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.
Damned crazy troublemaking female. Suffragist or not, suspect or not, she needed a keeper—a job no sane man would want. He’d never let Caroline get into a position even remotely like this one. Scrambling down the side of a pyramid, no skirts or corsets or furbelows, drenched with sweat, hair bedraggled. Not a hair on Caroline’s golden head would ever be disarranged by any hardship as long as he was alive.
Caroline. He had to get back to San Francisco. Her aunt Amelia was no match for Perry’s smooth tongue; he’d be spending every available hour at the Gresham house, using his jaded charm on Caroline, trying to make her believe he loved her. And in less than six weeks she’d be eighteen, in full control of her considerable fortune…
With a pungent oath Liam retrieved his machete, slung his bag over his shoulder, and followed Mac down.
She reached the base of the pyramid unscathed and was already striding back the way they’d come by the time he caught up with her. Her sense of direction was surprisingly good for a woman. She found the path he’d cut with no help from him, and marched through the muck and clouds of mosquitoes without moderating her furious pace.
“Don’t feel obligated to come with me,” she puffed. “I can find my way just fine now, thank you.”
The path wasn’t wide enough for two. Liam dogged her heels, restraining an impulse to grab her. “I have no intention of leaving you,” he said acidly. “There’s still the small matter of Perry’s photograph—”
“Yeah. I’ll say.”
Impossible female. Let her exhaust herself, and then she’d be more tractable. He dodged a palm frond that slapped back into his chest and settled into an easy, ground-eating stride far more efficient than her break-neck rush. Soon enough her breath became ragged, but some stubborn spirit kept her moving.
He could almost admire that. Almost.
They reached the original ruins in just under an hour. Mac—the name was too apt to discard—had half hidden herself behind a cluster of palms. He could see her doubled over, hands on knees, face flushed and hair sodden. That she’d gone on so long was amazing. Liam tipped up his hat and dragged his damp sleeve across his forehead, watching her fumble for her canteen.
She was tired, hot, and thirsty. Good. It would be easier to make her drop her guard.