What the . . . ?
“Will you knock it off?” Ford spat at Ethan. “You’re about to get fired if you don’t cut it out.”
Corrie eyed them curiously. She’d missed something, clearly.
“We ordered a tent for you so you’d have your own space, assuming you stay and all,” Ford continued once he got his annoyance with Ethan out of the way. “But our deliveries only come on Mondays so it isn’t here yet. But you can stay in my tent tonight—alone,” he then clarified, glaring at Ethan. “I’ll bunk with some of the other guys.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t want to put you out or anything. I can share with Agnes . . . and Sunny I presume?”
“You don’t want to bunk with Agnes. She snores,” Ethan offered.
“How do you know?”
“Sunny told us, in the politest, most I really don’t want to throw anyone under the bus sort of way,” Ford said, unable to hold back an endearing smile.
He looked good when he smiled. Not that smarmy, douchey smile he sometimes tossed her way. Like when he really wanted to irk her. But in genuine moments—the moments where Ford acted like a real person who actually had feelings and cared for people other than himself—well, in those moments, Ford went from being a hot jerk to a handsome man.
He also seemed to genuinely like his students, a sentiment Corrie shared. She could tell he had a soft spot for Sunny in particular.
But Corrie didn’t know what to make of all this—Jamaican coffee, charming smiles, and the offer to relinquish his tent for the night? Either he was really working to get her to stay or maybe Ford Matthews had matured over the last few years. Corrie wanted to think he could change. After all, she wanted to think that she had changed since they’d last seen each other.
Maybe she needed to cool it on the jabs. At least for the night.
Ethan stood and grabbed his tray. “I’m going to let you two sort this out and retire to my solo tent. It’s nice seeing you talking civilly, at least. Now, good night. I bid you adieu,” he said, bowing and taking his leave.
And allowing an awkward silence to settle over the table.
“I feel bad taking your space,” Corrie finally said, breaking up the stillness. “Really, I don’t mind rooming with Agnes and Sunny. Besides, it’s just for the night.”
They were the only two left under the mess tent, everyone else either sitting over by the fire and passing a bottle of booze or going in and out of their tents, readying themselves for the evening. Even Agnes had packed up, leaving Corrie and Ford to have to clean their own dishes.
“It’s fine, Corrie. Besides, unless you want to bunk with some of the guys, we’d have to move an empty bed from one of the other tents, so it’s easier this way. Come on, we should clean up.”
He stood and took both their trays over to the makeshift kitchen area where a tub of water sat waiting for them. “I’ll wash. You dry,” he said, handing Corrie a towel then rolling up his sleeves slightly higher. Aside from the hoots from the howler monkeys and the throaty squawks from the scarlet macaws, they washed and dried in silence, a rare occurrence for the two of them. Corrie’s mind blanked as her gaze wandered over him under the low camp lights. From his height to his hands. And then to his forearms. The muscles flexing beneath his skin with each movement.
A flash of ink peeked out from under the cuff of his rolled-up sleeves, on the inside of his elbow. Letters in cursive. CM.
Corrie’s heart skipped a beat. CM? As in Corrie Mejía?
“What’s that stand for?” Corrie asked as nonchalantly as possible as she took one of the bowls from his hands.
He looked at what she was referring to, and tugged at his sleeve, covering the tattoo so she could no longer see. “It’s nothing.”
Well, that was bullshit. Seriously, though. Was it possible that he had her initials tattooed on his arm? No . . . there was no way.
Right?
“It’s my mom’s initials,” he said a few moments later as he kept his focus on the suds in the dirty water. Corrie scrunched her face in embarrassment, thankful he didn’t notice. Of course they weren’t her initials. The very thought of it was absurd.
“She’s . . . she’s not well,” he continued. “Got diagnosed with cancer a few months before I left to come here. It’s my way of having her here with me.”
His voice was calm and even. He didn’t look at Corrie.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ford. I shouldn’t have . . .” She wanted to touch him. To put her arms around his shoulders and tell him it would be okay. Not that she knew whether it would be okay. But she wanted him to feel better, and she knew Ford well enough to know that as even-toned as he seemed, he was not okay.
“It’s okay. It’s hard being here sometimes, that’s all,” he said, glancing at her for a moment, then returning to the dishes. “Only being able to speak to her on the satellite phone once a week. Not knowing the condition she’ll be in once I get back.”
“What about your dad? Is he handling it okay?”
Ford paused, gripping the side of the tub for a moment while staring straight ahead into the darkness of the jungle. “He died two years ago.”
Corrie closed her eyes and silently winced. Jeez. Talk about a foot in the mouth. “Before you go apologizing again, don’t. He’s not worth it,” Ford followed up, pulling his mouth into a tight line.
She remembered him talking about his parents that night in the library. The Sunday evening phone calls he never missed. The first time he’d watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with his dad. How much he was looking forward to his upcoming father-son trip that summer. Guess a lot had changed over those last several years. She had so many questions, but it was likely hard enough for Ford to reveal as much as he did to her, so she let it go. But why was he here if his mother was sick? Sure, this was his job, but it wasn’t like finding Chimalli was Ford’s passion like it was Corrie’s. Ford probably couldn’t care less about Chimalli, to be honest. He was always more interested in unearthing lost cities and structures, not necessarily the specific people who lived in them.
“Can we talk about something else?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“Of course. What do you want to talk about?”
“What about that jaguar? Did you really outrun it?” He tipped his head at her and smiled. There it was again. And there were the flutters in her stomach.
Corrie laughed. “I swear, I don’t know how that rumor got started. No, it wasn’t a jaguar. It was a jaguarundi. The size of a giant housecat. All people hear is ‘jaguar’ and now I’m a jag hunter. And I wouldn’t say I outran it, but rather outsmarted it. Though, to your earlier point, no, it wasn’t injured.” She smiled back at him, and he chuckled.
Mm. She liked that sound. She liked making him laugh. Almost more than she liked getting under his skin.
Who knew?
“What about the whole necklace thing, then? The one where you allegedly stole back that jade necklace that had been stolen from the auction?”
“I mean, that one’s sort of true. Though, in all fairness, you can’t really steal what’s already been stolen. And besides, I didn’t take it, anyway. I still maintain that Bernard Sardoni gave it to me.”