“It looks unprofessional,” she said.
“I don’t see anyone here with an academic scorecard.”
Lina hesitated, then shook her hair fully free. His smile didn’t help her pulse rate one bit.
Hunter got out of the Jeep and came around to her side before she had picked up her purse. He reached in and lifted her out. His hands were hard, his strength startling. Before she could object, she was standing on the sidewalk. She stared at Hunter and revised her first estimate of his strength. The man must have serious muscles beneath his loose shirt.
“This way,” he said, slowly releasing her.
He tucked his hand into hers and led her down the street. Everywhere she looked, the signs were in Spanish, with the occasional English word used like an exclamation mark. It was the same for the language of the people standing in groups, getting into cars, or smoking and watching the world go by. Hats, boots, jeans, work shirts. Occasional flashes of colorful clothes and hot black eyes from women in high heels. Otherwise, the visible population was overwhelmingly male and Latin.
She felt like she was in semirural Mexico.
Omar’s was a rustic brick building that smelled of chili and onions and meat, with the scent of fresh tortillas curling through it all like a golden ribbon. The cafe was close enough to downtown that tourists might wander through, but authentic enough that only locals would stay. The tempera paints on the outside of the window were faded from sun and heat, not yet melted by rain. Yard-high red letters spelled out
Lina smiled. The smells of food and the language being spoken on all sides surrounded her like a lover.
“You look like you’ve been handed a piece of heaven rather than an invitation to a Mexican dive,” Hunter said. He knew his voice was too husky and he didn’t care. The more he discovered about Lina, the more he liked her.
Wanted her.
“I’ve missed this kind of Mexican food,” Lina said.
“Greasy?”
“Real. Country food meant to feed people who have little money and hard physical jobs.”
As they walked into the tiny restaurant, the sun flooding through the red letters on the window made the interior glow carmine. The three Latina women making tortillas behind the grill waved at Hunter and then giggled.
Behind the counter, Omar grinned. He was six foot two—six foot six if his turban was counted. His dark complexion might have helped him to blend in, if not for his height and aquiline features, which would’ve been more at home in the Punjab. He wore his long beard carefully kept and his eyes glittered behind thin lenses. He insisted often and loudly that he was the only Sikh running a Mexican restaurant in all of Texas. No one argued. The food was too good.
“Excellent,” Omar said. “What may I serve you?”
“I’ll have the usual.”
“Machaca, half a stack of corn tortillas, eggs soft, extra salsa nuclear,” Omar called over his shoulder. “And for the beautiful young lady?”
Lina looked behind her, laughed, and said, “Machaca, frijoles refritos, corn tortillas, salsa, and orange soda.”
“The salsa,” Omar said, looking at her, “gringo, medium, hot, or nuclear?”
Darkness shot through with gold flashed as she rolled her eyes. “Just hot.”
Omar grinned, revealing black gaps and white teeth. “Coffee and water are in the customary place,” he said to Hunter as he totaled their order on an adding machine. “Soda is in the cooler.”
Hunter paid before Lina could open her purse. She would have argued, but it wasn’t worth it. At the moment she was very much in a man’s world.
Lina glanced over at the wall to the left. The cooler beckoned in cheerful, chipped colors next to a worn linoleum-surfaced table holding coffee, water, sugar, cream, and plastic utensils wrapped in napkins. By the time she and Hunter found an empty table—about two feet square—and two metal chairs, their order arrived.
For a few minutes the only sounds the two of them made were “Mmm,” “Wow,” and scraping utensils. Hunter ate with the same efficiency he did everything else. He never moved fast, but everything disappeared at an astonishing pace.
After destroying two skimpy napkins—his and hers—Lina gave up and simply licked her fingers.
Hunter watched and wished he could offer to help. Insist, actually. Her agile tongue was hotter than his salsa, which was hot enough to melt plastic.
“I missed breakfast as well as lunch,” Lina said as she mopped her plate with a last bit of corn tortilla. “These tortillas…fantastic. Like the corn was ground by hand with a limestone metate.”
“Could have been. Omar’s wife is Mexican, from Tamaulipas. So is Omar. The narco violence drove them across the border to Texas about five years ago. He has some pull with the feds, so he and his family have refugee status here.”
“I hear it’s bad,” Lina said. “Even the Yucatan.” She shook her head. “Zetas, Gulf Cartel, and others are making life hell for the common people.”
Hunter almost told her about the blue-painted, headless, heartless bodies being found by ICE, but didn’t. No use spoiling her meal. He liked watching a woman who didn’t push lettuce around on her plate and call it eating.
“I’ve been thinking about the…items,” she said in English, glancing around.
The tables around them had filled up. People came and went through the tiny eatery like waves on a beach. Tex-Mex was the predominant dialect, but she heard accents that went farther south than Mexico City.
It would be stupid to assume that they were the only English speakers present.
Hunter moved his chair right next to hers, so close the metal legs scraped. “Go on. I’ll keep an eye out for eavesdroppers.”
“If they are fakes,” she said in a low voice, “why would anyone go to the trouble of painstakingly counterfeiting objects that less than a handful of people would recognize as relating to an obscure, forgotten god?”
He thought about her words as he checked out the occupants of the cafe with his unusually wide peripheral vision. “You’re saying that fake or real, the market is limited?”
“Very.”
“Outside your family, who would care?”
She flinched. “There are several museums in the Yucatan that specialize in local ar—ah, items.” Her voice dropped. “My father has made enemies. These could be a trap for him. Or them.”
“What’s the profit in that for anyone?”
“Revenge.”
Hunter hesitated, considered, nodded. “Anything else?”
He watched Lina’s pulse work furiously beneath her skin as she looked around yet again.
“Whatever cat you’re trying to keep bagged up is already out,” she said in a low voice.
He leaned closer, so close she felt his words as much as heard them. “How do you know?”
“Rumors of unusual ar—items are making the museum and collector rounds.” She looked at her fingers, clenched in a stained napkin. “You must understand. What you’re looking for, if real, could make a collection, and a museum, famous.”
“Even without provenance?” he breathed into her ear.
“That can be manufactured if you have the right connections,” she said reluctantly. It was one of the realities of the artifact world that really made her angry, so she tried not to think about it. “It would cost a great deal, but it could be worth it to some people.”
“And the provenance would be accepted, if the right people were on board?”
