Chapter Ten #2
Yeah. Then they could plan the dry run. That would be great.
He finished up with the tents and texted Ernestine to find her whereabouts.
When she didn’t return the text he decided to go look for her at the dig site.
That turned out to be a good guess, because there she was, hunkered down in the middle of a rock pile.
“I actually think that I found a fossil that we have never found in this region before.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We’ve never had evidence of mastodons this far west. They’re thought of traditionally as a Great Plains and Midwestern animal.
But it looks like… I am pretty sure that what I found is evidence that they did migrate here.
Now, that could have been because of changing weather or…
It’s very hard to say. But it is definitely activity that I wouldn’t have expected.
I have footprints and I think I even have the promise of a skeleton. ”
“Well. That’s great.”
“It’s more than great. First of all, this is going to be great for your tourism.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.” She jumped up, and she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He cradled the back of her head and kissed her.
And he was glad that she wasn’t mad at him for being a little bit distant, but also just…
She was so different. So odd. He really enjoyed it.
He really did. He really enjoyed kissing her too.
“Sorry I haven’t been around,” he said.
“It’s okay. I really needed some uninterrupted focus on this. And when you’re around I get distracted.”
He laughed. “Do you?”
“Well, yes. Also, I was a little bit…a little bit sore afterward. So I probably wouldn’t have been able to have sex again very quickly.” She seemed like she was considering this. “Well. I’m sure we could’ve made it work.”
He shook his head. “You are something, Dr. Martin.”
“In a good way?”
“Very much in a good way. We got the tents put up for the Oregon Trail camp.”
“Oh! I would love to see it. See? When you’re around I just get distracted. If it isn’t sex, it’s what you’re doing here.”
“Well, I would love it if you had a little bit of time this weekend, because Dakota and Rowdy want to do a dry run of our excursion. So we could stay overnight in the tents.”
“We can?”
Then her face went scarlet. “Oh. Except we can’t stay in the same tent.”
“Yeah, we can. They already know.”
He was taking a chance on telling her. Her face started to turn pink. “You told them?”
He couldn’t quite interpret her tone. If she was angry that he had told them, or if there was something else.
“I didn’t really tell them—it’s more that they had a pretty good guess. I think I’m not as mysterious as I like to believe.”
“Oh.”
“There’s a certain point where you can keep denying something, but it only makes it seem weirder, you know?”
“Well. That’s true. I can understand where you’re coming from with that.”
“So we can share a tent.”
“Well, I’m glad you’d like to do it again.”
“I thought about it a lot.”
“You have?”
“We can’t stop after one lesson, Ernestine. And anyway, you’re here for three more weeks.”
“True,” she said, sounding cheerful then.
“Although, I might need a little bit more time. I know that you have guests coming, so I’m happy to revert back to camping.
But this discovery is significant. I need to do a lot of research, a lot of documenting.
I’m going to have to take at least one chunk of rock back with me so that we can do some carbon dating. ”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“Truly, it’s amazing. I… I have to think about some things. About the possibilities. And if I wasn’t here I wouldn’t have discovered that I like a kiss.”
He looked at her. “Well, and the sex,” she said.
“That’s okay. It’s okay that you’re more into the fossils.”
“I’m not more into it. Well, broadly speaking, yes, I am more into fossils than I am into sex. Historically. That we can prove.”
She was something else. An absolute original. He would never want to hurt her by bringing her down into his mess. Temporary was just fine.
“As long as you’re staying in the glass cabin, I’m your teacher.”
She seemed to get that. That there had to be a firm end. That it was all right if she needed to come back and do digs, but there was going to have to be an end to this.
At least he hoped she got that.
“I might actually sleep out here tonight,” she said. “Because I’m in a flow. And I just want to…keep doing all this. I can sleep in my car.”
“Ernestine, you’re like two minutes away from the cabin.”
“I know. But this reminds me of being on digs abroad. And this discovery feels big.”
“Well, if you’re sleeping out here, I’m going to sleep out here with you, and I’m going to go get your tent.”
She frowned. “You just said that as long as we were in the glass cabin we would keep having sex.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant that after the month is up it’s probably best if this is up too.” He didn’t like having to be that blunt, but he could see that she needed it.
“Oh. You didn’t mean that we could only literally have sex in the cabin?”
“No. I intended to give you lessons in your tent, in the luxury tent, we’ve got a month.”
She nodded. “Okay. We’ve got the month.”