Birthright

copy.”
    “Thanks a lot,” Lana replied. “That’s going to really help me get him to ask me out again.”
    “If he blows you off because of me, then he’s not worth your time anyway.”
    “Easy for you to say.” Lana fell into step as Callie started back toward the dig. “You’ve got a guy.”
    “I do not.”
    “Oh, please.”
    “If you’re talking about Graystone, you’re way off. That’s over, that’s done.”
    “Pig’s eye.”
    Callie stopped, tipped down her sunglasses to stare over the rims into Lana’s face. “Is that a legal term?”
    “I’d be happy to look up the Latin translation so it sounds more official. I like you,” she added, and shifted her shoulder bag as they began to walk again. “So we’ll call itan honest observation, with just a touch of harmless envy. He’s gorgeous.”
    “Yeah, he’s got looks.” She shifted her attention to where he crouched with Sonya over a section drawing. “Jake and I are associates, and we’re working on tolerating each other enough so we can be in the same room without coming to blows.”
    “You seemed to be doing fine in that area the other night. I know when a man’s looking at a woman as if he’d like to slurp her up in one big gulp—hence the envy. I’d catch my husband looking at me that way sometimes. It’s something you don’t forget, and I saw it when Jake looked at you.”
    How did she explain it? she wondered as she watched Jake give Sonya an absent pat on the shoulder before he rose. She watched him stride toward the spoil, sling Ty up, hang him upside down until the kid nearly busted a gut laughing.
    He was as good with kids as he was with women, she mused. Then, annoyed with herself, she admitted he was just good with people. Period.
    “We’ve got a primal thing. Sex was—well, we were damn good at it. We didn’t seem to be much good for each other outside the sack.”
    “Yet you told him about this.”
    Callie tapped the papers against her thigh as they walked. “He caught me at a vulnerable moment. Plus you can trust Jake with a confidence. He won’t go blabbing your business around. And he’s a demon on details. Never misses a trick.”
    H e missed with Ronald Dolan. The man was dug in and dug deep. He’d tried every angle he could think of during their late-afternoon meeting. First the united male front, with a touch of amusement over Callie’s performance that morning.
    She’d fry his balls for breakfast if she knew he’dapologized for her, but he needed to get back on some level footing with Dolan. For the good of the project.
    Then he tried charm, the deity of science, patience, humor. Nothing budged Dolan from the trench he’d decided to stand in.
    “Mr. Dolan, the fact is the County Planning Commission put a hold on your development, and for good reason.”
    “A few weeks and that ends. Meanwhile I’ve got a bunch of people out there tearing up my property.”
    “A dig of this nature is very systematic and organized.”
    Dolan snorted, kicked back in his desk chair. “I come out there, I see a bunch of damn holes. Lot of college kids pissing around, probably smoking dope and God knows. And you’re digging up bodies, hauling them off.”
    “Remains are treated with both care and respect. The study of prehistoric remains is vital to the project.”
    “Not my project. And a lot of people around here don’t like the idea of you messing with graves. All we’ve got is your word they’re thousands of years old.”
    “There are conclusive tests—”
    “Nothing conclusive about science.” Dolan made a fist, then jabbed out with his index finger as if shooting a gun. “Changes its mind all the time. Hell, you scientists can’t make up your mind when you figure the world began. And you talk to my wife’s old man, he’ll give you plenty of reasons why the whole evolution business is bunk.” He gave his suspenders a snap. “Can’t say I disagree.”
    “We could spend the next few hours debating evolution versus creationism, but it wouldn’t solve our current problem. Whatever side you fall on, there is solid evidence that a Neolithic village existed along Antietam Creek. The bones, the artifacts and ecofacts so far excavated and dated substantiate that.”
    “Doesn’t change the fact whenever those bodies were put there, they weren’t asking to be dug up and put under some microscope. Ought to have enough respect to let the dead rest in peace, that’s my feeling on it.”
    “If