Birthright

great.” She yanked open the door and glared at Jake. “Doesn’t anyone have something better to do than bug me?”
    She spun away from him, put the phone to her ear. “Yes, what?”
    “Just wondered where you were.” Jake’s voice came in stereo, through her ear and at her back. She turned around to see him leaning on the doorjamb with his own cell phone at his ear, rain drumming at his back. “I was just in the restaurant, thought I’d pass on some news. You didn’t answer the phone in here, so I tried your cell.”
    “Why the hell are you still talking to me on the phone when you’re standing right there?”
    “Why are you?”
    She cast a long-suffering look at the ceiling, tossed her phone on the bed. “What news?”
    He stepped in, closed the door. And when he just kept walking toward her, she held up a hand like a traffic cop at an intersection. She knew that gleam in his eyes. “Uh-uh.”
    “You’re all wet. You know how crazy it makes me when you’re all wet.”
    “You’re going to feel really crazy after I bean you with this lamp. Step back, Graystone. I’m not in the mood for games.”
    “You look like you could use a good game.”
    “That’s a stupid euphemism, and why do men always figure a woman’s in a bad mood because she needs sex?”
    “Hope springs eternal?” he suggested and was pleased to see humor light her eyes, however briefly.
    “What do you want, other than sex?”
    “Everything else comes in a poor second, but—” He broke off, flopped down on her bed, crossed his feet at the ankles. “I’ve just dipped into the local gossip pool. Frieda, my waitress, tells me Dolan’s already heard about today’s find. He went ballistic—a word she passed on from hernephew who happens to work for Dolan and was there when he got the news.”
    It was interesting to hear about a drama separate from her own, but she shrugged for form. “So what?”
    “So he’s ranting about taking us to court. Claiming we’re making it all up—that we’re in league with the preservation people and this whole thing is some ploy to screw his development. You got any beer in here?”
    “No, I don’t have any beer in here. He can rant and rave all he wants. The bones are there.”
    “Another rumor going around—”
    “You’re just full of them, aren’t you?”
    “People are saying the site’s cursed. You know, the graves of the ancients disturbed by mad scientists.”
    Amused now, she picked up a Bic, touched the flame to the wick of her travel candle. “Not the whole mummy deal again?”
    “Just another variation. We’re releasing ancient forces and powers beyond our ken and blah blah.” He tracked her with his eyes as she headed into the bathroom for a towel, rubbed it over her hair as she moved restlessly around the room. “This one, according to Frieda, has some legs. You know how people lap that shit up.”
    “So we have a cursed site, a pissed-off developer and need to have the Native American consult supervise our work.”
    She pulled a dry shirt out of the dresser and, to his deep disappointment, walked back into the bathroom to strip off the damp one, pull on the fresh. “We’re still short-handed, and the field’s going to be a mud pit tomorrow thanks to this rain.”
    He angled his head to see if he could catch a glimpse of her half naked in the mirror. A man was entitled to small pleasures. “That about covers it.”
    She came back in, dug out a bottle of water. Paced.
    No one, Jake thought, could ever accuse Callie Dunbrook of being a restful woman.
    “Pretty good deal, all in all,” she decided and grinned. “I love this job.”
    “Where’d you take off to?”
    The grin died instantly. “Personal business.”
    He tapped the oversized shoe box at the foot of the bed with his toe. “Buying footwear? You gone female on me, Dunbrook?”
    “I didn’t go shopping.” She grabbed the box, then on a sigh set it down on the dresser. “Letters. Suzanne Cullen wrote them to her daughter every year on her birthday. Jesus, Jake. Jesus, if you could’ve seen her face when I went to see her, to talk to her. All that need , and I don’t know what to do with it.”
    “I’d’ve gone with you.”
    She only shook her head. “Hard enough without adding someone else to the mix. Which happened anyway just as I was leaving. Her son came in, and he is not happy about all this. Blasted me, like I’d just pushed myself off in that damn stroller all those years ago to