Carbon Dating (Nerds of Paradise Book 3)

by Merry Farmer

  “You were in the Army?” He blinked rapidly, jerking into motion to get her more wet paper towels.

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “Although I must have had the most pitiful military career of anyone I know. I joined right out of high school because my parents weren’t going to be able to afford college. The Army was where I discovered I was actually smart instead of having everyone tell me I could be smart if I applied myself.”

  “And you deployed to Iraq?”

  Judging by the baffled—and, okay, maybe impressed—look on Ted’s face, she should have kept her fat mouth shut. “For one month. That was it. I spent time recovering in Germany after that before being shipped back to the States to serve the rest of my four years working in research and development jobs. That’s how I got interested in rockets and what made me decide to go into aerospace once I got into college, and….” She let her monologue drift off, letting out a breath and lowering her shoulders. “And you’re not the least bit interested in that either. Sorry.”

  Way to talk too much to a guy you just met…and by accident, the voice in her head scolded her.

  “No, no,” Ted protested, handing her the clean, wet towels. “I actually find it really interesting.” He added a half-hearted shrug before saying, “I’ve never been much of anywhere, honestly. I’ve been helping Dad on the ranch since I was thirteen. I never had time to travel or go far away to college or any of that.”

  His expression crumpled to what Laura would almost have considered embarrassment, if he wasn’t one of the hottest guys she’d ever met.

  “Some people are rolling stones and some are strong oaks, growing where they’re planted,” she said, rubbing at the last of the salsa on her skirt and checking her leggings to make sure they were clean. “Or as my Grandma always used to say, ‘it takes all kinds to make a world’.”

  She straightened and tossed the wadded paper towels into the trash can.

  “Of course, my Grandpa always used to say ‘there are fruits and nuts in every woods,’ and that’s always applied to me too, so….” She ended with a self-deprecating laugh. All at once, she felt out of her depth again. Ted’s cologne seemed to fill the small bathroom with bright, sparkling bursts of scent that went straight to her lady parts.

  The silence between them quickly grew uncomfortable. Ted just stood there, staring at her, a wide grin on his face and a far-away look in his eyes. At last, he shook his head and said. “Do you want to go out for dinner sometime?”

  Laura’s jaw dropped. Shock rose up her spine like lightning. It shot down her arms, making her fingertips numb. For a second, she thought her bladder might give out too. Ted Flint was asking her out? The same Ted Flint that her new friends had hummed and gossiped over? The Ted Flint who could probably bounce quarters off his abs, and who any girl in town would be lucky to have smile at her? And here she’d just made a fool of herself by rambling about dinosaurs and traveling. For gosh sakes, she had giant, wet blobs all down the front of her decidedly unsexy dress from where she’d spilled his salsa on herself.

  “No!” she laughed, taking a step back. “I mean…no!” A fit of giggles rolled around her insides, spilling out in a rush. What on earth was he doing asking her?

  Ted shook his head, eyes bugging in shock. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “No, I can’t go out with you.” She backpedaled toward the door, still giggling like a tween.

  Ted laughed nervously along with her. “Why not? What’s wrong with me?” He blinked, winced, then said, “Sorry, that sounded arrogant. Really wrong.”

  “No, no, it’s not.” Laura waved randomly toward him, unable to wipe the smile off her face. She glanced behind her, located the doorknob, reached for it, and turned back to Ted. “There’s nothing wrong with you at all. You’re awesome. You’re perfect. You’re hot and cool and…and….” She could feel the heat flooding her face, probably making her look even worse than she suspected she did. “It’s just that you took me by surprise, is all. You’re way out of my league. You don’t want to go out with me.”

  He blinked and turned his hands out to the side. “Yes, I do. You’re really interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you. I think we’d have fun.”

  “No, we wouldn’t.” She turned the doorknob and laughed. “I mean….” She winced, giggled, took a breath, then forced herself to look at him. “I’m really flattered. Like, really. You have no idea. But, wow. I totally can’t even process you asking me out right now. It’s so…wow. Sorry. Maybe….” She shook her head, startled that she was even contemplating telling him to ask again some other time. Dating a hot cowboy just didn’t fit into who she thought she was. “Thanks for asking, though.”

  Before he could ask again or worse still, realize the mistake he’d made in asking her in the first place, she opened the door and bolted for the hall. Her heart raced as she retreated from the bathroom as fast as she could without drawing attention.

  Her giggles returned full-force. Ted Flint asking her out? What was the world coming to?

  Chapter Two

  The scene in the family bathroom at the Cattleman Hotel stayed with Laura for the rest of the weekend, like an itch she couldn’t seem to soothe. Ted Flint had asked her out. Ted Flint had asked her out. It didn’t matter how many other conversations she’d had at the party—two and a half—before leaving in a haze of confusion, she hadn’t been able to get Ted’s handsome, smiling face out of her mind.

  “‘Do you want to go out for dinner sometime’?” she repeated under her breath as she walked from the copier back to her desk on Monday morning. “Of course, I want to go out for dinner,” she answered herself.

  But there was no way that was going to happen. There was no way that should happen. Not a woman like her, not a guy like Ted. And not to mention she’d handled the surprise of him asking totally wrong.

  “Right?” she ended her thought aloud.

  Across her team’s configuration of desks, Will Darling glanced up. His brow inched up in question, although his expression—as usual—remained neutral.

  “Sorry, I was just talking to myself,” she told him with a smile.

  “You don’t say.” Will relaxed into a smile and went back to work. The click of his keyboard as he typed went a long way toward soothing Laura.

  Instead of going back to work herself, she continued to stare at Will. Will had been dating Melody Clutterbuck for a few months now. They’d even moved in together. Laura had become good friends with Melody, and her sister, Calliope too. Either one of the Clutterbuck sisters would have handled the surprise in the bathroom much better than she’d handled it. They would have come up with a far smoother way to decline and explain the social science behind why a decline was necessary. Then again, either of them were beautiful and feminine enough to date a guy like Ted, so they wouldn’t have found themselves in her predicament.

  Will’s staccato typing stopped, and he glanced up. “Can I help you with something?”

  Laura blinked and shook herself out of her thoughts. She’d been staring directly at Will, as if trying to burn a hole through his skull, through her entire inner debate. “No, I’m fine. I just went to my happy place for a second there.”

  Will chuckled, his lips curving up in a rare smile. Well, not so rare since he’d started dating Melody. “Welcome back,” he said, then returned to work.

  Laura tried to do the same. She was working on a computer model for the Haskell I rocket’s propulsion system, trying to balance out the type and volume of fuel that would make for the most cost-effective, and yet still powerful, payload flight. Numbers usually excited her with the challenge they presented, but at the moment, they all seemed to jumble together on her screen…like so much salsa splattered across her dress.

  She really was a klutz. Although in the cold light of day, she was willing to admit that Ted moving away when he did and taking the plate with him might have contributed to the disaster. And he had been a sweetheart to show her where she could clean up and
to help with the operation. Heck, if he didn’t think she was ridiculous after that, then maybe she should have accepted his dinner invitation.

  She let out a disappointed sigh, her shoulders dropping. “Way to mess that up too,” she mumbled.

  “Hey, Laura.”

  Laura jerked straight and turned as Natalie Warner, her coworker from another team, strode up to her desk. It wasn’t unusual for members of other teams to come to their area with questions, so Laura thought nothing of it and answered, “Hey, Natalie. How was your weekend?”

  “Okay.” Natalie’s smile grew. “Not as good as yours, apparently.”

  Laura blinked, dread mingling with her usual hopeless confusion.

  “I saw you talking to Ted Flint at Scott and Casey’s engagement party,” Natalie went on, smile growing.

  Laura’s face instantly burned hot. “Oh, that? That was nothing.”

  Farther down the line of desks, both Hero and Scott perked up.

  “It didn’t look like nothing to me,” Natalie went on. “You two looked really into each other.”

  Laura’s neck began to burn along with her face. “We were just talking about Haskell history and dinosaurs and things.”

  “Dinosaurs are your happy place,” Will said without looking away from his computer monitor. He was smiling again, which made Laura incredibly nervous.

  “And then I spilled salsa all over myself,” Laura went on, as if that alone were reason enough to squelch all rumors.

  “I saw that,” Natalie laughed, leaning against the edge of Laura’s desk. “I saw the two of you leave the refreshment room together.”

  Laura hadn’t noticed Natalie was one of the people in the room at the time of the disaster. Then again, it would have taken an earthquake to get her to notice more than Ted’s gorgeous, smiling face and stellar butt. If she had noticed Natalie, she might have played things differently. “He was very nice,” she said.

  “I’ll say.” Natalie leaned a little closer. “So, are the two of you going to go out?”

  Prickles of embarrassment zipped down Laura’s spine. The laughed with the same nervous energy she’d had when Ted asked her. “That would be a no.”

  Natalie—and the rest of the guys, who were now obviously listening in—flinched and made noises of surprise. “Why not?” Natalie asked. “The two of you looked so cute together.”

  “Ah.” Laura sent her a self-deprecating smile. “I see where you’ve gone wrong. I’m not going out with Ted because I don’t really see myself as the dating sort.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Hero asked with a half laugh. “Does that mean you’re the arranged marriage sort?”

  She laughed. There was no point denying that work was on hold while her social life was discussed, so Laura stood in order to address everyone. “I’ve just never considered myself the kind of girl that guys want to date. I’m inherently undatable.”

  She blinked in surprise as her simple statement was met by a round of protests and snorts of disagreement. It hadn’t seemed all that revolutionary to her, it just…was.

  “That’s not true,” Scott said.

  “Oh, believe me, it is,” Laura contradicted him. “There are two kinds of women in the world—there are the kind of women that guys like Ted Flint go out with, and then there are women like me.”

  “What, smart? Funny? Interesting?” Will said with a thick note of sarcasm. “Yeah, no guys want to go out with women like that.”

  Laura wasn’t sure if he was complimenting her or teasing her. Probably both. Either way, she laughed and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “No woman is inherently undatable,” Scott added, still seated but able to see everyone. “It goes against the laws of nature.”

  “Well, I supposed a female serial killer would be undatable,” Hero agued. “I can’t think of too many of those, though. And Laura isn’t a serial killer.”

  “Not yet anyway,” Laura said. “If this conversation keeps going, I might have to consider it.”

  She thought she was being funny, but Hero kept on her case. “Seriously, why would you say that you’re undatable? As far as I can see, any guy would be lucky to call you his girlfriend.”

  Laura wasn’t sure whether she should roll her eyes or sink into the floor in embarrassment. “I dunno, because I’m weird?” She shrugged. “I like dinosaurs and rockets. I was in the Army. I wouldn’t know how to put on make-up if you sat me in front of every one of those online tutorials and held my hand.”

  “Not all guys want girls like that,” Will said, still looking at his monitor.

  “Right. Says the man who just moved in with one of the most beautiful women in town,” Laura fired back at him.

  Will’s smile grew before he schooled his expression back to neutrality. “I’d love Melody even if she had a mole the size of Texas on her face and a peg-leg.”

  “Because she’d still be feminine and exotic,” Laura argued.

  “All men are different,” Hero said. “We all want something different. So you shouldn’t write yourself off just because you don’t think you fit the stereotype of what guys on tv are looking for.”

  “Exactly,” Natalie agreed with him.

  “Besides,” Scott added. “Casey mentioned to me that Ted told her about talking to you after the party. If a guy really isn’t interested, he wouldn’t tell his sister that he talked to you.”

  Painful flutters swooped into Laura’s gut. Ted had talked about her to Casey?

  But no, that was irrelevant. He’d already asked her out, so she knew he was interested. The issue was that he shouldn’t be. Not in her. She wasn’t his type.

  “Well, I think you should go out with him,” Natalie said, pushing away from the desk. “Whether you think you’re datable or not. You can’t possibly know if you’re a guy’s type until you’ve been out with him a few times.”

  “What she said,” Will—who had gone back to work—seconded.

  “Are you sure the problem isn’t some kind of worry about being disappointed on your part?” Scott asked in true big-brother, team leader fashion.

  And just when Laura’s blush was beginning to calm down. It was back in full force within seconds. Because deep inside, she knew Scott had hit the nail on the head. “I’ve just never been very successful at the whole dating thing before,” she admitted. “I’ve been so focused elsewhere.” Which was her way of saying she’d managed to live twenty-nine years on the earth and never had a boyfriend. If she was a heroine in some Regency romance novel, she would be firmly on the shelf with no prospects and no expectations.

  Actually, the no expectations part would have made life decidedly easier. Damn the twenty-first century and its insistence that people over the age of twenty-three were still eligible for the dating game.

  “‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’,” Natalie quoted, then patted her on the shoulder before heading off to her part of the office.

  “She’s right, you know,” Hero added once she was gone. “Past failures aren’t an indication of future outcomes. Just ask my wife.” He smiled the adorable smile that he wore every time he mentioned his wife, Denise.

  “What would she say?” Laura asked, more eager to know than she wanted to be.

  “Denise had it rough through school. She had one bad boyfriend who got her pregnant and stuck her with a daughter she had to raise on her own—well, with her mom’s help—and Destiny is awesome, by the way.” He paused as if regathering his train of thought, then went on to say, “She had a terrible time with men after that.”

  “What happened to change all that?”

  Hero laughed. “Well, me.”

  Laura would have rolled her eyes at him, but she knew he wasn’t bragging or being flippant.

  “I met her when her car broke down on the side of the road,” Hero finished up. “Imagine what we both would have missed out on if she’d pushed me away.”

  Laura made an uncertain face. Hero and Den
ise’s story was beautiful, but it was one in a million. There was no way anything in Laura’s life would ever compete with that kind of story.

  “Look, guys, I can’t talk about this anymore,” she said, sinking back into her seat. “We shouldn’t really be talking about this kind of thing at work anyhow. Let’s just focus on rocket propulsion. If anything else is supposed to happen, it’ll happen.”

  The guys hummed and sighed, but focused on their computers again.

  “Just remember,” Will said in a confidential tone, eyes on his monitor. “Haskell tends to foster impossible relationships. If you were in the history gallery at the hotel, you would have seen that. So don’t write yourself off just yet.”

  “I—”

  Laura let out a sigh. She couldn’t promise that she would keep an open mind. Part of her wanted to, but she’d spent her entire adult life becoming who she was, and that woman didn’t date. At least, she hadn’t so far.

  The swift smack of a baseball hitting his glove and the vague sting from the power of Ben’s throw barely pulled Ted’s attention out of his thoughts. His return throw was a little wide, and Ben had to lunge to catch it, but that was the point of baseball practice. Or so Ted told himself. If he was being honest, his focus was miles away. One point six miles away, to be exact. Somewhere in the Paradise Space Flight building. Or maybe not. Work hours were over, after all. Laura might be out enjoying the summer evening.

  That thought knocked him a hair off his game, and when Ben hurled the ball back at him, Ted reached out a second too late and missed it.

  “Sorry,” Ben called to him.

  “No problem. My bad.” Ted waved, then jogged to fetch the ball. It wasn’t Ben’s fault. Not one bit. If he had to blame anyone, he would blame the rocket-designing, dinosaur-loving, blue-eyed object of his obsession.

  No, obsession was too strong of a word. Sure, Laura had turned his head, but he wasn’t that far gone yet. It wasn’t like he’d never met a pretty girl before. He considered himself good with women. He felt at ease around them. And he’d never had a problem getting a date.