Linda Castle (7 page)

“Temple? Is there anything wrong?” Constance called out but he didn’t stop.

“No, Connie, everything is just fine—just fine.” He shook his head in disgust. What in blue blazes was the matter with him? He had gotten up early and gone to Connie’s camp on the pretext of offering her assistance with her cooking fires, but when he found her gone…something inside of him had just snapped.

He slowed his furious pace and dragged his fingers through his hair. Connie had told him that she had traveled all over the world with C.H., not to mention the fact that ten years had passed since he had needed to watch out for her. So why had his gut twisted with fear when he had found her gone?

“Old habits die hard,” he grumbled bitterly.

He hated to admit it, but he knew exactly what was the matter with him.

He still felt responsible for Connie. When C.H. had found him beaten and hungry in Central Park and brought him home, little Connie had accepted him without question. To show his appreciation, he had appointed himself her guardian. And no matter how furious he was at her now, nothing she ever did could wipe away the feeling of gratitude he had felt in her simple acceptance.

Eighteen years had gone by since he first laid eyes on her as a little girl, but when he really forced himself to admit the truth, he realized little had changed. Temple felt obligated to keep Connie safe, and that made him angry with himself—because she was his rival. He couldn’t allow himself to go soft where she was concerned, not with Montague’s endowment and a chance to humble C.H. hanging in the balance. And yet, when it came to Connie, he knew he could never be completely ruthless.

It was going to be difficult, but he was going to have to make sure Connie did not claim more of him than she already had.

T
emple tossed another shovelful of earth into the growing pile. He rammed the nose of the shovel into the damp earth and hopped into the sizable hole he had created within the half-mile-wide gully between his and Connie’s campsites.

“What have we here?” Temple knelt in the depression and knocked away some loose earth with his hand. He leaned closer and blew away some more dirt. A sly smile plucked at the corners of his mouth. The vague outline, something only a professional would recognize, was a giant vertebra encased within the sandy soil.

“Miss Cadwallender, you should hurry with your sketching because I am already on the trail of the prize.” Temple rubbed appreciative fingers around the rough edges of the ancient bone. He glanced up over his shoulder at the spot where Connie had been sitting all morning.

She was gone.

He stood up and scanned the horizon with concern gripping him. A flutter of yellow fabric brought relief flooding through him. She was climbing the natural
stair to her own camp. A ragged sigh escaped him. It was only natural that he keep a close watch on his competitor, to know if she found any sign of bones. After all, he couldn’t let her accidentally discover something without his knowing about it. That was the only reason he was so anxious to know where she was. There was
no
other reason, he told himself.

Temple climbed from the hole, satisfied that she was out of harm’s way for at least a while. She was probably going to go rest in her tent. She was probably exhausted from the rigors of their primitive camp. It was ridiculous to think he had any interest whatsoever in her beyond the fact that she was his rival. In his eyes she would forever be a child and C.H.’s little girl—two facts that assured his total disinterest.

Constance drank the last of her tepid coffee, tossed out the dregs and opened one trunk. She bent nearly double to dig all the way to the bottom. The tiny carving Temple had made caught her eye when she was burrowing into mounds of cloth and supplies. She touched it lightly with her fingertips and admired the simple details. The braids, the pinafore, a perfect little girl’s mode of dress.

“A very little girl,” she muttered. She pushed aside the statue and pulled out a sturdy if somewhat ancient cane pole. A dour Scot named Hamish had taught her to fish with the prized cane. As she picked it up she realized a considerable length of time had elapsed since she had used the pole. She wondered if her old mentor would be disappointed in her skills—if they had grown rusty from disuse.

She flicked her wrist, going through the motions of casting before she ever left her tent. Not satisfied with
the feel of her single imaginary attempt, she threaded the line, put a hook on it and tried again. This time she flicked her hand, feeling long unused muscles stretch and bend as she sent the hook and line floating backward over her head.

“What the—watch out—-!” The alarm in Temple’s voice brought her wheeling around, wide-eyed. He was standing at the entrance of her tent with her Ashing hook firmly embedded in the crown of his hat Several coils of line had somehow looped across his face, over the bridge of his nose and dangled down his cheek in a mass of knots.

Constance frowned at him. “Temple, you have snarled my line.” She had been patient with him, but this was really too much. She could not believe his clumsiness. He had continued to belittle her skills and yet he was so awkward that he kept getting into difficulty. First he sliced upon his finger and now this. And, she thought sourly, he had an annoying habit of showing up uninvited. She could almost believe it was intentional—done to annoy her.

She walked nearer to him, balancing her pole in one hand while she surveyed the damage he had done to her hook. With an impatient shake of her head, she placed her pole on the floor of the tent and reached up to start the laborious task of removing the snarled line from his hat.

He flinched as if reluctant to have her touch him.

“Do be still, Temple, you will ruin my hook if you don’t stop fidgeting.”

Temple’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped open in a manner that reminded her of a large-mouth bass.

“Ruin your hook? Ruin your
hook?”
he repeated
with no small amount of disbelief in his voice. “More likely I’ll end up with a ruined hat.”

Temple was incredulous. Connie had snared him, yet she was accusing
him
of fouling
her
line. She was the silliest girl he had ever known and no matter how he vowed to ignore her she kept managing to involve him in her foolishness.

“I narrowly avoided having that hook put in my eye—you could’ve blinded me with that blasted thing. The least you could do is apologize.”

The fragrance of her sun-kissed hair wafted around his head. Each time she reached up to take hold of a knot, the front of her body softly collided with his. Her shiny hair, combined with the odor of fresh air and her own clean scent, made his vitals tighten.

Temple clamped his lips together. This was not the way he intended to behave around her. He fought to rein in his wild response while equal portions of shame and dread coursed through him. How on earth could his body be responding in such a way?

“I don’t believe I heard you correctly. Apologize? To you?” She arched one brow. “I do believe you are in
my
tent. If apologies are due then I think you should be the one offering.”

He opened his mouth to reply, then changed his mind. She had the damnedest habit of blaming him for her failings. And he was not about to explain his presence at her tent.

“Really, Temple, don’t scowl at me like that.” She slanted one disapproving glance at him. “I don’t know what to make of you. First you leap upon me at the lake, now you skulk around, come uninvited into my tent where you snarl my fishing line, and you have the brass to accuse me of trying to disable you.” She
halted her efforts and peered up at him from behind her rectangle lenses. “Are you quite sure you’ve not gotten too much sun?”

Temple swallowed hard and tried not to notice the golden flecks around the irises of her eyes. “I did not leap upon you at the lake,” he said sullenly. “I only grabbed you.”

“Grabbed—leaped—what is the difference? What were you doing out there? You never did explain.” She resumed her efforts to free him from the hook and continued speaking, not waiting to see if he offered any explanation. “As I recall, you did come upon me without warning. What possessed you to do such a thing?” she asked.

He was able to scan her face while she concentrated on the line. Her lashes were so long and thick they actually grazed the inside of her lenses.

“I…was…worried about you,” he admitted grudgingly.

Once again she paused and stared at him in total disbelief. “Why on earth would you be worried about me?” She lifted one section of fishing line away from his hat and stared up at him intently. “There is no danger out here—there is only you and me for miles and miles.”

A chill ran up his spine as the truth of her statement settled upon him like icy water. There was only the two of them—alone. And while he was fighting to ignore the sight and scent of her, a small voice in his head pointed out that Connie had come a long way from being a child.

He had to stay angry, he realized with a start. He had to keep his guard up. His future, his reputation—as
sullied and tarnished as it was—depended upon his winning this prize.

“Temple?” Her voice wrenched his thoughts back. “Why on earth would you be worried about me?”

“Under the circumstances, Constance, it is a perfectly reasonable reaction. I couldn’t find you in your tent—though Lord knows, as big as it is, it would be easy to lose a person inside here,” Temple quipped. “As a sane and rational man, I was concerned that some harm had come to you out here in the wilderness.” Temple realized with a jolt that he had said far more than he should have, far more than he’d intended, but as usual she caused his control to slip.

He observed a smile tickling the corners of her lips and her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.

“I see,” she said softly.

Temple wished he had the same clarity of vision she seemed to possess, because he did not see. Try as he might, he could find no reasonable explanation for his actions. The only thing he should be interested in was digging up bones, yet he was fretting over Connie at every turn.

“There.” Constance removed the last of the fishing line and stepped back. “You are free.”

She pushed the spectacles up on the bridge of her nose and smiled mischievously at him. “I am going to go catch a fish for my dinner, and while I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, you are more than welcome to come along—if it will relieve you of any unnecessary worry.”

Without waiting for a response, she put her huge hat on her head, gathered her pole and line and stepped outside the tent. Then she marched off toward the lake without so much as a backwardglance. Temple stared
at the voluminous outline of her day coat swaying from side to side while he tried to sort out his feelings. The bones were waiting for him—all he had to do was go dig them up. He could be out of here before Connie even broke ground.

“Damn and double damn,” he swore. He kicked a nearby stone but all he accomplished by that action was making his toe hurt. He looked up and saw Connie growing smaller and smaller as she walked away in the direction of Lake Nowhere.

Damn it, he was concerned about her. Any number of possible calamities raced through his mind. Everything from snakebite to bear attack loomed before him. Images of little Connie in peril flitted through his head.

With one last string of oaths about his stupidity and her stubbornness, Temple started walking. He couldn’t let her go wandering off alone—even if it meant losing an entire afternoon of digging.

By the time Temple reached the river, Connie was sitting comfortably on the bank. She had removed the canvas day coat. The ample folds of her dress were draped around her ankles and the pole was propped between her knees. Relentless sunshine beat down on the top of her hat. The long sleeves of her buttercolored dress had been rolled up. She looked quite snug—and very capable.

It annoyed him to the core of his soul.

“Connie…”

“Shhh…sit down and be quiet, before you scare the fish,” she ordered without even looking in his direction.

That annoyed him more.

Temple fixed the most intimidating frown he could manage on his face and cleared his throat gruffly, but
Connie never even glanced his way. He realized she wasn’t going to, so he grudgingly plopped down on the gravelly earth.

The spring wind blew across the surface of the lake and raised little ripples along the water. A blue-green dragonfly landed on the end of Connie’s pole, but other than those natural occurrences it was silent. Temple could actually hear the sound of his own heartbeat and the cry of a hawk far, far away.

Once again the reminder of too many dark nights, alone and cold in the park, assaulted him. He needed to talk, needed to hear another voice.

“What ever happened to Herbert Pollock?” Temple blurted out in a voice that shattered the stillness.

Connie turned to glare at him over the top of her spectacles. Her dusky brown eyes were wide with displeasure.

“Shhh,” she hissed. She turned back toward the pole. Just when Temple decided she had no intentions of answering his question, she spoke. “Do you mean Professor Andrew Pollock?”

“No. I mean young Herbert Pollock, the professor’s son.” Temple picked a stem of bear grass and started shredding it. Now that Connie had answered, he wished he had not asked the question he had carried for ten years. “Of course I suppose nobody calls him young Herbert now, do they?”

“I…don’t know. I haven’t heard his name mentioned for some time.” Connie frowned. He could see her searching the recesses of her mind for information. “Let me think. Oh yes, I believe he came into some money—an inheritance or some sort of bequest, a while back. He is a prominent merchant with a string of stores in New York.” Connie reached up and
tweaked the line with one slender finger. Ripples appeared on the silvery water moving out in ever widening circles toward the shore.

Temple snorted. “I rather imagine that did not sit well with his father.”

“Really?” Connie asked absently while she adjusted her pole. “Why would that be?”

Temple shrugged. “Professor Pollock had made no secret of the fact he was grooming his son to follow in his footsteps. I would’ve thought he would be the head of the scientific department by now.”

Connie gazed at Temple as if he had lost all his powers of reason. He wished he was a clairvoyant so he might read what was going on beyond those inscrutable eyes of hers.

“Pollock? Are we talking about the same Herbert Pollock?” She searched her memory, but the only thing she could recall about Herbert Pollock was that he had rather narrow shoulders and a sallow complexion, and he stammered a lot. But then again he may have only appeared to be awkward and puny when measured against Temple’s youthful brawn—something that Constance had done quite often.

“I didn’t realize any of that. Where did you ever get such a notion?” She asked.

With Connie’s velvety brown eyes gazing at him over the reflective surface of her lenses, he suddenly found himself tongue-tied. It was not a reaction he expected or liked. Temple turned away and looked out at the shimmering water. He swallowed hard and forced his voice to respond.

“Ten years ago Pollock made it plain he wasn’t going to let a street rat like me stand in his way, or thwart his plan for his son’s future.”

“Why would he say such a thing? How could you have had any effect on Herbert?”

“Perhaps Andrew Pollock and Herbert saw me as a rival.”

Constance’s brow shot upward. The idea that Temple could ever have considered someone like Herbert Pollock a rival took her breath away. Poor Herbert was so outmatched by Temple in every way the entire notion was laughable. She was about to tell him how absurd she found the idea, when the sudden dip of her pole brought her gaze back to the lake.