Unstoppable Read Free Page B

want to keep this between you and your uncle? Fine by me. Call me a graduate student and hand me a shovel. But I made a promise to Joe and I intend to keep it.”
    Kelsey recognized defeat when it was staring her in the face.
    And anyway he was right. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in nearly a week, not since the sheriff had visited the dig site to inform them of the nearby murder and ask if they’d seen or heard anything suspicious.
    Kelsey hadn’t. But she’d been in a state of anxious hyperawareness ever since. Just hiking out to this cliff was the farthest she’d ventured away from the group in days.
    “Okay, you win.” She crossed her arms. “Now what do you want me to do?”
    Heat flickered in his eyes at the question. Or maybe she’d imagined it.
    “You don’t need to do anything,” he told her. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
    Kelsey Quinn’s archaeology project was bigger than Gage had anticipated. It encompassed four separate areas, two out in the open and two more inside the cave. Including the work tents—which were really just tarps supported by metal poles—and the campers where Kelsey and her boss stayed, the site included almost three acres of privately owned land that was being cleared of ancient artifacts to make room for a mining project. The area wasn’t large from a security standpoint, but it had its challenges.
    The main issue was the unpaved road that skirted their setup. It provided a direct—if bumpy—route from the town of Madrone almost straight to the dig site. Just a short detour off the road and you were right there. Problem was, the road also provided a direct route between the U.S.–Mexico border and Interstate 10—and a predictable array of security risks associated with one of the most rugged and least governable tracts of land in the entire Southwest.
    Kelsey and her college kids, parked out here with all their SUVs and computer equipment, were sitting ducks. Gage found it amazing they hadn’t had more than a few break-ins. Of course, the fact that the students headed into town each night, back to the relative comfort of the lodge they’d taken over for the summer, made the dig site less of a target for thieves. But the setup left Kelsey and the geriatric Dr. Robles alone with a crapload of computers and equipment.
    For a woman who worked at one of the world’s top crime labs, Kelsey showed a remarkable lack of street smarts.
    Gage hauled his zillionth bucket of dirt and emptied it onto a large wire screen for sifting. Kelsey’s beanpole assistant Aaron gave him another one of his sullen looks.
    “Thirty minutes, people.” Kelsey’s voice rang out across the site. “Then we’ll call it a wrap.”
    Gage cut a glance at his principal. She was sweaty and sunburned and her skinny legs were dotted with scrapes and old bruises. A lock of that fiery red hair had come loose, and she stuffed it back inside her Padres cap as she meted out instructions to one of her underlings. Gage watched her work. She was bossy and annoying and promised to be a royal pain in his ass for the next seven days.
    And yet there was something about her that made his blood hum. He had no idea what it was—she was the polar opposite of his usual type. And yet he felt it, just beneath the surface, the steady thrum of lust coursing through his veins.
    Gage needed a woman. Soon. Didn’t it figure that the one woman to stir his interest after months and months of celibacy would be the niece of his CO, a woman completely off-limits for some quick-and-dirty fun?
    But “fun” hadn’t been part of Gage’s vocabulary in months. And that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. He’d come here to work, not play, and the last thing he needed was to get tangled up with a woman guaranteed to make his life an even bigger mess than it already was.
    Gage trudged back into the cave for another bucketful of dirt.
    Kelsey found Aaron working on the ossuary at the back of the cave, where a