Chapter 26 #2
“There’s no reason for anyone to suspect we’re investigating Will. If anything, they’ll think I’m trying to lure you back to the ivory tower.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Actually, no. Charlie knows what we’re doing, thanks to me. And I bet both Charlie and J.D. think we’re sleeping together and I’m leveraging your connections.”
“Obviously, you’re neither leveraging my connections nor sleeping with me,” he says a little testily.
“That second bit is only true in a strictly semantic sense, James.”
“This is science, Ripley. Semantics matter. And for what reason would you care what they think? You keep telling me you’ll never come back to your PhD.”
“It matters for you,” Ripley says. “For your reputation.” For us, she thinks.
For the faint hope of his I’m not saying never.
She can’t move away from her dad while he’s still living, but she’s thought about visiting James at Oxford someday.
Would he defend her profession to his scornful colleagues and snooty family?
Is there room for her in the place he calls home?
“My reputation can withstand criticism. I’m not currently doing anything wrong.”
Her heart sinks. “Right. The conflict-of-interest form.”
“Precisely. The only reason for you to care about gossip is if you want to come back to academia.” He leans toward her. “Do you ever miss it, Ripley?”
She snorts. “Of course I do.”
He sits back, surprised. Ripley catches a tendril of air that smells the way James tasted last night, earthy and a little sweet.
“What?” she says, trying not to inhale him too obviously. “Did you think I’d say no and then you could call me on the lie?”
“I certainly didn’t expect you to say yes.” It’s a little painful how much she likes the way a smile turns his voice rich and spicy.
“Well, it’s true. I miss being in a group of learners. Having experts to ask for advice when I get stuck. Debating my peers as a way to think deeply about something I love.”
“Would you want to go back? Real-world considerations aside.”
Real world. The world they’re going back to. Not the world they’re leaving, the one where he looks down at her and growls, You need me to give this to you.
“Sometimes I wish I’d finished what I started, especially because my dad didn’t get to do that. Other times, academia feels like a reality show. The constant fear of getting eliminated tempts good people to do bad things. And bad people to do anything,” she adds, thinking of Will.
She chances a glance at James as they enter the switchbacks up the side of the valley. He’s got his hand over his jaw, one finger hooked across his lips, thinking. In the golden prairie sunshine, he glows like a piece of amber under a jeweler’s light, even with the shadows under his fractal eyes.
“If you don’t want redemption, what do you want?” he asks.
“I never said I didn’t want redemption. I just want it on my own terms.”
“And those are?”
He does not give up. “All right, Professor. If we’re doing career counseling, then I want to contribute something to paleontology.
Earn my place here so no one can say I don’t deserve to do the thing I love for the rest of my life.
I want to get credit for my work, not lose it to people who see me as a stone to step on.
Hell, let’s give me my own company. I could make an alternative to academia for people like Cara and me. ”
“And Beauty is the key to all of those things,” he says, sounding troubled. “I hope you don’t think everyone who tries to get close to you is out to steal something, Ripley.”
“There are exceptions.” She wishes he would touch her right now.
Lay his hand on her thigh the way he put it on her shoulder at the museum.
Let her feel how much it costs him to hold himself back.
But with every turn, she can see more of the skyline of the real world up ahead, and she knows he won’t.
“What do you want, James? Ideal world—where’s your career going?” She glances at the uneasy line that’s settling between his brows. They’re almost to the top of the valley now.
“I don’t know,” he replies finally, a flicker of disquiet in his tone.
“You should probably try to figure that out,” she says as neutrally as she can.
“I’m sure I will,” he says, sounding like a man who’s the obvious choice to lead the theropod stream at the world’s largest paleontology conference.
They emerge from the valley, the spell of the Badlands dissolving like clouds under the Montana sun.
She’s been violating all her rules. She’s too far away from her fossils, too close to James. He said it himself not two minutes ago: Beauty is the key to everything she wants.
It’s time to refocus on her priorities. If she has to be back in the real world, then she wants to be at her dig, where things make sense. “You okay going a bit faster?”
He frowns as if he’s taking an internal inventory. His fingers drift to his pocket, then his ring. “I think I’m…all right, actually.”
“Good. Let me know if anything changes.”
She lets the speedometer creep up. Beauty is all she has, and the only way she can stop Will is by getting back to Clever Girl and getting her bones out of the ground.