Birthright by Nora Roberts Page B

“She legal?”
    Despite his looks, Digger was renowned for being able to score dig groupies as triumphantly as a batter connecting with a high fastball.
    â€œNo hitting on the undergrads, Digger.”
    He merely sauntered off toward the shovels.
    â€œOkay, let’s run through the basics,” Callie began.
    â€œNo catching up?” Jake interrupted. “No small talk? No ‘what the hell you been up to since we parted ways, Jake?’ ”
    â€œI don’t care what you’ve been up to. Leo thinks we need you for the project.” And she would devise several satisfactory ways to kill Leo later. “I disagree. But you’re here, and there’s no point wasting time debating that or bullshitting about old times.”
    â€œDigger’s right. You’re looking good.”
    â€œIf it has breasts, it looks good to Digger.”
    â€œCan’t argue.” But she was looking good. Just the sightof her blew through him like a storm. He could smell the eucalyptus on her. He couldn’t smell the damn stuff without having her face swim into his mind.
    She wore the same clunky watch, pretty silver earrings. Her open collar exposed the line of her throat where the skin was damp with sweat.
    Her mouth was just a bit top-heavy, and naked. She never bothered with paint on a dig. But she’d always slathered cream on her face morning and night no matter what the living conditions.
    Just as she’d always made a nest out of whatever those living conditions might be. A fragrant candle, her cello, comfort food, good soap and shampoo that had the faintest hint of rosemary.
    He imagined she still did.
    Ten months, he thought, since he’d seen her last. And her face had been in his mind every day, and every night. No matter what he’d done to erase it.
    â€œWord was you were on sabbatical.” He said it casually, without a flicker on his face to show his thoughts.
    â€œI was, now I’m not. You’re here to co-coordinate, and to head up the anthropological details of the project now known as Antietam Creek.”
    She angled away as if to study the site. The truth was it was too hard to stand face-to-face with him. To know they were both measuring each other. Remembering each other. “We have what I believe to be a Neolithic settlement. Radiocarbon testing on human bones already excavated from the site are dated at five thousand, three hundred and seventy-five years, plus or minus one hundred. Rhyolite—”
    â€œI’ve read the reports, Callie. You got yourself a hot one.” He glanced around, already assessing. “Why isn’t there any security?”
    â€œI’m working on it.”
    â€œFine. While you’re working on it, Digger can set up camp here. I’ll get my field pack, then you can show me around. We’ll get to work.”
    She drew a deep breath when he strode back toward hisfour-wheeler. She counted to ten. “I’m going to kill you for this, Leo. Kill you dead.”
    â€œYou’ve worked together before. You did some of your best work, both of you, together.”
    â€œI want Nick. As soon as he’s available, I want Nick.”
    â€œCallie—”
    â€œDon’t talk to me, Leo. Just don’t talk to me right now.” She gritted her teeth, girded her loins and prepared to give her ex-husband a tour of the site.
    T hey did work well together. And that, Callie thought as she showered off the grime of the day, was one more pisser. They challenged each other, professionally, and somehow that challenge forced them to complement each other.
    It had always done so.
    She loved his mind, even if it was inside the hardest head she’d ever butted her own against. His was so fluid, so flexible, so open to possibilities. And it could, it did, latch on to the tiniest detail, work it, build on it, until it gleamed like gold.
    The problem was they challenged each other personally, too.