Temple’s brows shot up. “Is that your way of telling me that I took too much of C.H.’s attention? How you must’ve rejoiced when I left.”
The memory of lying in her bed while silent tears streamed down her face came rushing back. Temple’s departure had ripped her tender fourteen-year-old heart in two, but she refused to let him know that she cared so much—then. “I meant it was perfectly natural for Papa to begin taking me with him on all his scientific expeditions, Temple, nothing more.”
“Connie—you may have been given a gentleman’s education by C.H. and all of his colleagues, but taking you to primitive locations around the world was hardly natural. The field is certainly no place for a growing girl—and it is no place for you to be now.” He stared at her with eyes full of ice and contempt. “Go home, Connie. Save us all a lot of trouble and just…go… home.”
If her netting had not been in place Temple would have seen her own brows rising in astonishment at his measured words. “I will not go home. So you may as well quit asking—or rather ordering me to do so.”
He kicked a loose stone with the toe of his boot. It was difficult to put what he was feeling into words. Images of Connie as a child assaulted him each time he looked away from the veiled and swathed form of the determined person before him. “C.H. should’ve taken better care of you—he should have made sure you had an opportunity to be a…” His sentence trailed off.
Constance felt the heat climbing into her face. “A lady? Is that the word you are searching for?” She placed her hands on her hips and waited for his answer. He finally glanced up at her and she saw a new expression in his face. Eyes that were normally hard and cynical as agate now held something more elusive than the fragrance that wafted around him.
“No, Connie.” He stared straight at her netting and for a moment she wondered if he could see her face. “I was going to say that you should have spent your youth at home. C.H. never should have dragged you across the world looking for bits of bone and broken rocks. It wasn’t right. And it wasn’t right for him to send you to do his battles now.”
He gave her one last look, then he turned and walked away. She watched him and wondered why she felt the ridiculous urge to call him back.
Mr. Hughes had ingeniously used the wagon and three pieces of canvas to erect Constance a shelter for the night. He stood back while she examined it.
“Thank you, Mr. Hughes, it is wonderful, but I really could have managed with a bedroll. I have slept in the open many times.”
“It was nothing, miss. I want you to be comfortable.” He continued to test the strength of the canvas while he talked. Constance saw him smile each time she gave her approval to some small detail.
“The wind comes up of an evening, miss, and it turns cold, even this time of year. I wouldn’t want you to take a chill.”
“You are very considerate.” She smiled and pushed her spectacles up with one finger.
Peter found himself staring at Miss Cadwallender in amazement. She had removed her netting and the fulllength duster that she had worn over her traveling dress. The glow of the campfire cast a rosy blush across her smooth cheeks and the thick lustrous hair piled carelessly on top of her head. The small rectangular spectacles reflected crimson flames each time she moved her head to look at the simple lean-to.
“I have had to erect all manner of contrivances for shelter while traveling with my father, but this is really most remarkable.”
Constance smiled and touched the canvas in an appreciative manner and he felt a burst of pride. At that moment Temple walked around the canvas lean-to.
“Top-notch, Hughes. I couldn’t have done better myself. It reminds me of the camp I set up last year in the mountains of South America.”
Miss Cadwallender stiffened and Peter saw the expression in her eyes change. He moved back into the shadows and busied himself while the two glared at each other.
Constance felt her good mood evaporate while she glared at Temple. The South American trip he mentioned had been only last summer and she had read more about it than she ever would have wished while the newspapers followed his progress. “Would that have been the camp where the American heiress tried to snare you in her butterfly net?” She knew her voice was a touch too sweet and a bit too sharp to be sincere—and she saw by the way Temple’s brow shot up that he knew it also.
A wicked grin began to spread across his face and she regretted mentioning it.
“Constance Honoria” I do believe you have been reading on dits in the New York society columns. What would your father say about your choice of reading material?” Temple wrapped his long fingers around the suspenders hooked to the buttons on the waistband of his trousers. His cocky grin grew wider while he watched her. She wished she could simply disappear, but Temple’s gaze held her as firmly as any leprechaun in a child’s fable.
Temple couldn’t help but grin at Connie. While he watched, her eyes widened behind her glasses, but suddenly she inhaled deeply and pulled herself up straighter than an aspen’s trunk.
“Well, Mr. Parish—” her voice was composed even if her hands were trembling “—I imagine he would say it was the one place neither of us ever expected to find your name printed.”
The smile faded from Temple’s face and his mouth became a thin line. His craggy jaw hardened while a knot formed in her belly.
“Touché.” Temple inclined his head and released his grip on his suspenders. “That barb certainly found its mark.”
Too late Constance realized time had not dulled the raw pain he felt about his background. She regretted her comment almost as much as her reference to his South American trip, but she could not apologize.
He took a step toward her. She forced herself to meet his gaze without backing up so much as an inch, but in order to do that she had to bend her head back in a most uncomfortable position.
“You should become some deserving professor’s wife. Then only one man would have to suffer the rough side of your tongue.”
She stared unblinking into his flinty eyes. She pushed her spectacles up on the bridge of her nose and tried to tell herself that he could not be that tall and intimidating.
“Actually, Mr. Parish, only one man’s suffering the rough side of my tongue, as you put it.” Constance narrowed her gaze and watched him clamp his lips into a hard taut line.
Peter stood at the corner of the shelter and watched the couple staring at each other like a pair of bighorn rams during the rut. Neither one was willing to give an inch. But while they glared at each other, Peter sensed a power between them. The air felt charged, as if a great booming storm were about to come sweeping down from Canada.
Then he knew.
Temple Parish and Constance Cadwallender cared for each other. But if either one of them knew it, or admitted it to themselves, they were not about to admit it to the other. Peter caught himself smiling while he shook his head in amazement.
It was going to be a long and interesting summer in Montana’s badlands. And whether they knew it or not, the young competitors had a lot more at stake than a bunch of bones.
An unfamiliar sound brought Constance awake with a start. She saw nothing but darkness inside the leanto. She turned her head and discovered that the flap to her enclosure