Chapter Seven
She grabbed her water bottle and stuffed it into the side pocket of her hiking backpack, filled with her normal supplies: snake-bite kit, first-aid kit, baggie of granola bars, duct tape, bug spray, bandana, floppy desert hat, camera, pencils, compass, notebook, specimen ruler, flares, GPS, and various other things that had accumulated over the years, including the random rocks that Sage found and gifted her. She kept those in a special zipper pouch, a reminder for whom she worked hard.
They exited the trailer, and she locked the door. Toby scooped up a pack she hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying. North Face. And beaten up from use.
“Nice gear,” she said, as he slung it onto his perfect shoulder, over his perfect arm.
“Coming from you, Miss Outdoor Catalog, I’ll take it as a compliment.”
She led the way out of their camp, like a circle of covered wagons protecting their inner cooking fire. Kelsey was outside now with a travel-mug-slash-French-press and a flowy scarf knotted in a complicated fashion knot around her tank-topped shoulders.
“Hey, girl!” Rose called and waved.
“Good morning, Doctor. R!” the girl called back, and yes, a sidelong glance told her Toby’s eyes were roving over her surfing blond hair and bombshell body.
A twinge of discomfort pinched Rose’s chest. Did he like what he saw? Was he as fickle as she’d pegged him for when they’d first met? Gawd, why do you even care, Rosalinda?
“We’re going down to the site,” she replied. “Be back in a couple hours. Make sure to eat a good breakfast.”
“Oooh, can I come?” Kelsey begged. “I’m dying to see the shaman painting!”
Irksomeness that had no business irking irked anyway. Rose glanced at Toby to gauge his reaction.
Toby’s face became impassive. He was probably hell to compete against in a game of poker. But after a moment, he nodded politely. “Sure. The more the merrier.”
Rose’s stomach dropped an inch. Kelsey’s electric-blue eyes and bikini bod always garnered attention. Yeah, nerd girl could never compete in a hottie contest. What warm-blooded guy wouldn’t want Kelsey’s eye candy in his face?
She fixed a chipper smile on her face. “Grab some water, and let’s go. It’s getting hotter by the minute.”
Kelsey scrambled for her water bottle, and the three of them hit the trail. What had been a two-person cart now had a third wheel.
“God, a girl can really get a killer tan out here, huh?” Kelsey chattered on. “You know, I’m going to return to campus like a bronze statue.”
Toby chuckled and shook his head to himself. Rose ignored his reaction, refusing to spiral into a stream of mental “what-ifs” trying to interpret his meaning. She shouldn’t care if Toby thought someone else was pretty. She hadn’t come here to date. Toby Dixon, with his hangovers, killer baby-blues, and Bronco spoke of a kid that couldn’t grow the hell up. Howard had been right. What the hell was wrong with her?
“You really need to put on long sleeves,” Rose cautioned.
She watched the path in front of her, leading the way down the narrow path into the canyon. Something buzzed by her ear, whizzing around all three of them.
“Ohmigod! What was that?” Kelsey panicked.
“Just a horsefly,” came Toby’s purring voice from the end of the line.
Yeah. With a great view of Kelsey’s ass. Be professional, Rosalinda, she told herself.
She took a deep, calming breath and looked out over the beautiful canyon, the layers of landscape vibrant in the sunrise. There was nothing comparable to the beauty of this land, so rugged, so wild. The iron ore patches in the rock walls were bright in the morning sunlight. The tufts of spiky sotol with their long shafts soaring up to the sky dotted the landscape, as did the yucca, their bunches of fresh white blossoms a kiss of gentleness upon this hardened, rocky landscape.
“First time out west?” Toby asked.
“Yes—can’t tell, can you?” Kelsey joked.
“You come for the archaeology or the tan?” Toby continued, piquing Rose’s ear as she navigated the narrow descent because although his question was amicable enough, spoken with a humorous lilt, Rose wondered. Was he gauging how seriously her crew would take his land?
“Ancient art fascinates me. Ancient pictographs sound so cool. Had it been just a dig, I probably wouldn’t have come. But I was too late getting my application into the study-abroad program to spend the summer on Cyprus, and my dad couldn’t pull any strings to let me join it late, and then Doctor. R pitched this field school and I thought, what the heck, right? It sounds awesome, and it’s for credit!”
“Want to see something cool?” Rose interrupted. “Look.”
“Ooh, sure,” Kelsey replied.