Raiders of the Lost Heart(25)

Hmm. Corrie might not have trusted Ford, but she trusted and respected Ethan. If Ethan could care about Ford that much—if he could love him like a brother—then maybe Ford wasn’t as bad as she thought. Maybe he had changed.

“Okay,” Corrie said.

“Okay, you’ll talk to him?”

“Okay, I’ll try. I’m not making any promises, though. There’s a real possibility that he won’t open up to me. Also, if it’s private, I’m not going to press him. And I’m not going to tell you what he says, other than to let you know if he’s okay. All right?”

“Thank you,” he said with relief. “You’re the best.”

Corrie shook her head and laughed. “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Dr. Mejía!” Ford called out. “You ready to go?”

Ready as she’d ever be.

Chapter

Six

Ford felt bad leaving Ethan with the dirty work of cleaning up his mess. Well, mostly felt bad. After all, Ethan had helped select that site and agreed to forgo any further searches just as Ford had. They’d spent a week scouting before they’d had supplies delivered and started digging. In an ideal world—in a fair world—Ford would have been right beside the rest of the crew, helping to pack up and return the site to its natural state.

But Ford didn’t have time for fairness. They needed to keep moving and figure this out if he was going to get his mother’s finances straight. None of this would have been happening had his dad not spent all their money secretly buying archaeological artifacts.

“Artifacts” that they’d learned were fakes when it had come time to sort out the estate after his death.

Even after everything Ford had accomplished as an archaeologist . . . there his dad had been, buying garbage off the internet. Ford couldn’t make sense of it. Why his dad had resorted to eBay rather than certified auction houses and accredited antiquities dealers. Why he hadn’t ever asked for Ford’s opinion.

It hurt that Dad hadn’t trusted Ford’s expertise. And that was only the beginning of his string of disappointments.

He and Corrie walked to the camp in silence. Without Ethan there as his buffer, Ford worried about talking too much. No, they needed to get to the camp, pull out the topo maps, and make a plan. The less talking the better. The last thing he needed was to get in a fight with Corrie without a mediator.

The lack of talking did nothing to quiet his awareness of her, however. A cacophony in his head alerted him to her proximity whenever she drew near. Not that he needed a notification. His body was already more than cognizant of her closeness, reacting involuntarily to each movement she made. He tried not to stare at her ass when she was in front of him or at her long, beautiful neck when she lifted her water bottle for a drink. He had to keep reminding himself of the agenda: use Corrie’s help to get out of this mess, not get into a new mess with her.

Back at the camp, a crew of men were erecting Corrie’s tent, pounding and hammering to get the platform in place. Luckily, he’d radioed ahead for them to get started, so hopefully the tent would be ready before nightfall.

It would be good to get his space back. Agnes was right—sharing with the other men was gross. Ford liked his privacy. And the ability to take care of himself in case Corrie invaded his dreams again.

“Back so soon?” Agnes called out, in the middle of making lunches in the mess tent, with Lance going over paperwork beside her. Every day she packed a meal that got picked up and delivered to the crew at the work site. Some days a hot lunch. Some days cold. Today—a supply drop day—meant something with a fresh component: the food that wouldn’t last through the whole week with their not-quite-sufficient refrigeration system. It did an adequate job, but they’d had two instances now where half a week’s worth of food had gone bad.

“Uh, ran into a little hiccup,” Ford said, walking into the tent and eyeing the spread of cold-cut sandwiches with lettuce, tomatoes, and the works.

“Hiccup?” Lance said, looking up from his papers.

“We’re looking for a new site.”

Agnes’s eyebrow raised. “Sounds like more than a hiccup, if you ask me. But, hey, I’m not the archaeologist. You are,” she said, pointing a butter knife at Ford and waving it around in a circle.

Usually Ford appreciated Agnes’s jabs and taunts. They made it feel like she was a friend rather than a hired hand. Her tell-it-like-it-is attitude always made him laugh and set a lighthearted tone around camp. But not today. Today Ford didn’t need anything or anyone else pointing out his failures. Especially not in front of Lance.

“Anything the investor should be worried about?” Lance asked.

Yes.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Ford responded, earning a curious look from Corrie.

“Ford is thinking there might be multiple sites, that’s all,” she then chimed in.

Now Ford was the one tossing questioning glances.

“Yeah . . .” Ford let his words evaporate in the air. “Mind if we take a couple of these?” he asked, motioning toward the sandwiches. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Of course. Need anything else?” Agnes asked as Ford loaded up a plate.

“Actually, think you could make some more of that coffee?” Corrie asked.