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“We called you moldy Mecate,” she said. “We thought you were…” She looked Matt up and down, and her lip curled. “Old.”
“I’m not. I’m…” He spread his hands. “Me.”
Now those lips flattened, and suddenly he wanted the curl back. “You’re not you. Or at least not the you you said you were. You’re not Teo Jones.”
Matt winced. The Jones part had been a mistake. But everything else was true.
Mostly.
“Who do you think you are, man?” McCord’s grin was so wide, he appeared ready to laugh out loud or maybe break into song. He had to have been dancing since he discovered the truth. “Indiana Jones?”
“What?”
“Dr. Jones. Archaeology professor. You wanna dig deep down and discover buried treasure.” McCord snorted. “Where’s your whip and your hat? You got a hard-on for Harrison Ford or something?
Right now any hard-on Matt might have had was fading fast. Thank God. Because the others had begun to duck out of their tents and gather around to watch.
“You practically told me who you were,” Gina murmured. “As if Teo is that far off of Mateo, and then Dr. Jones—” She rolled her eyes as if she, or maybe he, was the biggest idiot ever born.
“I don’t…” Matt paused, because suddenly he did understand. He’d chosen Jones because Smith seemed too obviously a false name, but he wanted something simple, something he could remember. It had never occurred to him that the name of the Harrison Ford character all his flighty students adored was Dr. Jones.
How could he be both so smart and so dumb at the same time? It was a gift.
“I didn’t—” he began.
“Oh, I’d say you did,” McCord said. “Or at least you were going to.”
“Will you shut up,” Matt said between gritted teeth.
“Nope.” McCord stuck his thumbs in his belt and rocked back on his boot heels, clearly enjoying this so much he could hardly stand it.
Matt wanted to punch him, something he could never before remember wanting. Violence didn’t solve anything. He’d studied enough wars to understand that.
However, he thought it might make him feel better to smash his fist into that smirking face. And right now Matt felt so bad it might be worth getting his own face smashed in just for the tiny bit of joy he’d receive from popping Jase McCord in his noble Native nose.
“What happened?” Amberleigh asked, her volume causing several birds to start up from nearby trees.
“Shh, dear.” Melda’s bright blue gaze switched among Matt, Gina, and McCord as she chewed on her lip. “Not our business.”
“Then why are we out here watchin’,” Mel wondered, “when we could be in the tent f—?”
“Anyone want coffee?” Tim announced, and any birds that had remained in the vicinity followed their friends to Canada. “I’m buying.”
No one took Tim up on the offer. Because they all knew there wasn’t a Starbucks for miles or because they didn’t care that it wasn’t their business since the scene unfolding in front of them was the most excitement they’d had in years?
You could take the kid off the playground, but you never, ever took the playground out of the kid. Even Matt, who’d never been on a playground, knew this as well as he knew his own name.
All of them.
If there was going to be a fight, no one wanted to miss it.
“What were you hoping to do?” Gina asked. “What possible reason could you have for not telling me the truth?”
“I … uh … well…” Matt took a deep breath. Why had pretending to be someone else seemed like a great idea? Now that he’d been outted, it merely seemed like the foolish stunt it was. Wasn’t that always the way? Matt released his breath on a rush. “I got nothin’.”
“Nothing?” Gina’s voice was deceptively calm, excruciatingly soft. “You almost had me.”
“No, Gina, it isn’t what you think.”
