Midnight Ch. 05

My face screwed into a frown. It was odd. I quickly made a knot in the mine tape that lined the edge of the track so I could find it again, and collected the notebook from the car.

When I returned to Nathan, I handed him his notebook and asked, "Can I borrow a trowel please?"

Nathan and Diana both looked at me. He said, "Course you can. What for?"

"Well, you'll probably think I'm silly, but I saw something down at the bottom and I just want to have a closer look at it."

He shrugged, slipped a stiff brush and a small trowel from his roll and handed them to me. With an indulgent smile he said, "Knock yourself out."

I could see that Diana wore a similar expression as well.

I'll be honest, I found their manner a bit upsetting. Feeling like a little girl being indulged by her parents, my face was sullen as I accepted the tools. I turned to make my way back down the path, stopped and faced them, "I just want to have a look at something. There's no need to be so fucking patronising."

As I stalked away, I heard Nathan behind me shout, "Midnight, wait!"

I stopped and let Nathan and Diana catch up with me. He grabbed my arm sending a shiver down my spine. I felt his fingers twitch as he held me and saw a strange expression flash across his face, before it was replaced with his curious smile, "Nobody was patronising you," he said earnestly.

Diana piped in, "It's true," she shared a look with Nathan and then continued, "It's just that we think you've been bitten."

"What do you mean? Bitten by what?"

She grinned, "You've been bitten by the Palaeontology bug."

They could both see that I didn't follow, so Nathan said, "Look. You've found something and you have questions, you want to know what it is. Could be something, " he shrugged, "More likely it's nothing. But you won't know until you look."

His pearly white teeth came into view as he gave me a broad smile, "Go and solve your mystery."

I couldn't help myself, I gave him a hug and felt him tense slightly and shiver. My nipples hardened and I quickly released him. Not quite able to believe I had just done that, I avoided his gaze and could see that he too was avoiding mine.

Diana watched the display and nodded to herself before she said, "We've got things to do, but we'll have a look when we come down later," she grinned, "Exciting, isn't it?"

She was right, it was. I really wanted to know what it was I'd found. I know it was probably just some entirely natural stone formation or maybe cow bones or something. But I really wanted to know. I hurried back to my mystery and thought that it wasn't the only thing that had excited me.

As I thought about my impromptu hug, I could feel my nipples were still crinkly and hard, not only that but my pussy was moist. A simple hug and I was so horny, so turned on by feeling Nathan's body pressed briefly against my own.

I arrived back at my discovery and thrust all thoughts of Nathan aside. I really wanted to know what this thing was. I squatted down and took a closer look at the circular objects poking out of the soil.

Taking my time, I used the trowel to carefully scrape the soil from around the points and discovered more and more of the connecting plates. Then I used the brush to clear the detritus from their surfaces.

I really had no idea what to make of it. I dug a little further along the line that the points made along the side of the track and just kept finding more. By the time I had found the last in the line, I estimated that it stretched about two thirds of a metre.

By now, I knew what they weren't. They weren't a natural stone formation and they weren't cow bones. But they definitely were the bones of... something.

Anyway, I set to work at one end of the line to see what else I could find. Slowly another shape came into view. It was an irregular shape and much larger than any of the other bones. It had a broad, almost diamond shaped plate with a circular socket in the thickest part of the bone.

Digging further along, I found nothing more, so I decided to dig a little deeper... And found what I knew was a vertebra.

Don't look at me like that! We've all seen a skeleton. I knew what vertebrae looked like. Anyway, my hands were beginning to shake a little. Diana was right. This was fucking exciting!

I used the trowel to clear more of the soil back from along the line of bones and could see more and more connecting bones and plates come into view.

I heard voices coming towards me from the path up the slope. It was Nathan and Diana heading back down. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearly six o'clock. I'd been at my digging for several hours. It occurred to me that I hadn't even had any lunch, but I didn't care. This was too exciting!

As they approached, I stood up and waved them towards me excitedly, "Come and see. You gotta see this!"

Both of them must have picked up on my excitement and immediately hurried over. I pointed at my handiwork, "Look! Do you know what it is?"

They both stopped and stared at my discovery. I was bouncing from foot to foot, "I found this. Is it good? What is it? Do you know?"

Diana's mouth fell open, she glanced at me and then stared in open wonder at the bones. Nathan had not taken his eyes from the display, he said, "Hylaeosaurus?"

Her head shook slightly as she replied, "This far north? I mean, certainly looks like it. Very small though."

I was almost beside myself, "What? Highly what?"

They seemed to ignore me as Nathan once again addressed Diana, "Must be a juvenile. But you're right, the only ones I've heard of were found in Sussex, never in Yorkshire."

I'll be honest, I could have punched the fuck out of both of them, "Grrr! Tell me! What is it?"

They shared a long moment, before Diana sucked her lower lip between her teeth and nodded.

Nathan turned to me and once again pinned me in place with his eyes, "Midnight, you've found a young Hylaeosaurus."

I shook my head slightly in confusion.

He said quietly, "You've found a dinosaur."

"YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME!"

I couldn't help myself. Without thinking I threw myself into his arms laughing. He automatically returned the hug and held me tightly with my face buried in his shoulder. I could feel him trembling slightly and once again my nipples hardened. They felt like bullets and I was sure he must have been able to feel them pressing into him even through our layers of clothing. Not only that but my panties were absolutely fucking soaking.

Without realising it our lower bodies pressed together and I was certain I could feel something hard pressing against my lower belly. I looked into his eyes and shivered in his arms.

Those eyes. Those fucking eyes!

They were sparkling like fresh spring water, burning blue and hypnotic, I couldn't look away. I couldn't tell what was going on inside his head, but I knew that he must ­ once again ­ be reading me like an open book. I moistened my lips with my tongue and hesitantly moved my face closer to his. My lips parted slightly and...

I came to my senses. What the fuck was I doing?

Suddenly chagrinned, I extricated myself and stepped away. He was my boss, nothing more. It didn't matter that I knew I had fallen for him. I would do nothing to ruin our friendship and our working relationship. I couldn't, I just couldn't. After all, I was merely an asset.

I looked at Diana who was just stood to one side smirking at me.

"What?" I snapped.

The smirk never left her face as she answered, "Oh, nothing."

Nathan cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the dinosaur, "Well, we'll need to get some more diggers here. This has just become a much more important place."

Diana looked from one to the other of us and replied softly, "Yes... I rather think it has."

We made our way back to the car park and Diana headed over to where the two policemen were sat in their transit van. I heard her say, "We've examined the skeleton. You can bugger off if you want, it's Saxon. No murders today."

The driver started up the engine, smiled at Diana and replied, "Thank God for that."

We watched the police drive away,then Nathan and Diana got on their mobiles to make the necessary calls to set up the site for an exploratory excavation. I was left to my own devices, until Nathan said, "Midnight, could you do me a favour? Take the car back home and pack a couple of suitcases, enough for at least two weeks."

"Eh?"

"Well we're not going to let Diana pinch your dinosaur."

Diana laughed and called out, "No fear. Hopefully, I'll have my hands full with the Saxons. You want the Hylaeosaurus, you get your own diggers."

Nathan grinned back at her, "Already done," he returned his attention to me, "When you drop the cases off at the pub, book another couple of rooms and extend our booking. I'll get Diana to drop me back there. Okay?"

I nodded, hopped in the car and headed back to Hull. It took nearly four hours for me to get everything done and travel back to the pub. Once there, I had a quick conversation with the landlord and sorted the rooms and reservations. I left the suitcases in the car and headed through to the bar to see Diana and Nathan deep in conversation at one of the tables. Nathan seemed to look into space momentarily and then looked up at me. He smiled and waved me over.

As I sat down next to him, he said, "Any problems?"

"Nope. The suitcases are in the car, we can take them up later."

"I feel a bit stupid."

"Why?"

"When me and Diana sat down to eat, I realised that you haven't had a bite since breakfast and I just sent you off on your errand. So I got the barman to make you up a sandwich... Drink?"

I smiled, after the excitement of the day, I realised that I was starving, "Lovely, thanks. White wine please," I glanced at Diana, "I don't drink much, but I think I'm allowed to celebrate today."

She grinned, "Definitely!"

We spent the remainder of the evening chatting about the dig sites and I'll admit it now, that sandwich didn't touch the sides.

The next morning we were all back at the car park waiting for the teams to arrive. I was sat on the tailgate of the car sipping a coffee from our thermos, whilst Nathan and Diana were deep in conversation. I'm sure that they knew what they were talking about, but to me it just sounded like 'murgle blurgle flobble whomp'. They may as well have been speaking Esperanto!

Anyway, about ten o'clock, two minibuses and a transit van turned up. They were from York University and it was Diana's team for the settlement buildings. I watched as she took control and directed them with their various tasks.

Nathan sat down next to me and accepted a coffee. We sat in silence as Diana and four of her students set up a 12x24 tent to house their admin and lab equipment. Two others struggled with a large diesel generator and dragged it into place. Whilst the last two unloaded trestle tables, plastic chairs and various metal boxes from the van and carried them into the tent, whilst Diana took a very pretty, oriental girl up to the top of the slope. They both carried heavy rucksacks and the girl held two large rolls of mine tape.

Whilst Diana's students turned this idyllic spot into a riot of activity, two further minibuses arrived.

I recognised Allison driving the first one and she threw us a beaming smile and a wave as the vehicle came to a halt. I waved back, but the grin left my face as I recognised the driver of the other vehicle. It was Luke.

Anyway, we headed over to greet them and started our own preparations. I say we, I mean they did...I just danced around the edges and tried to not get under their feet. I left them to put the tent up and just ferried boxes from the minibus.

Once it was up, we all started getting the furniture and boxes inside. Nathan was working on the generator, attaching cables and checking fuel levels as I carried a large case into the tent. I placed it just inside the flap. It was heavy and we needed to take a quick break. Nathan immediately snapped at me, "That's the ruggedised laptops. They're supposed to be at this end in the admin area. Try to keep up, would you, please?"

I bit my tongue and simply dragged it to where he wanted it.

Allison had walked into the tent behind me carrying a box of something or other and glared at Luke, "Why are you always such a dick?"

He sneered, "If Manni doesn't even know how to lay out an admin tent, " he glared at me, "Then maybe you shouldn't be here."

That upset me. Yet again, I felt two inches tall and had no idea how to deal with it. The way some of the university staff and students looked down on me because I was simply an Executive Assistant rather than one of the learned few of Academia. In the real world, I wouldn't have thought twice about standing up for myself in an argument, but for some reason, I just didn't know how to handle the bad feeling from these people.

I felt the pin prick of tears and quickly made my way out of the tent and back to the minibus. I grabbed a chair, but before I lifted it, I took a moment to wipe my eyes. I was determined not to let Luke know he had upset me.

Allison appeared at my side. She said, "Don't let him get to you, Manni. He's an arrogant prick. None of us like him you know."

She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, "Honestly. Everybody thinks much more of you than they ever did of him."

I smiled my thanks, but didn't speak. I simply continued with the unloading.

Once the tent was set up, all four of us headed over to my dinosaur. Allison had our mine­tape.

When we got to it, her eyes opened wide and a broad smile filled her face, "Oh wow! This is amazing."

Luke didn't say anything as he surveyed the scene, he merely shot me a dirty look.

We took the mine­tape and used it to break the site down into squares of about two metres a side. Allison placed a small stake in the corner of each one and hammered them into place, being careful not to go too deep and Luke followed her, attaching a laminated, alphanumeric card to each one.

The grid was centred on my bones and further mine tape was used to adjust the path around area. As we worked, Diana's students passed to and fro on errands of their own, in preparation of their investigation of the buildings and the Saxon skeleton.

I must admit, I was quietly pleased at the envious looks my dinosaur received.

Once everything was in place, it was time to start clearing the area. Allison settled herself into the square at the north­west corner marked A1. Nathan headed back to the admin tent to fire up the computers and began writing up the initial bits and bobs about the dig site. I followed him to borrow his digging tools, I was looking forward to uncovering more of my Highly Wotsit skeleton.

When I arrived back at the grid, I found that Luke had settled himself down and was already moving soil away from the neck vertebrae.

"What are you doing?" I asked, "That's my square."

He didn't even look up at me as he continued working, "This is a team effort."

"Yes I know, but I wanted to do this square. I discovered it after all."

He stopped and rested his trowel on the shoulder bone and glared at me, "You didn't discover it, Dr Smethwick did. You just found a bone. It was him who recognised it for what it is. You were lucky, that's all!"

"Well that's as maybe. This is my dinosaur and I want to dig it out."

Allison by this time had ceased her own work and was watching us as we argued.

Luke raised an eyebrow at me, "To be honest, I'm not sure why you're even here. You're not a professional palaeontologist. You're not even a student. You're just a secretary. Maybe you should stand back and let the experts deal with this."

Yet again, I felt under equipped to deal with the situation. Yet again, I was intimidated and unable to defend my position. And yet again, I felt the bitter sting of tears. This was my discovery and Luke was sucking all of the joy out of it. I retreated to the furthest square away from Luke and started to look at the ground there. I wasn't sure how to begin, but before I could do anything I heard Luke's voice again, "What's wrong with you?"

I looked at him, "What?"

He snapped at me, "You just walked straight across the grid! You're supposed to go round the edge. Don't you know anything? Why not just leave this too us? Go back to the tent and do whatever it is you're supposed to be doing."

I refused point blank to let Luke know he'd got to me. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to complain to Nathan, that would have felt like defeat. Before I burst into tears, I quickly stood up and rushed away back to the minibus. I sat in the back of it and couldn't stop myself crying. I'd been so fucking happy and Luke had spoiled it.

He'd ruined it.

END OF CHAPTER FIVE