The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,11
and stopped on a very nice ass. Oh, my God... Quit looking!
So not a teacher’s body. She did an about-face and snatched a T-shirt from her trunk, shucking out of her sweater as fast as possible. She threw the T-shirt on, only to discover it was inside out and backward. She cursed under her breath, and ripped it off to turn it right side out.
****
Ian knew he shouldn’t, but he looked over his shoulder. His mouth went dry as he fixed on her near-naked back. Lantern light glistened on her damp skin. As she wrestled with the shirt, her shoulder blades arched above a bra gone transparent with water.
Heat blazed up his spine. From where he stood, he could have reached her in three steps. Pained, he closed his eyes. Don’t. Fucking. Move. Already, his body had formed other ideas.
All of which sounded way too good.
For whatever she was.
For a minute, all he heard was the sound of shuffling cloth. Then she asked, “Are you okay?”
He chanced another glimpse back over his shoulder. Dressed now, she frowned at him in an expression of concern. He frowned, too. He couldn’t call it relief, but it was sure as hell easier to say something when she had her shirt on. “Yeah.”
She picked up the towel and offered it to him. He took it to dry his own dripping hair. It smelled like her: earthy, with an undertone of something spicy that made him want to act on his earlier impulses. He tried not to breathe it in, feeling suddenly trapped in her tent while the storm howled outside.
“Do you want something dry to wear? I could ask one of the guys for a set of clothes.”
“I’m fine.”
“At least something for a dry sling. Do you need any ice? We have an icebox hooked up to a generator.”
“No. Sara, the sling is fine. My arm is fine. Don’t worry about it.” He dropped the towel on her trunk, took a few steps away, then sat in an empty camp chair. She stayed where she was, crossing her arms over her body as if she were cold. He warred with the confusion etched like a neon sign into her posture. “I’m sorry. It just hurts, so I’m punchy. I didn’t take any painkillers tonight.”
“Oh.”
“You gonna sit?”
Prodded into motion, she fished in the cooler by her table. “Normally after breaking ground on a dig, I finish up the day with a beer. Sort of an opening ceremony.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
She offered him a drink. He took a water, even though he would rather have downed a six pack in one shot. She got a beer for herself, then sat with a long sigh in the table’s opposite chair. “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow. I’d like to get further than we did today.”
He recognized the nervous chatter for what it was. He knew what she was. She knew he knew it. His good manners prodded him just enough to push out some conversation, while they were stuck here. “What got you into all this, anyway?”
The rumble and hiss of the storm filled the silence for a minute. “My father.” She smiled, and Ian found his gaze locked on it. “Dad was an archaeologist. He taught at the university, and they sent him all over the world on assignments. I used to love it when he came home with stories about where he’d been and what he saw. Archaeology seemed like such an adventure. He was brilliant.”
“Was?”
She took the cap off her beer. The bright look in her eyes faded, taking something indefinable with it, and Ian wished it hadn’t right up until she added, “He’s dead.”
He went rigid. “So’s mine.”
“Oh.” She fidgeted with her beer bottle. “How?”
“I don’t want to get into it. What happened to yours?”
Her expression cooled. For the first time, he saw why people back at the college called her Shark Markham. “I don’t want to get into it.” She took a long drink of beer. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me how you just happened to choose Hvitmar for your birding project.”
He opened his water bottle. “I had to come to Shetland, anyway.” When she gave him a get-real look, he raised his hands. “I swear to God. My assignment was to study the coastal birds of Shetland. You want to see my proposal?”
“Lucky for you, Hvitmar’s in Shetland.”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
She took another drink. The silence stretched out some more, and he tried not to fidget. He wanted