Chapter Three
Toby turned off the country highway onto the rural route leading to the Legacy. In the distance, the familiar mountainscape surrounding Ghost Canyon drew nearer, and the sudden shift from pavement to gravel sent sparks of anticipation through Rose’s stomach.
“What, I’m not an old Texas gringo with a big hat and skin so wind chapped I’d make a kickass leather handbag?” Toby Dixon replied.
Rose did her best to suppress her amusement at the visual. And her guilt. Because he’d pegged her assumptions about him like darts on a target. So much for misjudgments.
These dudes from farther west who spent their lives in the sun indeed had skin like leather. Toby’s wasn’t like that yet. His skin was still smooth and tanned a dark bronze that sat in contrast to his blond hair and baby blues, gathered in little crinkles at the corners, made narrow by his high cheekbones. No wonder he’d had a helluva night last night—ugh. She shook her head. Toby Dixon—with a body and wallet like his—was clearly a player. Warning! Warning! Stay away. And he also hadn’t shown any interest in the work she was doing on his land. He’d never bothered to introduce himself in the previous two years or visited the excavation within the amazing panther shaman rock shelter dating back thousands of years. There was hardly that much for her to be attracted to, which made this impulsive attraction hard to explain.
“Well…no,” she replied. “You’ve obviously been very successful for someone so young.”
His smile fell a degree. The observation looked as if it chafed him.
“Yeah, well, before you make me out to be some business genius, I inherited this spread from my pops when he passed.”
“I’m sorry to hear he died,” she said, softening as she deciphered the regret in his voice.
He swallowed, his throat bobbing visibly. There was pain there, which humanized the guy a degree.
“Don’t be. It ain’t your fault.” Toby cranked down the window so that the wind howled in and propped his elbow out.
Rose gazed at him, his jaw tight, clearly wishing they’d change the subject. She let him. She liked him much better when he was joking around.
“I got a vision for this place. Just no solid plan yet to get there,” he said over the wind.
“What’s your vision?” she asked.
He shook his head, glanced sidelong at her with that lady-killing assessment as if trying to distract her or himself. Or both of them. Should she swoon at his appraisal? Come on. This isn’t my first rodeo. Toby thought she was cute—that much was obvious, if the surreptitious glances at her breasts meant anything. And he was used to lifting the corner of his sexy mouth just enough to make his dimple pop and a girl’s panties drop.
“To get some elk, bring back more deer. Revitalize the soil to its former glory and make a deal with some sort of educational something-or-other to use it for learning and scientific observation. My canyon would be a geologist’s wet dream.” He slanted a look at her. “Or an archaeologist’s.”
Really? The university had had to cut through layers of metaphorical barbed wire just to get their hands on the panther shaman site with its walls adorned with forty-five-hundred-year-old paintings of a shaman and deer. The Dixon family had protected this cultural resource like a bear protecting its young and had kept everyone at bay. But he suddenly wanted to open it up for scientific research?
Okay, sure.
She nearly snorted. Ranchers were usually protective of their land. It often took a gentle hand and a long time to build trust for them to let an outsider in. Fear of the government seizing land was real, even if irrational.
Which was why it had been strange to get a call from the Legacy three years ago asking if a crew wanted to survey an ancient Native American site. Years ago, Rose’s mentor and doctoral supervisor had come out to survey panther shaman at the cattle company’s request when he’d been merely a fledgling professor—long before Rose had graduated high school—but his crew had never been allowed to return after that. Odd. Still, Toby’s plan for the grassland and elk held merit and foresight.
“Cattle ranching was my father’s business and my grandfather’s before him and so on. But it’s destructive, so I want to phase out cattle as a business and just keep some on for education. Give ’em a place to retire.”
“I’m impressed, Mister Dixon. So what’s your business, then? Conservationist? Educator?”
“Ha. To be either of those, I gotta have money coming in, so yeah…” He shrugged, looking straight ahead. “Still working on that part.”
Hmm. Cattle ranching had made this family wealthy. It would make sense that in order to retain that wealth, he’d have to find a way to make preserving the land and education lucrative. Sticky business. And didn’t his words sound an awful lot like someone who was still working on getting their life together? He had money at his fingertips. If he wanted something done, surely he could figure out how to set the ball in motion? What was there to still work on?
“What about you?” he deflected. “You’re not exactly what I was expecting, either.”
He didn’t look as if he’d been expecting anyone today. “What were you expecting?”
“A professor. And sorry, but a guy. Don’t know why, but I didn’t think R. Morales stood for Rose. And you look too young to be doing what you do.”
“Ah, the whole ‘she looks too young to be a professor’ bit.” Normally she’d take the chance to school someone about judging her. But his answer was so straightforward and honest, she couldn’t do it. And he’d caught her in the middle of some big assumptions about him, too. So he’d taken some college courses after all. “I ought to be offended, but I’m not. Truth is, archaeology is still dominated by older men. But I am a newly employed researcher. I’m teaching an adjunct course, and I do hold a PhD—as of last year,” she added on a murmur. “So no, not a student anymore.”
He shrugged. “Makes sense, then. You look younger than me, and I’m only thirty-one. So you got any tenure prospects, or are you content to graduate from student to research grunt?”
She chuckled and rolled down her window, too, brushing hair from her face. A peek in the side view mirror told her the RVs were still behind them. “UT kept me on as ‘staff,’” she said, making quotes with her fingers. “I’m running the field school and teaching research methods for the anthro department until I do find a professorship. It’s nice of them, but I have to find a salaried job soon or else I’m going to be one of those PhDs delivering pizzas and stocking my pantry with ramen.”