Beautiful Sacrifice

to an ancient temple. Framed photos of local Maya ruins competed with colorful rubbings taken from a temple wall describing Jaguar Claw’s victory over an ancient priest-king.
    A black-haired woman dressed in a long skirt and a colorful native blouse stopped tapping on an old computer when the front door opened. With the ingrained training of a woman in Mexico, she passed over Lina and asked Hunter in soft Spanish how she could help him.
    “Tell Mercurio that Lina Reyes Balam is here to see him,” Lina said, stepping into a shaft of light from a high, vertical window.
    The woman’s eyes widened and she stood up with what could have been a subtle bow.
    “But of course. Immediately.” She hurried out through a side door.
    Hunter waited until she was out of earshot. “Not royalty, huh? She didn’t bow to me.”
    Lina rolled her dark eyes, but before she could think of a comeback, a handsome man rushed out of a shadowed hallway and engulfed her in a hug.
    “Lina, querida, you should have told me you were coming,” Mercurio said.
    His voice was as deep as his hair was black. Eyes almost as dark as his hair watched Lina with something that could only be called possessiveness. Like Lina, he was a mixture of Maya and European, an inch taller than she was and a lot stronger.
    Hunter didn’t enjoy watching Mercurio hug her breathless one damn bit, but he knew better than to show any emotion. Mercurio was making a statement. Now it was up to Lina to make one of her own. Impassive, Hunter watched her strugglepolitely to get some distance from Mercurio without being insulting about it.
    “Sorry about the lack of notice,” she said, finally managing to step back from the embrace.
    “No, no.” Mercurio held on to her hand and kissed it too long for politeness. “Such a sweet surprise you are.”
    Color appeared high on Lina’s cheekbones, anger or embarrassment. She wasn’t nearly as comfortable with Mercurio’s affectionate display as he was. Nor did she like the way he was ignoring Hunter. Mercurio was usually polite to a fault.
    She felt like a bone being mauled by a dog.
    “Dr. Mercurio ak Chan de la Poole,” Lina said crisply, “I would like to introduce Mr. Hunter Johnston. We’re both very interested in the artifacts I mentioned when I called you.”
    Reluctantly Mercurio turned to Hunter with a meaningless smile. “Good to meet you.”
    Hunter murmured something polite and shook hands in the gentle Mexican way.
    Mercurio had been north of the border. He ground down on Hunter’s hand with enough force to establish machismo.
    Hunter’s smile didn’t change. He waited patiently to be released. When he was, he slid his hand over Lina’s and laced their fingers deeply together.
    “You’ve come a long way from Texas,” Mercurio said to Hunter.
    “Lina knows I’ll go anywhere with her.”
    She shot Hunter a look from under long, dark eyelashes, but kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to insult Mercurio before she saw his new acquisitions.
    “I would do the same,” Mercurio replied coolly, “go anywhere for her.” His dark eyes shifted to Lina, caressing herand ignoring Hunter like a buzzing fly. “What may I do for you, beautiful one? What has brought you all the way to my humble place of work?”
    “Humble?” Lina’s hand gestured to the timbered vault of the ceiling, and the Maya-inspired designs carved into the hardwood that must have taken hundreds of hours of exacting work.
    “One tries,” Mercurio said.
    She smiled brightly. “You succeed. I know how valuable your time is, so I’ll try not to take much of it.”
    “For you—”
    She kept talking. Ruthlessly. “We’d really love permission to see your recent acquisitions. Perhaps you have some items that would be suitable for trade with my museum.”
    “But of course, querida .” He took her arm and led her to the acquisitions room.
    Lina kept hold of Hunter’s hand like a lifeline. He decided that if Mercurio called Lina querida —darling—one more time in that deep, possessive tone, there might just be an unhappy moment or three while Hunter shoved Mercurio’s grasping fingers where the sun doesn’t shine.
    But only after Hunter got what he came for. He was liking better and better the idea that Mercurio was good for illegal artifact trading, attempted murder, and attempted kidnapping. At least Hunter’s emotions liked the idea. His mind wasn’t cheering quite as happily.
    “Did you come down for Abuelita’s