Page 41 of Digging Up Love
“This from the girl who just grilled me about naked GIFs?” Alisha chuckled. “Awfully high and mighty, now, aren’t you?”
“That was you. You’ve got a stake with a real guy. I’m still slumming it out in the cyberworld.” Fine hairs, damp with sweat, curled around Meg’s face, making her look young and vulnerable.
Leaning forward, Alisha caught her friend’s eyes, imploring. “I wish you wouldn’t pressure yourself so much. Marriage is not an end-all, be-all.”
“Easy for you to say.” Meg screwed up her face, gesturing with the hanger. “You’ve always been so independent. Guys love that, by the way.” She glared at Alisha, then twisted her mouth sideways, chin puckered. “But you know I’m happiest in a relationship. And I’m a thirty-year-old teacher in the middle of nowhere. Men aren’t exactly falling out of trees to ask me out.” Her voice shrank to a fraction of its usual vibrancy. “Is it so wrong to want one long, lasting relationship? That happens to be called marriage?”
“No, silly goose.” She leaned over and wrapped Meg in a hug. “It’s not wrong at all.”
And Alisha wanted those things, too—marriage, a family—oh, did she want them. Could she move past all the wreckage of her past? Maybe letting someone in, lettingQuentinin, wouldn’t be an earthquake but an ice cube pressed to a burn. Healing.Maybe.
“And Eric sounds great.” Alisha lifted her chin and read aloud over her friend’s shoulder. “‘Tech savvy, love n00b. Cheaters never prosper.’ Heck of a bio.”
Meg smiled and took back her phone. She peered at the screen as if it were a crystal ball. “I figured a sense of humor is a plus. Assuming it’s tongue in cheek.” Her eyes met Alisha’s, uncertain. Behind all the boisterous bravado, her best friend was wholesome and sweet as banana bread: comfort food and sustenance, all in one. If happily ever after existed, no one deserved it more.
None of this was in her wheelhouse, but Meg didn’t need doubts piled on. “I’m sure it is. And I’m also sure you’re meeting in a well-lit area with plenty of witnesses, correct?”
“Yes, Aunt Alisha.” Meg stuck out her tongue. “We’re meeting at Applebee’s. Big time, I know. And the code is the usual. ‘I could use a latte.’”
The perfect bad-date code phrase for a woman who despised coffee.
“Okay. I’m rooting for you, girl, as always. Let me know how it goes.” Alisha stood up and pulled open the bedroom door. Earthy notes of cumin and simmering stewed tomatoes wafted up from the kitchen. Granny’s famous chili.
No doubt she’d made extra for the crew, especially since she hadn’t been able to host anyone else since their arrival. Keeping the dig a secret was affecting all their lives, but Alisha couldn’t imagine what a toll it would take if townsfolk guessed the real reason for the scientists’ presence. Missed cookouts would be the least of their worries.
With a glint in her eyes, Meg gathered up her purse. “Is this you kicking me out so you can sit at the window and ogle your sexy scientist?”
“This is me kicking you out so I can plan next week’s posts before I head in to work.”
“And ogle that man,” finished Meg.
Alisha snatched at the dress, but Meg laughed and danced out of reach.
“I’m going, I’m going.” She paused at the top of the stairs. “But you’re getting this dress back. It will look amazing on you, woman.” Without waiting for a response, she clattered down the wooden stairs, calling out a goodbye to Alisha’s grandparents.
Alisha padded over the cream shag rug to her desk, then paused by the window to check the progress on the dig. No other reason. At lunch yesterday, Forrest had told her they’d started with a process called “removing the overburden.” Hard to see from up here, but the whole pitwas deeper, and trenches marked the areas where they’d removed fossils. The string grid was gone, but they’d record the placement of bones and their position relative to each other on the map they’d made initially to reference throughout the dig.
Quentin’s white T-shirt made him easy to spot. The mouthwatering way it stretched across his back as he bent to point at something in the dirt didn’t hurt matters either. He noted something in the journal that never seemed to leave his side, then paused to shake his pen a few times. Caitlyn, digging nearby, pulled a pencil from behind her ear and tossed it toward him, laughing when he fumbled the catch.
The team made a cohesive unit, and their passion for their work shone through. Giving them permission to come and excavate was so clearly the right choice, despite any danger of exposure. Besides, even when the news broke, it wasn’t as if America at large would be hitting refresh on their Twitter feed for midwestern dino news. Scientific interest she could handle. No one else would give a second’s thought to the senior citizens and small-town baker who called this plot of land home.
Alisha sank into the Lucite desk chair and woke up her laptop. Typing in her password with rapid keystrokes, she made herself a promise. Next time she crossed paths with Quentin, she wouldn’t hightail it in the other direction.
Baby steps.
CHAPTER 15
QUENTIN
Every muscle in Quentin’s body ached, from the back of his neck to the soles of his feet. After this first week spent crouched in the dirt, his lower back spasmed like it’d been held in a vise. His fingers cramped, and his palms were blistered. A.k.a.... heaven.
Or it would’ve been, if not for his preoccupation with “the granddaughter.”
At night he lay in the stuffy motel room, wrestling with why Alisha’s texts had stopped cold the second he’d set foot in town. Why she’d flirted with him on Wednesday and hadn’t even popped out to say hi since. But during the day, he blocked out all the uncertainty and focused his attention on the dig.
Besides the large exposed bone, they’d found several ribs and fragments of tail vertebrae. And this morning Cait had uncovered part of an ilium, which they’d carefully reburied. A hip bone could prove crucial in identifying the species, but the large fossils needed to stay covered until the time came to transport them back to the university.
They hypothesized that the bulk of the fossils belonged to a single theropod, the group of dinosaurs that included the infamousTyrannosaurus rexandVelociraptorof cinematic fame. No way topositively identify the animal until they’d brought all the bones back to the lab and analyzed them.
