by Ann Charles
“Decent in the sack?” He pushed her hand away. “We’re back to that again, are we?”
One auburn eyebrow lifted. “Back to what again?”
“Sexual slights.” He bumped her back from the cave and then took a swing at the thick root blocking the opening. It was harder than he’d expected. “So far,” he said, putting more oomph behind his second swing, “you’ve rated my sexual aptitude as ‘good,’ ‘sort of memorable,’ and now ‘decent.’ “
“Would you rather I use superlatives like ‘most’ and words ending in ‘est’ to stroke your ego?”
Pausing to wipe his face with his shirt, he frowned at her. “No, Angélica. I’d rather you be honest with me. If there’s something more you need or want from me to redline the pleasure meter while we’re doing the wild thing, then I’d like to know.”
Her focus lowered to his lips. She swallowed visibly. “Okay.”
He waited for her to say something else, to tell him he was reading her all wrong, but she held her cards close to her vest.
Grumbling about the hard-headed woman, he went back to chopping and tried to push aside the doubts she’d raised. She’d certainly seemed to enjoy sex right along with him, but maybe he’d been too caught up in his own pleasure while touching her to see things clearly.
With the removal of one of the large fig roots covering the opening, the hole widened enough for them to slip inside.
He stepped back. “You ready, boss lady?”
“Let’s go.” She started forward, pulling out a flashlight from her back pocket.
“Christ, Angélica.” Quint caught her arm before she could slip inside. “Hold up. I’ll go first, thank you very much.”
Her eyes sparked. She tugged her arm free. “You don’t have to play macho man, Parker. It’s just you and me here.”
“Exactly.” He jammed the hatchet back into its leather pouch. “Listen, we can have a pissing match later, but right now you’re going to let me lead the way because I earned the right with my remarkable chopping skills.”
His attempt at levity fell flat. “You’ve only been here a couple of days,” she said. “I don’t want you getting hurt already. Dad needs you too much.”
Juan needed him, huh? Right. What in the hell was going on here? Was she ticked because he’d been gone when she’d woken up in his cot? He’d returned from shaving to an empty tent, finding her at breakfast nursing a cup of coffee with a hard glint in her eyes.
“I won’t get hurt, boss lady. And if I do, I’ll grit my teeth and work through it, don’t you worry.”
She sighed, her expression softening. “Quint—”
“Don’t make me arm wrestle you for first dibs on this stupid cave. You may have bigger cojones than most of us here when it comes to things that hiss and growl in the night, but I’m stronger than you and I’m not going to budge on this.”
Her gaze challenged him for a moment. When he didn’t back down, she shoved her hard hat on her head and gestured for him to go first. “Fine. You and your beefy muscles lead the way.”
“Damned right we will.” Grabbing Juan’s bag of tricks, Quint pulled out two carbon filter masks and handed her one. “Put this on.”
“Why? It’s just a cave. There’s not even any bat guano in it from what we can tell.”
“Your dad insisted that we take extra precautions. With the other problems you two have run into at this site, he’s worried there could be gases trapped in there.”
Muttering under her breath about overprotective males, she slipped on the mask, securing it over her mouth and nose. “Now can we go?” she asked, her voice muffled.
He put on his mask and his hard hat, then squeezed sideways through the opening. The low ceiling made him bend partway over.
Angélica followed behind him, sliding through with less scraping but more cursing. Once inside, she crowded in behind him in the hall-like entryway. When she tried to step around him, Quint caught her shoulder and stopped her. “Wait a second, Speedy Gonzales.”
“What now?”
He pulled out the gas detector Juan had shown him how to use earlier. Quint clicked on the device and pushed several buttons per Juan’s instructions, checking the air for poisonous gases and adequate oxygen.
“What’s it say?” she peered down at the LCD screen along with him.
“From what I can tell, the oxygen levels look good, and there are no signs of harmful gases.” He wrapped the meter’s strap around his neck and then added his flashlight beam to look at the scene in front of them.
Stones, splintered with cracks, lined the four-foot-wide throat of the cave. Fingers of roots poked through in spots, hanging down like fish hooks waiting to snag a catch. Angélica looked up and tugged on one of the roots near their hats. Dirt crumbled onto the floor around their hiking boots.
Jeez, she was as fearless as her dad when it came to these underground coffins. Quint grabbed her hand. “How about you don’t do that anymore?”
“You feeling antsy, Parker?”
“Being buried alive is not on my bucket list.”
“Sorry.” Her eyes locked with his for several seconds over her mask. “It’s mind-blowing.”
Quint hadn’t seen anything mind-blowing about the dirt walls and low ceiling. A fresh coat of sweat coated his skin from just thinking about how much weight hovered over their heads, thanks to that big fig tree.
“There’s nothing mind-blowing about it.” He glanced back toward the sunlit opening. It beckoned him with promises of fresh air, blue sky, and the opportunity to see another day. “It looks like a typical cave to me.”
She patted him on the chest, drawing his attention back to her. “I wasn’t talking about the cave.”
As he stood there replaying their conversation, trying to figure out what she was talking about, she headed deeper into the darkness.
A sprinkle of dirt pattered onto the top of his hard hat.
Fuck.
Grimacing, he followed after her, ducking even lower to avoid the dangling roots. “What’s mind-blowing?” he asked, trying to keep his mind off the cracks in the ceiling.
“Later, Parker,” she said over her shoulder.
About ten feet inside the cave, the width of the tunnel’s throat widened even more, making room for three to walk side by side. The ceiling raised, too, enough for Quint to stand upright. Around a bend, a semi-circular chamber spread before them.
Back here, the dirt was packed down and sprinkled with white grains of something. Chunks of salt? Quartz crystals? He squatted to take a closer look. No, they weren’t sparkling enough. Was it falling through the cracks overhead? Quint directed his light upward. The ceiling was still bat-free and much less fractured here.
Angélica walked deeper into the chamber, shining her light around. “Any harmful gases registering yet?”
Rising, he checked again, pushing the buttons Juan had showed him. “Oxygen is a little lower, but still well in the green.” He pressed more buttons. “Nothing dangerous is registering.”
She pulled off her mask, scrubbing her face with her shirt.
“What are you doing?” He lowered Juan’s fancy gadget.
“We’re in the clear.”
“That’s not a sure thing yet.”
“Trust me on this one.” She bent over and scooped up a handful of dirt mixed with white grains, shining her light onto her palm. She gasped. “It’s a sascabera!”
He tugged off his mask. “What?”
“This place. It’s an ancient mine dug out by the Maya.”
“How can you tell?” He walked over to her, shining his light around. It looked like a cave to him and nothing more.
She held her palm full of dirt toward him, tipping the dirt into his hand. “Look. They extracted the granular limestone and used it as lime plaster to coat the buildings and the roads.”
“I didn’t realize they had limestone mines here.” Quint lit up his palm, nudging several granules around with his flashlight.
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br /> “It’s unusual. More often you’ll find them farther up on the peninsula. Come on.”
He dumped the dirt and looked up while brushing his hand off on his pants. Angélica stood at the edge of another tunnel that appeared to lead farther back into the mine. This one was a tighter squeeze, barely wider than his shoulders.
“Oh, no. I’m not going in there, boss lady.”
She nailed him with her beam. “You’ve been in worse spots.”
He shielded his eyes. “And I nearly keeled over from a heart attack each time.”
“Would it do any good to bribe you?”
“With what?”
Her beam lowered. “More mind-blowing sex.”
His eyes narrowed. Is that what she’d meant earlier when she said mind-blowing? She was just feeling sorry for his ego now. “Let’s move on from that sticky wicket.”
“Whatever you say, Parker. Get your ass over here.”
He joined her, peering into the dark tunnel. The ceiling and walls looked solid with no roots hanging down or fractured map lines. “I’m not sure that even the promise of super amazing acrobatic circus sex with fire rings and hungry lions would get me to risk going in there.”
“Okay, ringmaster. Wait here for me.”
He caught her arm. “You’re not going in there without me.”
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said.” He crammed into the passageway, cursing her obstinacy as he slid along bumping his shoulders periodically on small outcroppings of rock. He’d rounded the second bend when he saw something up ahead that made him stop. “Apparently neither of us is going much further.”
“What do you mean?” She came up behind him in the tunnel, peeking around him. “Is that a wall?” As she struggled to slide past him, her knee caught him in the lower thigh.
He grunted.
She grimaced, eye to eye with him in the tunnel. “Sorry. My knees seem to have a thing for your legs.”
“Yeah, well, my legs would like your knees to turn around and lead us back out into the sunshine.”
“Will do. Just give me a minute here.” She took the lead and approached the wall, touching the rocks used to build it. The stones looked similar to the ones the Maya used for the temples at the site. Someone must have hauled them in here when they decided to seal off the mine.
“Is there a way around it?” Quint hoped to hell not.
“Not that I can see.”
“Thank Uranus for that,” he muttered.
“You should be happy, there’s more room back here by the wall.”
“I’ll be happy when I’m sitting in the sand outside your beach house under the big blue sky.” An ice-cold beer would make the fantasy even better.
She ran her fingers along the seams between the rocks. “They used a limestone-based grout.” She sounded surprised.
“Makes sense, considering this was a limestone mine.”
“Yeah, but why would they block the …” she stopped, her head cocked. “Do you hear that?”
He listened, trying not to breathe, but heard only his heart pounding. After the loudness of the jungle, the mine was a sanctuary. “Hear what?”
She held up her finger, still silent. Then she shook her head. “Never mind. I’m probably hearing things.”
“How about we go back outside and listen from there?”
“It’s a lot louder.”
“It’s also a lot more oxygen-rich with a higher roof.”
She led the way back toward the larger chamber. “You’re not a fan of this sascabera, huh?”
“They didn’t make this hole in the ground big enough for someone my size.” Standing upright again for a length of time would be a treat.
Quint breathed easier after they’d both squeezed out through the fig tree roots and stood under the tree canopy in the muggy air. “Now what?”
“I’m going to talk to my dad about the mine. I want to hear his take on whether it was normal for Maya to wall up a sascabera after it served its purpose.”
“Has he been in one before?”
“Several times.”
Quint pocketed the flashlight. “At least there were no snakes in there.”
“Yeah.” She took off her hat and frowned back at the mine entrance. “That sort of bothers me.”
“Why?”
“It’s not normal down here. Usually, there are rat nests or critter droppings inside unused caves and temples. An old abandoned mine shouldn’t be so empty.”
She had a point. Even if bigger critters couldn’t make it into the opening, rats would’ve been able to go in and out without a problem.
“Could it have something to do with the limestone granules? Are they a natural pest control?”
“Not that I know of, but I’ll have to ask Dad to be sure.”
“And you’re sure there’s been no mention of this mine on any of the documents you’ve checked out from the last archaeologist.”
“Positive.”
He looked over at the grand old ceiba tree she’d pointed out earlier. “Do you think that wall inside the tunnel is as old as the last Maya civilization?”
“It’s hard to tell without having data to analyze, but it could be. It’s certainly been protected from the elements. Although the grout was crumbly, which leads me to believe it’s aged for quite some time.”
“How did they move the limestone granules in and out?” He looked at the size of the hole, scratching his head where the hard hat had rubbed. “The entrance is so narrow.”
“They had no beasts of burden, so they probably used pots or hemp baskets. The entrance was probably wider back then, too, without all of this overgrowth.”
“It sounds backbreaking. Have you ever seen carvings or paintings of this process?”
She nodded. “There are several Post-Classic Maya pots in the museum in Cancun that show examples of mining.”
“I’d like to see them someday.” He looked inside Juan’s leather bag, making sure he had all of Juan’s toys and tools. After sparing one last look at the dark mine entrance, he turned to Angélica. “Where to, boss lady?”
“We’ll stop by the tent and drop that bag off, then you can head over to help Dad until lunch. I’m afraid he’s going to push his leg too hard today in his excitement to explore inside the Baatz’ Temple.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Quint wanted to wash his hands and face, too. The mine had left him with a coat of gritty sweat.
He trailed Angélica all of the way to their tent, imagining the Maya digging and hauling one basket of limestone granules and earth at a time up from the mine.
Minutes later, outside their tent, he dropped his hard hat on the ground next to Angélica’s. He stepped through the flap, setting down the bag of spelunking tools near Juan’s footlocker. When he turned to go back outside, Angélica blocked the way.
She clasped her hands together. “I’ve been thinking, Quint.”
The use of his first name gave him pause. “About what?”
“Something you said.”
When? At the mine? He crossed his arms, bracing for whatever it was that had ruffled her feathers this morning. “And?”
“Two things.” She held up one finger. “First, my mom didn’t list anything in her notes I can think of that would cause someone to want to take her life.”
Ah, this was about something he’d said last night. No wonder she was so touchy. Anything to do with her mom was sacred ground.
He wondered if she’d let him take a look at Marianne’s notes. Maybe there was something she wasn’t seeing due to being too close to all of this. He’d save that request for another time when she was less growly.
A second finger joined the first. She licked her lips, hesitating for a fraction of a second. “Just so you and I are clear, I was upset when you first showed up at the site. My comment about sex with you being sort of memorable that day was intended to sting you for being gone so long.”
“It was a well-aimed
jab.” A solid wallop below the belt.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“So sex with me isn’t memorable?” he joked. Or not.
She sputtered, her gaze lowering, her hands clasping and unclasping. Then she stilled and squared her shoulders. “Here’s the deal. Facing off with rattlesnakes and crawling around in tight spaces is not a problem for me. I’ve been doing it since I was young. But this thing between us …” she shook her head. “Well, it scares the hell out of me.”
Was he making it worse somehow? Pushing her too fast? He could try to slow down, somehow. But he wasn’t sure how much control he had over the gas pedal when it came to the two of them.
“I’m afraid that I’m not handling things well.” She turned away from him, scratching her fingernail over the tent canvas. “You see, you bring out in me everything I’d like to keep hidden. My insecurities, my self-doubts, my fears for the future, all of them keep fighting to run the show.” She blew out a breath like a weight had been lifted with her honesty. “Ever since that day you walked onto my last dig site, feelings that I’ve worked very hard to control and repress over the years have bubbled to the surface.” She pulled her hand away from the tent, clenching her fist. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t shove them back down again.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” In his opinion, it was a step in the right direction—his direction.
Her laugh sounded harsh. “I’d sooner be tortured on the rack and done with it all so I can focus on my job again.”
“The rack, huh?” He rubbed his jaw. “I can think of less painful sadomasochistic games for the two of us, if that’s what you’re into.”
“What I’m into, Parker, is regaining control of my emotions.”
“What do you want to do about it?” His pulse hammered in his ears. He would like to have a say in the matter, but he let her lead for the time being.
The silence dragged. When her gaze returned to his, pain and vulnerability lined her face. She stood before him stripped of all defenses, and it stole his breath.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid of letting anyone else inside here.” She tapped above her left breast. “Of losing someone else.”