by Rachel Grant
Erica groaned. “I’d rather chew aluminum foil than explain cell tower projects again.”
Janice laughed. “Then I hope you don’t have fillings.”
“Do we really have to take this guy on?”
“He’s been sent from the top—and I mean top, top. The call came from Joseph Talon, Jr.’s executive secretary. This kid happens to be some bigwig’s cousin’s nephew’s next-door neighbor once removed.”
Erica sighed. “Great. A pampered rich kid who’s hoping to dig up treasure.”
“That may be true, but we’ve got to take him. When someone from the home office asks for a favor and, more importantly, gives me the overhead to pay for it, I can’t say no.”
For the thousandth time, she wished she had the courage to tell Janice about Mexico. There was always a chance Janice would believe the truth: she had been trying to rescue the artifacts, not steal them.
The words formed in her throat, then lodged in a place that made breathing difficult. She’d been blackballed from underwater archaeology because of Jake. Erica was lucky archaeology was a field in which an extensive list of projects on her curriculum vitae was all she needed to show she knew her way around a trowel. In a pinch, employers rarely checked references, and Janice had been no different when she needed bodies in the field.
Erica had worked her butt off to parlay the field job into a full-time office position, and here she was. She couldn’t risk being fired now, not when she almost had a Menanichoch project. “Okay,” she said, consoling herself with the fact that an intern would be young, inexperienced, and pliable. “But unless he’s good with computers, he won’t touch the cell tower projects. It took me hours to fix the database after the biologists screwed it up.”
“Then he can help you with the Menanichoch EA.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re giving me Thermo-Con?”
Janice smiled. “Yes. You need more environmental project experience if you’re going to start grad school in September. But, here’s the bad news: the EA is due a week from today.”
Her heart beat faster than hummingbird wings, and she held back a smile that would reveal too much. But then the bad news sank in, and fighting a smile was no longer difficult. “The Scope of Work said we’d have a month to write the EA. What changed?”
“The left hand didn’t know what the right was doing. The tribe’s Environmental Compliance Officer called me late Friday with the change to the project timeline. I balked, and she said if we can’t meet the deadline, they’ll find someone who can.” Janice handed her a manila file. “Here’s all the information we have on Thermo-Con.”
Seven days. Seven days to produce the best damned environmental assessment ever to bear the Talon & Drake logo and get her foot in the door with tribal chairman Sam Riversong. Seven days to get a lead on the artifacts.
“Tomorrow I want you to research Thermo-Con at the National Archives,” Janice said.
“But tomorrow I’ll need to train the intern. We should put off the new hire until after the EA is done.” She smiled, having found the perfect argument to delay the intern.
“Or you can train the intern today and still go to the archives tomorrow,” said a deep voice from the doorway.
She turned to see the man from the exercise room leaning against the doorjamb with relaxed grace, his tall form filling the opening. He’d cleaned up and shaved. Now his short brown hair stood up in damp disarray. His crisp shirt and slacks struck the perfect balance of business casual, which made him look authoritative in a sexy way. He pushed off the doorframe in a smooth motion that demonstrated comfort with his extra-long form, and she felt an unwelcome flutter in her belly.
This was no acne-laden college student.
“Lee Scott.” He held out his hand to Janice. “Spoiled intern, pampered rich kid.”
How long had he been standing there? She stiffened and thought of several more adjectives to apply to him.
He dropped into the chair next to her, his smile letting her know he enjoyed catching her off balance…again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Erica Kesling.” She braced for recognition, but saw none in his intent green eyes.
“Now that you’re here, Lee,” Janice said. “Erica will bring you up to speed on our projects, and you both can dive into the Thermo-Con Environmental Assessment, which we’re writing for the Menanichoch Tribe.”
“I have no clue what Thermo-Con is,” he said.
“Few people do,” Janice said. “Thermo-Con was a type of concrete that rose like bread dough after the pour and would harden after it reached two and a half times its original size. The only known house made of Thermo-Con was built in the early fifties and is on the Menanichoch Indian Reservation. Erica will explain it all to you.”
“I don’t get how that relates to archaeology.”
“Erica will explain that too. But first, tell us about yourself.”
He shrugged. “I’m a student at Columbia. I’m an English major, but I’ve decided I want to study something more exciting. I figured it would be a good idea to see if archaeology is the right fit before I make another bad choice. I’ve already switched from premed to political science to English.”
Great. A slacker career student and Indiana Jones wannabe. The changed majors explained his age, which had to be closer to thirty than twenty. The good news: he didn’t know anything and probably wasn’t connected to the dig-bum grapevine. The bad news: he didn’t know anything and would be useless as an assistant. “So, what do you know about archaeology?” she asked. “Besides that you think dinosaurs are cool, I mean.”
Amusement flashed in his eyes. “Nice try. I’m not interested in paleontology—even though when I was six, I did think dinosaurs were cool.”
Janice laughed.
Erica gave him a point for his smooth handling of her snide question. “What archaeology classes have you taken?”
“None so far, but I’ve been reading up on the subject. I’m interested in the intersection between archaeology and environmental law. I know the National Environmental Policy Act goes hand in hand with the National Historic Preservation Act, which has me wondering if I should consider a double major—biology and archaeology. I’m guessing expertise in both fields would make me most useful to potential employers.”
“You have been reading.” She felt strangely chilled. His words could have been taken directly from her application to American University’s Environmental Science graduate program, which she was starting in September. Talon & Drake’s continuing education program would pay her tuition, another reason she had to hold on to this job.
“That’s an excellent plan, Lee,” Janice said. “You were right to get an internship to see if you’re making the right choice. You’ll get some good experience with our cell tower projects. They’re a perfect merge of environmental and historic preservation law.”
“What do you do on the cell tower projects?” he asked.
“We make sure new towers are built without harming historic properties or the environment,” Janice replied. “Erica, bright girl that she is, developed a database for managing the projects. Fill in the proper blanks in the database, and voilà, the report is generated.”
“I’m not good with databases.” His laugh turned into an embarrassed cough.
“How not good?” Erica asked.
“I accidentally deleted the last one I worked on.”
A wave of horror passed through her. She couldn’t let him near the database.
“I’m good with Word, though,” he said. “Well, the old version. Before they made all those dumb changes.”
“Erica can teach you all you need to know.” Janice smiled at her with motherly pride. “You’ll be sharing her office. I’ve already put in a request for a computer for you.”
“I don’t need a computer. I brought my own.”
Janice paused. “You need to let tech support check it out and load the network firewall.”
&n
bsp; “I left it with them before I came here.”
“Excellent. Erica can take you to human resources to get an ID badge. Tomorrow you’ll both go to the National Archives. You’re lucky, Lee. Research at the archives is a rare event and a good learning experience.”
Erica stood, clutching the project file. “I want to go to the Thermo-Con house today—to take pictures.”
“Take Lee with you.” Janice waved them out of the room.
She had her project. At last. She held the file to her chest as she walked down the hall, Lee at her side. Feeling a bubble of hope, she laughed with relief.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
She stopped and turned to face him. He was at least a foot taller than she was. His sea-green eyes studied her. She felt his raw sex appeal and cursed him for planting that seed in the exercise room. Now it was hard to view him any other way. He was a coworker, her intern, and she’d given up on even making friends with coworkers, let alone developing a deeper involvement. Her grad school friends had all judged her harshly based on half-truths and outright lies. She wouldn’t open herself up to that kind of rejection again.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hello?”
Embarrassed, she voiced the concern that nagged at her. “You aren’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Someone younger. How old are you, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“It does if you think you’re too old to do the lowly intern work.”
“I’m twenty-five. As I said, I’ve changed my major a few times.”
From his bearing, she’d have guessed he was closer to thirty, maybe even past that number. He must have been born confident. “You’ve been in college, what, seven years?”
He nodded.
“You could have three degrees by now.” She had a Master’s degree she couldn’t use and was barely scraping by, while he’d enjoyed seven years as an undergrad at freaking Columbia.
“I like school. What’s the rush to graduate?”
Spoiled didn’t begin to describe him.
The man she’d met in the exercise room hadn’t struck her as lazy. Even now he had an appealing energy which buzzed about him. What a waste.
His gaze moved down her body, and she shifted uncomfortably. She wished she didn’t find him handsome. Attraction made her stupid.
He tilted his head and murmured, “This would be easier if you weren’t so beautiful.”
Oh. My.
She couldn’t afford to be stupid right now.
Time to put him in his place. “You were a stranger back in the workout room, but now I’m your supervisor and expect to be treated with respect. If you can’t do that, I can order you to attend human resources’ sensitivity training.”
She turned on her heel and headed toward her office. Their office. Damn. She reached the stuffy, windowless room and flung open the door. Today wasn’t going at all as planned.
She pointed to the large lab table. “You can work there.” After dropping her purse on her desk, she booted up her computer, ignoring the man who hovered in her peripheral vision, waiting for her to share with him everything she’d learned about archaeology through hard work and expensive schooling.
She clicked on the Talon & Drake e-mail program, seeking distraction. He was spoiled, and she was jealous. She’d get over it; she just needed one minute to simmer.
She scanned the list of new e-mails as they downloaded from the server. One caught her eye, and her pique was forgotten. She placed her hands on either side of her keyboard to steady herself as her vision narrowed and cold sweat dotted her forehead.
Jake Novak had contacted her. The subject line was blank. She sank into her seat and clicked on the e-mail with trembling fingers.
His message appeared in stark black and white: You have a good job at Talon & Drake, but I can take it away.
CHAPTER TWO
LEE RAN THROUGH HIS LIST of required personality traits: flaky, check; Indiana Jones wannabe, check; annoying to his new supervisor, check twice. Not bad for his first hour in the office. His cover story was in place, and Janice and Erica had accepted him at face value.
Erica didn’t miss much. That would be a problem. She’d zeroed in on his age immediately. He’d started to duck the question, then decided that could make her suspicious. Subtracting seven years from his age had been a necessary improvisation. A flaky twenty-five-year-old was believable, and she had no reason to question his cover story, for now.
He leaned against the break room counter. She gave him a rundown of what she expected from him while they waited for the coffee to finish brewing.
She cleaned up well. He’d said she was beautiful to rankle her, but he’d still meant it. Even the harsh, fluorescent light of the break room couldn’t diminish her high cheekbones, slim nose, and smooth pale skin. And he could get lost in those large, wintry gray eyes. In the workout room, he’d been transfixed by her glossy dark hair, then confined to a sweaty ponytail, now pulled back into a bun so tight he wondered if it hurt whenever she moved her head. If he hadn’t watched her while she exercised, then her clothing, her hair, her demeanor would all make him believe she was repression personified.
Earlier, he’d been caught off guard by the instant attraction he’d felt for the woman who let loose on the heavy bag with ferocious energy. Now he wondered where she hid the fire beneath this icy exterior of hers, and the thought of trying to find out held a masochistic appeal.
An older man with silver hair and sharp blue eyes walked into the break room. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said to Erica.
She looked startled. “For me? Why?”
“Janice told me she gave you the Thermo-Con Environmental Assessment.”
She pushed away from the counter and straightened her shoulders. “I may not be an architectural historian, but I’ve read up on International Style structures and—”
The man cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “My only concern is the project timeline. Sam Riversong called me this morning. The tribe screwed up, and they need a fast turnaround on the EA. He asked me to make sure you stay on schedule.”
“So what do you want from us?” Lee asked to inject himself into the conversation.
The man turned his sharp gaze to Lee. “Who are you?”
“Sorry,” Erica said. “Rob Anderson, this is our new intern, Lee Scott.”
Rob Anderson. The project manager overseeing all the Iraq contracts. The man was second on his list of suspects and one of the reasons Lee was here, pretending to be an archaeological intern.
Erica turned back to Rob, dismissing Lee from the conversation. “Why would Riversong call you when you’re not even part of the environmental team?”
“Sam and I go way back.”
From his research, Lee knew Rob had served in the army with Sam Riversong and Edward Drake decades ago.
“I want daily updates on your progress,” Rob said. “Starting today.”
“Today we’re going to the house, tomorrow the National Archives,” she said.
“Good.” He turned to leave but paused in the doorway. “As an archaeologist, what’s your take on Ed Drake’s plan to submit a proposal to bring up the historic navy airplane from the Chesapeake?”
Alarm flashed across her face. “This is the first I’ve heard of it, but I think it’s a terrible idea. Underwater work is incredibly dangerous and expensive, and we don’t have anyone on staff with underwater archaeology expertise.”
Now Erica had Lee’s attention. She was lying.
Yesterday he’d hacked into her application to American University. Her file included a transcript from the University of Hawaii, where she’d earned a Master’s degree in underwater archaeology and had been working on her PhD when she left the program. The woman qualified as resident expert on the subject, yet he’d found no mention of her graduate degree in her curriculum vitae, and now she said nothing to
tout her expertise to one of Talon & Drake’s most senior engineers. Interesting.
“That’s what I was afraid of, but Ed is determined to pursue it.” Rob ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “I’ll talk to him. Get to work on Thermo-Con. E-mail me with your progress when you get back from the house.” He left the room.
Lee smiled. Rob had completely ignored him. It was as if the title “intern” was an invisibility cloak. Maybe he could actually pull this off. He poured the freshly brewed coffee into two mugs and handed her one. “Who was that?”
“He’s an engineer. He manages our Iraq projects.”
Just the segue he was aiming for. “Talon & Drake has projects in Iraq?”
She looked at him quizzically. “Don’t you read the paper?”
“I’m a student. I don’t have time to read.”
“Didn’t you even Google Talon & Drake before you accepted the internship?”
Excellent. Nothing said incompetent quite like the inability to use Google. “It didn’t occur to me.”
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Talon & Drake has been in the news a lot lately. For several reasons, but mostly because Senator Joseph Talon—you do know who Senator Talon is, don’t you?”
Better than you’d imagine. “Yes.” He put insult and exasperation into the single word.
“Then you know he’s all but announced he’s running for president.”
“Is he a Democrat or a Republican?” Playing dumb was easy. Too easy.
“And to think your uninformed vote is worth the same as mine,” she muttered.
He wondered how she’d react if she knew he could recite the senator’s voting record.
She took a sip of coffee, then cradled her mug in her hands and stared at him over the rim. “If you’re going to work here, there are a few basic facts you should know. Starting with, one: Senator Talon owns Talon & Drake.”
The exact ownership and management of Talon & Drake had been combed through and nitpicked in the papers for weeks, and her one-sentence summation was vastly inadequate. “What about Drake?” he asked, just to needle her.
