Raiders of the Lost Heart(11)

She shook her head. Why? Why did her mind keep going there? Must have been her stomach talking. She circled back around toward the mess tent. Smelled good. Having a cook flown in was better than most digs, where they shared cooking duties or had nothing but individual camp stoves and dehydrated food pouches. If she never had to eat another packet of rehydrated scrambled eggs with “bacon” in her life, she’d call that a victory.

She walked up to the tent, grabbed a tray, and cycled through the line, loading up with a biscuit, a pat of butter, a small green salad, and a hearty bowl of beef stew.

“You made this all out here?” Corrie asked the cook as she handed her the bowl.

“Sure did. Real food only. None of that freeze-dried or prepackaged crap here,” the cook said, holding her head high. “You must be Dr. Mejía.”

“Corrie.” She reached out her hand for a shake.

“Agnes. Guess we’ll be bunkmates, eh?”

“Oh. Well, I, uh . . . I don’t know.” Corrie glanced around the camp, just now realizing the person-to-tent ratio. Well, damn.

“Well, if you’d rather bunk with those burping, farting, loudmouth boobs, then by all means,” Agnes said, motioning toward the rest of the group—all men aside from Agnes, Sunny, and Corrie. Not that she minded coed sleeping situations, but she was a thirty-five-year-old woman who liked her privacy. She didn’t even want to live with a cat, let alone other people.

“No, I mean, we haven’t discussed sleeping arrangements. And frankly, I’m not really even sure I’m going to stay.”

“Not going to stay? Then why did Dr. Matthews have me bust my budget getting these gosh dang Jamaican coffee beans?” Agnes reached over to grab a clipboard and looked at what appeared to be an order form. “Said we had to have them,” she mumbled as she turned her back and reviewed the form.

Warmth spread over Corrie’s skin. He’d remembered. He remembered her love for Jamaican coffee.

She had to admit, he didn’t really seem the thoughtful type. No, Ford Matthews was always in it for himself. Perhaps that was all this was—his way of buttering her up so she’d sign on for this dig. See? We even special ordered your favorite coffee, just for you, because your being here means soooooo much to us.

Then wham! Ford’s name gets slapped on one of the greatest discoveries of their time and all Corrie gets is a smooth, rich cup of delicious Jamaican coffee.

Then again, that long evening they’d spent in the library drinking coffee together out of Corrie’s thermos was ingrained in her brain even after all these years. Maybe it was ingrained in his as well. She could still picture his lips pressed against the tiny red plastic cup of her thermos. Or at least it had looked tiny in his hands. His lips, touching the same spot where her lips had been, savoring that coffee as she’d savored his emerald eyes staring back at her from behind his glasses, never taking away his gaze. She remembered how the low moan in his throat had fanned the fire building in her core as the creamy yet bold and zesty coffee hit his taste buds. And how he’d licked away those few droplets that clung to his lower lip before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and returning the cup to her while brushing his fingers ever so lightly across her own.

Yep, she’d analyzed what that night meant many times, especially in light of the fact that a few days later she’d found him sucking face with Addison Crawley, daughter of the famed Yale professor Dr. Richard Crawley—Ford’s eventual boss. Who should have been her boss.

Corrie turned toward the tables, searching for Ford.

There.

He quickly looked away when she spotted him, but he’d clearly been watching her, which sent another tingle, though this one was focused in her midsection.

All right . . . maybe she wouldn’t try quite so hard to get under his skin. After all, perhaps this was his attempt at trying, too.

“Dr. Mejía! Over here!” Sunny called out from their table, waving her arms frantically in the air.

Oh boy. Deep breaths.

Ford had been right—Corrie would never have been a contender in a Miss Congeniality contest back in the day. But unlike Ford, who got things handed to him simply by being charming （and, apparently, by sleeping up the food chain）， Corrie had had to learn to be likeable. And once she’d started teaching, well, she’d realized that excited students meant engaged students. After getting to know her students and mentoring her younger colleagues and seeing that they shared her passion, well, it made the whole experience even better. Sometimes those students and colleagues even became her friends. People like Miri.

Besides, what was the saying? You kill more bees with honey?

Oh, wait . . . or was it catch?

Eight years ago, Sunny would have annoyed the hell out of Corrie. But today, she found Sunny to be the much-needed bright spot—no pun intended—in an otherwise cloudy, craptastic day.

“Dr. Mejía, here, I saved you a seat,” Sunny said, shooing a younger guy out of the way as Corrie approached.

“You can call me Corrie.”

“I thought you said, ‘It’s Dr. Mejía’ earlier today,” Ford grouched from across the table. Though his snipe was quickly met with a jab in the ribs and a whispered grumble from Ethan.

“Well, my friends call me Corrie. Is someone going to introduce me to everyone?” she asked, looking around the table at the other four faces.