Jurassic Heart by Anna Martin Page B

not.”
    “You can’t just go around kissing people!” I exclaimed.
    “Why, didn’t you like it?”
    Yes , a traitorous little voice in my head whispered. Yes, I liked it a lot.
    “No,” I said.
    “Liar. Do you want dinner?”
    “What?”
    He sighed. “Do you want to go to dinner with me?”
    I gaped at him.
    “Christ, you’re hard work.”
    “I’m all dirty,” I said redundantly.
    “Then go change. I don’t mind.”
    “Okay.”
    I blamed the voices in my head for that one and climbed into Hunter’s car without another word. He had the radio playing and the windows wound down as he drove back into town; he dropped me off at the motel and went to get gas while I changed. Boner wasn’t back from his appointment yet, so I scrawled a note to let him know I had a date, apparently, and he should call the Goth Twins. From what River had said, a bunch of them were going to a bar tonight, and I didn’t want him to miss out.
    After the world’s quickest shower, I dried myself off and pulled on clean jeans, a nice shirt, and the only pair of decent shoes I’d brought with me. That took fifteen minutes, and I figured I could spend a few more making my hair look good. It was probably the only thing I had going for me, looks-wise, so I made a point of trying to keep it nice. My ex used to say I had nice eyes. It was a shame they looked all buggy behind my glasses.
    Speaking of which, I pulled the tortoiseshell frames from my face and quickly polished the lenses with a cloth. It was amazing how dirty they could get after a day playing around in the mud and rocks and dust.
    I was halfway across the room, ready to leave, when I hesitated, then went back to the bathroom to steal some of Boner’s cologne. It was nice, spicy. I recognized it from his collar. I didn’t usually wear it myself.
    By the time I rushed across the lobby and out to the street, Hunter’s car was pulling around the corner.
    “Perfect timing,” he said as I slid back into the passenger seat. I smiled blandly.
    “There’s not a lot around here,” Hunter continued as he pulled away. “So I thought we could maybe go a town over. Apparently there’s a great Italian restaurant there, according to the woman in the gas station.”
    “I like Italian food.”
    “Good. Great.”
    It was weird, and then it wasn’t. We argued through dinner, but most of it was good-natured; I would wave a piece of pasta at him on the end of my fork and tell him off, then eat it, and while my mouth was occupied, he took his turn to wave some pasta and tell me off. I could tell the waiters and other diners had no idea what was going on with us, and I actually enjoyed confusing them.
    “No, you’re wrong,” I said emphatically as I finished my meal, threw down my napkin, and folded my arms. “We pass the results of our reports right on to the same people you get your information from. Changes in the environment affecting the soil are being recorded by the paleontologists and archeologists, and then your guys are using that data.”
    “Your results don’t always tally with ours.”
    “Sure,” I said. “That’s to be expected. We publish a report maybe six months, sometimes a year after the initial dig. Then it might take you six months to pick it up and read it and go out to verify. That’s eighteen months later. In a highly polluted area, of course you’re going to have conflicting results.”
    “It remains to be seen if that’s enough time to make a difference.”
    “Then you need to get there first,” I said. “Test the environment before and after we dig and compare those results. In fact, I’d help you with that. It interests me too.”
    “I’m going to hold you to that,” Hunter said and took a sip from his glass of wine. Since he was driving, he’d only had the one, whereas I was working on my second.
    “Please do,” I said.
    A waiter approached. “Was everything okay with your meal?” he asked.
    “The food was delicious,” I told him.