Forbidden. Ellen James
called to Nick. “It’s too late now. I did it…and I don’t see any lightning in the sky. I don’t hear any thunder.”
He climbed up and sat beside her. “Didn’t I tell you the rest of the story? It takes a while for the misfortune to strike. Your chances of escaping it are a whole lot better if you leave the island.”
“You can stop hoping, Nick. I won’t leave.” She took off her canvas hat and rested it on her knee. Perspiration had curled strands of hair next to her face. Nick studied her profile, lingering on the decisive outline of her features. Dana had mentioned that she’d grown up on a farm in Missouri, and she did look like someone who’d spent years riding horses, milking cows and such. She was wholesome and seductive all at once. Lord, what a combination.
“I saw Daniel hurrying away, as usual,” she said, treating Nick to her clear, straightforward gaze. “He seems to trust only you–he never stops to talk to anyone else.”
Nick’s own gaze dropped to Dana’s mouth. Her lips were tinged a natural shade of rose. He rubbed the back of his neck distractedly. “The kid’s already advised me in so many words that you’re trouble, Dana. Big trouble.” He heard the thickness in his voice and felt that clench of need in his gut.
Dana stared at him, a rose color tinting her face as well as her lips now. “I’m doing my job, Dr. Petrie. Nothing else should matter to you.”
She was right about that much, but it was already too late. The need, the wanting in him took over…and without another word, he drew Dana into his arms.
CHAPTER FOUR
N ICK WAS OUT OF practice with this sort of thing, and it didn’t go well. Dana was stiff and unyielding in his arms, as if he’d caught her by surprise and she didn’t know what to do about it. Hell, he’d caught himself by surprise. But he went on holding her a second longer, moving his cheek against hers, feeling the softness of her skin. She smelled faintly of soap–clean, fresh soap. It made Nick imagine her bathing under the hot island sun. It made him imagine too much….
The way he figured it, they both pulled away from each other at the same time. Dana frowned at him, her cheeks flushed.
“Darn it, Nick–what do you think you’re doing?”
“You tell me,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Look…just forget it happened.”
She stood quickly, and her silly canvas hat went tumbling down. Nick bent to retrieve it.
“Thank you,” she said acidly and she jammed the hat back on her head. It was the kind of hat straight out of a safari movie. Nick could imagine Dana marching into a store and requesting a full complement of adventure gear, right down to the patch-pocket shorts and mosquito netting. For a moment, that almost made him smile. He had to get a grip on himself.
“You shouldn’t have come looking for me,” he said.
Her flush deepened. “If you think I wanted this to happen–dammit, I didn’t want anything from you. I didn’t intend for anything to happen!”
“Neither did I.”
She took a deep breath. “It was a mistake.”
He didn’t say any more. He just went on standing there with her in front of the altar room of the temple. Against his will, his gaze lingered on Dana’s face…on the creamy rose of her skin, the deep brown of her eyes, the sensual curve of her mouth….
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, almost in a whisper. She turned and hurriedly began making her way down the temple steps. She didn’t seem to be watching where she was going. Nick came along beside her and halfway down he reached out to steady her.
She pulled away from him. “Don’t.”
“You’re overreacting just a little, don’t you think?” he said gruffly.
She stared at him, a variety of emotions seeming to cross her expressive face. That she was angry, there could be no doubt…maybe even a little embarrassed. In the end, Nick had the feeling that pride won out.
“I didn’t come looking for you, Nick,” she said in a cool voice. “All I wanted to do was climb the temple steps.” With that, she descended the rest of the way, refusing any assistance from him.
When they’d reached the base of the temple, Dana started veering off toward the trees. “Goodbye,” she said.
He didn’t allow her to escape, falling into step beside her. “You’re not going anywhere alone–remember?”
“I wish you’d realize that I can take care of myself,” she muttered.
“Just follow orders, Ms. Morgan, and you’ll make it easier for both of us.”
He could tell she was still fired up. She made a point of striding ahead of him, finding her own path. Even as she pushed through the thick undergrowth of the forest, she moved with that graceful posture of hers. When they reached the excavation site, she stalked over to the knapsack she’d left propped near one of the huts. She pulled out some insect repellent and slathered herself with the stuff, glancing defiantly at Nick. Maybe she was trying to send him a message. Then she went back to work at the sifter.
Nick got to work himself. He wanted to forget what had happened with Dana…. He just wished it was that simple.
* * *
DANA HAD NEVER REALIZED that her body possessed so many muscles–and that they could all ache with such simultaneous insistence. By now she’d spent two weeks on the island, and her main activities seemed to be crouching to dig in the soil, crouching to carry the soil, crouching to sift the soil. This morning, her knees hurt. Her elbows hurt. Her back hurt. The insides of her thighs hurt. Hell, her whole body hurt. Perspiration trickled down her back. And she thought she’d throttle Pat if she had to listen to the woman one more minute.
Today Pat and Dana were working at the new site. Pat was marking off measurements on the ground while discoursing on her career prospects–clearly a favorite topic.
“I’ve applied to every Ivy League school–including a few with poison ivy.” Pat gave a smirk. “The job market is very tight, let me tell you. That’s why I’m here. This job is only a stopgap….”
Dana did her best to tune out Pat. She pulled the brim of her hat down lower, squinting at the grid chart she was trying to map. The sun seemed to bounce right off the page and into her eyes. She was learning just how precise and nitpicky archaeologists had to be. Findings of any type had to be categorized down to their minutiae. Pottery shards, scraps of obsidian, bone fragments, traces of ancient seeds and kernels–these were the treasures accumulated on the dig. No discovery was too small to go unrecorded. Dana’s own particular skills as a soil scientist also required precise documentation. Soil profiles, soil maps, soil surveys and chemical analysis charts all fell within her purview. When Dana wasn’t crouching and digging and sifting, she was writing and graphing and cross-referencing.
But who was she kidding? No matter how she occupied herself, her thoughts kept returning to Nick Petrie. Dr. Nicholas Petrie, her irascible boss.
Two days earlier she had sat beside Nick on the temple steps and he’d taken her into his arms. It had been the briefest of embraces, and they hadn’t even kissed. Why, then, did Dana keep replaying those few seconds in her mind, over and over? It was almost as if Nick had imprinted himself on her senses. Even now she remembered the feel of his arms around her, his gentle strength, the touch of his cheek against hers, the warmth pervading her body at his nearness….
She stared unseeing at the grid chart before her. Vaguely she tuned in to Pat’s voice.
“You really have to watch yourself,” Pat was saying. “You can’t get desperate. I mean, if you take the first job that comes along, you could be making a big mistake. I still tend to wonder if I made the right move, signing on at this–”