But that didn’t make it much easier. Everyone else seemed to know where they fit at Castle Craigmorrigan. While Emma…
She’d have to carve out her own place. She’d done it before. Fastening a smile onto her face, she strolled toward the soccer game. Only then did she notice Davey Harrison on the fringe of the game. He looked as out of place as she felt and was stealing wistful glances at a sweet-faced redhead who sat near the blond, homecoming-queen type the other players were obviously trying to impress.
Smack!
A tanned surfer dude sent the ball flying Davey’s way. Before he could react, it ricocheted off his shoulder and went careening across the bumpy ground toward Emma. Instinctively, she trapped it with her foot, then wished she’d left the blasted ball alone. Davey’s face washed red with embarrassment.
For an instant the group of guys gawked at Emma, awkward as a bunch of seventh-graders peering across the gym floor at their first dance. The girls were almost as awestruck by Emma as the boys. But both sets of students recovered in a hurry.
“Hey, Harrison, go sit down with the girls,” Surfer Dude teased. “Let the lady play.”
“No thanks.” Emma scooped the ball up and lobbed it back into the game. The girls cast Emma green looks as the boys started to play to a different audience.
Only Homecoming Hell Queen seemed not to mind, a superior smirk on her lips. But then, if the angle of her gaze was any hint, she had her sights set far higher. Jared sat in a canvas folding chair outside his tent, jotting notes on some kind of pad.
Emma fought a pang of something that couldn’t be jealousy. So a gorgeous grad student wanted to crawl into bed with her site director? So what? That couldn’t be anything new. With his smoldering sexuality, the man probably sampled a new lover every dig season while students lined up hoping to be the flavor of the month.
They were sure to be disappointed. Emma had barely known the man for twenty-four hours and she already knew he had too much integrity to sleep with a student, graduate or otherwise.
Irritated with herself almost as much as with the blonde, Emma crossed to the one person she figured felt more out of place than she did at the moment. Davey.
“Is your boss starving me on purpose to get me ready for the whole siege scenario or do you think I could con him out of a little bread and water?”
“Didn’t you like what was on your tray?” Davey asked, concerned.
“What tray?”
Davey’s brow furrowed. “You mean you haven’t had anything to eat?”
“No.”
“But I heard Jared tell Veronica to take some food up to you at lunchtime.” Davey glared at the blonde, who had grudgingly delivered her a tray the night before. “What’s the deal, Veronica?”
Veronica stroked her hand from her throat to her annoyingly perky breasts, stealing a glance at Jared through thick lashes, her voice just a little loud to make sure the archaeologist could hear her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just got so wrapped up in my work I forgot you were even here.”
Sure you did, sweetheart, Emma thought. Like you’d forget a boil on your ass.
“God, Veronica, I can’t believe you!” Davey exclaimed, outraged. “You sure remembered to eat lunch yourself.”
“Jared asked me to sit with him so we could discuss the finds I made,” Veronica said, staking claim as certainly as if she’d stuck a piece of tape across Jared’s chest that read keep off. “We were so engrossed that—”
Emma’s sleeve growled.
“My God, is that a dog?” Veronica asked in the tone most people would use to inquire about a poisonous snake.
Captain stuck his nose out of the folds of cloth and blinked at Veronica with drunken-sailor eyes. He showed his miniature vampire teeth, his whole body rumbling. Great judge of character, Emma thought.
“Does Jared know you have that thing here?” Veronica demanded, saccharine sweetness not quite hiding a healthy dose of bitchy triumph. “There’s no way he’s going to tolerate having a dog around the site.”
“Actually, Jared is the one who rescued Captain from the middle of a dogfight, then stitched him up,” Emma replied.
The soccer ball bounded away, but nobody chased it. The students all but twisted their heads right off their necks looking from the dog to Jared to Veronica.
Jared was listening. Emma could sense it, like the prickle of tiny hairs on her nape just before an electrical storm hit. But she doubted anyone else suspected what he was doing. The big Scotsman acted so absorbed in his work an explosion wouldn’t budge his attention.
“I really hate to be a bother, Davey,” Emma said, “but if you could point me in the direction of some food before Captain here faints dead away?”
Emma turned toward one of the picnic tables, grimacing as a ray from the setting sun blazed in her eyes. Davey scrambled to help, grabbing the edge of the table.
“You sit down over here, Ms. McDaniel. I’ll move this so the sun won’t be in your eyes.” He started to drag the table toward the shade of a tree. Surfer Dude elbowed him out of the way.
“Don’t hurt yourself, Einstein. Let the men take care of it.”
She knew exactly what the kid was doing, that pointed banter guys fell into when showing off for girls. The only defense: firing an even sharper smart-aleck answer right back. Unfortunately Davey’s arsenal of sarcasm wasn’t nearly a match for this crew.
Emma hated the humiliation in Davey’s eyes, worse still the resignation. She remembered having that same sinking feeling in her stomach so many times in her own teenage years. Davey didn’t even bother to argue. How could he, considering the obvious physical difference between him and the other guys?
All lanky arms and legs, Davey looked as awkward as a newborn colt, his shoulders not yet filled out, his face still a bit too soft, his eyes just a little too sensitive.
Davey stepped back, as if wishing he could disappear, but Emma blocked his path, shining her brightest smile on the embarrassed kid.
“They’re right, Davey,” she said. “You shouldn’t be moving furniture.”
The jocks elbowed each other in pleasure. Emma could feel every eye on her.
“Leave the menial tasks to the servants,” she told Davey with a wave of her hand. “You’ve already done enough today, rescuing me on the rocks.”
The ringleader of the soccer players swore as he thumped the table leg down right on one of his size-eleven Adidas. “Einstein rescued you?” he asked in disbelief.
“If it weren’t for Davey, God only knows what might have happened. I could have fallen right off the cliff.” Emma curtseyed to Davey and smiled gratefully up into his eyes. “Would you do me the honor of dining with me, sir knight?”
The poor kid looked like he was ready to faint. Emma shifted Captain’s weight into her left arm, then linked her other with Davey’s. She gave the boy an encouraging squeeze. “Please?”
“I’d be honored, my lady,” Davey finally said.
“I have so many questions about the castle I’m sure you can answer.”
Surfer Dude groaned. “Einstein’s already got a swelled head. Don’t make him worse.”
Veronica flashed a long-suffering look in Jared’s direction. “Children, children. Shall we just get out a ruler and settle this once and for all? You know Davey is smarter than the rest of us, Sean.”
Davey gaped as if she’d spoken a foreign language. Emma ground her teeth, angry that Veronica would use the vulnerable young man in an effort