Better Than Gold. Mary Brady

afraid something inside would bite her. What she might do is to contaminate the site. He didn’t need any more of that than had already been done.

      “Please, don’t touch that.”

      * * *

      STARTLED, MIA YANKED her hand back and tried—too fast—to stand up. She lost her balance, flailed her arms in a desperate attempt for control, but stumbled and plopped backward onto the dusty floor, her flashlight skittering out of reach.

      From the floor, she said a brief silent thanks that whoever this was, it was not Chief Montcalm.

      “Who are you?” She tried to make her words sound like a demand, as if she stood face-to-face with the intruder and wasn’t looking up at him from such a disadvantageous position.

      “Daniel MacCarey,” he replied with a speculative expression on his face lit by the harsh light from the ceiling bulb. This had to be the man Chief Montcalm said was coming from the university.

      “The chief’s not here yet. You can wait outside,” she said because she didn’t want him to witness the indignity of her having to get up and clean off her butt.

      He didn’t respond nor did he go away.

      “You’re early.” She worked hard to remain pleasant, because she certainly wasn’t getting any nice back from this guy.

      “And you’re tampering with evidence.”

      “Old evidence.” She kept her tone even.

      “Tampering with a protected archeological site.” When he walked toward her, the bulb hanging from the ceiling spread better light on his face, his scowling face.

      Scowl or not, it was a great face. Rugged. Two or three days’ worth of very dark beard growth. Hair a bit too neat for her liking, but tousled by the morning’s wind. Dark brown, almost black eyes, if the light coming from above gave a true indication.

      He stopped in front of her, tall and lean, and relaxing his frown he held out his hand.

      She studied him a second longer. Warm, comfortable in an old gray sweater and jeans with holes. Shoes of good leather, scuffed on the toes. Monique would like this one. Heck, she liked the look of this one herself, and she didn’t like many.

      He frowned again and started to pull his hand away, but she reached out and grabbed hold. His warm palm met hers and his fingers wrapped securely around her hand. Indeed, strong. He pulled her from the floor as if she weighed as little as her twenty-year-old-waif self, not her current self with eight more years of growth. There had to be muscles under those raggedy clothes. Maybe even a six-pack. Ooooh. She hadn’t seen one of those in a while. Maybe she wouldn’t even let Monique meet this one.

      ...for crying out loud...

      She steadied herself, let go and stepped back. This was the guy who could let her get her people back to work, maybe as early as this afternoon, so she gave him her brightest smile and resisted the urge to pat the dust off her butt.

      “When the chief told me the university was sending a professor from the anthropology department, I...well...I sort of thought more gray hair and possibly a larger waistline. Guess I should have taken the time to visit the website.” She wanted to wink. Heck, she wanted to wolf whistle. She just smiled harder.

      He frowned. “What are you doing in here?”

      So much for making light of an awkward situation. “I’m waiting for Chief Montcalm. He should be here anytime now.”

      “Waiting with your hand in the hole?”

      “Yes. You caught me with—” Deciding not to be part of the let’s-be-grumpy game, she refused to look at his scowling face and softened her tone. “If anyone has reason to be annoyed, it’s the guy in the wall—er—boxes. He’s been waiting a very long time to be discovered.”

      “Did you move anything or touch anything?”

      Now she looked up at him. “I wanted to. I wanted to tear the whole wall down and put in a dining room, but I’ve been waiting, I think rather patiently, doing everything I possibly could that didn’t involve actually doing the work in here that has to be done. I have a business I’m trying to get up and running.” All right, maybe she would play grumpy.

      “And I have to decide whether or not there is historical significance to this site.” He didn’t look very pleased with the prospect.

      She eyed him for an a-ha moment. “You drew the short straw.” She raised her eyebrows to make the statement a question.

      This made his face relax. Made him handsome.

      A hint of a smile curled his sharply carved masculine lips. “You’re right. It’s not your fault they sent me to...”

      “...a town the world seems to have forgotten?” she finished for him.

      “I don’t really mind being here. It looks to be a charming place.”

      She tried to gauge his sincerity and couldn’t decide. “It could be a charming town again, will be, if we can make some changes.”

      He held out his hand toward her, this time in greeting. “I’m Dr. Daniel MacCarey. I teach anthropology at the university.”

      She took his hand readily and shook firmly. His handshake was a genuine palm-to-palm and not the fingertips she often got, and strong.

      “Mia Parker. I’m trying my best to help build up Bailey’s Cove, make it, if not a destination, at least a stopping place on the central Maine coast.” She winced as her words came out sounding like the pitch she had given to the town council when she was seeking permission to renovate the historic building.

      “Good, the introductions are all finished. We can get started right away.” Chief Montcalm strode into the back room and gave them each a nod of greeting. He shook Mia’s hand and then Dr. MacCarey’s, giving each of them a direct and steady look in the eyes.

      Mia held in a grin at seeing Dr. MacCarey stand up a little straighter, pull his shoulders back a bit. The chief had that effect on people.

      The dark-blue-uniformed chief stopped at the cardboard boxes containing the remains removed from the hole. She’d seen the contents of the boxes already, at the police station. They gave her the creeps.

      “Everything we removed from the site is in these evidence boxes. After the initial incursion...” He stopped and looked at Mia.

      “As far as I know—” She held up her hands. “No one has touched a thing since your team took the skeleton and clothing away. I haven’t let my workers back in after they first made the hole and—” she glanced over at Daniel “—no one that I know of has been in the building until I came in this morning.”

      Chief Montcalm glanced at her flashlight, its beam shining a spotlight on the door of the back-room stairwell. She walked over, plucked it up and flicked off the beam.

      “Everything seems to be in order,” Dr. MacCarey said as he gave Mia another glance.

      The chief seem satisfied and shifted his gaze to Dr. MacCarey. “Strict crime scene protocol has been followed, so there should be little that would compromise your investigation. Any questions?”

      “Not at the present,” Daniel answered. “I might have some after I check out the site.”

      When the chief glanced at her, Mia shook her head.

      He handed Dr. MacCarey a small portable data-storage device. “This is all the photographs and information we have. I assume you will be taking the boxes of evidence with you when you leave.”

      Dr. MacCarey nodded and pocketed the thumb drive he most likely thought of as quaint, like the rest of the village was going to seem to him. Quaint. Old-fashioned. Out of date. Used up.

      Not if she could help it.

      “Then I’ll leave you to it.” Chief Montcalm