Shadow Bones. Colleen Rhoads

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      “So you’ve won,” she said, her voice clipped.

      Jake shrugged, and Skye felt her temper rise.

      “I’d like to think we’ll all win,” Jake said, with a disarming smile. “I’m not your enemy. Your mom makes a little money, and we might all discover something to benefit mankind.”

      “What benefit is a bunch of bones?” She knew she was being argumentative, but the man’s confidence needed shaking up.

      “What benefit are garnets?”

      “Are you always so condescending?” Skye couldn’t hold back the words.

      Becca gave a nervous chuckle. “Jake, be nice.”

      Jake gave his sister a wounded look. “I’m being nice. But how are gems worth more than the history of life on earth?”

      With Jake’s gaze on her, Skye couldn’t muster a single one of the arguments she’d thought of on the way out here. For the first time, she questioned the value of her determination to find diamonds in her mine. At the end of life, they really would be worthless. Was she chasing something that held no real value?

      But even Jake’s vaunted scientific discovery would be nothing when standing before God’s throne. And her motives weren’t about money anyway.

      She pressed her lips together and stuffed her copy of the lease back into her purse and handed Jake the other copy. “It looks like I have no choice.”

      The petite, dark-haired woman smiled and held out her hand. “No one seems disposed to introduce us. I’m Wynne Baxter. Becca was a Baxter before she married, but it seems we’re still stuck with Jake. Kidding aside, he is actually very conscious of the environment when he works a dig. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how little he’ll disturb the area.”

      The knot in Skye’s stomach uncoiled a bit by the young woman’s friendly manner. In different circumstances they might be friends. “I find that hard to believe.”

      Wynne fell into step beside her, and they walked toward Skye’s truck. “It’s going to be okay, Skye. Jake will be careful. You’ll see.”

      Skye felt near tears and wasn’t sure why. She felt as if Jake had made her appear to be a willful child. “Why did he have to pick this spot?” She didn’t want to see the beauty of her favorite meadow destroyed.

      “He 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.”

      “I think you and Jake could be friends.”

      “I doubt that,” Skye said as Wynne turned to rejoin her siblings.

      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.

      “This 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.

      “Mary said we could set up camp anywhere we wanted,” Becca said.

      “How 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?”

      “I 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 off the 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.”

      “Yeah, right. No woman alive would put up with me and my schedule.”

      “Maybe it’s time you thought about staying in one place, settling down.”

      “That’s no way to make a name in my field.”

      “That’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.”

      “Any 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 dating what 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.”

      “Well, I want to wipe this one away,” he said grimly. He forced a smile. “And you have no room to talk about settling down. You’re just as bad. Where was it you were last—Italy?”

      “So?” Wynne shrugged her slim shoulders. “Maybe I’m holding out for someone in my own field who will travel with me. I’m not as competitive as you.”

      That was a pipe dream. She’d never find someone like that, Jake thought.

      “What a beautiful spot.” Wynne paused in a clearing dusted with wildflowers. A steep slope rose behind the clearing, and from here he could see the opening to the mine. “What’s that place called?” Jake asked his youngest sister.

      “Turtle Mountain.” Becca stopped and plucked a Shasta daisy.

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