all of us being stuck together like this.”

Dana finally gave up on her graph, tossing her clipboard down. “It won’t happen to me,” she declared. “I won’t let it. I’ve had enough of men for a while.”

“This sounds intriguing,” Pat murmured, clasping her arms around her knees. “Let me guess. You’re here to escape a broken heart.”

“Hardly anything so melodramatic.” Dana paused, but something about Pat inspired confidences. Maybe it was just the possibility of shutting her up for a moment. “The truth is,” Dana continued, “I wasted too many years on the wrong man. When I finally woke up to that fact, I got rid of him. And now I’m finally free. Why ruin that?” Just saying the words out loud gave Dana much needed perspective. After all, she’d practically lived with Alan four long years. If she’d been able to get him out of her life, then certainly she could control this very inconvenient attraction to Nick Petrie, a man she’d known only a short while. Nick had certainly made it clear that he wanted to dismiss this attraction between them. The past two days he’d spoken to Dana only when absolutely necessary–and he was outright grouchy whenever they did encounter each other. So obviously the best thing for both of them would be to forget their embrace on the temple steps….

Pat was following her own line of thought. She sighed exuberantly. “I broke up with someone a few months ago myself,” she said. “The whole thing was bad news. One day he’d act like he worshiped me, the next he’d say I drove him nuts…. Go figure.”

Not a difficult scenario for Dana to imagine, not difficult in the least. “Do you mind if we change the subject?” she asked. “I’d just as soon not talk about men.”

“Let’s see,” Pat went on unabashedly. “Tim, Nick, Jarrett…that only leaves Robert. A Frenchman with a beard. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more argumentative person in my life. He challenges everything I say about archaeology, always insisting on relevant facts and empirical evidence to support my ideas. He’s annoying, aggravating, pestering…. Is it any wonder that I’m so in love with the guy?”

This last statement caught Dana completely off guard. In the blink of an eye, the expression on Pat’s face had turned from cocky to defenseless, and suddenly she looked like a very young woman as she knelt there with her topographical map and large spool of string…very young and very vulnerable.

“Why, Pat. Have you told him how you feel?”

“Are you nuts?” Pat exclaimed. “The guy’s a complete mystery to me. I just can’t get a handle on him, no matter how hard I try. I don’t even know if he’s married or single. I don’t know if he’s actually French, for that matter. Wouldn’t you say his accent is a little off?”

“It seems totally natural–nothing overdone about it.”

“That’s just it,” Pat said darkly. “It’s too perfect. Everything about him is perfect…especially the beard. That really does something to me, you know–a man with a beard.” She positioned another marker in the ground and for a few moments actually seemed lost in her own thoughts. The unexpected silence was almost disconcerting as Dana picked up her clipboard again. But then a rustle came from the nearby forest and both Tim and Robert appeared.

“Speak of the devil,” Pat whispered to Dana. Then she called out to the two men in her usual strident manner. “We were just talking about you…both of you, in fact. We were compiling a dossier, so to speak.”

Robert strolled through the clearing, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his crisp khaki pants. He addressed Dana. “Pat is convinced she’ll discover some fascinating secret in all our pasts. Has she been entertaining you with her speculations?”

Dana smiled noncommittally. “You’d be surprised how much work we’ve accomplished this morning.”

“You’re discreet, Ms. Morgan–an admirable virtue.” Robert smiled back at her with a striking glimpse of charm. Dana supposed he was handsome, with his reddish hair, neatly trimmed beard and aristocratic bearing.

Tim, meanwhile, had brought along some fresh mangoes. Without saying a word, he handed the fruit to the others and then moved to sit hunch shouldered in the dirt. Tim was pale complexioned, with a bony, angular frame. There was a rawness to him, as if he hadn’t yet settled into his own body.

“We thought it was time for everyone to take a break,” Robert said, playing the part of host. “We’ve all been working hard, and it’s an exceptionally hot day.” Robert didn’t look as if the heat disturbed him in the least, however. He seemed entirely cool and composed. He even ate his mango with neatness and control, although everyone else had juice dribbling down their chin. Mangoes were notoriously messy fruit–but not for Robert, it seemed.

“What about Jarrett? And Nick?” Dana added before she could stop herself. Here she was, bringing up Nick’s name and wondering about him again.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet, Dana?” Pat said. “Nick and Jarrett are management. Head honcho and number-two honcho. The rest of us are just the hired help. Now and then they have to make that fact clear to us, so they refuse to socialize.”

“Nick perhaps likes to keep his distance,” Robert observed. “But not Jarrett. He is always amicable.”

“Why is everyone defending Jarrett today?” Pat asked. “He’s not a saint. He can be downright nasty when he chooses.”

“I haven’t seen that,” Dana said, putting in her two cents’ worth. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bravo, Ms. Morgan. We don’t want to encourage Pat. She wishes to believe she is an authority on human nature.”

Pat frowned at him. “I am an observer of human nature. I see things other people miss. Take you, for instance, Robert. I can tell you’re hiding something. You want us to believe you’re some wealthy French businessman, but you won’t even say what business you’re in. If that’s not suspicious, what is?”

Robert seemed to enjoy provoking Pat, and by the looks of things he was particularly adept at it. He smiled again–an economical sort of smile, as if he didn’t believe in wasting too much amusement at one time. “I’ve asked you to believe nothing about me–you draw your own conclusions. Next you’ll accuse me of being the one who hit Jarrett over the head with a rock.”

“Well, it could have been you,” Pat argued. “I mean, you weren’t working here with me the entire morning. You went off by yourself for a while, I recall. And you didn’t tell me where you were going….”

“An obvious sign of guilt. Tell me, Pat. What would be my motive for the attack? If you are such a perspicacious observer, you will have a theory.”

“Anything’s possible.”

“I believe that is what is known as a cop-out, Pat.”

“Oh, stuff a sock in it.”

“I do so enjoy these colloquialisms of yours.”

Dana took another bite of mango, her fingers sticky with juice. She recalled what Pat had just told her about being in love with Robert and tried to picture the two of them actually getting together. Somehow that didn’t seem a likely prospect. It wasn’t just the fact that they were always at odds with each other. They looked nothing alike. Pat was pretty, but she gave a flyaway rumpled impression next to Robert’s elegance. Even her athletic build contrasted with his compactness.

At any rate, Dana felt she’d had enough of listening to the two of them. She moved over to where Tim sat in self-imposed solitude.

“How’s it going?” she asked in a conversational tone.

“Okay,” Tim muttered. He stared at his half-eaten mango as if he had neither the energy nor inclination to finish it.

“It does seem hotter than usual today, doesn’t it?” Dana remarked. “It’s a sort of closed-in feeling…as if there’s a storm pressing.”

Tim exerted himself enough to glance up at the sky. “It’s sunny.”

“Yes, but even so I think a storm is coming. I knew days like this in Missouri…. My dad always liked to joke that I could predict weather better than the weatherman.”

This elicited only a shrug. Despite Dana’s efforts to draw him out, Tim was short-winded in the extreme. It became a challenge to get anything out of him at all.

Dana wondered wryly if she was losing her touch with younger people. She’d made no headway in her attempts to befriend young Daniel so far, and now Tim resisted her endeavors.

“So–I’m from Missouri,” Dana tried again. “How about you?”

Tim gave her an indifferent glance. “Colorado.”

“Hey, Tim. Tell her about that trust fund of yours.” Pat called out this remark from nearly a dozen feet away. Evidently even distance couldn’t contain her inquisitive nature. “What a shame you can’t get at the principal,” she continued. “Then you could be vacationing in Cancún instead of sweltering away on this poor excuse of an island.”

Robert immediately began to chastise her. “You’re an incredibly nosy person, Pat. Tim’s financial status is his own concern.”

“Nosy… I’m not nosy in the least. I just like to be informed….”

As Robert and Pat started in on each other once more, Dana tried to give Tim a reassuring smile. “She doesn’t mean to be rude. I think in her own way, Pat believes prying into people’s lives is a way to make friends.”

Tim’s shoulders seemed to raise another fraction or so. He was quiet for so long, Dana thought he might have forgotten she was there. Then finally he looked straight into Dana’s eyes and spoke up. “I never wanted my parents to leave me that damn trust,” he said in a low voice. “Sometimes I just wish they’d thrown the money away. And I wish they’d thrown away all their expectations along with it.”

Tim rose to his feet with surprising agility and went to the forest’s edge. He stood there, staring through the trees as if he longed to lose himself among them. Dana wondered just what expectations his parents had bequeathed to him. They must be heavy, indeed. Even now his shoulders were still hunched, as if he actually carried some invisible burden on them.

But then the vine-laden branches nearby rustled again, and this time it was Jarrett who emerged into the clearing. He looked worried.

“Something’s happened,” he said without preamble. “Something unfortunate. Nick wants to see all of you–right away!”