Page 106 of Empire of Shadows

Twenty-One

Adam supposed theirintroduction to the village could’ve gone worse… though maybe not much worse.

The priest, Kuyoc, led them up the hill past tidy houses lush with growing herbs, and the odd pen of clucking chickens. Adam tried not to huff openly as he followed. The old timer set a hell of a pace for a guy who looked like he could be someone’s great-grandpa. He was unnaturally nimble.

Ellie trudged beside Adam. He could see that she was tired, however much she tried to hide it. It had been a grueling day, especially after that whole business with the javelinas.

Damned pigs.

Kuyoc’s questions about the nature of Adam’s relationship with Ellie had been more awkward than they should’ve been… probably because last night, Adam had come damned close to doing something incredibly stupid.

For an alarming moment by the fire, Adam had been sure Ellie was about to kiss him. He had seen the tell-tale gleam in her eye right before the jaguar cried out—assuming, of course, that he hadn’t just dreamed the whole business up through a rum-soaked haze.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have liked it. Heck, Adam had spent the last two days trying to shake the image of Ellie floating in the river in her underwear.

But the woman wastrouble. Ellie was exactly the sort of girl who came with all sorts of complications—complications that Adam had studiously avoided for the last twenty-seven years.

He had every intention of continuing to avoid them—no matter how cute she looked with mud smeared over her freckles and her hair all curled with sweat at the back of her neck…

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Ellie whispered conspiratorially as she leaned in a little closer.

“What? No!” Adam returned with a jolt. “What’d you think that for?”

“You keep looking at me,” she returned with obvious confusion.

“Heat. Tired. Chickens.” Adam waved a hand at the fowl who watched them pass with beady-eyed indifference. “Probably hungry.”

“I see.” Ellie flashed him an odd look before quickening her pace to keep up with the priest.

Adam searched for something that would take his mind off of underthings and freckles. He found it in the sight of a low, squat building that sat on an isolated reach of the hillside. While all the rest of the structures in Santa Dolores were clearly part of some household plot, this one stood alone and apart. It was accessed by a narrow path that Adam could just make out skirting the ridge.

“What’s that for?” he called out toward the spry old priest.

“That?” Kuyoc echoed, looking to where Adam pointed. “Ah! That is where we keep the dynamite.”

Adam stiffened.

“Dynamite?” he repeated urgently.

“For removing stumps,” the priest cheerfully explained. He flashed them a grin. “Keep up!”

“Is that normal?” Ellie hissed beside him.

“Sure?” Adam replied awkwardly. “I mean, who doesn’t need a stump removed every now and then?”

Ellie cast another thoughtful glance at the building before it slipped from view.

Adam hauled his weary bones the rest of the way up the slope of the hillside to where a larger plot perched above the rest of the village. As they reached it, he glanced back the way they had come. From this higher vantage, he could see over the break in the trees to a low valley—and beyond that, the misty green contours of rolling, forest-covered hills.

It was a great view. Adam took an extra minute to decide whether it was the sort of great view that might make him want to lie down in the road with his eyes closed.

It was close, but the presence of all those nice, solid houses just below him took the edge off.

The plot that they had climbed to contained a pair of houses. They were framed by a substantial yard stuffed with flowers and plots of herbs.

A young boy squatted on the threshold of the larger of the two buildings. He clutched a hen to his chest like a sleeping cat and watched them approach with wide brown eyes.

“This is Paolo.” Kuyoc waved a hand at the boy, and then the bird. “That is Cruzita. He named it after his mother, who is not pleased that her son chose a good meal as a pet.”

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