Excavated

by Noelle Adams

  Then, to his surprise, her mouth twitched. “Sounds kind of boring.”

  He resisted the urge to laugh in response. “It’s that or sloppy kisses.”

  Now she was peering at him, scrutinizing him, and her gaze left him feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable.

  “You didn’t know me at all back then, and you obviously don’t know me now. You haven’t even apologized for the right thing.” She shook her head with a sigh.

  He choked on a knot of frustration. “Then tell me what I should apologize for. That was the only time that year that I treated you inappropriately.”

  She laughed. Soft and bitter. “You say you’ve changed, but other than your job and your clothes, I see no evidence. Still the same old Wentworth. Good night, Philip.”

  Before he could even process the words, she’d walked into her room and closed the door on his face.

  He swallowed over his impatience and went through the other door of the trailer to his office.

  He sat down in front of his computer and looked around at the small room. Most of the surfaces were stacked with papers and books, except the long table against the far wall that held some of the excavated artifacts. He used to keep his mom’s campaign headquarters perfectly organized, perfectly neat. He’d done everything that was required of him—and then some.

  Why Lucy couldn’t see how much he’d changed was a mystery, since it was glaringly obvious.

  He tried to focus on clearing out some email, but he kept hearing her move around in the room next door. Then he heard her talking. Since he heard no second person, he assumed she was on the phone or Skype.

  Certainly, it was rude to listen in on her phone conversation. He had no other choice, however, unless he left the trailer completely.

  He didn’t leave.

  After a few minutes, he figured out she must be talking to an old boyfriend or ex-husband. She was arguing with him over custody of Arthur.

  She didn’t snap at the man the way she’d snapped at Philip. She sounded weary but patient as she explained the dog had always belonged to her and he wasn’t going to get any money from her that way.

  He heard her say goodbye. Then he heard her say, “Idiot.”

  He assumed she’d said that after she hung up.

  A few minutes later, he heard the bed in her room shift. It was right next to the wall—as small and Spartan as the rest of the furniture in the bedroom.

  He sat in silence, staring blankly at his computer screen, hearing the squeaking of the springs as she must be turning and repositioning on the bed. He heard a loud sigh, almost a moan.

  It wasn't sexual—he was sure—just the normal sound of a person trying to relax, trying to sleep. But his body tightened immediately anyway.

  He’d worked hard that year to suppress his attraction for Lucy, since there were too many reasons why it wouldn’t be right to pursue it. He was obviously still attracted to her, but it wasn’t the kind of attraction he was used to experiencing.

  He couldn’t enjoy the thought of her soft, supple body under the covers of his bed, relaxing the tension of the day and easing into sleep, because he was so unsettled by memories, by defensiveness, by her irrational indictment of him.

  He’d been rude, yes. But not anything worse than she must deal with all the time from archeologists who didn’t approve or appreciate her line of work.

  Other than that kiss, he’d done nothing to deserve the resentment she evidently still felt for him. In fact, he’d given up a lot to make sure he hadn’t taken advantage of her.

  He stood up and got ready for bed, making sure he made as little noise as possible, since he was uncomfortable with the idea of Lucy overhearing. Then he stretched out on the old sofa to sleep.

  Philip had worked too hard for too long to let Lucy rattle him this way.

  He was different now. Stronger. More settled. More focused.

  Lucy wasn’t going to get under his skin again.

  ***

  Lucy had just gotten to sleep when she was awakened by an eerie sound.

  Her eyes popped open as she tried to process it. As soon as she did, she threw on a sweatshirt over her pajamas and ran outside the trailer.

  The sound was still there—half howl, half whistle—but she couldn’t identify where it was coming from.

  She heard the other door of the trailer open and knew Philip must have stepped out too, but she didn’t turn to look at him.

  Instead, her eyes landed on strange moving lights in the distance near the henge and barrow.

  That was when she knew exactly what was going on.

  She couldn’t locate the sound, but she watched the lights, trying to line up the angles so she could discover their point of origin. She was able to make a pretty good guess when she saw a lone boulder set apart from the others, so she walked toward it.

  Sure enough, as soon as she reached the far side, she found two of the graduate students crouched behind it. One had three different sized flashlights, and the other had some sort of homemade metal cone that she was howling through to make the strange noise.

  When they saw they’d been found out, Lucy arched her eyebrows.

  They both laughed sheepishly, and the male student stood up. “Damn. That didn’t work too well.”

  “Did you think I’d grab the camera and start documenting concrete evidence of a haunting?”

  He shrugged with a crooked grin. “Just a joke. Figured it was worth a try. It worked on someone else who came out last year. That was such a funny night.”

  Lucy knew Philip had followed her over. She could feel him behind her. She spoke as much to him as to the grad students. “I’ve seen much better attempts at manufacturing the supernatural. I’m pretty good at spotting fakes.”

  The female student stood up too and gave a Lucy a smile. “I hope there’s no hard feelings.”

  Lucy smiled back. There was absolutely no sense in getting annoyed at something like this. They were young. They thought it would be fun. They didn’t know her at all. “Of course not.”

  She turned around then to start back toward the trailer, and Philip fell in step with her.

  Now that she looked at him, she realized he wore nothing but a pair of pants he must have just thrown on. She wondered if he just slept in his underwear.

  His chest was cleanly contoured and impressive in the half-light of the night, and she looked away from it when she was hit by a wave of carnal yearning, the desire to feel his chest, to press up against it.

  “I assume you had nothing to do with that,” she said, nodding back toward the graduate students, who were walking back too, at a slower pace.

  “What do you think?” The words were cool, and they were the first thing he’d spoken since he left his trailer.

  “I think it’s unlikely. Practical jokes don’t really seem to be your thing.”

  “No.”

  “In fact, levity of any kind doesn’t seem to be your thing.”

  She felt him stiffen beside her. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing to get uptight about. Just that having fun doesn’t seem to be high on your priority list.”

  “I enjoy my job.” His eyes narrowed on her face.

  “I’m sure you do. I mean other kinds of fun. When was the last time you had a vacation?”

  He gave a half-shrug, which was answer enough.

  “When was the last time you went to a party?”

  “I don’t like parties.”

  “Yeah. I’m not surprised.” She had no idea what was compelling her to push like this, but she wanted to rile Philip up, knock him out of his cool composure. He’d been kind of like that when she first met him on the campaign—sober, always professional—but gradually she’d been able to soften him. “When was the last time you got laid?”

  He eyed her coolly, his jaw tight. But his tone was natural when he asked, “When was the last time you got laid?”

  “It’s been over six months for me,” she admitted. “So it�
�s not like I’m holding myself up as a model for sexual superfluity, but even I’m not wound as tightly as you. I bet you’ve never been in a long-term relationship, have you?”

  “I’ve been married twice.”

  The words shocked her, and she stopped walking, not far from the trailer. “Really? What happened?”

  “Why do you assume I’m going to share personal information with you, after not having seen you in fourteen years?”

  She gave him a half-smile. “Why not? If you ask me a personal question, I’ll answer it. I’ve been married once and engaged—“

  “Three times. I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Believe it or not, I’m capable of doing a Google search.”

  “So you’ve been checking me out this evening, have you?”

  Beyond the coolness of his expression, she started to see a gleam of something that felt familiar—something warm and alive and damned sexy. It intensified as he said, “I always do my research.”

  “You didn’t before I got here.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in an almost smug expression. “I always do my research on things that are of interest to me. You weren’t of interest to me before.”

  Her eyes lowered to his chest. His shoulders were broad, and the bare curve of them was strangely irresistible—like she needed to trace them with her fingers, with her mouth. Her cheeks flushed slightly at the physical response from imagining doing so. “So I’m of interest to you now?”

  “Didn’t you Google me?” he asked.

  It didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t answered her question. “Yeah,” she admitted. “But not much turned up except academic papers you’ve presented at conferences. Like I said before, levity isn’t really your thing.”

  “If, by levity, you mean childish practical jokes, then I would agree with that assessment.”

  She snorted with amusement at his smug tone. Then wished she hadn’t, since it gave him a kind of victory. “So what did happen with your wives? Did you get bored and move on to greener pastures?”

  His expression changed, and the light went out of his eyes. “No.”

  She dropped her gaze. “Sorry.” Then she glanced up at him again, checking his expression. “So they left you?”

  He let out a breath, as if giving up his resistance. “I left them, after I discovered they were cheating.”

  “Both of them?” She was surprised. Philip was gorgeous and brilliant and sexy. She couldn’t believe two different women would have been unfaithful to him. “You sure know how to pick them, I guess.”

  “I haven’t been known to be the best judge of female character.” His tone was wry now, and he didn’t sound defensive or resentful, which was a relief.

  “Sounds like it. But that’s no reason for never having fun.”

  “My job is the thing I enjoy the most. I’m not as deprived as you make me sound.”

  She peered at him, wondering if that was true, wondering if he genuinely loved life, even though he never indulged in normal things that gave most people enjoyment.

  He shifted from foot to foot, as if her observation made him uncomfortable. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What happened to end all your relationships?”

  She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. They just didn’t work out. No one cheated or anything.”

  “Why didn’t they work out? You were the one who ended them. You must have had a reason.”

  He was pushing, and it was partly in retaliation for the way she’d been pushing him. Since she deserved it, she didn’t immediately close down the conversation, which was her initial inclination. “It just became clear that it wasn’t going to work for the long-haul. Better to end it early than to end it much further in.”

  “So it’s not marriage itself that you’re afraid of?” His tone sounded vaguely skeptical, as if he didn’t believe it was so.

  “No, it’s not marriage. I’d like to be married. I’d like to find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I just haven’t found the right guy.”

  “Okay.” He sounded mild, but his eyes were very sharp, very observant. She had no idea what they might see.

  Deciding that this conversation had gone on long enough, she turned to walk into her room of the trailer. “I better get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.”

  She opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind her, and she knew Philip was standing there watching until she was out of sight.

  Three

  Early the next morning, Lucy leaned against a stool near the excavation site, taking notes as Philip talked. She was genuinely interested in the history of the island, and she needed detailed background to do a good job on this episode.

  So she tried not to think about how attractive and masculine Philip looked in the bright morning sun.

  He was going to look really good on camera, especially if she could get him to take off his hat while they filmed him. With the distinct golden-brown of his hair and his striking blue eyes against his tanned skin—not to mention his lean, strong body—she’d have girls writing in by the hundreds, raving over the sexy archeologist and begging her to have him on the show again.

  He’d probably be bombarded with fan mail himself. She was quite sure he had no idea what he was in for after this episode went online.

  At the moment, he appeared completely unaware of his physical appeal. He wore a shirt that wasn’t yet wrinkled, but the sleeves were already pushed up to his elbows, like they were getting in his way. His attention was entirely absorbed by the island, which was clearly the most important thing in his life.

  He explained the millennia-long history of the island, starting with the latest and going backward through the layers of civilization he and his team had unearthed so far.

  “We don’t know how far back the settlements here go,” he concluded, staring out at the trenches and standing stones. “But I’m thinking we’ll have a thousand years of history represented when we get to the earliest layer. At least as far back as 3000 BC.”

  “So the history is contemporaneous to Brodgar?”

  “Roughly, yes. Although I think Erland might have been settled even earlier.”

  Lucy raised her eyebrows. “What’s your evidence for that?”

  Philip gave her a look she well remembered—a cool, slightly impatient expression that implied she was being exasperating but he wasn’t interested enough to get genuinely angry about it. “No concrete evidence yet. As I said, we haven’t yet excavated the earliest layers.”

  “So it’s just your gut feeling.” She added one more line to the notes she’d been taking earlier.

  “Not gut feeling. Informed, professional conjecture.” His vaguely exasperated look transformed into full-fledged annoyance.

  Irrationally, she liked that she’d rattled him. He still had the habit of projecting perfectly cool composure, and she was glad he wasn’t as unflappable as he liked to appear. She focused down on her notes, hiding a slight smile with her hair.

  She must not have hidden it well enough.

  “I’d appreciate knowing,” Philip said, his voice colder now, “if you’re planning to skew my responses in order to make me look like some kind of a flake or quack on your little ghost show.”

  Her private amusement vanished in a wave of resentment. “If you’d ever watched my 'little ghost show,’” she snapped, “You would see that I never make someone appear other than they are. If an archeologist is informed and professional, then that’s how you’ll appear on my show. If you’re a flake or a quack, then that’s the way you’re going to come across.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, his blue eyes flashing anger, but then he closed it with obvious effort. He glanced away, clearly trying to control his response.

  When he looked back at her, he was cool and distant again. “It may be difficult to see at first, but to the left here was a fairly large building we believe
was used for ceremonial purposes. The henge would have been erected later, probably to mark the significance of this site in religious ceremonies.”

  Lucy would have preferred Philip to just say what he thought rather than hold it back this way. She preferred him last night when he’d come out and confronted her about the conflict between them.

  But both last night and this morning had both proved one thing to Lucy.

  She’d never been important enough to him to even recognize how he’d hurt her.

  It was fine. It was too many years in the past now. She just needed to put up with Philip for a week or two, and then he’d be out of her life forever.

  So she cleared her mind of everything except her task on this island. “Have you found any evidence for what kind of ceremonial practices were performed here?”

  ***

  She spent the morning following Philip around, taking notes and listening to his explanations about the different archeological features of the island and its Neolithic history.

  In the afternoon, she conferenced with Dana and Sawyer to discuss how best to proceed with the shooting—what to focus on, what to film, and the most effective approach to making the location engaging, exciting, and informative.

  Despite her conflicted feelings for Philip, Lucy was excited about the site and the episode. It had been a long time since she’d found a location that was so rich with potential and so unknown to the wider world.

  After they’d put together a general plan for the episode, she made calls for a couple of hours, filling in the experts Dana had lined up with what she needed from them and then trying to talk Michael McPherson into leaving his reclusion and ferrying over to the island for an afternoon to film some segments on Orkney lore.

  She’d gotten a tentative “yes” when she finally hung up.

  She was tired and kind of restless. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon, so she should probably rest some now. She would need to work late that night, making final decisions with Sawyer about what and where to do the filming.

  But she couldn’t relax, so she left the trailer and glanced around to see what everyone else was doing. She couldn’t see Dana and Sawyer, so she assumed they were in their room “resting,” which was what they usually did in the late afternoons. The grad students were gathered around a fold-up table near the trailers, evidently working on cleaning and cataloging the artifacts they’d dug up that morning.