“But if—”
“Go!” he shouted, rounding on her. “Get the hell back and stay there!”
“Where are you going?”
“To find out how likely we are to be caught in the middle.” He grabbed her arm and began to drag her. “Get going.”
“My boots!” She pulled free, snatched up her boots, and jammed her muddy, sockless feet into them. “I really don’t think you should do whatever you’re going to do.”
He flashed her a wholly unexpected grin. “I don’t need any mothering, Mac.”
Before she could argue further, he started down the path at a run. Mac knotted her bootlaces with frantic fingers and pursued him at a jog, her mind circling one thought.
Was Liam O’Shea about to die? Maybe this was how it happened, Liam caught in the middle of a skirmish between warring Guatemalan factions… a stray bullet… He could have dragged himself, dying, into the ruins where she’d found his bones…
She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand to lose him like this, no matter what the consequences of changing the course of history.
She redoubled her pace, keeping the top of Liam’s fair head just barely in view. Leaves and vines caught at her arms as if to hold her back.
But her body had taken over completely, propelling her past the camp and beyond, on Liam’s heels, along a trail that was barely wide enough for a deer. When Liam subsided into a cautious stalk, she did the same, keeping a layer of foliage between them.
Voices. Raised voices—a shout in Spanish. Ahead of her, at the edge of an opening in the undergrowth, Liam ducked behind a massive tree trunk and went very still. Not completely suicidal, thank God. She grabbed onto a sapling, knees not quite steady. Just don’t do anything, O’Shea. Be sensible…
He chose that moment to stand. Mac caught a glimpse of figures in the clearing beyond, the glint of light on metal. Guns. Liam started forward, plainly bent on revealing himself. Mac dove through the vegetation and made a grab for his shirt.
“Don’t be an idiot!” she whispered.
He gave her an incredulous glance and pushed her, none too gently, down to the muddy earth. “You little fool—”
But they weren’t given time to trade further epithets. Someone shouted a challenge. Footfalls sloshed over soggy ground. Liam pulled his pistol just as a gunshot cracked and a bullet spat through the leaves overhead. He snatched a handful of Mac’s shirt collar with his free hand and deposited her bodily behind him.
“Amigos!” he called out. “Soy Liam O’Shea—”
The muzzle of an ugly-looking rifle pushed into view, followed by a man whose face was half covered by a filthy bandanna. He barked a terse question, which Liam answered in even Spanish. The man hesitated, nodded, and called over his shoulder to unseen companions.
“It’s all right,” Liam said. “They’re not concerned with us, but stay down.”
Thank God. She started to get up; simultaneously a second and third gunshot sounded, so close that Mac was nearly deafened by them. The stranger swung around and darted away. Someone cried out. Liam stood with legs set wide apart, pistol raised, as if he believed himself completely immune to flying bullets.
Mac didn’t know what made her move then, what hunch bypassed her rational mind. She flung out her arms, wrapped them around Liam’s booted leg, and yanked with all her strength. He toppled like a felled tree, twisting wildly for balance, and hit the ground hard. The portion of the tree trunk directly behind where his chest had been exploded in a shower of bark.
Mac dropped beside him. He wasn’t moving. An inconvenient rock had been right in the path of his skull, and blood trickled from his hairline.
“Liam!” He didn’t respond. She pushed, heaved, and rolled his unresisting body beneath the broad leaves of a fern and crouched over him, waiting, sick with dread.
There was a crashing in the foliage beyond her sight, and staccato shouts, gradually receding; another gunshot, this one much farther away. The men and whoever they were fighting had taken their battle elsewhere.
She bent to Liam’s still face, cradling it between her hands. His blood still beat steadily under his jaw—he couldn’t be too badly injured. Unless he’d hit his head hard enough to suffer a concussion.