She inhales very carefully, keeping her eyes pointed exactly where they are, letting them slowly focus.
“James,” she croaks.“James.”She yanks the branch aside, grabs another one, then another. She’s wrestling with a fair-size trunk by the time he hurries to her side.
“Christ, Ripley, stop. You’ve cut yourself. You’re bleeding,” he says, seizing the trunk from her like it weighs nothing.
“Careful!” She places her hand atop his. He slows and looks down.
“Bloody hell,” he says. “Bloody fucking hell, Ripley. It’s…”
It’s a coracoid. It’s wings—two of them—and legs, a pelvis, a skull.
The bones are tangled together like fossils sometimes are, nothing in its right place. But there’s no mistaking what they are together.
“It’s a bird,” she says, not quite believing it.
“It’syourbird,” he says, setting the tree down very, very gently and picking her up the same way.
They don’t tell anyone that night, not even Cara. There will be time for shared joy in the morning, but for now, Ripley wants to hold the secret to her heart.
In violation of all the conservation posters she’s put up around camp, she spends a good twenty minutes under the shower, feeling so light that the hot water might be the only thing stopping her from floating away.
She comes to him damp and reborn. When he starts to slide down her body, she reaches for the box she stashed underneath the bed two weeks ago. Just in case.
James stops moving. In the darkness, his eyes might be the same navy blue as the box. She’s gone as slowly as he wanted to for the past week or so. She’s felt his body shudder with pleasure in her hands, in her mouth, and, one memorable time, between her lubricated breasts.
“I figure we’ve discovered everything but this,” she says. “I mean, if you want to.” She won’t push him, but it feels right. It feels like everything she’s ever wanted is within her grasp if she has the courage to reach for it.
He pops the box open and wordlessly passes her a square of foil. His hand shakes, but hers is steady. The sounds he makes when she rolls it on—a tight, agonized exhalation, a half-uttered curse—are everything.
“You’d better be on top, my darling,” he says, and she loves how he’s already losing the battle for control. “I’m afraid it’s my only hope of a good showing.”
“Shh,” she says, and hovers astride him until he understands what she wants. He nudges at the juncture of her thighs, blunt and hot and big, God, he’s so big, she’s not sure whether—but he’s pushing inside and gasping her name and is she coming already? She is, and it’s so, so sweet.
She’s learned to recognize the sound he makes a few seconds before his orgasm, a softahof bliss and certainty. It’s followed by an anguished “Fuck.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I want you to. I’m out of patience, James.”
His eyes go black, then his mouth is on hers as he comes messy and trembling inside her, and watching him is every bit as good as coming herself.
32
August 7:
Twenty-One Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
Ripley dissociates in a pleasant way when she’s in Hercules’s combination feed store and hardware store. The no-frills industrial vibe reminds her of a research collection: bare steel girding, concrete floors, and plenty of fluorescent light. Tall racks hold hundred-yard rolls of fencing wire next to improbably large fasteners, chicken feed, and tractor oil. The whole place is permanently perfumed with bulk fertilizer.
She wouldn’t normally make a weekday run to town, but now that James hounds her out of the canyon whenever she shakes the tingles out of her hands, she might as well volunteer for other chores.
Illogically, James insisted on coming with her. The power drill died, so he’s over in the tool section picking out the new one Griff needs to build the shipping crate for Beast, as the crew immediately named the new fossil.
Earlier in the summer, she might not have been able to trust anyone but herself and Cara and maybe Griff to work on Beast. But with almost three months of experience, Jordin and the twins are ready for the easier elements, freeing up Cara and Griff for the fine work. Even Matteo is proving useful at brushing.
Everyone rotates in and out, keeping themselves fresh, pushingas hard as they can while staying careful. It helps that Beast’s bones are folded together, so he’s compact. What took Ripley nearly three months to do with Beauty by herself can hopefully be done for Beast in a tight four weeks with the whole crew.
Hopefully.
She should be thinking about the excavation right now. Instead, she’s loading twenty-five-pound bags of plaster onto a cart and remembering last night, when she and James lay boneless and sweaty in each other’s arms.
