In Between the Earth and Sky

by Heidi Hutchinson

  Yes, he fucking had.

  He even mailed them to her while he was out of town.

  “Still peddling your pyramid scheme, huh?” she asked, going back to her computer and opening the email app.

  “It’s not a pyramid scheme,” he responded tightly.

  She sensed rather than saw him straighten his spine.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself to help you sleep at night, Charles Ponzi.”

  Before he could fire back, the double doors opened and Merrick ushered him in. “Rem, good, right on time. Miss Larkin, please hold my calls.”

  Lydia nodded her acknowledgment.

  Remington hesitated in front of her desk until she finally raised her eyes to his. His mouth was a flat line, all amusement gone and the lines around his eyes deepened with his stare.

  He knocked once on her desk as he tilted his head and ran his tongue over his teeth. “You know, this internship is doing good things for you. In a couple years, I think you’ll be ready for real employment.”

  Lydia sucked in a breath as he turned around and flashed a smile at Merrick.

  She hated him.

  He was such a dick.

  ***

  Remington

  Remington stuck his hands in his pockets, crossing over to the huge windows facing the ridge while Merrick shut the door behind them.

  And shut Lydia Larkin out.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to hire a quality office administrator.”

  “I have the assistant of my choice, thank you,” Merrick stated in that cool, casual accent.

  One of the main reasons Remington had decided to invest with Merrick was the way they could communicate. Evenly, honestly, without fear of offense. They both spoke their minds and respected the other’s opinion.

  Which was why it was so easy for Remington to reply with, “Your assistant is a goblin.”

  Merrick chuckled under his breath. “She’s none of your concern.”

  Remington screwed his face up and turned around. “What’s your attachment to her anyway? Is there something I should know?”

  Merrick’s quietly impassive face did nothing to curb Remington’s curiosity.

  “I mean…” Remington walked slowly around the desk, his eyes on Merrick for any indication he was onto something. “Maybe you guys have a certain affection that should be recorded for HR purposes?” He lifted his eyebrows in question. “To protect both of you, of course.”

  Merrick was unflappable. He sat down in his chair and tossed the file towards Remington. “These are the first quarter reports. We’re on track for expansion in a year. Maybe sooner if this week’s meeting goes well.”

  Remington let the thing with Lydia go. Mostly because it really was none of his concern. She was annoying, that was all. He could easily help her into a more productive life if she wasn’t so stubborn. It’s what he did. It was his damn profession.

  He picked up the file and opened it.

  As he scanned the numbers, he sank into the chair opposite Merrick.

  He never tired of this part.

  Expansion, growth, success.

  It was an addiction he didn’t feel guilty about. And wouldn’t.

  ***

  Lydia

  Lydia stretched out as far as the sleeping bag would let her, laced her fingers behind her head and finally relaxed.

  Today had not gone as planned.

  Her conversation with Merrick conflicted and tugged at her conscience.

  And then of course Remington’s remarks had niggled at her all day.

  It shouldn’t have. His opinion mattered zero to her. She’d been dealing with his passive aggressive bullshit for a year. Never had it gotten under skin like it had that morning.

  But it had come after her mom’s comments, and Merrick’s lack of faith in her maturity…

  It just sucked.

  That was it.

  And she really had no one to blame but herself for people expecting either nothing or the worst out of her.

  She wished she knew if she was doing the right thing by working so long for Merrick. It seemed right. She was busy, productive, the Institute was a success. Her mom hadn’t hired a PI to follow her around.

  It was more good than bad at the moment.

  Even where Merrick was concerned. The not knowing of what was right or wrong involving him had become less heavy to carry. Their relationship existed in an existential plane. A thing of matter that appeared solid but was at its heart very active.

  But what did she know? She wasn’t a physicist.

  She wasn’t even officially a botanist.

  She wasn’t really anything.

  Human—if she had to live by a label. But beyond that, not much else. At least on paper.

  She took a deep breath and on the exhale, she let go of all her complications and unsettled worries. Cleared her mind and embraced the moment.

  The California stars twinkled back at her. Doing their best to shine through the light pollution being generated below.

  If she could end the day like this—on a bed of dirt with a blanket of stars—her life wasn't too shabby.

  She'd slept under so many skies in her twenty-eight years, she'd lost count. You'd think the sky would be relatively the same from place to place. Really the only thing that should change would be the visible constellations.

  She knew this.

  As a scientist.

  But her heart whispered a different truth.

  Since she was young, she remembered noticing the peculiar differences in the skies above her. Not something noticeable by day, only at night when her head was finally at rest. The sky, the stars, even the moon, seemed foreign.

  Yet familiar.

  As if her sleepy mind had stumbled upon a secret world hiding in plain sight.

  She wished she could explore it.

  Not as an astronaut with math and rockets and conjecture.

  She wished there was a way for her to explore the sky the way she explored the earth. With her fingers and her tongue and her breath. Trace the curves around the craters of the moon, taste the dust of a comet, breathe in the scent of ancient light and find out its secrets.

  Her eyes closed but the smile stayed easily on her lips. Words of hope and fantasy filtered through her settling mind in the form of poetry. Gracefully artless and entirely too impractical.

  But it settled her soul. Sinking it into the soft dirt where it tangled its roots.

  Chapter 2

  Earth, Meet Sky

  Lydia

  It wasn't like she expected complete privacy.

  She was on land that belonged to the Institute. The ridge was often a place colleagues spent time and even brought their families. It was practically a private wildlife refuge. Theoretically, she could very well be surrounded by a thousand people and she wouldn't be allowed to say a word about it.

  But never in her wildest dreams did she imagine getting run over by an asshat on a mountain bike.

  “Are you all right?” the jerk asked from behind her. Behind and above.

  Because Lydia was face down in the dry, powdery dirt, arms splayed out in front of her.

  Her fingers twitched and flexed, under one hand she felt the cool metal of her glasses that had been knocked free. She slowly curled her fingers around them.

  A sharp rock scraped along her ribs as she labored for breath.

  “Hold still, you might be hurt.”

  And the asshat was touching her.

  Hands—very large hands—smoothed over the line of her back and gently tugged her shirt back down to cover her exposed skin. She felt her face flush an even deeper shade of red when she realized the shirt wouldn't go all the way back down because it was caught around her bosom.

  Seriously.

  What was the deal with her having to be born with enormous knockers and nowhere to keep them? All they did was get hurt and in the way.

  And while she was on the subject of things sucking (repeatedly) in her li
fe, two epic falls in two days? Really?

  She was a skilled climber and experienced athlete. She wasn’t new to falls. In fact, falling was part of the process of learning. She wasn’t afraid of falling or injury. But it was starting to feel like an unnecessary punishment and not something to learn from.

  “I didn't see you. What were you even doing there?” the jerk asked, accusation in his tone.

  Right. Because getting plowed by a mountain bike could somehow be her fault.

  Lydia scrambled to her feet, yanking her shirt down to cover her front before Jerky McAssHat could get a good look. She jammed her glasses on her face and ignored the way they settled askew on her nose, whirled around and pointed a finger in his general direction as she tried to blink mud out of her eyes.

  “Hey! This isn't my fault! If you would have stayed on the path like you're supposed to, you wouldn't be running over innocent pedestrians. Where did you learn to ride a bike? Bike crashing school?!”

  No, it wasn't a good insult. She knew it, he knew it, the snapdragons knew it. But she was incredibly flustered at the moment. And her ribs were fucking screaming.

  “Just calm down,” he said, unsuccessfully hiding the humor in his voice. His large, blurring frame came closer to her.

  “You stay back! I have very powerful thumbs and I will blind you like a mother!”

  “As adorable as that threat is, you're bleeding and I'm afraid you have a concussion.”

  Lydia blinked and stopped backing up. She frowned and reached up to rub at the mud on her forehead running into her eyes. Except it wasn't mud. Well, it was a type of mud. It was her blood mixing with the dirt.

  “Fantastic,” she muttered. She blinked harder and the blurry figure came into focus.

  “You,” she said, her voice a deep rasp that scared even her in its undisguised dislike.

  “Me,” Remington replied, his eyes scanning her face over and over again.

  “You did this on purpose. You’ve always hated me!” she accused, one finger waving in his face. She knew she sounded hysterical and insane, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  Remington glared back. “Take it easy, crazy. Let’s hold off on the attempted murder accusations.”

  He went to grasp her arm and she stepped back, out of his reach. How dare he try to touch her! That thought fled her mind as she was consumed with a terrifying reality.

  “The snapdragons,” she whispered before bolting back to her campsite.

  Or what was left of it.

  “No,” she cried, her voice sounding as bereft as she felt. She dropped to her knees and ran her hands gently over and through the scene of the crime. “No, no, no, no, no!”

  She scrambled to her field journal and dug through the remains of the foliage surrounding it.

  “Nothing. There's nothing left.” She squinted against the burn of the blood and dirt in her eyes as she glared up at the jerk who has standing over her again. Using one forearm to wipe the blood away she scowled and sat back on her heels.

  “Do you have any idea what you've done?”

  “Run over a homeless woman in Liberty Park?” he asked.

  “Weeks of research! Months of scouring this hillside.” She pushed to her feet and stalked towards him. If she’d been paying attention, she would have seen the flash of fear enter his eyes. But since she wasn't, she kept on her present course.

  “And now I have to start all over! Because of you!” Lydia wasn't by nature a violent person. She was a lover, not a fighter. A damn good lover in her opinion, but that was beside the point. The point being she was just as surprised as he was when she shoved him in the shoulders with her fingertips.

  Man-child went back on a foot—more likely due to their position on the side of the hill than by any real force on her part. His big hands came up, long fingers curling around her wrists.

  And then the worst part.

  His full lips smiled and his brown eyes flashed with humor.

  Oh no.

  Hell no.

  Lydia spun around and free of his grasp, the loose dirt flying off and around her.

  Her campsite was in shambles. Actual shambles!

  And Mr. Doesn’t-Drive-With-His-Eyes-Open thought he could smile and be handsome and make everything better?

  “I’m really sorry,” he chuckled and she felt him approach from behind.

  To this she responded with dropping to her knees in the rubble of her investigation and swallowed the tears away. The physical pain of being run over still really hadn’t registered. Logically she knew the adrenaline would fade and her body would throb in four thousand five hundred and thirty-six different places. But right now, all her pain was focused on her insides.

  Her soul might actual be bleeding.

  Could a soul bleed out? Was there a tourniquet in existence appropriate to fit and stop the blood flow?

  No matter, she shook her head. Those were questions better left for starlight.

  She shoved her possessions blindly into her bag. The amount of dirt all over everything was going to be problematic. She would have to solve that problem later. Much later. And far away from the gargoyle looming over her. His shadow completely eclipsed the sun.

  “I think you might be in shock.”

  Oh, lovely, he was talking again. Such a fucking know-it-all. Next, he’d probably be trying to get her to take one of his pyramid scheme pills.

  “I’m not in shock,” she snapped.

  “You have a head injury,” he persisted.

  “You’re a head injury,” she retorted with all the grace of a petulant child.

  Her car was parked in the Institute’s ramp—a one mile walk southeast. Eh, it wasn’t so bad. And since it was still early, staff would be minimal. It was unlikely anyone would see her in this state. She could go in, take a shower in the locker rooms on 8th, and then retreat to a lab on 6th where it was acceptable to rage and cry and break things.

  Because that was just going to have to happen. Poor little defenseless beakers were going to get punished for this entire morning.

  Heck, for this week.

  “Where are you going?”

  Lydia startled and glanced over her shoulder, her nose scrunched up. Man-child was lifting his bike out of the ashes of its demise. Even on a cursory glance, she noted it was a nice mountain bike. And well-used. Which meant he was either a novice rider and had borrowed it from someone else, or he was super awesome and really had been intending to run her down.

  Nope. She wasn’t even going to examine those thoughts. She was too tired… of everything. And her side was beginning to ache and her head hurt like a mother.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going back to work.”

  She faced the direction of the Institute and trudged onward. The sound of her assailant following only made her roll her eyes.

  This jackwad.

  It wasn’t enough that he made her job unpleasant at least once a week. He was now resorting to assault, battery, and stalking.

  And all of her samples were destroyed. The thought pinched her heart in three places and made tears gather in her throat. She swallowed it back down. It wasn’t like it mattered. Not really. She wasn’t a grad student. Her future didn’t depend on precise and complicated research.

  She did it because she enjoyed it.

  Plus, the impressed look on Merrick’s face whenever she gave him something new she’d discovered was pretty priceless.

  And Remington fucking Rohan had destroyed all of it.

  She’d have to go to the cabin with nothing to leave Merrick to remind him that she wasn’t just his secretary.

  The journey to the Institute took less time than normal. Mostly due to her pushing her body despite the growing pain all over it. Remington followed her, pushing his bike the entire way. Stopping his questions only after it became obvious she wouldn’t answer any of them.

  The parking lot was as empty as she expected. It brought a small amount of relief. She didn’t want to
have to answer too many questions.

  Merrick was even out of the office for the day. One small recruitment meeting before tomorrow’s big arrival of investors.

  “You can’t come in here,” she said with a severe frown when her unwanted companion grabbed the door after she’d swung it open.

  “Why not?” he asked, frustration evident in his smirk and the flash of his eyes.

  “Because the Institute is closed to the public this early in the morning. You have to have a key card.” She held hers up in an obvious gesture.

  He glanced at the key card, but his eyes returned to her forehead. It was pretty much the only place he’d really looked at her since their adorable meet-cute on the ridge at sunrise.

  “I would feel a lot better if you got that looked at,” he said seriously, nodding at the wound she had yet to examine herself.

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” she huffed, waving him away. Or at least trying to.

  “It’s not fine.” And it was at this point Man-Child began the Man-Handling.

  He (aggressively) set his bike to the side with his free hand. It wobbled momentarily before it gave in to the power of gravity and crashed against the stone building. Poor bike. It was having a day like hers.

  He then threw the door wide, grabbed hold of her upper bicep and hauled her into the lobby slash atrium.

  And then stood there.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “I told you,” she wrestled her arm out his grip only to have him switch hands and biceps. “It’s closed to the public this early. Only the crazies are working right now.”

  “Hm?” He glanced back down at her after a full half minute gazing up at the waterfall in the center of the room.

  She really couldn’t blame him. The Institute was epically gorgeous. Fifteen stories with a hollow center, which housed a small rainforest complete with thriving organisms and rare plants.

  It’s not like he’d never seen it. But it looked and sounded very different when there weren’t crowds of people and students all over.

  “I’ve always wondered how they made that,” he said more to himself than to her. But the awe was undisguised in his tone.