Forbidden

She stared at him, a variety of emotions seeming to cross her expressive face. That she was angry, there could be no doubt…maybe even a little embarrassed. In the end, Nick had the feeling that pride won out.

“I didn’t come looking for you, Nick,” she said in a cool voice. “All I wanted to do was climb the temple steps.” With that, she descended the rest of the way, refusing any assistance from him.

When they’d reached the base of the temple, Dana started veering off toward the trees. “Goodbye,” she said.

He didn’t allow her to escape, falling into step beside her. “You’re not going anywhere alone–remember?”

“I wish you’d realize that I can take care of myself,” she muttered.

“Just follow orders, Ms. Morgan, and you’ll make it easier for both of us.”

He could tell she was still fired up. She made a point of striding ahead of him, finding her own path. Even as she pushed through the thick undergrowth of the forest, she moved with that graceful posture of hers. When they reached the excavation site, she stalked over to the knapsack she’d left propped near one of the huts. She pulled out some insect repellent and slathered herself with the stuff, glancing defiantly at Nick. Maybe she was trying to send him a message. Then she went back to work at the sifter.

Nick got to work himself. He wanted to forget what had happened with Dana…. He just wished it was that simple.

* * *

DANA HAD NEVER REALIZED that her body possessed so many muscles–and that they could all ache with such simultaneous insistence. By now she’d spent two weeks on the island, and her main activities seemed to be crouching to dig in the soil, crouching to carry the soil, crouching to sift the soil. This morning, her knees hurt. Her elbows hurt. Her back hurt. The insides of her thighs hurt. Hell, her whole body hurt. Perspiration trickled down her back. And she thought she’d throttle Pat if she had to listen to the woman one more minute.

Today Pat and Dana were working at the new site. Pat was marking off measurements on the ground while discoursing on her career prospects–clearly a favorite topic.

“I’ve applied to every Ivy League school–including a few with poison ivy.” Pat gave a smirk. “The job market is very tight, let me tell you. That’s why I’m here. This job is only a stopgap….”

Dana did her best to tune out Pat. She pulled the brim of her hat down lower, squinting at the grid chart she was trying to map. The sun seemed to bounce right off the page and into her eyes. She was learning just how precise and nitpicky archaeologists had to be. Findings of any type had to be categorized down to their minutiae. Pottery shards, scraps of obsidian, bone fragments, traces of ancient seeds and kernels–these were the treasures accumulated on the dig. No discovery was too small to go unrecorded. Dana’s own particular skills as a soil scientist also required precise documentation. Soil profiles, soil maps, soil surveys and chemical analysis charts all fell within her purview. When Dana wasn’t crouching and digging and sifting, she was writing and graphing and cross-referencing.

But who was she kidding? No matter how she occupied herself, her thoughts kept returning to Nick Petrie. Dr. Nicholas Petrie, her irascible boss.

Two days earlier she had sat beside Nick on the temple steps and he’d taken her into his arms. It had been the briefest of embraces, and they hadn’t even kissed. Why, then, did Dana keep replaying those few seconds in her mind, over and over? It was almost as if Nick had imprinted himself on her senses. Even now she remembered the feel of his arms around her, his gentle strength, the touch of his cheek against hers, the warmth pervading her body at his nearness….

She stared unseeing at the grid chart before her. Vaguely she tuned in to Pat’s voice.

“You really have to watch yourself,” Pat was saying. “You can’t get desperate. I mean, if you take the first job that comes along, you could be making a big mistake. I still tend to wonder if I made the right move, signing on at this–”

Dana simply didn’t have the patience for one more word. “You’re an archaeologist. You’re doing archaeology. What’s the problem?”

Pat seemed nonplussed for a moment, but then she started up again. She was hardly ever at a loss for words. “You have to understand, Dana. It’d be wonderful if I could just forget about everything else and enjoy what I’m doing. Really, it would be. But I have to think about my future. Who doesn’t? The academic world is such an incredibly narrow-minded place, and you have to take careful steps while building your career.” Whenever Pat mentioned the academic world, she did so with a mixture of reverence and scorn.

“And make no mistake about it, Dana. That’s why I’m here–I’m building my career. Despite the relative unimportance of this dig, Nick’s name still carries with it a certain amount of weight–although even that’s starting to wane….”

Nick again. Perhaps in the larger world his influence had waned, but here on this island he dominated. His crew members might resent his autocratic methods, but they invariably obeyed his instructions. He demanded the best from people and he worked the hardest himself. For all his apparent cynicism, this project had to mean something to him.

Dana glanced around the small clearing, where they’d barely started the preliminaries for the new excavation–the surface survey and the plotting out of test pits. If they were very lucky, eventually they’d find evidence of Mayan crops–maize, beans, squash. This would tell them more about ancient settlement patterns on the island, but it would probably not add significant new information to knowledge of Mayan farming. In many ways, it was tedious, thankless work. That couldn’t be denied….

“This island is important,” Dana said. “All you have to do is think about the people who walked here a thousand years ago. And now we’re trying to re-create their lives–it’s very exciting.”

Pat gave Dana a condescending glance. “I suppose I sounded like you on my first dig. Overexcited, overenthusiastic. You’ll get over it–trust me.” Another smirk. Then, in an emphatic manner, Pat tied a string to a marker in the ground, her sandy hair falling into her face. Pat always looked as if she’d grown impatient halfway through the task of straightening her collar and combing her hair; she was perpetually a bit rumpled and scattered in appearance.

“Nick’s the one who really had it made,” Pat remarked after a moment. “With everything he’d accomplished on Mayan hieroglyphics, he had tenure before he was thirty–can you believe it? At Deacon University, no less. A very exclusive, very pretentious school. Anyway, Nick was on top of it. He was set for life…and then he just tossed it all away. Of course, after what happened to him, I guess it’s understandable.”

Dana gritted her teeth in frustration. Was there no way to shut Pat up? Was there no way to escape the subject of Nick? It was bad enough for Dana to be dwelling on the man, but now Pat was making mysterious comments about him. Dana had to erase a few lines on her page and start over. She resisted for a short while, but then at last she gave in.

“Okay, out with it. Exactly what happened to Nick?”

Pat shrugged. She obviously enjoyed having the inside story, as well as dangling her knowledge before the less informed. “Family tragedy,” she said enigmatically.

Tragedy… Dana thought of the pain she’d seen shadowing Nick’s face now and again. “What was it?” she asked, almost fearful of hearing the answer. But now Pat was hedging.

“His wife left him over it, that much is for sure.”

“Just spit it out, Pat!”

“I’m not aware of all the details,” Pat said defensively. “That wasn’t the point I was making. The fact is, whatever the reason, Nick threw away his career.”

So Pat didn’t really have the inside story–she just liked to pretend that she did. Dana felt like an idiot for taking the bait. She reminded herself firmly that Nick’s private life was none of her business and tried to concentrate once again on the grid sheet in front of her.

Pat went back to her measurements, but nothing seemed to dampen her zeal for conversation. “I’ll bet Jarrett knows more about Nick. Jarrett’s always dropping little hints about people. You know the type of thing–nasty little gibes, backhanded compliments.”

Dana glanced up in surprise. “I’ve never heard him say anything like that. Jarrett strikes me as…courteous. That’s really the only word to describe him.”

“He must be trying to make a good impression,” Pat said shrewdly. “I think he’s sweet on you.”

“Not likely,” Dana muttered. But Jarrett did seem to pay her a lot of attention, helping her with her work, making sure all her questions were answered.

Pat placed another marker in the ground. “Tell the truth, Dana. Jarrett’s a good-looking guy, and there isn’t much entertainment on this island. Can’t you see yourself and him–”

“No.”

“How about one of the others, then?” Pat sat back on her heels; obviously she’d embarked on a subject of real interest. “Okay, there’s Tim. A little wet behind the ears, unfortunately. He must be what–all of twenty?”

“More like eighteen, I’d think.”

“No, he’s been in college too long,” Pat pronounced. “The way I understand it, anthropology is at least his third major–he just can’t make up his mind what to study. He lives off some kind of trust fund, can you believe it? Just a monthly stipend, of course, but still–”

“Pat, I’m trying to draw this damn grid.”

“You’re as curious about the guys as I am,” Pat said imperturbably. “But you’re right, Tim isn’t much of a prospect. As for Nick…well, he is very sexy, with all that brooding disillusionment. Suppressed intensity, that’s Nick. It might be interesting to be around when he stops suppressing–don’t you think?”

Dana made a great effort to concentrate on her graph sheet. She needed to replicate on paper what Pat was marking off on the site. All measurements would be checked for accuracy against their original calculations….

It was hopeless, of course. Dana now had a more vivid image than ever of Nick imprinted on her mind. According to Pat, he was a man who had endured some type of family tragedy, and that only made him seem more…compelling. A man who guarded some deep sorrow behind that gruff exterior….

“The way I understand it, Nick’s ex-wife is completely out of the picture,” Pat went on inexorably. “There’s no other woman in his life that I can tell. In a manner of speaking, he’s available–in spite of that don’t-touch attitude of his.”

Dana tightened her grip on her pencil. “I’m not interested in Nick or anyone else,” she said, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

“You will be. After you’ve been on a dig for a while, you find out things get pretty chummy. It’s the isolation, and all of us being stuck together like this.”

Dana finally gave up on her graph, tossing her clipboard down. “It won’t happen to me,” she declared. “I won’t let it. I’ve had enough of men for a while.”