by Noelle Adams
“Lucy? Lucy Moore?” he asked, studying her face in astonishment. At least he was no more prepared for this encounter than she was.
“I haven’t been Lucy Moore in years.” She managed to recover enough to not act like a complete fool, even though her heart was beating wildly and she felt like she was seventeen again.
“You’re married?” He’d shaken her hand, saving her from lowering it and feeling even more awkward.
“I was married for about five minutes. But that was when my show really started taking off, so I kept the name Nelson professionally.” She was pleased that she sounded pleasant and neutral.
She didn’t feel neutral at all.
He looked older now—he was older—with character or too much sun etching little lines beside his mouth and eyes. He was still tall and lean with broad shoulders and strength in his posture, but it felt somehow like he took up more space than he used to.
He didn’t look different enough. Seeing him now dredged up all of her old hurt, disappointment, betrayal, and resentment. Her breathing quickened as she tried to swallow over it. Tried not to remember how he’d crushed her when she’d been seventeen.
“I’ve lost track of almost everyone from back home,” he said. He sounded perfectly courteous, but he wasn’t really smiling. He looked watchful more than anything else. “It appears you’ve made a success of your show. Congratulations.”
The way he said the word “show” made it clear he didn’t approve. It wasn’t a completely unusual reaction, but her shoulders stiffened just the same. “Thank you. So you went into archaeology? If you’d ever crossed my mind, I would have assumed you’d still be working in politics with your mom.”
During her freshman year in college, she’d interned on a political campaign for Philip’s mother, who was running for Congress. Lucy had been excited about the opportunity because it gave her hands-on experience in a political campaign, which had been her career path back then. She’d been double-majoring in Marketing and Political Science and thought she’d end up as some sort of hotshot political operative in D.C.
An additional perk of the internship had been the chance to work with Philip.
He’d recently graduated from college and was working on his mother’s campaign full-time, instead of going to graduate school in history, which she’d learned he’d originally wanted to do. He was smart and sexy and fascinating and six years older than her.
She’d skipped a grade in elementary school, so she was just seventeen for most of her freshman year in college. She could hardly be blamed for falling for him.
At least, that was what she tried to tell herself now.
“She was disappointed,” he said. “But it got to where I didn’t really have a choice.”
She was dying to ask him why he’d changed his mind—since he’d told her more than once back then that he felt he really needed to work with his mom, despite his personal preferences—but she bit her tongue over the question. She shouldn’t care about how Philip had spent his life. He’d made it clear ages ago that they would never even be friends.
“And, yeah,” Philip continued. “I went into archaeology.”
“You’re the field supervisor here?”
“I am.”
“Well, okay. I guess you’ll be showing me around then. This is my cameraman, Sawyer, and my assistant, Dana.”
Dana and Sawyer were shooting Lucy curious glances, obviously dying to ask what her surprising connection and history was with the archaeologist.
Philip shook hands with both of them, his greeting as polite and as cool as his greeting to her. Then he picked up a couple of their bags without asking and told them he’d show them where they’d be staying.
Lucy assumed they’d be staying in one of the trailers, since they were the only form of habitation on the island.
“We’re rather low-tech here,” Philip said, looking at her over his shoulder, as if he’d read her mind. “I hope you won’t mind.” His voice made it sound like he expected her to mind.
“We’ve slept in tents in the Amazon rainforest. A trailer will be fine. You have electricity, I assume?”
“We have a generator. And satellite internet. But that’s the extent of our luxuries.” He’d reached the door to one of the trailers and set down the bags he carried. As he waited for Dana and Sawyer to catch up, his eyes scanned her from windblown hair to very high heels.
She waited for him to comment on how inappropriate her outfit was for an archaeological dig. She’d heard it dozens of times before. He didn’t, however.
“We have a room in here we use for our infrequent guests,” he explained. “Would you and Dana like to take it, or would you rather have your own room?”
Lucy quickly decided that—even though it might be more proper for her to share with Dana—Dana and Sawyer would be highly annoyed if she didn’t give them the room together. So she said, “They’ll be happy to stay here.”
Philip nodded. “Then your room is in the other trailer.”
They showed the sleeping arrangements to Dana and Sawyer, which was evidently more than acceptable. It appeared to Lucy that most of the students bunked down in the room next door in the same trailer. She wondered if they took turns in the private room when there weren’t guests or if there was some sort of ranking system.
When they’d sorted out the luggage and equipment, Philip picked up Lucy’s bag and carried it over to the next trailer. He showed her into a small, neat room with a single bed with drawers underneath and small table with a lamp and alarm clock on it.
“Whose room is this?” she asked.
“Mine.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. He didn’t appear resentful about her displacing him, but he obviously would prefer to not have her here at all. She hated the idea of kicking him out of his room and being beholden to him. “I can sleep somewhere else. I don’t have to—“
“There’s nowhere else.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“In the office. Next door.”
She swallowed. “I can sleep in the office.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy.”
Something about his voice brought back memories. He’d used that same tone with her when she first started on his mom’s campaign, before he’d gotten to know her—half impatient and half patronizing.
She hadn’t appreciated it then, and she definitely didn’t appreciate it now. She tightened her lips and told herself no good would come of snapping at him. “Thank you,” she gritted out.
He completely ignored her thanks. “There’s food, if you're hungry. The kitchen is in the other trailer. Just help yourself. We get started early in the morning. Around five.”
“That’s fine. We might look around some tonight.”
“You can. Just don’t disturb any of the dig sites. I can’t stress that enough.”
She wanted to roll her eyes but managed to convey her annoyance without the adolescent gesture. “I’ve been to numerous digs before, you know. I know how to behave.”
“Do you?” Again, his eyes scanned her body, leaving her feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious. “It doesn’t get dark here in July, you know. You’re going to have trouble pretending to see ghosts and monsters behind every shadow.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “I never pretend to see ghosts and monsters.”
“So you really see them?”
“Many times we leave a location with absolutely no evidence of paranormal activity. But sometimes things occur that have no explanation. There’s more to this world than science can explain.”
“There’s nothing here to find except through hard, tedious excavation.” For the first time, his blue eyes flashed something like anger rather than the cold apathy he’d conveyed to her before.
“Then I won’t find anything.” Her heart was beating faster now, and she’d clenched her hands at her sides. She wondered if he’d get angry.
She almost wanted him too. Anything was better than t
his cool, reserved stranger.
But he suppressed whatever impulse he’d been feeling and took a step back. “I hope you won’t feel you’ve wasted your time here.”
She wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that—whether it was an insult or an attempt to be civil. She stared after him as he walked away, his strong strides and lean body masculine and powerful.
He didn’t have the physical bulk of a body builder, but he’d always had a different sort of power.
Lucy used to be attracted to it.
She wasn’t attracted anymore.
Two
The wall between the two rooms of the trailer was paper thin and did next to nothing to muffle any but the faintest of sounds, so Philip heard Lucy leave her room late that evening.
He figured she was just walking her dog or stretching her legs, but she still hadn’t returned two hours later. Deciding he better discover what she was up to, he stopped taking notes on the newest of the unearthed artifacts and instead put on his shoes and headed outside.
Because the sun didn’t fully set at this time of year, the island was illuminated by a dim glow, casting weird shadows onto the blowing grass from the standing stones, tents, and trailers. Some of the grad students had set up tents to sleep in that night. A few must have already turned in, and Kurt and Kayla were huddled around a laptop and chatting softly.
Philip walked past them with a distracted gesture—basically just acknowledging their existence—and headed toward the standing stones.
The upright boulders weren’t as large and impressive as Stonehenge, but they formed a very nice henge—a nearly complete circle of stones. They appeared particularly eerie in the half-light of a summer evening.
He wasn’t surprised when he saw Lucy near the stones, sitting cross-legged on the grass with a state-of-the-art tablet on her lap. Her little white dog lay beside her.
“Communing with ancient spirits?” he asked dryly when he’d gotten near enough to speak.
She wasn’t facing the trailers, so she hadn’t heard him approach. She jerked in surprise and glared back at him. “I thought you were already in bed.”
The dog leapt to his feet and barked as Philip approached.
“Down!” Despite his clipped command, he was vaguely surprised when the dog immediately flattened himself on the grass.
Lucy’s frown deepened, as if she resented his instruction to her dog. “Arthur, come.”
As the dog scurried back to lie next to her, Philip lowered himself to sit beside her. “Unearthed anything mysterious and supernatural yet?”
“Nothing but an arrogant ass.”
Despite himself, he felt a glimmer of amused appreciation for the quip. She was obviously just as clever as she used to be, no matter how else she had changed.
“Sorry,” she murmured, her expression softening. “I’m just getting the lay of the land. Looking for how we might film shots later on for the greatest impact.”
She gestured toward her tablet, where she’d obviously been taking notes.
He knew she was trying to move things back into polite, professional terms, which was probably what he should do as well. “Your staff doesn’t help?”
“Of course they do. Sawyer will spend most of the next day or two finding the best locations for filming. But I don’t want him to have to work all night—especially after such a long trip—and I like to get a sense of a place myself first.”
“How long does it take to do the prep work before you start filming?”
“It depends. I like to learn about the site from the local experts and scout things out before we do any filming. Other than the introductory shot when we first arrive. Sometimes it can take several days to get a good feel for a site, especially if it’s big and sprawling or has a really complex history. Since there’s not much to this island and I’ve done the Neolithic thing before, it will probably only take a day or two before we can start filming. We might even be out of your hair in less than two weeks.”
This should have been excellent news to Philip, but he found himself bristling over her casual dismissal of the island he’d spent a career studying. “I could have told you from the beginning that the island wouldn’t be a fruitful location for manufactured, ghost-hunting thrills. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill Neolithic site, though, and its history is much richer than you might think.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t insulting your precious site. Don’t get defensive.”
His lips tightened. It had been a long time since anyone had talked to him that way, and he didn’t like it.
He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered to come out here tonight at all. She would have been fine on her own, and she probably knew enough not to disturb the actual dig.
But he felt on edge and unsettled. Lucy had known him a long time ago—back when he was young, when he didn’t have things all together, when wasn’t in control of himself the way he was now. For years, people had known him as a competent, professional expert in his field. Lucy saw only the young man he’d been before.
“Sorry,” she said again, giving her head a shake as if she’d lectured her inner self for her blunt retort. “You seem to rub me the wrong way, but we have to work together for the next week or two so there’s no sense in squabbling.”
“I agree.”
Arthur had been eyeing Philip suspiciously since his arrival, and now the dog got up and stalked toward where Philip was sitting, sniffing at his trousers.
“Arthur,” Lucy chided, pointing toward the ground, gesturing for him to lay down again. “He doesn’t like you,” she told Philip.
“He probably picks up on your vibes. Dogs don’t know any better.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she visibly restrained a sharp comeback. Then she cleared her throat. “I’ve probably got enough notes for now. I guess I’ll call it a night.”
Philip stood up and extended a hand to help her to her feet. She took it, although not particularly enthusiastically. She released it as soon as she could.
For the first time, he noticed she was dressed comfortably in yoga pants and a stretchy boat-neck top. The clinging fabric emphasized the curves of her body, and his body was immediately interested.
She must have noticed his distraction and misinterpreted it. “No need to look so surprised. Did you think I’d sit around on the grass at midnight in a tight skirt and four inch heels?”
“I have no idea what to expect from you now.” He fell in step with her as she headed back to the trailer, Arthur on her heels. He tried not to let his eyes linger on the way her bra was visible through the thin white top or on the outline through the fabric of her nipples, which must have tightened from the cool air. “You have to admit your outfit earlier was rather impractical.”
“Of course it was. That’s the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“The point of my show. You used to be good at marketing strategy. If you thought it through even a little, you would know why I dress that way when I film.”
He did know, and he wasn’t surprised it was successful. People invariably fell for the most superficial of appeals.
“I’m not saying it isn’t effective. I just wouldn’t have expected it from you. The Lucy I used to know wouldn’t have shown up at an archeological dig in such ridiculous clothes.”
He knew the words and tone would rile her up, and he’d said them anyway. He had no idea why.
She stiffened. “And the Philip I used to know was hell-bent on sticking with his mother, even if it made him miserable. We all change.”
“Yes. We do.”
They were standing in front of the door to her room now, facing each other.
“You obviously remade yourself,” she said. “Started over. Why shouldn’t I?”
“I never said you shouldn’t.”
“To expect me to be the same as I was back then is ridiculous. I’m not a college freshman anymore, you know.”
“I know you aren’t.”
He d
id know it. And he was made even more aware of it as she stared up at him with fierce annoyance. Her green eyes were unnaturally big and deep in the dim light, and the sculpted contours of her face and her full lips were more mature than they’d been, highlighted by her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
He’d been attracted to her back then, when he never should have been, and he was attracted to her now.
She was all woman now. Beautiful—and sharp as glass.
“You won’t find me easy to take advantage of anymore.”
He blinked in surprise. “When did I ever take advantage of you?”
Her lips parted as she stared at him for a long stretch of silence. Then, “Are you serious?”
Something was wrong here. She wasn’t just being prickly. She resented him for some reason and thought he should know why.
“If you’re referring to the kiss, I apologized to you for that immediately after it happened. You said it wasn’t a big deal.”
“I know that. That kiss wasn’t even a blip on my radar. Believe it or not, your tongue isn’t impressive enough to hold a girl in thrall after fourteen years.”
Her voice was casual, glib, but he wasn’t deceived. He peered at her with intense scrutiny, trying to read her feelings from her expression.
“Stop trying to read my mind,” she snapped. “I told you it was no big deal. I don’t give a damn about your sloppy kiss.”
His first instinct was to counter her word choice, since she’d intentionally made him seem childish and clumsy. He bit back the instinct, though, since it would accomplish nothing and just make him look even more foolish.
“I was young too,” he said slowly, uncomfortable by the admission but even more uncomfortable by the way she was looking at him. Like he’d betrayed her in some way. “But I knew it was inappropriate. I haven’t let anything like that happen since.”
“I assume you don’t mean you haven’t kissed anyone since. So you’re saying you haven’t done anything inappropriate in fourteen years?” Her eyebrows arched dubiously.
“No.”
It was the truth. He’d shaped a new life, one he could control, one that wouldn’t control him.
