Page 86 of Field Rules

ChapterTwenty-Eight

After a long day excavating at the House of Heracles, Rick’s energy was flagging. Not only had his team uncovered the eastern wall of the villa, but they’d also unearthed a bounty of artifacts, including fragments of gold jewelry, broken pieces of a large terra-cotta plaque, numerous utensils, and a cache of mosaic tiles. Impressive finds, to be sure, but they’d taken hours to process.

Though Rick was eager to return to camp once the workday ended, he wouldn’t get the chance for another few hours. Instead, the students and staff were expected to attend a site presentation at Polemi, a village twenty minutes north of Paphos, where a team from Yale was excavating an Iron Age settlement. Missing the presentation wasn’t an option, since the speaker was none other than Dr. Lidia Bouras, Grant’s crush from the Department of Antiquities.

By the time Rick’s team finished their lab work, they were the last ones left at the excavation site. Rick hustled them out to the Kia. “Everyone ready? We need to get cranking if we’re going to make it to Polemi by five.”

“Why are we going to another site?” Alisha grumbled. “Haven’t we done enough archaeology for one day?”

Rick had to agree, especially since this visit was just another opportunity for Grant to schmooze. “Dr. Bouras is an expert on Iron Age sites in Cyprus, so she agreed to meet with the crew working at Polemi and give them a presentation on her research. Grant thought we’d find the talk highly informative. As a bonus, we’ll get to see another field school in action.”

“We’re meeting with a bunch of archaeological rivals?” TJ said. “I’ll bet you ten bucks their conditions aren’t as hard-core as ours.”

Alisha scoffed. “They probably have tents.”

“They might even have beds,” TJ said. “How cushy is that? We could take them in a fight.”

Rick was about to tell TJ to cool it with the trash talk when Marisol reached over the back seat and tapped him on the shoulder. “Can you wait another minute? I left my pack at the sorting table.”

“We can get it after if you want,” he said. “Remind me on the way back.”

“Please? My phone’s in there. If my parents try to call me and can’t get through, they’ll worry.”

More than once, she’d mentioned how overprotective they were. He handed her the keys. “Fine. Grab it and lock up after. But hurry. If we’re late, Grant will have my head. I’d rather not get reamed out in front of a rival gang of archaeologists.”

As they waited, TJ and Alisha argued over the best weapons to use in an archaeological rumble. Assuming such a thing existed.

Rick rubbed his forehead as the first inkling of a headache bloomed in the back of his brain. He wished they could go back to camp. For the past few days, he’d been trying to catch Olivia alone so he could tell her about the offer he’d gotten in Turkey. He’d considered mentioning it during their day off at the Aphrodite Gardens Resort, but he hadn’t wanted to share the news with anyone else until he talked to Olivia privately. Each time he saw the message from Dr. Kaplan in his inbox, guilt crashed over him. He needed to make a plan, but he wanted to discuss it with her first.

For once in his life, he didn’t know if he could cut and run. Not if it meant losing Olivia again. But he wasn’t sure she felt the same way.

Marisol hopped back in the car, red-faced and breathless. “All set. Sorry if we’re late.”

“Nah, we can make it if I speed,” he said. “TJ, keep an eye out for cops.”

As he pulled away from the House of Heracles, Marisol let out a cry. “Good thing I got my phone. My mom sent me a bunch of texts about my Tía Carmen’s surgery.”

“Is she okay?” he asked.

“She’s fine. But now I can respond right away, and she won’t think I got lost or bitten by a scorpion.”

“For the record, there are no scorpions in this part of Cyprus,” TJ said. “Though if you went up to the Troodos Mountains, you might find a few.”

“She meant it as an example,” Alisha said. “She wasn’t talking about a literalscorpion.”

Rick tuned them out as he picked up speed, swerving around the twisty roads. When they arrived, he fought back a surge of uneasiness at the sight of the other cars lined up at the base of the hill. He hoped they could sneak in without drawing attention to themselves. He hurried his team past the excavation site, mindful of the scattered buckets and dig tools. Four sections of the site were roped off, with rectangular trenches dug into the earth.

The collective group was already seated atop the hill under a grove of trees, with the “rival” field school at the front. Rick’s team made their way to the back and sat down quickly. Fortunately for them, Grant was still conferring with Dr. Bouras and a bearded guy in his forties, whom Rick assumed was the dig director.

Was Grant aware that Dr. Bouras was Roth’s current hookup? Probably not, otherwise he wouldn’t have such a doting look on his face.

Whatever. If Grant didn’t know, Rick wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

TJ nudged him. “Do you know who that guy is? It’s Dr. Tom Ferrante. He’s from Yale, which means this is an Ivy League dig. We’re doomed.”

Alisha snickered. “You realize we’re not going to throw down with his crew, right? Aren’t you all about making connections? After the lecture, you should go talk to him.”

“Besides, you’re getting your doctorate from Harvard,” Marisol said. “I thought that was more prestigious than Yale.”

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