Chapter 27
Forty-Nine Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
When Ripley gets back from the post office on Friday night, the sun is well below the horizon. She pulls her jeep up beside its companion in their makeshift parking lot, and a tall figure unwinds from a folding chair and heads her way with quick, indignant steps.
“Hi,” she calls, pretending she can’t tell whether it’s Griff or James.
Even with the faint western light turning him into a dark outline against the last piece of blue sky, she can identify the prep-school set of those shoulders, the sharp angles of his body where the breeze molds the technical fabric of his shirt from neck to waist, the dip and rise of his chin when he glances at the ground and then back up.
She wonders when he picked up that habit of checking himself before joining a conversation.
“I thought the vehicles were supposed to be off-limits after dark.” James’s voice is low, with a bit of a snap.
Ripley doesn’t love driving at night out here. It’s all too easy to lose the road and end up axle-deep in sandy soil or tangle with the plentiful nocturnal wildlife. She didn’t catch any glowing eyes in her headlights tonight, but fifteen more minutes and she might have.
“It’s a loose rule.”
“Nevertheless, you should have been back ninety minutes ago.”
Ripley raises her eyebrows. “The package wasn’t at the big house, so I made a run to the post office.
” She also spent a long five minutes in the family-planning aisle at the pharmacy.
She had no reason to stand there staring at the condoms. For one thing, she’s on continuous birth control so she doesn’t get her period on the dig.
For another, there’s the small matter of James not wanting to have sex with her. Or have anything else with her.
She bought them anyway, feeling ridiculous. Maybe Cara will need some.
“The post office closed hours ago.”
“Geraldine invited me for a cup of tea.” She’s trying to spend more time with the elder Yellowtail. Geraldine’s great at listening, and Ripley feels a thousand times better now that Geraldine has agreed that James is acting like an idiot.
“You should’ve texted if you were going to be late.”
“Hard to text when I don’t have your number.”
He huffs out a breath that’s barely this side of exasperated. “You could’ve texted Cara. You could’ve texted anyone.”
“Cara wasn’t worried, I’m sure. I hope you weren’t either.”
This is a lie.
Since they got back from Drumheller four days ago, he’s been exactly as kind and lovely to Ripley as he is to everyone else. And as if to forestall questions about why he’s staying on the dig if it’s not helping him work and she’s not helping him investigate, he’s busting his ass on every front.
On Tuesday, he kept his head down and cleared more windfallen branches than anyone except Griff.
He spent Wednesday on the phone, then casually informed Ripley that his museum contacts unearthed at least four more places Will’s been nosing around in research collections.
Thursday, he busied himself helping the twins rig a pulley system to bring soil up from the canyon to fill in the runoff-eroded spots up top.
Only when the two of them are alone do things get tense. Today, he wouldn’t take a refilled water bottle from her.
“I’m giving these to everybody, James. It’s practically ninety degrees,” she said.
“It’s eighty-seven.” He took a conspicuous swig from his half-full bottle. “I wish you wouldn’t linger, Ripley. Someone’s going to get the wrong idea about our road trip.”
She couldn’t help whispering, “Don’t you mean someone’s going to get the right idea?”
“Precisely,” James said, bending over his excavation as if she weren’t there.
Whenever she turns his way, his eyes are pointed elsewhere.
This makes her watch him more, trying to catch him in the act of looking away.
She wants to know whether she’s the only one who hears Before there are deeper feelings involved echoing in her head like a shout down the canyon.
She can’t stop wondering if she’s imagining that, underneath his controlled vowels and precise consonants, he sounds hungrier than ever.
Now that he’s standing here glowering like someone who’s spent ninety minutes embellishing worst-case scenarios, she finds she likes the idea of James fretting over her.
She likes thinking he felt a shock of relief when she pulled into view, the emotion so sudden and sharp that he needed a minute to collect himself before striding across the clearing to give her hell.
She wants him to care differently for her than he does for everyone else.
More. She wants him to care so much more.
“Nigel!” Cara yells, emerging from the trees that screen the parking lot. She’s taken to calling James all the most British-sounding names she can think of, trying to find a button she can push. So far, no luck.
“I told you she’d be fine. You didn’t have to stare into the sunset for an hour burning holes in your retinas watching for her.”
“The sun was behind me,” he points out stiffly. “And I wasn’t here for an hour.”
“Okay. Make that twenty minutes of ruining the poker game with your fidgeting and forty minutes out here.” Ignoring his indignant scoff, Cara turns to Ripley. “Well?”
Ripley sighs. “As far as the post office can tell, the cabin hardware is in a black hole somewhere in New Jersey.”
Griff drifts over. He’s on a time-delay circuit with Cara; anywhere she is, he’ll soon show up. “So, are James and I building tomorrow morning?”
“No,” Ripley says gloomily.
James’s paleobotanist buddy is arriving tomorrow for a weekend of sample collection, and as of right now, the accommodation situation is dire.
The younger crew are all in doubles, not that Ripley would make their guest share with anyone. Which means somebody here has to give Dr. Wong their cabin.
“Mindy can have my cabin. I can sleep in a tent,” James volunteers.
“Have you ever slept in a tent, Higgins?” Cara asks doubtfully. “Doesn’t seem like a very you thing to do, old chap.”
James’s eye twitches. “I haven’t, but—”
“We don’t have a tent. Or a ground pad, or a sleeping bag,” Ripley points out. “Those would take fifteen hundred bucks out of our budget, easy.”
“I’ll use my own funds,” he insists. “I’ll survive a night or two on the ground.”
“Just because we haven’t seen bears yet this season doesn’t mean we won’t,” Ripley says flatly.
“Sometimes smart bears make bad choices,” Griff adds.
“And there was a skinny-looking mountain lion prowling south of Hercules last week. I’m not putting a greenhorn outside alone. End of discussion.”
“James could bunk with Griff and I could move in with Ripley.” Cara grimaces. “I mean, it’s pretty tight in Griff’s single, but…”
Griff nods. “With the beds pushed right together, there’s still not much kneecap room.”
There’s a moment of silence as all of them try to imagine two large men who are not romantically involved attempting to share a structure built for one regular-size human.
“Griff and James could share my double. Cara and I could squeeze into the single,” Ripley says.
Griff frowns. “So we’d all end up moving?”
“Except me,” Cara says. “I’d get to stay in the Love Shack.”
“The Love Shack?” Ripley’s a little skeeved.
“Whoops. Didn’t mean to call it that in public,” Cara says.
“What about the big house? One of us could surely stay there.” James sounds downright desperate.
“Kaasii’s having guests this weekend.”
Ripley takes off her ball cap and scrubs at her flattened hair. The longer they dance around the only reasonable solution, the more awkward it’s going to be.
“James, would you be comfortable moving in with me? I’m sure we can make it work for a night or two.”
“Of course. I’ll move my belongings first thing tomorrow,” James says dispassionately and also like he’s starving. He picks up his chair, folds it with near-military precision, and nods at the group. “Excuse me.”
“Hey, wait up, bro.” Griff drops a quick kiss on Cara’s cheekbone before following James. “We were going to try that new Scotch and watch the lunar-Mars conjunction.”
Cara waits until both men are past the trees. “Uh, did I miss something there, Rip? Actually, let me rephrase: Griffin and I have been somewhat preoccupied lately and I’m sensing I’ve overlooked something between you and Mr. Bond. Something that smells very sexy, from where I’m standing.”
“That phrasing is so unfortunate.”
“Ah, so I’m right.” Cara looks gratified. “Not that it was hard to guess. I’m pretty sure the crew has a betting pool on you two, although they have respectfully not invited me to join. Conflict of interest, et cetera.”
Ripley wrinkles her nose at conflict of interest. “We were supposed to keep things professional.”
“Life finds a way, Rip. As do penises.”
Ripley half laughs, half snorts. Cara widens her eyes like, Where’s the lie?
“You know what, let’s grab a couple of chairs and steal some of that Scotch. You can tell me how Griff finally convinced you he’d do anything for you, and I’ll tell you all about how I don’t know what the hell happened with the professor.”
“Oh, no,” Cara singsongs, looping her arm through Ripley’s and pulling them close to each other. She smells like sunscreen and fruity, girlie perfume. Ripley’s never felt the brush of Cara’s earrings across her cheek before or caught the tiny clacking sounds of the beaded fringe. It’s nice.
“What do you mean, ‘Oh, no’?”
“You like him so much.”
Ripley shakes her head. It’s so simple, so wonderful, so awful, so true. “Yeah. I like him so much.”
“See,” Cara says, patting Ripley’s hand. “You talked about your feelings and didn’t die. A therapist would charge you a hundred bucks an hour for that.”
“It was exhausting. Tell me about Griff while I recover.”
Cara makes a quick, love-smug humming sound. “Griffin says he’s had enough of moving around. He’s already been to Chengjiang and the Gobi Desert and the Burgess Shale, and I’m not in any of those places.” Her normally brash voice has turned soft and reverent, with a sparkle of astonishment.
“I’m really, really happy for you, C.” Joy is so simple, Ripley thinks. You can express it in a single sentence: I cherish my friendship with Cara. And: I hope Geraldine and I keep in touch after I leave this place.
Unhappiness is the messy, complicated thing. It’s the ache under your sternum that wakes you up at night. It’s the desperate fumbling to unpick a tangle of fear and regret and missing something you never had.
And all that mess is going to be sleeping in the same cabin with Ripley, starting tomorrow.