She had found a mystery, a place that would have revolutionized archaeology in Central America, changing the whole history of the world. And she had destroyed it.
“What have I done?”
“What you had to,” Adam replied, putting his arm around her. She leaned into him, then pushed back, remembering.
“Bates—that thing… the Smoking Mirror…”
“More than just a rock, wasn’t it?”
She nodded.
The significance of that still shook her. It changed everything about the world she had thought she knew. Physics, history—the limits of the human brain. If an object with such unnatural power could exist—wherever it might have come from—what other dark secrets might be out there, buried beneath the earth, waiting to be dragged into the light?
“Do you realize what that means?” she asked.
“Right now, I’m not sure I care.”
“Not sure you care? How can you possibly be so indifferent to…”
The words died in her throat as he grabbed hold of her.
“Do you know how close I came to losing you back there?”
“I admit that things did look a trifle uncertain for a while.…”
Something in his look made the words trail away. It was a sort of desperation, one so intense it silenced her. Then he laughed, shaking his head.
“Telling you to never put me through that again would be an exercise in futility, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s not as though I intended to nearly get myself killed,” she countered primly. “And you took more than a few risks yourself, if I might remind you.”
“You may,” he replied. “You may remind me as often and as frequently as you like. As long as you’re here.”
“I shouldn’t think you wanted to remain in this basket any longer than necessary,” she noted.
“I’m not talking about the basket.”
“I didn’t think so,” she admitted.
“Princess—”
“You know, I really did despise that name.”
“You want me to stop?” he asked in all seriousness.
“I… No. No, it’s rather grown on me.”
“Has it?” He pulled her closer. Ellie wondered absently whether their weight was going to upset the basket.
But only absently. The rest of her awareness was taken up with a far more pressing question.
“Bates—back in the caves, when I said that I… That is, we were in peril for our lives, and I thought that I might not actually see you again after you went out into that room with those monsters… That is to say…”
Her words stumbled. His gaze had grown intense, the sheer depth of it making her thoughts turn to water, running through her fingers. She fought against it, seizing for boldness. What was the use of equivocating? She was suddenly tired of hiding her feelings, and the fears that came with them, from him—and from herself. If there was ever a time for boldness, this was it—the moment to declare all, and damn the consequences.
“Adam, what do you want?”
“You,” he replied, clear and sure.
“In—ah—what capacity, exactly?”
“Any. All. Whatever you’re willing to give me.” She saw the struggle in his features as he searched for the words. “Damn it, princess—there’s nothing else like you. Don’t you get it? If you said the word, I’d give up all of this. The bush, the surveying—put on a suit. Play nice at parties. Whatever it takes.”
“That sounds absolutely ghastly,” she said baldly.
Something in his face started to break, and she moved quickly to prevent it.
“I mean you wearing a suit and playing nice at parties. If we went to a party I wouldn’t want you to play at anything at all. I’d rather you shocked everyone by being entirely yourself. And don’t you dare talk about giving up your work.”
“No?” he asked. The man almost looked amused. She felt her temper begin to flare.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “As a matter of fact, if I could have my say, I’d be doing it with you. As long as you promise not to turn into a tyrant when we’re chasing down your ruins, and not ones I’ve got half the map to.”
He cracked a smile. “Tall order.”
“My intelligence and my academic background are in no way inferior to yours, and you know it. There’s only the matter of my inexperience to consider, and I assure you that will be remedied very promptly.”
“Yes,” he agreed, pulling her closer and leaning in. “I plan on remedying that first thing.”
His lips had nearly reached her own when a throat was cleared purposefully behind them. Ellie felt her cheeks turn what she was sure was a rather awkward shade of red. Adam merely cursed.
Charlie was watching them with an air of wry amusement, while Flowers appeared to stare very determinedly up at the balloon. Lavec looked up, chuckled, then returned to polishing his knife.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Charlie apologized blandly. “But does anybody know how to steer this thing?”
The rain had died back, and so had the dark, heavy clouds of the storm. Ellie could see it drifting away from them, illuminated by a breaking light from the east. The rainy season had started, but this particular squall was on its way out. A fresh wind had picked up and was blowing them briskly over the distant tangle of the jungle below.
“Where are we going?” she asked. She turned from the horizon to Adam. The dawn light fell across that rugged, familiar face—sun-stained, covered in stubble, and, at the moment, rather becomingly filthy—and she felt something tugging deep in her chest.
It was a good feeling, one with which she hoped to become increasingly familiar.
“Well, princess,” he replied, slipping an arm around her waist. “How do you feel about Mexico?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacquelyn Benson has always known who she wanted to be when she grew up: Indiana Jones. But since real archaeology involves far more cataloging pot shards and digging through muck than diving out of airplanes and battling Nazis, she decided instead to devote herself to shamelessly making things up.
Jacquelyn studied anthropology in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and married a man from Dublin, New Hampshire. She wrote a thesis on paranormal investigators and spent four years living in a museum. When not writing, you may find her turning flowers into wine, herding an unruly toddler, or hiding under a blanket devouring genre fiction. The Smoke Hunter is her first novel.
JacquelynBenson.com
Facebook.com/jacquelynbensonauthor
Twitter: @JBheartswords
Instagram: @jbheartswords
Goodreads.com/jacquelynbenson
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the produc
t of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Jacquelyn Benson
Cover design by Patrick Insole for Headline Publishing Group
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First Edition: September 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBNs: 978-1-4555-6906-9 (trade pbk.), 978-1-4555-9149-7 (ebook)
E3-20160810-JV-PC
Table of Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
Newsletters
Copyright
The Smoke Hunter Page 45