Words of Love - By Hazel Hunter Page 0,13

was amazing, in more ways than one. Her hair had dried now, in long red waves that framed her face. The light hazel of her eyes stood out when they weren’t behind the glasses, which were hooked at the front of her tank top.

He slowly reached a hand down to her chin and tilted it up as he leaned in. But just before their lips touched, he paused. He didn’t want it to be like last night, the frenzied aftermath of a brush with death.

But then, she slowly closed the small distance.

Her lips barely moved, as though she was unsure. For his part, he was very sure but he kissed her lightly in return. He didn’t move his fingers from her chin, but he fought the urge to hold her face or draw her forward. Her lips were tender and soft and she seemed content to simply linger in that moment. And suddenly, she wasn’t the quiet and bookish girl who kept to herself but a strangely gifted young woman. With a small final pressure on his lips, he realized she was drawing back and he reluctantly let her go.

She slowly opened her eyes with that dreamy smile of hers. Then she focused on his face.

“Are there more glyphs?” she asked.

CHAPTER SIX

“Bring me the map,” Frederico barked in Spanish.

He set his beer down on the corner of the wooden table with a thud. The ceramic incense burners at the left edge of the table bounced once.

He glanced at them.

Priceless artifacts, they were called. Priceless–what a stupid word. Everything had its price. These ones might fetch tens of thousands of dollars, even caked in dirt like they were. But he preferred to have them clean.

“Wash those out in the rain,” he said, finishing with a burp.

As he heavily sat on the stool, the topographic map appeared in front of him. He spread his hands out on it. Tomás took one of the artifacts and Frederico heard the door open. As if the sound of the pounding rain on the corrugated roof weren’t enough, the sound of the rushing river in the distance was added to it. Then the door closed.

He leaned over the map.

“Where did you go?” he mused out loud. “Where did you take my boat?”

That gringo who rented the boat–something was going on with him. Three years in a row he came during the field season, always by himself, but now with a woman.

He placed a grimy finger on his own location, at Sayaxché, on the Rio Pasión.

“Always the supplies go in,” he muttered. “But nothing ever comes out.”

He traced the thin blue line of the river.

Several famous archaeological sites were nearby–Dos Pilas, Seibal, and Aguateca. He’d marked them with large black dots but there was nothing at those places but ruins. The archaeologists had taken everything. It was the red dots that were more interesting.

His finger slowly ran past them.

These were his own excavations.

Suddenly, he heard something smash outside and then cursing.

Goddamn Tomás!

Frederico’s hand flew to the holster at his side and grabbed the handle of the machete. In seconds, he was through the door, the machete held in front.

Tomás stood there, in the rain, gaping at him–the shards of the broken incense burner at his feet. It was the first one he’d broken but he obviously knew what would happen next. He took off at a run.

Frederico grinned as he hefted the machete in his hand.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jesse looked up to the temple in front of them, at the far end of the plaza.

“The Caracol,” Brett said, beside her.

“Like Chichén Itzá,” she said, nodding.

Caracol was Spanish for snail, which meant that inside there would be a spiral staircase, like the shell of a snail. Unlike Chichén Itzá, though, this couldn’t be an observatory, not inside a mountain.

The ornate facade of the building was stone, like everything else, but the carving was incredible. It looked like latticework, deeply recessed in black shadows, with the floodlights at the opposite end of the plaza barely reaching it. The round building sat on a large rectangular platform, with steps that led down to the plaza.

As she and Brett climbed them, they held their lanterns high. At the dark doorway, she could just make out the beginning of the interior staircase.

There were glyphs on it.

Her mind raced as the colored images of other glyphs swam through her vision, mixing and matching. They quickly slotted into place.

“Bin in t’zuutz’ a chi,” she said, scanning across the first riser. “I will kiss your mouth.”

The beginning