“I was digging around online,” she said. “And before I go further, I need you to never say it was me who told you.”
Tyler’s brow hardened and his lips flattened. His hands holding her hips tightened. “You know I don’t want you putting your job or your reputation on the line for me, Heart.”
She shrugged. “Look, I’m in breach of my contract right now. I’m not supposed to compete with my current jobs. But after discovering this slump, and the potential for a significant natural history find out here, I had to dig around.”
“Is this why you didn’t want to say too much when you first pointed this slump out to me?”
“Partly. I needed time to explore before you bring your backhoes in to reinforce this area.”
“And I gotta do that soon. This whole area makes me uncomfortable. I didn’t think my boys would be home this week when I agreed to give you time, but I don’t like you out here, either.” He took off his Stetson and rubbed the back of his neck in that gorgeous way that made his bicep pop. She loved the gesture, loved how it torqued his physique—wait. Loved? “But you’ve seen Seth. It’s only a matter of time before his curiosity gets the better of him. Or his defiance.”
She nodded. “If you could just hold off a little longer so I can get some survey specs, that would really help me help you.”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, and as if to make her look bad, a tumble of dirt and rocks skittered down the slump from an animal scampering across. He glared at her and gestured.
“Look. I need to see a geoseismic report from the university, too, and here’s why. Charlie ran some info on the fault lines for me. She just got back to me about this ‘loophole.’ It seems she had good news: you’ve got two minor faults in this back ninety.”
“Fault lines? Like what, earthquakes?” At this, he frowned harder, and took off his hat to rake his hair.
“She checked the recordings in the university’s seismology lab and sure enough, about a week ago, this area had a little tremor. It would have been too slight for you to feel, and if it happened around the time of the tornado, there’d be no way you could have known. But it was enough to disrupt the soil.”
He shoved to standing and paced a couple steps to look upon the massive swell of land tumbling to a stop a few feet in front of them, rising up to the edge of the freshly exposed strata of the escarpment, then glanced back at her.
“You mean to tell me we’re standing on fault lines?”
She nodded. “We’re not talking San Andreas, but tiny, yeah. They’re pretty common.”
“How exactly is this good news?”
Heart stood up and joined him, wedging her hands in her back pockets.
“It means it’s exposed a whole new layer of stratigraphy that’s never been investigated, and if we can convince the appropriate people that the pump-jacks aren’t the better investment, then we can open the door for research.”
“Heather, that’s been the problem the whole time. I suspect the oil company was siphoning my grandparents royalties. I also suspect my granddad was of diminished capacity when he signed that final lease, and that they took advantage of his confusion to squeeze in another contract right before he kicked off. But if Fossyl can’t be pressured to release me from that lease, and if I can’t prove to a judge that they screwed my granddad, I can’t do much about it no matter what you find out here.”
Heart frowned, shaking her head. He always used full names when he was trying to make what he thought was a serious point. “It’s just, I think you’re going about this the wrong way—”
“I’m a lawyer.” He leveled a hard look at her. “I know more than anyone the kinds of proof I need against Fossyl that’ll hold water. I don’t have my smoking gun yet.”
“OMG, do you want help or not?” she muttered, exasperated, laughing so that she didn’t slap him, and swiped up her notes. “It’s no wonder there are so many lawyer jokes. I swear you’re doing that interrupting crap again. Also, have you ever wondered why Seth thinks you sound like a drill sergeant? Because, Counselor, I rest my case.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, a smile playing across his lips, plopped his hat back on his head, and slouched his hands on his hips. “I’m listening.”
She jabbed her notes again, then gestured to the exposed layer of strata looming above them like he was dense. “Ty, there’s a reason you found so many fossils around here as a kid. Look.”
She pulled him back to where her gear was. By her backpack on the ground were stacks of archival boxes. She opened them one at a time, revealing new specimens. “Each one of these is from that layer of strata where I put flags.”
He followed her gaze to the flags marked on the escarpment face. “You walked up there?” His voice was hard and gruff as he took her arm. “You walked up this landslide of rubble? Heart, I don’t want you getting hurt, because I care for—”
He chewed his cheek.
*
Tyler followed Heart’spointing, gazing furiously at her. She was such a risk-taker, and he wanted to both shake her and wrap her in Bubble Wrap. She’d nearly lost her life as a kid, and instead of submerging into a cautious state, she’d chosen to foolishly tempt fate at every effing turn.
“I’ve plotted their GIS coordinates and have started piecing together a bigger picture.”
Was she ignoring what he’d almost blurted out? That he cared for her?