скачать книгу бесплатно
Nick drained his own juice and aimed the empty can at the wastebasket across from him. He tried to respect Daniel’s pride and independence, sensing an affinity with the kid. Hell, Nick understood the need for privacy better than anyone. But at the same time, he sensed an underlying need in Daniel…. Still, the kid just wouldn’t let anyone get too close. He wouldn’t let Nick get too close, that was for sure.
Daniel pitched his juice can at the wastebasket, his aim as accurate as Nick’s. Then he stood and went to stare out the door of the hut, hands jammed into the pockets of his shorts.
“There she is–la rubia,“ Daniel said in a scoffing tone. “She smiles too much.”
Nick considered this; he hadn’t caught Dana Morgan smiling too much in his own direction.
“She works too hard–and she’s too pretty,” Daniel went on, in this peculiar catalog of Dana’s faults.
“I hadn’t noticed about the pretty part,” Nick said gruffly.
“Sure.” Daniel glanced at Nick with disfavor. “You look at her all the time, Señor Petrie.”
The kid was observant, along with everything else. “So she’s pretty,” Nick acknowledged. “But I have a feeling she won’t be around this island for long. She’ll get tired of ornery people like me–and like you, Daniel. Whenever she tries to talk to you, I’ve noticed you don’t even give her a chance.”
Daniel shrugged. “I don’t have time.” That was his usual convenient excuse for withdrawing from other people, and he used it now. “Have to go, Señor Petrie.”
“Wait–aren’t you forgetting something?” Nick asked. “It’s payday.”
Daniel stood reluctantly as Nick fished in his pocket, extracting more pesos than he could well afford. But he always gave Daniel a generous rate of exchange. It was the only way he knew to get around the kid’s stubborn pride.
Even so, Daniel eyed the money distrustfully, and it was only grudgingly that he finally stuffed it into his pocket.
“Adiós,” he mumbled.
“Daniel, be careful out there. We still haven’t caught Jarrett’s attacker–”
But already the kid was gone, as elusive as ever. An unwelcome thought occurred to Nick. Maybe Daniel had been the one to take the machete; it was something he’d be able to sell. At the same time it was a relatively small item, easily concealed. And no matter what Daniel said, he was obviously struggling just to survive….
Nick moved restlessly to the door of the hut. He didn’t like the way he’d become suspicious ever since the attack on Jarrett. He preferred to rely on what his instincts told him. Daniel would do everything he could to make it from one day to the next, but he possessed certain rigid standards for himself. He wouldn’t stoop to stealing that machete. The kid needed a break, more than anything else.
Nick emerged from the hut into the dazzling sunlight. It seemed that whenever the sun had a chance to break through the jungle canopy, it burned all the brighter. He shaded his eyes and glanced around. Pat was in the midst of talking intently to Robert and Tim–Pat was always going on about something or other. Robert listened with an air of detached amusement and Tim listened with a mournful expression on his face. No one could accuse Tim of enthusiasm. Nick still hadn’t figured out why the guy was studying archaeology, or why he chose to spend his summer on a dig; he seemed to have no true affinity for the work. Once again, Nick cursed his meager budget and his meager crew.
Now his gaze strayed to Dana and Jarrett. Dana was working, using one of the sifters, but Jarrett simply watched her as she sorted a soil sample. Jarrett seemed taken with Dana. But who wouldn’t be taken with her? She was la rubia–the golden-haired one, as Daniel had called her. Nick himself seemed capable of nothing more than standing here, watching the way the sun lit up her molten cascade of hair and the way khaki and denim traced the curves of her body so enticingly.
Just then Dana glanced up and saw Nick. She waved cheerfully, pushing up the brim of her hat. Jarrett turned and waved, too. He didn’t seem perturbed to be caught standing around, doing nothing but ogling a pretty woman. Under Dana’s influence, Jarrett appeared to be prolonging his recuperation as much as possible.
Nick didn’t want to watch the two of them together anymore. He turned abruptly and forged his way through the brush. When he came out near the temple, it was like entering a different world. Here the trees cast a dense shade, as if seeking to reclaim the shrine and cover it once more with vines and moss. Nick paced off the base of the shrine, reaffirming the calculations he’d made a few days earlier. Lately he’d developed a notion about the temple that wouldn’t let go of him. Wishful thinking, maybe that’s all it was. No doubt he was looking for a way to jump start his career again. But, still, the notion had taken hold of him and wouldn’t let go….
In his reports to the Institute, he continued to assert that his main goal was ascertaining the viability and extent of Mayan farming on the island. He hadn’t yet mentioned anything about his theory in regard to the temple. This was his idea alone for now, whatever its worth might be.
He heard a rustle in the bamboo stalks nearby, and swiveled around to see Dana striding toward him. Nick frowned at her.
“What the hell are you doing, traipsing around by yourself? I told you to be careful.”
“I am being careful,” she said imperturbably.
“Jarrett shouldn’t have allowed you to wander off alone.”
“Jarrett is very chivalrous, but I declined his company. I decided that it’s time for me to…well, it’s time I climbed the temple steps.”
She had a determined look that he was already coming to recognize. “Remember what the superstition says,” he cautioned. “Anyone who ventures here is subject to misfortune.”
Dana only looked all the more determined. She faced the temple and slowly climbed the first few steps. She appeared almost reverent as she reached the first ledge, but then she seemed to gain confidence. She climbed to the next ledge and then the next, until she’d reached all the way to the top. For a moment she gazed inside the altar room. Then she turned and sat down.
“There,” she called to Nick. “It’s too late now. I did it…and I don’t see any lightning in the sky. I don’t hear any thunder.”
He climbed up and sat beside her. “Didn’t I tell you the rest of the story? It takes a while for the misfortune to strike. Your chances of escaping it are a whole lot better if you leave the island.”
“You can stop hoping, Nick. I won’t leave.” She took off her canvas hat and rested it on her knee. Perspiration had curled strands of hair next to her face. Nick studied her profile, lingering on the decisive outline of her features. Dana had mentioned that she’d grown up on a farm in Missouri, and she did look like someone who’d spent years riding horses, milking cows and such. She was wholesome and seductive all at once. Lord, what a combination.
“I saw Daniel hurrying away, as usual,” she said, treating Nick to her clear, straightforward gaze. “He seems to trust only you–he never stops to talk to anyone else.”
Nick’s own gaze dropped to Dana’s mouth. Her lips were tinged a natural shade of rose. He rubbed the back of his neck distractedly. “The kid’s already advised me in so many words that you’re trouble, Dana. Big trouble.” He heard the thickness in his voice and felt that clench of need in his gut.
Dana stared at him, a rose color tinting her face as well as her lips now. “I’m doing my job, Dr. Petrie. Nothing else should matter to you.”
She was right about that much, but it was already too late. The need, the wanting in him took over…and without another word, he drew Dana into his arms.
CHAPTER FOUR
N ICK WAS OUT OF practice with this sort of thing, and it didn’t go well. Dana was stiff and unyielding in his arms, as if he’d caught her by surprise and she didn’t know what to do about it. Hell, he’d caught himself by surprise. But he went on holding her a second longer, moving his cheek against hers, feeling the softness of her skin. She smelled faintly of soap–clean, fresh soap. It made Nick imagine her bathing under the hot island sun. It made him imagine too much….
The way he figured it, they both pulled away from each other at the same time. Dana frowned at him, her cheeks flushed.
“Darn it, Nick–what do you think you’re doing?”
“You tell me,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Look…just forget it happened.”
She stood quickly, and her silly canvas hat went tumbling down. Nick bent to retrieve it.
“Thank you,” she said acidly and she jammed the hat back on her head. It was the kind of hat straight out of a safari movie. Nick could imagine Dana marching into a store and requesting a full complement of adventure gear, right down to the patch-pocket shorts and mosquito netting. For a moment, that almost made him smile. He had to get a grip on himself.
“You shouldn’t have come looking for me,” he said.
Her flush deepened. “If you think I wanted this to happen–dammit, I didn’t want anything from you. I didn’t intend for anything to happen!”
“Neither did I.”
She took a deep breath. “It was a mistake.”
He didn’t say any more. He just went on standing there with her in front of the altar room of the temple. Against his will, his gaze lingered on Dana’s face…on the creamy rose of her skin, the deep brown of her eyes, the sensual curve of her mouth….
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, almost in a whisper. She turned and hurriedly began making her way down the temple steps. She didn’t seem to be watching where she was going. Nick came along beside her and halfway down he reached out to steady her.
She pulled away from him. “Don’t.”
“You’re overreacting just a little, don’t you think?” he said gruffly.
She stared at him, a variety of emotions seeming to cross her expressive face. That she was angry, there could be no doubt…maybe even a little embarrassed. In the end, Nick had the feeling that pride won out.
“I didn’t come looking for you, Nick,” she said in a cool voice. “All I wanted to do was climb the temple steps.” With that, she descended the rest of the way, refusing any assistance from him.
When they’d reached the base of the temple, Dana started veering off toward the trees. “Goodbye,” she said.
He didn’t allow her to escape, falling into step beside her. “You’re not going anywhere alone–remember?”
“I wish you’d realize that I can take care of myself,” she muttered.
“Just follow orders, Ms. Morgan, and you’ll make it easier for both of us.”
He could tell she was still fired up. She made a point of striding ahead of him, finding her own path. Even as she pushed through the thick undergrowth of the forest, she moved with that graceful posture of hers. When they reached the excavation site, she stalked over to the knapsack she’d left propped near one of the huts. She pulled out some insect repellent and slathered herself with the stuff, glancing defiantly at Nick. Maybe she was trying to send him a message. Then she went back to work at the sifter.
Nick got to work himself. He wanted to forget what had happened with Dana…. He just wished it was that simple.
* * *
DANA HAD NEVER REALIZED that her body possessed so many muscles–and that they could all ache with such simultaneous insistence. By now she’d spent two weeks on the island, and her main activities seemed to be crouching to dig in the soil, crouching to carry the soil, crouching to sift the soil. This morning, her knees hurt. Her elbows hurt. Her back hurt. The insides of her thighs hurt. Hell, her whole body hurt. Perspiration trickled down her back. And she thought she’d throttle Pat if she had to listen to the woman one more minute.
Today Pat and Dana were working at the new site. Pat was marking off measurements on the ground while discoursing on her career prospects–clearly a favorite topic.
“I’ve applied to every Ivy League school–including a few with poison ivy.” Pat gave a smirk. “The job market is very tight, let me tell you. That’s why I’m here. This job is only a stopgap….”
Dana did her best to tune out Pat. She pulled the brim of her hat down lower, squinting at the grid chart she was trying to map. The sun seemed to bounce right off the page and into her eyes. She was learning just how precise and nitpicky archaeologists had to be. Findings of any type had to be categorized down to their minutiae. Pottery shards, scraps of obsidian, bone fragments, traces of ancient seeds and kernels–these were the treasures accumulated on the dig. No discovery was too small to go unrecorded. Dana’s own particular skills as a soil scientist also required precise documentation. Soil profiles, soil maps, soil surveys and chemical analysis charts all fell within her purview. When Dana wasn’t crouching and digging and sifting, she was writing and graphing and cross-referencing.
But who was she kidding? No matter how she occupied herself, her thoughts kept returning to Nick Petrie. Dr. Nicholas Petrie, her irascible boss.
Two days earlier she had sat beside Nick on the temple steps and he’d taken her into his arms. It had been the briefest of embraces, and they hadn’t even kissed. Why, then, did Dana keep replaying those few seconds in her mind, over and over? It was almost as if Nick had imprinted himself on her senses. Even now she remembered the feel of his arms around her, his gentle strength, the touch of his cheek against hers, the warmth pervading her body at his nearness….
She stared unseeing at the grid chart before her. Vaguely she tuned in to Pat’s voice.
“You really have to watch yourself,” Pat was saying. “You can’t get desperate. I mean, if you take the first job that comes along, you could be making a big mistake. I still tend to wonder if I made the right move, signing on at this–”
Dana simply didn’t have the patience for one more word. “You’re an archaeologist. You’re doing archaeology. What’s the problem?”
Pat seemed nonplussed for a moment, but then she started up again. She was hardly ever at a loss for words. “You have to understand, Dana. It’d be wonderful if I could just forget about everything else and enjoy what I’m doing. Really, it would be. But I have to think about my future. Who doesn’t? The academic world is such an incredibly narrow-minded place, and you have to take careful steps while building your career.” Whenever Pat mentioned the academic world, she did so with a mixture of reverence and scorn.
“And make no mistake about it, Dana. That’s why I’m here–I’m building my career. Despite the relative unimportance of this dig, Nick’s name still carries with it a certain amount of weight–although even that’s starting to wane….”
Nick again. Perhaps in the larger world his influence had waned, but here on this island he dominated. His crew members might resent his autocratic methods, but they invariably obeyed his instructions. He demanded the best from people and he worked the hardest himself. For all his apparent cynicism, this project had to mean something to him.
Dana glanced around the small clearing, where they’d barely started the preliminaries for the new excavation–the surface survey and the plotting out of test pits. If they were very lucky, eventually they’d find evidence of Mayan crops–maize, beans, squash. This would tell them more about ancient settlement patterns on the island, but it would probably not add significant new information to knowledge of Mayan farming. In many ways, it was tedious, thankless work. That couldn’t be denied….
“This island is important,” Dana said. “All you have to do is think about the people who walked here a thousand years ago. And now we’re trying to re-create their lives–it’s very exciting.”
Pat gave Dana a condescending glance. “I suppose I sounded like you on my first dig. Overexcited, overenthusiastic. You’ll get over it–trust me.” Another smirk. Then, in an emphatic manner, Pat tied a string to a marker in the ground, her sandy hair falling into her face. Pat always looked as if she’d grown impatient halfway through the task of straightening her collar and combing her hair; she was perpetually a bit rumpled and scattered in appearance.
“Nick’s the one who really had it made,” Pat remarked after a moment. “With everything he’d accomplished on Mayan hieroglyphics, he had tenure before he was thirty–can you believe it? At Deacon University, no less. A very exclusive, very pretentious school. Anyway, Nick was on top of it. He was set for life…and then he just tossed it all away. Of course, after what happened to him, I guess it’s understandable.”
Dana gritted her teeth in frustration. Was there no way to shut Pat up? Was there no way to escape the subject of Nick? It was bad enough for Dana to be dwelling on the man, but now Pat was making mysterious comments about him. Dana had to erase a few lines on her page and start over. She resisted for a short while, but then at last she gave in.
“Okay, out with it. Exactly what happened to Nick?”
Pat shrugged. She obviously enjoyed having the inside story, as well as dangling her knowledge before the less informed. “Family tragedy,” she said enigmatically.
Tragedy… Dana thought of the pain she’d seen shadowing Nick’s face now and again. “What was it?” she asked, almost fearful of hearing the answer. But now Pat was hedging.
“His wife left him over it, that much is for sure.”
“Just spit it out, Pat!”
“I’m not aware of all the details,” Pat said defensively. “That wasn’t the point I was making. The fact is, whatever the reason, Nick threw away his career.”
So Pat didn’t really have the inside story–she just liked to pretend that she did. Dana felt like an idiot for taking the bait. She reminded herself firmly that Nick’s private life was none of her business and tried to concentrate once again on the grid sheet in front of her.
Pat went back to her measurements, but nothing seemed to dampen her zeal for conversation. “I’ll bet Jarrett knows more about Nick. Jarrett’s always dropping little hints about people. You know the type of thing–nasty little gibes, backhanded compliments.”
Dana glanced up in surprise. “I’ve never heard him say anything like that. Jarrett strikes me as…courteous. That’s really the only word to describe him.”
“He must be trying to make a good impression,” Pat said shrewdly. “I think he’s sweet on you.”
“Not likely,” Dana muttered. But Jarrett did seem to pay her a lot of attention, helping her with her work, making sure all her questions were answered.
Pat placed another marker in the ground. “Tell the truth, Dana. Jarrett’s a good-looking guy, and there isn’t much entertainment on this island. Can’t you see yourself and him–”
“No.”
“How about one of the others, then?” Pat sat back on her heels; obviously she’d embarked on a subject of real interest. “Okay, there’s Tim. A little wet behind the ears, unfortunately. He must be what–all of twenty?”
“More like eighteen, I’d think.”
“No, he’s been in college too long,” Pat pronounced. “The way I understand it, anthropology is at least his third major–he just can’t make up his mind what to study. He lives off some kind of trust fund, can you believe it? Just a monthly stipend, of course, but still–”
“Pat, I’m trying to draw this damn grid.”
“You’re as curious about the guys as I am,” Pat said imperturbably. “But you’re right, Tim isn’t much of a prospect. As for Nick…well, he is very sexy, with all that brooding disillusionment. Suppressed intensity, that’s Nick. It might be interesting to be around when he stops suppressing–don’t you think?”
Dana made a great effort to concentrate on her graph sheet. She needed to replicate on paper what Pat was marking off on the site. All measurements would be checked for accuracy against their original calculations….
It was hopeless, of course. Dana now had a more vivid image than ever of Nick imprinted on her mind. According to Pat, he was a man who had endured some type of family tragedy, and that only made him seem more…compelling. A man who guarded some deep sorrow behind that gruff exterior….
“The way I understand it, Nick’s ex-wife is completely out of the picture,” Pat went on inexorably. “There’s no other woman in his life that I can tell. In a manner of speaking, he’s available–in spite of that don’t-touch attitude of his.”
Dana tightened her grip on her pencil. “I’m not interested in Nick or anyone else,” she said, keeping her voice carefully neutral.
“You will be. After you’ve been on a dig for a while, you find out things get pretty chummy. It’s the isolation, and all of us being stuck together like this.”
Dana finally gave up on her graph, tossing her clipboard down. “It won’t happen to me,” she declared. “I won’t let it. I’ve had enough of men for a while.”
