Excavated (4 page)

He’d
been rude, yes. But not anything worse than she must deal with all the time
from archeologists who didn’t approve or appreciate her line of work.

Other
than that kiss, he’d done nothing to deserve the resentment she evidently still
felt for him. In fact, he’d given up a lot to make sure he hadn’t taken
advantage of her.

He
stood up and got ready for bed, making sure he made as little noise as
possible, since he was uncomfortable with the idea of Lucy overhearing. Then he
stretched out on the old sofa to sleep.

Philip
had worked too hard for too long to let Lucy rattle him this way.

He
was different now. Stronger. More settled. More focused.

Lucy
wasn’t going to get under his skin again.

***

Lucy had just gotten to
sleep when she was awakened by an eerie sound.

Her
eyes popped open as she tried to process it. As soon as she did, she threw on a
sweatshirt over her pajamas and ran outside the trailer.

The
sound was still there—half howl, half whistle—but she couldn’t identify where
it was coming from.

She
heard the other door of the trailer open and knew Philip must have stepped out
too, but she didn’t turn to look at him.

Instead,
her eyes landed on strange moving lights in the distance near the henge and
barrow.

That
was when she knew exactly what was going on.

She
couldn’t locate the sound, but she watched the lights, trying to line up the
angles so she could discover their point of origin. She was able to make a
pretty good guess when she saw a lone boulder set apart from the others, so she
walked toward it.

Sure
enough, as soon as she reached the far side, she found two of the graduate
students crouched behind it. One had three different sized flashlights, and the
other had some sort of homemade metal cone that she was howling through to make
the strange noise.

When
they saw they’d been found out, Lucy arched her eyebrows.

They
both laughed sheepishly, and the male student stood up. “Damn. That didn’t work
too well.”

“Did
you think I’d grab the camera and start documenting concrete evidence of a haunting?”

He
shrugged with a crooked grin. “Just a joke. Figured it was worth a try. It
worked on someone else who came out last year. That was such a funny night.”

Lucy
knew Philip had followed her over. She could feel him behind her. She spoke as
much to him as to the grad students. “I’ve seen much better attempts at
manufacturing the supernatural. I’m pretty good at spotting fakes.”

The
female student stood up too and gave a Lucy a smile. “I hope there’s no hard
feelings.”

Lucy
smiled back. There was absolutely no sense in getting annoyed at something like
this. They were young. They thought it would be fun. They didn’t know her at
all. “Of course not.”

She
turned around then to start back toward the trailer, and Philip fell in step
with her.

Now
that she looked at him, she realized he wore nothing but a pair of pants he
must have just thrown on. She wondered if he just slept in his underwear.

His
chest was cleanly contoured and impressive in the half-light of the night, and
she looked away from it when she was hit by a wave of carnal yearning, the
desire to feel his chest, to press up against it.

“I
assume you had nothing to do with that,” she said, nodding back toward the
graduate students, who were walking back too, at a slower pace.

“What
do you think?” The words were cool, and they were the first thing he’d spoken
since he left his trailer.

“I
think it’s unlikely. Practical jokes don’t really seem to be your thing.”

“No.”

“In
fact, levity of any kind doesn’t seem to be your thing.”

She
felt him stiffen beside her. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing
to get uptight about. Just that having fun doesn’t seem to be high on your
priority list.”

“I
enjoy my job.” His eyes narrowed on her face.

“I’m
sure you do. I mean other kinds of fun. When was the last time you had a
vacation?”

He
gave a half-shrug, which was answer enough.

“When
was the last time you went to a party?”

“I
don’t like parties.”

“Yeah.
I’m not surprised.” She had no idea what was compelling her to push like this,
but she wanted to rile Philip up, knock him out of his cool composure. He’d
been kind of like that when she first met him on the campaign—sober, always
professional—but gradually she’d been able to soften him. “When was the last
time you got laid?”

He
eyed her coolly, his jaw tight. But his tone was natural when he asked, “When
was the last time
you
got laid?”

“It’s
been over six months for me,” she admitted. “So it’s not like I’m holding
myself up as a model for sexual superfluity, but even
I’m
not wound as
tightly as you. I bet you’ve never been in a long-term relationship, have you?”

“I’ve
been married twice.”

The
words shocked her, and she stopped walking, not far from the trailer. “Really?
What happened?”

“Why
do you assume I’m going to share personal information with you, after not
having seen you in fourteen years?”

She
gave him a half-smile. “Why not? If you ask me a personal question, I’ll answer
it. I’ve been married once and engaged—“

“Three
times. I know.”

“How
do you know?”

“Believe
it or not, I’m capable of doing a Google search.”

“So
you’ve been checking me out this evening, have you?”

Beyond
the coolness of his expression, she started to see a gleam of something that
felt familiar—something warm and alive and damned sexy. It intensified as he
said, “I always do my research.”

“You
didn’t before I got here.”

He
lifted his eyebrows in an almost smug expression. “I always do my research on
things that are of interest to me. You weren’t of interest to me before.”

Her
eyes lowered to his chest. His shoulders were broad, and the bare curve of them
was strangely irresistible—like she needed to trace them with her fingers, with
her mouth. Her cheeks flushed slightly at the physical response from imagining
doing so. “So I’m of interest to you now?”

“Didn’t
you Google
me
?” he asked.

It
didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t answered her question. “Yeah,” she
admitted. “But not much turned up except academic papers you’ve presented at
conferences. Like I said before, levity isn’t really your thing.”

“If,
by levity, you mean childish practical jokes, then I would agree with that
assessment.”

She
snorted with amusement at his smug tone. Then wished she hadn’t, since it gave
him a kind of victory. “So what
did
happen with your wives? Did you get
bored and move on to greener pastures?”

His
expression changed, and the light went out of his eyes. “No.”

She
dropped her gaze. “Sorry.” Then she glanced up at him again, checking his
expression. “So they left you?”

He
let out a breath, as if giving up his resistance. “I left them, after I
discovered they were cheating.”

“Both
of them?” She was surprised. Philip was gorgeous and brilliant and sexy. She
couldn’t believe two different women would have been unfaithful to him. “You
sure know how to pick them, I guess.”

“I
haven’t been known to be the best judge of female character.” His tone was wry
now, and he didn’t sound defensive or resentful, which was a relief.

“Sounds
like it. But that’s no reason for never having fun.”

“My
job is the thing I enjoy the most. I’m not as deprived as you make me sound.”

She
peered at him, wondering if that was true, wondering if he genuinely loved
life, even though he never indulged in normal things that gave most people
enjoyment.

He
shifted from foot to foot, as if her observation made him uncomfortable. “What
about you?”

“What
about me?”

“What
happened to end all your relationships?”

 She
gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. They just didn’t work out. No one cheated
or anything.”

“Why
didn’t they work out? You were the one who ended them. You must have had a
reason.”

He
was pushing, and it was partly in retaliation for the way she’d been pushing
him. Since she deserved it, she didn’t immediately close down the conversation,
which was her initial inclination. “It just became clear that it wasn’t going
to work for the long-haul. Better to end it early than to end it much further
in.”

“So
it’s not marriage itself that you’re afraid of?” His tone sounded vaguely
skeptical, as if he didn’t believe it was so.

“No,
it’s not marriage. I’d like to be married. I’d like to find someone to spend
the rest of my life with. I just haven’t found the right guy.”

“Okay.”
He sounded mild, but his eyes were very sharp, very observant. She had no idea
what they might see.

Deciding
that this conversation had gone on long enough, she turned to walk into her
room of the trailer. “I better get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

She
opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind her, and she knew Philip was
standing there watching until she was out of sight.

Early the next morning,
Lucy leaned against a stool near the excavation site, taking notes as Philip
talked. She was genuinely interested in the history of the island, and she
needed detailed background to do a good job on this episode.

So
she tried not to think about how attractive and masculine Philip looked in the
bright morning sun.

He
was going to look really good on camera, especially if she could get him to
take off his hat while they filmed him. With the distinct golden-brown of his
hair and his striking blue eyes against his tanned skin—not to mention his
lean, strong body—she’d have girls writing in by the hundreds, raving over the
sexy archeologist and begging her to have him on the show again.

He’d
probably be bombarded with fan mail himself. She was quite sure he had no idea
what he was in for after this episode went online.

At
the moment, he appeared completely unaware of his physical appeal. He wore a
shirt that wasn’t yet wrinkled, but the sleeves were already pushed up to his
elbows, like they were getting in his way. His attention was entirely absorbed
by the island, which was clearly the most important thing in his life.

He
explained the millennia-long history of the island, starting with the latest
and going backward through the layers of civilization he and his team had
unearthed so far.

“We
don’t know how far back the settlements here go,” he concluded, staring out at
the trenches and standing stones. “But I’m thinking we’ll have a thousand years
of history represented when we get to the earliest layer. At least as far back
as 3000 BC.”

“So
the history is contemporaneous to Brodgar?”

“Roughly,
yes. Although I think Erland might have been settled even earlier.”

Lucy
raised her eyebrows. “What’s your evidence for that?”

Philip
gave her a look she well remembered—a cool, slightly impatient expression that
implied she was being exasperating but he wasn’t interested enough to get
genuinely angry about it. “No concrete evidence yet. As I said, we haven’t yet
excavated the earliest layers.”

“So
it’s just your gut feeling.” She added one more line to the notes she’d been
taking earlier.

“Not
gut feeling. Informed, professional conjecture.” His vaguely exasperated look
transformed into full-fledged annoyance.

Irrationally,
she liked that she’d rattled him. He still had the habit of projecting
perfectly cool composure, and she was glad he wasn’t as unflappable as he liked
to appear. She focused down on her notes, hiding a slight smile with her hair.

She
must not have hidden it well enough.

“I’d
appreciate knowing,” Philip said, his voice colder now, “if you’re planning to
skew my responses in order to make me look like some kind of a flake or quack
on your little ghost show.”

Her
private amusement vanished in a wave of resentment. “If you’d ever watched my
'little ghost show,’” she snapped, “You would see that I never make someone
appear other than they are. If an archeologist is informed and professional,
then that’s how you’ll appear on my show. If you’re a flake or a quack, then
that’s the way you’re going to come across.”

He
opened his mouth to respond, his blue eyes flashing anger, but then he closed
it with obvious effort. He glanced away, clearly trying to control his
response.

When
he looked back at her, he was cool and distant again. “It may be difficult to
see at first, but to the left here was a fairly large building we believe was
used for ceremonial purposes. The henge would have been erected later, probably
to mark the significance of this site in religious ceremonies.”

Lucy
would have preferred Philip to just say what he thought rather than hold it
back this way. She preferred him last night when he’d come out and confronted
her about the conflict between them.

But
both last night and this morning had both proved one thing to Lucy.

She’d
never been important enough to him to even recognize how he’d hurt her.

It
was fine. It was too many years in the past now. She just needed to put up with
Philip for a week or two, and then he’d be out of her life forever.

So
she cleared her mind of everything except her task on this island. “Have you
found any evidence for what kind of ceremonial practices were performed here?”

***

She spent the morning
following Philip around, taking notes and listening to his explanations about
the different archeological features of the island and its Neolithic history.

In
the afternoon, she conferenced with Dana and Sawyer to discuss how best to proceed
with the shooting—what to focus on, what to film, and the most effective
approach to making the location engaging, exciting, and informative.

Despite
her conflicted feelings for Philip, Lucy was excited about the site and the
episode. It had been a long time since she’d found a location that was so rich
with potential and so unknown to the wider world.

After
they’d put together a general plan for the episode, she made calls for a couple
of hours, filling in the experts Dana had lined up with what she needed from
them and then trying to talk Michael McPherson into leaving his reclusion and
ferrying over to the island for an afternoon to film some segments on Orkney
lore.

She’d
gotten a tentative “yes” when she finally hung up.

She
was tired and kind of restless. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon, so
she should probably rest some now. She would need to work late that night,
making final decisions with Sawyer about what and where to do the filming.

But
she couldn’t relax, so she left the trailer and glanced around to see what
everyone else was doing. She couldn’t see Dana and Sawyer, so she assumed they
were in their room “resting,” which was what they usually did in the late
afternoons. The grad students were gathered around a fold-up table near the
trailers, evidently working on cleaning and cataloging the artifacts they’d dug
up that morning.

She
was about to go over and join them—figuring she might be able to get some good
information from them on the site and maybe about Philip—when she saw him on
the far edge of the dig by himself.

He
was on his knees, hunched over and busy working on something, so she walked
over toward him instead.

When
she reached him, she saw he was brushing at something in the dirt.

She
squatted down next to him, genuinely interested. She saw a glimpse of polished
black in the dark dirt.

Philip
slanted her a look but didn’t say anything. He was brushing very carefully
around the polished black object.

“What
is it?” she asked at last, her curiosity overcoming her reluctance to begin the
conversation herself.

“A
jet bead bracelet, I believe.” His eyes never left his task, and she couldn’t
help but admire his intense focus and the precision of his brushing.

She
was silent for a minute, trying to recollect any knowledge at all about
Neolithic jewelry. Finally, she gave up and asked, “Are they common?”

He
gave a half-shrug. “They’re common in the Bronze Age and later Neolithic. This
is the first one we’ve found here on Erland.”

“Oh.
That’s cool.”

“I’m
surprised to find one in such an early layer.”

She
read between the lines of his quiet words and his intensely focused appearance.
He was excited about the find. About what it might mean. “So you sent away all
the grad students so they wouldn’t mess it up.”

A
flicker of a smile on Philip’s fine lips warmed something in Lucy’s chest—as if
her humor had spoken to his, despite his distraction. “Of course.”

She
watched in silence as he carefully cleared the dirt away from the black bead
bracelet. For some reason, she couldn’t help but remember him as he’d been during
her freshman year—intense, serious, committed.

He’d
been committed his mother, changing his entire life plans because she’d needed
his help. He’d been committed to his work, spending days and nights on even the
most mundane of tasks necessary for the campaign.

He
hadn’t really changed. He was exactly the same way now.

It
made her feel close to him. The way she’d felt when she was seventeen.

When
he’d completely cleared the dirt from the bracelet, he turned to look at her
suddenly.

She
couldn’t help but respond to the smile in his eyes. She smiled back, feeling a
glow of connection, of memory.

They
held gazes for just a little too long. She suddenly felt self-conscious,
uncomfortable.

Dropping
her eyes back to the bracelet, she said, “It’s so tiny.”

“People
were smaller back then.”

“I
know.”

When
she darted a look back up at his face, she saw he was peering at her the way he
had last night—like he was trying to read her mind, read her soul, figure her
out.

Last
night, she’d resented it, but now it just confused her. It felt intimate
somehow, but they’d never been intimate.

Despite
what she’d believed back in college for a while, they’d never even been
friends. He might have committed to other things, but he’d never been committed
to
her
.

She
cleared her throat and stood up, her stiff muscles resenting being held in a
squat for so long.

Philip
looked up at her, a silent question on his face.

She
didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand anything.

She
turned and walked back to the trailer.

***

Philip didn’t
understand Lucy at all, and he didn’t like what he couldn’t understand.

At
the moment, it was two o’clock in the morning, and Lucy was still wandering
around the island with her cameraman.

Philip
couldn’t sleep, and two hours ago he’d come outside to sit in his doorway,
staring out at the weird, shifting shadows of the island on a summer night.

He
wasn’t sure what Lucy had been doing all this time. She must be on the far side
of the island, since she was out of his sight.

For
all he knew, she was screwing her cameraman.

He
didn’t really think so, though. He was pretty sure the cameraman was screwing Lucy’s
assistant.

He
shouldn’t be thinking about Lucy in the context of sex anyway.

It
was absolutely ridiculous the way he kept swinging back and forth between
feeling close to her and feeling annoyed with her, between wanting to strangle
her and wanting to take her to bed.

He
led a very orderly and controlled existence—he’d made sure of it, after his early
years had been so rocky—and her presence here obviously wasn’t good for him.

She
needed to leave. Soon.

At
last, he saw her approaching with the lanky cameraman. Lucy told the young man
goodnight as he turned to his room in the second trailer.

Lucy's
eyes were on Philip as she approached.

She
stopped directly in front of him, looking absurdly pretty and appealing with
hair slipping out of a clip and a frown turning down her full lips.

“Are
you really staying up all night to spy on me now?”

“I
wasn’t spying on you. I couldn’t sleep.” He was well aware that his tone was
less than patient.

“Are
you normally afflicted with insomnia?” she asked tartly.

Philip
stood up, since he didn’t like the way she loomed over him. It put him at a
disadvantage. “Are you normally this prickly?”

“Just
with you.” Her cheeks were flushed, and her breathing had accelerated.

For
some reason, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

“Lucky
me.”

The
flash of angry tension that had tightened her body suddenly slumped. She blew
out a resigned breath. “This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t do this, Philip.  I
really am trying to be professional and cordial, and I don’t know why you
always get on my last nerve.”

He
was glad that, at least, he wasn’t the only one so unsettled by their
interaction. The only one without any good explanation for it. “It’s an awkward
situation,” he said slowly, testing out the words as he spoke them.

She
nodded, dropping her eyelids and then slanting a look back up to him in that
deliciously provocative way she had.

He
was almost certain it was unconscious. If she used that look on men
purposefully, then she would have any man in the world at her beck and call.

“I’ll
try harder to be nice,” she said, a note of irony in her tone that made him
want to smile.

He
stared down at her, suddenly hit by the almost irresistible urge to kiss her.
His whole body pulsed with it, and he had to clench his fist at his side to
keep from reaching out for her.

She
sucked in a breath. For a moment, Philip thought she’d recognized what was on
his mind, but then she said, “You might consider being a little nicer yourself,
you know.”