“Planning to lick them next?”
He startles, his hand jerking back. Behind those square glasses, his eyes flash across her body like she’s somehow changed since yesterday. He swallows and looks away, his pale cheeks lighting with a splash of pink. He’s left a shockingtwoshirt buttons undone, teasing a glimpse of olive-skinned chest and a hint of crisp dark hair below his collar.
“Good morning to you too,” he says, stiff as a shot of twenty-year-old Scotch. “Clever Girl—quite the name for a fossil company. Is it your favorite line fromJurassic Park?”
“I prefer ‘Life finds a way,’ but it doesn’t make for very good signage.”
“I suppose not.” He looks at the floor. When his eyes come back up, he’s fully transformed from the soft stranger of a moment ago to the prudish, particular man she’s met before. “Your shoelace is undone.”
Annoyed, she bends down to make a quick, sloppy bow. “Haveyou ever licked a fossil, or did you change the subject for some other reason?” Everyone’s done it; it’s a quick trick to distinguish between the Velcro-like texture of bone and the smoothness of rock.
“Are you suggesting this specimen isn’t real?” He arches a brow.
“I’m sayingyou’renot a real paleontologist until you’ve frenched a femur. If you’re tired of keeping your taxonomist hands clean and reaping all the glory from other people’s fieldwork, maybe today’s your day.”
His mouth twitches slightly, like he’s trying not to smile. “Nice poster.” He angles his freshly shaven chin to indicate one of Ripley’s favorites, an artist’s rendering of theropods in their natural habitat. The line work reminds her of the cover of a fantasy novel, the jewel-toned beasts romantic and dragon-like.
And it’s from one ofhispublications, which are as famous for their art as their science. Damn it.
“What do youwant,Smithson?”
“I beg your pardon.” His accent turns to cut crystal.
“Like I said yesterday, you could investigate a fraud on your own. Why dirty yourself on the private side?”
He winces, the tops of his cheekbones blanching a little. “Are you quoting me?”
“Discovermagazine, 2024.”
“I was wrong, obviously. Give me one moment,” he says, pulling out his phone. He types fast; thirty seconds later, there’s the sound of an uploaded social media post. He turns the device toward Ripley.
@jamesasmithsonofficial: Time for palaeontology to reconsider relationship w citizen scientists. Science happens everywhere!
“You pressed Post just like that?” Ripley says, unwillingly impressed. “People are going to scream at you in the comments.Oxfordis going to scream at you in the comments.”
Something hot and unforgiving flares in his eyes, transforming him from mannerly to forbidding in the space of a breath. “Let them.”
Something about that cool, unflinchingLet themis,unfortunately, very hot. Or maybe it was theI was wrong? Either way, Ripley realizes she’s tilting her head, reassessing a lot of things about Smithson.
Cut that shit out, Adams,she scolds herself, snapping her neck back into the full upright and locked position.
“Strong move, Professor. So what’s in it for you? And please don’t say it’s for science.”
He looks down again. “Yes. Well,” he says, putting his phone back in his pocket and shrugging his rather lovely shoulders. The dark curl falling over his forehead gives that proper exterior the barest hint of something secretly heroic.
“Dr. Stone’s specimen will disrupt, if not destroy, a taxonomy I’ve been constructing for the past three years. It’s been…very difficult work, and I find I’m loath to let it go. Therefore, I’m willing to sacrifice some time to verify his findings.”
Ripley narrows her eyes. “I don’t feel like that’s the whole truth, Smithson.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know anything about your feelings, Adams,” he says archly.
Ripley barks out a laugh before she can suppress it. His mouth twitches again, like he knows he’s turning the tide.
He leans forward, his eyes serious. “Is there no reasonyouwould like to proceed with this investigation? Nothing about it that strikes you as right or fitting? Because I thought there might be.I know who you are, Ripley Adams,” he says, a low thread of urgency in his voice.
A ripple of goosebumps washes up Ripley’s neck. There’s no way he remembers their conversation in Atlanta the way she does. The only things Smithson knows about her come from the gossip Will spread and the paper she’d sent him while still drunk,which, she later discovered, was not the polished version but a draft full of notes likeCheck reference FFSandAdams, were you high when you wrote this???
“I don’t know what you mean.”
