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

Liam-who-claimed-to-be-the-real-thing smiled. "I'll wager you know well enough, Miss MacKenzie. The date is the fourteenth of August, and the year is 1884."

Chapter Four
They say miracles are past.
 
             —William Shakespeare
 
THE WOMAN WAS evidently an actress of considerable talent. Or she was quite mad.
"1884?" she repeated, her low voice hoarse. "Did you say—eighteen eighty-four? But that's not possible."
Liam regarded her stunned expression with suspicious bemusement. Simple insanity did fit hand in glove with the rest of her: thin, wiry, distinctly peculiar with her cap of short hair and bold dark eyes, sharp-tongued, dressed top to toe in men's clothing of an odd cut, and carrying a newfangled electric lantern the likes of which he had never seen in all his travels. And alone here in the jungle, first claiming she'd been with a full party of explorers and then insisting that no man had brought her.
And then there was her odd manner of speech, her absurd assertions of hotels in the jungle and omnibuses from Flores, her reaction to Tikal—as if she'd expected to see something entirely different, though she claimed to know the ruins.
Yes, one could almost be convinced that she was in a state of mental disturbance—if not for the photograph she had so carelessly allowed him to see. The one taken here in these very ruins four years ago.
"What did you expect, Miss MacKenzie?" he asked. "Maybe you have been in the jungle too long."
Her dark brows drew down, and her gaze grew unfocused. "Okay, Mac," she muttered. "Time to wake up. This isn't happening."
Was this act a way of protecting herself, avoiding his questions because she'd revealed too much? Liam couldn't forget the shock he'd felt when he'd seen her with the photograph. Until that moment she'd been only an unforeseen burden to dispose of in the nearest safe place, some eccentric suffragist amateur explorer who'd been lost or deliberately abandoned, left for him to save.
After what had happened yesterday, he'd never considered doing otherwise.
The sharp sting of recent memory made the bitterness rise in his throat: Perry's revelation, the knowledge that Liam's trust in his partner had been entirely misplaced; the fight, drinking to drown the rage and loss, waking up this morning to find the bearers, mules, and nearly all the supplies gone. With Perry.
Abandoned. Betrayed by the one man he'd thought he could trust. The man who stood beside him in that damned photograph.
He'd thought the girl in far more desperate straits than himself. She was of the weaker sex, in spite of her ridiculous beliefs to the contrary. But now—now he felt a grinding suspicion in his gut, wild thoughts fully as mad as the woman's incoherent ramblings and disjointed explanations.
Liam scowled at Miss MacKenzie's inward stare. She wasn't the only one with wits gone begging. A woman?
Even Perry wouldn't sink so low. And there hadn't been time. But since yesterday nothing seemed beyond possibility.
And their meeting had seemed more than merely coincidence.
He studied her, chin on fist, allowing himself full rein to his imagination. Perry would never assume that his erstwhile partner would be distracted by a woman like this. She was hardly beautiful. Her hair was short, her jaw too stubborn, her figure too slender. Though she'd proven she was, in fact, female enough when the rain had soaked through her shirt.
He found himself gazing at her chest. More there than he'd first noticed; come to think of it, she couldn't pass for a boy, not unless that loose shirt were completely dry…
You've been without a woman too long, O'Shea. He snorted. No. At best Perry would expect him to be delayed further, getting the girl back to civilization. That would neatly fit in with his intentions.
Liam's hand slammed into the wet stone of the temple. Perry knew too damned much about him. He knew Liam wouldn't leave any woman alone in the jungle, no matter what his circumstances—without supplies or bearers or even a single scrawny mule…
Because you trusted him. The rage bubbled up again, and with very little effort he could imagine his fist connecting with Perry's superior, aristocratic face.
By the saints, it wasn't over yet. When Liam got back' to San Francisco—
"That's it."
He snapped out of his grim reverie. Miss MacKenzie—"Mac," the name she had called herself and which suited her so well—had apparently recovered her senses. Or ended her game. She was on her feet, looking out over the jungle.
"I'm going back," she announced.
Liam rose casually. The top of her cropped head came almost to his chin; tall for a woman. He hadn't realized that before.
"Back where—Mac?" he drawled.
Her stare was no longer unfocused. She looked at him as if she'd like to pitch him over the side of the pyramid. "Only my friends call me Mac," she said, "and you're not my friend. You're a figment of my overheated imagination."
He gave a startled bark of laughter. Whoever and whatever she was, she had the ability to make him hover between laughter and outrage. She was too damned good at keeping him off balance. Was that her purpose—and Perry's?
To hell with that. If there was anything to his suspicions, he'd learn soon enough.
"So," he said, "you don't think I'm real?" He took one long step, closing the gap between them, and felt her shudder as his chest brushed hers. He could feel the little tips of her breasts, hardening through the shirt. He felt an unexpected hardening in his own body. "What proof do you need, eh?"
She tried to step back, but the temple wall was behind her. "You… uh…" She thrust out her jaw and glared. "Let me by. I'm going back to the ruins."
"If I'm not real, Mac, you should have no difficulty walking through me."
Suddenly she chuckled. "Great idea," she said. With the full force of her slender weight she pushed against him. The assault drove him back a pace. She stepped to the side, strode to the rim of the temple platform, and slid her foot over the edge.
He caught her arm just as an ancient stone step gave way under her foot. "Are you so eager to break your neck?" he snapped. "Or are you more afraid of something else?"
Her eyes were wide and dark and surprisingly large, rimmed with thick lashes he hadn't noticed before. There was a slight trembling to the lids and at the corners of her lips, as if she'd realized how easy it would have been to tumble down that steep incline in her reckless attempt to escape.
Escape him. Was that what she was trying to do? Did she have good reason?
He let her go. She shook her arm to work out the numbness. "Can I break my neck if I'm already dead? Maybe it wouldn't hurt."
If this was a game, he couldn't see the point in it. "Dying hurts," he said roughly.
The color drained from her skin. She seemed about ready to say something, and then thought better of it.
"No," she said, as if to herself alone. "If I go back, I'll understand. The answer is there, in the tunnel."
The answer? He'd like more than a few answers himself.
He scrutinized the jungle below them. The rain had stopped, but in a little over two hours it would be dark. He was hungry and wanted coffee, but there was no chance of that. Coffee was not one of the few necessities Perry had seen fit to leave him. At least there was shelter in camp. Best to take the girl with him, and then decide…
Mac had already made her decision. She had turned around and was climbing backward down the cleared path along the crumbling temple stairway, clutching vines and bushes for handholds, her tongue caught between her teeth. Her feet slipped, and she steadied herself and kept going, never once glancing back up at him.