“What are you so happy about?” Flintrop demanded. He plopped beside her on the sand.
“Nothing. About the chart... The electromagnetic readings came back a little on the high side. I wondered if we shouldn’t look into that.”
“I’ll take care of it. Probably just a false reading, or the equipment might need adjustments. Are we having a conversation, here? I was just getting used to your undying hatred.”
Touché, weasel. “Let me make it clear that the only reason I’m at this dig with you is because my firm is in control of it,” she said. “If it were up to me, I’d have scrimped and saved for every penny this project is costing, rather than involve you. Your being here was Lamb’s decision.”
“All right, all right.” He held up his hands.
Faith fumed at the way he laughed, and then at the way she let him annoy her. She caught him glancing over at Ian and Sara again. “What? He’s not at the dig site. You going to commandeer other parts of the island, too?”
Flintrop sighed. “I don’t know how long this is going to go on between you and me, but I’d like to get past it. You and I just didn’t work out together. It’s nothing you did.”
“Careful. That almost sounded like an apology.”
His cobalt stare bored into her. “Are we through?” he asked.
“There is no limit to how ‘through’ we are.”
He stood. She remembered she shouldn’t be antagonizing him, when her goal had been to guarantee Ian and Sara a few minutes free of Flintrop’s interference. She vaulted to her feet. “Don’t go getting into a pissing match with him. He’s got as much right to be here as you have.”
“Birds being more groundbreaking and crucial than a thousand-year-old ruin.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re jealous!”
“Are you?”
“Of you, wanting my sister? You’re just conceited enough to believe that, aren’t you?” She struggled to compose herself, when all she wanted was to punch him repeatedly in the nose for being the biggest jerk in the universe. “You know what? This is ridiculous. We have a job to do, and like it or not, we’re stuck together. After this project, I pray to God I won’t have to work with you ever again.” She shook her head and walked away to join Luis.
****
Ian watched Faith stalk into the water. Flintrop sat back down and withdrew a sheaf of folded papers from his coat pocket. He snapped them open with an aggravated flourish, and began to read. Ian wondered if the bastard had come just to chaperone Sara. “Does he have a talent for pissing people off, or something?”
Sara worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry. I tried to come alone. Luis heard I was coming, and then Flintrop got in on it...”
He took her hand. “I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re here.”
She blushed and evaded his gaze.
He angled his head. “What? You worried about the watchdog over there?”
“He’s looking,” she protested.
“Good.” Taking her face in his hands, Ian planted a thorough kiss on her lips.
She squeaked as if in surprise, but when he drew back, she beamed, even as her cheeks reddened. “We’re in public.”
“So? When we get home, I plan to do a whole lot of kissing you in public.”
Her mouth opened, but whatever she meant to say gave way to a look that hovered between a smile and underlying anxiousness.
Ian’s stomach lurched with a disappointment that startled him. “You didn’t think this was just a passing thing, did you?” He searched her face. “You did think that.”
“I don’t know what I thought. I’ve been trying not to think past the next few weeks.” She hugged herself, rubbing her arms in spite of the evening’s balmy air.
Ian stuffed his unwelcome dismay into a mental corner. He stroked a hand across the soft curve of Sara’s cheek, then cleared his throat and lowered his hands. Looking her up and down with appreciation, he asked, “Going for a swim, or did you just come to flaunt that bathing suit at me?”
“Are you complaining about my bathing suit?”
Banter. Much better than that anxious look. He waved a finger between them. “I’ve come to realize, the less clothing separating the two of us, the better I like it.”
She blushed, and he fought the urge to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to the nearest secluded spot. She glanced furtively around, looking like a teenager who’d been caught staying out too late. “I’m going to swim now.”
He groaned. “You are flaunting it.”
She smiled again, untied her wrap, then handed it to him with a sly smile. “Now I’m flaunting. See you in a bit.” She strolled off to the water.
Ian allowed himself a pleasant view of swaying hips as she walked across the uneven sand.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up.
Flintrop gave him a cold blue stare as he passed on his way back toward the camp. “Don’t get too used to it, Waverly.” He sauntered away before Ian could reply.
The rest of the evening went well enough, though Ian wished he’d carried Sara off, after all. By the time he got back to his camp, he couldn’t think straight for wanting her. The erstwhile cold bath of the inlet had done nothing to alleviate that. He stayed up most of the night writing in his journal, though none of the entry mentioned a stitch of his wildlife research.
Faith had asked him flat out if he loved her sister.
God, yes. Since he was ten. Even when he didn’t want to.
But then Sara had given him that look. Did she think this thing—this whatever-it-was between them—was temporary?
That thought bothered him almost as much as the gathering apprehension whenever he thought of the amulet around her neck.
****
The next week and a half went by in a blur of full-speed work. Ian spent his days on the cliffside. During the nights, Sara came to his camp, and they made love. Always passionate, always intense, and over far too soon. Each time, she stole away well before the sun rose. And each time, something stopped him from confessing the way he felt about her. He sensed an uneasiness in her, but put it off to the looming dig deadline.
This morning, he’d started climbing early and spent most of the day on the rock. Halfway down the cliff, he thrust his fingers into a handhold and angled sideways on his rope. A flock of terns rested on a craggy outcrop below, jabbering amongst themselves. He took a rough visual count of the flock and raised his camera, focusing the lens, aiming, and shooting the photo without conscious thought.
Horus soared by, chirping in what Ian had come to understand as his greeting. “Hey, hotshot, can I borrow those wings?” Smiling, Ian edged the instep of one foot onto a thin crease of rock for a moment of rest.
Then he saw the second falcon.
For a moment, he wondered if Sara had paid him a visit, but Horus shot past him again with a drawn-out wail and rose into a dizzying spiral. The two birds whirled around one another. Ian recognized a courtship flight. His mouth fell open as he followed the roller coaster circling of the larger bird.
Definitely not Sara, by the way Horus was reacting.
Grinning, he raised the camera around his neck and hurried to focus. “Sweetheart, I think you just got me my tenure.” He snapped a rapid series of photos, running the battery almost all the way down before the birds circled away together. He started back up the cliff, eager to get his observations down on paper.
He had to tell Sara.
When had thinking of her become such second nature?
He gave a soft laugh. Since forever, really.
His memory spun back twenty years to the first time he saw her. Shaking, her eyes a startling grass-green, she’d braced herself against the oncoming punch of a boy almost twice her size. Ian recalled a bright flash of anger and his blood surging in his ears. He’d been about to jump between them when the bell rang, and the teachers came to herd them all back from the playground into the school.
Those eyes had bu
rned right down inside of him. After twenty years, in spite of all that had happened since then, they still did. He suspected, twenty years from now, they still would. If we ever get the chance to find out, he thought, grimly returning to the present.
A fitful burst of wind rocked him in his harness, reminding him that he’d better get topside. With the breeze picking up like this, he expected another storm to follow on its heels in the next day or so. He climbed back up the cliff, feeling out each crevice before continuing the push upward. Birds scolded him from their niches in the rock far below. The wind gusted up the cliffside, smacking against his body.
He had just gained the edge when a shadow blotted out the sunlight overhead. Ian swore and slid downward a few feet. He gripped harder on the rope, wincing against the burn, and jammed the toes of one shoe in a foothold. He jerked to a halt with pebbles rattling their way down the cliffside, and looked up.
The shadowy figure bent down out of the sun glare. Ian recognized Luis. “Need a hand, greenhorn?” the man asked, then laughed.
“Jesus, Lu. Could you not do that when I’m dangling from a two-hundred-foot cliff?” Ian hauled on the rope, regained the last few feet, then reached for his friend’s hand.
Luis pulled him upward over the cliff edge. Ian unbuckled his harness and started winding the rope. “What’s up?”
“I just came up to say hello.”
“How about a hello and a beer? It’s damn hot down there with the sun pounding on the rock,” Ian said, wiping a hand across his sweaty forehead.
“Lead the way, amigo.”
They headed toward Ian’s tent. Freshly armed with a cold six-pack, they sat in a pair of camp chairs outside. Ian propped his feet on an empty crate. “I was just hurting for a break. You came along at the right time, buddy.”
Luis beamed, and they clinked bottles. Time stretched out while they settled into the wordless male communion of sunshine, the outdoors, and fermented beverages.
Luis swept a look around Ian’s camp. Some crates had already been packed for shipment home, and covered with a tarp. “It looks like you’re going to be done around here pretty soon.”
“Yeah, another few weeks, maybe. Got most of the data, and about a thousand photos.”
Luis gave him a broad smile. “So, you and Shark Markham, huh?”
“Me and Sara.”
“All right, all right. She’s not so bad, I guess. At least she pulls her weight on a project. She was in a good mood this morning, so I figure she must have gotten an hour of sleep instead of the usual half.”
Ian wondered if they knew about her sneaking out to see him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, she’d rather work than eat. She’s going to wear out before we finish, unless she’s part machine.” Luis set the heel of one work boot on the crate.
Ian picked at the label on his beer bottle. “How are things going down there?”
“We’ve almost got the perimeter dug out, and we’ve started on the interior. You need some peat bricks for a campfire, you know where to find them.”
Ian flashed a quick, preoccupied smile. A little over one week to go. He itched to do more than sit up here waiting. He kept his gaze on his beer bottle, peeling its label back bit by bit. “I guess you guys are ahead of schedule, seeing you were planning for this to take all summer.”
“Yeah. Lambertson is going to be late coming back, but I think we’re going to finish without him.” Luis drained the rest of his beer, and stood up. “That is, if I get back down there and help, instead of sitting around up here with layabouts like you.”
“It’s a dirty job. See you.” Ian waved his friend off, then went reluctantly back to work.
Chapter Sixteen
Ian spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on his notes. After that, he decided to pack one last crate for the day. Unused tent gear joined extra camera lenses in their padded case. He wedged a few books in the remaining space, then hammered the crate shut.
That about covered anything he could do to occupy himself with something other than ritual sacrifices. Hour by hour, he found himself more convinced that he, Faith, and Sara should be as far away from Hvitmar as possible. Even his work couldn’t distract him anymore.
When he turned around, his gaze landed on a wolf standing at the edge of his camp. He flinched reflexively, even though he knew it was Sara. “Hey, gorgeous.”
She twitched an ear, and her tongue lolled in a brief lupine grin. She loped forward with her muzzle to the ground. Ian watched, fascinated, as she wound between the camp chairs and nosed at the beer bottles. In spite of her disparate lack of fear around a human establishment, he almost forgot she wasn’t a real wolf. She moved like one, sounded like one, and sure as hell looked like one. He resisted the urge to grab his camera.
Finished with her explorations, she padded over to him. He took an instinctive step backward. She laughed that toothy wolf laugh again and slowed to a stealthy walk.
What the heck was she doing?
In the next instant, she dodged closer and snatched his pant leg in her teeth. She jerked on it, then bounded away with her tail high in the air.
Ian stumbled, but stayed upright. “Hey!”
She bolted around the camp chairs and came to a skidding halt beside one of the large crates. To Ian’s amusement, she lowered her forequarters to the ground in the quintessential canine play-bow.
Laughing, he stalked toward the crate. “This isn’t fair. You’ve got four legs.” He feinted a jump around one side of the crate. When she raced around to avoid him, he flung a hand out to grab at her from the other side. She sprang into the air and disappeared around the corner of the large shipping box again.
Ian crouched behind it and peered around the corner.
Nothing. “Where’d you go?”
He felt a tug on the back of his T-shirt and spun around.
The wolf bounced backward. He lunged, and caught her by the forepaw with a laugh.
It occurred to him then that he was holding onto a living, breathing, untranquilized wolf by its leg. Startled, he let go of her.
She must have seen the surprise in his face, because she cocked her ears forward, and her tongue lolled again. Lowering her shaggy head, she thrust her nose under his hand.
Ian almost yanked his hand back without thinking. He let his fingers skim along her muzzle, over the broad forehead, and behind her large, triangular ears. He took a deep breath. She even smelled like a wolf—that dense, dusty scent of heavy pelt and wilderness. He laced his fingers through the coarse guard hairs of her ruff, and into the soft, wooly undercoat.
Never, never stare down a wolf, he remembered someone telling him when he’d volunteered with the Yellowstone packs. But she looked up at him, and in her eyes he saw only Sara. He smiled. “This is unbelievable. Sara, you’re beautiful.”
She slipped out from under his hands and backed away. Ian watched the lupine shape blur around the edges, then resolve into that of a crouching woman in a faded navy sweatshirt and jeans. No matter how many times he saw her do that, it amazed him.
Sara beamed at him and sat back on her heels. “You’re not so bad, yourself. When was Luis here?”
“Luis?”
“He’s all over the camp. In the chair, on the beer bottles—”
“You smelled him?”
“Yeah. People smell, much as they’d like to think otherwise.”
Ian gaped at her. “Do you have any idea how cool that is?” Then, because the curiosity was killing him, he asked, “What do I smell like?”
She dimpled. “Like chalk, sweat, and beer, right now. Been climbing?”
“That’s flattering.”
“If it’s any consolation, you smell good to me.” She got to her feet. “How about one of those beers?”
“Sure.” He got up and dusted off his jeans.
They moved to the camp chairs. She took a beer from the carton, then popped it open. Ian propped his foot on the makeshift stool, then removed his cl
imbing shoes. “Tag, huh?”
“I used to play tag with Faith all the time. She got so she’d tag me just before climbing a tree, so I couldn’t reach her.”
He laughed. “Well, good. Now I know how to beat you.”
“I don’t see any trees around here,” she pointed out, looking smug.
“I’ll figure something out,” he shot back, just as smug. He settled back into his camp chair. Recalling what Luis had told him earlier, he studied her face. She looked paler than usual, with dark smudges under her eyes. He frowned. “You haven’t been sleeping.”
“I’m all right,” she said, fast enough for him to realize she wasn’t.
He wondered if he might not be contributing to the problem. He had been keeping her up nights, but no power on earth could make him part with that. The more she was with him, the less he worried what was happening to her when she wasn’t. “Sara.”
“I’m fine. Just unsettled about finishing on time.”
A pair of specks wheeling in the sky distracted him. “I meant to tell you,” he said. “We’ve got a Hathor.”
She looked up at once. “Where?”
He stood and motioned for her to come closer. He drew her in front of him and stood at her back. Instantly mindful of her nearness, he hesitated. His thoughts fuzzed into a tempting vision of her ensconced in his camp bed, not birdwatching.
Later, he ordered himself. Scanning the approaching falcon pair, he reached over her shoulder and traced a finger in the sky. “That’s her. The bigger one.”
Sara did a little dance on her toes. “Ian, this is wonderful!”
“Yeah. I think I just got myself a permanent job, thanks to her.” The wind changed. He caught a hint of cinnamon, and inhaled deeply. She’d been eating those candies again. He revisited the image of the two of them in his tent, and pulled her back against his body. “You’re here early today.”
The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series) Page 21