Unearthed

by Ann B. Morris

  Her accusation hit him like a block of concrete. She believed he was responsible for this stupid prank? For one second, he was angry she thought he would sink low enough to threaten her. Then he remembered how angry he had been yesterday, and it set him back on his heels. She had seen his bad side. The truth was he’d thought of her as lots of unflattering things—a pain in the ass, and a high-fallutin’, overeducated, egocentric broad for sure—but certainly not a bitch.

  Suddenly, every muscle in his body tightened. Holy shit. The other night when he’d stopped to tell Ned about the cancellation of their property bid, “bitch” was the first word out of Ned’s mouth. The word had been directed to the professor Beck told him was in charge of the archaeological dig.

  He immediately regretted the way he handled the situation. Had he stuck with his original plan and waited until he had more information before speaking to Ned, this wouldn’t have happened. But Christ, how was he to know Ned would go off half-cocked and do such a stupid thing? Knowing Ned’s precarious position, and how even an extra day might help him avert a financial disaster, he’d only meant to give his friend a heads-up.

  Beck shook away the unsettling thoughts. At the moment, he had to concentrate on getting his ass out of this sling. He looked the professor squarely in the eyes, and asked her directly, “You really think I did this?”

  She looked back just as directly. “Well, who else would have a reason to pull such a stunt?”

  Before he could answer, the guy she’d called Kent took another step forward, and Beck pulled a steady stream of air deep into his lungs. The guy was obviously looking for a fight, and on any other day he might oblige him. But not today. He had come here to gain the lady’s favor, not to prove he was as uncouth as she obviously thought him to be. He forced himself to ignore the would-be troublemaker and act the gentleman. “I swear to you, professor, I know nothing of this prank.”

  “Because I have no proof that you do, I have no recourse but to believe you.”

  She spoke in a cool, professional voice, but he didn’t miss the anger and mistrust beneath it.

  “Now that we have your side of the story, would you please explain the reason you came back today so I can get to work?”

  He’d already decided a straightforward approach was in his best interest. “I’m here to apologize. My behavior yesterday was rude, and my language unforgivable. Comes from working with construction crews all day and spending most evenings in honky-tonk bars, I guess.”

  The professor was still focused on him.

  And if he didn’t look away from those beautiful, cornflower blue eyes he’d soon be on his knees begging for forgiveness. But he couldn’t look away, because looking someone straight in the eye was a sure-fire way to make your words convincing, so he plowed ahead. “Once again, I can assure you as heaven is my witness, I had nothing to do with this situation.” He glanced down at the heap of replicated bones at his feet and nudged it with the tip of his expensive boot.

  The action earned him a contemptuous snort from Kent who was still at the professor’s side. His stomach roiled. Was this self-appointed sentry guarding more than her safety? Her body maybe? Christ, he sure hoped not. The thought of this asshole putting his hands on her lovely body made him want to puke.

  The professor shook her head. “If you didn’t do it, then who did? Who else had any reason to make such an ugly statement? You were the only outsider here yesterday, and you certainly didn’t hide your displeasure—or your anger.”

  Unless he was mistaken, she didn’t sound nearly as confrontational now as she had earlier. She even seemed a little inclined to believe him. In any event, the air had cooled around them. He breathed a little easier. “I don’t know who did this, but I sure as hell will find out.” The lie rolled off his tongue with as much ease as though he really believed it.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Suddenly, he became aware everything around them had stilled. No chatter came from the group, and no birds flitted from tree to tree. Only silence surrounded them. The two of them stood there, within arm’s reach, staring at each other as though they were fixed to the ground.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve accused you unjustly. It’s…”

  Her words broke the silence and the unexpected sizzle of chemistry he felt between them. He didn’t remember touching her, but he must have, because his hand was on her arm. And, wonder of wonders, she didn’t seem to mind. He looked to their left, to where the group had set up a small folding table with a bench on either side of it, and inclined his head in that direction. “Can you take a break and talk for a little while? Maybe I can help you figure out what the hell’s going on here.” How easily he spoke those words.

  When he was a little kid, his mother would grab him by the scruff of the neck when she caught him lying. “One of these days your tongue will fall off from one of your lies,” she’d hiss in his ear. Shit. With all the lies she’d told his old man back then, she must have a stump for a tongue now. If she was even still alive. Not that he cared.

  The still-sharp memory was just what he needed to remind him he couldn’t trust a woman. Not even this woman. Especially not this woman.

  So, he convinced himself the lie he’d just told her didn’t count. Anyway, he couldn’t be sure Ned was the one responsible for this stunt. And even if he was responsible, no real harm had been done. By tomorrow, no one would even remember this silly prank.

  ****

  Alex looked at her watch. “I was just about to break for lunch. A couple of canvas folding chairs are in the van that’ll be much more comfortable than those hard, backless benches.” She headed in the direction of the van. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  What was she doing, inviting him to sit and chat with her like they were old friends? Even if he wasn’t guilty of the odious offense—and she still wasn’t certain in that regard—caution was still the best option.

  At the very least, she should keep up her personal guard. Men who were outrageously sexy—which he most definitely was—had usually honed their skills to perfection for charming the opposite sex. And this one was definitely a charmer.

  “Aren’t you eating?” Beck asked.

  She returned, opened the canvas chairs under one of the fuller pines, and sat in the chair nearest where he stood. Before she could answer, she watched as he cocked his head to the side and gave her a penitent look that even on the face of a hardened criminal would have softened the hearts of the harshest jury.

  “I’ll feel terrible if I interfere with your lunch. Especially since I’ve obviously caused you enough distress already.” He raised a brow and gave her an upturned smile and a wink. “Even though, I was unfairly accused.” He threw up his hands. “With good reason, I admit, but unfairly, nevertheless.”

  Oh, this one was absolutely a charmer. She’d met many men like him over the past couple of years when they sensed she was easy prey and sniffed her out like a dog after a squirrel. But she’d learned how to elude them all. She was thankful now for the practice. Tilting her head to the side, she smiled. “You’re not keeping me from lunch. I have a sandwich and some fruit in my backpack. It’ll keep for a few more minutes.”

  She motioned for Beck to take the other chair, and while he settled himself on the seat, she asked him a direct question. “Aside from an apology, what other reason do you have for coming here?”

  Chapter Three

  Beck leaned forward. “I came here not only to apologize, but also to ask you to have dinner with me tonight. You’re one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.”

  Oh, he was smooth all right. He probably had to switch belts every month to make room for more notches, but she wouldn’t be his next notch. Should she tell him she didn’t allow any man to get close enough to the fortress she’d built around her heart? How she would do everything in her power to keep those defenses solid and impenetrable? “Thank you for the invitation, but I won’t be here for dinner. I’m heading home for a couple of day
s.”

  “Where’s home?”

  He was prying, but she saw no reason not to tell him. “Baton Rouge.” She considered getting the lunch from her pack right then, and cutting this personal conversation short, except she really was curious as to why he’d come back. She didn’t believe he’d come just to apologize and invite her to dinner.

  He flattened his hands on his knees and leaned toward her. “I really would like to take you to dinner to prove I’m really not such a bad guy. That is, if there’s no Mister Kingsley.”

  “No Mister Kingsley.” She stood, removed the baseball cap, fluffed her hair with her fingers, and stuffed the cap in a back pocket. “It’s been nice chatting with you, Mister St. Romaine, but I think I’d better have my lunch now. I need to finish as much work this afternoon as I can.”

  “Beck,” he said, lifting himself to his feet. “Please call me Beck. And for what it’s worth, there’s no Missus St. Romaine. Also, both the apology and the invitation for dinner were sincere. I’d like to stop by again, if I may.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the area of disturbed earth behind them. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this firsthand.”

  “Well,” she admitted, her chest lifting with pride, “an archaeological dig is hardly a normal everyday occurrence. Most people never have the chance to experience anything so relevant to our past.” The sense of awe she felt whenever she was involved in a project of such significance gave her pause. For a few moments, she allowed herself to enjoy the sense of history and culture soon to unfold before her eyes. “Many times, I’ve wondered how I became so lucky to choose a profession that has been everything I hoped it would be.”

  “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

  His apparent surprise at her passion for her job confounded her. “Of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be? I only wish I had known I’d be involved in this project when it first came to light three months ago. I would have planned my summer much differently if I had.”

  Beck’s eyebrows shot upward. “Three months? If this has been in the works for that length of time, then why weren’t we notified earlier?”

  She figured some paperwork probably got lost in the shuffle as so often happened in busy, understaffed government offices. “I can’t answer your question, Mister—Beck,” she said, forcing herself to look straight at him despite what those dark, penetrating eyes did to her insides. “And I really hope the look on your face doesn’t mean you’re getting angry again, because….”

  “Because then you’ll have no doubt I really was the one responsible for that.” He pointed to the tree where the incriminating evidence attributed to him was. “Isn’t that what you were going to say?”

  She pulled in a deep breath. “No, not at all. If you hadn’t been spitting fire yesterday and put me on the defensive, I might have shed some light on why my work is affecting yours across the state line, even aside from the possibility of two burial sites.”

  “So, tell me now.”

  “Since the human remains and artifacts are Choctaw, a tribe originating in Southwestern Mississippi, even aside from reciprocity, Mississippi would naturally want to do whatever it could to facilitate the dig.

  “If our findings do necessitate crossing the Louisiana state line, then Mississippi archaeologists and other Mississippi state personnel will be working side by side with us. We’ve been in touch with them from the start.”

  Beck’s brows lifted. “So?”

  “How far away is your work site?”

  “Proposed work site. A little more than a mile from here, give or take a few hundred feet. Why?”

  “Because in a situation where the possibility of a burial site exists, it’s common to keep an area of one square mile clear of any other activity. Until the digging actually begins, we don’t know in which direction to proceed.”

  “You mean, give or take a few hundred feet, the possibility exists my construction site might not have interfered with what you’re doing?”

  She nodded. “It’s possible.”

  He kicked a fallen tree limb with the toe of his boot and sent it flying a few feet in the air. “Of all the fuckin’ luck.”

  Alex yanked the cap out of her back pocket and jammed it on her head without bothering to first lift her hair. She raised her head only enough to see beneath the bill of the cap. “Obviously, you’re still very upset, and from what you’ve told me, I don’t blame you. But since you’ve received an answer for at least one of your questions, you can congratulate yourself on not making the trip out here for nothing.”

  He frowned. “Now who’s being rude?”

  She lowered her gaze.

  He held his ground. “You haven’t accepted my apology yet, professor. Or my invitation to dinner.”

  She studied a clump of weeds at her feet and stepped to the side when she noticed a nest of fire ants nearby. “I really do have to get home.” She looked up. “And most people call me Alex.”

  “Okay, Alex. There’s always tomorrow. Figuratively speaking, of course. When are you coming back?”

  She really shouldn’t be having this conversation but answered him anyway. “Midweek.”

  “How long will you be staying once you get back?”

  “If I get everything squared away at the University, except for one trip back home, I should be here for at least a month. Until Doctor French can take over.” She gave him a brief explanation about the circumstances surrounding her temporary position here at the site. “This situation is difficult for me, too,” she said, unable to keep the edge off her words. “I have plans that had to be postponed. I should be preparing to leave for Arkansas right about now.”

  “Why Arkansas?”

  The question was personal, but for some unexplainable reason, she didn’t mind answering it. “A colleague and I are writing an article for a national archaeological magazine. We’re also writing a textbook together. Before this dig materialized, my plans were to spend the entire summer with him in Arkansas. The most I can hope for now is two months. Until then, my colleague must work alone.”

  She couldn’t repress a smile as she recalled Jeremy’s words when she’d told him she’d lose a month with him. “It’ll cost you six meatball and spaghetti dinners,” he’d warned. Since graduate school, she and Jeremy had this ongoing battle as to who made the best meatballs. They’d been forced to do most of their own cooking—he, out of necessity, and she, out of defiance against all the money her parents tried to force on her.

  Beck put his hand on her arm.

  The touch was casual, yet it conveyed an intimacy that set her insides fluttering. Thoughts of Jeremy and Arkansas quickly fled. Uncomfortable with her own reaction, she lifted her shoulder and shrugged her arm free.

  Still, they continued to look at each other without speaking for a few long seconds before Beck broke the silence. “If you might leave for the rest of the summer, then you really should have dinner with me soon. Why don’t I check back toward the end of next week?”

  She shouldn’t let him think she was interested in dinner, or in him. “I don’t know…”

  “I insist. And besides, I’d like to know more about what’s going on here. For one thing,” he said, looking over his shoulder, “I’m curious about all those squares being marked off over there.”

  “They’re called excavation units. That’s the method we use to keep track of what we find and where we found it.”

  He turned back to face her again. “H how do you know when you find the real thing?”

  Somehow, she had the feeling he wasn’t just talking about archaeological discoveries, and if she was right, she didn’t want to think any deeper about it. Maybe if she focused on his ears or his receding hairline, instead of his dark brown eyes, she could keep things on a professional level. “I could get you a book to read.” She was crazy to make such an offer. Now she’d given him more reason to stay in touch.

  They started walking, and suddenly they were at the end
of the field beside his truck. He started to open the door but stopped and turned back. “How about a guided tour? I always did learn much faster by doing than by reading.”

  He was out to charm her with his smile again. And she was finding him hard to resist. His particular kind of charisma wasn’t the only thing she found attractive. She was also attracted to his gruff exterior that seemed designed to hide a more sensitive nature. He reminded her of a dog with a loud bark who would roll over in an instant just to have his belly scratched. Alex groaned inwardly at the image. She definitely didn’t want to go there. “Check with me next week,” she said, watching Beck open the door and hop into the cab of the truck, “and we’ll talk about it then.”

  By next week, she was certain he would have had his conversation with whoever messed up his plans. When he realized she couldn’t help him, he’d likely be off working on another deal. Pulling the cap lower on her head, she headed back to the site as his truck sped away.

  The crew was just about at the end of their lunch break when she reached them. They were all together except for Kent, who was off by himself leaning against a tree, watching her.

  Alex headed toward him. “Before you give me a lecture, you can stop worrying about our unwelcome visitor. I doubt seriously he’ll be back again.”

  She hoped with every fiber of her being she was right. She closed her eyes, lowered her shoulders, and let out a long, slow stream of air. Did she really mean that, or was she just kidding herself?

  ****

  After he left Alex, Beck drove the speed limit across the state line to the portable office building he shared with Ned Hunter in Mississippi. His truck screeched to a halt within a foot of the cement steps, and the truck’s engine had barely died before he threw open the office door. He headed straight for Ned’s desk.

  “You stupid son of a bitch, why’d you have to start some shit out there? Couldn’t you just wait until I got a better handle on this situation before you put us in a position to have the goddamned State of Louisiana on our backs?” He tossed his sunglasses and the pack of mail he’d picked up from the post office box on top of the desk facing Ned’s.