Anna Martin's Opposites Attract Box Set: Tattoos & Teacups - Something Wild - Rainbow Sprinkles

by Anna Martin

  “I’ll just, uh, wait here,” Logan said, hovering near the hatch. He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about going into the bowels of the lab again. It just reminded him how out of place he was in there.

  “Can’t,” she said cheerfully. Then she lowered her voice. “Gotta keep the mistake on the down-low, y’know?”

  He huffed a laugh. “Okay.”

  She used her security pass to beep them through and took him on a looping circle of the building, following a grim gray corridor. There were wide windows placed every few feet, allowing an outside observer to see what was going on inside. To Logan it was just a lot of people in white coats and protective eyewear.

  He knew, though, that this was the beating heart of the Archipelago. There were so many answers that had been demanded after the discovery of the islands—how the dinosaurs had survived, about the nature of extinction, about the flora and fauna, why no dinosaur carcasses had ever been discovered. Some of those answers were still being worked out. Dr. Sterling had been one of the pioneers behind the Dinosauria Genome Project. That alone was the biggest genetics experiment since the Human Genome Project, completed over fifteen years earlier.

  “Here we are,” Ms. Kahoa said, beeping her pass against the scanner again and letting them into a smaller lab.

  Kit Sterling looked up as Logan walked in. Today he was wearing a dark blue shirt and black slacks, his white lab coat open over the top.

  “Dr. Beck,” he said, rising. “Thanks for coming over.”

  “No problem,” Logan said.

  “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  He was just so poised, Logan thought. So calm and professional. It shouldn’t have been so damn sexy.

  “It’s fine. What do you need me to do?”

  Kit pushed a clipboard toward him as Ms. Kahoa skulked off, making a face at Kit as she went. Logan carefully turned the clipboard around and scanned over the paperwork. It was familiar to him since he’d done this plenty of times before, though Kit’s neatly printed handwriting was far easier to read than some of his colleagues’. Logan could only blame being momentarily dazzled for his reason for forgetting on Friday.

  “Does this all look okay to you?” Dr. Sterling asked.

  Logan nodded. “You got the pollen samples too?”

  “On the next page.”

  He flipped the sheet of paper over, noting the Latin he couldn’t translate, and decided that was good enough.

  “Got a pen?”

  Jeez, he turned into a grunting Neanderthal when he was around someone he liked. It didn’t help that he kept stealing glances at Kit.

  He took the offered pen and scrawled his name in the box at the bottom of the page, initialed in several places, and carefully backdated his signature to Friday.

  “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.”

  Awkward. So very awkward.

  Logan leaned his hip on the side of a metal table and folded his arms across his chest. “I might be going back out into the field for a week or so,” he said, aiming for charming and probably coming off as congested. “Is there anything in particular I should look out for for you?”

  Kit pushed his fingers through his fine hair, frowning. “Um…. We had a few abnormal dung samples from the troodons last time,” he said. “There seems to be some kind of bacteria they’re harboring we can’t identify yet.”

  “Troodon crap,” Logan said with a grin. “Sure.”

  Kit smiled. Logan’s stomach turned a somersault.

  “I’d really like some more data on the dissimosaurs too.”

  “That’s not easy,” Logan said. The dissimosaurs were located on the northernmost ridge of the North Island, making them a difficult species to observe. “I want to find out more about them too, but”—he shrugged—“there’s only so much I can do from a field lab.”

  Kit frowned. “Did they have a successful breeding season?”

  “That’s part of what I want to find out.”

  “Oh. Of course. Well, any more information you can get on them would be great. My classification was challenged—by a guy who’s never been here, naturally—and it would be great to prove him wrong.”

  “I’m not sure I can get another carcass,” Logan said, his mind already jumping ahead.

  “Are you sure? You couldn’t take a boat?” Kit pressed. “We really don’t have much to go on with this species.”

  Logan held back a rude retort. “No, I’ll be driving out there, and a carcass is too much of a draw to the predators. I’m not putting my life at risk for the sake of your research.”

  “Well, if you see them eating anything in particular, then grab that. Anything is useful at this point.”

  Logan wanted to say something about how if Dr. Sterling was so concerned about gathering certain data, he should go out there and collect it himself, get his hands dirty for once. But he didn’t. Because he was a professional. And because Logan had had this argument with Kit more than once before and it was getting old.

  “Got it,” he bit out instead.

  Kit looked like he was going to say something further, then stopped himself.

  “Go on,” Logan said.

  “Do you camp out there?”

  “What, you think I take an RV with me?” Logan said with a laugh.

  “So you sleep in the car?”

  All the vehicles that could go onto the North and West Islands were heavily armored. It was a simple precaution and obviously necessary. There weren’t any huge predators on the West Island—the ecology couldn’t support them—but some of the herbivores still weighed twenty tons.

  “Sometimes,” Logan answered. “There’s a hut out on the North Island, though. If I get that far, I’ll stay there.”

  “I’ve heard of that,” Kit said, his face lighting up. “Some kind of tree house?”

  “Yeah. Took us three days to build. There’s no electricity, of course, but it’s pretty well protected. None of the dinosaurs have gotten into it yet, even the ones who can climb trees.”

  “Not even the ornithomimus?”

  “Nope. It took me almost a month to decide where I wanted to put it. Had to be out of predator territory, of course, somewhere the animals wouldn’t be tempted to explore. It’s on the edge of the dissimosaur territory, actually.” He grinned at Kit. “Not tempted to come see it for yourself?”

  Kit smirked. “Laboratory scientist, remember?”

  “I remember.” He shrugged lightly. “It can be good to get out there, though. You ever hold one of them?”

  “The dissimosaurs?”

  “Any of them.”

  Kit shook his head. “We’re not supposed to touch them, Dr. Beck. Interacting with these animals could have disastrous consequences.”

  “I’m not trying to get you to hug a carnotaur,” Logan said, quirking his eyebrow. “And autopsies don’t count. They’re incredible animals. Sometimes you need to get up close to be reminded of that.”

  “I am aware,” Kit said stiffly.

  Logan held up his hands. “It’s an open offer.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Logan turned the clipboard around and pushed it back to Kit. “Your paperwork, Dr. Sterling.”

  Then he left.

  Chapter Four

  “He asked you if you wanted to go see his dinosaurs, and you said no?” Leilani yelled. “You are the absolute worst. Pass the wine.”

  Kit did, topping off his own glass on the way.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “No? The sexy as fuck, tall and broad Dr. Dreamy himself asked you if you’d go and observe the dinosaur that you named and classified, and you turned him down.”

  “It was a professional thing!” Kit exclaimed. “A few seconds before that we were talking about troodon shit.”

  “For the two of you, that’s practically dirty talk.”

  Kit snorted. “Dirty talk.”

  Leilani rolled her eyes. She balanced her wineglass on the arm of the
sofa and reached behind herself to pull her hair into a thick braid. How she could do that without seeing what she was doing always puzzled Kit.

  They’d picked up pasta for dinner from Bruno’s—again—plus a bottle of wine from the convenience store. Apparently neither of them wanted to make the effort to cook a meal.

  “So, he’s gone out, being all manly, man of the forest, Tarzan-style shit, right?”

  “I doubt Dr. Beck puts it quite like that,” Kit said drily.

  Logan Beck wasn’t the Tarzan type. He had a square jaw and pretty brown eyes, sure, but his hair was cropped short to his head and his skin was darkly tanned from working outside. Logan was less rippling abdominals and more brute strength, barrel-chested, big arms, and thick thighs. Not that Kit had noticed, of course.

  Leilani shrugged. “You never know.”

  “But yeah. Someone said he could be gone for a week or more.”

  They looked out the window together. The rain had eased off some, but it had been pouring earlier in the day. Kit was so totally ignorant of what it took to actually sustain oneself out in those conditions. He wouldn’t even know where to start. Even as a kid, he was more of an indoorsy person. He’d liked to read and learn and play computer games when his moms weren’t around to bug him about it. He’d never camped in his life.

  “Can anyone get hold of him out there?”

  Kit shrugged. “I guess his phone would work.”

  “You sure?”

  “No idea,” Kit said, a little waspishly. “I didn’t exactly grill him on survival techniques.”

  Leilani raised her eyebrow and gave him a pointed look, one that was all too familiar. She used it a lot when he was being unreasonable.

  “Kit. I’m not your mother. God knows you have enough of those already. But you are impossible sometimes.”

  “Am not,” Kit said, sulking.

  Leilani dropped the subject and turned to something far more gossipy, about a girl in one of the dung labs who was apparently screwing one of the maintenance guys. Gossip seemed to spread like wildfire through their small community, which was why Kit always went out of his way to be extra polite to Logan in public. They had both been caught yelling at each other way too many times.

  Politics on the island was a delicate thing too. Technically they were an international community working for a common goal, meaning no one country led or owned the research and discoveries. That didn’t exactly work in practicality, though. As one of the senior researchers, Kit often spent days at a time entertaining foreign dignitaries, attempting to dumb down his work enough to be understood by the average politician.

  “I look at the animals and identify them, President So-and-So.”

  “Isn’t that what paleontologists have been doing for years?”

  “Yes, but these dinosaurs are alive, sir.”

  It was Logan’s job to convince the men—and why was it always men?—that they really didn’t want to go stomping into predator territory to see for themselves. Kit had been witness to one memorable occasion where Logan had stripped off his shirt to reveal a huge scar running from his clavicle to his navel.

  “That’s what happens when you wander unprepared into predator territory,” he’d snapped.

  Kit had been haunted by the image of that long silvery scar for weeks. Maybe months. He’d never worked up the courage to ask Logan how he’d gotten it.

  There were things about being a senior researcher that Kit loved. He had always kept the idea of teaching one day in the back of his mind, and that was still one of the best things about his job. He loved watching over his team, helping them and nudging their research in different directions. He loved watching people grow.

  He wasn’t a fan of meetings.

  He especially wasn’t a fan of meetings that called everyone together, seemed to take up too much time, and served mostly as an opportunity for the people who ran the site to pat themselves on the back.

  The following Monday, when Kit was still suffering through the last throes of his hangover, was the worst possible time to be in a long and boring meeting.

  He sat at the back of the lecture theater with his enormous coffee and doodled in the margins of his notebook while pretending to listen to Mr. Johansson, who was purportedly in charge around here. Dr. Beck wasn’t back from his trip yet. Kit had overheard one of the lab girls talking about it on his way over. There were far too many people who looked at Logan and saw—how was it Leilani had phrased it?—manly, man of the forest, Tarzan-style shit. Kit recognized the hunger in their eyes. He felt it too.

  Not that he’d ever admit it, but Kit worried about the rangers. For all the progress they’d made understanding the dinosaurs, particularly in the past ten years, it was still an incredibly dangerous job. They took risks that no one should be asked to take.

  Logan was the only one who ventured out onto the other two islands on his own. The rest of the rangers always worked in pairs; it was safer that way. Kit wasn’t entirely sure why Logan was allowed to go out on his own, but it wasn’t his place to question it.

  “Now I’m going to hand over to Ms. Sullivan from the press office to talk about the growing trade in fraudulent goods that has recently come to our attention.”

  Kit sighed heavily. He’d never seen or heard of Ms. Sullivan before. He blinked rapidly to clear the fug from his eyes.

  A slim woman with a short cap of dark hair stepped onto the small stage and cleared her throat.

  “You may have seen a few articles that have surfaced recently regarding the trade of illegal, fraudulent dinosaur leather items,” she said in a clear British accent.

  Kit sat up in his seat.

  Dinosaur leather?

  “As the items are appearing on different sites around the world, as well as on the so-called dark web, it’s difficult to find the source of the fraudsters. Our in-house experts have suggested the items are most likely crocodile or lizard hide. All inquiries regarding this matter should be directed to the press and public relations office. If you’re approached to give your expert scientific opinion on any so-called dinosaur leather material, please decline to comment and instead refer the matter to my office.”

  She nodded and stepped away from the mic, then seemed to do a double take as she noticed a raised hand in the audience.

  “Yes?”

  “Is there any chance it is dinosaur hide?”

  Ms. Sullivan seemed taken aback by the question. “No. None at all.”

  “Have you tested any of these items?”

  “To test them we’d first have to obtain them. Not only are the items incredibly expensive, they’re also being sold illegally. We cannot ethically enter into an illegal trade deal.” Before the guy sitting a few rows ahead of Kit could argue further, Ms. Sullivan held up her hand, a pained expression on her face. “I’m from the press office, sir. You’ll have to direct your questions to someone else.”

  They were all dismissed after that, but Kit couldn’t easily let go of the idea of dinosaur-hide leather being sold on the black market.

  It raised all sorts of questions, and Kit hadn’t made it to his current career without being insanely curious. Sometimes overly so.

  Though he knew there were piles of work flagged for his attention in the lab, Kit took a detour and headed to his office instead. His was at the back of the building, in a corner, so he got a window on two sides. Someone had told him that corner offices were a big status symbol in some places. Kit just liked the views.

  He kept his office incredibly neat because he just couldn’t work any other way. An in-tray sat on the corner of his desk, where files occasionally stacked up, but most of his work was transferred back and forth by email. His physical files were locked away in a tall filing cabinet in one corner of the room, all precisely labeled so he could find anything in a rush.

  Kit worked with two computer screens, meaning he could compare results and findings easier, or copy and paste data from one report into another. He spent a ridiculous
amount of time writing up complex reports, papers, and articles for the scientific community, so he’d ordered a fancy keyboard that made typing more comfortable.

  This space was a breath of calm.

  Kit closed the door behind himself and flicked the blinds so no one could see in.

  For the past ten years, he had dedicated himself to a career he loved and that endlessly fascinated him. But before he’d been a paleogeneticist, he’d been a geek. During his teenage years, Kit had spent endless hours gaming and a fair amount of time puzzling his way through the more crooked corners of the internet. He knew how to access some dark-web trading sites. He also knew how to hide any traces that he’d been there.

  Not that he was stupid enough to do it on the lab computers. One of the most important things he’d learned during those curious, teenaged explorations was that there was always someone out there who was much cleverer than him.

  Kit grabbed his backpack and pulled out the slim laptop he habitually carried everywhere. It only took a moment to turn it on, and he hesitated for another second before logging in and setting up a connection to a virtual private network.

  “Kit.”

  Kit was deep into dark websites dealing in all sorts of horrors, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper at his elbow that he could destroy a lot easier than digital files. His team knew not to disrupt him while he was working on projects with the blinds drawn. It meant he wanted peace and quiet.

  He looked up from his screen, too consumed with his work to answer with words.

  Leilani stood in the doorway, her expression stricken. He hadn’t heard her open the door.

  “Dr. Beck just got back. It’s….”

  “What?”

  “It’s bad.”

  Kit dropped his pen and ran.

  Chapter Five

  Logan knew these islands better than anyone other than the dinosaurs. His team worked tirelessly, tracking and logging all their observations, but Logan was the one who studied their reports on top of preparing his own. The rangers were good. Logan’s job was to be the best.