She squirted shampoo in her hair and gave her head a vigorous scrub, getting rid of bad thoughts and bad Bryce.
Minutes later she dressed in jeans and a long sleeved blouse and slipped on flat sensible shoes. She swung her long, auburn hair into a ponytail and applied just a bit of mascara and lip gloss. She was ready to face the day, at least she would be after she’d had breakfast. As if on cue, her stomach growled. Last night’s boeuf bourguignon seemed like a lifetime ago.
She arrived in the caf and looked around. So far, no Jackson. She did, however, spot the researcher, Lisa. Grabbing scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee from the breakfast line, Carla walked over to the table where Lisa sat. Before she could ask to join her, Lisa looked up and a smile lit her face.
“Morning, Carla! Come join me.”
So enthusiastic was her greeting that already Carla felt like she’d found a good friend. She sat down on the bench across from her. “Morning.”
“Did you sleep okay?”
She nodded as she took her first sip of coffee. Hot and strong, just as she liked it. “Actually I did. I thought maybe I’d have trouble on the first night, you know, being in a new place and everything. But I didn’t at all.”
“Jackson really takes pains to keep the facility nice for us,” Lisa agreed. “The bed in the room I sleep in here is better than the one in my own home.”
Carla smiled and forked up some eggs. “Where’s home?”
“I’m originally from northern California, but I’ve been here in Louisiana for the past four years.” Lisa paused to take a bite of her own food. A hearty fare of pancakes and bacon, Carla noticed. A breakfast soulmate. “How about you?”
“Upstate New York originally,” Carla replied. “Although I’ve lived in Manhattan for ten years. I went to college there, both undergrad and graduate school, and now I work there, too.”
“I take it you like the Big Apple.”
“It can get a little hectic,” she admitted. “But yeah, I like it.” She took another sip of coffee and considered. “I guess maybe I just like cities. After this assignment I’m getting transferred to Paris.”
“Paris?! Ooh, la la!”
“I’m super excited.”
“I guess you truly are a city girl.”
“Definitely. I could never live in a place like this, here in the country.”
Lisa gave her a grin. “Never say never.” She took a last swallow of her coffee and rose from the bench. “I’ll see you later, Carla. I ran some tests yesterday and I want to check the results.”
As Lisa stepped away, Carla noticed someone coming to take her place. Someone tall, and dark, and…well truthfully, a bit rumpled on this particular morning.
“Morning.” Jackson took the seat Lisa had just vacated.
“Good morning,” she replied, although she wondered if it was in fact a good one for Jackson. Even through his rimless round glasses she could see his eyes were a little bloodshot, as if he hadn’t gotten a very good night’s rest.
“How was the rest of your evening?” he asked. “Fine. I went to bed shortly after you dropped me off at the house. I guess I was pretty tired.” “You had a long trip to get here.”
Carla noticed Jackson had no breakfast plate in front of him. “You don’t eat breakfast?”
“A couple of hours ago.”
Suddenly she felt guilty, as if she were already late before the day began. She glanced at her watch, but it showed only seven thirty. “I’m sorry, I wonder if my instruction sheet is wrong. It said I should be ready to go by eight o’clock.”
“Eight’s fine. But I start at dawn.”
“Oh.” She’d always thought of herself as a hard worker, but his energy made her feel like a slug. Her breakfast began settling like lead shot in her stomach and she set down her fork. “I’m ready to go. What should I be doing?”
“Today you’ll be working with Quinn in the data room.”
Now that he said it, she recalled his instructions to Quinn the night before. So what’s going on with the little twinge of disappointment because she wouldn’t be spending the day with him? Nothing, that’s what.
She plastered a smile on her face. “I can’t wait.”
“Then let’s get started. Come on, I’ll take you over there.”
They rose together and left the cafeteria via a back door Jackson said led to the area farthest from where the snakes were kept.
“Figured it’d be a good place for you to start.” “I’m fine to start with the snakes.”
He frowned and gave her a look clearly indicating he assumed she’d lost her mind. “You’ll just be observing and on light duty at first,” he reminded her. “Besides, yesterday you passed out cold when you found out we researched cobra venom.”
“Yeah, well…” The pass-out still embarrassed her, but the reminder of waking up in his arms left her momentarily speechless. Those muscled guns of his were one of the better places in which she’d lately found herself. She cast a side-long glance in Jackson’s direction, noticing he wore a sleeveless shirt offering her a generous view of his sculpted, bronze biceps. Then she also realized his sleeveless shirt revealed a tattoo on his left arm, a band of some sort circling the bicep. She looked for another moment and realized, to no surprise, the band was in fact a snake biting its own tail.
“It’s the Ourobouros,” Jackson said in response to her unasked question.
“I’ve seen it before, though I can’t say where. It’s mythological, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. It’s the symbol for life’s eternal cycle of renewal.”
“Makes sense why you’d have that kind of tattoo,” she said as they turned off the path toward one of the research buildings. “It goes along with your mission here of finding cures for sickness. Renewing life, so to speak.”
They had reached the front of the building. She set her foot upon the first step but halted when she noticed Jackson had stopped. Thinking maybe he had to fish a key out of his pocket to get in the door, she was startled when he did nothing. Instead he just looked at her, the expression on his face a curious mixture of annoyance and admiration.
Suddenly self-conscious, she looked down at her blouse to see if maybe she’d spilled something from breakfast. No, nothing there. Did she have something stuck in her teeth? A smudge on her face? She lifted her hands and wiped them lightly across her cheeks, but without a mirror she couldn’t be certain she’d gotten it. Still he said nothing.
“What?” she finally asked. “Did I do something wrong?”