Hot on the Trail

by JoAnn Ross

  "Sorry. My mind was wandering again."

  He managed a smile. "No small wonder."

  Her eyes roamed the walls. "It's magnificent, isn't it?" she murmured.

  "It's definitely that." His gaze dropped to the crystal pool at their feet. "It's also the end of the road."

  Davina couldn't accept that idea. These walls were the most detailed recording of Mayan life that she had seen or read of. From the various artistic styles, she could tell that three, perhaps four scribes had worked hard and long on the project. They would not have dedicated such intensive labor to this cavern were it not terribly important. Her disbelieving eyes swept over the intricate figures and hieroglyphics until she found what she was searching for.

  "Sam, look at that."

  Alerted by her trembling tone, Sam's eyes obediently moved to the far wall. There, attired in full battle regalia, wearing an elaborately feathered headdress, was the god king of this particular group of people. He was in the bow of a canoe, his finger pointing imperiously forward.

  "We follow him," she decided. "That's what all this is about. He's leading me to my father, Sam. I know he is."

  Unfortunately Sam was beginning to come to the same conclusion. He also didn't like their chances. They were too much at risk in this isolated cave.

  "This is too damn dangerous," he said voicing his thoughts.

  But Davina had come too far to quit now. "If you want to go back, go. I'm going to find my father."

  "You damned idiot!" He grabbed her arm. "Don't you realize that someone's been trying to kill you?"

  "That's your opinion."

  His fingers tightened. "It's a fact! Just like it's a fact that we're like ducks in a shooting gallery in here! Why in the hell can't you see that this could be a trap?" He was shouting now, and his furious words bounced off the walls of the cavern.

  "This is my father we're talking about!" Her own exasperated tone matched his decibel for decibel. Somewhere deep in the dark recesses of the cave a flurry of bats flapped their wings, their sleep disturbed. "I love him! Can't you understand that?"

  "Understand?" His look was incredulous. "Understand?" he repeated harshly. "Why do you think I'm trying my best to keep you alive?" He didn't give her a chance to respond. "Because I love you, dammit!"

  Bewildered by Sam's gritty admission, Davina stared up at him. "You certainly don't sound very pleased about it," she said at length.

  His hard, amber eyes didn't leave hers. "It was not having a choice that I found difficult to accept."

  Davina considered that. "And you're a man used to your own choices; making your own way."

  "Yes."

  Sam's mouth was dry; his heart was pounding. In all his forty years he had only ever told one other woman that he loved her, and that had been more out of a sense of obligation than emotion. He didn't know how he had expected Davina to react, but he would have preferred anything to this slow, thoughtful scrutiny.

  He hadn't meant to tell her—not now, not this way. When he had allowed himself to entertain thoughts of admitting his feelings to Davina, he had imagined a candlelight dinner, strolling musicians, the scent of tropical flowers perfuming the night air. But nothing concerning Davina Lowell had gone as planned. Why should he expect this, the most important moment in his life, to be any different? .

  "You've put me in a difficult position, Sam."

  He lifted a brow, not trusting his voice.

  "If I were to tell you that I love you now, when I'm going to do my best to change your mind about turning back, how could I know that you'll believe me? Couldn't you think I was taking advantage of the situation in order to manipulate things to my liking?"

  Davina prided herself on her ability to maintain a reasonably steady voice while inside she was being battered with a multitude of complex emotions.

  How like her to swing from unbridled impetuousness to thoughtful, judicious study. "Would you do that?" he asked, attempting to match her even tone.

  Her eyes were intense, belying her calm demeanor. "Never."

  "I didn't think so." He smiled as he held out his arms. "So come change my mind."

  She clung to him, this man she loved, drawing from his strength, luxuriating in the feel of his arms around her, his lips pressing against her hair, the knowledge that somehow, in the midst of this harsh, hostile environment, love had miraculously bloomed.

  She tilted her head back, her smile wobbling slightly as she fought back the tears that threatened. "I love you, McGee."

  "Now, that," he said with a husky, relieved laugh, "was definitely worth waiting for."

  He pressed his lips against her temple, and she sighed. His mouth took a slow leisurely journey down her face, loitering at her eyelids, her nose, her cheekbones; a low sound escaped her throat. He slipped his tongue between her teeth and she trembled.

  "Sam."

  His lips covered hers. "Shh," he whispered against her mouth. "Just give me one minute to convince myself this is real." He touched her tenderly, warming her skin through her clothes, his talented, clever hands coaxing her into complacency.

  It could have been a minute, an hour or an eternity. But all too soon, Sam broke the blissful contact of their lips to look down at her.

  "There's nothing I can say to change your mind, is there?" he asked in a low, accepting tone.

  Davina posed her answer in the only way possible. "If I were missing, would you just give up on me? Would you turn back because of a little water? Or a few random accidents?"

  "They weren't accidents."

  "You haven't proved that. So far it's only your own personal theory." She met his frustrated gaze with feigned calm. "Would you search for me or not?"

  "Dammit, Davina, that's different. You're different. And if you can't see that—"

  She pressed her hand hurriedly, desperately, against his mouth, forestalling his planned argument. "I love my father," she said quietly. "Not in the same way I love you, Sam. But I do love him. And I can't just give up now—not when I'm so close."

  His fingers tightened on her waist. "I don't want to lose you." His voice was rough, worry stamped on his dark features. Was ever a woman loved so, Davina wondered.

  She went up on her toes, and her lips brushed his in a feathery kiss. "You won't lose me, Sam. I promise."

  Knowing he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, Sam could think of no way to avoid the consequences. It was obvious that there was nothing he could say to change Davina's mind. He was also not going to let her disappear into the bowels of this Mayan hell without him.

  "Which way?" he asked wearily.

  The answering light in her eyes could have illuminated the entire cave all by itself. "This way."

  Unable to do anything else, Sam reluctantly joined Davina. Hand in hand they waded into the pool of crystal-clear water, following the outstretched hand of the Mayan god-king.

  At the far edge of the pond, they found round holes in one of the limestone slabs. Moving it aside, Sam located a secret passage. Exchanging a long look, they entered.

  Shadowy stucco figures with elaborate feathered headdresses stood solemnly along the walls, as if silently guarding the passage. A dancer held writhing serpents and a seated ruler stared ponderingly into an obsidian mirror.

  Was he looking into the future, Davina wondered—when others, first her father, then she and Sam, would enter these hallowed halls? The lantern light made flickering shadows on the limestone walls, creating the illusion that the figures were animated, moving jerkily like an early motion picture.

  They descended a series of steep steps, going deeper and deeper into the earth, the brilliantly engineered corbeled vaults bringing to mind the nave of a medieval cathedral. Down and down they went, twisting and turning, the passage glistening with moisture. The silence was ominous, overwhelming in its enormity as they continued their descent into what was clearly the dreaded Xibalba, the Mayan underworld.

  "Look," Davina whispered, pointing at a fissure in
the limestone floor—like cracked ice on a frozen river.

  "Probably an earthquake."

  He could hear the tremor in her voice. "I certainly wouldn't want to be down here when an earthquake struck."

  He didn't answer as they stepped over the split in the earth and continued on. Sam's personal opinion was that he didn't like being down there, period—earthquake or no earthquake. He had never considered himself an overly cautious man, yet this smacked of sheer folly, whichever way he looked at it.

  Just when Sam was about to put his foot down and insist they turn back, they took one more sharp turn and suddenly found themselves in daylight, facing a steep, slick bank. They climbed up the bank, slipping and sliding backward one step for every three they progressed, but eventually they found themselves at the top of a small knoll. Stunned, they stared down at the scene before them.

  Beyond an earthen wall was a series of glistening white temples, clasped in the green embrace of a fecund forest. In the center of the compound, laborers were cementing together stone walls, while masons faced the exterior walls with fine-cut limestone.

  Davina grasped Sam's arm. "You don't think…?"

  "I believe," he said slowly, deliberately, "that you've just discovered the lost city of Naj Taxim."

  Despite the fact that she had never lost hope of Naj Taxim's existence, to be looking down at the fabled city was overwhelming. Her wide turquoise eyes swept the city eagerly, trying to drink everything in at once. Davina felt as if the world had somehow spun backward on its axis, allowing her to view life as it once was.

  "Now what?" Sam inquired quietly.

  "I don't know," Davina admitted. "We probably shouldn't just walk right in."

  "Why not?" they heard a deep voice ask. "That's what I did."

  At the wonderfully familiar voice, Davina spun around. Although she had consistently refused to give up hope all these long, lonely months, although she had always believed that she would locate her father alive, the sight of him standing there, only a few feet away, was almost more than she could bear.

  She felt Sam's strong arms steadying her as she momentarily sagged against him. Seconds later her spinning head had cleared and she was running toward Jordan Lowell, her arms outstretched.

  "Oh, Daddy," she whispered as she flung her arms around his neck. "I knew you were alive!" Her eyes were awash with tears.

  "What in the blue blazes are you doing here, Davina?" Jordan Lowell asked gruffly as he stiffly embraced his daughter.

  Davina clung to her father, refusing to be disturbed by his rough tone. She'd learned years ago that her father found emotional displays highly discomforting, but after all she had been through, she was determined to allow herself this one gloriously heightened moment before donning the mask of the cool, calm, collected daughter he had always preferred.

  She tilted her head back to look up at him, continuing to run her palms up and down his back, needing to prove for herself that he was a flesh-and-blood man—and not merely the memory she had struggled to keep alive this past fifteen months.

  "I came to rescue you."

  Jordan arched a silvery brow. "Rescue me?"

  "I knew you'd found Naj Taxim," she said, cupping his weathered face between her palms. Although a faint voice in the back of her mind pointed out that he looked older, less rugged, Davina ignored it, choosing instead to find him unchanged. It was all she could do not to cover that wonderfully familiar face with kisses. She refrained, knowing her father would hate such a display of unrestrained emotion.

  "I knew it," she repeated forcefully. "But I was afraid you were being held captive, so I tracked down a map and came here to bring you back to Boston with me."

  Her eyes were brimming with love. "Everyone else thinks you're dead," she told him, her voice choked with emotions too complicated to catalog easily.

  Anger and resentment toward those doubting Thomases who had refused to believe her, worry and fear for her father's safety, relief at finding him unharmed and unequivocal love were only a few of the more easily identifiable ones.

  "Your colleagues, the authorities, even Brad," she continued, spitting out her former lover's name as if it had a bad taste. "But I never believed it. I knew we'd find you!"

  The tall, silver-haired man sighed wearily as he put Davina a little away from him. "I had no doubts that the story of my death would be universally accepted. My God, Davina, it never occurred to me that you wouldn't do likewise."

  "I love you," Davina said simply. As Jordan's words slowly sank in, she stared at him. "What do you mean, the story of your death?" she asked in a faint whisper.

  Her father scrubbed his hand over his face. When he took it away, his turquoise eyes—duplicates of Davina's—were strangely bleak. "You have to believe me when I say that I care for you, too, Davina. Very much."

  She pressed her hand against the building pain in her chest, as if the gesture could stop her heart from breaking. When she finally took a breath, it was a shaky one. "But?"

  His lips were a grim, unyielding line. "But I had my own reasons for wanting everyone, including you, to believe that I'd perished on my final expedition."

  She crumbled so quickly that she would have fallen to the ground if Sam had not stepped forward to catch her. Holding her against him, he murmured soft, reassuring sounds against her hair. His eyes, as they lifted to Jordan's and held, burned with unmistakable fury.

  At the sight of his only daughter locked in Sam McGee's clearly protective arms, Jordan cleared his throat. "Hello, Samuel."

  His tone was amazingly casual, as if he found nothing at all strange about running into his former colleague deep in the middle of the Central American jungle. "I suppose I have you to thank for keeping my daughter safe."

  Despite her distress concerning her father's subterfuge, despite the pain that knowledge had brought, Davina was stunned to realize that the two men were obviously acquainted. Why hadn't Sam told her he knew her father?

  Sam had remained silent as Davina greeted her father, dreading what he knew was yet to come. He would give everything he owned in the world, including the deed to that beachfront property on the Islas Mujeres he'd bought five years ago, if only he could stop Jordan from revealing what he himself should have told Davina long before this. But there had never been what seemed an appropriate time. Now it was too late.

  "How do you know Sam?" Davina lifted her head to ask the question Sam had been dreading.

  Jordan's puzzled gaze moved from Davina's curious face to Sam's grimly set one and back again. "Hasn't he told you?"

  Davina could feel the energy emanating from Sam's rigid body. Anxiety? Fear? she wondered incredulously.

  "Told me what?" She could not think of anything her father could possibly tell her that would change the way she felt about Sam McGee.

  "That we've worked together. Sam was Palmer Kirk-land's right-hand man," Jordan divulged. "Not to mention being the bastard's son-in-law."

  Davina felt her blood turn to ice. She covered her face with both hands, unwilling to look at either man. She refused to allow them to see the naked anguish she knew must be written over her features. She stood there, allowing this final act of pain and betrayal to seep through her, filling every pore, clouding her brain, weakening her body.

  Then, as she forced herself to remember everything she had learned about this man during their time together, she felt it flow out of her, leaving her mind clear, her resolve strong.

  Davina dropped her hands to her sides as she turned to Sam, her eyes searching deeply into his. "You told me that you're not married any longer."

  "I'm not."

  "And Kirkland—do you still work for him?"

  "No. I haven't for five years."

  Davina nodded soberly. "Since that horrid business with the Peixotos," she murmured, more to herself than to Sam. She looked into Sam's eyes and believed what she saw. "You weren't responsible."

  "Of course he wasn't," Jordan agreed instantly. "Hell, Samuel fought
Kirkland harder than anyone. Even at the cost of his marriage. But the man's a megalomaniac who only knows value in a profit. You can't argue with him on moral grounds—because he doesn't have any."

  "I funded the expedition," Sam argued. "I was responsible for the outcome."

  Jordan studied the younger man for a long, silent time. "Your efforts contributed to the discovery of the tribe, yes. But as for the outcome..." He lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. "You did what you could, Sam. In the end, that's all any of us can do."

  "I always figured you blamed me," Sam said in a low voice. "God knows, I blamed myself." His eyes, as he turned to Davina, had a strangely guarded look.

  "When you brought the subject up at dinner in Valladolid, I was afraid you'd hate me if you knew the truth. That's why I kept putting off telling you."

  Her gaze didn't leave Sam's stony face. "I know you, Sam. That's all I need to know."

  A warming mix of gratitude and love flooded into his golden eyes. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" Sam asked wonderingly.

  Despite the gravity of the situation, Davina managed a slight smile. "Some people are just lucky, I guess."

  She turned back to her father. "Why did you let everyone believe that you were dead?" she asked in a soft, wounded voice.

  "It's not that far from the truth," he answered quietly. "I am going to die. I've got three months, six at the outside."

  Davina gasped, and Sam felt her stiffen under his arm. "No," she whispered. As both men watched, she managed to find a remarkable control from her vast store of inner strength.

  "We'll take you back to Boston," she insisted firmly. "We'll bring in the very best doctors from all over the country. You'll see, everything will be all right. It has to be." It was obvious to Sam that Davina was as desperate to convince herself as she was her father.

  He tightened his arm around her as Jordan regretfully shook his head. "I submitted to being poked and prodded by specialists all over the country before I left, Davina. And the verdict was unanimous: there's nothing they can do."