by Louise Clark
She nodded and made sure her seatbelt was fastened. They drove for about fifteen minutes in silence. The headlights barely cut through the gloom, so his speed was necessarily slow. By now the wind was screaming a gale and her rescuer’s mouth was set in a grim line as he focused on keeping the truck on the road. She rubbed her hands on her jeans. She was now desperately afraid that they were not going to make it to civilization tonight. In fact, she was wondered if they would be able to stay safely on the road at all. Her only consolation was that she knew, because of her visit with her Beacon, that she would have a long life with a husband, kids, and grandchildren. She wouldn’t die, not tonight.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t be badly injured in an accident caused by the storm. Mark hadn’t told her that she would be healthy, only that she would be alive. She worried about that while they crept along, battling the storm, struggling to survive.
A shadow loomed up ahead of them and she was shocked when her rescuer drove off the main road onto a dirt path that was little more than an animal track. They inched along, but as they drove the darkness deepened and when they neared the shadow she could feel the wind easing.
It wasn’t long before she realized that he had directed them into the lee of a low hill. The land mass forced the wind to flow around it and where he parked the truck was sheltered and relatively quiet.
“Where are we?”
He gestured in a direction she thought might indicate north. “This is the opening to Roaring River Canyon. The creek is a little to the west of us, but it’s also below us, so if it floods we should be safe. The rise behind us gives us shelter. We’ll have to stay here for the night.”
Roaring River was famous in the area for it’s unpredictability. Usually it was a dry creek, but in the spring it flooded with winter run off, and in the summer a storm like the one battering them now could cause a flash flood.
She shivered. He’d cut the engine as he spoke and her t-shirt clung, cold and wet, to her skin. Roaring River Canyon was on the land that Discovering Dinos and Michael Edmonds, an independent paleontologist who sold his finds to the highest bidder, had the dig permit.
She looked over at her rescuer. She didn’t know anything about Michael Edmonds except that Dr. Scarr considered him to be a rogue and a renegade—a mercenary in the paleontological world.
A rancher owned the land Edmonds was exploiting. Apart from the landowner and his ranch hands, the only other people who would be out in these badlands would be Edmonds himself or one of his dig team. She shot her rescuer a sideways look and wondered which of her options this man was.
She hoped he wasn’t Michael Edmonds himself.
He indicated the emergency kit. “There’s a thermal blanket inside.”
“Great.” Her shivering got worse and she fumbled with the fastenings.
He put his hand on her shoulder and she looked over at him to see that he was frowning. “You’re soaked. Get rid of the shirt, then wrap yourself in the blanket.”
Her fingers stilled. She stared at him.
He sighed impatiently. “I’m not going to try anything. It will be a cold night. I don’t want you suffering from exposure.”
She shivered again, adding a telling point to his argument. “Okay, but don’t look.” He snorted and moved in his seat so that his back was toward her. She saw that he was pulling off his jacket, probably because he was wet too, then turned away to remove her t-shirt. “I don’t even know your name,” she said in a conversational way, as she wrapped the thermal blanket around her shoulders.
“It’s Mike,” he said.
Her heart sank.
“Mike Edmonds.”
Absolutely the worst person to be stuck with in the close confines of a pickup truck over night. Even worse, she found this paleo pirate’s tough, self-confident manner way too attractive. His hat and the darkness made defining his features difficult, but she had a feeling that he was probably a good-looking man, as well as a very masculine one.
“I have the dig permit for this side of the property line, though I expect you are well aware of that, since you’re one of Scarr’s bevy of pretty undergrads. The question is, which one are you?”
Chapter 4
“I’m Liz.” She hesitated, then added, “Liz Hamilton.”
Liz Hamilton. The name rang a bell, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d heard it, because he was too busy trying to ignore what her body was doing to his. He shrugged off his jacket. It was wet, not quite soaked through, but close enough that he was better off without it. He draped the dry side over his lap to hide his reaction to her as he opened his emergency pack and pulled out a thermal blanket to wrap himself in.
“Thanks for helping me,” Liz Hamilton said from behind him. Her teeth were chattering now. He’d turn on the engine to give them some heat, but he’d have to limit the use. He had three quarters of a tank and carried an emergency can as well, but it would be easy to fall asleep in the warmth and forget about the idling engine. He didn’t want to find themselves out of gas in the morning.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said gruffly. “It’s what we do out here.” He had the thermal blanket out and draped it over his shoulders.
She cleared her throat. “Well, okay. I just… I wasn’t looking forward to spending the night in my truck. Alone.”
He shifted in his seat. “Can I turn around yet?”
“Oh. Yeah, of course.”
He turned to find that she was bundled up in the blanket and biting her lower lip. Her eyes, long-lashed and very blue, watched him warily.
“Sorry,” she said. “I should have told you I was done.” She sounded embarrassed, as if the thoughtlessness of the act was unusual for her. She confirmed his deduction when she continued on, “Today has been rather eventful. I have a lot on my mind.”
He let that one pass. He didn’t want to get into a deep discussion of Liz Hamilton’s issues, whatever they were. He’d rescued her from her truck because out here you didn’t ignore someone who was stranded. That she was a woman alone added an imperative to the need to act, but it wasn’t the root cause.
He turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared into life.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us some heat.” He looked at her critically. Those gorgeous blue eyes were huge and her lips were pale. He hoped that the engine heat would raise the temperature in the cabin enough to warm her, because he didn’t want to have to use body heat to warm her up. His memory of her nipples peaking from the cold and clearly outlined by the wet t-shirt was already playing havoc with his libido.
The clock on the dash was telling him that it was nine forty-five. The hours until sunrise, trapped in the cramped confines of the pickup’s cab with an attractive, sexy female, stretched out before him, a long, slow torture as his senses demanded more than his mind thought it wise to take.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” she said as heat began to pump from the vents. She leaned her head against the seat. “I shouldn’t have been on the road so late, but I was distracted.”
“Can’t afford to do that out here,” he said. He stared out the windshield into the darkness. The rain was easing off. That might be a good thing, or a bad one. If the storm was moving away, he might be able to get them out of here before dawn. But if it was just a lull, they could be in for even worse weather conditions.
“No,” she said on a sigh. “I found that out.” She laughed, bleakly he thought. “I guess it’s a good thing I was fired this afternoon. I can go back to Boston where I know how to deal with extreme weather, even huge mid-winter snow dumps.”
Boston. Oh, hell. Now he knew who he had in the shotgun seat in his cab. Liz Hamilton, Dr. Liz Hamilton. The woman Dr. Alfred Snotty Scarr had hired on as supervisor of his exploration team, because the idiot man was better at scrounging up funding than finding dinos. He’d heard that Hamilton had the eye and that she’d found two promising areas this season. Areas that would probably keep Scarr busy excavat
ing for the rest of this season and beyond.
And she said she’d been fired today. Interesting.
He could change the subject to something more neutral. It was what he should do, given who he was. He could ask her about Boston and if she was going home to family. Get her to talk about her siblings. Her parents. Her favorite aunt. Anything, but why Scarr had fired her.
He didn’t care about her family though, and that conversation wouldn’t keep his imagination off her curves and those peaking nipples. He cleared his throat. “Tough news.” Should he admit that he knew her position in Scarr’s hierarchy? If he did, would she wonder how he knew?
She took the decision away as she said, “Not unexpected. I’d hoped… The truth is, I just completed my Ph.D. and I need a job. I’d hoped my internship with Scarr would lead to something more permanent.”
Internship? Really? He suspected that Scarr had been leading her on, ensuring he secured a highly trained individual at an inexpensive or non-existent salary range. That didn’t sit well with Mike. He believed in paying people what they were worth. “You work on the dino dig up on the federal land?”
“Did,” she said.
Apparently Liz Hamilton was a stickler for details. Maybe that was what had put her afoul of Scarr. He was a guy who liked to be praised, not bucked. Though Mike knew the answer already, he said, “Are you one of Scarr’s dig babes?”
There was a minute of charged silence, then she laughed. “God, you’re right. Virtually all the undergrads who are digging the site are female.” She contemplated that for a minute, then she said, “No, I was his dig supervisor. He had me doing exploration work.”
“Any results?” He was shameless. He knew the answer. Scarr had been working the federal land for the past five years. He’d found bones, enough to prove the area had potential, but there had been no spectacular finds under his administration. Not only that, but that bevy of beauteous undergrads he hired to work his finds tended to be entitled, stuck up pains-in-the ass who drove the locals crazy whenever they went to town.
Liz Hamilton shrugged. The thermal blanket slipped a little on her shoulder, exposing a sliver of pale, silky smooth skin. His mouth dried as other parts of his body leapt to attention. Hell, if he didn’t keep his mind off her body and what it would feel like under his hands, he wasn’t going to survive the night without embarrassing himself.
“I’d like to think I made a contribution,” she said. “I found two really promising bone beds. I wasn’t able to do much more than a cursory examination, but I think I may have stumbled on a nest.”
He doubted it. From what he’d heard stumbling wasn’t Liz Hamilton’s style. She took her job seriously. In the few short months she’d been on Scarr’s team, she shaped up the dig babes and made them treat her—and the local residents—with respect. If she thought she’d found a dinosaur nest, a reasonably rare occurrence, she probably had.
The cabin was now toasty warm. Mike switched off the engine. “So why did Scarr fire you?” Not the most tactful question and maybe he shouldn’t have asked it, but he was curious. He wondered if Scarr had made a pass she’d turned down. He couldn’t think of any other reason to let a productive member of the organization go.
She was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Finally she said in a neutral voice, “Zachery Doyle contacted him and offered his services.”
Zachery Doyle. Oh crap.
“Zachery Doyle is a top scholar in our field. A star, you might say. Dr. Scarr didn’t have the funding to keep both Zac and me.” She shrugged and the blanket slipped a little further. “You don’t say no to Zac Doyle.”
The rain had eased to almost nothing, but the wind continued to whistle. “Do you think this thing has blown itself out?” Liz asked, changing the subject abruptly. “That we might be able to get home before morning?”
Now that they were no longer talking about that idiot Scarr, his awareness of the creamy flesh exposed by the loosening blanket was even greater. He’d like to be able to say they could make it to main roads and back to town. That would be easiest for both of them. He wasn’t optimistic, though. The forecast had been grim and the signs were all indicating the weathermen were right for once. “Maybe. I’m not going to set off until I’m sure, though.”
She nodded and fell silent. He thought she closed her eyes. He leaned back and stared out of the windshield. He glanced down at the clock from time to time, counting the minutes. One, then five and ten. The rain held off. There was quiet in the cab. Twenty minutes passed. The rain dried up completely.
A half an hour later he was contemplating leaving the sheltering shadow of the hill, when lightening streaked across the sky in a vivid display of nature’s dangerous beauty. A crack of thunder followed.
Liz shrieked and sat up.
The heavens opened and rain came down in a deluge of big droplets that pounded the cab. It was the kind of rain that would wash away the surface ground, leaving great gaping holes behind. There was no way they were going anywhere tonight. It would be too easy to slip into a newly formed gully in the dark.
Another jagged flash of lightening was swiftly followed by the violent bang of thunder right overhead. He could hear the wind whistling around them and he thought it likely that the outside temperature had dropped significantly.
Beside him, Liz was shivering. He fired the engine again to warm the cabin and said roughly, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Make sure you keep the thermal blanket tight around you.”
She nodded. The engine chugged, churning out welcome heat. The rain hammered the roof, showing no signs of letting up. Liz was wrapped from chin to toes in the blanket, not a bit of her delectable body exposed to his eyes, but he couldn’t stop thinking her breasts peaking against her wet t-shirt.
He shut off the engine and focused on worrying about the storm. Much better than fantasizing about a woman who was way out of his league.
This was going to be one of those storms that had rivers flowing down formerly dry streambeds, sweeping away everything in their path. A creek like the one that ran through Roaring River Canyon would be raging before night’s end. The water would rush through the canyon on its journey out onto the prairie, and it would be headed their way. He’d deliberately parked them on a rise, but was it high enough to keep them from being swept away? He believed it was. He thought grimly that they were about to find out.
“Are we safe here?” Liz asked. Her voice was low and there was an underlying shake to it.
She was scared.
He glanced at her at the same time as she said, “I’ve never been in a storm like this, but I’ve heard of them. The rain creates flash floods that can wash out everything before them. How stable is the rise we’re on?”
“Stable enough,” he said. I hope, he thought, but didn’t say the words. The cabin was warm now, but she was still shivering. He cut the engine. He thought that her shivers came from fear rather than feeling chilled. There was no sense in wasting gas.
Another flash of lightening, swiftly followed by the crash of thunder. The rain pounded harder and around them the wind screamed. Liz made a squeaking sound that he thought was a shriek she couldn’t quite stifle. She was trying hard to be brave in the face of nature gone mad, but she was a city girl who had probably never been through a storm like this.
The next streak of lightening was followed by the roar of thunder, and both happened way too soon after the previous ones. The storm was right overhead and it was massive. Liz squeaked again and he slipped closer to her. She was shaking uncontrollably now.
He put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her gently against him. She stiffened and he said, “Relax. I’m not making a move. The wind’s picked up and the temperature has dropped. We need to conserve heat and the best way to do it is to keep close.”
She processed that and after a minute she nodded. “Okay.” She shifted so her body pressed against his.
The next clap of thunder had her jerking in a startled
way, even though she should be used to the sound of the storm by now. He automatically tightened his hold. She snuggled in close, burying her head in his shoulder. She was shaking hard, so he wrapped his other arm around her to comfort her. He felt her sigh and her body relax.
His didn’t. Not only did he have a very attractive female nestled sweetly in his arms, but he had to keep that same female safe. Every male instinct he possessed was on alert and he knew that while the storm raged there was no way he would be able to let her go.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 5
She woke snuggled against Mike Edmonds warm body. He was still asleep. She knew that because she could feel the slow rise and fall of his chest under her cheek.
She should sit up. Pull away. Find her t-shirt and hope that it was dry enough that her bra wouldn’t be perfectly visible beneath the thin cotton. Cover herself up before Mike’s very masculine gaze saw way more than she was comfortable with.
But she didn’t. His hold made her feel sheltered and cared for, a sensation she liked too much to move away from. She knew that it would be gone as soon as he woke and they were at odds with each other again. In the meantime she’d enjoy this quiet, stolen pleasure in the darkness of the now peaceful night.
She must have fallen asleep again, soothed by his steady breathing and the calm that had followed the raging wind and rain. This time when she woke, it was because Mike was easing away from her, shifting to open the cab door and leave the truck. She opened her eyes and stretched, then realized he must have gone out to relieve himself. That reminded her of her own needs, but she was careful to avert her eyes to give him privacy.
He was gone a long time. She’d pulled her t-shirt back on, finger combed her short blond hair, and started to wonder if something was wrong by the time he returned. Worry made her anxious, so that when he opened the cab door and poked his head in, she glared at him. “Where were you?”