“And getting killed in Mexico will make you happy?” he asked dryly.
“Don’t overdramatize. I’m not going to get killed. You won’t let that happen.”
“Damn right, which is why you’re going home,” he said, his voice climbing with each word. “Tomorrow.”
There was a finality in his tone that broke her heart. Determined not to let him see the tears that were pooling in her eyes, she turned on her heel and went into her tent. Unfortunately, there was no door she could slam behind her to emphasize her displeasure.
Riley followed hard on her heels. “Abby?”
“Go away.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, a bleak, rueful note in his voice. “That’s just the way it has to be.”
When she said nothing, he sighed and slowly moved away. She wondered whether Riley had half as many regrets about ending their adventure as she did. She doubted it. He would probably be glad to be rid of her. Maybe he’d thought of her as a nuisance all along, though that wasn’t how it had seemed as they’d stayed up late laughing, sharing old memories, building new ones.
Maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe he really was worried about her. And she knew for a fact that he liked working alone. In truth, she had never known a more self-contained man. Possibly it was because he’d lost his parents when he was still in junior high. Or because the aunt who’d taken him in had died within weeks after he’d left for college. Maybe it was because his best friend through high school and college had committed suicide. Riley had lost everyone who’d ever meant anything to him. More important, perhaps, he’d lost everyone who might care whether or not he survived.
Maybe that was why he was so willing to risk his own neck, she decided, during the long, lonely night.
Maybe because she was all he had left, that was why he was so unwilling to risk hers.
She might have taken comfort in that, if she hadn’t wanted so desperately to be a part of his life, to be a partner in the adventures he craved, rather than the dear old friend he mailed a postcard to on occasion or came home to visit every once in a while. Sitting on a rock-solid pedestal, safely above any human touch, might appeal to some women. It had never appealed to Abby. She wanted to be in the thick of things...with Riley.
If a partnership wasn’t to be, though, then she would have to find her own adventures. How handy it was that she was already deep in the Mexican rain forest, she thought, as a plan began to take shape in her mind. She could start her very first adventure right now.
Even if it meant risking Riley’s wrath.
* * *
She was gone!
When Riley awoke at dawn and went to fetch Abby from her tent to go to the airport, he found the tent ominously empty, a note in the middle of her cot.
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself,” she’d written. “Sorry, though. I took the maps.”
There was more, but he was too stunned to read on. A shaft of pure, gut-deep panic shot through him. What the hell had she been thinking of? She didn’t know where she was or where she was going. She’d never gone traipsing around in a foreign country alone, much less in someplace as primitive as the rain forest. He promptly envisioned her stumbling into some remote village, being taken hostage or worse. He closed his eyes against the horror of that, but the image was immediately and indelibly burned in his brain.
Damn, he couldn’t lose her. Not Abby. She was the anchor he needed, the woman who brought not only real stability, but genuine love into a life too often caught up in the extraordinary risks he’d found desperately necessary to his emotional survival.
She had always been self-possessed and strong, even as a child. Those qualities had only been enhanced with age. When he had gone back to Arizona, he had gravitated to her at once, drawn by that self-confidence and serenity. There was a sense of the inevitable about being back with her.
He had realized then how much he had counted on Abby to be there when he went home, to remind him of who he was, to tease him, to fight with him, to challenge him. Without ever acknowledging it, he had counted on her to love him.
The discovery that she was planning to marry that boring twit of an attorney had thrown him. Perhaps that was why he’d foolishly caved in to her pleas to bring her along on this trip to Mexico. He’d wanted this one adventure with her to treasure even after she was lost to him. He’d been selfish.
He certainly hadn’t counted on a new uprising of discontent in this southern Mexican state. As soon as he’d gotten word of the dangers, though, he’d come to his senses and insisted that Abigail go back home. Clearly hurt by what she viewed as a rejection, she’d blindly refused to see that he was sending her away for her own good.
Obviously they had very different views about this trip and their relationship, he realized, as he forced himself to read the rest of the note.
“A partnership isn’t about one person being superior,” she had written. “It isn’t about one person getting to dictate to the other. It’s about making decisions together. It’s about sharing and respect.”
“Then why couldn’t you respect my opinion,” he wondered aloud. “I’m the one with the experience here, Abby.”
Obviously that thought had never entered her head. Now she was off, who knew where, alone, convinced that those maps she’d stolen would enable her—all on her own—to find the priceless Mayan tablet he’d been commissioned to locate. Worse, for all of the rumors about this rare archeological find, Riley didn’t even know
