Still looking at the escarpment, she ran her fingers around the corners of her mouth and pinching her lower lip, tapped it with her pointer, losing herself in thought. The taste of his sex was on her skin, and she couldn’t help but savor it, try to memorize it.
“What does this mean exactly?” He shook his head, scouring his hand over his face. “I don’t need another problem on my plate.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge this as a problem.”
“Why not?”
“I mean, it might be a huge problem.”
“Way to make me feel better—”
“But,” she added with an amused grin, exhaling, trying to figure out how to say what she was thinking without it giving false hope, “it might also be a blessing in disguise.”
“You think Fossyl will think the ground’s too unstable for their rigs?”
She snorted. “Hardly. They’re not giving up this lease unless it’s on their terms. Is that part of the escarpment within your property boundaries?”
He nodded, eyed her. He still seemed tight. “All the way to the horizon where you see those wind turbines.”
Excitement sparked her blood.
“You got a look in your eye like a kid in a candy store with twenty bucks to burn. What are you getting at?” he pressed.
She shook her finger at him as if having an idea. Still didn’t put it into words. She needed to get boots on the ground and explore, but she was only supposed to be here for a week. Would Tyler let her stay longer?
She bit her lip. No attachments.
She was supposed to finish up the survey by this upcoming Saturday afternoon. After that, she was rooming with Charlie and Daisy to do the science open house and would need the week to prep her interactive display and replace her materials destroyed in the storm. She wasn’t supposed to stick around, especially when she sensed he didn’t want a woman here when his boys got home.
“I hate to admit that the suspense is killing me. Talk,” he said.
She flashed a smile, wedging her hands in her pockets, and considered her survey again. A twist of conflicted emotions pricked her gut. Yeah, he’d been right to be concerned about conflicts of interest. Because if—a big if—her hunch about the slump was right…Tyler might have some leverage against Fossyl, and she was inclined to help him.
“Look, I really don’t want to say anything that could be misleading or hopeful.”
He leaned his rear against her truck grill, so at ease out here among the dirt, it was hard to consider that he was an East Coast-educated lawyer. “Whatever you aren’t saying speaks volumes.”
“True, but you know better than anyone as a lawyer not to talk unless you know it’s going to have the impact you want, right?”
He eyed her. “We ain’t at a deposition, Heather.” Ah. Not Tie-Dye or sweetheart this time.
“Heart,” she corrected.
He huffed with exasperation and folded his arms, slinging one ankle over the other.
“Naw, Heather. Nicknames like that mean attachments, and we already agreed on that front. I ain’t angling for a woman, and you make it clear you’re not exclusive either. I got boys to raise and since their momma screwed them over, I gotta work twice as hard. Got no room for nicknames…”
He wasn’t angling for an attachment is what he meant, and it stung to be reminded…wait. She wasn’t exclusive? They weren’t a thing to begin with, but if she were honest, she hadn’t been with a man in a while. A tiny knot twisted in her stomach, a knot she couldn’t decipher. She wanted the boyish ease he’d had just minutes ago back.
He shoved away from her truck, his jaw muscles bunching and lips thinning into a line, hands wedged under each pit so his biceps and tattoo bulged. She smarted at his shift. Cleared her throat. It was suddenly obvious from his slip-up: whatever had happened with his kids’ mother had affected his perception of women and relationships, too.
“Okay then. I need to climb up that escarpment and look around before I tell you what I’m thinking…and I’m going to need some time to do that. But my timeline here puts me leaving first thing Sunday morning—”
“Too dangerous.” He said it in a distinct dad voice with a slice of the hand. “That escarpment needs to be reinforced. One disruption could make it avalanche. And I wanna check out the ground around those grasshoppers, too. If there’s the possibility that a fault line runs through here, I want it on record.”
He hadn’t let her finish, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to broach the topic of extending her stay again just yet.
“I agree with bringing in an independent crew to examine the subterrain. I’m not equipped for larger jobs like those. But I know what I’m getting into, Tyler. This is the prime time for me to find what I’m looking for.”