To my surprise, even Mike took a shovel, and I swear I almost lost an hour watching him work. “Okay,” he said during the afternoon break. “While I need this workout, archaeology’s way more exciting when it’s Indiana Jones destroying temples.”
I laughed. “Yeah, he always managed to stay alarmingly clean. But, if I’d been him, I totally would have dug in Ireland.”
He screwed up his forehead and waited for the punch line.
“Because there are no snakes in Ireland!” I laughed and did a little dance at my cleverness.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Come on, that was funny! Indy had a phobia and St. Patrick drove the snakes out. I’m hilarious!”
He couldn’t quite contain his grin, though he tried really hard. “No. You’re in a good mood.”
I flung open my arms. “Are you bothered by my joyous glee? My exuberance?” I stepped right up to him, raising my eyes to his steady warm ones. “Just think. Standing below us even now could be a trove of torques and pins. Within a day, we could be decked out like Schliemann’s wife.”
His brow creased. “Who?”
I laughed. “Mid nineteenth century archaeologist. Discovered ‘Troy’ and this totally ridiculous amount of gold and then his wife tried it all on. Not quite as shoddy as Indy, but close.” I took off my hat and saucered it toward my notebook and backpack, and combed my hair out over my shoulders. “‘’Course, my favorite faux-archaeologist is Sir Arthur Evans. I like to sing about him to the tune of Henry Higgins. He’s the one who built stuff at Knossos on Crete, which was dumb, but it got a lot of tourists and their money, so maybe not so bad.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about but damn, you’re giddy.”
I threw my arms around him. “Thank you,” I said to his chest. “I know you didn’t want this. But thank you.”
His arms around me were warm and strong and steady. He smelled like earth and grass. I pulled back slightly, but he held me in place, looking down with the strangest expression, puzzlement and wonder and brightness all at once.
Behind us, slamming doors and the honking of a car horn broke through the woven sounds of Kilkarten. I pulled away, taking in the three figures headed toward us.
I swung back toward Mike. “How do I look?”
“What?”
Happiness bubbled up through my chest and spread through my limbs until even my fingertips and toes tingled. I redid my ponytail and then pulled it over my left shoulder. “Am I a disaster? Hair standing straight up or dirt on my face?”
He raised his brows. “You’re usually a disaster, Natalie Sullivan.”
I nodded and headed for the parking lot. “Great. Let’s go!”
“Nat!” Jeremy Anderson hailed me with a wide wave of his arm, the lead point in the trio of archaeologists. I grinned and waved back. He looked just like the last time I’d seen him—tall and narrow, like a string bean, with rectangle glasses and slightly unruly hair.
“Jeremy!” I jogged the last few steps to him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
He pulled me into a hug. “Is that tan still from Ecuador? How was Ecuador?”
“It was novel not having people laugh at me all the time.” We exchanged wry grins. “No, it was great. Very impressive. But it wasn’t Ivernis.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Thanks for doing all of this.”
“Not a problem!” I rocked back on my heels, pushing hair out of my face. I couldn’t stop grinning at him, and my cheeks hurt from sheer happiness. We had worked together for years—I had chosen my undergrad in order to study with him, and Ivernis was as much his baby as mine. No one had believed in us. Yet here we were, on the brink of discovery, and I could taste the anticipation of success.
He indicated the people on either side of him. “These are Professors Grace Ahearn and Duncan Grady. This is my student Natalie Sullivan—my former student. She’s brilliant.”
I laughed and reached out to meet each of their handshakes firmly. “So good to have you both here.”
Grace tossed an almost unnoticed glance at Duncan. Shit. Cultural insensitivity. “Grand to be here.”
In my own fecking country.
Oh, well. I turned back to Jeremy. “How have you been? How was the trip over? Any news in the manuscripts?”
He laughed and tweaked the side of his glasses in a familiar gesture. “All good. And you? All settled with the contract?”
“Yeah.” I tossed a glance back at Mike. His sisters had gathered at each shoulder. “Come on, let me introduce them to you.”
The O’Connors didn’t move as I brought the archaeologists over. Anna looked properly bored, while Lauren had on her frozen business face, but it was Mike’s expression that actually surprised me. I could have sworn a storm gathered in his eyes and dislike in his jawline before he smoothed it all away. Did he resent Jeremy because he’d been the original instigator of the excavation? I didn’t want Jeremy to know about all the drama beneath the signing. Good grad students didn’t have time for drama.
I moved a little closer to Jeremy, feeling protective under the stone-cold glares of the flame-headed siblings. “This is Dr. Jeremy Anderson, and Dr. Grace Ahearn and Dr. Duncan Grady. Dr. Anderson is the one who inspired me to work on Irish archaeology in the first place.”
Mike’s brows rose almost imperceptibly, but I had become a master of Michael deciphering, and that did not look favorable. I swallowed. “And these are the O’Connors. The, uh, new ones.”
Lauren reached out, business like, and shook hands, while Anna muttered hello and whipped out her cell so she could watch without having to participate. Mike followed a half second after his sister, wrapping his hand around Jeremy’s. “Hey.”
They were about the same height, though Mike was broader, and his muscles came from throwing people around, not dirt. Jeremy had a thinner face, and currently wore a grin as he shook Mike’s hand. “Running back for the Leopards, huh?”
Mike’s hand fell away. His shoulders relaxed, his eyes lidded and that false, charming grin came out. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Too bad you guys lost so quickly this season. I rooted for you.”
Mike’s smile didn’t change, but I recognized the tension in the set of his eyes. “Hey, I’m always rooting for me.”
Jeremy waved a hand around. “You excited for the excavation?”
Mike smile widened. “Something like that.”
I cleared my throat. “Have you guys checked in at the inn yet? I thought I’d show you around and then we’d grab dinner in the village. But there’s no rush if you want to get settled in first.”
Jeremy smiled. “Maybe a tour first before dinner.”
I spent the next few hours pointing out the planned unit locations, and explaining what the resistivity specialist had said. Grace and Duncan had been working on Iron Age sites for longer than I had been alive. It was both intimidating, flattering, and depressing—the last because I realized very quickly into my tour that all three of them regarded me as an underling—a useful one, but certainly not the leader of the project. They had just as many ideas as I had, and as we talked it quickly became clear whose plans would trump whose.
And it was fine that mine were at the bottom of the pile. Really. I was twenty-four and they were in their fifties. Well. Jeremy was only thirty-seven.
But we were the money and they were the artists.
Which kind of sucked.
But I got it. I had to pay my dues. Besides, if this became a big deal, then I could just stay here. And if they liked me, they probably had a ton of connections that would be fantastic and helpful and everything I needed.
I took the professors to O’Malley’s restaurant for dinner with all the usual suspects—Kate and Mike, tentatively made up; Lauren and Paul, sniping as usual; Maggie and Anna, both with a similar disdainful attitude. One big, distorted family.