Heart Of Gold (11 page)

But after
generations of searching, no one had found the gold.

And the
rest, as they say, was history, Carter thought, closing the book.

Bringing
the mug to her lips, she grimaced at the last inch of coffee which was cold and
bitter. She emptied the mug with a quick toss and got off her rock. Already the
temperature had come up ten degrees and it was going to be a beautiful day.

Heading
back to camp on the little foot trail, Carter heard someone or something coming
through the woods behind her. She tensed up. It was hard to know what would be
worse, a bear or Nick Farrell.

When she
realized it was just Cort, she let out her breath.

“Hey!”
he called out, jogging over. He had a baseball cap on his head but hair still
managed to escape out of the sides at jagged intervals. He seemed endearingly
young in the early light, his brash, self-confident expression at odds with the
hint of shyness in his eyes.

As she
greeted him, she watched his face glow with a warm intensity that made her
uncomfortable. She knew she was going to have to talk with him soon about the
infatuation.

“So
are you ready to get to work?” Carter asked as they walked the rest of the
way to camp together.

“Damn
straight. How was your first night up here?”

“I'm
still in one piece.”

She led
the way over to Papercut Central.

“When
do we start digging?” Cort began bouncing up and down on the balls of his
feet, shadow-boxing.

“Not
until my team gets here.”

His face
fell as he stilled. “I thought it would be this morning.”

“There's
a lot of work that has to happen before the first shovel meets the ground. I
also want Buddy's read on the site before we get going.”

“So
what are we doing today?”

“We've
got to map the place first. I understand if you want to skip this part and come
back when the fun begins.” She picked up an empty duffle bag and put it on
the table.

Cort
shrugged. “That's okay. It'll be cool. Besides, I need to get out of the
house.”

“Why?”
Carter went over to a toolbox. She flipped the metal latches free and popped
open the lid.

“She's
coming back.”

“Who
is?”

“My
uncle's girlfriend.”

Carter's
body stiffened involuntarily, and she had to force her hands to rummage around.
She was looking for the hammers, she reminded herself.

“Did
you meet her when you were here last time?” Cort asked. “She's right
out of Greek mythology. Has her hair done at a snake farm as far as lean tell.”

Carter
fought to keep her voice level. “I'm sure you're exaggerating.”

“Not
really. She can make waiters cry at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Seen it
myself.”

“There
must be some redeeming qualities in the woman for your uncle to be in love with
her.” She found the hammers, tucked them under her arm, and shut the lid.

"He
isn't in love. Or if he is, I don't want to be in love like that. Things are
horrible when Blondzilla's here, horrible before she comes, too.

Gertie
gets tense and Uncle Nick turns into a crab. Not that he's much fun to begin
with. That's why I can't understand it. I don't know why he invited her
up."

“Invited?”
Carter crammed the tools into the duffle with more force than necessary.

“Last
night, apparently. At least that's what I overheard Gertie saying to
Ivan.”

Carter
stared at the kid blankly as her mind seized up. It was hard to face the fact
that the first thing Nick had done after their kiss was go call his woman. That
what had kept her up all night was of such little consequence to him. That she
was just one more pair of lips.

Although,
as she thought about it, she figured she must be the most naive person on the
planet. The man had been linked with some of the most beautiful women in the
world. The whole kiss at sunset thing probably happened to him all the time.

“So
are we going to head over to the site?” Cort prompted.

“Yeah,
sure.”

“Carter?”

She shook
herself., “Sorry. Let's get the stuff we'll need together.”

Even
though she'd been doing digs for almost a decade, she had to think about what
they were going to need to chart the site. She retrieved four balls of white
twine, three dozen wooden stakes, and a measuring tape. In a backpack, she put
a camera, scissors, mapping paper and pencils, rulers, and some bottled water.

"What
are all the stakes for? We hunting vampires?” Cort started shadowboxing again
and then mimicking stabbing motions in the air.

Smiling
and shaking her head at the kid, she resolved to push the subject of Nick
Farrell from her mind. Feeling a little stronger for the decision, Carter
slipped the backpack on and straightened her spine.

It was
simply mind over matter.

Make that
mind over man.

As she
and Cort headed into the woods, each holding one handle of the duffle, she told
him what they were in for. “We're going to create a grid pattern over the
site.”

“Why?”

“When
we excavate a site, we ruin it. The artifacts are significant in and of
themselves but equally important is their relationship to each other. A
well-mapped site and conscientious documenting mean that any archaeologist can
re-create the dig from the records and come to their own conclusions.”

They
stepped inside the ring of stones and she took out her camera, offering Cort
the job of photographer. He began to shoot, the sound of the shutter clicking
away.

“Give
me more,” he vamped at the rocks. “I need to feel the emotion. That's
it. A little more pout.”

After ten
minutes, she called out, “Hey, take it easy on the film there, Helmut
Lang. We don't want to run out on the first day. How about trading in that lens
for a hammer?”

“For
you, anything.”

Flamboyantly,
he sashayed over to her and accepted the duffle bag of stakes.

“Put
one of these every three feet around the interior, as close to the rock walls
as possible.”

While he
went to work, she sketched the outlines of the site and then began to string
twine between opposite stakes so that a grid pattern was formed about a foot
and a half above the ground. In the middle where it sagged, they reinforced it
with more wooden pickets.

“It
looks like a checkerboard,” Cort commented when the job was done.

He
watched as she drew the grid on the map she'd sketched and then ran numbers
down the left margin and letters across the bottom.

“Now,
whenever someone finds an artifact, it gets entered on the site map. I’ll
create another map which will measure depth. On that, we'll record how deep the
finds are underground. In addition, everyone who digs will keep a daily log of
what area they excavated and what they found. These daily logs will be
extrapolated into the excavation log that encompasses all the diggers' work and
also details what the condition of the weather was, what the soil was like, in
what order things were found.”

Cort
rolled his eyes. “It's a wonder you ever find anything with all that
recording.”

“Cross-checking
is important and so is having a minute attention to detail.”

“I'll
bet being compulsive helps, too.”

Carter
smiled.

After
lunch, they prepared a spot outside the circle of boulders where dirt would be
passed through screens to make sure even the smallest finds would be retained.
Then they took a break and did some exploring around the mountain.

It was
late in the afternoon when they returned to camp. Cort's eyes were looking off
into the distance when he said good-bye. “So, I guess I'll see you
tomorrow?”

“Sure.
Thanks again for all your hard work.”

With an
awkward wave, the kid disappeared into the woods. She was hoping that the day
spent at work with her had discouraged his crush. After laboring in the dirt,
she felt sweaty and disheveled and trusted that her current condition wasn't
the stuff to attract the opposite sex.

Especially
not sixteen-year-old boys who probably believed magazine models looked like
they did without the benefit of airbrushing.

Carter
picked up her site map and a pad and went back to the rock that she'd
started the day sitting on. She was ready to spend the next hour or so working
on dig strategy.

Should
they do a few test pits or just start the excavation? The site was insular
enough—

Nick had
invited his woman up.

Carter
looked around, as if she'd been struck by a spitball.

Frowning,
she went back to the map.

The site
was insular enough, sufficiently compact, and had had at least one artifact
retrieved, Winship's real cross. Test pits were probably not necessary to—

She was
jealous.

“I
am not!” The sound of her indignant voice startled a nearby chipmunk who
squeaked and scurried under a log.

She put
her head in her hands. She and Nick Farrell had nothing in common. She didn't
even like him. He was arrogant, sarcastic—

He was a
terrific kisser.

“Oh,
for heaven's sake,” she muttered.

Even when
things had been unbearably bad after her mother's death, even in those bleak
moments when her world was spinning and shifting on its axis, even then, she'd
been able to find some relief in her work. Certainly enough for her to get by.
But now, as she looked down at the map with its static grids and alphanumeric
coding, she couldn't see farther than the surface of the paper.

“Dammit.”

With her
head full of images of Nick Farrell, she wanted to run but had nowhere to go.
And she found it hard to believe she could feel so suffocated in the great
outdoors.

Carter
left her perch and returned to camp. The change in scenery didn't help, so she
dropped the map, as well as any thought of getting some work done, and took a
walk over to the brook. When she got there, she crouched down and dropped a
hand into the water. It went numb under the cold rush.

Exactly
what she was looking for.

Stripping
off her clothes, she stepped into the river. The cold took her breath away even
though the water only came up to her thighs. Reaching down, she cupped her
hands and carried the chill to her body, desperate to cleanse herself of her
thoughts and the heat they generated. As the water streamed down her body in
icy paths, she enjoyed the stinging sensation that lingered. Even if her teeth
chattered, at least she wasn't thinking about Nick Farrell for the moment.

* * *

Through
the trees, Nick watched her with complete absorption. The only thing that kept
him from going over to her was his iron will.

Which was
feeling less ironlike with each passing minute.

He'd come
up the mountain to talk about their kiss and had waited until Cort had returned
home so they'd be alone. He'd intended to have a straight-out conversation about
what had happened the night before and was determined to put the event in its
proper context. In the intervening hours since he'd felt her against him, he'd
managed to convince himself that it had been nothing more than an impulsive
mistake and he wanted to make sure she knew how he felt.

It was a
damn good plan. Until he got knocked off his soapbox.

When he'd
arrived at camp, he'd found it empty. After he didn't find her at the dig site
either, he decided to check and see if she'd gone swimming.

That was
when he took a turn off the high road.

When Nick
got to the river, he saw Carter bending down to put her hand in the water. Her
expression was grave, the moment private, so he thought he'd go back and wait
for her at camp. That was when she began to unbutton her shirt, and Nick's feet
had started ignoring his commands to get moving.

Leaning
against a tree for support, he watched as inch by inch, she opened her shirt
and then peeled it from her shoulders. As the shirt floated to the ground, she
turned to kick off her shoes and that was when he saw her breasts. Draped in
sunlight, they were taut and perfectly proportioned, her nipples pink and
small. Below the curves, her stomach was flat and toned.

Nick's
heart started pounding like a jackhammer and he felt himself harden.

He told
himself he should turn around and go. He was no Peeping Tom, after all. And
he'd seen women naked before. It wasn't as if he didn't know the inventory of
female attributes well enough, but somehow the familiarity didn't register. As
he looked at her, it was as if he was seeing a woman for the first time.

And he
liked what he saw. So much so, he could feel the images burning into his
memory.

Her hands
went to the fly of her jeans and she released the buttons. Gripping the
waistband, she slid them free from her long legs. Her hips were a gentle swell,
her thighs strong and shapely. When her simple white panties followed, Nick
gripped a tree limb so hard he cracked it in half.

Carter
froze and then looked in the direction of the noise.

Nick
ducked for cover.

He waited
a moment and peered around the tree again.

Carter
had turned back toward the river and was stretching her arms over her head,
arching her back.

“Oh,
sweet heaven,” he whispered, clenching his jaw.

In the
course of his life, he'd lusted after companies, real estate, works of art.
Even a few women. Nothing, however, came close to the throbbing urgency he felt
while looking at her. As she stepped into the water and splashed herself, her
neck arched as she looked to the sky, he was as close to desperation as he'd
ever been.

Nick
wrenched himself away from the scene, afraid if he stayed any longer he'd give
in to his driving impulses. That he'd step free from his hiding place and
reveal his desire. That he'd take her down onto the bank of the river and enter
her body in one, deep thrust.