Chapter
One
Dr. Miriam “Miri” Jacobs racedthrough the wild, chaotic jungle, whipping around obstacles and ducking from danger.You can make it. You can make it.She repeated the mantra in her head as her bag pounded against her back in sync with her sprinting footsteps, the ground seeming to give way beneath her feet. She was weaving. Sliding. Careening past creatures of all shapes and sizes. Sweat dripped down the side of her face, but she wasted no time or energy to wipe it away, focusing her strength on reaching her destination before it was too late.
Almost there!
She reached for the silver handle, her fingertips grazing the metal before…Whoosh!
“Wait!” The imaginary backdrop faded as the bus pulled away from the curb, splattering dirty street water onto Miri’s brand-spanking-new water-resistant Patagonia hiking pants.
But her voice was no match for the roaring engines in the bus depot or the plane jets overhead, and a second later, the lastbus of the day from the Aeroporto Internacional de Manaus to Manacapuru, Brazil, was rounding a corner and out of sight.
Crud. Day one of her new gig—an expedition to search for the Cidade Perdida da Lua, the Lost City of the Moon—and she was going to miss the kick-off meeting. Not exactly the start she was hoping for, especially with her career hanging on this whole thing.Way to make a good first impression.
It was a miracle that she’d been selected for this expedition. Sure, her mentorship with the famed archaeologist Dr. Socorro “Corrie” Mejía at UC Berkeley helped, but until this point, Miri had only been on a handful of digs, all in already-discovered sites. When she’d decided at the age of eight that she wanted to become an archaeologist, she thought she’d be traveling all over the world, unearthing ancient skeletons and finding hidden treasures. She didn’t think her archaeological dig experience would be summed up as Human Brush, cleaning dirt offotherarchaeologists’ discoveries. Yes, every archaeologist had to begin somewhere, but Miri never seemed to move past the starting line. Unlike just about every other professor on staff at the UC Berkeley Anthropology Department, Miri had absolutely nothing remarkable to pad her résumé.
Professors like Dr. Mejía, who became a world-famous badass archaeologist because she took risks and didn’t shy away from danger. Being handpicked by her for this assignment gave Miri instant street cred, as if the association alone meant she must have mad skills like Corrie.
Too bad Miri’s top skills were memorization and reading maps. Though, despite the need for wearing glasses, she sometimes seemed to have laser vision and could notice things that others often overlooked. Like a book that was out of place on ashelf. Or a single misplaced brick in a wall. Or a man’s fly being down.
Shealwaysseemed to noticethat.
Cold, wet liquid seeped through her pants as she glanced down to assess the damage and sighed.Awesome. There went a hundred bucks.Note to self: water resistant does NOT equal waterproof.
Perhaps not Miri’s wisest decision—splurging on a new wardrobe at REI that would almost certainly get destroyed by this trip—but she wanted to at least try to look the part of tough, rugged archaeologist. Her normal go-to dig outfits consisted of little more than yoga pants and a few Columbia hiking shirts she found on the clearance rack at T.J.Maxx. Something not far off from her regular everyday attire, come to think of it. But she had big shoes to fill, or rather, big shoes to impress. That, and she couldn’t help but want to emulate her idol, who always looked effortless, hard-core, and hot as hell.
Miri slung her backpack around to the ground and crouched beside it, searching the pockets for a wet wipe, when a figure appeared alongside her.
“Shit!”
She glanced up toward the voice and—Holy moly, was everyone in this country a supermodel?The man looked like he could star in an ad with the likes of Alessandra Ambrosio or Marlon Teixeira, and Miri would buy whatever products he was selling—surfboards, cologne, men’s underwear, you name it. He stared down the empty street in the direction the departed bus had gone, seemingly oblivious to Miri, one hand on his hip, the other rubbing his forehead below the hairline of his luscious…shiny…wavy…to-die-for jet-black locks. Hisgray Henley stretched across his chest, outlining every ripple beneath the thin fabric. With the sleeves pushed up, she could see the flexing muscles in his forearms—taut and beckoning for her touch. He had to have been six-foot-two, six-three, judging by the location of his knee in relation to her crouched view. Hard to tell by his towering position, and when preoccupied by his incredibly good looks.
Miri gulped before ordering herself to stop staring, but his presence commanded her attention. This. This was why she didn’t date. Because she got all deer-in-the-headlights whenever she saw someone she found attractive. And then they’d stare at her like there was something wrong with her. And then she’d gasp like a fish out of water. And then their faces would contort with confusion, trying to figure out whether she needed help. And then her face would turn the brightest shade of crimson on the color scale. And then they’d leave…
The entire scene unfolded in Miri’s mind, distracting her from the can of sour-cream-and-onion Pringles rolling out of her bag toward the man’s foot.
She watched as his head shifted downward toward the dullthumpagainst his boot, and she quickly dipped her head, scrambling to snatch up the runaway snacks. But as she reached over, the rest of the contents of her backpack cascaded onto the sidewalk—a couple of KIND bars, a bag of trail mix, some cheddar-cheese-and-cracker Combos, peanut butter M&M’s, and much-needed Altoids for her sour-cream-and-onion breath.
He crouched down to assist her, but Miri hurried to gather up her belongings.
“Don’t mind me. Just a regular ole convenience store over here,” she said with strained laughter in her voice.
But all she got in return was “the stare.”
“Oh! I’m sorry,” she said, realizing that she probably sounded like a silly American talking gibberish. He must not have understood her. “Inglês?”
With a quick shake of his head, the man seemed to snap out of a daydream. “Uh…yes. Yes, I speak English.”
Miri detected a hint of an accent, though not quite the Portuguese accent she’d expected. She also detected a slight flutter in her stomach at the way his rich brown eyes scanned her face.
“Sorry,” he continued. “I was distracted checking out your goods.”
Never mind.Nowshe had a flutter.
He waved his hands. “Notyourgoods, butthegoods. From your convenience store, I mean. It’s quite the selection.”
“Nothing beats snacks from home when traveling internationally, right? What’ll you have?” She fanned her hands over the bounty in an offering.
