Never the Twain (16 page)

"I could get used to this," Genny said into the mike. The gentle chill of early morning, the
bright blue sky, and a view all the way to the edge of the world all contributed to her sense of well
being.

Rock's voice was raspy in her ears. "Wait till you see these hills in the spring, along about
the middle of April."

His arm brushed hers as he pointed to the left. If the world bore any relationship to her
maps, they were approaching Skeleton Gulch. She saw the flash of wing that was a circling eagle. It
rode the wind over the gray-green plateau, then stooped into a weightless plummet after its
unsuspecting prey.

Rock guided the helicopter into a more gradual descent and they landed at the head of
Skeleton Gulch.

The hike into the Shinbone didn't seem as far or as steep this morning. They walked
quickly, in silent accord, comfortable with one another. If she weren't so worried about Sophie, she
would be totally content. Four days, and they hadn't heard a word. If her aunt didn't show up soon,
Genny was going to have to call New Hampshire. Mom might know where Sophie had disappeared
to.

Rock stopped her with an arm blocking the trail. Without a word, he shoved her back into
an alcove in the rock wall, held a finger to his lips. Mystified, Genny stood quietly as he slipped
ahead, edging his way along the wall, looking for all the world like a spy on a mission.

Silence. She waited for what seemed an hour, wondering what had alarmed him. A rattler?
No, for he wouldn't have told her to be quiet if it had just been a snake on the trail. A rabid
cow?

Did cows get rabies?

She heard the rumble of masculine voices, echoing between the vertical walls. A woman's
high laugh. More rumbles, then silence. Soon the rattle of a stone indicated someone--or
something--was coming up the trail toward her hiding place. Surely it was Rock. He hadn't met a bear or a
cougar; a human voice had answered him.

She couldn't prevent a surge of fear, despite telling herself that her imagination was
running amok. When Rock reappeared, she clung to him.

"Sorry, darlin'," he said after kissing her thoroughly. "I just wanted to make sure it was your
archaeologists in there. We get some pretty dangerous characters out here sometimes."

Anger replaced her fear. What did he think she was, helpless? She'd been on the District
two months now and they hadn't been entirely uneventful. She'd managed to get herself out of a
couple of tight situations without assistance. What right did he have to assume she needed his
protection?

About to yell at Rock, Genny clamped her mouth shut. She had to pull herself together.
Her personal problems--and her increasing worry over a missing aunt--had no place in the
field.

For a brief moment she wished the BLM pilot had brought her in to meet Frank and
Elaine. Using the Bureau helicopter might not have been as much fun, but it would have been a lot
less hazardous to her emotional equilibrium. She was a professional and it was time she remembered
it.

"I never expected to find anyone but Frank and Elaine," she said, trying to freeze his ego
with her voice.

Rock snorted. "If I'd seen these two anywhere else, I'd never have guessed they were your
field people." He glared, as if it were her fault he'd assumed the Ainsworths were a couple of
desperados and acted accordingly.

In spite of residual irritation, she had to smile at Rock's instinctive chivalry, his immediate
action to protect her. Genny might deplore the old fashioned, masculine reflex, but she had to admit
to a tingle of pleasure. She'd never been treated like a fragile treasure before. The Forsythe men
treated their women as if they hadn't a brain in their heads, but they didn't cherish them.

"What a place!" Elaine waved and called from the mouth of the Shinbone. Her long braid
was half undone and her clothing was dusty, for all it was yawningly early in the morning.

"Spectacular, isn't it?" Entering the grassy-floored gulch, Genny saw that the Ainsworths
had pitched their dome tent where it would get the brief morning sun. A clothesline held underwear
and socks. Up at the head of the gulch, three mules and a horse grazed, their saddles piled on a huge
boulder. "How's it going?"

"I haven't started yet," Frank said. His braid, as long as his wife's, was still tidy, but his
salt-and-pepper beard looked as if a crow had nested in it. "One of us has to do the mundane chores like
setting up camp."

"Did you have any trouble getting in?"

"No. The flagging led us right to it. I haven't been down to the next canyon--Armbone,
wasn't it?"

"It's a gulch," Genny said, involuntarily, and caught the gleam of Rock's grin. "Yes,
Armbone Gulch is where I found the petroglyphs. If you've got time, I can show you." She started
toward the mouth of Shinbone, but Rock's call halted her headlong rush.

"Hold on a minute, little lady. We've got a pretty full schedule today."

"I can find it, Genny," Frank added. "I've got a map, and you left flagging to mark it, didn't
you?"

Blushing, Genny nodded. She had never seen such beautiful carvings as the petroglyphs in
Armbone and she knew Frank would be as enthusiastic as she was. She'd been looking forward to
sharing them with him, to hearing his exclamations of wonder when he first saw them. But Rock
was right. Their schedule was too full for her to take time to show Frank around. He was competent
and experienced. She could trust him and Elaine to do a good job.

"Look at this, Genny." Elaine thrust a piece of greenish rock into her hand.

She looked. Turned it over and looked at the other side. Puzzled, she raised an eyebrow at
the petite geologist. "I don't see anything."

"No, and that's what's interesting. From everything I'd read, I'd expected to find leaf fossils
in all strata of the greenish tuff." She took back the shard, shaking her head. "I've looked at maybe a
hundred fragments like this, and haven't seen a single one."

"Does that mean I get my reservoir?" Rock said.

"That means I need to do a lot more work," Elaine said. "I need to discover why there are
no plant fossils here."

"Shit!" Rock visibly controlled his anger. "Well, don't let us delay you, Ms. Ainsworth. The
sooner you're done with your investigations, the sooner my cows'll have their water."

"Rock, there's no guarantee..." Genny began.

"Yeah, I know. If there's even one itsy bitsy fossil here, my cows'll go thirsty." He turned
away. "I'll wait for you up on top. Don't take too long."

"Spoiled brat," she muttered. For an educated man, he was certainly insensitive to the need
to preserve archaeological resources. And she was getting darned tired of his habit of stalking off
whenever he didn't get his way.

Oh, well. She still had a job to do. "How long do you think it'll take before you have some
results for me, Elaine?"

"That depends. If I don't find anything in the talus," she pointed at the large and small
piles of fallen rock that ringed the meadow, "I can probably say with some assurance that there's
nothing to find. But if I do, well, you know."

Yes, Genny knew. She and Elaine had worked together two years ago, mapping the extent
of a rich plant fossil site in Wyoming. As a result of their investigation, the area had been close to all
development.

She hoped she wouldn't have to give Rock news like that. "Do what you can," she said.
"And Frank, if you don't mind, I'd like you to start here, in Shinbone. I don't want to keep Rock
waiting any longer than necessary."

"Sure, Genny." Frank spread his copies of her large-scale maps across the tent. "This is the
most likely spot for petroglyphs," he said, pointing at the narrow upper end of the gulch, "so I
thought I'd climb up there this afternoon. I should have some answers for you in a few days."

"Okay, when do you want to meet?"

"Week from Thursday? Four o'clock at the trailhead?"

"Right. Now, let me show you just where I think you'll find some more." She pointed
along Skeleton Gulch, leading his eyes to the mouth of Toebone. "I didn't get in there, but there's a
wall with a ledge at just the right height."

Half an hour later Frank reminded her that Rock was waiting.

"Oh, no! I forgot." Quickly Genny gathered her maps and notes together. "Now, have you
got everything you need?"

"Relax, Gen. We've done this before." Frank's grin was understanding.

"Of course you have. That's why I wanted you to do this job for me." Frank and Elaine
Ainsworth were the best field team she'd ever met. Archaeologist and geologist--a perfect
combination. It would be too bad when they finished their doctoral research and were no longer
available for short-term projects like this one. "I'll see you Thursday. Bye, Elaine."

Elaine waved from her precarious position at the top of a steep talus slope, but she never
looked up from the rocks she was sorting.

The rest of the day was a dead loss, as far as Rock was concerned. Genny was so busy
being an archaeologist that she seemed to forget she was a woman.

She had apologized for taking so long in the Shinbone, but he could tell she hadn't really
been sorry. Or maybe she was sorry she inconvenienced him, but not sorry she'd stayed so long with
her friends.

Well, at least the Ainsworths were Westerners. They'd have a realistic view of the relative
value of a bunch of leaf fossils and rock carvings versus cattle.

Wouldn't they? He surely did wish he knew how long he'd have to wait for a decision on
his waterhole.

"D'you still want to go to that site up by Monument Rock?" he asked Genny as he guided
the helicopter across Rattlesnake Creek. He was gettin' damn tired of being nothing but her taxi
driver. They'd dropped in to five sites so far today, each one as boring as the next. Once she'd
showed him some black smudges that were supposed to be smoke paintings; another time her
enthusiasm had been for a falling-down old cabin that Rock knew for a fact had been a line shack
for the Circle H back in the Twenties.

The last site had been a kitchen midden he'd found, up above Three Forks. That had really
turned her on.

Good thing something did. She'd surely paid little enough notice to him today.

"Are you still angry?"

The soft words in his earphones startled him. "Huh?" Hell, he wasn't even sure which way
was up today.

"I asked if you were still angry."

A quick glance showed she was looking straight ahead, but her teeth were worrying her
bottom lip.

Damnation! That's what he should be doing right now, instead of playing taxi driver. He
should be kissing the dickens out of her, so she'd forget about rock carvings and rickety log cabins
and million-year-old leaves. "Naw. I'm not angry." Nope. He was mad as hell, but he wasn't
angry.

"So what's the matter with you? You've been about as charming as a hyena with a
toothache." He heard laughter in her voice.

"Yeah, well, you've been about as friendly as a wounded moose."

"That's unfair! I was perfectly cordial until you got into a snit because I took so long down
in Shinbone Gulch."

"A snit? I got in a snit? What about you? It wasn't me who got bent all out of shape when I
was reminded that we had a lot of ground to cover today."

"I did not!"

"You sure did...what the hell?" She was laughing at him. Her full throated laughter filled his
ears and sent shivers down his spine.

"Oh, Rock, listen to us. We sound like children, fighting over who threw the ball through
the window."

He bristled, until their recent words replayed themselves in his mind. Darned if she wasn't
right. They had sounded like a couple of kids having a spat. And she did have a job to do. She wasn't
here just for fun, like he was. He squeezed her knee. "Let's start over. Do you still want to go to the
Monument Rock site today?"

"Yes, please, if it won't make you too late getting home," she answered politely.

"No sweat." He aimed the 'copter north by northwest. The later they got done, the more
likely she was to agree to spend the night at his ranch, instead of wanting to go back in to
Vale.

"No, Rock, I can't," she told him later that afternoon, at the ranch. "I've got to go back to
Vale."

"Why?"

His arms were holding her flush against his unyielding chest and thighs, his mouth was
hovering just fractions of an inch above hers. It took all of Genny's willpower to remember that she
had responsibilities. Her job. Her cat.

Aunt Sophie, who was still missing.

"I'm going up to Baker tomorrow with Dan. We're leaving early." His breath was warm
and moist on her face.

"I can have you in town right after sunrise."

"No. I can't." To her own ears, she sounded as desperate as she felt. "I want to but I
can't."

"I'll come home with you, then." Before she could answer, he took her mouth, devoured it,
sapping her of intelligence and will.

He was swollen and hard against her belly. Genny couldn't help herself as she rocked
against him, exulting in her power to arouse. She opened to his tongue, meeting it with purpose and
enthusiasm. His taste suffused her mouth, his scent surrounded her and filled her nostrils. She
wanted to fuse with him, to take him into herself until they were one being.

When he finally released her, after his lips had explored her cheeks, tasted her earlobes, and
lingered at the hollow behind her ear, Genny slipped free of his arms. She couldn't think when he
was touching her.

The sun cast their shadows long across the sagebrush-covered slope. She looked across the
empty landscape, saw how its rugged topography and arid climate had shaped the man who held her.
It was a hard land, and he was a hard man. It was a lonely land, as he was a lonely man. It offered
haven and grandeur to those strong enough to meet it on its own terms. To meet it and the man it
shaped.