Maybe that was it, why she studied the man with such fascination. He was…
Yes. He was part of the magic. He was the opposite of the grim reality of Liam’s bones in the tunnel, or curses that echoed down the generations. He was the incarnation of adventure itself, like an ancient idol brought to life. He was an integral part of his surroundings—the ruins, the jungle, even the rain and mud. He owned the place. He belonged here.
Mac let herself share in that belonging, experience the feeling of being suspended in time and space, free for the moment of any lingering guilt over a past she’d had no part of.
Slowly she stepped out into the rain. It baptized her with fierce joy, making a close cap of her hair and soaking her clothing in a matter of seconds, bathing face and arms and legs. She felt water trickle under her shirt and between her breasts. A tingle of awareness tightened her nipples.
Primal. Primeval. This was nature in its glory, and somehow it passed a little of that glory on to her. She wasn’t plain, ordinary Mac anymore. She was a goddess of the forest, a dauntless heroine ready to meet any challenge…
“I’ll be damned. You’re a woman!”
The man’s deep, husky voice snapped Mac out of her reverie. He had turned around; a retort was already on her lips before she got a good glimpse of his features.
“Gee, thanks for clearing that up. I—” She found herself gazing into eyes that gave new meaning to the hackneyed phrase “steely gray.” For a moment all she could do was stand in gaping silence as the man examined her with insulting thoroughness.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”
But she wasn’t really listening. She didn’t have time to resent his critical tone or his arrogant questions or the fact that he was acting just as she’d expect a typical male to act when confronted with the unimpressive MacKenzie Rose Sinclair.
All she could hear was the pounding of her own heart and the startled rasp of her own breathing. And all she could see was his strong and powerfully masculine face.
A face she recognized. A face she’d first seen months ago. A face she’d been carrying around in her backpack ever since she’d left the San Francisco International Airport for the wilds of Central America.
The man was the spitting image of Liam O’Shea.
Chapter Three
The best of prophets of the
future is the past.
—George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron
MAC FELT HER mouth go completely dry even as the rain trickled from her nose onto her lips and dripped from her chin.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She had the vague notion that his lips moved in some kind of reply, but there was a buzzing in her ears that blocked out any sound. All she could do was fight off the impulse to burst into frankly hysterical giggles.
Out of all the things that could have happened to her in this incredible place, nothing could be quite so unbelievable. Or so appropriate. She’d come seeking absolution from Liam O’Shea, and she’d found him. First his bones, and then his modern-day clone.
Her discovery stared at her and she stared back, so struck by the absurdity of it all that her shock faded quickly into a curious detachment.
Yes, the likeness was almost flawless. This pseudo-Liam was a little harder, a little more daunting than his photographic counterpart. His hair was a little longer, his eyes paler, his face more weathered with experience. And, if possible, more handsome.
Oh, not in the conventional sense. He was Harrison Ford and Daniel Day-Lewis and Timothy Dalton rolled into one, with perhaps a dash of a young Charlton Heston thrown in. Masculinity personified, with not one iota of boyish softness. His jaw was set, and she could tell he wasn’t too happy about something.
Why shouldn’t he be happy? Mac was feeling almost giddy, no longer quite tethered to reality. Or to anything else that would normally send her hotfooting in the opposite direction—such as the critical gleam in his eye that surely found her wanting.