She sighed in her father’s direction. “I told you, Dad, I’m not playing this silly game of yours, so you can quit giving out random points to Quint for doing nothing more than using big, fancy words and funny quips about the jungle.”
Juan reached into his backpack and pulled out the rolled-up geomorphic map she’d photocopied and laminated back at her office before they’d flown to their basecamp in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. He tugged his reading glasses from his vest pocket. “Gatita, you’re just upset because Junior Mint here is winning, and you don’t like to lose.”
“That’s bullshit, Dad.”
“Such language, child.” He looked at Quint over his reading glasses. “She’s just like her mother.”
“You mean when it comes to your daughter’s beautiful, long auburn hair and big brain? Or the way she swears like a fishwife?”
“I was actually referring to how Marianne was plagued by the competitive bug day and night.” Her father’s grin returned. “Although I might’ve encouraged the ‘night’ bits with a wager or two.”
Angélica grimaced. “That’s too much information, Dad.”
Chuckling, Quint lowered his camera. He took up his machete andclangedit against hers, eliciting squeals from the eavesdropping monkeys overhead. “What do you say, Joan of Arc? Are you ready to take a break from leading the way through this hot and sticky version of hell on earth?”
“Don’t forget to add ‘thorny and pokey’ to that list.” Her father bent over and plucked free a thorn-covered twig from a bullhorn acacia tree that had snagged his pant leg somewhere along the path, brushing away several red ants that had been busy protecting the tree and ended up coming along for the ride.
Quint swatted at another mosquito. “Itchy, too.”
“So much whining,” Angélica teased the two of them, closing the gap between her and Quint.
Above the jungle’s musty odor of damp dirt and decaying leaves, she could smell the insect repellent she’d sprayed all over him, along with a whiff of his usual sunshine and citrus scent.
She patted him playfully on the chest. “You’re up, Prince Charming. It’s time to show off those studly muscles of yours.”
He caught her hand and held it against his damp shirt. “Try to keep those sexy green peepers off my manly parts while I work my machete magic, Dr. García. It would be inappropriate for a leading archaeologist from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History to get caught ogling the hired hand in broad daylight.” He stepped back, nodding toward the map-holding musketeer. “Not to mention that your father is watching.”
“And keeping score,” Juan said without looking up from the map.
“Inappropriate?” She quirked one eyebrow. “And what do you call all of this flirting by a big-shot photojournalist—”
“I believe the adjective you’re looking for isrenowned, boss lady.” Quint nudged her aside so he could step around her.
She turned to her father and beat him to the punch. “Parker doesn’t get a point for that word.”
Juan shrugged. “I thought you weren’t playing,gatita.”
She returned to Quint, who was now slashing a path through a thicket of spindly branches, yucca, and palm fronds. “What do you call all of this flirting by a self-proclaimedrenownedphotojournalist who’s tagging along to write a piece on what he told my boss at INAH,” using the well-used Mexican acronym for her employer’s name, “could be one of the most important Maya sites unearthed since Tikal?”
Her father snorted. “Did Junior Mint really use Tikal for comparison?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Quint called over his shoulder. “I’ve been reading a lot about the battles between the Classic Maya people from Tikal and Calakmul lately, so it was the first place that came to mind.”
“This place? Like Tikal?” Juan shook his head. “Good heavens, we can barely see ten feet in front of us.”
Quint glanced back at Angélica. “If memory serves me, Dr. García, I emphasized the wordcouldto your employer in that comparison, adding that it might also be nothing more than a small settlement of stones mostly hidden under the roots of several strangler fig trees.”
She crossed her arms. “How come I don’t remember that part?”
“Because you’d left the room to go find a satellite map of this area by that point.”
“Oh, yeah.” Her boss had wanted to see the route she planned to use to reach the site.
“I think we’ve lost the path,” Juan said, still frowning at the map. “We should have turned right instead of left at that fork in the deer trail.”
“We did not lose the path.” Angélica took the map from her father, double-checking it to be sure.
Unfortunately, it was hard to tell a ridge from a slope in this thick jungle. The damned trees kept standing in the way, reminding her of that idiomCan’t see the forest for the trees.
