A crackle came over the walkie-talkie.
“Everything okay? We heard yelling. Over,” Guillermo said.
She cleared her throat and loosened her grip as Ford released her and reached for the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah, we’re fine.”
“All right. Thought we’d check. Over and out.”
Ford avoided eye contact as they resituated themselves.
“Well, that could have been bad,” she said.
“See? I’m not built for adventures,” he said, brushing off his pants again to give himself an opportunity to inspect whether the semi growing underneath them was noticeable. Thank God for all the chunky pockets and flaps on cargo pants.
“All archaeological digs are adventures. Some just have a little more action than others.”
“Coming from someone who chases after thieves and swindles mob bosses, I’d say this is pretty weak sauce.” He tilted his head at her and smiled.
“You’re right. Hence your nickname shall be Dr. Ford Weak Sauce Matthews,” she declared as if she were a royal at high court.
“Badass Mejía and Weak Sauce Matthews. We’re quite the pair.”
Corrie burst out laughing with that damn laugh Ford was coming to love. “Hey, I’d buy that book. The Archaeological Adventures of Badass Mejía and Weak Sauce Matthews. It’s got a nice ring to it,” she said.
“Don’t go marketing it yet. I’d at least like to try to earn a better nickname.”
Well, at least he wasn’t as embarrassed about falling now. She was good at that—taking his thoughts from bad to good. Add it to the list of Corrie’s talents.
From his higher perch atop the rocks, Ford got a better look at their surroundings. Eventually the rocks petered out, but he still couldn’t imagine Chimalli spending his final days here. Perhaps that was the whole point, though. Live out your life in a place where no one would expect to find you.
“Does this look right to you?” he finally asked Corrie.
She winced. “I don’t know. I mean, unless there is another water source up there, I don’t see how they did this every day. Or, I guess, why they would do this every day.”
Damn. She saw it, too.
“We’re almost there, though,” she said, looking at the base of the incline to the bowl. “Might as well check.”
The steep slope also seemed an unlikely everyday trek, but who knew what it looked like from other angles. They started their ascent, digging into the hillside with their hands to pull themselves up. If this ended up being the spot—which was looking more and more doubtful—they’d need to build some temporary stairs because there was no way they could go up and down this hill every day.
“What do you think we’ll find up here?” Ford huffed, trying not to sound too out of breath.
“Well . . . I’m hoping there’s a small mound of dirt and overgrown vegetation, which could be evidence of the remnants of an adobe home. But who knows? If they lived in a stick-and-thatch hut, it might all be gone by now. Destroyed by the weather.”
Soft grunts came from her as she continued to climb, and he had to force himself not to stare at her ass.
“Yeah, that’s what we thought happened at the old place since it was pretty clear there wasn’t going to be an adobe structure.”
Which was true. Their first dig site didn’t contain any remnants of a structure. But it wasn’t until they’d been digging for a month that they’d made that determination.
Ford and Corrie finally reached the top, his heart pounding in anticipation of the ah-ha moment. The interior of the bowl, however, elicited more of a whomp-whomp. Downed trees and dirt that had eroded from the bowl’s edge littered the inside. Besides the lack of any visible evidence of a structure, with the downed trees it would be nearly impossible to dig here without some serious—and expensive—equipment.
Ford might as well have kissed any profit goodbye. But whereas he saw the bowl as a financial disappointment, Corrie seemed to be brokenhearted.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
“Not it?” Ford asked.
“Highly unlikely. I’m not sure it’s even worth going down there to explore.”
“Yeah . . . I don’t want to get a splinter.” He smiled, hoping his awful joke would at least earn him a smile in return.
She snickered and rolled her eyes. “You’re such a dork.”
Score.
“Let’s check with Jon and Memo to see if they found anything,” she then said.
“Jon and who-the-what-now?”
“Memo. It’s Guillermo’s nickname. Didn’t you know that?”
He blinked. No, he didn’t know that.
“Oh, I, uh . . . I forgot.”
The wrinkle in her brow signaled that she knew he was full of it. But he didn’t want to admit that in three months he hadn’t actually gotten to know anyone, whereas she’d already managed to be on nickname basis with the crew.
“Well, here, give me the walkie.” She held out her hand.
“No, I’ve got it. What do you want me to ask?” He pulled the walkie out of his backpack.
“Let me do it.” Her voice was impatient.
But no. This was his job, after all. He was the one in charge.
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and lunged for the walkie as he twisted to keep it away from her. He raised the walkie above his head as she clawed for it. “Just give it to me!”
Flip.
Their wrestling knocked the walkie out of his hands. It flew into the air before arcing down the slope toward the rocks. “What is your problem?” she shouted at him.
“My problem? I’m still in charge here, you know.”
He winced the minute he said the words. That wasn’t him. Well, maybe the old him. The Ford who thought he was hot shit because everything magically worked out for him. All. The. Time.
Want this internship? Sure. How about admission to your dream graduate program? Don’t mind if I do. And what about this Yale fellowship? Why, yes, please. And might as well throw a full-time teaching gig at Yale on top of it.
Easy-peasy.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t earned it. Ford was smart. And charming. And made the right connections. Because that was the way life worked. The more people you knew, the better your luck.
Until those connections dumped your ass and left you fighting tooth and nail to keep what you had left. Not to get ahead. Not to come out on top. Just to maintain.
It didn’t matter that his classes were always the first to fill up during enrollment and that they always had at least a dozen people on the waitlist. Or that he’d been published well over thirty times in the last eight years. Or even that he’d helped secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and grant funding because of his work. No, none of that mattered anymore. Not since Addison Crawley had decided she wanted nothing to do with him.
It was too bad that Dr. Richard Crawley now wanted nothing to do with him anymore, either.
Now he had to work. No, not work. Grind. These last few years he’d worked harder than he’d ever worked before to ensure he kept his job, which only added to the stress of also having to care for his mom.