Beautiful Sacrifice

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Two weeks later

HUNTER SAT IN THE ONLY OVERSTUFFED CHAIR IN THE living room of his apartment. It was almost midnight, he and Lina had barely arrived back in Houston, and Jase had showed up as soon as he saw the light in Hunter’s apartment go on. Jase had an icy six-pack of cerveza under one arm and Ali under the other. Lina had taken one look at Jase’s unusual pallor and dragged him to the couch.

Jase stretched out with his head on Ali’s lap. Lina had liked Jase’s wife on sight; she had the most beautiful smile Lina had ever seen. The other woman’s loosely curled black hair was as shiny as her eyes, and her skin was a rich color that most Anglos broiled on the beach or sprayed out of a bottle to achieve.

“I can’t believe Jase dragged you out of bed to come over here,” Lina said to Ali, handing her a glass of ice water.

Ali flushed. “Um, we weren’t asleep. My sister has the kids. It’s our anniversary.”

Despite the cocky smile Jase gave his wife, he was still recovering from his wounds. He was pale and drawn. And fighting it.

“You knew I was going to grill you like a steak as soon as I got the chance,” Jase said to Hunter. “One lousy phone call to tell me you were both safe doesn’t get it done, old man.”

“We were busy,” Lina said.

“I get that,” Jase said. “You’re not busy now.”

“Some people actually like to sleep, boy wonder,” Hunter said mildly.

“Talk,” Jase said.

Hunter pulled Lina into his lap, settled in, and talked, beginning with Crutchfeldt and going on to Rodrigo, Mercurio, the Reyes Balam estate, and the Temple of Kawa’il. Ali looked both fascinated and repelled by Lina’s family, then horrified at what Carlos had done.

“He was El Maya?” Ali asked.

“Yeah,” Hunter said, breathing in Lina’s presence. “Leader of Los de Xibalba. A killer who even the narcos stepped aside for.”

“You must have been terrified,” Ali said to Lina.

“You can’t imagine,” Lina said, shivering, “and you don’t want to.”

“How could you be so brave?”

“Brave? I was shaking.”

“But you did what had to be done,” Ali said quietly. “That’s brave.”

“Hey, don’t forget Hunter,” Jase said. “He was good, really good.”

“Of course,” Ali said. “He has been trained, been in battles. He’s a cop.”

“Ex-cop,” Hunter reminded Ali.

She sniffed. “Like your job is any safer now.”

Amused, Lina bit her lip against a smile and realized that Ali must have been Hunter’s friend for almost as long as Jase had.

“Put it on pause,” Jase said, interrupting them. “The baby kicked. Damn! I know it’s a girl now.”

Ali just shook her head and ran her fingers through Jase’s hair. “It’s too soon.”

“It’s a girl,” Jase repeated, smiling a very satisfied kind of smile. “About time, too.”

Ali stroked his cheek and said to Hunter, “Go on.”

“Not much more to tell,” Hunter said, smiling when Jase’s hand settled on Ali’s rounded stomach. “We walked out of the cenote, and walked back to the main house. Didn’t see anyone on the way.”

“When we got there,” Lina said, “Abuelita was dead. Heart attack, stroke, old age. Nobody official cared. Celia—my mother—was frantic. She had stayed with Abuelita until the end.”

“So the local authorities really bought your no-frills version of what happened?” Jase asked, looking at Hunter again.

“Two men settled old grudges with machetes at the edge of the cenote during the end of the Maya year. Both were injured. Both fell in. Both drowned. Too bad, how sad, count your money, and on to the next job.”

“Did they recover the bodies?” Jase asked.

“Celia told the authorities to leave Philip and Carlos in peace in the cenote,” Lina said. “After a suitable amount of money changed hands, the authorities did. Abuelita had a private burial in the family cemetery. Celia assumed the reins of the Reyes Balam businesses and disappeared into her work.”

“Nothing floated up in the cenote?” Jase asked, cop to the core.

Lina winced.

Hunter took it in stride. “Nope. The disappointed worshippers cut everyone so thoroughly they sank like limestone blocks and stayed at the bottom.”

Remembering a rain of bodies as she struggled to stay afloat, Lina closed her eyes. That time seemed unreal, like a nightmare.

And yet it was as real as her own heartbeat.

“None of the artifacts were found?” Jase asked.

Lina opened her eyes. “Nothing. By sunrise, even the altar had vanished.”

“So the cause of all the fuss got swept into the cenote with the two wack jobs,” Jase said.

“Jase,” Ali chided.

“What? They were crazy and now they’re dead as Geronimo. Tiptoeing around it won’t change it.”

“I’m sorry,” Ali said to Lina. “He’s hopeless.”

Lina smiled sadly. “He’s also right. Carlos and Philip weren’t sane. And they’re dead.”

Sometimes she wept over the loss of the man she would never please. Sometimes the child in her refused to believe he was dead. And Abuelita, the woman whose smile and affectionate pats were like bright embroidery stitching through her childhood…

Maybe it was a nightmare after all.

Yet Lina knew it wasn’t.

Gently Hunter stroked her hair. He could feel the wave of sadness in the tension of her body. The waves would come further and further apart, but they would never go away entirely.

“Some of the villagers live in the same Maya fantasyland that Carlos and Abuelita did,” Hunter said.

Lina sighed. “They believe there will be a new Maya world someday.”

“They’ll have a long wait,” Jase said.

“They’re patient,” Lina said. “Frighteningly so.”

“Or nuts.”

Hunter shook his head. “They’re just different, Jase. It’s a whole other world back in the jungles of the Yucatan.”

Lina ran her fingers through Hunter’s hair. He kissed her palm and pulled her even closer, breathing in the scents of cinnamon and heat and woman.

“Are you done with the cross-examination?” Ali asked, caressing her husband’s cheek.

“For now. I’m a cop, after all. I always have more questions.”

“Make a list. We’re going home,” Ali said firmly. “You’ve been up too much.”

Despite his drawn face, Jase grinned and said, “You never complained before.”

Ali punched his good shoulder lightly, got to her feet, and turned to help him stand.

“I’ve been out of the hospital for a week,” he grumbled. “I’m not an invalid.”

“The doctors really wanted to keep you.”

“Shows you what they know.” Jase stood carefully. “You’re the best medicine for me.”

Ali stood on tiptoe and whispered something in Jase’s ear. His smile made him look years younger. His hand stroked her rear. She swatted at him and blushed.

“Why don’t we go to bed so these nice people can go home?” Hunter asked Lina dryly.

With a smile and a wave, Jase and Ali headed for the apartment door. The door shut behind them.

“They’re good people,” Lina said, snuggling closer to Hunter.

He rumbled agreement as his hand went to the first button of her blouse. Her breath broke. The second button gave way. She started to turn toward him, but he held her in place.

“Let me just touch you,” he said. “I still see you laid out on that damned leering altar.”

“And I still see you falling unconscious to the floor at my cousin’s feet.”

“Not my best moment.”

The catch of her bra came undone. His fingers savored the warm, soft flesh they had revealed.

“My beautiful Amazon,” Hunter breathed, stroking her.

Her breath came out on a sigh. “That’s Brazil, not the Yucatan.”

He laughed softly and licked her neck where it curved into her shoulder. “Now, tell me what’s been going on behind those gorgeous eyes of yours.”

“Hmmm?”

“I can feel you thinking.”

“That’s not my brain you’re feeling,” she said as he teased one nipple.

“I know. What I don’t know is what you’re thinking.”

She smoothed her cheek against his chest. “I love you.”

He pinched her nipple delicately. “And I love you, but I can’t read your mind. You’ve been chewing on something ever since we crawled out of that damned cenote. It’s not grief or fear, yet half the time your mind is somewhere else. Is it the lost artifacts?”

She arched into his touch. “You’re a mind reader.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I just feel that the artifacts didn’t end up in the cenote. And I’m worried that’s crazy, like Philip.”

He lifted one breast and bit her neck gently. “You don’t feel crazy to me. You feel all woman.”

“Hunter…”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You won’t be going off any deep end without me right there with you.”

“But…”

Both of his hands slid beneath her breasts, supporting and caressing them at the same time.

“I mean it,” he said. “You’re stuck with me. What do you think—feel—happened to the artifacts?”

At the moment all Lina thought or felt was Hunter’s hands, his breath, his body hot and hard wherever she touched him. She held her hands against his, stilling him, while she caught her breath and unscrambled her brains.

“You said that the villagers just broke over Philip and Carlos like a tidal wave, and when everyone retreated, there was nothing left but the altar.”

“Mmmm,” Hunter said, tasting her neck.

“I think in all the confusion, some of the worshippers took the codex, the god bundle, the mask, all of it, and disappeared back into the jungle. I think they put the sacred artifacts in a very safe place and went back to their usual lives. They’ll stay like that, apparently normal, working and waiting until their belief burns out or the Maya renaissance comes.”

Hunter’s body went still, then one hand slipped away from her. He found new flesh to touch, to caress. Her breath came in with a small whimper of pleasure and need.

“You want to find the artifacts,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Will it be safe?”

“The villagers could have killed me at any time while we climbed out of the cenote and walked back to the compound,” she said simply. “We were watched every step of the way.”

“I know.” The memory still could make his skin crawl.

“Philip was right about the cult of Kawa’il. It existed. It exists now. There is a sixth codex. I can’t just walk away from that.”

“I didn’t think you would.” Hunter’s voice was neutral.

“After we’re married—”

He turned her swiftly and kissed her like a man desperate for warmth.

“What?” she asked when she could talk again. “You asked me to marry you when we were climbing out of the cenote and I said yes.”

“All I heard was a cussword when you stubbed your toe.”

“Which time?”

He smiled.

“Just for the record,” she said, “yes”—she kissed his chin—“and yes”—she nipped the corner of his mouth—“and yes”—she licked his lips—“and—”

Whatever she was going to say was lost in a long, sensual tangle of tongues and breath and need.

Finally he lifted his mouth just enough to say, “Good and good and good and good.”

“Can you spend part of your time on the Reyes Balam lands with me? Celia agreed to fund the digs and pay me more than enough for—”

He shut her up by kissing her again. “I already talked to my uncles. I can work from the estate or from the moon, so long as they don’t lose their Mexico expert. And they expect to meet you real soon.”

Squirming until she could reach his shirt and begin unbuttoning it, Lina murmured in his ear, “Are you actually volunteering to be my bodyguard and site artist?”

“I’ll guard every sweet inch of your body.”

She smiled. “How about the artist part?”

“Can I draw you naked?”

“Only if mosquito netting is involved.”

He laughed softly. “I can work with that.”