But her sex life? Absolutely not. That was private. They didn’t need to know who—or how many people—she slept with. Not that she was ashamed of her healthy sex life. No, Corrie was comfortable with her sexuality and the casual hookups that comprised her dating life. But it was none of their business. Plain and simple.
Besides, Corrie didn’t like airing out her dirty laundry. Or, better yet, airing out her rain-soaked vibrator.
“Don’t you think it’s a little inappropriate for Sunny to be talking to you about Ford’s sex life?”
“Do you think Sunny cares about what’s appropriate and what’s not?” Ethan quipped with a head tilt and a smile.
“True, but I don’t know. It’s a little weird, that’s all. I mean, do you think maybe she has a crush on him or something?”
“You think Ford and Sunny are romantically involved?” Ethan raised his brows and burst out laughing. “Trust me, that’s not the case. Ford’s not her type.”
Not her type? Hmm. She did seem a little flirty with Corrie when they first met . . .
“Do you think maybe you could talk to him and make sure he’s okay?” Ethan asked, catching Corrie off-guard.
“Me?” Corrie asked, pointing her finger at her chest.
“Well, yeah. I mean, he must trust you, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Corrie took a moment to consider that. Despite their checkered past, it was true. There was no way he would have called for her if he didn’t trust her. Not with something that had the potential of being this big. He also must have trusted her not to hold too much of a grudge.
But there were probably dozens of people who were better suited to talking to Ford about personal matters, and she wasn’t even the best person at this dig site to do so. If anyone held that honor—if it could be considered one—that had to be Ethan.
“Ethan, I am one hundred percent certain you are the better person for that task. Besides, we don’t really have that kind of relationship,” Corrie said, though the word relationship gave her a funny flutter in her stomach when using it in reference to whatever she and Ford had together.
Ethan shook his head. “Well, like I said, we don’t have that kind of relationship anymore, either. But I know something’s up. For example, every Friday when we’re done for the day at camp, he takes the sat phone and goes to his tent for, like, an hour, and I swear it looks like he’s been crying when he comes back. And if you ask him about it, he brushes it off like it’s allergies. I mean, come on. Allergies only on Fridays? It’s weird.”
Crying? It has to be his mother . . . It could be Addison as well. Maybe he missed her.
Another funny flutter roiled through her belly, though this one was of a fouler variety.
“Yeah, I guess that’s a little odd. But you’ve been friends for a long time. If he won’t talk to you about things, then I highly doubt he’ll talk to me,” Corrie explained.
“Maybe,” Ethan said, looking disappointed. “But, then again, the most emotion I’ve witnessed from him lately comes from interactions with you.”
Corrie laughed. “Perhaps it’s not obvious, Ethan, but that’s because we irritate the shit out of each other.”
“Yeah, and what’s the saying? ‘We bug the shit out of those we love the most.’？”
Corrie burst out laughing in an all-out bellow, garnering a few looks from the others who were a fair distance away. She wished her laugh wasn’t so damn annoying. Lord knows she’d tried to work on it, at the behest of her older brother, Antonio, when they’d been kids. “You sound like a burrito,” he would tease her, referring to what he called her “hee-haw donkey laugh,” which had earned her the nickname “Corrito Burrito.” That was not something she shared with her students. But it was safe to say that at this point in her life, she really couldn’t help it. The laugh was there to stay, and people would just have to deal.
“I think the saying is ‘We hurt those we love the most,’ but either way, trust me, that’s not it. There’s no love lost between us.”
Now, if the saying was We bug the shit out of those we hate the most, then Ethan might be onto something. Because in her entire life, no one could get under her skin with as much panache as Ford Matthews.
Ethan’s face grew solemn, and the mood turned. “Do you think you could try?” he asked.
“Okay, this is getting weird. Why are you being so insistent? You know we hate each other. He’s never going to open up to me.”
“Hate? Please. I know you may still harbor some ill will for Ford and all, but we both know you harbor some other feelings for him, too.”
Corrie’s jaw dropped. In all their years, she’d never acknowledged to Ethan—or to anyone else, for that matter—her attraction to Ford. Partly because she suspected Ethan had had a thing for her at one point and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by expressing her love-hate for Ford. Or, rather, her lust-hate. But since nothing would ever happen between her and Ford, there’d never been a reason to reveal what that man could do to her panties.
“Look, Corrie. I’m not asking you to forgive him, but please do this for me. I’m worried about him. I know you think he’s a dick and all, but he’s actually a good person. And he’s a great friend. I love the guy like he’s my brother, and it’s killing me that I don’t know if he’s okay.”
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.