Read Online Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips - Free Book Online Page A

bread.
    He glanced at her cup as she poured in the cream.
    â€œI’ll take cream, please,” he said.
    â€œYou drink it black.”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œYou’ve drunk it black every day for a week.”
    â€œBlack coffee is manly,” he said, folding foil around his sandwich. “It makes a statement. I like the
idea
of black coffee.”
    â€œYou’re not drinking an idea.”
    â€œExactly,” he said.
    She added sugar to her own cup. “If you want to prove your manliness, there are ways other than coffee.”
    â€œThere are,” he said slowly.
    When she looked up from her coffee, he seemed closer somehow, although she was sure his feet hadn’t moved. The smile flickering around the corners of his mouth was both amused and challenging, and possibly other things. This was where she should say something clever. Or laugh it off. Clever would be better. But nothing came to her, and he filled the silence himself, his voice all easiness and self-mockery.
    â€œIt has a certain romanticism to it,” he said. “Black coffee. Out here in the prehistoric ruins. Wild animals gnashing teeth.”
    She passed him the cream. “You really don’t like black coffee?”
    â€œNot really.”
    He was impossible to decipher. “Seriously?”
    â€œI have a variety of coffee moods.”
    They walked through the front door, stepped off the porch, and Silas headed toward what had become their favorite folding chairs in the yard. She held her cup to her lips, lingering on the porch as Silas settled in his chair. She watched his shoulder muscles shift under his T-shirt as he stretched. She watched him close his eyes.
    The door swung open behind her. Ed sipped his own cup of coffee—black. She had no doubt that he did actually drink it black. She’d been with him for months out of her life—a month during that first summer, three months at Crow Creek, and plenty of shorter digs in between—and every morning she’d seen him with his ink-black coffee.
    â€œMorning, Rennie,” he said. He was the only one outside her family who had ever called her Rennie, and he seemed to have divined the name from thin air. She had certainly never told him.
    When she looked up, he was looking at Silas, not at her. She wondered if he had followed her own gaze.
    â€œHow long will you stay?” he asked, surprising her. “If we don’t find any more traces of her?”
    â€œI think I could swing another two or three weeks. I don’t know. I’ve put off calling the museum. But I’ll have to update them soon.”
    â€œIt might not be her.”
    â€œIt might not be.”
    He looked at the mountains. “If you had to go back, we could handle this, you know. Call you back if we found anything.”
    â€œYou trying to get rid of me, Ed?”
    â€œNever. But I don’t want you to worry that finding the Crow Creek artist depends on you staying. If you have to leave, we’ll keep looking.”
    She had a second of doubt, a flash of thinking he really was trying to get rid of her, which made no sense at all. There was no one she was closer to in the world than Ed.
    â€œHey, Ren,” called Silas, still stretched out in his chair with his eyes closed. “I left my sandwich in there. I was thinking, you’re a woman; I’m a man. Go fetch it for me, huh?”
    â€œShut up, Silas,” she called back.
    He smirked, never opening his eyes. She wasn’t even sure he knew Ed was there.
    â€œEd, go get my sandwich,” called Silas, who apparently did know they had company.
    â€œYou just wait there for it, Silas,” said Ed. “Just keep on waiting.”
    Ren waited to see if Ed would say more about her leaving. But he only took a sip of his coffee.
    â€œRemember that excavation along the Gila a few summers ago?” he asked. “With that older archaeologist who fell hard for that big