Then he swung her around in his arms and skidded toward the far wall like a baseball player into home base, keeping her tucked tight against his chest.
The scaffold slammed into the ground behind them, and a cloud of dust rose up.
He sat up and Rush did, too. She was coughing, waving her hand to clear the air.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he bit out.
Layne coughed one more time, enjoying the feel of a hard, muscled chest pressed up against her.
Pity the muscles belonged to an awfully cranky, bossy man.
She straightened, pulling away from him. She’d been working on isolated digs her entire career. Not to mention the halls of academia. She was used to cranky men. She’d dealt with crankier.
“Well—”
“You have a damned artifact dangling precariously and it weighs a hell of a lot more than you, and a scaffold threatening to collapse, so you decided to stand right under it?”
She straightened at his cutting tone. “I was helping my people get to safety. I was trying to see if I could save any artifacts. My people, my dig, Declan.”
And Layne intended for the rest of this dig to go off without a hitch. She eyed the shattered remains of the scaffold. Her chest tightened. Well, no more hitches.
Declan pushed to his feet in one lithe flex of muscle.
Layne quickly stood, not wanting to have him towering over her.
Not that it helped. She was average height, and he was well north of six feet. Even with his khaki cargo trousers and shirt covered in dust, the man made an impact. She hated that she kept noticing that—the muscled body, the lean face, the intense gray eyes.
“You do not risk your life.” His face hardened. “My company was hired to take the risks. We take care of security, and the lives of the people on this dig.”
“I’m not going to sit around watching and wringing my hands like some medieval damsel.”
Declan thrust his hands on his hips. “Rush—”
Ugh. She hated when he said her name in that tone. She turned away. “I need to check the statue.”
Firm fingers circled her arm and she felt his touch burning through her shirt.
“The scaffold is in pieces. You can’t get out yet.”
Dammit, he was right. “I need to check my team, as well.”
He eyed her for a second. “The statue made it out okay. Logan has it secured at the top.”
Relief punched through her and she forced herself to be polite. “Thank you.”
A brief smile flickered over Declan’s face. “That didn’t hurt too much, did it?”
She shook her arm free of his hold. “It stung a little.”
His smile widened, but when he touched his ear, she realized his team was contacting him.
Layne took the chance to head over to where her archeologists and grad students sat huddled with the local workers. “Everyone okay?”
There were nods and grumbles. She was damn grateful that no one was injured.
“Dr. Rush, we could have been killed. I am extremely upset this occurred, and want to know how you’ll ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
Layne rolled her eyes at the snippy voice. She turned and faced her senior archeologist, Dr. Aaron Stiller. Almost every day, she regretted choosing him as part of the team. She knew he had been hoping to land the job as head of this dig, and had been disappointed he’d lost out to her.
He’d been taking that disappointment out on her daily.
“Dr. Stiller, I will ensure this is investigated.”
Stiller was in his forties, tall and very thin, with a head that was rapidly losing its hair. The man sniffed. “All the work we’ve done down here is ruined.”
She turned and eyed their worksite. The carefully placed markers and ropes were all jumbled. She saw several pots had been smashed. She sighed. There was nothing of huge monetary value damaged, but it still hurt her heart a bit. Everything they dug up was a piece of history and that made it valuable to her.
“Rush?”
Declan’s voice made her turn.
He waved to a rope ladder that had been dropped into the excavation. It was what they’d used before the scaffold had been erected.
“Okay, everyone,” she said, clapping her hands. “Let’s get topside and take a break.”
She watched her team all head up the ladder.
Then she felt a hand touch her side. She gasped, grabbing the thick wrist.
“You’re bleeding.” Declan was frowning. He tugged at her shirt.
“Hey.” She slapped at his hands.
“There’s blood on your shirt. Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.” Now that he mentioned it, she felt a slight sting.
He tugged her shirt free from her cargo trousers and lifted the hem a few inches.