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“Who cares-leigh,” Matt muttered. “It was his idea. I think they were hurting his ears. They were certainly hurting mine.”

“You’re gonna have to keep a tight rein on Spike.”

The horse swung his head in Gina’s direction when she said his name, and she slipped him something out of her pocket, which he began to crunch and dribble onto Matt’s boots. From the shade, he guessed carrot.

“He tried to grab the bit on me earlier. But I’m wise to that.”

Gina’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ve ridden horses like Spike before?”

“One or two.”

There’d been that Arabian he’d fought with across the Egyptian desert when he’d been working on his master’s. He should have ridden a camel, but he really hated camels. They spit and they bit and they smelled.

The Arabian had thought it hysterical to pretend he didn’t like sand. Every morning he would pick up his hooves and shake them like a cat walking through standing water. He did this for a good forty minutes, which, if done when it was time for the group to leave, meant that either everyone stared at them, sneering, or Matt got left behind with a rifle-wielding, also-sneering babysitter. Matt had learned it was best to get up early and let the horse have his fun; then he would be fine for the rest of the day.

In Belize Matt had been saddled with a donkey that liked to buck without warning, especially when traversing narrow paths along the edges of cliffs. However, when Matt refused to react—he never dismounted, he didn’t cry out, except for the first time, when he’d shrieked like a little girl—the donkey stopped misbehaving. By the time the archaeologist

s had reached the ruins they’d hoped were Aztec but had instead been Mayan, Matt and the donkey were the best of friends. When Matt had left, the poor beast had brayed until Matt was out of hearing range.

“Teo?” Gina’s voice made him realize he’d gone off in his head for longer than was normal. He did that.

Colleagues at the university were used to those little mind trips. Professors were thinkers, and thinking went on in your head. In Matt’s usual circles, he wasn’t the only one who became silent and still in the middle of a conversation. It was only when he ventured into the world that such behavior was considered odd.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his face. “Tired, I guess.”

Gina held out her hand, and Matt nearly put his into it before he realized she wanted the grooming brush. “Better get to bed. We’re leaving early tomorrow.”

“How early?”

“As soon as the sun’s up. Breakfast at six. That a problem for you?”

Matt shook his head. Years of living in a tent had made him a perennially early riser. When the sun shone through the canvas, you got up. When the sun went down, you went to bed. In truth, he much preferred the pace of his life on a dig to the artificiality of his life everywhere else.

“If I were you,” Gina led Spike toward his stall, “I’d check the bed and the closet for the As before I undressed.”

Matt had been confronted with aggressive students before, but the Dr. in front of his name, if not his capacity to get them kicked out of school if they didn’t behave, intimidated most of them. Here he had no such protection.

Matt gulped.

“Don’t look so scared,” Gina said, amusement lightening her voice. “You’re a big boy. I think you can take them.”

“Why on earth are they here?” he wondered. “There isn’t going to be a mirror or a martini for miles.”

Gina came out of Spike’s stall, closing the door behind her. “We get all kinds at Nahua Springs.”

“Yeah, but what kind are they?” Matt muttered.

Gina laughed, and Matt realized he was flirting with her. Usually, when girls batted their eyes or the equivalent, he tossed around big words until they went away.

He had no desire to do the same with Gina. Not only because he was supposed to be Teo Jones, schoolteacher from Arizona, but also because he didn’t want her to go away. Not yet.

Talking with Gina was easy, natural, honest. Which was amazing considering everything he’d told her so far had been a lie. But as he’d lied so he could discover things, he’d best make use of this time with her to discover them.

“Nahua Springs,” he murmured. “Where’d that name come from?”

The name was how he’d come across the Internet photo in the first place. He’d been plugging words that related to the Aztecs into Google Earth, working on the theory that if they’d marched into the American Southwest for any length of time there might be a place or two labeled with those words.

Bing! Nahua Springs had come up on that search and subsequent surfing had brought him to the photograph.

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