And some flesh it is,he thought, wiping his hand on his jeans and taking her hand in his, shaking. “Uh, sorry I didn’t get back to you yet. Got tied up yesterday.”
Stella chuckled with a shake of her head as she walked down the counter to check on some other customers. Had she just muttered a joke about him being tied up under her breath?
Oh, you’re gonna pay, old woman, he thought, glaring at her back. “Don’t mind her,” he dismissed, giving Rose a lazy smile. “She’s just one of the town’s old biddies. Gotta stir up gossip every chance she can get.”
Rose laughed again. Man. He liked that laugh. “Are you ready for us? I wasn’t able to touch base with Shirley last week.”
“Yeah, her dad just passed on, so I sent her home. Sorry about that.”
“Oh no,” Rose said, her face dropping. “I’m sorry to hear that… So will we be staying at the same campsite?” she asked.
Which site, which site…He ambled through his foggy mind as if it were the old-school rolodex Shirley still used on her desk.
“Near the outhouse?” she reminded him, grinning knowingly.
Dude, she can totally tell you were wasted last night. “Yup, that nice flatland near the main house. It’s all yours. Ran some plumbing and a spigot out there this spring, so you’ll have water right by your door.”
“Wow, thanks, that’ll be helpful.” She smiled.
“It’s a bit of a hike from the trailhead down into the canyon,” he continued. “Kinda dangerous if you’re not used to it. You sure your crew is up for it? ’Cause it looks like their maiden voyage.”
“I laugh in the face of danger,” Rose joked with an acted-out laugh, and he saw something so genuine, so fun loving, so eager to embark on a new adventure, he wanted to bottle it and use it for his own motivation. “Yeah, that’s a line from The Lion King… Never mind.” She brushed her hair behind her ear self-consciously. “I’ve been out in these conditions a lot, as have a few of my crewmembers. The others better get used to it, or they’ll make piss-poor archaeologists.” She laughed again, except clearly this time she had made herself nervous with her silly joke.
Probably because you didn’t react at all, dumbass,he scolded himself, except Toby couldn’t help smiling. Okay. She was kind of weird. Mock salutes, cartoon quotes. But he liked it. She’d probably quote Star Wars and Monty Python, too. “Took me a minute, but I got it. My nephews love that movie.”
She shifted uncomfortably, so he took the lead, taking his hat off his knee and putting it on the counter.
“Well, no sense in y’all having to find your way. I’m headed home, so you can follow me. I’ll meet y’all in the parking lot. Just, uh, give me a minute.”
“Yeah, you need more than a minute, cowboy,” Stella goaded under her breath as she swept by.
“Ain’t you got somethin’ to clean?” Toby grumbled, but Stella only chuckled.
“I’ll let you two duke this out.” Rose grinned, turning back to her crew. “See you outside.”
He stood, towering over her, and swilled the last of his coffee. Not. Enough. Coffee. He tossed a ten spot on the counter, then made a straight line to the toilet.
Locking the door, he was grateful for the quiet. He opened Rose Morales’s email and skimmed it. They needed sawhorses for their screens and a water hookup, wanted to use a couple stalls in his barn to set up their field lab, wanted to know where to find the supplies for the outhouse so that he and his ranch hands wouldn’t have to deal with their mess…
He looked at himself in the mirror. Shit…
He ran a hand over his stubbly face. He looked plain awful. There was no other way to describe the tired sag to his eyes, his disheveled bedhead and rumpled T-shirt. And his headache was so intense he was certain his vision was warped. He probably wouldn’t start feeling human again until the evening.
“Suck it up, bro, and get your ass in the saddle.” There was an ongoing agreement with this research team. That he’d completely forgotten about it wasn’t Rose’s fault.
Add it to my growing to-do list.
He took care of business, zipped up, washed up, splashed water liberally on his face to wake the hell up, and tore open the ibuprofen packet with his teeth. Only two hundred milligrams. Man, it would maybe take the edge off but sure wouldn’t cure it. Straightening upright, he pushed out of the bathroom to face the day’s music while rubbing his T-shirt on his face to dry it.
“Forgot your hat, cowboy,” Stella said as he passed. He paused to grab it, when she grabbed his arm, sliding a to-go coffee into his hand. With her voice lowered, she looked gently at him. “She’s different than the others, isn’t she, mi querido? You keep looking at her.”
“Different from what?” he asked lamely, having heard her call him my dear a number of times when she was concerned about something. But he knew what the woman was getting at. And it made him nervous.
“Your mami used to tell me she was certain a woman would throw you for a loop one day,” Stella added.
He flashed a cocky grin to shake off the disorienting feeling. “You and her been trying to get me hitched since forever. Rose is a woman, no different than any other. There ain’t no one woman for me.” Yeah, after a yearlong dry spell, there hadn’t been any.
With that, he plopped his hat back onto his head and walked out, ignoring Stella’s dismayed shake of the head, and headed toward the herd of graduate students in the parking lot standing behind the RVs. Rose turned to see him, and dammit if he would ever be able to look at her again without hearing Stella’s words.
She’s different than the others.
What if the old woman was right?