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“Oh, bit of this, bit of that.” Her voice shook. “What about you?”
“Nothing much. I’ve been out walking.”
“The flashlight died, James. I’ve been here in the dark.”
His tone changed. “We’ve brought the tent poles. We’ll get the rope secured right away. It has knots every couple of feet…can you climb a rope, Sue?”
“Sure.” It had sounded like a good idea a while ago, when she was still awash with adrenaline from jumping in after Matt. Now it seemed ridiculous.
“It’s all yours.”
Susannah felt for the rope and reached above her head for a knot. Stifling a groan, she pulled herself up until her feet clasped a knot, too. She waited for protesting nerves to stop yelling, then, trying to keep most of her weight on her good arm and leg, she felt for the next knot and pulled with her arms and pushed with her feet again.
Getting out of the hole was worse than staying in it. The rope dug into her hands, scraping her skin. Sharp pains stabbed through her ankle and shoulder with each push and pull of the climb.
Her face drew closer to the light. She could feel fresh air tantalizingly close. One more knot, then the poles. All I have to do is grab them and swing. Up and out. She knew she couldn’t do it. If she let go of the rope to reach for the metal tent poles, she would fall.
“James?” Her voice wavered. “I can’t—”
A pair of strong arms reached toward her and grasped her securely. Her right arm hooked around his shoulder, but the left, weakened by the climb, dangled. She felt his muscles flexing under the soft cloth of his shirt as he pulled her over the edge. They both fell to the ground, and she half lay on a pair of denim-clad legs. She kept still for a moment, feeling the burning of her muscles and the firmness of the ground beneath her. As she rested, she realized this couldn’t be James, unless a massive dose of steroids had transformed his build in the past few hours.
She looked up, knowing whose face she’d see, but needing proof. The eyes were the clincher, intensely blue—too blue to be real, she’d always thought. His arm was firmly around her. When she drew away, he let go.
Cobalt-blue? She didn’t really know what shade cobalt was, but that was the color that occurred to her. Those eyes had emptied her mind thirteen years ago. She’d seen them while she carefully chiseled and brushed. She’d seen them while she waited to fall asleep in her tent at night. Then the field assignment had ended and she had forgotten all about them. Not true. She’d seen them in the pages of her textbooks that first term back at the university. Eventually, she had forgotten all about them.
He hadn’t changed…hardly at all. Sandy hair, traces of red highlighted by the evening sun…she had always wanted to touch it, slide her fingers through it. An outdoor face, tanned, with laugh lines in the corners of the eyes…the lines were new. She had forgotten what it was like to be near him. Magazine photographs, showing him three inches tall and frozen in two dimensions, only hinted at his energy and strength.
She realized she was staring. Aware of his hard, warm body half under hers, she moved sharply, grimacing when pain shot through her shoulder.
“Hang on. I’ve got you.” His voice was kind. That was new. He’d sounded different in Australia—edgy, intense. He untangled his legs from hers and his arms came around her again as he helped her sit up. “You’re chilled through.” He pulled a blanket from his backpack and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her skin tingled where he touched her.
She heard James’s anxious voice behind her. “Are you okay, Sue?”
“I’m fine.” She hadn’t expected to feel like this. It was as if no time had elapsed since the Australian quarry ended. She felt twenty again, bowled over by the most charismatic man she’d ever met, and too inexperienced to figure out how to handle it.
“I’m sorry we were so long getting to you,” James said.
“That’s okay.” An odd cloud around her muffled everything. She closed her eyes, willing it away. If it were just the two of them, just herself and James, she’d be all right.
“It took a while to organize the kids and get the tent poles,” he continued. “It’s amazing how similar all these hills look when there’s a person you want to find in one of them. We climbed several—didn’t we, Alex?—till we found the right one.”
Alex. So he and James were already friends. Bonding quickly in a crisis. She didn’t want James to like this man. “Are Matt and Melissa all right?”
“Safe and sound. Everybody’s back at the camp, except Matt. Diane took him to town so the doctor could have a quick look at him.”
“Diane was here?”
“She showed me the way to the bonebed,” Alex explained. “We got there at the same time as the kids. She was alarmed when they told us you were down a sinkhole. She said you’re afraid of the dark.”
It was true, but an embarrassing thing to hear said aloud.
“I should introduce myself—I’m Alexander Blake.”
“Yes.”
Her vague answer provoked an exchange of worried glances between the two men. Susannah wondered why Blake had come to the quarry and why Diane had agreed to bring him. She edged closer to James. “Trust Matt to find a sinkhole.”
James grinned. “I’ll bet he could find one anywhere. Like those pigs that nose out truffles.”
Susannah meant to smile. Instead, she started to cry. She stopped right away, but a few tears were there for Blake to see. He sat back on one heel, leaning an elbow on one bent knee, looking at her assessingly. What was he thinking? That she was a lot of trouble? That she was a mess? That she’d really screwed up the day, running off in a snit and needing to be helped out of a sinkhole?
“I don’t like the look of this,” he said to James. “She seems dazed and emotional. That could indicate a head injury.”
“I didn’t hit my head.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was gentle, warmer than the blanket. “Sometimes when things happen quickly, dangerous things, the mind can’t handle all the information at once. You could hit your head and not be aware of it at first.”
“I’m sure I didn’t.” Was her behavior so odd that only a head injury could explain it? Susannah tried to pull herself together. She’d wanted to meet Blake while she was at work over a prize hadrosaur skeleton or busy at her desk, on her territory, on her terms. Not like this.
“I suppose it’s shock, then,” he said. “It’s no wonder, after the evening you’ve had. I’d like to check you over before you move around too much, just to be on the safe side.”
He reached into his backpack again and brought out a first-aid kit, then scanned her body from head to toe. He’d never really seen her before, not even when she’d put on blush and lipstick before heading to the quarry each day all those years ago, but he was taking a good look now. Now, when dust and sand clung to her, and her ankle was puffed up like a huge white slug. He didn’t seem to recognize her. Not so great for the ego, on the one hand, a relief that her fiasco of a summer had slipped his mind, on the other.
His long, tanned fingers curved around her hands, turning them over to expose abrasions inflicted by the rope. “It’s probably best to leave those alone for now. There’s not much bleeding. Let’s have a look at your arm.”
Alex unfastened the top two buttons of her blouse and eased the cloth away from her shoulder. “Ouch,” he said quietly, when he saw the bruises that reached toward her neck. “I doubt anything’s broken, or you wouldn’t have been able to climb the rope as far as you did. I’ll fasten a sling to take the pressure off your shoulder. James, would you wrap a tensor bandage around her ankle? Figure eight. Right over the shoe for now.”
He was taking charge, just as expected. James ran the science camp; James knew the canyon. If anyone was going to get bossy, it should be James.
“It’s a long walk out of here,” Alex said. “Good thing we brought the truck.”
“You brought the truck?” That news jolted Susannah out of her daze. For years she’d protected the delicate fossils that might lie just under the surface. Now Blake had threatened them his first day on the job. “Think of the damage you’ve done!”
He seemed surprised by her outburst. “We thought you might be hurt.”
“And you are,” James pointed out.
Susannah looked past the two men and saw the roof of the pickup’s cab at the base of the hill. If it had been just one path, two tire tracks from the bonebed to the hill, at least the damage would have been limited, but James had said they’d taken a few wrong turns looking for her. Who knew what specimens they’d crushed under those tires…a juvenile hadrosaur, a nesting site, a clue to the dinosaurs’ extinction…
Still, they had a point. She couldn’t have walked all the way back to the parking area.
Leaning on James, she pushed herself up, putting her weight on her uninjured foot. Alex rose, too, keeping a steadying hand under her elbow. Susannah was tall, accustomed to being as tall as many of the men she met, but when she turned to thank him, she found she was looking directly at his stubble-covered chin. She had to tilt her head to look into those steady blue eyes. Steel-blue?
Almost as a reflex, she felt for her backpack. When she realized she didn’t have it, she glanced toward the sinkhole.
“Did you leave something down there?”
“My backpack…”
Before she could add that she didn’t really need it, Alex had pulled on a pair of leather work gloves and eased himself down between the tent poles. Dangling from one hand, he gripped the rope with the other and disappeared. Moments later, she saw his hands on the poles again. He easily swung himself up onto the ground, her backpack hanging from one shoulder. “Cold and nasty down there.”
“It could have been worse.”
He nodded. “You could have had some dangerous company. Now we’ll get you to the doctor and then home. A couple of pain pills and bed sound good?”
“I’d just as soon skip the doctor.”
“You could wait and see how you feel tomorrow, but I think it’s safer to go tonight.”
She knew he was right. What if something were broken, rather than sprained? The main thing was getting some distance from Blake. Once they got to the road, he and James could go their own ways, and she could get to the hospital by herself. Then, after a good night’s sleep, she would turn back into a thirty-three-year-old scientist who was perfectly capable of handling anything life threw at her.
“HAD A RUN-IN with a tyrannosaurus, did you?” Bob Smythe made a variation of the same joke every time someone from the museum came in with injuries.
“If you think I look bad, you should see the T-Rex.”
The doctor shone a flashlight in Susannah’s eyes. “Headache? Nausea? Faintness?”
“No, nothing like that.” She was beginning to feel normal again. Stiff and aching everywhere, but herself. “Bob, did you see Matt, the boy from the camp? Is he all right?”
“He’ll be fine. From what I could tell, he couldn’t wait to get back and entertain the other kids around the campfire.” Bob turned his attention to her ankle. “Who was that who brought you in? He looked familiar.”
“That’s my new boss. Alexander Blake.”
“Of course. I saw him on TV a while ago, on a program about a carnivore that was bigger than the T-Rex. Hard to imagine.”
Bob picked up a chart and began writing. “You were lucky this time, Susannah. I wouldn’t recommend that you try a jump like that again. A nurse will bandage your hands, and I’ll order a strong painkiller for tonight. We’ll get you a crutch, although with two sprains on the same side of your body, walking will still be difficult. Get in touch with Outpatients if you decide you need a wheelchair. You’ll have to take it easy for a while—keep your foot elevated, your shoulder immobilized, your hands clean and dry.”
Take it easy? The consequences of her injuries hadn’t occurred to Susannah yet. “No digging?”
“You’re joking, right? Absolutely no digging.”
SUSANNAH WATCHED DROWSILY as the headlights swept past the town, the stands of cottonwood, clusters of rounded hills and the occasional hoodoo. Soon she would be home, and Blake would disappear. He hadn’t disappeared when they’d got to the parking area outside the gully, but he would disappear after he took her home. She would crawl into bed and stay there till Christmas.
“Friendly emergency room.” His voice sounded soft in the darkness of the leather-upholstered car. No edge at all.
Susannah closed her eyes, too tired to talk. If she had gone to his meeting, she would be at home sleeping by now. She wouldn’t have told Matt about taking lots of long walks to find fossils, and he might not have wandered so far from the bonebed. The worst part of her day would have been listening to Blake’s plans for the museum. The next time she had an impulse, she would make a point of ignoring it.
“Everyone I’ve run into in town seems interested in the work we do,” Alex went on. “On Saturday, I was in that little grocery store on Main. The lady who runs it— Dorothy—packed my groceries, told me the history of paleontology in the area, and brought me up-to-date on world events, all at no extra charge. Several other people, who didn’t seem to be there to shop, wanted to know what’s going on at every quarry.”
Reluctantly Susannah opened her eyes and tried to do her part for the conversation. “It’s a small town. Everybody knows one another.”
“And one another’s business, I suppose.”
“I’m not sure about that. People probably manage to keep a few secrets.”
“Where do I turn?”
“At the next road. Left.” Five minutes, tops, and he’d be gone. It would be a relief to let her guard down. “Here we are.”
Susannah hadn’t expected to be out after dark, so she’d left the yard light off. It was difficult to see where the road ended and the ditch began. Alex nosed onto the driveway and drove slowly to the front of the house. “I’ll leave the headlights on so you can see to get in.”
Susannah swung the passenger door open as soon as they stopped. “Thanks for everything, Dr. Blake.” She tried to maneuver her way out of the car, but the left half of her body was no help at all. Alex was at her side before her good foot hit the ground. He helped her to stand, and waited while she struggled with the crutch. She leaned her whole weight on it, hopped a few inches forward, then rested.
“Can you manage?”
“I think so.” Inch by inch, she made her way to the house. She stopped when she reached the porch steps. They looked impassable. They were impassable.
“Need a lift?”
She tried to smile. “I’m being punished.”
“For what?”
“For skipping your meeting.”
After a brief silence, he said calmly, “You must have really wanted to avoid me.”
“I really did.”
“So…if that had worked better today, what were you going to do about tomorrow?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead.” She took a deep breath. “It was a mistake. A very childish mistake. I apologize.”
“It’s probably not as bad as all that. Shall we just get this transportation business over with, then?”
Susannah nodded. Alex lifted her easily. He carried her up the few steps and through the screened porch to the front door. He set her down, holding her until she regained her balance.
“I don’t have my keys. They’re in my desk.” She always locked her valuables in her office when she went to the quarry, just taking the truck’s keys and her driver’s license with her. She kept an extra house key hidden, but she didn’t like to broadcast where.
Alex looked around the darkened porch. Two wicker chairs sat at the far end, separated by a round wicker table. “I’ll pull a chair over so you can get off that foot while I look for a way in.”
Susannah hesitated, then pointed toward the wall of the house. “There’s a spare key behind one of those boards.”
“One of these?” Alex touched several of the wide cedar planks. One responded, just barely moving inward. He hooked his fingers underneath and pulled. It came away in his hand revealing a small cavity, and a key. He unlocked the front door, felt for a switch and flicked it on. Soft light filled the living room.
Most of the house—the living room, the shadowed kitchen and dining area beyond and the bedroom loft above—could be seen at a glance. Light sandy walls, hardwood floors and a few patterned rugs in shades of burnt sienna and ocher repeated the colors found in the layered stone of the badlands. Through the living room’s large window, distant pillars and giant toadstools of rock glowed in the moonlight. The house’s interior had a soothing effect, but the view outside was eerie and unsettling.
“Thank you for all your help, Dr. Blake. Again, I’m sorry about the meeting.”
“Will you be all right now?”
“I’ll flake out on the sofa. Anything more complicated can wait till tomorrow.” He was standing just inside the house, and she couldn’t shut the door. Shutting it would be tricky, anyway—her one good hand was clutching the crutch and her one good foot was keeping her upright.
“I think I should stay until you’re settled. You could fall—”
“Dr. Blake,” she began, making an effort to keep her voice civil, “I appreciate your help. But I managed to deal with life before you arrived today, and I can continue to do so.” Her voice started to rise. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. “James could have helped me out of the sinkhole and taken me to the hospital and brought me home, and when I said good-night, he would have known that meant he should leave—”
She stopped abruptly. Part of her wanted to keep going; part of her wished she hadn’t said a thing. She sank onto the sofa’s soft cushions.
