Page 81 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“What timeline?”

“Well, she wants me to stay here for a little bit and assemble a team. I mean, I’m going to have to go back with you obviously to get my car and all of that. But she wants me to return with more resources. More people. The museum is now putting funding behind this dig. And my budget has increased significantly. That means I can offer more money to you.”

“Are you going to be staying in a room?”

“We’ll probably make a camp. In the same general area that we’ve been in.”

“You don’t need to pay for that. If we’re getting a museum out of the deal, and we’re going to be getting revenue from you all leasing the land, then we don’t need you to pay to continue to dig and make that more of a possibility.”

He was trying to wrap his head around all the logistics. But a lot was happening all at once.

“Yeah. Of course. That’s very generous of you. It’s very, very generous.”

“No wonder Haley wanted on that land. She really did know you were onto something.”

“She did. I was. I am. It’s incredible. It’s far beyond my wildest dreams. I thought I was just…ticking a box, really. I thought I would find some fossils and they would be good… I thought that I would find some new things, but I didn’t know that it would be this. It’s the part of science that is kind of magic. Because you can know so much, and there’s still that alchemy that happens at the moment of discovery. I am aware that that’s a poor metaphor to use.”

“I think this is all incredible. You’re incredible.”

“Well, because of you. Teamwork makes the dream work.” Her face turned scarlet. “Oh, please don’t hold it against me that I said that.”

“I’ll try not to. But that was pretty cringe.”

“Well, I guess I’m a little bit cringe.”

“You definitely are. Affectionately.”

“But I would like to take you out to dinner to celebrate.”

He took her to a fancy place filled with local offerings near the Pearl District, and held her hand while they walked through the brightly lit streets. She seemed comfortable here. And it was a wonderful thing to be in her world. To see where she lived, to see where she worked, to get a picture of her life, and he would be forever grateful that he had it. Because he would always have this image in his mind. Of Ernestine in her lovely life, that beautiful museum, that special office that she had wanted so badly. That she deserved.

The drive back to her town house was quick and he was relieved, because he just needed her. This was coming to an end. It was coming to an end sooner than either of them had wanted, because she was going to go home and pack all of her things up—

No. She wasn’t going home. She was going back to the glass cabin, which she did not live in, to pack up her things and come back home. To come back to this place that had room for Ernestine, that was entirely hers.

It was her habitat.

As soon as they entered the town house, he kissed her. With total reckless abandon. He kissed her hard and deep, until he had her pressed against the one spot on the wall that didn’t have pictures or boxes of rocks hanging on it. Kissed her until neither of them could breathe. Until they couldn’t think. He moved his hands over her body, and everything felt just so much more desperate than it ever had. He protected them both, then pushed her skirt up over her hips and swept her underwear to the side as he thrust inside her, taking her hard against the wall.

He lost himself. In this, in her, in them. In everything.

If it was ending, then it would go out with a bang. If it was ending, then he would make it count. Would make his lessons thorough, would make it so she didn’t forget. Not ever.

Then he carried her up the stairs, and laid her down in bed, lay down beside her. “I want you to tell me everything about your discovery. Everything. All the minute details that you think nobody cares about, I want you to tell me.”

She smiled, her expression still kind of dazed from the sex. “Why?”

“Because I’m celebrating you. Because I care.” Because he wanted to know all these things. So that he could explain to people that he knew this incredible woman who had discovered all of this. This amazing creature who brought new things to light in a world full of darkness, of people who made the world around them dumber, and not…this. Yeah, he wanted that.

“That is the kindest thing anyone has ever asked me to do.”

“I want everything,” he said, looking at her intensely. “Every, little, detail.”

They did stay up all night. Mainly talking about different paleontological discoveries she’d made, or was interested in. But there was also sex. It was the strangest, most wonderful night of his life. And the morning came too soon. He was tanked up on coffee to drive them back to Clear Lake. And he didn’t want to think about how soon they would be separated.

Chapter Seventeen

Ernestine fell flat. Packing everything up in the glass cabin was just…hard. She was going to stay another night, and then get a start out the next morning. She would be back in a week and a half. But it wouldn’t be the same. She would be back with a team. She would be working on the dig site much more intensely. There were now expectations, and everything that went with that.