Agent Out of Time

Her eyes drifted down him admiringly and her response was a simple raising of the eyebrows.

"Is that all you look at in a relationship?" Trent asked sarcastically.

"I've never known there to be much of anything else worth going for." Deshavi responded defensively.

His hand closed around the back of her knee and he tugged her off the edge of the bank she'd been sitting on. She landed hard in the ditch on her backside. Breathing heavy, as a result of the unexpected movement on his part she pressed back against her side of the ditch away from him, completely unsure of his motives all of a sudden. She actually felt threatened.

The ditch was too narrow to avoid him, when he reached out and pulled her to her feet. He took her hands before she could object and folded them around the handle of a shovel.

His eyes met hers and she relaxed a little when she saw a glint of humor in the depths of his, "Someone very wise once told me that the only relationships worth having were those that went deeper than just the surface of the skin and that to get those relationships in place, hard work is required to both build and maintain them. Perhaps you're past failures with relationships were because you didn't work hard enough at them."

He stepped away and moved down the ditch from Deshavi and grabbed up another shovel along the way.

She stared incredulously after him, "You're expecting me to dig in the dirt in order to be with you?"

He didn't answer and she looked around, as she grappled with what to do. This was crazy! She stared at the shovel in her hands.

"You can't ask me to dig up the remains of my relatives, let alone evidence that they might not of been the first ones on this continent!"

Trent straightened up and turned around to face her, "Hey I didn't make you sign anything to be here. If you want to go, then go."

He turned back around to his work. Deshavi glared spitefully at his back for a moment. Her gaze shifted to the shovel handle in her hands. Thirteen and a half million was beginning to look like too little of a reward for putting up with this man! Muttering darkly to herself she turned to the loose dirt on her side of the ditch and began to throw it out with the shovel.

"You know if you put less effort into talking and more effort into your work, then more would get done."

Deshavi straightened and turned around to face Trent.