"Krinard, Susan - Twice A Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Krinard Susan)

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 times—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. "Miss—" He looked her up and down again in such a way that his assessment 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 Petйn."
No man in his right mind would make such bizarre statements. She returned the favor of examining his nicely revealed physique. The slopes and valleys of his chest and midriff were prominently delineated through the wet fabric of his shirt. Both it and his trousers were a little unusual in cut, as were his mud-splotched boots. He wore a heavy leather belt and some kind of bandoleer hung with small pouches and loops. Expedition wear of the sort you'd see in a '40s safari movie.
Another surge of recklessness moved her mouth before her brain could stop it. "It's Miss," she said. "MacKenzie's the name. But I think it's 'Ms.' to you."
He didn't get it. She could see it went right over his head. Maybe it was time to start asking a few questions of her own. "I didn't catch your name, Mr…"
His gaze made another sweep from her boot toes to her dripping hair. "Dressed as you are and in such a state, Miss MacKenzie, I doubt you could catch anything but the grippe."
She guessed what he implied. She knew how she must appear, in waterlogged jeans and camp shirt, not in the least pretty or delicate or curvaceous in the way that seemed to attract the opposite sex. She had no reason to want to be attractive to a man like this. She'd thought she was well past caring.
But, oddly enough, she wasn't.
"Charming," she said. "What century did you emerge from, pray tell? The first? Or maybe a little earlier—the Precambrian era, perhaps?"
The creases deepened between his strong brows; Mac saw more puzzlement than anger in his expression. Didn't the guy know when he'd gotten as good as he gave?
But his apparent confusion didn't last long. "I see," he said. "I've heard of your type. Are you one of those female suffragists who think they're the equals of men in all things?"
Female suffragists? Where'd he dig up that label? "I don't just think it, I know it. You have a problem with that?"
For the first time he smiled. It wasn't a particularly nice smile. A spark of some undefined sensation shot the length of her spine. She could be playing with fire here, pursuing her own imaginary game with no thought to who or what this guy really was. She wondered why that edge of danger didn't trouble her any more than the bizarre coincidence of his appearance. The last time she'd felt this way was when she'd been on prescription muscle relaxants for a pulled shoulder.
This is what Homer meant, she thought incoherently. You can get drunk on adventure. …
"I'm not the one with the problem, Miss MacKenzie," he said. "It's clear you have more than you can handle. Is that why the disguise?"
"What are you talking about?"
"The trousers. The hair." He adjusted his stance to one that practically shouted masculine challenge. "You've done well disguising your gender—"
Mac choked.
"—but not well enough."
His eyes were no longer fixed on hers. Now they were trained on her chest. She was suddenly, terribly aware that the rain had stopped, her shirt was clinging to the unimpressive curves of her breasts, and her nipples were still puckered.
She might as well have been naked. Liam's clone spent a little too long studying that part of her, and his demeanor was no longer quite so pitying. There was a certain distracted quality to it, a slight loosening of his jaw and mellowing of his gaze. Mac was far less familiar with that kind of regard.
The sensation of having a man look at her as if her body were of any interest whatsoever was so novel that she was momentarily incapable of any emotion but surprise.
Until she remembered that this guy might be more than merely eccentric, and it was getting very close to sunset. The almost drunken feeling of invulnerability drained in an adrenaline rush from her body. She took a step away from him, forcing herself to keep from wrapping her arms across her chest.
"Did you consider this masquerade a way of ensuring your safety?" he asked, scowling ominously. "You're fortunate it worked this long."
What was this stuff about hiding her sex? He thought she'd come to Tikal disguised as a boy, and that made about as much sense as the rest of the things he'd said.
"I wasn't trying to 'disguise' anything," she retorted, unable to help herself. "I just decided to leave my high heels and miniskirt at home."
"You should have stayed at home, Miss MacKenzie. Your guide could have slit your throat, or worse. You're more a fool than he was."
She tried to imagine that young man slitting her throat and felt an unexpected need to defend him. "No way. Sure, he left without me, but I can make it back just fine on my own."
"Back to where? How long have you been alone?"
Serious warning bells rang in Mac's mind. This time she listened. All at once it seemed like a good idea to let him believe she wasn't alone. For all she knew, he might be contemplating slitting her throat.
"Oh, not long," she said airily. "In fact, he's probably right down the trail. I think I should go find him."
Yes, very good idea. The game had gone on long enough. Mac turned cautiously toward the path her erstwhile guide had cut through the jungle.
And realized a moment later that something wasn't right. The ragged clearing that had been there before was—gone. The heavy rain had obscured everything until a few minutes ago, and then she'd been too absorbed by Liam's double to pay attention.
Now she noticed. A few steps away from the temple and she was hitting waist-high foliage—not as dense as in the jungle itself, but thick enough to trip her up at a moment's inattention. She stopped and scanned the area. Yes, she was in the right place. She had to be. The temple and ruins were exactly the way she'd seen them when she'd emerged from the path.
Okay. She must have gotten more confused than she'd thought when she'd been lost in the tunnel. She kicked and batted dripping plants out of her way until she reached the place where a certain crumbling stele had marked the path's end.
The stele was still there. The path wasn't. Mac checked her alignment again. This was the right place. The jungle closed in like a wall where the path should have been, solid and impenetrable.
"I know plants grow fast in the jungle," she muttered, "but this is ridiculous…"
"Is something the matter, Miss MacKenzie?"
Mac stiffened. She'd had her back to Liam's improbable twin all this time, and she'd never heard him take a single step. He moved up beside her now, jerking his chin toward the fortress of young trees, vines, and intertwined bushes. "Is that the way you came from Tikal?" he asked. "You said you'd walked here."
"I did," she said. "There's a path, right here."
He brushed past her and examined the area, one brow cocked. "Perhaps you'd point it out to me. My vision isn't as keen as yours."
Mac just managed not to glare at him. She marched forward. Trailing lianas slapped across the nose. Damn it, it had to be here. A few broken branches, at least. Something.
The stranger leaned against a convenient tree trunk, arms folded. "Do you need assistance, Miss MacKenzie?"
Definitely patronizing, that was the word for his tone. She ignored him and paced a few yards away, still searching. It wasn't her imagination; the break in the dense vegetation simply wasn't there.
Mac wanted very badly to sit down and swear in the myriad creative ways Homer had taught her, but she'd be damned if she'd let Liam's annoying clone see her defeated. Great set of priorities, Mac, she chided herself. But she was coming up blank. She'd have to make a circuit of the ruins, keep searching…
"There is no path."
She whirled to face him in spite of her best intentions. "I didn't fly here," she snapped.