Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
However, as soon as we turned the corner and I saw Liam standing there with a grinning but tired face, dressed in a white lab coat and a bow tie, all my aches and fatigue washed away. The best part was when he lifted his eyes as he scanned the newest group of schoolchildren, and he focused right on my face. My expression was joyously innocent. I loved the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I could almost feel his panic, and it was so fucking sweet.
Liam’s smile didn’t waver as I ripped his gaze away from me and stared at the kids who gathered around a replica of a giant trilobite they could run their hands over.
“Has everyone been having fun at the museum today?” Liam called out.
“Yeah!” the kids shouted back, but it was with decidedly less enthusiasm than they’d shown all day. It had been a long afternoon, and their group was one hour away from climbing on their bus to return to school. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of them fell asleep on the bus.
“Does anyone have a favorite part of the museum?”
There were a couple who called out that they liked the trains and another who talked about the miniature robots that were replicas of the robots that had been sent to the surface of Mars. Many of them exclaimed about the giant T-Rex skeleton they’d passed on their way to reach Liam.
He nodded, his expression growing more relaxed. “Those are some of my favorites too. Well, my name is Dr. Liam Rose, and I’m a paleontologist here. Does anyone know what a paleontologist does?”
“You study water pails?” I yelled, making all the kids giggle.
Liam held on to his smile, but his eyes narrowed at me in silent warning. “Not quite.”
“You’re a dinosaur doctor!” a girl with braided pigtails answered.
“Very good! That’s exactly right! I am a doctor who specializes in dinosaurs. You see, I dig in the dirt, looking for—”
“Treasure!” I hollered, sounding like a pirate.
The kids laughed, but this time, Mrs. Gunthrie directed some stink-eye my way, and I bit my tongue. It was one thing to make Liam’s life more difficult, but I shouldn’t mess with the education of the kids.
“That’s true. It’s treasure to me. I’m searching for fossils. Who knows what fossils are?”
“Bones!” someone shouted.
“What else?” Liam prodded.
The kids fell silent until he tapped a finger on what appeared to be a fossilized nautilus.
“Shells?” another kid called out.
“Yes!”
“Plants?” a third added.
“That’s right. Even plants can be turned into fossils. What a paleontologist does is they dig up these fossils and clean them so we can study the dinosaurs. That way, we can better understand all the amazing creatures who lived on the Earth millions and millions of years ago.”
From there, I stood in a kind of silent awe as I watched Liam talk to these kids—not about the cool dinosaurs they were all accustomed to seeing in the Hollywood movies, but about the tiny fish and invertebrate creatures that swam in the oceans that covered the world millions of years before those enormous behemoths. He passed around small, fossilized shells and other creatures for them to touch and examine. These creatures were important because these were the precursors to everything. Not to mention, these were the fossils that were most common in this region and were the things they were likely to find in their own backyard or while hiking in the woods.
Sure, uncovering the femur for a T-Rex would be awesome, but locating bits of shells and coral from millions of years ago was more likely and could spawn the next generation of scientists.
After a brief talk, Liam led them through the rest of the exhibit, explaining more about how there wasn’t just one mass extinction that wiped out the giant dinosaurs, but there were five mass extinctions.
I hated to admit it, but I actually learned a stunning amount of information about the dinosaurs and the types of marine life that once swam in this area.
Almost thirty minutes passed before we reached the end of the dinosaurs, and the kids were handed off to another museum docent who specialized in some of the other research that was being done with animal genetics in the area. Liam waved at all the kids as they passed by. The moment they were gone, his shoulders slumped, and he closed his eyes, appearing utterly drained. He opened his eyes again, and I was standing in front of him with a bright smile.
Liam jumped and shuffled away from me. He glared, sending tiny lines out from the corners of his eyes. Without a word, he hurried to a niche where he pulled out a half-empty bottle of water. He swished a mouthful and swallowed it.
“I’ve been talking almost nonstop since 9:00 a.m.,” he stated. Now that he wasn’t attempting to project his voice over the other crowds of talking people, I could hear that he’d grown hoarse. “How many freaking kids did you shuttle here?”