a while back. Or maybe the motel owner. They’d surely rented enough rooms for the group.
Still it seemed a bit strange, although Butler had left easily enough.
But being a fairly normal man, he soon forgot his inventory of Renee as a potential warrior and returned to his inventory of her as a woman. He suspected she’d object mightily to such thoughts, with every right. But he neither needed to act on them, nor needed to reveal them.
Instead as he stood in his hot shower, he could remember her lifting her arms to regroup her hair. Her breasts had been suggestively outlined by the T-shirt she wore under her unzipped jacket. Full, but not too full. Nicely rounded. Inviting.
All of her was female, though. He’d walked behind her on her way down the mountain and had been able to tell she wasn’t afflicted by the need to be so thin it had to be unhealthy. No, she had a good set of hips, a nicely rounded bottom and a bit of a sway to her step.
She was also graceful as she navigated the broken and unsteady terrain. A woman in command of her body.
He liked that. Hell, he liked her. And if he were smart, he’d just leave it at that. He’d volunteered to work this dig because of a huge curiosity and a desire for the experience. What he didn’t want to do was blow himself out of the water by expressing too much interest in the team leader. By making her uncomfortable.
The Marines had taught him self-control. Time to use it.
But then his thoughts drifted toward that unexpected visitor again. The neighbor. The man on horseback continued to trouble Cope, though he had no reason to explain it. It was just so soon after Renee’s arrival. Too soon.
Maybe Butler had just wandered that way out of curiosity, not knowing whether anyone was there, having heard about the new cleft. It was possible.
But Cope had spent too many years in a uniform in dangerous places to just dismiss the guy. He couldn’t imagine any reason the man could become a problem, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a reason.
If he showed up again... Cope told himself to let it drop unless something else happened. He’d spent too long at war, and didn’t even trust his own suspiciousness any longer. Paranoia, he told himself.
Cope reached out and reluctantly turned off the water and reached for a towel. Renee planned to get out there before dawn. He’d better get his sleep so he could follow along and be useful.
* * *
Over at the motel, Renee had taken Denise to her own room to talk. The room itself was pleasant enough, although it showed its age. The days when rough wood paneling on walls had been charming were long ago. The blue-checked curtains looked nearly worn out over the mini blinds; the chair and table in one corner might have been used as modern in a 1950s sitcom. The bedspread was a brown-and-blue plaid. But, Renee admitted, it was spotlessly clean as far as she could tell.
Denise followed her in and perched on the edge of the bed.
Renee spoke as she closed the door. “In the morning, before dawn, I want you to come up with me to the site. I don’t have to tell you what the early light does to shadows.”
“Heck no,” said Denise. Her artistic ability was one of her biggest entrées into this world. “Got any photos for me?”
Renee handed over her camera and flipped it to begin a slide show. Then she went to the bathroom and used the motel’s cheap coffeemaker to brew some for the two of them. At least there was more than one packet of coffee on the counter.
“Wow,” she heard Denise breathe. “Renee, you gave me no idea!”
“I didn’t want too much information getting out. You know of Dr. Bradley?”
Denise glanced up. “The site thief? Everyone’s heard of him. I’m sure he’s not the only one.”
“Exactly. Once we’re established I won’t feel it’s as important to keep a shroud over all this, but in the meantime... I’m thinking of camping out there.”
Denise nodded as she continued to watch the slide show. “This looks revolutionary, Renee. Maybe we all ought to camp out there.”
Renee gave a quiet laugh. “Nice idea, but once we start working we’re not going to have a whole lot of extra room. Maybe we can establish a base camp farther down the mountain. I’ll have to ask Gray Cloud.”
The slide show came to an end and Denise looked at her. “Gray Cloud is really your cousin?”
“By marriage. My cousin Mercy is a wildlife biologist. She met him on Thunder Mountain a couple of decades ago when she was studying the wolf pack up there. If you ask her if the mountain is sentient, I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.”
“And you?”
Renee shrugged. “I’m not here to judge. I’m here in the hope that I can prove a theory of mine. Or disprove it, as the case may be. And that fossil bed is so rich it ought to provide a whole lot of answers, plus new questions.”
Denise nodded and put the camera down. “So you want me to sketch all this before we start poking around? With measurements and a grid so every find can be localized?”
“Exactly,” Renee said, filling two cups with coffee and walking through the door to perch on the edge of the bed.
Denise accepted the coffee and sat cross-legged, clearly thinking. Her gray sweater and blue jeans signified she was used to a far warmer climate. Renee was happy in her T-shirt and jeans.
“Okay,” Denise said presently. “You’ve got your whole team here, right?”
“At least for the start, yes. We may need more later, depending.”
“How would it be if you choose the part of the face where you’d most like to start working? Then I can start the grid there and work outward, so you can get started quickly. All I’d need to do is take a quick survey of the entire face, measurements and so on, so I’d know where I’ll eventually be heading.”
Renee felt her excitement bubbling up again. “I didn’t think we’d be able to start so soon!”
Denise grinned. “It might still be a couple of days. It’s just that the whole grid doesn’t need to be done first.”
Renee felt lighter somehow, as if realizing she might be able to get to work sooner had lifted some kind of load.
Denise picked up the camera again and restarted the slide show. “This is amazing, Renee. Just amazing. Early-morning light?”
“To get the best use of shadows.”
Denise nodded. “Can you get me out there before dawn tomorrow? You can show me where you want to start, and I can begin sketching until we’ve got enough light to do measurements.”
Renee wanted to agree immediately, but she had a slight problem, namely seven members of her team who were planning to meet for breakfast and follow her out to the site. Then she thought of Cope. “Just a sec.”
She had his phone number filed on her laptop because she’d talked to him maybe a half dozen times in the
