Okay . . . fine. Lara Croft was pretty freaking awesome, too.
“Sort of,” he said, trying to quickly brush it off. “Hey, Sunny, would you mind checking with Agnes to make sure she updated the head count for dinner?”
“Oh, I talked to her about an hour—”
“Why don’t you double-check?”
Sunny scanned all their faces one at a time—Ethan and Corrie eyeing Ford, and Ford looking nowhere in particular—before she finally took the hint. “Well, I guess we can chat more later,” she said to Corrie.
“Sounds great. Looking forward to it,” Corrie responded, tenderly placing her hand on Sunny’s forearm before Sunny finally did as Ford had asked.
Once Sunny was out of earshot, Corrie spun around toward him. “Jealous much?”
“Oh, please,” he said with a tsk and a roll of his eyes. “Jealous of your reckless adventures and the fact that you’ve almost gotten yourself killed half a dozen times? I don’t think so.”
So, in other words, jealous and very much so.
“Oh, I don’t mean all that. I know you’re much too delicate for running through jungles or chasing after criminals. But I’m talking about you not being the center of attention. Something tells me up until a few moments ago, Sunny probably looked at you in much the same way. And now . . .” Her voice trailed off as she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
Smug much?
“Wow. Two smiles in one day. Since when did you become Miss Congeniality?”
“Aw, hon. You noticed,” she said, batting her eyelashes and curving her body toward his. Ford pressed his lips together as he glared at her, wanting nothing more than to wipe that cocky smirk off her face.
“All right, you two. Seriously, you’re like a couple of bratty teenagers. Doesn’t it ever get old?” Ethan asked, stepping in to break up the bickering.
“Nope,” Corrie and Ford both responded at the same time without taking their narrowed eyes off each other.
“Well, I’m starving, and I can’t take another one of your spats unless I have some food during the entertainment, so can we give it a break for, oh, I don’t know, fifteen minutes?”
Leave it to Ethan to be the rational one. One of the many reasons Ford had asked him to join this expedition. And now that Corrie had been invited, having Ethan as referee was an added perk.
“Fine,” Corrie responded, releasing his gaze. “I have to use the bathroom, anyway. Where might I find it?”
“Over there.” Ethan pointed toward the toilet tents, or the TTs as they’d been calling them. Saying I’ve gotta hit the TT sounded a heck of a lot better than I’m heading to the shitter.
Corrie nodded, though not without one more sharp look, then took off toward the TTs, her fabulous hips swaying with each step, mesmerizing Ford. Drawing him in and practically erasing the annoyance he’d felt moments earlier.
“What is your problem?” Ethan asked, smacking Ford across the stomach and snapping him out of his hip-notic daydream. “We need her, remember?”
“I know, I know,” Ford said, bowing his head, frustrated with himself. “She’s just so . . . so . . .”
Dozens of words circled his brain, but none that he wanted to say out loud.
“Sexy?” Ethan finally answered for him.
Great. Was it really that obvious?
“What? No. Jeez, Ethan.” Ford rolled his eyes and sneered.
“Okay, sure, Ford. Whatever you say,” Ethan said with one raised eyebrow. “Look, you can admit that you’re attracted to her. Claiming you’re not only makes me more certain that you are.”
Annoyance rolled through Ford’s body. “That’s not what this is about,” he said, trying to turn the topic back to the matter at hand.
“Then you admit it?”
“Admit what?”
“Admit that you’re attracted to her. I’m not going to tell her.”
His mouth twitched and his nostrils flared as he fought to keep the words in. What the hell did this have to do with anything? Best friend or not, it wasn’t any of Ethan’s damn business who he found attractive. But even in her absence, Corrie’s intoxicating hips, pretty mouth, and heavenly eyes taunted him.
“Fine! Yes!” he blurted, tossing his hands in the air. “Yes, she’s hot. There, are you happy?”
A wide smile formed on Ethan’s face. “I am, actually. Thanks. You two always had some weird sexual energy going on back in school. Until you started dating Addison, that is.”
“Okay, can we not talk about this, please?” Ford said, rubbing his forehead and growing impatient with the conversation. “Like I said, that’s not what this is about. I can work with Corrie—if she even agrees to do it, which right now I put at about a fifty-fifty chance—despite the fact that, yes, I find her attractive. She’s a beautiful woman, and I’m sure everyone in this camp would agree, yourself included. Sunny, too. So don’t stand there acting like you’ve cracked the Da Vinci code, because it’s really not all that surprising, is it?”
“Nope, not to me it isn’t,” Ethan said with his chin up, clearly proud of himself. “Nice to finally hear you say it after, what, twelve years?”
“You really are a dick sometimes, you know that, right?”
“Absolutely. But so are you, you know. Maybe cool it with the animosity. She’s really not bad, once you get to know her. And neither are you.”
Oh, he knew her, all right. That night in the library had revealed a different side of Corrie—and he’d liked it quite a bit. She’d managed to break down his walls. And, in turn, Ford had softened Corrie’s hardened edges. It was quite synergistic when he really thought about it. Too bad he didn’t know how to get them back to that place.
And too bad that side of Corrie was locked away.
“I know. She’s just so . . . so . . .”
“Impressive?”
That was one word for her.
“I was going to say cocky.”
Ethan laughed. “Don’t you think that’s a little too pot calling the kettle black?”
“Hey, I’m not nearly as cocky as she is.”
Ethan patted Ford on the shoulder. “Sure, you’re not. You two, I swear. It’s hilarious that you both think it’s the other one who’s got the problem. You’re unable to acknowledge how similar you actually are.”
Similar? Please.
“Corrie and I are nothing alike. I stick with the facts and the rules. She’s one of those goes-on-instincts kind of people. A plays-by-no-rules archaeologist. And, frankly, she’s a bit reckless.”
“Yet you still sent for her.”
“Yeah, because she’s also fucking brilliant. She might have her weird methods and all, but clearly whatever I’m doing here isn’t working.”
Not that he’d ever been on a job with Corrie, but he’d heard the stories about the spiritual connection she seemed to have with the land. An instinct for where to dig. An understanding of the earth. No one could explain it, but when Corrie Mejía was on an expedition, things always magically worked out, even if there were some mishaps and wild escapades along the way.