Chapter Ten

“Oh, no,” Caroline protested, shoving away from the sanctuary of his embrace. “It’s my bed, and you’ve recovered sufficiently to sleep on the floor. Or if you’d prefer, you can join Jasper in the stable.”

“How would it look to the professor if C. P. Hubbard slept with a mule while his wife slumbered alone in the cabin?”

She smiled sweetly. “I can always tell him you’ve contracted an unmentionable disease.”

Nick laughed. “The floor it is.”

The next morning, she awoke early to the tantalizing aroma of bacon. After throwing on some clothes, she poked her head around the sheet she’d tacked up across the opening to the sleeping alcove. Now that he’d recovered, she felt obliged to maintain at least a modicum of modesty. She spotted Nick spearing slices from the skillet with a long-handled fork. “You’re cooking.”

He turned, utensil in hand. “I wanted to prove I’m not completely helpless.”

“I never thought you were. I just didn’t expect cooking to be one of your skills.” She sniffed as she crossed the room. The bacon smelled perfect, hot and greasy but without the acrid scent of burned fat.

“I learned aboard ship, although, to be honest, we didn’t have bacon very often. I wasn’t a great hand in the galley, but my grandfather insisted I work my way up by learning every job before he entrusted me with a ship of my own.”

Caroline picked up a still-sizzling slice but quickly dropped it back on the plate and blew on her fingers to cool them. “He sounds like a wise man.”

“He was. I miss him.” Nick stared at the floor, his expression pensive.

She felt a stab of envy. Nick didn’t understand how fortunate he was. No one in her family had ever taken her scientific interests seriously. “You were lucky to have had a grandfather who believed in you enough to force you to develop your abilities.”

“It didn’t always feel like that when I was swabbing the deck or painting the gunwales.”

“And you still carry his watch?”

He nodded. “It’s in my saddlebag.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go back to sea after Lucinda’s betrayal.”

“When I arrived home, Lucinda’s marriage to Nathaniel wasn’t the only piece of unwelcome news. I learned my grandfather had died a few weeks earlier, and my father had sold the shipping company.”

“I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. Arthur might dismiss her dreams, but Nick’s father had cut his off at the knees.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “He thought he’d eliminated all my options. I found it necessary to create new ones.”

Admiration tempered by apprehension shimmered through her. She’d hate to be the one standing in the way of that iron determination. “I’m glad you did. Otherwise we’d never have met, and I might have had to bribe Pete Newsome from the livery stable to play the part of C. P. Hubbard.” Caroline’s heart lifted when Nick’s fierce expression relaxed at the image of the cantankerous old man in the role of her husband.

She reached for the bacon again, hoping it was cool enough to eat. It was. “Mmm. This is delicious.” She crunched the crispy slice then licked her fingers in total disregard for proper manners. Mrs. O’Rourke would faint if she saw her. “Your brother was wrong about you being irresponsible, you know. Your grandfather would be proud.”

He raised a skeptical brow. “I’m not sure you know me well enough to have an informed opinion. We’ll see how you feel in a week.”

“You came back to help me instead of taking off for the Amazon,” she pointed out.

“I wouldn’t read too much into that. You know how fond I am of Jasper. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him yet.”

Caroline sputtered then coughed. Nick rushed to her side and thumped her back. “Water,” she gasped with one hand splayed against her chest.

He dipped a tin cup in the barrel by the door and handed it to her. She took several swallows before she could speak again.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine”,” she croaked. “I’m just not used to gentlemen ranking me second to a mule.” She wiped her eyes.

“You have to admit, he is charming.”

“I’ll let you tell him while you load the supplies.”

“At your service.” He made a sweeping gesture of doffing an imaginary hat.

Following her directions, he saddled Jasper, taking care to avoid the mule’s snapping teeth.

“You must have forgotten to tell him how charming he is,” Caroline said.

“I did, but it didn’t seem to help,” Nick grumbled. “This beast needs to learn how to accept a compliment.”

“Give him these.” She held out two carrots. “They’re like catnip for mules.”

“He’ll bite my hand off,” he protested, but he took the carrots. Holding them by the greens, he poked them toward Jasper, who lunged forward and gobbled both in a single gulp.

“Son of a—” Nick jumped back and shook his hand. “I take it back. You’re not charming. You’re nothing but a mercenary whose affections can be bought with wilted produce.”

Jasper grinned, showing big, muley teeth.

“That’s enough, you two,” Caroline said. “We need to get to work before it’s too hot.”

Nick loaded the tools, a basket of food, and extra canteens on the travois before mounting his horse.

“You look relieved,” she observed.

He settled his new hat with a firm hand. “When I said I would never ride that mule again, I meant it.”

Caroline took advantage of her captive audience on the ride to the dig site to continue her lecture on excavation techniques and the Jurassic period. Each time she paused to take a breath, her stomach tightened. How would she ever be able to pack enough instruction into two days to pull off this masquerade?

For the next several hours, they toiled to expose the vertebrae she had discovered three days earlier. Rather than dig them up, she’d decided to leave the bones in place to demonstrate the geologic strata and the richness of the fossil bed to Professor Marsh. That way, he could join in the excitement of the actual excavation if he wished.

By late afternoon, Nick’s quick grasp of the basics began to feed her nascent hope. By the following evening, the possibility of success taunted her.

When they returned to the cabin, Caroline whipped up a batch of skillet biscuits and used the morning’s bacon drippings to make gravy, but she was too anxious to eat. Leaving Nick to his dinner, she stepped outside and gazed at the deep purple mountains silhouetted by the glow of the setting sun. A fine shiver raced through her limbs. Her future lay buried in that rugged ridge.

“Don’t worry,” a deep voice said from behind her shoulder.

She didn’t turn but wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the evening chill. Even in summer, the temperature at this elevation dropped after sunset. A pair of long, warm arms slipped around her, pulling her back against a solid wall of muscle. Caroline hesitated for a second then succumbed to temptation and relaxed into the strength and comfort of Nick’s embrace. “I can’t help it.”

He rested his chin on her head. “Together we can do it. Trust me.”

And oddly, she did.

The next morning, she rose early. After dressing in her green serge dress, the only one she’d brought with a proper bustle, she stepped into the main room and found Nick still asleep on the floor in a tangle of red and white quilt. An invisible imp pointed out how appealing he looked with his dark brown hair mussed and the shadow of beard defining his jaw, but Caroline banished the tempter. She had no time for such thoughts now.

“Wake up.” She shook his shoulder. “We have to leave for town in half an hour, and you need to shave. Oh, and wear a clean shirt.”

Thirty minutes later, they were mounted and on their way to meet the professor at the Burley House Hotel.

“What’s my name?” Nick asked as they neared town.

Caroline’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch. Was he deliberately trying to make her crazy...or crazier? “If you don’t remember, we’re in serious trouble.”

“I don’t think a woman would call her husband by his initials, so what are you going to call me?”

Oh. She huffed, and her bangs puffed. “I don’t know. How about Caldicott, or Cyril, or maybe Cuthbert?”

He chuckled. “I was thinking of something easier to remember, something like Charles.”

“That’s fine...Charles it is.”

They arrived at the station with minutes to spare. Caroline clasped and unclasped her hands, wishing she’d worn gloves. In the East, properly dressed ladies never appeared in public without gloves, but all she had was the heavy leather pair she wore for excavating. She didn’t even have a decent bonnet. She’d had to wear her wide-brimmed straw hat. She tried to remind herself the professor was unlikely to notice her attire. He was coming to meet C. P. Hubbard, paleontologist, and for the time being that was Nick.

She scanned the passengers as they spilled onto the platform until she spotted a middle-sized, middle-aged man with a sharp gaze and luxuriant beard. It was Othniel C. Marsh; she would know him anywhere from his photographs in the New York Herald.

She raised her hand and started to wave. “Profess—”

Nick jerked her arm down. “Remember, you’re my wife,” he whispered.

Caroline flushed. How could she have forgotten already?

Nick pasted a big smile on his face and strode toward the professor. “Professor Marsh? Welcome to Como Bluff.”

The professor returned his smile and pumped his outstretched hand. “C. P. Hubbard, I presume. Glad to meet you, young man.” He peered around Nick’s shoulder. “And who is this lovely lady?”

Nick reached back and drew her forward by the elbow in a proprietary, husbandly fashion. “This is my wife, Caroline.”

“A pleasure, Mrs. Hubbard.” The professor took her hand and tipped his head in a brief bow.

“Welcome to Como Bluff, sir.”

Marsh rubbed his hands together. “Now, Hubbard, I’m anxious to see the fossil beds. If you’ll bring your wagon around, the porter can load my luggage and we’ll be away.” He pointed to a collection of cases, trunks, and what appeared to be a collapsed tent.

Caroline shot Nick a swift, panicked glance. She had completely forgotten to make arrangements for the professor’s transportation, and it had never occurred to her he would bring his own field equipment.

Nick smiled and squeezed her elbow before answering. “Since the dig site isn’t accessible by wagon, we don’t use one on a regular basis. However, I’m sure I can rent something suitable at the livery stable. If you’ll wait here, I’ll be back to collect your luggage in a few minutes.”

Caroline breathed a sigh of relief as he marched off to confer with the porter.

“That’s what I like—a man with gumption,” Marsh said. He reached inside his coat, pulled out a fat cigar, and lit it.

Her eyes began to water, and bile rose in her throat. She would never understand the attraction men felt toward cigars. Fortunately, Nick returned with a wagon before she embarrassed herself.

On the drive to the cabin, Professor Marsh regaled them with tales of his earlier expeditions, pausing only for an occasional puff on his cigar. Caroline was grateful for two things: one, that she was sitting upwind; and two, that his discourse offered little opportunity for her or Nick to speak. The professor had such an expansive personality, and she’d admired his work for so many years that she found herself uncharacteristically tongue-tied.

When they arrived at the cabin, Nick wrestled the trunks and crates down from the rented wagon, and the professor commandeered him to set up his tent. Caroline left the men to their work and scurried inside to change into her work clothes. After settling his gear, Marsh appeared at the cabin door with a tool case slung over his shoulder and a large camera and tripod in his hands. “Let’s go, Hubbard. I’m most anxious to see the site.”

Caroline viewed the camera with envy. She would love to have kept a photographic record of her finds, but she couldn’t afford a camera with the money she’d managed to sneak out of her trust fund before Arthur had frozen it, and she didn’t know anyone who could teach her to use one. Perhaps she could persuade Professor Marsh to instruct her before he left.

“Excuse me, professor.” She stepped past him and headed toward the stable. “Nick, could you secure the professor’s equipment to the travois? Since we can’t take the wagon, we’ll need to ride double.”

Marsh swiveled and regarded her with a quizzical expression. “Mrs. Hubbard, who is Nick?”

Horseapples!