Shadow Bones Read Free Page A

didn’t want to see the beauty of her favorite meadow destroyed.
    â€œHe saw some rock shapes he thought might mean something. I doubt it will take long for him to move on to another place. By the end of the summer, he’ll be out of your hair.” Wynne opened the door of Skye’s truck for her.
    Skye managed a smile. “Thanks, Wynne. I’ll try to ignore him.”
    â€œI think you and Jake could be friends.”
    â€œI doubt that,” Skye said as Wynne turned to rejoin her siblings.
    Â 
    Jake squinted in the bright sunshine. He stood at the top of the slope and looked out on the green swell of forest. Below him was the entrance to the mine, and behind him he could see Turtle Town, ten miles distant.
    He’d always wanted to dig on this island. Something about it called to him, a siren song that whispered of secrets and treasures too vast and unusual to imagine. And finding these rocks with the intriguing shapes added to his hunch.
    Such fancies haunted his dreams and drove him on in his profession as a paleontologist. There was no telling where or when the earth might yield the next discovery, revealing new knowledge, new horizons. The oddly shaped rocks in this area just might mean a dinosaur nursery, which could wipe away his earlier failure.
    Too bad Skye Blackbird was so opposed to his presence here. Jake had a feeling she could show him parts of the island no one else had ever seen.
    â€œThis looks like a good spot to get started,” he said. An ocean of wildflowers swam in his vision. Daisies, poppies, black-eyed Susans. He wondered how even God painted with such a palette of colors.
    â€œMary said we could set up camp anywhere we wanted,” Becca said.
    â€œHow about at Windigo Manor?” Wynne asked hopefully. “I’m tired of roughing it. Jake, you should be, too. I don’t know what possessed you to suggest camping. Don’t you get enough of that on a dig?”
    â€œI hardly know how to sleep in a real bed anymore,” Jake said. “I like to sleep out under the stars.” His heavy work boots crushed the pine needles strewn along the path, and he inhaled the fresh scent with gusto. While he’d enjoyed his stint in Montserrat, there was no place like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Eagle Island, just offthe shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula was the place he loved best. He relished the thought of finally being able to explore this island.
    He shook his head at his sisters. “You know we’ll have to deal with security issues. That’s easier if I’m staying on site.”
    Wynne rolled her eyes. “Who would bother things on this tiny island? I think you’re worrying unnecessarily.”
    Newly married Becca stopped to pick a wild rose growing along the path. He grinned at the dreamy expression on her face. Jake had gotten a charge out of watching his sister with her new husband. The normally reticent Becca had bloomed under Max’s love and care.
    Wynne nodded at Becca. “True love is beautiful. It’s your turn next, Jake.”
    â€œYeah, right. No woman alive would put up with me and my schedule.”
    â€œMaybe it’s time you thought about staying in one place, settling down.”
    â€œThat’s no way to make a name in my field.”
    â€œThat’s not the real reason, is it?” Wynne said gently. “You still feel you have to prove yourself. When will you stop beating yourself up over that earlier discovery? It wasn’t your fault.”
    â€œAny graduate student should have recognized that find as a fraud, Wynne. You’re not the one who sees interest change to amusement when people hear my name.” He still felt sick when he remembered datingwhat he’d thought was a huge find and then discovering it was a hoax perpetrated by three teenagers in England.
    Wynne patted his arm. “We all make mistakes, Jake.”
    â€œWell, I want to wipe this one away,”