by K C West
“PJ,” Sandy cautioned, “you’d better go easy on those. They’ll kick like an army mule.”
I drained my second ‘cooler,’ marveling at the mellow, slightly fuzzy warmth that spread through my body. “Don’t worry, Cowboy, I’m fine.” I gave him my patented sexy, sweet smile and watched as his face reddened. Well, well, Sandy, my man. It’s not hard to see what you’re thinking about.
There was a guy with curly, red hair sitting at the bar. He kept smiling at me. After he sent a ‘cooler’ my way, and we saluted each other with our glasses, he sauntered over to our booth. He leaned over, flirted with me and managed to peer down the front of my shirt in the process. What is it with guys? They think they’re so subtle.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, “I heard you talking about a dig site. You’re with Doctor Blair’s group?”
I exhaled and sat upright against the back of the booth, removing my cleavage from his inspection. “That’s right, ‘Red.’ I’m her right hand gal.”
“Well, how’s it going? Did you find what you’re looking for?”
“PJ, don’t answer that.” Mike scowled at the guy. “Move on, Mister. She’s had a bit too much to drink.”
“Mikey, I can talk for myself. There’s nothing to tell. We’re just chasin’ shadows out there.”
Sandy put his hand on my arm and addressed the man. “Mister Green, we know who you are and you’d better leave now.”
The new guy winked at me and took a few steps backward toward the bar.
“Maybe some other time, Cutie,” I said, blowing him a kiss.
“Jesus, PJ, He’s not a ‘Cutie.’ He’s Fritz Green from one of the TV stations in Phoenix and he’s bad news.” Mike looked so serious.
“Shit, I’m not gonna give away any secrets.” I fanned my face. “Gawd, it sure got hot in here all of a sudden.” I started to unbutton my shirt.
Sandy got a glimpse of my black lace bra and yanked me to my feet. “That does it. Definitely, time to go, PJ.” He tried to pull my shirt together.
“Sure, Cowboy. My place or yours?” As he fiddled with my shirt I tugged a few of his buttons loose.
He pushed my hands away. “Jesus, PJ, will ya stop it!”
I just rubbed against him, grinning.
Mike’s eyes widened. “Sandy, we’re gonna have trouble with that Fritz guy. He’s getting a real eyeful. He probably wants a juicy story for his viewers.”
I leaned my head on Sandy’s chest and listened to them try to figure out what to do with me. My tongue had grown fuzzy and my brain wasn’t far behind.
Mike was right; ‘Red’ hadn’t finished with us. “Hey boys, I have a few more questions for the lady. Why don’t you two run along and let me take over. I’m afraid she’s a bit more woman than you can handle.”
I felt Sandy’s body stiffen. Shit! I may not be firing on all cylinders right now, but somewhere in that jerk’s sentence I heard a compliment and an insult. I think the insult was directed at my adorable companions. Am I gonna stand here while these sweet young men get treated that way? Hell, no! “You just…back off! This is a private party.” I gave Sandy’s waist a squeeze.
‘Red’ laughed. “Your fiance thinks you’re wasting your time up there on the mountain, Doctor Curtis. What do you think?”
“She has no comment.” Sandy said, as he and Mike helped me out of the booth.
My mouth seemed to be working again, so I spoke up. “I told ya…down the tubes. Kim’s not talkin’… There’s nothin’ out there.”
Sandy covered my mouth, but I pushed his hand away. “Let me be!”
“PJ, you don’t know what you’re saying—”
“Please shut up,” Mike added. “Doctor Blair will kill us if she-“
“Oh, c’mon. We all know what’s happening. She’s just wasted a shit load of my father’s money…”
They managed to shove me out the door and into the minivan. Sandy drove Mike to his apartment and then headed toward Apache Junction. Somewhere along Highway 60, my stomach began to churn. Sandy glanced at me in concern when I moaned. He took the next exit and pulled off onto the side of the road.
I opened the door and swung my feet around so that I could lean my head down and breathe some fresh air. That helped, but I could tell that I was very drunk. When I get too drunk, I get rather amorous, or so I’ve been told. Quite often I can’t remember shit when I’ve had too much. What the hell was in those coolers anyway?
I could feel those neglected hormones heating up, warming my insides and making my skin super-sensitive to touch. Standing outside the van made my knees weaken. “Sandy?”
“What is it, PJ?” He was at my side instantly. “Are you feeling sick?” His arms came around me. I tucked my head under his chin, hearing his rapid heart beat as we deepened the embrace. Oh, Gawd. He’s so strong…and protective. I really don’t want to be alone tonight. Would it be so bad?
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
He responded without hesitation. “I think you’re beautiful.”
I started to cry.
“PJ? Did I say something wrong?”
My hands moved across his back, feeling the warmth of his muscular body. “Do you want to make love to me?”
He inhaled. “God, yes.” Then, he released his hold. “But…you’re engaged.”
My head was still pressed against his chest. “Not really,” I mumbled. “That was Stephen’s idea.”
Sandy pulled back further. I could see conflicting emotions in his eyes. “PJ, we can’t do this…not now. You’re not in control of—”
“Hell, I’ve been out of control so many—”
“No. It’s not right.” He helped me sit back down, leaning in to fasten my seatbelt. I seized his face and kissed him, feeling his passionate response. With a soft moan, he broke away and climbed back behind the wheel. Before he could start the car, I slid my hand along his thigh and into his lap. “Jesus,” he hissed, and placed his hand over mine. We both felt his undeniable arousal before he removed my hand and drove back onto the highway. He glanced over at me, and then focused on the road. “Dear God. I’m probably gonna hate myself for this, but I don’t know what else to do.”
I smiled and curled up against the doorframe. Just go with the flow, Cowboy. It’s nothing personal …just a bit of fun for both of us.
“Thank God she’s still up,” I heard him murmur.
“What? Who?” Now, partially awake, I felt my nausea and pounding headache return. We had pulled along side a motor home. A thin, pale light shone behind drawn blinds. Strains of Mozart drifted through the screen door. Where the hell are we?
Sandy rapped on the metal frame. Inside, a dog growled. “Doctor Blair? It’s Sandy. Are you awake?”
Oh shit. No! “Sandy how could you?” Oh, Gawd.
Chapter Six
As much as I tried not to feel discouraged, there were times when I felt like giving up. I’d been searching so long and seemed not to be any closer to finding the Lost Tribe. I imagined the walls of the motor home closing in on me and I felt the threatening panic of claustrophobia. I slipped a CD into the deck and stretched out on the sofa listening to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Music was the companion that helped me cope with stress.
My mind drifted back to the project with less panic, less despondency. Testing had shown the strip of old leather to be six to seven hundred years old and Hohokam in origin. Something, a little voice, intuition, whatever it was kept nagging at me to start a grid closer to the canyon wall, some two hundred meters from our present position.
Pup, lying on the floor next to the sofa, raised his head and growled. “It’s okay, boy,” I whispered. “We aren’t expecting anyone.” Moments later, I heard the knock and Sandy calling out tome.
“Just a moment.”
“Doc, PJ is with me. She needs help.”
I opened the door in time to see PJ vomiting beside an old cactus. “What the hell is going on?”
Sandy avoided my eyes. “We went for a
drink, Mike, PJ, and I, and … um … PJ had a little too much.”
I sighed. “Looks to me as though she’s had more than a little too much. Why did you bring her here? Why didn’t you take her to the inn and let her sleep it off?”
“She wanted me to stay with her. I didn’t want to do that.” Even in the subdued lighting, I could see that Sandy was embarrassed. “May we come in?”
“I suppose so.” Between us, we managed to help PJ into the motor home. “You look like something the cat dragged in,” I said, when we had her seated on the sofa. She was disheveled; her hair was mussed, her blouse pulled out of her cargo pants and partly open. I looked at Sandy.
“Oh no, Doc, it’s not what you’re thinking. No one bothered her. It’s just that she had too much to drink and wanted me to … um … I didn’t think she should be left alone, but I didn’t want to … um …”
“Sandy, I know this wasn’t your fault. You can help me though by making a pot of strong coffee.” I pointed to the cabinet above the sink. “The beans and grinder are in there. The coffee pot is above the stove.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
PJ was wearing that green look again, but I was able to get her into the bathroom in the nick of time. After a couple more sessions of John hugging, her stomach settled down. She returned to the sofa and flopped against the brightly colored cushions, her face still pale.
“Would you care to explain what this is all about?”
“No, it’s none of your business.” She glared at Sandy. “And thanks a lot pal, for bringing me here when you knew what I wanted. What kind of a sick joke was that?”
The music had stopped … the tension in the motor home was palpable.
Sandy handed PJ a cup of very strong coffee. “PJ, I didn’t think you should be alone, but I couldn’t stay with you … I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You don’t know what you missed.”
“No way, ma’am, not in your condition.”
“Well, you had plenty of interest in me on the way over here. You even had a condition of your own going there. Did you suddenly get a conscience or something?”
“Doctor Curtis! That is enough.” I turned to Sandy whose face was pink with embarrassment. “Thank you for bringing her here. Go on home. I’ll get her sobered up and back to the inn.”
“Doc,” Sandy shifted from one foot to the other, “I need to talk to you privately first, like outside.”
It was a storybook desert evening, warm and star-studded. For a moment, I thought of the Lost Tribe and wondered how they might react to such a night. Would they have seen the beauty of the night or were they in dire straits after a long trek across the desert? How different was the desert then from now? No cities, of course, not even any settlements … roving bands perhaps…
“There’s something you should know,” Sandy said, interrupting my reverie. We were a few steps from the motor home and out of PJ’s hearing. “There was a reporter there, at the bar. PJ was flirting with him and he was buying her drinks, and … well, she may have said more’n she should about our work here.”
“Shit!” I turned and hit the back of the motor home with my fist. Pup, still inside, started barking and growling. When I opened the door to bring him outside, I saw PJ cowering in the corner. Pup’s outburst had, I believed, sobered her up in a hurry.
“Who was this reporter?” I asked Sandy while Pup inspected the immediate surrounds.
“Fritz Green.”
“Oh shit! I’ve had trouble with him in the past.” I paced for several minutes, rubbing my arms while Sandy fidgeted. “What all did she tell him?”
“We warned her to go easy on the stuff, but…”
“I can see how she is, Sandy. Just tell me what she said to Green.”
“That she was your right hand and that you were looking for shadows. I don’t think she mentioned the Amazons, but I can’t be sure. Then he started talking to her about Stephen.”
“Stephen? Stephen who?”
“Stephen, her fiance.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know there was a fiance.”
“Yeah. I don’t know much about him except what PJ told me. Seems he travels a lot between the States and South America. Green seemed to know all about him.”
I thanked Sandy as I touched his shoulder reassuringly, and sent him home. Before returning to the motor home, I was joined by Pup who had determined that all was well. Little did he know….
We had worked so hard to keep our project under wraps and PJ, of all people, had to blab to this Fritz Green fellow. I knew it would be useless talking to her tonight. Perhaps by morning, she’d be less belligerent.
When I stepped into the motor home, PJ was sitting on the couch, hugging her stomach. “You look like hell,” I said, unable to conceal the disgust I was feeling.
“He had no business bringing me here, damn it. He knows how I feel about you.”
I poured her another cup of coffee and one for myself. “And how is that?”
She lowered her head and mumbled. “It’s not important.”
“C’mon, tell me. You had no trouble whining about Sandy, blaming him for the state you’re in. Don’t you have courage enough to—”
She lifted her head. “You’re a stubborn, sexually frustrated woman with absolutely no sense of humor.” Her eyes were defiant, challenging. “You have no life beyond your work. Do you even have any friends besides your students and your dog? When was the last time …” She fell silent.
“The last time what? If you’re thinking it, you can say it.”
“Nothing.”
“Well, now that you’ve gotten all that off your chest, maybe we can get to the important issues. We’re not here to talk about me, or Sandy. He did the only thing he could under the circumstances and now I have to cope with the mess you created.” I took my coffee to the passenger seat, swiveled it around, and sat. “We do need to discuss your behavior though. What’s the matter with you, woman? What in God’s name were you thinking, talking to this reporter?”
“What I do on my own time is my business, you said so yourself.” She avoided my eyes.
“What you do is your business except when it affects my project. Then it becomes my business. What you have done tonight may have seriously compromised our work here.” I took a deep breath. “We’ve been trying to keep the lid on things because I didn’t want a bunch of insensitive reporters bothering us. We didn’t need you to go blabbing everything in a bar. Where’s your sense, woman?”
PJ did not respond. Instead, she sat quietly, her head resting in her hands. I went into the bathroom and pulled out a fresh towel and washcloth, then found an old pair of pajamas. “You stink. Go shower. Clean your sorry self up.”
While she was in the bathroom, I threw a blanket and a pillow on the couch. “Sleep it off,” I said, when she came out looking more presentable, her face scrubbed clean and her hair freshly shampooed. “I’ll deal with you in the morning,” I added as I headed to my bedroom.
“Up yours with a wire gigi.”
I stopped and turned around slowly. “I’m assuming that juvenile remark is the result of the alcohol so I’m going to let it go, but keep in mind that come morning, you’re going to have to face up to your actions.”
When I got up, PJ was not in the motor home. The blanket was folded neatly on the couch, the pillow on top of it. A quick glance through the window showed her to be nowhere in sight. I decided she had called a cab and left so I took my time showering and dressing.
When I stepped outside with a cup of tea in hand, I was surprised to see PJ behind the motor home, sitting beneath the sparse shade of a Palo Verde. I waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, I did. “I don’t want you on-site today. I’ll drop you off at the inn. You can sit there and contemplate your actions while I spend my day doing damage control.”
“I’m sorry …I…”
“I don’t need excuses. You did what you did and I have to deal with it. I’l
l contact your father later today and explain why you’re being relieved of your duties, then—”
“Please, Doctor Blair, I want to be part of your project. I made a mistake. You have my word that it won’t happen again.”
“Get in the Tracker.”
She climbed into the white four by four. It was less than a ten-minute ride during which neither of us spoke. I really didn’t know what to say to her. I believed from her silence and meekness of manner that she truly regretted her actions, but she had a lot of growing up to do and I didn’t have the time or the inclination to mother her. “I’ll speak with you later, after I’ve spoken to your father,” I stated flatly when we arrived at the inn.
“Please, Doctor Blair, don’t tell him. I asked for this assignment and if I flub it—”
“You already have. Your father agreed to fund my project provided I keep the media out of it. It was your choice to involve them. Now I have to ask his help to fend them off.”
“It wasn’t a choice, it was a mistake.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“It may have been a mistake, but it shows lack of good sense.” I could see she was distressed. For one fleeting moment, I wanted to hug her and tell her it would be okay, that we’d work it out. The thought didn’t last.
“Out,” I commanded. “I have work to do.”
I called Sandy’s cell phone. “I’m leaving you in charge today?”
“Sure, Doc. What’s up?”
“I’m going to try for some damage control.”
“Have you talked to PJ this morning?”
“I just dropped her off at the inn.”
“Is she okay?”
“She realizes that she’s created some serious problems and has to face the consequences. Frankly, I don’t believe she’s had to take responsibility for her actions before.”
“Consequences? Are you going to fire her?”
“She wanted this assignment enough to ask for it … now … well, she’s more liability than asset.”
“I guess. You know, Doc, we all make mistakes.”
“I’m considering all options.”