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Chapter Eight
Jackson squatted beside Isabel and got his first look at Blaze’s find. He’d expected a mouse or something, knowing the Vermont countryside was littered with them. His dad had always gotten so furious every time he’d caught one in the house. No matter how many entry points his dad had blocked, those little stinkers had always found a way in. That was life in Vermont. You had to expect to share your accommodations with nature.
But what Blaze had uncovered was no mouse. It wasn’t a creature at all. Instead, he’d scored what looked remarkably like a stone dagger. The blade portion was rudimentary and chipped in two spots, but the handle part was sturdy looking.
“That’s not a shape that occurs in nature, is it?” Isabel asked.
“No,” Jackson said slowly. “I don’t believe it is. It looks to be made of jasper. See the coloration here?”
Isabel nodded as she looked at the orange bands coursing through the stone blade and handle that Jackson pointed to.
“Jasper was commonly used for early stone blades.” The stone was also linked to a handful of little-known tribes of the area that, from what archaeologists could determine so far, pre-dated some of the more well-known tribes such as the Abenaki. Not much had been uncovered about these early tribes, however, and many doubted their existence.
Isabel looked at Jackson. “Did my dog just find his first artifact?”
“I believe he did.” Jackson carefully picked up the dagger and blew some dirt off the blade. “We need to mark this spot with something.”
Isabel stood as he did and they scouted around until he found a solid branch he could wedge in the ground. Isabel pulled a bright red hair elastic from the pocket of her denim shorts and wound it around the tip of the branch.
“How’s that?”
“Excellent.” Jackson turned in a circle. “How much traffic do you think these trails get?”
“Not much,” Isabel said. “Mostly whoever is staying at the cottages.”
“How many guests do the cottages have right now?”
Isabel looked up to the sky, her nose scrunched. “Ah, let’s see. I haven’t dug into any of Grandpa’s books yet, but from visual observation of the activity on the property since I’ve been here, I think five of the ten guest cottages have people staying in them. That’s including yours.”
That wasn’t a ton of people, but Jackson didn’t like the idea of anyone traipsing through here and discovering something more than the blade. He also didn’t want to risk news of the dagger getting out before he’d had a chance to canvass the area himself. Archaeology—especially when it wasn’t funded by an esteemed institution—could get messy if every amateur got wind of a potential site and flocked to it. Jackson didn’t exactly know what Blaze had accidentally uncovered, but he was certainly going to find out.
“Does your grandfather have a safe on site?” he asked.
“Yes,” Isabel said. “You want to lock up that blade? Do you really think it’s valuable?”
Jackson turned the dagger over in his hand, handling it with care. “It could be. I’ll know more after a little research.” He scanned the area around them. “Would your grandfather be opposed to me doing some digging around here? Nothing large scale. Just investigative poking around.”
“We can ask him,” she said. “C’mon.” She made a move to start on the path back toward the cottages, but Jackson snagged her arm, stopping her.
“We’ll lock this up,” he said. “But then we’re finishing our date.”
Isabel’s brows furrowed. “Don’t you want to get started on your research?”
“Not right now,” he said. “I chose archaeology over you once, Isabel. That was a mistake. One I’m not repeating.”
Her expression morphed from absolute shock to something heated. Something that made Jackson’s body want to see that look again and again.
“Of all the things you could have said to me right now,” she said softly, taking a few steps closer and wiggling the arm he still had a hold of, “that was the sweetest, Jackson.”
She leaned forward and before he knew what was happening, Isabel brushed her lips against his. The touch was light at first, but he immediately wanted more and apparently so did she because she slid her free hand up to his shoulder then hooked it on the back of his neck. She pulled him closer and when her body pressed up against his, the years they’d been apart completely unraveled.
Jackson wrapped his arm around her, one hand still holding the dagger. It surprised the shit out of him that his brain wasn’t more focused on the blade, but now that his lips were fused to Isabel’s, kissing her was all he could think about.
Her other hand rested on his chest as they deepened the kiss and if they kept up the way they were going, he feared he might rip off her clothes and take her right there in the middle of the woods.
When a little groan vibrated in her throat, Jackson considered Isabel might not mind if he did exactly that.
But he had some class. Or at least he liked to believe he did.
