He sits back, surprised. Ripley catches a tendril of air that smells the way James tasted last night, earthy and a little sweet.
“What?” she says, trying not to inhale him too obviously. “Did you think I’d say no and then you could call me on the lie?”
“I certainly didn’t expect you to say yes.” It’s a little painful how much she likes the way a smile turns his voice rich and spicy.
“Well, it’s true. I miss being in a group of learners. Having experts to ask for advice when I get stuck. Debating my peers as a way to think deeply about something I love.”
“Would you want to go back? Real-world considerations aside.”
Real world.The world they’re going back to. Not the worldthey’re leaving, the one where he looks down at her and growls,You needmeto give this to you.
“Sometimes I wish I’d finished what I started, especially because my dad didn’t get to do that. Other times, academia feels like a reality show. The constant fear of getting eliminated tempts good people to do bad things. And bad people to do anything,” she adds, thinking of Will.
She chances a glance at James as they enter the switchbacks up the side of the valley. He’s got his hand over his jaw, one finger hooked across his lips, thinking. In the golden prairie sunshine, he glows like a piece of amber under a jeweler’s light, even with the shadows under his fractal eyes.
“If you don’t want redemption, whatdoyou want?” he asks.
“I never said I didn’t want redemption. I just want it on my own terms.”
“And those are?”
He doesnotgive up. “All right, Professor. If we’re doing career counseling, then I want to contribute something to paleontology. Earn my place here so no one can say I don’t deserve to do the thing I love for the rest of my life. I want to get credit for my work, not lose it to people who see me as a stone to step on. Hell, let’s give me my own company. I could make an alternative to academia for people like Cara and me.”
“And Beauty is the key to all of those things,” he says, sounding troubled. “I hope you don’t think everyone who tries to get close to you is out to steal something, Ripley.”
“There are exceptions.” She wishes he would touch her right now. Lay his hand on her thigh the way he put it on her shoulder at the museum. Let her feel how much it costs him to hold himself back. But with every turn, she can see more of the skyline of the real world up ahead, and she knows he won’t.
“What doyouwant, James? Ideal world—where’s your career going?” She glances at the uneasy line that’s settling between his brows. They’re almost to the top of the valley now.
“I don’t know,” he replies finally, a flicker of disquiet in his tone.
“You should probably try to figure that out,” she says as neutrally as she can.
“I’m sure I will,” he says, sounding like a man who’s the obvious choice to lead the theropod stream at the world’s largest paleontology conference.
They emerge from the valley, the spell of the Badlands dissolving like clouds under the Montana sun.
She’s been violating all her rules. She’s too far away from her fossils, too close to James. He said it himself not two minutes ago: Beauty is the key to everything she wants.
It’s time to refocus on her priorities. If she has to be back in the real world, then she wants to be at her dig, where things make sense. “You okay going a bit faster?”
He frowns as if he’s taking an internal inventory. His fingers drift to his pocket, then his ring. “I think I’m…all right, actually.”
“Good. Let me know if anything changes.”
She lets the speedometer creep up. Beauty is all she has, and the only way she can stop Will is by getting back to Clever Girl and getting her bones out of the ground.
27
July 10:
Forty-Nine Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
When Ripley gets back from the post office on Friday night, the sun is well below the horizon. She pulls her jeep up beside its companion in their makeshift parking lot, and a tall figure unwinds from a folding chair and heads her way with quick, indignant steps.
“Hi,” she calls, pretending she can’t tell whether it’s Griff or James. Even with the faint western light turning him into a dark outline against the last piece of blue sky, she can identify the prep-school set of those shoulders, the sharp angles of his body where the breeze molds the technical fabric of his shirt from neck to waist, the dip and rise of his chin when he glances at the ground and then back up. She wonders when he picked up that habit of checking himself before joining a conversation.
“I thought the vehicles were supposed to be off-limits after dark.” James’s voice is low, with a bit of a snap.
