Carbon Dating (Nerds of Paradise Book 3)

by Merry Farmer

  “I do know who you are,” she argued, almost pleading. “And that’s part of the problem.”

  All Ted could do was sputter wordlessly at that. He threw his hands out to the side. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that right now, I’m a distraction to you.”

  “No.” He stopped her before she could launch into one of her self-deprecating speeches. “It means that I have enough to worry about without trying to convince you every waking moment that you’re the woman I want to be with.”

  “That’s my point.” She threw out her arms as well in a gesture so similar to his that he wondered if she was mocking him. “You deserve better than—”

  “Stop.” He held up one hand, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m not in the mood to hear this right now.”

  Laura’s mouth snapped shut, and she blinked rapidly, as if being interrupted in the middle of putting herself down was the last thing she expected.

  “Stop trying to do what you think is best for me,” he went on. “I know my own mind. I know what I want. You need to check your issues at the door for a change and trust me. Trust that I’m with the woman I want to be with and that you are the woman I deserve. I’m not some idiot who’s been tricked into being with the wrong person.” He took a step closer to her and stabbed a finger into his opposite palm with each word as he said, “I. Want. You. Got it?”

  Laura stood frozen, blinking up at him with glassy eyes. Her lips quivered, but whether because she was trying to say something or because she was about to cry, Ted couldn’t tell. He hoped to God she wasn’t going to cry. In his current mood, he couldn’t give her what she needed to stop crying, and that would only make him feel like a heel.

  “Got it?” he asked again, quieter and calmer.

  She nodded, her lips still trembling. “Got it,” she whispered.

  “Good.”

  He reached for her, managing much more tenderness than before. It wasn’t a full embrace, but he pulled her close enough to plant a gentle kiss on her closed lips. The tension running through her was palpable, though. He had to step back before he got frustrated all over again.

  “I’ve got cattle to move into a different pasture,” he said. It wasn’t a lie, but he’d only just come up with the task as a means to get away from the bitter situation. “Stay for dinner tonight, and overnight too.”

  “I don’t know if I—”

  “Just stay the night,” he said, exhaustion thick in his voice.

  She took her time before saying, “Okay.”

  It was the right answer, but it didn’t make him feel at all better. He couldn’t leave her looking as miserable as she did, so he leaned in for one more kiss before turning to march off. It would have been nice if he could deal with one problem at a time, but it looked like that was a luxury he wasn’t going to get this time.

  Laura sat at her desk, the familiar sounds of PSF all around her. Jogi was up from the IT room, dealing with an issue Hero had with his computer. Dennis and Angelica were chatting about their weekend plans. Will was tapping away at his keyboard. Usually those familiar office sounds soothed Laura, made her feel like all was right with the world. But nothing was right. Nothing had been right for days.

  “Yoo-hoo. Earth to Laura,” Scott said from his desk, catty-corner to hers. “I said, do you think you’ll have the converter equation worked out by the time Linus gets up here for our meeting?”

  “What? Oh.” She shook her head and blinked her computer screen into focus. “Uh, sure.” It was only after she answered that she remembered she’d been working through the equation on the notepad beside her keyboard instead of on the computer.

  She picked up her pencil and scanned through the lines of math that she’d already written out, but within seconds, her brain was spinning out in every direction again.

  Ted had convinced her to stay the night with him the night before. She’d done full-scale battle with herself to take that as a crystal-clear sign that she should do exactly what he was telling her to do and accept that he wanted to be with her. Logic and reason dictated that he was right, that she was not only being ridiculous, she was being unfair too.

  Of course, that line of reasoning only led her back to the old, familiar rut that she’d jumped into the deep-end without testing the waters. It hadn’t helped matters that after a tense supper with Roscoe, they’d had some decidedly un-spectacular sex. As hot as Ted was and as much as she liked the sensation of him in and around her, she couldn’t get her mind in the game. They went through the motions, all right, but after far too much effort, Ted had given up trying to make her come, and she’d surrendered to the reality that her mind was somewhere else.

  And that just made it worse. Worse than worse. The loud part of her that she kept trying in vain to silence was convinced that sex was the only thing she had to offer him, and that now she was pitiful at that, even. How long would it be before Ted decided he wanted more than just legal advice from Sandy? Laura was convinced that her sophisticated friend never phoned in sex.

  “Houston, we have a problem.”

  Scott’s comment was loud enough that Laura blinked out of the downward spiral of her thoughts. “Huh? What’s wrong?”

  Scott stared at her with the kind of look she imagined an older brother giving her if she’d said something particularly stupid. “Are you going to do math or are you going to stew in your own juices all afternoon?”

  “I think I’m going to stew in my own juices,” she answered with a depressed sigh.

  Scott continued to stare at her. He then let out a breath and planted his hands on his desk, pushing himself to stand. “Come on. Meeting Room Three. Now.”

  Will glanced up from his work. “Someone’s in trouble.”

  “Watch it,” she warned him, also the way she would a brother. It was strange and heartwarming how many brothers she suddenly had since she’d started work at PSF. Even Hero glanced up from watching Jogi fix his computer to give her an encouraging smile, and Jogi gave her a thumbs up.

  It almost helped. She followed Scott into the meeting room, swallowing as he shut the door behind them. He gestured for her to sit at the small conference table, then sat beside her, swiveling his chair to face her. They were close enough to be oddly intimate.

  “What did you and Ted fight about?” he asked without preamble.

  “What?” Laura blanched. “How did you know we had a fight? It was nothing. Is this really appropriate for work?”

  Scott leaned back in his chair, lips twitching. “I didn’t know, I guessed. And as your boss, I’m asking because it’s interfering with your work performance. But I’m also asking as your potential future brother-in-law,” he added with a teasing glint in his eyes. “So spill it.”

  For a half-second, Laura grinned. That grin vanished into a shaky sigh and a slump. She had to fight the urge to cry. “I doubt we’re going to be in-laws,” she admitted, her voice cracking enough to make her emotional state stupidly obvious.

  “Not according to Casey,” he said, “and she generally gets things right where Ted is concerned.”

  “Oh, it’s not Ted’s problem.” Laura glanced balefully at him.

  “It’s yours?” One of Scott’s eyebrows inched up, and he was obviously fighting not to laugh.

  Laura liked and respected Scott, but that expression made her want to punch him, boss or not. “Why is everybody having such a hard time accepting that maybe Ted and I just weren’t meant to be?” she asked with a sudden burst of energy.

  “Including Ted?” Scott slipped in before she could go on.

  “Yes, including Ted.” Scott’s line of questioning was pissing her off. She used that energy to get out everything she needed to say. “How many times do I have to tell people that he’s this uber-cool, hot cowboy who everybody likes, and I’m a weird, nerdy girl who likes dinosaurs and rockets and wasn’t ready for the relationship she got herself into?”

  “Or maybe you were ready and y
ou’re trying to sabotage things now because…?” Scott let the question hang in the air as he stared at her, demanding an answer.

  Laura snorted. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No,” Scott answered without pause.

  She let her shoulders drop. “Scott. Come on. Reality check.”

  “You’re the one who needs a reality check,” he said with a half laugh. “You’ve got a great thing, a thing that—don’t lie—you’ve been enjoying immensely for the last month or so. You’re going to lose it if you don’t chill out and let yourself be happy.”

  She knew he was trying to help. She knew it. He was attempting to compliment her and give her the kind of pep-talk that would send her out of the meeting room ready to take on the world. But all Laura could think was that she was going to lose Ted. She was going to send him right into the arms of another woman, and everyone would be happy about it. Everyone would be relieved that Ted finally ended up with the right woman.

  Everyone except her.

  Panic began to well up from her churning gut. It would tear her apart. The day that Ted realized she’d been right all along and left her for Sandy, or someone like her, it would tear Laura’s heart to shreds. And yes, it would be her fault, her issues that sounded the final death knell of the best relationship she’d ever been in.

  Which was why it was up to her to drive the nail in the coffin before things went too far.

  “You’re right,” she told Scott, sitting straighter. “I am going to lose it.”

  Scott burst into a chuckle. Anger flashed through Laura before she realized he thought she was making a joke. “Some days, Laura, I think you’ve already lost it.” He stood, thumping her shoulder like one of the guys as he did. She stood with him. “You’ve got the whole weekend ahead of you. Why don’t you and Ted get away, go to Salt Lake City or something, and have some fun.”

  “We can’t,” she said as they headed for the door. “Ted’s got a meeting with Sandy later to talk about their strategy for fighting the bank’s claim on the fossil.”

  “What time?” Scott asked as he opened the door. Will and Hero glanced up from their work with eager expressions.

  “Four-thirty,” Laura said.

  Scott nodded. “I tell you what. Why don’t you finish up that equation I need you to work through? Assuming you’re done by four, why don’t you head over to the bank, or wherever they’re having that meeting, so that you can be there as moral support for Ted?”

  The last thing Laura wanted to do was sit in a room with Ted and Sandy for an hour, or however long the meeting took. At the same time, the longer she waited to take charge of the situation, the worse it would be when she finally put her foot down.

  “Okay,” she sighed, heading for her desk. “I’ll do it.”

  She had a feeling there would be another meeting on Monday morning, in which Scott yelled at her for taking his advice the wrong way.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Let’s see what you’ve got.” Sandy leaned against the edge of her desk, extending a manicured hand to take the old photograph and letter Ted handed her.

  “I don’t know if it will help,” he said, glancing to Laura in the chair beside him. She seemed way more withdrawn than usual. The blank expression she wore was somehow worse than the flushed, anxious look that she’d been wearing for the last week. Still, it had been a welcome surprise when she’d turned up at Sandy’s office to stand by him through the meeting. He dragged his attention back to Sandy. “The photo is a little fuzzy, but I swear you can see the bone.”

  Sandy hummed and squinted at the photo. “When was this taken?”

  “1954,” Ted answered. It was a picture of his grandmother, posing with a baby Roscoe in her arms and his Uncle Wayne as a toddler beside her. His Grandma Ginny was young and beautiful and smiling. She wore a simple dress and had the look of a woman who had worked hard her whole life. The determination in her eyes reminded Ted of Laura so much that he’d stared at the photo for a full five minutes before realizing it had been taken close to the fossil site. A dark blob on the ground behind Grandma Ginny could very likely be the part of the fossil that he’d discovered as a teen.

  “And the letter?” Sandy asked, switching to look at the paper in her other hand.

  “That’s a little older,” Ted explained. “My Great-Grandmother Kate sent that to my Great-Grandpa Arnold when he was fighting in World War One.”

  “Wow,” Sandy whispered, her eyes going wide with reverence. “I’ll be careful with it.”

  “Thanks.” Ted smiled, confident Sandy would be as careful as she said she would.

  There was a flicker of movement from Laura, and when Ted glanced to her, she had a strange mixture of stress and resignation in her eyes.

  “Oh, I see.” Sandy pulled his attention back to the matter at hand as she read the letter.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s mostly boring stuff about the working of the ranch, but she mentions finding a bone sticking out of the ground. It could be a cow bone or some other kind of animal,” he admitted, “but it might be the kind of thing we’re looking for.”

  “It might,” Sandy agreed. “Without photographic proof, there’s no way to tell, but the fact that someone mentioned a bone sticking out of the ground in 1917 is encouraging.”

  She twisted to set the documents on the desk behind her. Ted snuck another glance at Laura. Now she was staring at Sandy with a look that could only be described as longing. That didn’t sit well either. Laura and Sandy were friends, but Laura’s look was almost envying.

  “I’m fairly confident we can bring this whole thing to some sort of positive resolution without the case actually reaching court.” Sandy turned back to him. “The Bonnevilles like to play wildcards in their game of snatching up everything of any value in this town, but they don’t always think things through. I think this is one of those times.”

  “You think so?” Some of the tension forming knots in Ted’s back loosened.

  “Let’s just say I’m cautiously optimistic,” Sandy answered. “The evidence is there, but it might take some convincing to get the block-headed Bonnevilles to see it. I’m not going to stop fighting for you until we win this, though.”

  “That’s great to hear.” Ted breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’ve gone ahead and set up a preliminary meeting with the bank’s key trustees, including Richard Bonneville, for Monday afternoon,” Sandy went on. “Think you can make it?”

  “I’ll be there with bells on.” Ted met Sandy’s confident smile with one of his own.

  “Laura?” Sandy asked, turning her grin to Laura.

  “I’ve got work,” Laura answered, without expression and without any energy.

  “Are you sure Howie won’t let you out of it for something like this?” Sandy asked with all the intimacy of a friend instead of the stiffness of a lawyer.

  Laura shook her head, eyes lowered. “Scott needs me for the, uh, stuff we’re doing with the rocket right now.”

  “I think Scott would understand.” Ted started to reach for her hand.

  She pulled her hands away, folding them in her lap. “He was pretty insistent about me working when I talked to him today,” she said.

  “All right.” Sandy studied her friend with a worried look. “But you’re as big a part of this as anyone else.”

  Laura shrugged.

  Warning sirens blared in Ted’s head. He’d had about enough of this whole thing. It was time to get to the bottom of it.

  He stood and shook Sandy’s hand. “Thanks for everything, San.”

  Sandy pulled him in for a hug. “Hey, anything for you, okay?”

  “Thanks.” He blushed a little at her show of affection, mostly just glad he was friends with a lawyer as talented as Sandy.

  “Hang in there,” Sandy told Laura, letting Ted go so that she could hug her.

  “Okay,” Laura mumbled. If Ted wasn’t mistaken, Laura and Sandy’s hug was a little stiff.

  “We’ll
be in touch,” Ted said as soon as Laura stepped back. He took her hand before she could step too far away, and held tight when she tried to tug free.

  They made it out of Sandy’s office, through the building, and out to the overcast Haskell street before Laura tried to pull away again.

  “Enough,” Ted said, letting her go, but moving to face her down, keeping her from getting away.

  “You’re right,” Laura replied with a sudden burst of energy. “It is enough.”

  A wave of relief washed over Ted that was so strong his knees nearly buckled. “Thank God.” He reached out to brush her cheek, thrilled that they could finally get to the bottom of things.

  His hopes crashed when Laura took a big step away. “We’re done, Ted.”

  As fast as everything seemed to fall into place, it crumbled apart. “What are you talking about?” Panic welled up in his gut like a geyser.

  “We never should have started dating in the first place,” Laura said. “Everyone seems to know it.”

  “Bullshit.” He didn’t mean for the curse to come out with quite the amount of acid that it did, but desperation was quickly getting the better of him. “The only person who doesn’t think the two of us should be together is you, and you’re wrong.”

  She shook her head and crossed her arms. Her level of calm was far more alarming than the hand-wringing she’d done up until that point. “I made a mistake thinking that I was ready for a relationship. Seeing the way you and Sandy interacted in there only drives home to me what kind of relationship you could have if you were with someone ready to face all this. I feel like I’m holding you back from being happy. You should be dating her, not me.”

  Ted gaped at her. “This? Still?”

  “It’s obvious,” she said with a shrug.

  “What’s obvious is that Sandy has had her eye on that Indian guy, Jogi, since the orienteering event in April,” Ted said, again, too forceful. Laura blushed like she only just remembered that connection. “What’s also obvious is that you’re grasping at straws to find ways to wiggle away from a really good thing. And don’t tell me you don’t think this is a good thing,” he cut her off as she opened her mouth to protest. He couldn’t take her hands with her arms crossed, but he could cup her elbows. “We are good together, Laura. Look at everything we’ve accomplished as a team.”