Chapter 23 #2
I gritted my teeth against the agony, wondering if I should take my socks off. The fabric was sticking to the raw skin, and I didn't know what would be worse, leaving them on or peeling them away.
I tried not to wince. Tried to keep my breathing steady.
I needed to take my focus off the pain before I completely lost it. "Can I ask you something?"
He gave me a here we go look over his shoulder. "What?"
"I don't know, but we can't keep walking in silence."
"Yes, we can."
"Well, we can, but I need to take my focus off my damn heels, Mitch. So can we just fucking talk about something?" I hated that I sounded so hysterical. "Please?"
He squinted at me, then rolled his eyes so hard I'm surprised they didn't pop out of his beautiful head. "Fine. Ask away."
I shrugged, trying to seem casual. "Tell me about your siblings. What are their names? What are they like? Older or younger?"
"That's three questions."
I rolled my eyes right back at him. "Okay, well, you start the conversation, cowboy."
He scanned the horizon, maybe searching for an escape route. Then he turned to me with a wry grin. "What made you get into archeology?"
“You mean, paleontology?”
“Same thing, right?”
"Hell, no. Archeology is the study of human history, pottery, tools, and settlements. Boring. Paleontology is the study of ancient life. Dinosaurs, megafauna, creatures that walked the earth millions of years before humans even existed. It's fascinating."
He chuckled. “Okay, so what made you take that up?”
Despite myself, tension loosened in my chest. He actually wanted to know.
"When I was nine, I found a bone while bushwalking with my sisters.
It was half-buried in a creek bed. It was smooth and white and weighed a ton.
I was absolutely convinced it was from a dinosaur.
" I laughed. "I carried it home and begged my parents to take me to the museum to show them. "
"And?"
"And some researcher in a white coat looked at it for about five seconds and said it was a kangaroo bone. Nothing special." I mimicked his dismissive tone.
Mitch snorted. "There are a million of them out here. Help yourself."
I tried to chuckle, but my parched throat could only manage a sandpaper rasp. The sun hammered down, turning my skull into an oven, cooking me from within. "Mom told me to throw the bone away."
"I'm guessing you didn't."
"I still have it on my bookshelf like it's a treasure."
"Funny what captures your attention as a kid," he said, and there was apprehension in his voice that made me want to ask for details, but I didn't want him to clam up again.
"My grandmother helped fuel my obsession.
She was a librarian with this whole amateur fossil collection in her spare room.
It was filled with rocks, shells, and bone fragments she'd found over the years.
She let me catalog them and taught me how to research what they might be.
" My throat tightened from emotion or dehydration, I couldn't tell anymore.
"She died nine years ago. Breast cancer. "
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Me, too." I wiped sweat from my eyes, but more sweat oozed down my forehead.
My vision blurred slightly at the edges, and I blinked to focus.
"Nanna encouraged me to go to uni. I think she regretted not going herself.
My family thought I was insane, committing years to a career that rarely pays off. "
"Were you? Insane?"
"Oh, I'm definitely insane. Haven't you noticed?" I giggled, though it sounded strained even to my own ears. "Actually, don't answer that."
"I won't." He wiped his hand across the back of his neck, and I caught another glimpse of the tattoo on his bicep—dark lines, intricate. I filed it away to ask about later.
"So how long did uni take?"
"Eight years total."
"Christ. That's commitment."
"That included fieldwork, though." I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, even as my legs trembled. "Dig sites across remote Australia, Papua New Guinea, and even six months in Mongolia."
"Mongolia?" He sounded genuinely interested.
"Gobi Desert. I was part of a team excavating a Tarbosaurus skeleton. Think T. rex's Asian cousin. The experience was incredible. Brutal, but incredible."
"Brutal? How?"
"Massive sandstorms that lasted all day.
Extreme temperatures. Scorching heat during the day, then freezing at night.
" I stumbled slightly but caught myself.
Keep going. Just keep going. "But when I'm uncovering fossils that have been buried for seventy million years.
.." I searched for the right words through the fog creeping into my brain.
"That's when I feel most alive. Most at peace.
Knowing I'm the first person to see this creature since it walked the earth. It’s incredible. "
Mitch was quiet for a long moment, then he said, "Sounds amazing, but lonely."
His comment made me think. "Sometimes," I admitted. "But I mostly work alone by choice." I gestured with my hands, and the movement made me sway. I clenched my hands to steady myself. "At least the fossils don't mansplain at me."
Mitch's brow furrowed. "Mansplain?"
"Yeah. When a guy explains something in this condescending way, like I can't possibly understand without his help, even when I'm the actual expert."
"Ah." Mitch nodded slowly. "I assume Doug was like that."
"Doug was the poster child for it."
Mitch's jaw tightened, and for a moment I thought I saw guilt flash across his face.
A pang of guilt hit me, too. Doug was dead, and here I was complaining about him.
"But when it's just me on the dig site, I don't feel lonely at all. The work feels purposeful, like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing important work."
He nodded as if he understood that feeling better than I’d expected.
I wiped sweat from my forehead with a trembling hand, blinking against the glare reflecting off the red dirt stretching endlessly in every direction.
Even my eyeballs were dried out and scratchy.
The landscape around us was brutal. Sparse saltbush and spinifex clumps scattered across cracked earth, heat waves shimmered in the distance, making everything look like it was melting.
Or maybe that was just me, melting from the inside out.
We fell into silence again, but it felt different now. Less oppressive. We were no longer strangers marching toward doom, but companions united in survival.
The sun beat down relentlessly on my bare head, and fresh waves of heat radiated off the ground beneath my socked feet.
"Your turn," I said, my voice hoarse. I needed a distraction from the dizziness creeping in. "Tell me about your siblings."
He didn't answer right away, and I thought maybe he'd shut down again. But he scraped his hand down his beard and said, "There are four of us. I'm the oldest."
I waited, giving him time. Concentrating on not passing out. My throat was so dry it hurt to swallow. Each breath was like inhaling fire.
"Cassidy's next. We're only eleven months apart."
"Whoa, your mom had her hands full." I winced. "Sorry, I shouldn't have—"
"It's okay. And yeah, she did. Especially with Cass.
She's a wildcat. Tough as nails, sharp tongue, doesn't take shit from anyone.
She can outride most of the blokes we hire, and she's got this weird sixth sense with animals.
She knows when something's wrong before anyone else does.
" He paused. "But she doesn't let people in easily. "
"Sounds like someone I know," I said pointedly, though my voice was getting weaker.
He cocked his head, scowling. "Declan's the middle one.
He's the brains in the family. He tried to run off to a circus once, but he came back.
Seems we always come back." He shook his head.
"Dec runs Koolaroo's books and keeps the whole operation from falling apart financially. He’s the heart of the family, too, whether he'll admit it or not. "
"Every business needs someone willing to crunch the numbers." My vision swam, and I blinked hard, trying to clear it.
Mitch nodded. "Yeah, thank Christ he does. That shit isn't for me."
"Me neither. I can't even figure out my bank statement."
He laughed, as if I was exaggerating. I wasn't.
"And your youngest brother?" I prompted, forcing the words out.
"Kayden. He's the rebel. If there's chaos happening, he's either in the middle of it or he caused it." There was affection in his voice despite the words. "He manages all the equipment, though. Kayden's a mechanic, chopper pilot, and cattle wrangler. Jack of all trades and regular trouble magnet."
"Huh. Sounds like me." Did I slur my words?
Mitch looked at me, really looked at me, as if trying to solve a puzzle. Or maybe I was slurring my words. "What?"
He shook his head.
"You trying to figure me out, cowboy?" The world tilted slightly, and I shook my head, trying to clear the fog in my brain.
"Nope." The way he said it told me he absolutely was. Well, good luck to him. I'd been trying to do that for years.
Keen to keep the conversation going and stay focused, I asked, "Wait—chopper pilot? You have a helicopter?"
"Yep. Need it with over four thousand square miles of land."
Four thousand square miles. The number swooped through my brain, and my earlier question resurfaced through my fog. What exactly had Mitch been doing when he found my dig site? Because "checking fences" was bullshit.
"So, Mitch," I said, my tongue thick and clumsy in my dry mouth. "You never did answer what you were doing when you found our dig site. I mean, we were miles from anywhere. How did you find us?"
He groaned. Clearly, it was a question he didn't want to answer. "Checking the fences," he said.
I glared at him, letting him know I knew he was lying. "Our dig site wasn't near any fences."
He didn't reply.
What the hell! And here I thought we were actually getting somewhere.
He scanned the terrain with that same alert efficiency I'd noticed before.
Everything about him felt trained. The way he moved, the way he deflected questions, even the way he'd assessed my injuries.
I cleared my throat, and he seemed to brace for another question he didn't want to answer. "Were you in the military?"
His jaw dropped.
I nodded, reading his expression. "Yeah, thought so."
He frowned but shrugged, maybe figuring there was no point denying it. "Sergeant First Class with the Special Air Service. I served for over a decade."
"Huh." A rock stabbed my instep, and I gasped. Shit, that hurt. "But now, you're a cowboy," I said, my tongue was as thick as leather.
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Something like that."
"That's quite a career change." My legs were made of lead.
"Life's full of surprises."
"Clearly." I forced myself to keep talking, but forming words was getting harder. Anything to stay upright. "What made you leave?"
"That's a long story."
I spread my hands wide, and the movement made me sway. "We've got plenty of—"
The world tilted. My eyes spun out of focus. My knees gave way, and I crumpled.
Mitch shouted my name, and his arms caught me before I hit the dirt.
"Charlie!" His voice cut through the fog. "Charlie, stay with me."
I tried to respond, but my mouth wouldn't work. Everything was spinning, tilting, fading.
"Shit!" His cry sounded far away, muffled, like I was underwater.
He lifted me into his arms and cradled me against his chest.
I wanted to tell him I was fine, but darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. I was a long way from fine.
"I've got you." His grip tightened. "Just hold on." I heard the low, rough edge of his voice.
But I couldn't hold on. My vision tunneled to a pinpoint of light.
"You're going to be okay." The uncertainty in his voice terrified me.
I wasn't okay. Nothing was.
Oh, God. Am I going to die?