Grave Danger (49 page)
Authors: Rachel Grant
Tags: #mystery, #romantic suspense, #historic town, #stalking, #archaeology, #Native American, #history
“That’s an excellent plan, Lee,” Janice said. “You were right to get an internship to see if you’re making the right choice. You’ll get some good experience with our cell tower projects. They’re a perfect merge of environmental and historic preservation law.”
“What do you do on the cell tower projects?” he asked.
“We make sure new towers are built without harming historic properties or the environment,” Janice replied. “Erica, bright girl that she is, developed a database for managing the projects. Fill in the proper blanks in the database, and voilà, the report is generated.”
“I’m not good with databases.” His laugh turned into an embarrassed cough.
“How not good?” Erica asked.
“I accidentally deleted the last one I worked on.”
A wave of horror passed through her. She couldn’t let him near the database.
“I’m good with Word, though,” he said. “Well, the old version. Before they made all those dumb changes.”
“Erica can teach you all you need to know.” Janice smiled at her with motherly pride. “You’ll be sharing her office. I’ve already put in a request for a computer for you.”
“I don’t need a computer. I brought my own.”
Janice paused. “You need to let tech support check it out and load the network firewall.”
“I left it with them before I came here.”
“Excellent. Erica can take you to human resources to get an ID badge. Tomorrow you’ll both go to the National Archives. You’re lucky, Lee. Research at the archives is a rare event and a good learning experience.”
Erica stood, clutching the project file. “I want to go to the Thermo-Con house today—to take pictures.”
“Take Lee with you.” Janice waved them out of the room.
She had her project. At last. She held the file to her chest as she walked down the hall, Lee at her side. Feeling a bubble of hope, she laughed with relief.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
She stopped and turned to face him. He was at least a foot taller than she was. His sea-green eyes studied her. She felt his raw sex appeal and cursed him for planting that seed in the exercise room. Now it was hard to view him any other way. He was a coworker, her intern, and she’d given up on even making friends with coworkers, let alone developing a deeper involvement. Her grad school friends had all judged her harshly based on half-truths and outright lies. She wouldn’t open herself up to that kind of rejection again.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hello?”
Embarrassed, she voiced the concern that nagged at her. “You aren’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Someone younger. How old are you, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“It does if you think you’re too old to do the lowly intern work.”
“I’m twenty-five. As I said, I’ve changed my major a few times.”
From his bearing, she’d have guessed he was closer to thirty, maybe even past that number. He must have been born confident. “You’ve been in college, what, seven years?”
He nodded.
“You could have three degrees by now.” She had a Master’s degree she couldn’t use and was barely scraping by, while he’d enjoyed seven years as an
undergrad
at freaking
Columbia
.
“I like school. What’s the rush to graduate?”
Spoiled didn’t begin to describe him.
The man she’d met in the exercise room hadn’t struck her as lazy. Even now he had an appealing energy which buzzed about him. What a waste.
His gaze moved down her body, and she shifted uncomfortably. She wished she didn’t find him handsome. Attraction made her stupid.
He tilted his head and murmured, “This would be easier if you weren’t so beautiful.”
Oh. My.
She couldn’t afford to be stupid right now.
Time to put him in his place. “You were a stranger back in the workout room, but now I’m your supervisor and expect to be treated with respect. If you can’t do that, I can order you to attend human resources’ sensitivity training.”
She turned on her heel and headed toward her office. Their office.
Damn.
She reached the stuffy, windowless room and flung open the door. Today wasn’t going at all as planned.
She pointed to the large lab table. “You can work there.” After dropping her purse on her desk, she booted up her computer, ignoring the man who hovered in her peripheral vision, waiting for her to share with him everything she’d learned about archaeology through hard work and expensive schooling.
She clicked on the Talon & Drake e-mail program, seeking distraction. He was spoiled, and she was jealous. She’d get over it; she just needed one minute to simmer.
She scanned the list of new e-mails as they downloaded from the server. One caught her eye, and her pique was forgotten. She placed her hands on either side of her keyboard to steady herself as her vision narrowed and cold sweat dotted her forehead.
Jake Novak had contacted her. The subject line was blank. She sank into her seat and clicked on the e-mail with trembling fingers.
His message appeared in stark black and white:
You have a good job at Talon & Drake, but I can take it away.
For more information on CONCRETE EVIDENCE, including bonus content, please visit my website at
www.Rachel-Grant.net
.
A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR
Four-time Golden Heart® finalist Rachel Grant worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for storylines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, survey and excavation of many prehistoric Native American sites in the Pacific Northwest, researching an historic concrete house in Virginia, and mapping a seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children and can be found on the web at
www.Rachel-Grant.net
.
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