Afraid to Fall (Ancient Passages Book 1) Read online

  The bus was crammed and uncomfortably warm. Some passengers slept through the cacophony and overcrowded seating, like the mother and child next to her, or ate snacks or midmorning meals from untied cloth, which had been fashioned into bags.

  Her stomach growled. A glance at her watch indicated it had been hours since breakfast. Ari ran through what she had in her backpack, a fraction of what she’d packed in her duffel—two oranges, an avocado, and nuts. An orange sounded perfect right now, but it would require cutting, and her Swiss Army knife—a gift from her parents—was in the front pocket of her pants and impossible to get to until she was able to sit.

  During her mental calculation, she noted how her fellow bus riders’ expressions were calm in the soup of animal and human odors and bus fumes. Ari spread her sandal-and-dirt-covered feet out wider, thankful she had opted to wear socks, seeking to redistribute the shifting weight of her petite frame. Her shoulders and arms ached. She felt the telltale signs of forming blisters on her palms from gripping so hard as her hands slipped during the swaying ride.

  Several coppery red tendrils, inherited from her mother, had escaped Ari’s braids. One stuck to the damp temple of her freckled olive skin. The other flitted onto her nose, like a fly, as a balmy breeze moved through the open windows, just enough to tickle, and then it was gone. Ari wriggled her nose again, hoping to address the itching without letting go of the bar. No success. She turned her head, attempting to scratch her nose on her arm, and was rewarded with relief and a whiff of her armpit. She had showered that morning before breakfast but must have forgotten to put on deodorant. No doubt her ripeness added to the stench permeating the bus.

  Ari rose onto her tippy-toes, straining to give her shoulders and arms a break and to see over the broad man holding on to the bar in front of her. Her calves screamed in defiance. What had she been thinking by hiking to Volcano Pacaya so close to a long bus ride to Cobán? Ari’s legs were tight and ached from the strenuous climbing. I wish I could stretch them. The trail had been uneven, steep, and at times, slippery. The rough night spent camping had not allowed her body to relax or for her to sleep well.

  Her thoughts drifted again to the hike. She had been awestruck by the beauty and the power of her surroundings, and the walking stick she had purchased from a local child before hiking proved useful during the more rugged sections and where the lava was fresher, fragile, and unstable. Pacaya’s summit had been exhilarating and the view breathtaking once the rain had cleared the next morning and the noxious gasses blew off in the other direction. But a steep hike over a two-day period and sleeping in a damp tent just days before leading up to riding a series of buses? Not so smart. Ari shook her head. While she was outstanding in the book-smarts department, she often lacked in foresight—something her parents and friends teased her about.

  Roasting marshmallows over flowing, scalding lava had been fun, but she had skipped the opportunity to cook a hot dog. Red meat was not part of her diet. Taking a chance on eating one would have likely made her sick, and she had a limited amount of medicine to combat intestinal issues. The other thrill seekers assured her the hot dogs tasted wonderful. Good for them.

  The brakes screeched as the bus careened and abruptly pulled over, stopping to pick up a family of five on the side of the road. Where on earth are they going to squeeze in? Ari’s eyes widened as several people moved from their seats and crowded into others. A few seats now had several adults and a pile of kids. She pounced into an open seat and was promptly joined by the man who had been standing in front of her. The seat ahead of her filled with the family of five.

  A little girl sat on her mother’s lap, facing Ari, eating a tortilla. The fresh-baked scent teased Ari’s hungry stomach. She shyly pointed to the wisps of hair stuck to Ari’s temples. “Bonita.”

  Ari smiled back at her, nodding. “Eres una niña bonita.”

  The little girl giggled her “gracias,” then fixated on Ari’s straight white teeth—the result of braces and exceptional dental care that had cost far more than the average Guatemalan family earned annually.

  The man seated next to Ari studied her openly, making her nervous as she remembered the warnings of women being groped on buses. Her parents’ concerns flew through her mind. They continued to be overly protective of their only child, even though she was an adult, had her doctorate in anthropology, and taught at the university. Their protectiveness irritated her most of the time, but now she reconsidered. Ari wedged her backpack between the man and herself, directly challenging his almost-black eyes with her dark brown ones—her father’s. He quit staring, his gaze moving to the window, seeming to observe the ever-changing lush terrain.

  Ari pulled the Velcro tab of a side pocket and extracted her sanitizer, applying it all over and working it into her hands. Her blisters stung. Once it evaporated, she grabbed an orange out and pulled her knife from her pocket, carefully cutting a section and putting it in her mouth as the bus rocked over the road. Ari offered the man sharing her seat a section, which he accepted with a nod and a smile. The orange was perfectly ripe. She closed her eyes and kept herself from moaning in pleasure, savoring the orange’s sweet juicy flesh as it quenched her thirst and stomach.

  After clearing customs two weeks earlier at the airport, Ari’s introduction to Guatemala had been armed militia dressed in drab, dark uniforms standing above her in the open mezzanine as she made her way out to find the shuttle she was to take to Antigua. Their serious expressions and machine guns were trained on her and others in the crowd of deplaning visitors and citizens. She had felt like one of those floating toy ducks she used to shoot at the local carnival when she was a child. Only these were real guns, with real bullets.

  It was unnerving to know that she crossed the guns’ sights and could be picked off more quickly than she could blink. She had inhaled deeply, reminding herself that the militia was not looking for someone like her. And yet someone like her, a redhead, certainly stood out.

  Ari had stopped herself from glancing upward and swept the area in front of her, scanning signs for the shuttle. Bingo. She moved toward a man wearing dark pants and a light blue polo with the shuttle logo embroidered over his heart. He was roughly her height and held a sign with her name. Her heart slowed to normal as the driver greeted her by name and introduced himself, taking her duffel bag and helping her into the air-conditioned van.

  The hour-plus, stop-and-go ride had taken Ari out of the uninspiring sprawling capital. Guatemala City’s scenery had quickly morphed as the van drove toward Antigua. Buildings and compounds surrounded by razor wire, homes structured from corrugated metal, and children playing in large mounds of trash gave way to a landscape of beautiful hillsides and ravines punctuated with trees and forest. Relief had flooded her upon arriving at the charming UNESCO city. Colonial Antigua proved to be the perfect balm after her disaster with Eric and the perfect place to begin relaxing and immersing herself in Guatemala.

  Antigua had an entirely different vibe than Guatemala City and was far safer. Ari had spent her days exploring the pastel façades, inner courtyards, churches, colonial relics, ruins, and enjoying daily siestas. She eagerly looked forward to traveling north and settling in Petén to work for the summer.

  After seeing a documentary on Pompeii in Mr. Cummings’s sixth grade social studies class, she was hooked on the past. The next documentary—on the Maya—pretty much solidified her future path. She took every anthropology course available at her large high school and in college, then expanded into forensics after exhausting her university’s catalog. Ari’s doctorate resulted from fieldwork and research in Italy, Egypt, and North Africa; then the university she currently taught at hired her. Finally, years after being seized by a passion that had never ebbed, she was now in Guatemala, thrilled to be exploring the Maya through their dead in Petén.

  The bus driver called back to Ari, his voice urgent, pulling her from her reverie. Oops. She was one of the few left on the bus, blocking the man beside her from exiting.r />
  “Gracias,” she said, exiting the bus. Once out, she saw that her duffel lay in a pile, its strap pinned to the pavement by a crate full of chickens, causing her to wait until their owner claimed them. Ari squinted into the sky through her sunglasses; the sun was at high noon. Her stomach rumbled, not satisfied with the meager snack she had consumed during the trip. Guatemala City’s newer modern bus terminal teemed with activity, color, and noise.

  It seemed that every stop in Guatemala was a reason for some type of market or hawking of local goods, food, and drinks. This stop was no different. She glanced at her watch to confirm the hour. She had a little time to browse until she boarded the bus to Cobán.

  Ari patted her gurgling stomach, willing it to calm down. The spicy scent of grilling meat beckoned, even though she was a vegetarian. How she would love some grilled vegetables or rice or beans, but she had been strongly cautioned against buying any food or drinks from street vendors.

  She renewed her tug-of-war with her duffel. It did not budge. Two black-headed young boys ran up and lifted the crate full of chickens. Their squawking faded as the boys disappeared into the crowd, the crate balanced between them. Duffel freed, she slung the straps over her shoulder. Its attached wheels would be of no use on the rutted ground. Ari rocked under its weight, wishing she had packed lighter.

  Widening her stance, she adjusted the bulk of it against the backpack hanging off her other shoulder, which was almost as cumbersome as her duffel. It was going to be paramount that she lighten her load considerably when working on-site. The smaller backpack within her duffel would have to do for work; she’d figure it out.

  She toddled over to a large tree where space was available in the shade, just enough for one person if she sat on her duffel, and set her bag down as gently as possible between a family with a zillion kids and an elderly couple. Curious faces and gentle smiles greeted her, their eyes lingering on her hair. Getting comfortable with being conspicuous was more difficult than Ari had realized. Not only was she obviously an American but a redheaded one.

  Although dappled shade under a tree provided respite from the relentless sun, sweat streaked in rivulets from her hairline. She opened her backpack and extracted the wet bandana packed from one of small packing cubes. It had stayed cool. She placed it on the back of her neck, then pulled the avocado from her pack.

  Enormous and delicious, Guatemala’s avocados were to die for. She had never eaten one plain until coming to Guatemala—where they were served with every meal. The people of Antigua had earned the nickname panzas verdes after surviving the 1773 earthquake’s decimation of their city by living off avocados. She might as well become one of the green bellies but for a different reason—she loved the fruit.

  She dug in her front pocket and, after extracting her Swiss Army knife, opened the blade. Spanish and Mayan dialects quieted around her. Dark eyes of every age watched her knife. Ari pantomimed how she intended to use the blade. Eyes continued to watch as she sliced the avocado’s leathery skin and separated it from the fruit. She cut a wedge and popped it into her mouth. It was perfect. She gave her audience a green-toothed smile. Laughing and nodding, they returned to what they were doing.

  She heard her mother’s voice in her head. Ari! No “see food”! She smiled inwardly, wondering what her mom would think now since Ari had just used see food to relieve tension in a place where she knew no one. She had time to find a bathroom and to walk the market before boarding the bus to Cobán.

  The four-hour bus trip from Guatemala City to Cobán was uneventful and had far fewer passengers. Ari scored a seat all to herself. Screeching and pumping to a stop, the bus announced its arrival and woke Ari from her nap. In the luxury of space, she stood and stretched before exiting, blowing escaped tendrils of hair away from her mouth and eyes. She climbed the outside ladder and reached to pull her duffel bag from the top of the bus.

  “I will retrieve that for you,” a deep voice offered behind her. Not American but familiar, similar to her father’s Italian accent.

  Bingo. She felt the strap. Without turning around, Ari responded, “Thanks, but I have—” Her duffel slid away from her reach and moved downward as other chicken bus passengers scurried to get their baggage. It gathered speed and plummeted toward the paved road, taking other baggage with it. She slipped, falling as well.

  “Merda!”

  He is Italian. “Merda!” was her dad’s go-to expression when he was upset, overwhelmed, or hurt, and as effective as its English translation, which she had a penchant for—shit.

  Momentum slammed Ari against the man to whom the deep voice belonged. She stopped only when her butt landed hard on the cracking, dusty sidewalk, sending her sprawling on her back. “Ow! Dammit! That hu—” The sight to her right robbed Ari of more words. Instead, the telltale sign of humiliation spread over her chest and face, rivaling the color of a ripe tomato. Her heavy, overstuffed duffel had unzipped itself on impact, spilling some of its contents. Of course some of her personal items had littered the ancient walk.

  Mortified, Ari clenched her eyes shut, seeking to block out what had just happened, all too aware of the towering stranger silhouetted by the sun. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  A strong hand encircled her forearm and yanked her to her feet, snapping her head up in the process.

  Irritation etched thick-lashed emerald-green eyes. “You should have let me help you. What the hell do you have in this thing?”

  His gorgeous eyes held Ari’s attention, rendering her speechless. Her body certainly responded though. Desire struck like a Mack Truck. It was likely she’d have slid back onto the pavement if he didn’t hold on to her.

  He waved his free hand. “Hey! That is not a rhetorical question.”

  His tone, words, and waving hand snapped Ari out of her musing. Agitation bubbled to the surface. Her body tensed, and she spit back, “None of your damn business.”

  He glared at her once more, as if weighing whether he should say anything else. Slowly a crooked, naughty smile appeared. Letting go of her, he bent over and reached, retrieving—

  Oh no, no, no. A fresh surge of embarrassment flooded her.

  The stranger held her pink thong by the section that was designated for “between the cheeks” and waved them at her. Amusement coated his words. “Nice. I did not think I would experience anything so, hm”—he shook his dark and shaggy gray-streaked mane, his eyes and voice filling with heat—“so tantalizing in Guatemala.”

  “Those are mine.” Ari seethed. “Give ’em back.”

  “As you wish.” He tossed them at her, his expression turning cool.

  She caught them in her hand and deftly shoved them into a front pocket of her pants. “Jerk,” she ground out between her teeth.

  “You are welcome.” Throwing his hands up in surrender, he walked away.

  Rubbing her backside, Ari gathered the rest of her belongings and stuffed them into the duffel and rezipped it as best she could. She watched him cross the street and disappear around the corner. Quit watching him. Squaring her shoulders, she pulled her duffel along the rutted sidewalk from Cobán’s bustling square to her hotel.

  Even though she caught some shut-eye, the day’s heat, humidity, and proximity to other loud bus passengers had taken their toll during the bus rides from Antigua and Guatemala City. After checking in, she showered, sighing in ecstasy as cool water flowed over her scalp and skin.

  Ari surveyed her room while she applied lotion, then slipped into her yellow-print wraparound sundress. The room was small and simple but clean. Mayan art hung on the whitewashed stucco walls. A lamp sat on top of the scarred dark wood desk. She padded across the blue-and-yellow Mayan rug partially covering the tiled floor, bending over to better examine the pattern, that of the double-headed eagle. In Mayan mythology, the symbol represented the Great God with two faces, one face looking to Heaven and the other watching evil. Over time, the symbolism changed, representing the evil bird that came from faraway lands, the Spanish conquist
adors, signifying Mayan women should never bear children in its presence because the eagle was cruel and unforgiving, and their children would suffer under its rule. Ari stood. Her fingers moved lightly over the loosely knotted mosquito netting hanging from the ceiling next to her bed. A fan swirled directly over the bed, and the screened window was open.

  Opening the thick wood door, she took in her surroundings. Her room shared a terra-cotta tile covered porch with the other rooms on this side of the one-story hotel. Bright woven and mismatched hammocks hung every couple of posts, lining up with the rooms’ doors. How she would love to climb into the one in front of her room for a siesta before she left Cobán, but this was a brief layover. She was leaving in the morning.

  Looking out farther, she reveled in the beauty of the Guatemalan countryside. A carpet of green undulated into foothills and then into mountains, where she had been told coffee grew. She sat in the wood chair near the door and sipped water from her bottle, absorbing how the peaks and valleys changed hue and intensity as the sun lowered in the sky. The terrain was more verdant than the Antiguan countryside, at least from where she watched. Ari would see more of it tomorrow when she ventured to the hidden paradise Semuc Champey, a two-hour shuttle ride away. She had seen pictures and eagerly looked forward to hiking and swimming there.

  Ari padded back into the bathroom and pulled her curly hair into a loose, messy knot at the nape of her neck, smiling deeply enough that her dimples showed. Perfect. As she added a little shadow and mascara to perk up her eyes, she thought about the stranger from earlier. Fluttering erupted in her stomach, and her groin twitched. Omigod, what is wrong with me? Knock it off. Yes, he was gorgeous. Those eyes! But what a jerk.

  She grabbed her room key and purse and headed out to prowl Cobán for a cold beer and something to eat. There was a good chance she’d meet up with one or more fellow PhDs when she passed through the lobby since the team was staying here. If not tonight, surely tomorrow.