I wished Doug wasn't dead. He hadn't deserved to die.
I wished my dinosaur discovery hadn’t been swept away by a flash flood.
Wished I wouldn’t lose my job.
Oh shit. Without my job, I can't pay my rent.
My grant money was tied to the dig. No dig, no money. I'd have to crawl back to my mom's tiny flat. Back to Mom's disappointed sighs and my sisters' I-told-you-so's while their perfect children ran around their perfect houses.
A sound that was half groan, half whimper escaped my lips before I could bite it back.
Mitch turned, frowning. "You okay?"
"Oh, yes. I'm great."
His eyes narrowed. "You don't have to be sarcastic."
"Well, what do you think, Mitch?” I snapped. “My whole world has imploded, and now I'm lost on some bloody cattle station I don't even have permission to be on."
He stopped walking and cocked his head at me. "You have my permission now."
"Great. Thanks." A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me. "Fat lot of good that'll do when I don't have a job, and no job means no rent. No rent means no place to live. So yeah, just fantastic."
"You're not going to lose your job." He rolled his eyes as though I was being dramatic.
Heat flooded my face and not from the sun. "Of course, I am. My funding was contingent on finding ancient bones. No bones, no funding. But even worse than that, our site office probably fell off the damn cliff with every piece of expensive equipment inside it, and they'll blame me. I screwed up the best discovery I've ever made."
"No, you didn't. That flash flood wasn't your fault."
"Just—" I flicked my hand at him. "Just forget it."
I stormed past him, and pain ripped up the back of my leg. I stopped, clenched my fists, and yelled at the sky, "Faarrkk!"
"If you're going to have a breakdown," he called after me, "we should return to the shade."
I spun around, hands on my hips, ready to unleash hell on him, but he was already striding back toward the trees.
I stood there, fists clenched, wanting to scream again. Wanting to cry. Wanting to rewind the last twenty-four hours and undo everything.
But I couldn't. The sun was killing me.
So, I followed him, limping back to the shade.
He was seated with his back against a tree trunk, eyes closed. I collapsed against another tree, keeping distance between us.
He didn't say anything.
I bit my tongue, determined not to speak first either. My face throbbed from sunburn, and my heels were pure agony. And I had so much shit going on, I couldn't concentrate. A heat haze shimmered across the landscape, distorting the horizon as though the air itself was mocking me.
Mitch pulled a root from his pocket and handed it to me. "I'm sorry," he said.
I shot my gaze at him. "For what exactly?"
"For everything that happened to you. I can tell you work hard. You didn't deserve this."
His tone was genuine, not pitying, and it made my throat tighten. "Thanks. That actually means a lot." I took the root from him and sucked the bitter sap.
He pulled the wrapped rabbit meat from inside his shirt. "Eat." As he offered me a piece, his shirt gaped, giving me a glimpse of the bruise across his chest. I'd forgotten all about that. The bruise bloomed dark purple against his tanned skin. He'd gotten that saving my life, and here I was picking a fight with him.