Chapter 28
Forty-Eight Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
This time, Ripley’s the one waiting in the parking lot when the bright orange SUV pulls up.
James is there too, but he’s on a call with an admin at the APS, trying to explain that Yellowtail Ranch doesn’t have a mailing address, only a PO box in Hercules.
Beside Ripley, Jordin’s beaming as she prepares to impress yet another one of her heroes.
By the end of the weekend, Jordin will no doubt have sweet-talked her way into an offer to do her graduate work in Dr. Wong’s lab.
She will graciously consider it, given that it’s her eleventh very prestigious offer.
Ripley can picture meeting Jordin as a professor. It involves admiring her perfectly tied scarf, receiving a silky compliment, and regaining consciousness afterward with fifty thousand dollars of your grant money tied up in a new joint project. Terrifying.
Ripley would’ve preferred to pick up their guest at the Bozeman airport, but Dr. Wong emailed James, cc’ing Ripley and Cara, that it wouldn’t be necessary.
Hey, Smitty. Can’t wait for our mini–class reunion this weekend. I’ll rent a car and spare you the trouble of pretending you’re happy to drive to the airport.
Ripley doesn’t like the way she feels about that email—Mindy’s nickname for James; how well she knows him—or the way James brightens and abruptly ends his phone call the second Mindy steps out of the car.
She’s in her late thirties, petite and slim with a Mona Lisa smile.
Her hair is short and businesslike, the glossy black silvered in a streak that is one hundred percent plausible as either a fashion statement or her natural color.
She’s highly respected for her pioneering scholarship on fungal networks of the Late Cretaceous.
She writes professional emails without using a single exclamation mark.
Ripley knows the two of them have slept together the second James says hello, breaking into a wide, white-toothed grin she’s never seen before. They hug, and he murmurs something near her ear. Mindy tips her head back in a laugh; their bodies stay loose and easy in close quarters.
Ripley wants to go stick her head in the rain barrel and scream. With great effort, she prevents herself from putting a hand to her stomach. Until this moment, she didn’t realize jealousy really does stab.
“Ripley? Call me Mindy,” Dr. Wong says, taking her hand with a firm, dry grip.
“I’m so excited to see everything James has been raving about, especially since that bird abstract is going to make such a splash at the APS conference.
Not that you heard it from me, but it’s in the running for a few exciting things. ”
A dull, oceanic roar builds in Ripley’s ears. Mindy means Will’s abstract might be getting an award.
Jordin jumps in. “Dr. Wong? Jordin Johnson. I’d love to show you to the excavation. If you’ll follow me?” With a helpless look at James, Mindy’s spirited away.
Ripley waits for James to grab a plastic-wrapped tray of sampling tubes from Mindy’s SUV, then falls in beside him as he walks to the canyon.
“I could have helped you move in. You didn’t have to sneak everything over to my cabin while I was at breakfast.” He didn’t have to sucker-punch her with a waft of his scent the second she opened the door.
He keeps his gaze determinedly forward. “I don’t have much baggage.”
Ripley barks out a laugh. “That is untrue on so many levels.”
The cabin’s stacked with his bike gear, electronics, and boxes of presumably unfinished work.
Ripley might have opened one of the boxes a crack.
She could smell James in there, but the perfume of grass and ink was faint and stale, a pale remnant of a man who existed years ago and half a world away. Not her James.
Her James. Like there’s any such thing.
“I’m sure Mindy wouldn’t mind if I moved a few of the boxes into her cabin, if they’re bothering…are you quite all right, Ripley?”
Ripley’s pressing her palm to the spot where the jealousy has now stabbed her twice. “I’m fine,” she says, dropping her hand.
“You don’t look fine. You’re working too hard. Getting too much sun. Not taking enough breaks.” James sets the sample tubes on the picnic table, his forehead falling into stern lines.
She’s a dumbass, so she lets him take her face in his strong, reassuring grip.
She’s never been less smart than at this moment, when she gives in to the breathless pleasure of staring into his beautiful, concerned eyes even though she’s been thinking about the words he used at the museum: want, protect, need, beautiful, safe.
Also the words he didn’t use: Care. Love.
The air between them feels hot; electricity builds like a summer storm.
A burst of laughter from the canyon seems to startle him. His fingers slide away from her jaw with a movement that would feel like a caress if she didn’t know better.
She steps back. “I’m fine, James. The boxes can stay. And if you’re worried about any feelings on my part, don’t.”
She hasn’t seen his face blanch like that in a while. Maybe her tone wasn’t as composed as she thought. “I’m only saying it doesn’t have to be weird. Let me know when you want privacy to change and…and stuff.”
James shifts his feet, his pallor warming with a faint trace of pink.
“Not that stuff,” she amends hastily, her face flaming. “Other stuff. Stuff that’s not…for fuck’s sake.” She presses two fingers to the space between her eyebrows.
He glances at the ground, pushing his still-wonky glasses higher on his nose.
“I understand,” he says. He picks up the sample tubes and walks on.
“In case I haven’t mentioned it, I appreciate you going out of your way to accommodate Mindy.
She’s a dear friend and a brilliant scientist. Clever Girl couldn’t ask for a better collaborator. ”
“Sure,” Ripley says, swallowing hard and trying to be grateful. “Dear friend,” my ass.
Another wave of mirth echoes up from the canyon.
Ripley should be down there, correcting the things an undergraduate—even one like Jordin—is bound to get slightly wrong.
She should be asserting her role as the leader of this expedition and the discoverer of its most important find.
She can’t fuck off and hide in her cabin until the urge to cry has passed.
Not least because it’s no longer her cabin.
Until today, Ripley didn’t realize how expertly James has integrated himself into the crew.
Yes, he got carried away with his lectures, and, yes, they’d had a spare cabin so there wasn’t all this drama about sleeping arrangements. But in every other way, James took stock of the culture and fit himself into it. A week after James’s arrival, Cara said, “It’s like he’s always been here.”
But Mindy’s not trying to fit in. She’s here to further her own goals. She’s currently the most senior scientist at Clever Girl, and, intentionally or not, she acts like it.
Mindy sighs at the loss of soil data from already excavated specimens. She wants to crack all the sealed field jackets for sampling. She repeatedly congratulates James on scoring the biggest abstract of the year—Will’s—for the APS.
Although Ripley has assured everyone that they’ll get overtime for working on a Saturday, the vibe is distinctly off when they arrive at the Golden Palace for dinner that evening.
Cara’s gone tight-mouthed and quiet; Griff looks displeased for the first time in Ripley’s memory.
Jordin can barely eat from the stress of not having gotten an A-plus.
In a cringeworthy turn of events, Finn and Fiona have both developed shattering crushes on their guest.
“More tea, Mindy?” Fiona doesn’t wait for an answer before pouring.
“Thanks, I’m—oh. Okay,” Mindy says, looking perturbed.
“I’d love to know what you’re working on right now, Mindy,” Finn says, drawing her attention back to himself.
“Would you like the last sesame ball, Mindy?” Fiona says sweetly, sending a black look at her brother.
“Hey,” Matteo protests as Fiona grabs the dish he was reaching for.
“Forbidden word,” everybody choruses, since the newest Clue rule is that the extra rules apply at all times.
Matteo’s face closes up tight. Lately he’s been operating very well on a steady diet of Ripley’s praise paired with gentle feedback, but a full day of criticism has reset him to his sullen factory defaults.
Ripley excuses herself to pay the bill. After that, she’s planning to lock herself in one of the single-occupancy bathrooms just to have five minutes away from this shit show. She’s glad she brought the Charger, because she is not going to Alphabet after this.
She’s rounding the potted plant in front of the bathrooms when she hears Mindy talking to someone. Will the twins not even let their idol pee in peace?
“Come on, Mindy.”
Ripley freezes. That low rumble doesn’t belong to either of the twins. James is in the cramped, poorly lit hallway, talking to Mindy with an affectionate familiarity that makes the egg rolls curdle in Ripley’s stomach.
Walk away, Adams, she thinks, staring at the garbage can that’s inexplicably located outside the bathrooms. She wants to throw herself in the trash. She could find a final resting place amid the crumpled paper towels and fortune-cookie wrappers and forget this ever happened.
“I’ve always had to push back hard, James. Do you know how often people forget the paleobotanist even exists? I deserve to be taken seriously,” Mindy says.
“So does Ripley,” he replies. “And this is her crew and her dig, not mine. If you can’t find it in yourself to respect where she gets her paychecks, then at least respect her brilliance and her grit. And remember that you’re studying an ecosystem she discovered.”
“Wow. You obviously think a lot of her,” Mindy says, her implication clear.
Ripley doesn’t dare breathe in the stiff quiet that follows.
“If you’re implying that I’m championing Ripley because she and I are in a relationship, we are not,” James says.
Another silence. “I’m embarrassed I said that,” Mindy says finally. “Please don’t tell her.”
“I won’t.” His tone softens. “I want you two to have a chance to work together, for both of your sakes. But she’s in charge of this dig. Understood?”
Ripley seizes the chance to escape. When James and Mindy get back to the table, she’s casually stuffing the last egg roll into her mouth despite her miserably confused stomach.
James stood up to a fellow academic, for her.
But he also told Mindy he’s as good as single. Ripley hasn’t missed the way Mindy looks at him. Touches him. Knows him.
It turns out nobody but the twins wants to go to the bar. On the drive home, Ripley decides to turn in early. She can take a shower, listen to her audiobook, and pretend to be asleep when James comes in.
If he comes in.