“I suggest you make up your mind quickly,” he said. “It’ll be pitch dark in a few minutes.”
Mac glanced at her wrist, remembering belatedly that Liam had commandeered her watch.
Still she hesitated. You’re not afraid of him, are you?
She didn’t like the answer she came up with. The only men she’d been around for the past ten years had been academics and students, most of them buried in studies of one kind or another. Liam O’Shea was utterly different. She’d known that from the photograph. She’d been attracted to that quality while it was safely confined to a printed image.
Now it was almost overwhelming. Just because he’s handsome and sarcastic and thinks you’re a female joke . . .
Forget that. She wasn’t going to let any man, from any era, determine her actions. Whatever his motive for offering help, be it curiosity or self-interest or something else entirely, she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. The sensible thing to do was follow his advice—for now. Go back to his camp, eat, rest. Tomorrow she could tackle the tunnel again.
She lifted her chin and met Liam’s hooded gaze. “All right. I’ll, uh… be glad of your hospitality. Thanks.”
He gave an ironic bow and turned back for the jungle.
She pulled on her backpack and followed him. Sure enough, the last of the sun had vanished save for a faint patina to the west. Even the birds and monkeys were winding down. The mosquitoes, however, had not yet retired for the evening.
“Some things never change,” she said.
Liam slowed his pace to match hers, lifting a brow in an unspoken question.
“Mosquitoes,” she clarified. “We still haven’t figured out how to get rid of them.”
He slapped idly at several specimens perched on his bare forearm. “They’re nothing to botflies and scorpions. But perhaps you haven’t met our other eight-legged neighbors? It should be an interesting introduction.”
Mac made a firm resolution not to let him witness her discomfort by so much as a single scratch, and vowed to douse herself with repellant at the first opportunity.
Liam led her along a recently cut path into the jungle, heading away from Tikal. “So, Mac—do the women of your time often travel alone in the wilderness?”
“Some do.”
“And their men permit it?”
“It’s not a matter of permission. We do what we like and take our own risks.”
“Then your men don’t even protect their own.”
Ah. She kept forgetting the kind of women he was probably used to dealing with. In 1884, feminism was still waiting to be born.
“In my time,” she said, “women aren’t owned by men. A lot of women don’t need them at all.”
“Oh?” In the dimness she could see the angry set of his jaw. “And are you an example, wandering in this jungle alone, like a lamb going to slaughter?”
“I’m—” She choked back her retort. “I admit that things didn’t turn out quite as I expected. But—”
“But it’s fortunate for you,” he said, “that I’m not one of these men of yours who leave women to fend for themselves.”
“For your information, it’s not every day that people walk through a time tunnel into the past. Men or women.”
His scathing “ha” told her he didn’t believe in her time travel. Had she expected it to be easy?
“Don’t worry,” she said. “You aren’t responsible for me. I’m not asking—”
He cast her a look so ferocious that she forgot what she’d been about to say. “Nor am I. You’ll do as you’re told and be grateful I don’t toss you back where I found you.”
She hastily considered the best stinging comment to make in reply, but she had no time to put it into effect. One instant Liam was beside her, the next striding ahead to meet a man who’d suddenly materialized on the path before them.
“Fernando!” Liam said, his unexpected grin dazzling in the extreme. It was aimed at the short, dark, lithe man in a pale shirt and loose trousers, who returned the greeting more solemnly in Spanish. He was recognizably Maya Indian, like the guide who had brought her to the ruins.