Blue Moon (6 page)

But Gabe's long stride was no match for the mongrel's. By the time Gabe struck the crushed stone of the lot in his bare feet, Nemo was seconds from making a fool of himself and Gabe was in pain. Limestone was a soft rock, but not as soft as the bottoms of his feet. “Blasted stones—” Gabe grabbed first one foot, and then the other. Overcoming the pain that had him dancing like a novice fire-walker, he sought the fate of Jeanne Madison, fully expecting to see the golden girl flattened on her back, covered in drool and friendly kisses. Instead, Nemo sat at her feet, his paw extended like a canine cavalier. “I'll be a pea-brained pucker fish,” he mumbled in wonder.

“Well, hello, Nemo,” Jeanne cooed, kneeling to accept Nemo's greeting.

“Don't let him get close to your face unless you want a saliva bath,” Gabe warned, picking his way toward her a hop at a time.

She laughed, a sound so engaging it nearly made his feet stop aching.
Maybe that's how she calmed the dog.

“He's lovable.”

“Most of the time,” Gabe admitted.

“Good heavens, I hope we'll not have that beast on the excavation,” Remy Primston remarked from the rear of the vehicle where he and some college-age kids worked at unloading the luggage. “Do be careful with that briefcase, Nick. My laptop is in there.”

“I see you're bringing up the rear as usual, Prim.” Gabe thought the professor would roll his eyes back into his head. “And Nemo does fetch underwater,” he informed
la doctora
. “I couldn't believe it. He was about six months old when Manolo tossed a rock into water and Nemo here nosed down five feet and retrieved it, didn't you, boy?” Gabe ruffed Nemo's head.

“Hmm . . . wonder if we could fit you with a helmet, Nemo.” Jeanne risked a wet kiss by seizing the dog by the ears. “That would make for an interesting anecdote in your journal, Remy.”

“You've got to be joking,” Remy came from the back of the vehicle looking at Nemo as if the dog was infested with vermin. The glance he slanted at Gabe was no less disparaging. “And the name is Primston, captain, not
Prim
.
Dr.
Primston to you.”

“Remy, we are a
team
,” Jeanne intervened. “No doctor this or doctor that. Besides . . .” Mischief lighted in her expression as she rose. “Your mother calls you Prim.”

The blond kid made the mistake of snorting out loud, earning a shriveling look from the prudish professor. But instead of reprimanding the student, Remy latched onto a beige tapestry Pullman, big enough to hold the worldly goods of all the pilgrims on the
Mayflower
.

“My journal will become a book on this expedition, Jeanne. I'd hardly think you'd want that mutt in it.”

Jeanne gave Remy a quirky grin. “If Nemo dives, I would.”

“Honestly!” With that, Remy hauled on the Pullman with all his weight. Wedged in with bags of lesser size, it refused to budge.

Gabe tiptoed to the back of the vehicle. “May I be of help?”

Backing away, the professor dug out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat at the receding edge of his hairline. “There is a place for brain and one for brawn. Have at it, sir.”

Gabe grabbed the handle of the overstuffed case with one hand and locked his fingers around the wheeled apparatus at the bottom. With a concerted effort, he pulled both at the same time until his biceps threatened to burst, but the case would not budge.

Heaving a sigh of exasperation, Jeanne motioned for a slim white-blonde young woman to join her at the rear of the vehicle. “Help me grab these duffle bags, Mara,” she said, edging Gabe aside. Hauling a maroon travel bag out with
Sea Aggies
emblazoned across it in white letters, she smiled over her shoulder. “Little steps, gentlemen, and a universal rule. First in, last out.”

“Here, let us help, Dr. Madison,” the dark-haired kid insisted, stepping around from the far side of the vehicle. “Stu and I can get them. You ladies check in and find out where they have to be carried.”

“I can get my own bags,” Mara announced, turning to dislodge a black weekender with a maroon and white luggage tag sitting atop its larger mate.

“The whole bunch is from the university, eh?” Gabe observed, maneuvering Nemo, who loved to be in the midst of any action, out of the way.

Jeanne made some hasty introductions, keeping an eye on Remy. Decidedly out of puff and sweating bullets, he leaned against the front of the car.

“Now, may we go in and register?” Remy asked, when she'd finished. “I can only hope for air-conditioning.”

“Air-conditioning?” Gabe snorted. “Consider yourself lucky that the plumbing is up-to-date, even if it works like the owner— whenever it wants to.”

“Oh joy, sweet joy,” Remy moaned loudly.

“You don't look so good, doc,” Gabe ventured, noting the lack of color beneath the beginnings of a tan. The tropics could be brutal to those unaccustomed to them.

“I am allergic to the world as we know it, Captain, but rest assured, with medication and perseverance, I shall adapt in time.
”

“Come on, Remy,” Jeanne said, approaching him and putting his arm over her shoulder. “Lean on me. I doubt that there is air-conditioning, but I'm sure there will be fans. And it will be cooler out of the sun.”

“Enjoy,” Gabe called after them, starting a painstaking trek across the parking lot to the dock and mentally reviewing the list of groceries he and Manolo had made up earlier that morning. He hoped bleach was on it. Mold was inherent in ships, especially older ones. The last thing Gabe needed was the professor keeling over on him from mold inhalation.
Besides,
he thought, catching himself feeling something more than antagonism toward the boor,
it would
hold up the expedition.

CHAPTER FIVE

As the sun slipped below the treetops in the west, the dense and variegated greens of the jungle darkened to pitch black. Aside from the dim lanterns of the ecolodge compound, the only other light was that of fireflylike insects darting about in the darkness. Flashlight in one hand and a fishnet tote containing a towel and clothing in the other, Jeanne headed down the winding path through vegetation that had been cut back short of enveloping the walkway.

Cicadas and frogs owned the night, their chorus interrupted from time to time by the caw of a bird or howl of a monkey. At least, that's what Jeanne hoped howled out there in the darkness. The couple who managed the place, Lupita and Carlos, assured the expedition party at supper that the jaguars, noted for their reign of the Yucatán jungle, shied away from the civilization that had developed along the coast.

Jeanne prayed that they were right. If not, there was nothing between Jeanne and the jungle to protect her. Nothing but a flashlight. A cryptic smile pulled at her lips as she brushed past a low-growing fan palm and headed for the bathhouse door.

Yea, though I walk in the jungle of the big cat, I shall fear no—

“Watch it, there's no warm wa—”

Jeanne shrieked, her feet doing a little run in place, at the sound of the voice from the darkness.

“Easy now, I don't bite.” A chuckling shadow moved toward her with a stealthy grace that left doubt niggling at the back of Jeanne's rattled mind. In the light of the single bulb by the bathhouse door it became a flesh-and-blood Gabe Avery.

“That's what they all say.” How the game reply got past the heart beating in her throat was a mystery.

Wet dark hair slicked away from his face and sinewy torso clad in dark jog shorts, Gabe could well be a human version of a jungle predator, except for the amusement on his face. “You know, if I had been a jaguar, you'd not have gotten very far doing that little dance thing,” he teased, mimicking her startled footwork.

“That's the thing,” she replied. “Whatever was about to pounce would see that and think I was far braver than I looked.” A mental flash of what she must have looked like spawned a bubble of laughter. “What can I say? You scared me witless, and I do
sea
much better than jungle.”

Gabe tossed a damp towel over his bare shoulder, grinning. “I was trying to warn you that there's no hot water. Don Rudolfo said it would be here today, but you know how the Mexican
mañana
doesn't specify which tomorrow.”

“You saw the owner?” From what Jeanne had discerned from Lupita and Carlos, Don Rudolfo was as scarce as the jaguars, especially when work needed doing.

“He stopped by the bait shack for a beer after picking up your check, so I brought up the hot water issue. Rudolfo assured me that he would motivate himself to see to it tomorrow immediately.”

Jeanne laughed at Gabe's literal translation. “Even so, a cool shower sounds heavenly . . . and to be free of
eau de
Deep Woods Off
,
even if only for a few minutes.” She hated the idea of having to spray her squeaky-clean skin again, but unless she wanted to become a giant walking welt, there was little choice.

“Careful now. The insects will love that perfume of yours . . . lavender, isn't it?”

Gabe recognized her perfume? The revelation left her shaken and not a little stirred. What was it her man-crazed college girlfriends used to run on about pheromones? “It's, um . . . it's my shower gel,” she stammered.

“Lavender's very soothing,” he said. “My mother uses it.”

Jeanne scowled. Great, she reminded him of his mother.

“Honestly, I didn't mean to startle you.”

Jeanne forced the strange voice out of her head with brightness. “No, no, you're forgiven,” she assured him. “I wasn't sure if I brought my scrubby.”

“Your scrubby?”

Just dig a deeper hole, why don't you?
She drew her tote containing the item a little closer as though he had x-ray vision. “Kinda like a loofah . . . those nylon scrub things we use with shower gel.”

“Like a pot scrubber?”

“Something like that.” He was definitely a soap-on-a-rope guy. Worse, she was standing at the jungle's edge beneath a starry sky, talking about her bathing habits with him. The moon wasn't in evidence— perhaps it was a new moon—but in the absence of manmade light, the stars shone with a brilliance that shot the sea with slivers of silver light and highlighted her companion's chiseled features. “And since tomorrow is likely to be a long day, I'd best get showered and to bed . . . or rather
hammock,
” she added. Talk about a nightmare—not hers, but Remy's. As for the rest of the crew, they were like Jeanne, ready for the native experience.

Humor tugged at the corners of Gabe's mouth. “I suppose
Dr.
Prim
is ready to abandon the project and head home?”

“Shame on you. You sound almost hopeful,” Jeanne told him. “But rest assured, Remy is in for the duration. A bed is on its way from Merida as we speak.”

She waited for Gabe to move out of the narrow path, but he remained still, his features scored by an obviously compelling thought.

“Just what is this guy to you anyway? It's obvious the bloke is miserable outside his air-conditioned classroom. We don't need him, as I see it.”

Jeanne's hackles rose at the disdainful dismissal of her colleague. “
We
? Captain, there is no
we
, only the company, some of which was funded by Dr. Remy Primston, who is not only one of our sponsors, but a good friend and . . . well . . . he's been my mentor ever since I entered this field. I owe Remy a lot.”

“So you feel obligated to take him from mediocrity to limelight with you on this excavation.”

“I'd hardly call a man with doctorates from three universities mediocre! Now if you'll excuse me—” Jeanne forced her way by him, her arm brushing against his bare and muscular abdomen. A frisson of awareness enveloped her, prickling at her flesh from head to toe as she pushed toward the entrance marked
Damas
. Okay, she'd felt tingles of attraction to the opposite sex before, but they were mere whispers compared to the I'm-definitely-a-woman shouts ringing from sense to sense like a pinball machine on full tilt.

Grabbing at indignation like a lifeline, Jeanne cleared her throat as she drew up to her full and woefully inadequate height. “And if you find that intimidating, Captain, you'll have to get over it.”

There. Now all she had to do was hang on to her outrage for long enough to get inside before she had another
pinball
attack.

It was exactly fifteen paces to the bathhouse door. Inside, Jeanne padded over to one of the three shower rooms in her flip-flops and slammed down the tote.
Of all the nerve
, she fumed, tugging off the red top that had formed a second skin to her sweat-dampened body. If that gorgeous jock thought she was going to dump Remy because the poor man was miserable in and unaccustomed to this climate, and out of sorts as a result, then the jerk had another thing coming.