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He rubbed her shoulders and arms, again almost absently. Had she shuddered? She didn’t think so.
“I’m gonna need to talk to an expert on this.”
His right hand left her arm. She wanted to reach for him and bring it back. He cursed, and she turned her head to find him staring at his cell phone.
“No bars,” he muttered.
She let her gaze wander over the ceiling of the cave they were in. Why on earth would he think there would be bars? The man was so smart yet sometimes, also, so dumb. Why did that make her want to hug him?
Gina sighed. She was in so much trouble.
Teo put away his phone. “We need to go back.”
She started to move away, and the hand still on her arm tightened.
“First,” he said in that ruined voice that made her yearn, “finish telling me exactly what you said, what you did.”
Gina contemplated the glyphs in front of her for several seconds, remembering. “I combined what I thought was Nahua and that symbol, which you said was an ‘l’ sound at the end of a word into Nahual. Then I heard a click—” She jerked her chin in the direction of the tomb. “Down there. Something howled; then this dark smoke barreled past and disappeared out the hole I put in the ceiling.”
“Hmm,” he repeated. “Words wouldn’t open a tomb.”
“They did in the movie,” she muttered.
“I don’t think the Aztecs saw it.” Gina glanced over her shoulder to see if he was kidding, but Teo continued to stare at the glyphs. She doubted he even knew what he’d said. All he cared about was the wall. “Did you touch something?”
“Yeah.” Gina pointed to the area below the man-dog figure, and Teo reached out to touch it, too.
Their fingers met, hers leaving, his going. Teo’s breath caught; Gina’s did, too. Then several soft thuds from above were followed by a louder, lower thump to the right.
“What was that?” Gina asked, just as Teo muttered, “Shit,” and Jase called out, “Gina?”
* * *
Matt stepped away from Gina, stifling a groan. When their hands had touched, he’d felt it all the way down to his toes. For just an instant, he’d entertained the notion of spinning her around and taking her against the glyph-strewn wall.
Thankfully, he’d refrained. What if he’d been buried deep inside of her when McCord showed up?
Matt winced and rubbed a hand over his face. How in hell had the guy found them and why?
McCord’s boots begin to stomp down the corridor in their direction. Light bobbed to the right, and Jase McCord appeared an instant later. His frantic gaze went directly to Gina; then so did he. He wrapped his huge hands around her arms, his wide shoulders blocking Matt’s view. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“What the hell, Gina?” He scraped his fingers through his short, glistening hair. “I found your camp, the horses, then the hole. I thought I’d have a heart attack. When you didn’t answer—” His hands fell back to his sides, and he turned, his cool, dark eyes narrowing when they encountered Matt. “Why didn’t you answer?”
Matt couldn’t help it; he smiled.
McCord took one step toward him, and Gina grabbed his arm. She would never have been able to hold him back; he was built like a bull, and he wanted Matt to be his own personal china closet. But the instant she touched him, murmuring, “Hey,” the man stilled. Talk about taming the savage beast.
“I’m sorry you were scared.” She rubbed McCord’s arm, and all the tension flowed out of him. His broad shoulders slumped; his thick neck seemed to lose strength so that his head fell forward. “But why are you here?”
McCord’s head came up, his nostrils flaring like that bull. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“I fell in a hole, Jase. There isn’t much to interrupt except an extreme need for TYLENOL.”
The fight went out of him. The guy changed directions so fast Matt was starting to get whiplash. “You said you were okay.”
“I am.”
