In Doubt, page 6
We stumble as her feet hit the ground and her body, warm and pliant, falls against mine, sparking every one of my nerves.
“Alright?” I grunt, my arm still locked around her soft middle and refusing to move.
“Yes,” she squeaks, a delicious blush blossoming across the apples of her cheeks. The pupils of her eyes widen, her wet lips part, and her chest rises and falls.
My arm still won’t move and all I can do is stare at her like a damn fool, completely hypnotised by that intoxicating scent, by her beautiful face.
Then, she wriggles free of my gasp, and, quickly, scuttles to the other end of her trench, tugging on her gloves.
I watch her for a moment, before shaking myself out of my damn trance and finding my own gloves.
Without another word and without meeting my eye she squeezes past me in the trench, her scent and her warmth drowning me as she does even though she tries her best to make sure no part of her body connects with mine. She steps to the end of the trench where I’d been working yesterday.
That had been a pleasant surprise. I thought she would renege on our agreement and there’d be an argument about me working that end today. But, no, she’d swapped ends without me even reminding her.
We’re silent again as we work, although my progress is hampered by the glances I throw at her over my shoulder every other goddamn minute. I have the strangest sensation she’s looking at me too, but every time I check, her eyes are locked on her work.
The breeze shifts carrying her scent directly to my nose. I remember Aiden shoved a bandana in my pocket the night before and I tie it around my nose and my mouth, noting my packmate has bathed the material in some kind of perfume. The fucker can be a royal pain in the arse sometimes, but on discovery of that stroke of genius, I could kiss his feet.
“You’re right to be suspicious, you know?” she chirps up when the silence must finally have gotten to her.
“Huh?”
“About the laxatives.”
“You were considering it then.”
“No, I hate to admit but that clever plan hadn’t occurred to me. If you’d kept your mouth shut, you could’ve used it yourself.”
“Sabotage isn’t really my style. I believe in fair play.”
“Right,” she says with a whole heap of sarcasm. “It’s such a fair playing field for rich alphas.”
“You’re rich!” I remind her.
“Not me, my brother. And I’m an omega. Do you know how many teachers and even other pupils have told me I don’t need to worry about studying hard because I can find myself an alpha and be looked after for the rest of my days? Like that’s all I should ever aspire to in life!”
“I told you before. People are arseholes. And they have their own bullshit theories about alphas too.” Including you, I think, but bite my tongue. We had that argument yesterday and it got us nowhere.
“Anyway,” she says with frustration. “Laxatives can backfire.”
I snort at her choice of words and she giggles.
“Go on then,” I tell her. “You’re obviously dying to tell me this story.”
“OK.” She manoeuvres herself into position so she can dig at the ground and talk at the same time. “My brother’s pack is pretty big on pranks when it comes to April’s Fool Day. They’re always trying to ‘outdo’ each other. Last year, Ric convinced me to help him. We made a chocolate cake, ground a load of laxatives and mixed them in. Ric’s chocolate cakes are heavenly, even better than my mum’s.” She pauses, swallowing for a moment. “Anyway, only his packmates were meant to eat it. But Connie–”
“Connie?”
“Their omega. She invited some of her friends round and before we knew it loads of people had eaten that cake and there weren’t enough toilets. It was carnage. Connie made Ric scrub every inch of the house with bleach afterwards and I think he slept on the sofa for a week.”
“She forgave him though?”
“Of course! They all did.” She pauses to tie her shoelace. “Logan shaved off Ric’s eyebrows the year before. He looked permanently shocked for about a month. Connie bought him some fake ones to wear, but he refused.” Her face brightens with affection and she laughs. “It was so funny.”
“That’s what I like about pack life. The feeling of family. I couldn’t go back to living on my own. It was lonely as hell.”
“It was?” she asks, crinkling her brow like she’s attempting to reorder her thoughts.
“Yeah,” I mumble, cursing myself for saying something so prattish.
“Why?”
“Money attracts people, lots of people. It doesn’t mean they’re your friends. Your real friends.”
“How about your family?” she asks. Her caramel eyes are locked my way behind those ridiculously cute glasses.
“My parents divorced several years back. It hasn’t really felt like a family since then. They’re off doing their own things, building their new lives.” And their new families. They barely acknowledge my existence any more.
“That’s sad,” she says softly.
“I suppose you’ve never been lonely,” I mutter defensively, thinking of the way she’s always surrounded by her little posse of friends, thinking of the brother she clearly adores.
“Everyone feels lonely sometimes.”
“I haven’t since I joined my pack.” Our pack may be new. We may be working out how to make this thing between us work. Sometimes getting it wrong, but still learning. Yet I know with every bone in my body it’s the place I belong. Even if sometimes it feels like there is something missing. Something we haven’t quite figured out yet.
I adjust the bandana around my nose. Her scent is becoming denser and denser in this trench. “Anyway that laxative stunt was irresponsible,” I quip. My irritation spiking.
“For such a so-called party animal, you are a serious killjoy.”
“Who said I’m a party animal?”
“The gossip columnist, Jakey.”
Jakey? Is she teasing me?
“Reputations aren’t always fairly earned. You’re the one poisoning innocent people.” Including me, with your goddamn scent.
“It was pretty dumb.” She shrugs. “My brother hasn’t always made the right choices in life. I guess I haven’t either.”
“Yeah,” I mumble, wishing I hadn’t partied so hard at the beginning of the year, wishing I hadn’t earned that reputation, seeing now how it’s tainted her view of me.
The temperature continues to rise, our trench like an oven slowly cooking us. Sweat trickles around my collar bone and down my back, soaking through the base of my shirt. The smell of it mixes with her potent scent, with mine too and with the salty aroma of her sweat. Her skin shines with it, her hair damp around her neck. How the hell does she make even that look good?
A bead of sweat rolls down her neck and pools at her collar bone. I want to reach over, drag her towards me and run my tongue down her throat. I want to unbutton that shirt of hers and run my tongue all over her sweet, little body. Shit!
I twist my body away, focussing with all my might on the sandy earth.
My hands are damp inside the gloves and it soaks through the material, making the trowel’s handle slip in my grip. I hold it tighter, concentrating with determination on every scrape of the earth.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
Watching the layers of dirt strip away, sinking lower into the ground, further back in time.
And then with a clink, my tool hits something hard.
7
Giorgie
“Shit!” I hear him gasp at the same time a loud clunk rings out in our trench. I spin around on my toes.
“What?” I say, unable to help but crawl towards him.
Has he found something?
“My trowel, it hit something hard.” His voice brims with excitement.
“What is it?” I ask, creeping closer still and trying to peer over his shoulder. To my surprise, he moves to one side to let me look. I’d have expected an arsehole like Jake Grantham to keep any find to himself.
“I can’t tell yet. It could be nothing.”
“Or it could be something. Should I go get the professor?”
“No, we should see if it’s actually worth reporting first.” I note his use of the word we, and my mouth drops open in surprise. “I don’t want to look like a tool if it turns out to be an old coke can.”
“True,” I laugh.
He digs his finger into the dirt, attempting to feel the object, get a sense of its size.
I wait, crouching beside him, my heart hammering in anticipation, my gaze flitting between his face and his hands. They are strong hands with long fingers, and I’m reminded of that strange spark when he took my hand.
Not an unpleasant sensation.
“Well?” I ask, impatient to know.
“It feels pretty big,” he says with even more excitement in his voice. His voice is usually full of sarcasm and cynicism and I realise I like this sound of his voice much more. Like it belongs to the real him.
“Not a coke can, then,” I joke.
“No,” he says, turning his head towards me and nearly knocking me backwards with the full force of his smile. The man is so bloody good looking it’s hard to look at him sometimes, especially when he smiles like that. His row of straight teeth framed by plump lips, one side of his cheek dimpling and his eyes even bluer. “Shall we see what it is?” He sounds just like a kid who’s found an early Christmas present.
I can’t help grinning back. “Yes!” I nod.
He explains to me where he thinks the object starts and ends, and then together we scrape at the soil. Even more gently than before.
“Good job, Giorgie,” he says. “I think we’re getting there.” Usually a comment from him like that would set my teeth on edge, but today his compliment warms my belly in a way I try not to examine.
It’s the excitement, that’s all. Of being here, of actually finding something.
Finally, we reach the surface of the object and swap our trowels for brushes, sweeping away the sand and the dust, the edge of whatever lies beneath becoming clearer and clearer with every sweep of our hands.
“Look!” I tell him, as the first hint of colour becomes visible. He stops his own work to come closer to mine, and I notice that warmth of his body again and the depth of his scent. It’s always smelt good to me, much better than I’d ever admit out loud to anyone. Sometimes in class, I’ll suck in mouthfuls of it and let it melt onto my tongue. So rich, like the darkest, bitterest of coffees.
With a feather light touch, he traces his fingertips over the hues.
“Egyptian?” he asks. “From the New Kingdom era?”
“Yes, I think so too.”
“Shit, I can’t believe it.”
“I think we should go and fetch the professor,” I say, feeling strangely sad to break this moment and also a tad jealous that he will gain all the credit for this find. It’s fair enough. He found it.
“I want to uncover some more first,” he says, sweeping sand away with his brush.
“But we were told to fetch the supervisors as soon as we got the slightest hint that we may have found something.”
“They’ll drag us out of this trench quicker than you can say Bob’s your uncle, and dig it up themselves. This was our find. I want to lift it out of the earth.”
Again with the ‘we’? Is he trying to win me over to his way of thinking with flattery?
“I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t want to be fired from this dig.” I stand up, and strip off my gloves. “I’m going to fetch Professor Weaver.”
I step towards the edge of the trench.
“Omega! No!” he barks and automatically every muscle, every tendon, in my body tenses. I freeze in my tracks.
Then my rational brain kicks in and I compute what the hell he just did.
He fucking barked at me.
Jake Grantham and I have exchanged plenty of cross words. But never, ever, has he barked at me.
I spin on my heels, and glare at him so hard it surprises me that my eyes don’t pop out of their sockets.
“Oh no, you didn’t?” I snarl at him, so angry my blood feels like it’s boiling in my veins.
“Didn’t what?” he asks, meeting my pissed off tone with his own.
“Bark at me!” I’m so outraged I’m shaking, my nails pinching my palms as I ball up my fists. I won’t let an alpha do that to me again; control me, play on my subconscious instinct to obey.
I was beginning to think … an inkling that maybe … I’d been wrong about him. This day and a half together is the first time we’ve ever really talked, ever actually spent time in each other’s company. He’s been grumpy, true, but kind, sweet, funny too.
But now it’s clear I’d just been falling under the spell of his charm.
I was right about him all along.
He clambers to his feet, towering above me, and I’m reminded how big he is, how vulnerable I am.
My throat constricts, and suddenly this trench is very small and the air is so hot.
“Bark?” His face pales. “Giorgie, I didn’t–”
“You did,” my voice falters as I say the words and I’m shaking for a different reason now. Fear.
This is why I’ve kept the fuck away from this alpha. I can’t trust him.
I turn around and reach up to the top of the trench, my fingers sinking into the earth as I attempt to pull myself out. My boots scrape against the edge and I hardly move. I slide back down to the bottom. My arms are shaking. The first tear skids down my face.
I want to get away. I need to get away.
“Giorgie,” the alpha says. “I really didn’t mean to snap at you…a bark…it isn’t something I would ever …” His words trail away as I try once again to heave myself out. “Let me help you out.” I can feel him draw closer.
“No!” I cry. “Keep your hands off me. I’ll scream.”
He steps backwards. “Shit!” he mumbles, “Giorgie, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to.”
I kick my toe into the wall of the trench. Soil tumbles to the ground. I kick a second and third time until I have enough of a hole to rest my foot in. This time I can reach higher and I scramble over the edge of the trench, landing on my stomach with a harrumph. I don’t give myself time to recover, swinging my legs and scuttling away.
He doesn’t call out to me. Doesn’t try to convince me not to find the professor. I stumble along the path, the sun fierce on my head even through my hat. My breathing and my pulse calm as I walk, and I inhale the fresh air, driving away that oppressive scent, and wiping the tears from my face.
Did I overreact? My mind can’t help snapping back to that other time. That bark. That scent. That betrayal.
That alpha.
I shake my head and try to focus on the surrounding wonderment. I don’t want one stupid decision, one awful moment in time to colour everything that comes after, to ruin everything else in my life. Yet it always does. It always does.
Professor Weaver is talking to a pair of students in one of the shallower trenches, a flask of water in her hand, that she pauses to drink.
With another deep inhale, I march towards her, fixing a smile on my face.
“Professor Weaver, Jake found something.” He did. It is his find. I’m not taking credit from him, even if he is a giant dickhead.
The professor’s eyes widen with excitement and she’s practically jogging in the direction of the trench before I can say another word. I follow her, finding Jake sitting on the edge of the trench when we arrive, his long legs dangling into the hole.
I thought he’d still be attempting to dig up this treasure on his own, but he clearly hasn’t touched it since I left.
His shoulders are slumped and I avoid his eye as Professor Weaver addresses him.
“What is it?” she asks, slightly breathless.
“We’re not sure. Looks New Kingdom, about so big.” He holds out his hands to indicate the size, then points to the spot where the find lies half exposed.
The professor scrambles straight down into the hole, dropping on her knees and bending her face right up close to the treasure, inspecting it closely.
“Yes, I’d agree with that assessment. The detailing looks like it’s from that era.” She blows gently across the object’s surface. “Congratulations, Mr Grantham. This is a superb find.”
“It was a joint effort. Miss Martinelli and I found it together.” My gaze flicks to his, but he isn’t looking my way.
“Well in that case, congratulations Giorgie. Can you run along and find Professor Lichenstein? He’ll need to see this immediately. Jake jump back down here and help me remove more of the sand.”
I shift my weight to start walking away. Disappointment spreading through my body.
“I’ll go.” Jake jumps to his feet. “Do you need a hand down?” he mumbles to the ground and not me.
“No,” I tell him, dropping to my bottom and sliding down in a haphazard method. When I look up, he’s already gone.
Jake is right, as soon as the more senior archaeologists arrive, we’re pushed to one side, resigned to watch from the side lines. We don’t talk to one another, keeping a good foot between us as we sit huddled in the shade. Instead, we listen to the excited chatter of the more senior researchers and my indignation grows. They could’ve let us help or included us more. They could even have left us to lift the find from the ground ourselves. But it seems the engravings and pictures on the artefact are causing much excitement.
We crane our necks, catching glimpses of figures dancing across the decorated surface.
Eventually we’re ushered away and slump back to the main tent.
“They could’ve at least let us stay and watch,” I mumble.
“It’s a cut throat profession,” Jake answers pointedly, as if that explains the rudeness and unfairness of it. “Everyone wants to grab the accolade and the prize for themselves.”
“It shouldn’t be.” I fold my arms across my chest. “More is always achieved through cooperation and teamwork.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” he says quietly as if he’s feeling his way around me. To be honest, I’m doing the same. I still feel unsettled from the incident earlier. “Some of the biggest breakthroughs in science and technology have come about in war time, when mankind was literally competing to stay alive.”
