Conard County Watch. Rachel Lee
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like wildfire around here. Maybe they needed to have someone there all the time. Mentally she began to calculate their budget, and whether it would run to enough tents and sleeping bags. They already had folding tables, propane stoves, lanterns... Well, half a camp, anyway.
Yeah, maybe she should leave her camping equipment in the back of her truck and get some help hauling it up the mountain tomorrow. Then she could shepherd them all through filling in their own blanks for camping out there.
Then, making a final decision could wait for tomorrow. She headed toward her room at the motel and tried not to think too much about Cope.
Nice guy, but every time she looked at him her thoughts wanted to wander far away from her purpose. She was here to collect dinosaur bones, not a gorgeous hunk.
But man, he was definitely a hunk.
Laughing at herself, she parked in front of the motel.
* * *
Cope headed back to the apartment he rented in the complex on the edge of town. There’d been a small building boom when the semiconductor plant had arrived years ago. Then the plant had picked up stakes, a lot of people had moved away, and these days you could pretty much have your choice of apartments in these four buildings. Not that there was a whole lot of difference among the units. One-and two-bedrooms were the most common, with a few three-bedrooms being the biggest. He’d chosen a two-bedroom with two baths and was content.
He especially enjoyed standing under the hot spray of the shower. It was his first goal when he came home tonight. The fossil site had been dusty and the grit had clung to his skin in places. He supposed he was going to get used to that. He had in his former life with the Marines.
Which was exactly what made a hot shower one of the greatest luxuries in his life now. To be able to stand under hot water and wash himself clean? Heck, he was probably an addict.
As he stood under the spray letting soap and shampoo rinse off him, his thoughts turned to the fossil site and most especially Renee Dubois. She was a pistol, that one. Not a shy bone in her body, and he suspected she’d protect the dig site like a mother bear with a cub.
Pretty, too. Well, more than pretty. He’d always liked auburn hair, but hers was accompanied by a pair of green eyes that seemed to be lit from within. Totally unusual.
From what he’d seen today, she was strong and determined. She’d even been ready to face down that curious neighbor and had flatly told him he was on tribal land without permission.
Yeah, a lot of people might have been reluctant to do that. However, the guy’s arrival had seemed odd. It was Renee’s first day at the site, and surely the man who owned the neighboring ranch had better things to do with his time, and surely the news of the excavation couldn’t have traveled the grapevine this fast? After a bit more than a year here, Cope had no trouble grasping how fast interesting news could make the rounds in this county, but this beat all. A day? Usually it took a death or a major fire to hit warp speed on the rumor mill. Unless a tribal member had mentioned it a while back. Or maybe the motel owner. They’d surely rented enough rooms for the group.
Still it seemed a bit strange, although Butler had left easily enough.
But being a fairly normal man, he soon forgot his inventory of Renee as a potential warrior and returned to his inventory of her as a woman. He suspected she’d object mightily to such thoughts, with every right. But he neither needed to act on them, nor needed to reveal them.
Instead as he stood in his hot shower, he could remember her lifting her arms to regroup her hair. Her breasts had been suggestively outlined by the T-shirt she wore under her unzipped jacket. Full, but not too full. Nicely rounded. Inviting.
All of her was female, though. He’d walked behind her on her way down the mountain and had been able to tell she wasn’t afflicted by the need to be so thin it had to be unhealthy. No, she had a good set of hips, a nicely rounded bottom and a bit of a sway to her step.
She was also graceful as she navigated the broken and unsteady terrain. A woman in command of her body.
He liked that. Hell, he liked her. And if he were smart, he’d just leave it at that. He’d volunteered to work this dig because of a huge curiosity and a desire for the experience. What he didn’t want to do was blow himself out of the water by expressing too much interest in the team leader. By making her uncomfortable.
The Marines had taught him self-control. Time to use it.
But then his thoughts drifted toward that unexpected visitor again. The neighbor. The man on horseback continued to trouble Cope, though he had no reason to explain it. It was just so soon after Renee’s arrival. Too soon.
Maybe Butler had just wandered that way out of curiosity, not knowing whether anyone was there, having heard about the new cleft. It was possible.
But Cope had spent too many years in a uniform in dangerous places to just dismiss the guy. He couldn’t imagine any reason the man could become a problem, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a reason.
If he showed up again... Cope told himself to let it drop unless something else happened. He’d spent too long at war, and didn’t even trust his own suspiciousness any longer. Paranoia, he told himself.
Cope reached out and reluctantly turned off the water and reached for a towel. Renee planned to get out there before dawn. He’d better get his sleep so he could follow along and be useful.
* * *
Over at the motel, Renee had taken Denise to her own room to talk. The room itself was pleasant enough, although it showed its age. The days when rough wood paneling on walls had been charming were long ago. The blue-checked curtains looked nearly worn out over the mini blinds; the chair and table in one corner might have been used as modern in a 1950s sitcom. The bedspread was a brown-and-blue plaid. But, Renee admitted, it was spotlessly clean as far as she could tell.
Denise followed her in and perched on the edge of the bed.
Renee spoke as she closed the door. “In the morning, before dawn, I want you to come up with me to the site. I don’t have to tell you what the early light does to shadows.”
“Heck no,” said Denise. Her artistic ability was one of her biggest entrées into this world. “Got any photos for me?”
Renee handed over her camera and flipped it to begin a slide show. Then she went to the bathroom and used the motel’s cheap coffeemaker to brew some for the two of them. At least there was more than one packet of coffee on the counter.
“Wow,” she heard Denise breathe. “Renee, you gave me no idea!”
“I didn’t want too much information getting out. You know of Dr. Bradley?”
Denise glanced up. “The site thief? Everyone’s heard of him. I’m sure he’s not the only one.”
“Exactly. Once we’re established I won’t feel it’s as important to keep a shroud over all this, but in the meantime... I’m thinking of camping out there.”
Denise nodded as she continued to watch the slide show. “This looks revolutionary, Renee. Maybe we all ought to camp out there.”
Renee gave a quiet laugh. “Nice idea, but once we start working we’re not going to have a whole lot of extra room. Maybe we can establish a base camp farther down the mountain. I’ll have to ask Gray Cloud.”
The slide show came to an end and Denise looked at her. “Gray Cloud is really your cousin?”
“By marriage. My cousin Mercy is a wildlife biologist. She met him on Thunder Mountain a couple of decades ago when she was studying the wolf pack up there. If you ask her if the mountain is sentient, I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.”
“And you?”
Renee shrugged. “I’m not here to judge. I’m here in the hope that I can prove a theory of mine. Or disprove it, as the case may be. And that fossil bed is so rich it ought