Before Sunrise

“Does that matter? You don’t like people close,” she said.

She searched his arrogant profile. There were new lines in that lean face, lines she hadn’t seen last year, despite the solemnity of the time they’d spent together. “Something’s upset you,” she said out of the blue. “Or you’re worried about something.”

Both dark eyebrows went up. “I beg your pardon?” he asked curtly.

The hauteur went right over her head. “Not something to do with work, either,” she continued, reasoning aloud. “It’s something very personal…”

“Stop right there,” he said shortly. “I invited you out to talk about a job, not about my private life.”

“Ah. A closed door. Intriguing.” She stared at him. “Not a woman?”

“You’re the only woman in my life.”

She laughed unexpectedly. “That’s a good one.”

“I’m not kidding. I don’t have affairs or relationships.” He glanced at her as he merged into traffic again and turned at the next corner. “I might make an exception for you, but don’t get your hopes up. A man has his reputation to consider.”

She grinned. “I’ll remember that you said that.”

He pulled the car into the parking lot of a well-known hotel restaurant and cut off the engine. “I hope you’re hungry. I missed breakfast.”

“So did I. Nerves,” she added.

He escorted her into the sparsely occupied restaurant and they were seated near the window. When they finished looking at the menu and gave their orders, he leaned back in his chair and studied her across the width of the table with quiet interest.

“Is my nose upside down?” she asked after a minute.

He chuckled. “No. I was just thinking how young you are.”

“In this day and age, nobody is that young,” she corrected. She leaned forward with her chin on her elbows and watched him. “Don’t fight it,” she chided. “You might never run into anyone else who’d make you so uncomfortable.”

“That’s a selling point?” he asked, surprised.

“Of course it is. You live deep inside yourself. You won’t let yourself feel anything, because it’s a form of weakness to you. Something must have hurt you very badly when you were younger.”

“Don’t pry,” he said gently, but the words warned.

“If I hang around with you very much, I’m going to pry a lot more than this,” she informed him.

He considered that. He had cold feet where Phoebe was concerned. She wasn’t the sort of person who’d settle for a shallow relationship. She’d want to go right to the bone, and she’d never let go. He was like that, too, but he’d been burned badly once, by a woman who liked him because he was a curiosity

“I’ve been collected already,” he said quietly. “Do you understand?”

She saw the brief flash of pain in his eyes and nodded slowly. “I see. Did she want to show off her indigenous aborigine to all her friends?”

His jaw tautened and something dangerous flashed in his eyes.

“I thought so,” she murmured, watching the faintest of expressions in his face. “Did she care at all?”

“I doubt it very much.”

“And you found out in a very public way, no doubt.”

His head inclined.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Life teaches painful lessons.”

“Have you had any yet?” he returned bluntly.

“Not that sort,” she admitted, toying with her fork. “I’m rather shy with men, as a rule. And boys I went to school with either saw me as one of them or somebody’s sister. Digging isn’t very glamorous.”

“I thought you looked cute in mud-caked boots and a jacket three times your size.”

She glared at him. “Don’t start.”

His dark eyes slid over her dress. It wasn’t in the least revealing. It had a high lace collar and long sleeves gathered tight at the wrists. It cascaded down in folds to her ankles and under it she was wearing very stylish granny shoes. Her platinum hair was in a neat braid down her back. She wore a minimum of makeup and there was a tiny line of freckles right over her nose.

“I know I’m not pretty,” she said, made uncomfortable by the close scrutiny, “and I’m built like a boy.”

He smiled. “Are you still naive enough to think that looks matter?”

“It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that pretty girls get all the attention in class.”

“At first,” he agreed.

She sighed. “There are so few boys who like to spend an evening listening to exciting discoveries like a broken bowl of charred acorns and half a soapstone pipe.”

“Mississippian,” he recalled, from their discussion about the find last year.

She beamed. “Yes! You remembered!”

He smiled at her enthusiasm. “I did a few courses in cultural anthropology,” he confessed. “Not physical anthropology,” he emphasized. “And so help me, if you say anthropology should be right up my alley…!”

“You didn’t tell me that in Charleston,” she said.

“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he replied. He hadn’t even planned to come to her graduation. He wasn’t sure if he regretted being here or not. His dark eyes searched her pale ones. “Life is full of surprises.”

She looked into his eyes and felt a stirring deep in her heart. She looked at him and felt closer than she’d ever been to anyone.

The waitress brought salads, followed by steak and vegetables, and they ate in silence until apple pie and coffee were consumed.

“You’re completely unafraid, aren’t you?” he asked as he finished his second cup of coffee. “You’ve never really been hurt.”

“I had a crush on a really cute boy in my introductory anthropology class,” she said. “He ended up with a really cute boy in Western Civ.”

He chuckled. “Poor Phoebe.”

“It’s the sort of thing that usually happens to me,” she confessed. “I’m not terribly good at being womanly. I like to kick around in blue jeans and sweatshirts and dig up old things.”