Author's note: Thanks for the feedback and your nice words, guys! I had way too many ideas for this story so the first part probably felt a bit bumpy because of it, but hopefully it'll be a smooth sailing from now on :) There's a point to everything that happens, I promise.

Owen slammed the power generator with his hand and cursed under his breath. The thing was working perfectly fine for the past five days, but this morning, it suddenly started to cough and sputter, and then it went dead, and even after kneeling beside it for nearly three hours now, he had no idea what was wrong. He might have to call the park's maintenance crew, he was starting to think now, not sure of what frustrated him more – the lack of electricity in his already plain house, or the idea of having to turn to Masrani Global for help.

The park meant Claire, or the possibility of dealing with Claire, seeing as how she was the big boss and all that, and his mind still refused to accept the fact that she found her way to the same piece of land in the middle of the ocean as he, the impossibility of it unfathomable.

In the three days that passed since their encounter at the paddock, Owen couldn't shake off the feeling that he somehow fell through a door leading to the past, and now it stood wide open, its lock broken. He wanted to slam it shut again, barricade it with a brick wall and free himself from the hold of his memories once again, but the harder he tried, the deeper he kept being sucked into everything Owen had long learned not to think about.

It took him five years to stop seeing her majestic green eyes in his dreams, to stop hearing her laughter, feel the weight of her body pressed lazily to his, taste her kisses that used to render him breathless and lightheaded. And even longer than that to stop seeing her in every red-haired woman he'd spot on the street, until there was nothing left. No pain, no heart-wrenching memories, no wistfulness – just numbness he welcomed gratefully, feeling free at last. That summer 16 years ago was a beautiful dream, the one he wished could last, but with time, it started to fade, feel less real, and he grew used to being okay with it.

Until three days ago….

Owen straightened up abruptly and kicked the toolbox shut, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his pants. The day – just like any other day in this place so far – was uncomfortably hot, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and rolling down his spine, making his shirt stick to his back. He could keep on trying to fix the damned thing until he had a heat stroke, or until he electrocuted himself, or he could dial one number—

Ten minutes later, a sound of approaching vehicle made him snap his head up, tearing his attention away from Angry Birds on his phone. If this was the maintenance team, they were fast, Owen could admit that much. Granted, it could've been Barry with a six-pack of beer, which was a very appealing thought, especially now that everything in his fridge was about to go bad if the generator problem wasn't fixed in the next hour.

It wasn't Barry.

A sleek grey Mercedes that appeared on the road was unmistakable, although Owen hoped against all hope that it wasn't who he thought it was. Maybe everyone around here had the same cars, he tried to reason with himself. Maybe he would get lucky just this once.

Fat chance.

Her Mercedes, clean and shiny, looked out of place here, near his shabby bungalow surrounded by the wild overgrowth of nature that was nothing like meticulously trimmed lawns and neat palm trees at the resort, and watching Claire climb out of it, her heels digging into the soft soil of what he considered his front yard, made his stomach churn. In her designer suite and with her impeccable hairdo, she didn't belong anywhere in his life, period.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Owen asked flatly as he uncurled from his sitting position on the porch steps, hidden from the blazing sun in the shade of his house.

"Mr. Grady…" Claire started in a tight voice, spotting him after a moment or two.

She'd spent the last few days trying to convince herself she wasn't going crazy. In the years following their split-up after a few flimsy weeks of a ridiculous summer romance, she looked for him in every face, her heart jumping whenever the phone in her college apartment would ring, her breath catching each time she'd get a letter mailed to her name and not to 'The resident'. Despite everything, she hoped that whatever they had, whatever they could have, was salvageable still, holding on to something that probably never was there in the first place. Now, it seemed so foolish and naïve, almost embarrassingly so.

And yet, coming face to face with Owen after all those years had rattled her more than she was willing to admit, old memories she didn't know were still lurking in her mind resurfacing with enough force to knock the ground from under her feet and leave her gasping for air. The feeling was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, amplified by a forgotten longing she thought she'd long had under control. Being proven wrong was not just an uncharted territory. It was a middle of a goddamn Bermuda Tringle, for all she knew.

They needed to talk, that much was clear. And as much as Claire hated the idea – or was unnerved by it, at the very least – there was no way they could both live and work on Isla Nublar and pretend that the other one wasn't somewhere here as well. She half-hoped and half-feared Owen would be the one to take the first step, her heart skipping a beat every time the door to her office would open. Until it got too much to bear. Well, if anyone was going to be a grown up about this whole situation and deal with it accordingly, she figured it'd have to be her.

Standing before him now, however, shattered her resolve. She had to make a conscious effort not to turn around, get back in her car, and drive until there were enough miles between them to allow her to start breathing again. The tight grip of her past was almost more than she could handle.

"Owen," he corrected her, quirking an eyebrow in that not quite amused way, the crooked smile not touching his eyes that remained sharp and appraising on her, if a little more cynical than she appreciated. "I know every freckle of your body, Claire. I don't think the formalities are necessary."

Something flashed in her eyes – anger, dare? Owen couldn't tell. She pursed her lips together into a thin line for a few moments, her chin tipped up stubbornly. She didn't look away, didn't blush. Didn't seem to be particularly impressed with his comment, either. It was like this new Claire Dearing was an entirely different Claire from the one that he knew. He shouldn't have been surprised perhaps, he thought. Half a lifetime was a long time.

It caught him off guard nonetheless. Everything about her was familiar, and yet so different it was terrifying. Where there used to be softness, he could see nothing but thorns and sharp edges now, her expression cold and uncompromising.

"Very well," Claire nodded. She paused in front of him and looked around, taking in his small bungalow and patches of muddy puddles left by a recent rain, surprised beyond herself. Was InGen really out of accommodation space? Surely they could've tried harder for someone one Owen's caliber – she'd gathered from Simon he was sort of a big deal. Not that that sounded plausible. She cleared her throat. "Owen."

His lips twitched humorlessly. "What are you doing here?"

"I manage the operations of the park," she responded simply as if it was a common knowledge and something he should've been aware of. He probably should have, except he avoided thinking and talking about her to the best of his ability. "And, considering our circumstances, I just thought we should talk."

Owen nodded even though it wasn't what he asked, exactly. What he wanted to know was what in hell brought her here when he was doing such a good fucking job at avoiding her.

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants, squaring his shoulders almost on instinct, and finally allowed himself to give her a proper once-over, taking note of her undoubtedly expensive pantsuit and black strappy high-heeled shoes. A gold necklace around her neck and a matching bracelet around her wrist. It was her hair that threw him off – golden waves that used to fall down almost to her waist were now chin-long and perfectly straight.

She looked like she owned the world.

"Shoot," he offered generously, adding as an afterthought, "And for the record, I had no idea you'd be here."

Claire snorted and leveled him with a steady look. "Of course you didn't. If you did, you'd sign up for Peace Corps or something else equally important."

"Yeah, well, if you knew I was coming here, you'd divorce me again just for the hell of it," he fired back with a shrug.

She hummed. "We were not divorced, our marriage was annulled. In the eyes of the law, we were barely married at all."

Owen chucked and stepped away from her, heading toward the workbench near the porch – an excuse to move away from her, and maybe hide a slight tremor in his hands. For all the changes in her appearance, Claire smelled the same – a delicate scent of vanilla mixed with something light and floral, and there was only so much he could do to stop himself from reaching over to brush his thumb to the dusting of freckles on her cheekbone.

"Barely married," he echoed. "That's cute. Mind if I borrow it for my OkCupid profile?"

Claire followed him, her arms folded over her chest. "I'm surprised you have to ask. Usually you just do whatever you want without any regard for the opinion of the others."

"It's called personal growth," he beamed at her, stopping abruptly and turning around, nearly causing Claire to bump into him. "You should try it."

She took an involuntary step back, still almost pressed against him, and jerked her chin up. He seemed taller, she noted absently. Hardly possible though, but maybe it was an additional hundred pounds of solid muscles that made him seem particularly imposing.

If he was trying to intimidate her by invading her personal space though, she was not inclined to let him have it his way. It was ridiculous and childish and petty, but she was suddenly overcome with adamant determination to make it perfectly clear that she wasn't unaccustomed to dealing with people far more impressive than him without batting an eyelash. He might as well tone it down, for the futility of the show if nothing else.

"Wow, I did not see that coming," Claire noted, regaining her composure and holding his gaze, one eyebrow arched elegantly.

"You'd be surprised," Owen promised.

Her lips formed into a chilly smile. "Hardly. We breed dinosaurs here. There are very few things in the world that still surprise me."

He smirked, then turned away from her and busied himself with rearranging some junk on the workbench, more out of need to do something with himself than anything else. "Wanna bet?"

Claire ignored his question. "I just wanted to make sure we can treat our situation like adults, is all."

"I can if you can," he assured her boldly, his eyes narrowed slightly when he glanced at her.

"I can if you can," she retorted.

"Fine."

"Fine," she echoed.

"Great." Owen gave her another measured look. "Now, if you aren't here to fix my generator-"

Claire pursed her lips into a thin line, never breaking the eye contact. "I'll leave you to your devices, Mr. Grady." She swept the clearing with another glance and pointedly wrinkled her nose, pleased to see it set his teeth on edge. "Looks like you have your hands full."

"As full as they can be," he agreed, his ears catching the sound of another engine approaching, and this time it hopefully was the maintenance crew.

"It was a pleasure to see you again," she finished formally, like he was nothing but another faceless business partner to her, everything about her voice perfectly polite, composed, and entirely detached.

"Oh, the pleasure was all mine," Owen offered her a wicked grin. "Don't be a stranger, Claire."

"I most definitely will be."

On that, she turned around and walked away from him, never looking back.

She got in her car, slamming the door so hard a flock of birds took off the nearest tree with loud screeches, disappearing in the bright blue sky, and then she floored the gas pedal, eager to get away from this place and this man as far as she possibly could. She could feel him watch her too, her skin tingling under Owen's gaze, her hands shaking.

Claire passed by the maintenance truck heading toward the bungalow – what did he say about his generator? – and then hit the brakes hard when her vision got too blurry to see anything and her chest turned too tight to breathe. The car stopped abruptly, her whole body jerking forward. That selfish, self-centered jerk… She dropped her face in her hands and let the tears she'd long through had dried out flow.

xoox

The phone call came around midnight a week later – a week that Owen spent in countless seminars on policies and codes of conduct related to his program along with a bunch of other people involved in it, most of them taking place at the resort facilities reserved for special events.

He'd seen Claire in the corridors a few time, always either on the phone, or talking to someone or another, looking like the world would fall apart if she paused long enough to take a breath. She either didn't notice him, or pretended that she didn't, which left him both grateful and irritated at the same time. Now that he knew that she was here, a part of him couldn't help but want to get in her face as much as possible, crack this carefully constructed mask she was wearing. And yet the rest of him couldn't get far enough away from her as fast as he could. Simply knowing she was in the same building as he was making his blood run faster, and he couldn't go back to feeling that way. Never.

All things considered, those briefings and meetings were a welcome distraction. And now it was time.

It was the lab calling. The eggs were about to hatch and he needed to get his ass there ASAP. Henry Wu, a scientist behind the whole thing, explained to Owen that one of the most important things about this project, if not the most important one, was Owen's imprinting on the raptors. He needed to be there when they were born, needed to be the first person they'd see and form an emotional bond with. A complete trust, Wu explained.

Owen tumbled out of bed, groggy and disoriented from sleep. He turned on the reading lamp, groaning under his breath when the unexpectedly bright light flooded the room, blinding him for a few moments. He grabbed his pants from the chair where he'd left them the previous night and then quickly pulled his shirt on, his head nearly getting stuck in one of the sleeves in his haste.

His stomach dropped. This was it, he thought as he paused in the middle of the room, this was real. Not just the talk and theories. In fifteen minutes, he would officially be in for a long haul, and the idea made his head spin. He took a deep breath. This was it.

He rushed out of the house, jumping off the porch steps on his way to the car.

The lab was brightly lit even at this time of the night, the techs buzzing around the incubators. Henry Wu was there, too. He spotted Owen and waved at him to come over, his face serious but not worried, and Owen relaxed minutely. He weaved his way through the crowd in white coats chatting in low, hushed voices, neither of them paying attention to him.

"Ah, Mr. Grady," Wu offered him a small, fleeting smile, relieved to see Owen. "Sorry to have disturbed you at this hour."

"No problem," Owen cleared his throat and belatedly reached over to smooth down his raging bedhead, unruly curls sticking out at odd angles. It was odd to miss his NAVY buzz cut.

"It wasn't supposed to happen until tomorrow afternoon," Wu explained as he led Owen to the incubator in the far end of the lab designed as an open-space type of environment. "But I guess they have their own idea of when the time is right." He tried to sound upbeat and excited, but Owen could tell he was just as anxious, what with this being something entirely different from the regular affairs of the park. "Here they are."

Owen had seen this before. On his second day on the island, Vic Hoskins brought him here to introduce him to Wu and show him four long eggs sitting in a crate under a dome lid of an incubator meant to provide the best conditions for the growth and development of the animals.

Back then, Owen simply nodded, more curious about the rest of this place and its sterile whiteness and the conversations floating around him that he could barely understand than in the eggs. However, this time, he could see small cracks zigzagging along mated gray shells, the tiny tremor that meant the animals' attempts at trying to break free. His lips stretched into a smile, the sleepless night forgotten. This was fascinating. This was so beyond everything he could ever imagine it was making him lightheaded.

He straightened up after a few moments, tuning to Wu again. "So, what do I do now?"

The scientist shrugged. "Wait. You need to be the first human they interact with. Otherwise…" He trailed off, and glanced around at the other lab staff. "Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Grady."

Owen nodded if a little numbly, and stepped closer to the incubator when Wu walked away to tend to other business at hand.

It was a slow process, the eggshells too hard for the raptors to climb out of. But about an hour later, a first snout popped out of the crack, blue lines running along its long nose and down its neck, its fingers flexing as it pushed more of the shell away, falling awkwardly out of it. The next moment, its eyes fixed on Owen on the other side of Plexiglas. His heart squeezed fiercely, protectiveness mixed with wonder flooding his mind. Just knowing that Velociraptors were some of the most vicious species that ever existed didn't change the fact this little creature before his eyes was the most perfect little thing he'd ever seen.

She – he'd been told all species were female – uncurled from a ball and waggled her tail a bit, testing her ability to do so, wobbly and unsteady on tiny feet. Her nostrils twitched, small claws flexing, as she blinked, waiting for the world to come into full focus.

"Hi," Owen mouthed soundlessly, a wondrous smile on his face. She couldn't hear him perhaps, but he didn't care one bit. Instead, he pressed his palm to the Plexiglas, promising to himself to take the best care of this little creature, feeling inexplicably proud of her awkward movements and cautious curiosity.

It took some time for the rest of the eggs to follow suit, and when all four raptors were out of confines of their shells, croaking and snapping their tiny teeth at one another, he clicked the incubator open like Wu showed him, reaching carefully for the one that hatched first. The one with blue lines on her body.

Her skin warm and pleasantly leathery, she was roughly the size of his palm now, and the moment Owen picked her up, she sank her teeth into his thumb the way a kitten would. He didn't feel a thing, except for the frustration radiating from the animal at her own inability to pierce Owen's skin.

He chuckled softly, running his index finger over her head and down her spine. "I'm taking it you guys might be hungry."

xoox

"Is everything okay, Claire?" Zara asked her one afternoon.

"What?" Claire's attention snapped back to here and now and she tore her gaze away from the panoramic view outside the window, turning to her assistant sitting across her wide desk. "Why?"

"Well, we were going through your agenda and you kind of spaced out."

"Right." Claire cleared her throat. "Where were we?"

"Renew the contract with Starbucks," Zara read to her promptly, giving Claire a puzzled look.

If anything, Claire Dearing was never distracted. Hell, a few months ago she was right here, with a fever that threatened to set her fancy leather chair on fire, handling the negotiation with one of the vendors better than anyone in the right health would, and they both knew it.

But the fact was that after a few weeks of pointedly ignoring the existence of Owen Grady on Isla Nublar and doing her absolute best not to think about him no matter what, she finally managed to convince herself she was getting somewhere with this plan – she did, after all, have about 16 years of experience of doing just that. Until this afternoon.

Claire was showing one of the potential investors around, a man who was still uncertain about pouring his funds into one of the park's projects, finishing the tour in the lab so Henry Wu could answer any of the questions on the topics she, personally, wasn't 100% versed in. And there he was, in the corner of the lab, completely oblivious to the guests of the park behind the glass wall, staring open-mouthed at the incubators and the lab technicians working at other stations. He was crouched by the cage used by the lab for the newly hatched animals until they were old enough to fend for themselves in their outdoor enclosures.

The raptors, she assumed. That was what Mr. Masrani said about the nature of his project, right?

Claire paused, almost despite herself, while her companion gaped around at the miracles of science as she watched Owen, his expression gleeful and delighted, like he was looking at the most precious and miraculous treasure in the world. And like on cue, Claire's heart skipped a beat in that familiar way she hoped she would never experience again. She'd seen that look before, the easy and relaxed smile seared into her memory. Somehow, it unsettled her even more than their ridiculous fight.

Okay, if she were completely honest with herself, everything about this situation was unsettling, and the tug in her stomach she used to live with back before everything between the two of them fell apart wasn't making it any better. He had no right to still have this kind of impact on her. She made it her personal crusade to ensure no one ever did.

It wasn't even the fact that she saw Owen that kept her mind wandering now, but watching him pull one of the raptors the size of his hand out of the cage as he talked softly to it while the lizard-looking creature wagged its tail that left her feeling like someone punched her in solar plexus. Now, Claire could barely remember how the rest of her meeting went, couldn't recall seeing the man out or making her way back to the office, her mind blank.

There had to be a way for them to make it work, to keep it professional and simply soldier on with their respective jobs, but what it was she had no idea.

Claire straightened up in her chair and clasped her hands together, all business. "Call them, ask for a conference call," she told Zara. "I want to know if they're still okay with the initial terms of the contract before we sign any addendums." She tapped her fingers on the table. "Also, set up a meeting with Eric from Finance to discuss the budget forecast, and when the marketing sends the new advertisement campaign materials, forward them to me immediately."

Zara marked her requests in her phone. "Sure. Anything else?" The question was almost cautious, like she expected Claire to float away any moment, what with her head being up in the clouds.

Claire offered her a small, reassuring smile. "No, that would be all for now. Thank you."

Zara nodded and stood up. "Well, you know where to find me." Still, she lingered for a few moments by Claire's desk. "Are you sure… Coffee, maybe?"

Tempting, Claire thought, but no, otherwise her brain would probably explode.

She shook her head. "I'm good, really."

Except my biggest mistake ever somehow ended up here, of all places, but sure, everything is awesome.

When the door closed behind Zara, Claire slumped wearily in her chair, rubbing her temples, trying to push the headache away. It was ironic, really. She built a wall around her heart and put an ocean between herself and her past, and now said past had caught up with her, living mere two miles away from her, like a sucker-punch from fate – not that she believed in any such thing.

xoox

They were marvelous, that much Owen knew for sure. Little wonders.

At only 3 weeks old, the raptors already had fully developed personalities he could do nothing about, and frustration at their stubbornness aside, he couldn't help but feel dumbfounded and astonished by it.

Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo – InGen allowed him to name them and he chose to follow the Naval phonetic alphabet, with a minor exception for Blue who got her name for her distinctive colouring. She was the most willful one, a definite Beta to his Alpha, and determined to keep it that way. Echo was the most mellow one of them all while Delta never stopped challenging Blue's authority in the pack, and Charlie mostly seemed to be happy to simply be left alone so long as there was a snack.

They were resilient and strong, and for now still dependent on Owen, still remembering him feeding them the processed meat in the lab when their jaws were not strong enough yet for proper chewing. Yet they hardly ever stopped testing the boundaries, pushing him, establishing their own rules.

They were not pets, of course, and Owen knew that soon enough their instincts would overcome their loyalty, but for now he reveled in their attachment to him. His arms were covered in scratches and bites that were coming from affection rather than hostility so far. At this point, they were barely toddlers – still clumsy and uncoordinated on occasion, still growing into their large heads and fast reflexes they hadn't quite had any control over yet.

They were a damn good distraction for sure. In fact, between scheduled feedings and 'babyproofing' the paddock to make sure the raptors wouldn't wiggle out between the cage bars, he barely had time to take a shower and change, the sleep not even an option on most nights. He was exhausted, but in a good way, too. sometimes, he could go for two whole hours without thinking about Claire.

"They don't look like murder machines." Barry noted absently as he and Owen watched the raptors chase one another through the bars of the harness cage.

"They will be before they turn one," Owen responded, watching them with unmasked fondness, wondering absently if he was going to still feel the same way about them when they were dangerous enough to bite his head off in a blink of an eye. "Truth be told, no one knows at what age they become mature. Right now, they're just babies. God knows what they'll be capable of when they're fully grown."

"Not looking forward to their teenage phase, that's for sure," Barry chuckled.

They were not supposed to start any actual training for at least another week to allow the animals to get comfortable in the paddock. Little was known about their learning capabilities yet, and as eager Owen was to start working with them, he also couldn't help feeling worried.

With seals and dolphins, his objectives were perfectly clear but now… Even Simon Masrani was uncharacteristically vague about the end purpose of this project, and if the last few weeks were any indication, he could already tell the raptors were going to be crazy smart. It wasn't a bad thing, of course, but it was a dangerous one. They were going to challenge his authority and they were going to do it artfully. And right now, he wasn't sure he was going to win.

"Yeah, well…" Owen grinned. "I think curfew would be hard to enforce."

Barry shook his head, amused. "Did you even have a day off since you started?" He asked then, eyeing Owen with a mixture of amazement and respect.

"Don't need one." Hands clasped around thick bars, Owen frowned at Delta digging her small teeth into Echo's tail. He was tempted to shoo them apart, make sure no one got hurt, but they needed to learn to stand up for themselves even against one another.

He didn't need a goddamn day off. The main perk of putting in 90-hour work weeks was never having any time or energy left to think about Claire, or the fact that she was somewhere here, or about a million other things he'd bottled up over a decade ago and that were now spilling into his mind in abundance. It was easier to deal with them when he had something else to focus on, even when that something was being bitten and scratched by a pack of prehistoric beasts.

"Don't need, huh?" Barry coked his eyebrows.

"I think it's feeding time," Owen muttered, pushing back from the cage before the conversation veered off the in the direction he wasn't sure he wanted to take. Mindful of Barry's curiosity after his impulse confession weeks ago, he still was less than willing to discuss it.

Also, it really was feeding time.

xoox

The list of Claire's duties was a mile and a half long. Approving, supervising, managing, changing, and overseeing anything and everything in Jurassic World. One might have thought it was an impossible task for one person, but Claire was more than eager to shift some of those things around in order to make them all fit properly in her schedule. It made her feel grounded, in control.

Babysitting, however, was not one of them, and whenever she was faced with the need to push people to take on basic responsibilities, it always left her mildly irritated. Yes, she was well aware that not everything always went the right way, but surely, they could do the job they were hired to do, couldn't they? It wasn't even about the 'control issues' her sister insisted she had in excess so much as about trust – if she couldn't rely on people to commit to the most basic tasks, how could she be sure this whole place wouldn't fall apart the moment she looked the other way?

Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel as she took a right turn toward the InGen facilities located in the northeast part of the island, holding on to the frustration lest it give way to panic that already started to creep in on her.

Claire loved her job. What she wasn't a fan of was an annual meeting of the Board of Directors where Simon Masrani was expected to present the results of the past year – both financial and statistical – in order to secure funding for the successful programs and assimilation of the unsuccessful ones into something else.

If she were to take a wild guess, she'd agree that 90% of her work-related stress came from the preparation for said meeting. The divisions of Masrani Global located elsewhere were responsible for their own data, but the park was massive, its operations extensive, and it was up to her to compile them into a proper and clear picture. And now he wanted her to take over InGen's reports as well, all because Hoskins had an excellent background in the military, but his marketing and accounting skills were hardly impressive. Which, frankly, wasn't Claire's problem, but she failed to find a polite way to express this particular notion to her boss.

Suffice it was to say, Claire didn't look forward to not sleeping for two weeks, buried under the piles of documents no one bothered to straighten up properly. But just as she started to see the light in the end of this nightmarish tunnel, it turned out that a chunk of data was missing. She shouldn't have been surprised that it was Owen who didn't provide the required information, and she wasn't. The man had little respect for everyone else's job, and now she had to drive there and talk to him, waste the time she wasn't going to get back. This thought alone set Claire's teeth on edge, and that was even before they so much as said two words to one another, which wasn't going to end well, if their history was any indication.

On the bright side, if she got all the information now, she'd be done with the whole thing by the end of the weekend, provided she'd give up on the rest of her life, of course, but Claire had long learned that as far as this job was concerned, a sacrifice here and there was worth it.

So long as she had everything she needed.

Claire rounded a bend in the road and stopped near what served as an office. As usual, the paddock was a boiling pot of activity, a dozen men milling around, talking loudly to one another over the sounds of the waves crushing against the cliffs nearby. She pushed the door open and stepped into stifling heat. This close to the water, the air smelled like salt and seaweed, the breeze almost fresh on her cheeks, minus the humidity that made her feel like she'd jumped into the surf.

"Excuse me," she stopped a man passing by her, a bucket of what she hoped wasn't raw meat in his hand. "Where can I find Owen Grady?"

He gave her a curious look, as if puzzled to see her here, and then swept the clearing in front of the paddock with a long glance, his eyes narrowed against the merciless glare of the sun. Then he jerked his chin toward the stairs leading to the catwalk.

"Up there, probably."

Claire thanked him, starting to feel nauseated from the smell of whatever was in that bucket, and then headed toward where he pointed, hoping to get this over with in record time. Hopefully today, if she knew anything about Owen.

She was about to step onto the grated staircase, worried about breaking the heels of her new Steve Maddens – granted, she didn't plan on traipsing around the paddocks when she left her suite this morning – when the footsteps above her head made her stop in her tracks. She looked up when a shadow fell over her only to see Owen on his way down. He paused for a second, his eyebrows pulling together at the sight of her.

Claire stepped aside when he reached the ground.

"Mr. Grady." Chin tipped up, she added another layer of formality to her voice. "A word?"

Owen hummed under his breath. "Two even," he allowed graciously. "But then really have stuff to do."

She bristled at his attitude, fighting the urge to respond in kind. "I understand that you're a very busy man," she said dryly, her voice implying that in her opinion he was anything but. "And I have no intention to keep you away from your…. Whatever it is you're doing. But you haven't filed any progress reports for the past month and I need them."

Owen started toward the harnesses. He pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his pants and wiped his hands with it. "Hoskins has them."

She followed him, teetering slightly on the gravel under her feet. "No, he does not, otherwise-" I wouldn't be talking to you, she wanted to say, but had it in her to bite her tongue before the words slipped out of her mouth. As fun as their insulting matches were, she really didn't have any time for this nonsense right now. "Otherwise I'd have them. It's kind of important."

He stopped and turned to her, beads of sweat gathered under his hairline. "I'll have a look at them tonight," he offered after a moment or two.

Claire glared at him darkly. "Can you do it now?"

"I'm sort of in the middle of something," he brushed her off.

"I can see that, but as I said, it's important-"

Hands on his hips, he regarded her with a hint of irritation, which undoubtedly mirrored in Claire's eyes. "Look, as much as I'd love to jump on command just because you ask me to, Ms. Dearing," he made a dramatic pause to accentuate her name, "I've got work to do-"

"I'm afraid you don't understand," Claire interjected firmly, adding an edge of authority to her voice. "It's not a request."

Owen tilted his head to his shoulder, both vaguely aware of the audience around them and not particularly caring about the spectacle that the two of them were. "Is that so?"

She glared at him some more, the struggle almost comical on her face, and then let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, I thought we agreed to handle this… unfortunate situation in a professional manner."

"And I am," Owen promised her. "But you're not my boss."

Claire frowned. "In this instance, I am. Besides, I am your superior, regardless of the context."

"If by superior you mean trying to order me around – yeah, I've noticed. Funny how some things never change."

She huffed. "Do you have to make it personal?"

Owen's jaw dropped. "I am making it personal? You won't use my name, Claire," he hissed, leaning closer to her until their faces were only inches apart.

"I don't see why I should be bringing a mistake from a decade and a half ago into my job?" She asked flatly, unfazed by the fire burning in his gaze.

"Is that what it was?" Owen asked her in a low voice.

Claire's eyes darted around, taking note of a few people who stopped whatever they were doing to try and catch snippets of their conversation. "You know it is. Do we have to discuss it now?"

Owen's eyebrow quirked as he started to walk away from her. "You brought it up."

"I am just trying to get my files," she countered, following him toward the office. "Do you really think I want to be here?"

"Geez, Claire, way to be subtle!" He stuffed his handkerchief into the back pocket of his pants.

Fuming, she balled her hands into fists. "You want to do it that way? Fine! You were the one who ended it between us. Want to discuss that?"

He stopped and whirled around, his eyes aglow with anger. "That's not how I remember it."

"Well, it wasn't me who made a life-altering decision without talking to you," she spat, skidding to a sudden halt in front of him.

"I was neck-deep in debt! You know what my father left me when he died? A house that belonged to the bank and a 5-figure worth of loans," Owen snapped, not bothering to keep it quiet any longer, unsaid words bubbling up inside him and pouring over the brim of his composure. "I didn't have a choice."

She let out a harsh laugh and rolled her eyes. "There's always a choice."

"Not then, there wasn't. It wasn't like I killed someone, for Christ's sake! I owed a lot of money-"

"And I was pregnant, Owen," she cut him off.

To be continued...

A/N: Please review because reviews are love!