by Meg Ripley
No, that would never work. I picked up my phone and called my program advisor.
“We have a bit of a situation,” I explained to her. I told her about Julian’s name being incorrect on the paperwork.
“I do see that,” she confirmed. “What a mix up.”
I chuckled. “I’ll say. I knew we could get this straightened out.”
“Well…” I could hear her keys clicking through the phone. “I do have someone in line for the program who is definitely female.”
“Perfect.”
“However,” she continued, “she is in classes this semester, finishing her coursework.”
My stomach dropped. “There’s no one else?”
“Everyone has been assigned already, I’m afraid. And anyone who hasn’t would be enrolled in classes. I’m terribly sorry about this. We’ll understand if you’d like to wait a semester to be partnered with a female.”
Wait a semester? And do what, just hang out for months, waiting for a new partner, waiting to start my life? “No, I can’t do that. I’ll just deal with it and hope this doesn’t cause...problems.”
“Well, if it does, be sure to call me. There’s no room for unacceptable behavior, just because you’re not on campus. Both of you must represent Harvard well.”
“I want nothing more. Thank you.”
I hung up, but my stomach hadn’t settled. I didn’t like the idea of working closely with a man. And the fact that he was attractive and had already flirted with me made it even worse. I’d have to keep my focus and not let him or anything else get in my way.
2
Sawyer
I drove down the same dirt and gravel road that I took every day to get to work. My truck, a black Silverado, bounced along, but handled the rocks and bumps so well that I barely noticed. It was a few minutes before 8 a.m., and it felt like I was racing the sun to see who got to work first. Bright orange rays reached me between trees and rock formations in the distance. I made my favorite turn and got a full open view of the park’s highest point, Emory Peak, for a moment before another rock formation blocked it from my sight.
I pulled up to the Ranger station that I managed and headed inside. It wasn’t a big station in particular; only about six or so Rangers worked out of it. The park had many other stations, and we all worked together to form a bigger team. My job ended up being a little bit of everything, depending on what the day called for.
I picked up the stack of paperwork that the office administrator left for me and reviewed the less urgent requests for the day. There wasn’t much pressing; just some maintenance tasks and tours that needed to be planned. Most of the work would be assigned to the others, but one task would have to be handled differently.
Two female students were coming to start a paleontological dig at the park. That would normally be something I took care of, but since they were both female, I thought they might be more comfortable with a female Ranger to assist them. I made several calls and left a few messages, but time was running out, and so far, I had no one else to assist them besides me.
One thing had been made clear to me through the notice I received from my regional manager. The dig was a big deal, and we were to treat these students and the dig as a top priority. It would create a lot of positive attention for the park, and we needed that to keep people coming in. But that also meant that whoever took on the job would be very busy for several months. The hour drew near for the students to arrive and I still had no female Ranger who was available.
When I heard two car doors shut, I knew they’d arrived. I waved to them and squinted against the sun as I held the door open. Once inside with the door closed, I was surprised at what I saw. My heart skipped, and I felt my inner bear stir with desire. I swallowed hard and tried to regain myself, but one of the students was gorgeous; maybe the most captivating woman I’d ever seen in my life.
The other student also caught me off guard—but only because he was male.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought two females were coming.”
“There was a mix up with the paperwork,” the male said. “They had me listed as Julia, but my name’s Julian. Julian Kensington the fourth, to be precise.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it, but I immediately felt the urge to wipe my hand after touching him. I wouldn’t want his cockiness to rub off on me somehow.
“Then I guess I don’t have to worry that I was unable to find a female Ranger to assist you. I made several calls, but I haven’t heard anything back, and well, here you are. I can keep trying if that would be more comfortable for you. I can probably find someone within the next few days, and she could take my place,” I said to the woman. Am I rambling? Gol-ly, she has me frazzled.
“I don’t know that I’d mind a female Ranger,” Julian said with a sly smile.
“You don’t have to go to any more trouble,” she said. “I’m fine with whomever is available.”
Oh, she is fine, indeed. And I’m more than fine with being the one to work closely with her for a few months. “I’m Sawyer Montgomery.” I held out my hand to her. “Howdy.”
“Madelyn Sutton.” As she shook my hand, I didn’t want to let go.
I looked into her big, brown eyes and completely forgot what I was going to say. She stared at me back, though, and we both blushed.
I had to look away to recall my words. “Do either of you have any questions before we get out to the dig site?”
“What sort of heavy equipment you have?” Madelyn asked. “We may need to do some excavating of the site.”
“We have a shed of tools that you’ll have access to, and a backhoe has been rented, so whatever you need, just let me know, and I’ll move the Earth for you.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I looked away quickly and hoped they assumed I meant earth as in dirt.
“That’s perfect.” Madelyn pressed her lips together, holding back a smile. Her cheeks reddened as she looked away.
In my chest, my inner bear was going nuts, telling me I could not let this woman get away. She was like a magnet drawing me to her.
I decided to just lead them outside and hope the fresh air kept me straight. I gave them the keys to the ATV they’d been assigned for the duration of their time at the park. I hopped into the big Jeep that was part of the station’s vehicle collection and had them follow me over to the dig site.
Okay, Sawyer, get your act together, man. It’s just a woman. But I’d never had a response like that to a woman before. Sure, I’d dated plenty; I’d even fallen in love once or twice. But when I met Madelyn, my reaction was something entirely different. The animal in me roared as if he were sending out a mating call. I almost missed the turn, I was so tangled in my thoughts of her.
But finally, we got to the dig site. I just had to find a way to function and stop thinking about Madelyn. Then a thought occurred to me: what if they were together, her and Julian? I couldn’t see her with that pretentious jerk, but sometimes women were drawn to men who treated them badly. I hoped not. For her sake and mine.
* * *
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Shifters Between Worlds
1
Kaylee Turner shifted uncomfortably in her narrow seat. Usually, she saw these international flights as the perfect time for reading and research. While other passengers complained of boredom, air sickness and cramped conditions, Kaylee was content to lose herself in a good book or an essay from her field of study.
But that wasn’t the case
today.
Turning and pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the window, Kaylee studied the land formations below. She’d found that every country—and every state, even—looked a little different. She’d been on so many flights, she’d started to recognize them from the air, even before the captain would announce where they were in a thick accent over the speaker. This time, she was heading into Zimbabwe, which meant she wouldn’t get to see much of it from the air. The airport was on the western edge of the country, and the site she’d be visiting was much further east.
Even so, she scanned the hot, dry earth below her. Deep inside, Kaylee sensed she was looking for something. She’d always felt that way, and she would continue her pursuit when she landed and traveled across the country in a vehicle. Her search had been constant for most of her life, though she never quite knew what she was looking for.
That was what had inspired her career—that and her love for books and languages, which her father helped foster ever since she was a baby. Kaylee was always reading, and not always in her first language. She had a gift for words, one that she couldn’t explain any more than her yearning for finding that missing something. She took in everything below her, longing to feel some sort of connection to it. She’d been born on this planet. She’d been a part of it for her entire life, yet she never felt that way. The disconnection left her with an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach.
* * *
“I trust you had good travels?” Dr. Morrick clasped her hand in both of his, his fingers warm and worn as he greeted her near the entrance of the Great Zimbabwe. Releasing her, he pushed his dark glasses up on his nose and ran a hand over his slick, gray hair. His pale, skinny legs stuck out of his baggy khaki shorts, and his matching safari shirt was soaked with sweat.
“It gave me the chance to get a lot of work done,” she admitted with a smile. Kaylee had always liked Dr. Morrick. He’d been one of her first archeology professors, and his enthusiasm had helped her find her own passion.
He tipped his head to the side and frowned a little. “Are you all right? You’re not unwell, are you? I’ve heard the airplane food is quite terrible these days.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.” Kaylee scrunched her toes inside her boots, wishing she could take them off and rest her bare feet against the hot soil beneath her. The sun baked them where they stood, and it was clearly making Dr. Morrick uncomfortable. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his rounded cheeks, no matter how quickly he swiped them away with a handkerchief. To Kaylee, it was a glorious heat that sank through her skin and down to her bones, something she would carry with her once she got back on a plane in a few days. She would miss it when she returned to the chilly weather back home.
Dr. Morrick smiled. “That can be fixed. I’ve set you up in one of the nicest hotels in the area. No sleeping out on the ground for the best translator in the world!”
Kaylee flushed as she followed him down a dirt pathway. It had been carved by thousands of feet, traveling amongst the crumbling stone walls that had once housed numerous people. While some parts of the ruins were remarkably preserved due to the masterful masons who had once built them, there were others that had been reduced to nothing but piles of perfectly shaped granite bricks. “You don’t have to say that just because I’m right here.”
“I don’t have to say anything; that’s true. But I don’t think either one of us can deny that you’re at the forefront of our industry. People talk about you, my dear.”
“I’m not sure it’s always in a good way.” The curving walls of the Great Enclosure rose up in front of them, and Kaylee felt an immediate appreciation for the site. It spoke of ancient people, lost religions and stories that spanned centuries. Archeologists would never truly know everything about the Great Zimbabwe, a monument so stunning that an entire country was named after it, but it was still a lot of fun to guess.
Dr. Morrick reverently touched the stone walls that framed a doorway. “Don’t take any of that to heart. They’re just intimidated by you. Some of them have studied for decades and yet they can’t decode the way you can. They don’t think that a young woman such as yourself should be able to hold so much genius in her brain. Sexist, I know, but old ways die hard.”
“Or they die without a single explanation of why.” Kaylee had read everything she could get her hands on about this ancient site as soon as she’d received the request from Dr. Morrick to come out there. She’d been excited both to work with her mentor and to see a new place, but as soon as she’d begun packing her bag, she started to realize the reality of it. She could handle the rigors of airport security, even when it involved flying to a different country. She could handle living out of a small suitcase for a week. She could even handle the inevitable change in diet.
But she knew the worst of it was yet to come.
“Perhaps you can help uncover a few of her secrets,” Dr. Morrick replied hopefully. He led her into a circular stone wall and past several other structures, all built of the same stone. They reached another doorway, and upon entering it, descended down a set of stairs that had been freshly uncovered from the earth. “As I said in my email, we’ve only just recently uncovered this new chamber. It’s been quite exciting for us, as I’m sure you can imagine. These new technologies that keep popping up are hard to keep up with, yet they’re always giving us new information about old sites. I love it. Anyway, we’ve found a tablet we’d like you to interpret for us.”
“Has anyone else had a go at it?” The steps beneath her were still slick with the dirt that had been covering them for centuries, but Kaylee confidently made her way down them. She glanced up from her footsteps to see that a vast underground cavern had been dug out of the dirt. LED lights on strands had been set up at intervals, run by a generator that grumbled to itself somewhere above them. Several other rooms extended off the one they were in with more glowing lights emanating from them.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to her, a look of concern in his houndlike eyes. “Well, Dr. Atwood is here.”
Kaylee’s heart, which had been fluttering somewhere between excitement and anticipation, now dropped into a solid state of dread. She knew how Dr. Atwood felt about her, but then again, he’d made no attempt to hide it. She raised one eyebrow. “And did he have any success?”
Dr. Morrick’s mouth was a hard line. “Not exactly, although he claims he’ll have all the answers very shortly. I should tell you he was rather offended that I called anyone else in on this project. You know how he is, always thinking he’s the end-all, be-all of any given situation. I never would’ve brought him on except that his connections with the local university helped me get the permission to dig here in the first place. Besides, I know you have a lot going on while you finish up your degree. Tell me, were you able to make sufficient arrangements with your professors?”
That had been the very first thing Kaylee had done when she’d received Dr. Morrick’s invitation, and her teachers had been happy to accommodate her. Knowing where she was going and why had only made it easier. “Of course. I’ll have a few things to catch up on once I get back, but it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Good, good. Then let’s get started.” Dr. Morrick strode confidently across the dirt floor and through a doorway. While the first room at the bottom of the stairs had been fairly nondescript, this one was most definitely a library of some sort. The wall across from the doorway was covered in ancient scripts that had been preserved by centuries underground and away from the elements. A u-shaped assemblage of stone seemed to form a seating area in the center of the room, and shelves had been carved into the other walls. Each of these held thick sheaves of primitive paper, ancient wooden boxes, and stacks of stone tablets.
“It’s beautiful,” Kaylee breathed, immediately intrigued by the amount of knowledge they might find there. Even if these writings were nothing more than diaries or recipes, they would certainly give the scientists some definitive insig
ht into the lives of the people who’d once occupied these spaces.
“I thought so, too,” Dr. Morrick said proudly, his chin rising slightly. “I assure you, the other rooms here are wonderful, but none are as fascinating as this one. Oh, where are my manners? I believe you know Dr. Parkinson?”
A slender older woman with graying blonde hair stood up from where she’d been crouched on the floor, gently flicking dirt away from a small statue with a paintbrush. She extended her hand and smiled warmly. “So nice to see you again, Miss Turner.”
“And you know I never leave the country without my partner in crime, Dr. Davison.” Morrick gestured to a man who turned away from the stone shelves to approach them, a fine coat of dust clinging to his salt and pepper beard.
“No need to be so formal, Douglas. Call me Jonathan. I’ve heard so much about you that I’m starting to think Dr. Morrick here is thinking about adopting you.” He shook her hand as well.
Kaylee felt a little better. Maybe she didn’t need to dread this trip at all if there were such good people there. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you, too.”
“Only good stories, I hope?” Jonathan raised a furry gray eyebrow at his partner.
“Mostly,” Kaylee replied with a smile.
“Oh, she’s here.” This voice came from the doorway, and Kaylee turned to see a rather rotund man filling it. His dark hair had been slicked back and held in place with either gel, sweat, or a mixture of the two. Overdressed for the occasion, he’d eschewed the traditional garb of khakis and shorts for a dark suit. He made a disgusted face as he swept a bit of dust off the sleeve of his jacket.