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Chapter 1
Rhona
Rhona’s fingers scrabbled in the dirt. The baking sun beat on her back. She grabbed her pick and chipped away at a layer of crumbling rock.Take care.In archaeology you only got one chance. She mustn’t waste it.
A few more taps. She pushed away a strand of hair clinging to her sweaty forehead and tightened her ponytail before clearing the dust around the object and prising it out of its resting place. It may only be another piece of pottery but she was the first person to see it in over two thousand years.
Selecting her smallest brush, she gently swept it over the object. ‘Wow,’ she muttered, her heart racing. What an odd shape. Shell-like. Unusual. Could this be something big? For her career. Her hot, clammy fingertips clung to the find and she turned it carefully, examining it all over. This was like nothing she’d seen before.
‘What have you found?’ Annike peered up from her crouched position across the trench.
Rhona’s hand trembled as she held out the object to her teammate. ‘It’s pottery but I think it’s a shell.’
‘Let me see.’ Annike stood, tall and lithe. Crete in March was beautiful if you had time to lie on a beach all day, but out on the digs it was gruelling. Annike somehow managed to look cool as a cucumber. She examined the object closely. A frown grew on her pointy face.
‘What do you think?’ Rhona held her breath.Please, let it be something good.
‘I’ll take it to Simon,’ said Annike. ‘He should see this.’
‘But… Hey, hang on—’
Annike strode off, her legs about ten foot long between the edge of her super-short shorts and her thick boots. Rhona hurried after her.
∞∞∞
That evening, a fire crackled on the sand, tossing sparks at Rhona as she huddled her knees to her chest. Some of the team were still fooling about in the twilight, celebrating. Their laughter mingled with the wash of the ocean.
Her teammate Jay lay propped on one elbow, sipping beer. ‘That was an awesome find. Just awesome. You know what we should do?’
‘What?’ asked Rhona.
‘Let’s all get a tattoo of a shell.’
Rhona laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not what?’ Annike appeared at the fire wearing nothing but her bikini bottom.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Jay. ‘Do you have no shame?’ He averted his gaze as she pulled on her t-shirt.
‘No. But I don’t have any boobs either. I’m flat as a pancake. You should go topless, Rhona. You’ve got the goods to show off.’
‘Eh, I don’t think so.’ Rhona poked at the fire with a stick, tugging her knees closer.
‘That shell is my ticket out,’ said Annike. ‘I’m sick of these long days, breaking my back.’
Oh, the glamour of archaeology. Rhona hadn’t gone in with her eyes shut but, after five years working on digs, what had she accomplished? Except finding that shell. ‘I found it, remember.’
‘I haven’t forgotten, but we’re a team,’ said Annike. ‘I’m applying for site management jobs when the contract ends.’
‘But isn’t this only your second dig?’
‘Yes, but I’m not wasting my life away.’
Rhona blinked.Is that what I’m doing?Wasting my life away?Annike was twenty-four and she expected a site management role. Rhona was twenty-eight and still ‘just digging’.
‘What were you saying when I came over?’ Annike said.
