Part 3 (2/2)
He sounded disgruntled, she thought. What did he expecta”to have the entire jungle and its contents to himself? He'd be plenty annoyed when he saw all the tourists at Tikal.
”I can show you the trail back to Tikal,” she said. And you can bet we'll part company the minute I get the chance.
”Will you, then?” he said, and gave an inelegant snort. ”I'll appreciate the help.”
She thought better of saying anything more at that point, though she was constantly aware of his presence at her side. He was big and well built, of that much she was certain. If he was crazy, she'd have a hard time throwing him off. Maybe he was some kind of hermit who'd come here to live in solitude. The Petn might be a good place for that, if you didn't mind rain, mud, mosquitoes, and flies and didn't stick too close to the tourist traps at Tikal.
Maybe this guy had been a hermit too long.
Now you're really letting your imagination run away with you. . . .
”There,” the man said suddenly. ”The entrance.”
And sure enough, there was a faint patina of illumination along the tunnel walls. Mac heard a faint hiss that grew louder as the brightness increased.
Rain. Not merely a drizzle, but torrents and buckets of rain, sheeting across the bright square that defined the exit.
Great. She'd deliberately come to Tikal during the August dry period, but apparently she'd cut it too fine. She'd be drenched, and the trail back to Tikal would be a soup of mud.
Her unwanted companion showed no surprise at the downpour. Before she could turn to examine him in the light, he said something unintelligible and pushed past her.
Mac stopped just inside the shelter of the tunnel. The man had plunged right out into the rain and stood with his back to her, hands on hips and head flung back in defiance of the weather. The rain made short work of plastering his s.h.i.+rt and pants flush to his body, confirming what Mac had already guessed by touch alone.
He was tall. Over six feet, she guessed, and not in the least skinny. Broad shoulders, taut back, firm b.u.t.tocks. Wavy pale brown hair, just brus.h.i.+ng the back of his collar, darkened to a deeper hue as the rain slicked it down. He was very impressive, even from a rear view. Perhaps even especially from a rear viewa Mac felt a jolt of chagrin at the direction of her thoughts. She'd never really let herself admire men in a purely physical sense, not since that one disastrous and very brief relations.h.i.+p in college. She had no use for the male fixation on b.u.t.ts and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and beauty, or similar female obsessions; that kind of ritual preening would never be part of her world.
But now she looked. d.a.m.n it, why not? This wasn't Berkeley or San Francisco. She wasn't part of the meat market people referred to as dating. She was out in a comparatively safe jungle where no one knew her, where all bets were off and magic waited just behind the next tree.
Maybe that was it, why she studied the man with such fascination. He wasa Yes. He was part of the magic. He was the opposite of the grim reality of Liam's bones in the tunnel, or curses that echoed down the generations. He was the incarnation of adventure itself, like an ancient idol brought to life. He was an integral part of his surroundingsa”the ruins, the jungle, even the rain and mud. He owned the place. He belonged here.
Mac let herself share in that belonging, experience the feeling of being suspended in time and s.p.a.ce, free for the moment of any lingering guilt over a past she'd had no part of.
Slowly she stepped out into the rain. It baptized her with fierce joy, making a close cap of her hair and soaking her clothing in a matter of seconds, bathing face and arms and legs. She felt water trickle under her s.h.i.+rt and between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A tingle of awareness tightened her nipples.
Primal. Primeval. This was nature in its glory, and somehow it pa.s.sed a little of that glory on to her. She wasn't plain, ordinary Mac anymore. She was a G.o.ddess of the forest, a dauntless heroine ready to meet any challengea ”I'll be d.a.m.ned. You're a woman!”
The man's deep, husky voice snapped Mac out of her reverie. He had turned around; a retort was already on her lips before she got a good glimpse of his features.
”Gee, thanks for clearing that up. Ia”” She found herself gazing into eyes that gave new meaning to the hackneyed phrase ”steely gray.” For a moment all she could do was stand in gaping silence as the man examined her with insulting thoroughness.
”I don't believe it,” he said. ”What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?”
But she wasn't really listening. She didn't have time to resent his critical tone or his arrogant questions or the fact that he was acting just as she'd expect a typical male to act when confronted with the unimpressive MacKenzie Rose Sinclair.
All she could hear was the pounding of her own heart and the startled rasp of her own breathing. And all she could see was his strong and powerfully masculine face.
A face she recognized. A face she'd first seen months ago. A face she'd been carrying around in her backpack ever since she'd left the San Francisco International Airport for the wilds of Central America.
The man was the spitting image of Liam O'Shea.
Chapter Three.
The best of prophets of the future is the past.
a”George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron.
MAC FELT HER mouth go completely dry even as the rain trickled from her nose onto her lips and dripped from her chin.
”I don't believe it,” she whispered. ”What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?”
She had the vague notion that his lips moved in some kind of reply, but there was a buzzing in her ears that blocked out any sound. All she could do was fight off the impulse to burst into frankly hysterical giggles.
Out of all the things that could have happened to her in this incredible place, nothing could be quite so unbelievable. Or so appropriate. She'd come seeking absolution from Liam O'Shea, and she'd found him. First his bones, and then his modern-day clone.
Her discovery stared at her and she stared back, so struck by the absurdity of it all that her shock faded quickly into a curious detachment.
Yes, the likeness was almost flawless. This pseudo-Liam was a little harder, a little more daunting than his photographic counterpart. His hair was a little longer, his eyes paler, his face more weathered with experience. And, if possible, more handsome.
Oh, not in the conventional sense. He was Harrison Ford and Daniel Day-Lewis and Timothy Dalton rolled into one, with perhaps a dash of a young Charlton Heston thrown in. Masculinity personified, with not one iota of boyish softness. His jaw was set, and she could tell he wasn't too happy about something.
Why shouldn't he be happy? Mac was feeling almost giddy, no longer quite tethered to reality. Or to anything else that would normally send her hotfooting in the opposite directiona”such as the critical gleam in his eye that surely found her wanting.
”I'll be d.a.m.ned,” he said again, this time with a more p.r.o.nounced drawl of disgust. ”Who in h.e.l.l was idiotic enough to bring an American woman to the jungle?”
”Excuse me?”
His gaze swept the surrounding jungle before fixing on her again, dark with annoyance. ”Whoever did it should be horsewhipped. How did you get separated from him?”
”Him,” who? The guide? Horsewhipped? ”I think that might be sort of a severe punishment,” she said, ”considering I only paid him five dollars to guide me here from Tikal.”
He cast her an even more dubious glance, if that were possible. ”Then where's the rest of your party?”
”Doing the cha-cha in Tikal, probably.”
He was not amused by her lame attempt at humor. ”The men you came with. The fools who thought a woman could manage in a place like this.”
Mac was in far too strange a mood to be annoyed. With a little effort, she could almost imagine that this was the way the real Liam would have talked. He'd have been a product of his timesa”in other words, a born male chauvinist. Whoever this guy was, and whatever his problems, he was unwittingly playing the role to a tee.
”Well, la-dee-dah,” she said, tapping her cheek. ”I came to this big bad jungle all by my little old self. What's getting into women these days?”
The glint of annoyance in his eyes had become something of a disturbance to rival the tropical storm overhead. ”By yourself,” he repeated with patent disbelief.
”Yup. Amazing but true.”
Liam's double took a step forward, crowding her close to the ruin behind her. ”Missa”” He looked her up and down again in such a way that his a.s.sessment of her person could not have been mistaken. ”I presume you are a miss? No man in his right mind would let his wife come to the Petn.”
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