Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

His eyes softened. “Natalie—you are the best student I have ever had. I want you to know that. You are intelligent, and dedicated, and easy to work with. And we’ll find Ivernis. Don’t worry. We’ll find it.”

My chest filled with so much—with bittersweet pleasure and pride, with sorrow. “Thanks,” I told him, from the bottom of my heart. “And you’re right. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

I was sure of it.

Chapter Eighteen

The O’Connors didn’t come back until the next Tuesday. After Mike flew to the States, the women spent the long weekend on the Aran Islands. Lauren invited me, but I figured they needed some legitimate family time. Besides, it gave me a weekend of kicking a ball around and drinking my feelings in the pub with Paul. I kind of liked doing that. Paul was refreshingly ticked off at the world, and good at grumbling about O’Connors.

But when I came back from the field Tuesday evening, I found the O’Connors in the dining room. I hovered in the hall, watching as they laughed and scarfed down a platter of scones. Anna noticed me first. “Hey!”

I stepped into the room. “How was your trip?”

Anna was off, but I couldn’t look away from Mike. He smiled, but it didn’t go much further than the surface, and I couldn’t tell if he was still angry or if we were okay. I wanted to get him alone, to talk to him, to hold him, but Anna was still talking.

“—and then we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which are the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride, and they’re crazy. It’s like the end of the world, and the wind made our hair looked like small monsters and you could lean into the air and it practically supported you. Did you guys find anything?”

The abrupt switch—Anna had decided it was time for her to eat, and me to talk—made me start, as did the sudden weight of all the O’Connors’ eyes. I pulled my shoulders back and tried to smile. “There’s always some things to find. We’ve come across some pottery sherds. And cattle bones. But, uh—nothing to support a harbor.”

Kate’s sympathy nearly killed me. “That’s too bad.”

“It’s still the early stages. I mean, it’s a huge amount of land to cover. And while I thought my calculations were spot on—well. I guess I shouldn’t have been trusting maps based off Roman reconstructions of Greek sources, now, should I?” I laughed. The O’Connors didn’t.

I shoved my hands in my back pockets and my eyes found Mike’s. “I was going to go for a run. I don’t know if...?”

He was already standing. Anna started to speak up, and both her sister and mother kicked her.

This time my laugh came out a little more genuine. That was my kind of subtlety.

Mike was changed and downstairs in a moment. “You’re disappointed.”

“Dumb, right? I didn’t have any guarantees.” I broke into a jog, taking the northern path. A veil of fog covered the land, so every movement was oddly fascinating and disruptive. My gut knotted up with anxiety, and I tried to handle it by increasing my pace until we cleared the top of the fog and the cliff. Below us, blankets of white rolled in from across the sea like some actual, sentient creature. Above, the waxing moon hung low and pale in the gray sky, drifting in and out of ghosting clouds. I slowed and faced him. “I missed you.”

He looked back at me. “I missed you too.”

All I wanted was to kiss him, to cling to him, but my stomach still hurt. “Are you still mad at me?”

He closed the space between us. “No.”

“Why were you mad at me?” I inched forward.

He stroked his fingers along my temple and behind my ear. “I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“I don’t understand.” But even so, the knots in my stomach were slowing coming undone.

He smiled wryly. “Maybe I’ll explain someday.”

And then our mouths met, and it was like we were erasing all the time and distance apart. He was warm and strong and right under my hands, and as we kissed the horrible tension of the last week faded away and everything made sense again.

We sat near the edge of the bluff, our legs pressed together, his arm around me. His voice had the cadence of music. “Tell me about Kilkarten.”

I sighed. “What if I was wrong? How can I have been so wrong?”

“You can’t know yet. It’s only been two weeks.”

“But what if there’s nothing?”

“Then you try again. You start over somewhere else.”