River of Eden Read Free

knife flashed on the shorter one's hip.
    O-kay
, she thought, remembering a couple of other things she'd heard about the mysterious William Sanchez Travers. One rumor that had picked up some speed was that he'd spent his lost year searching for and finding a city of gold buried in time and lianas in the wilderness of Amazonia. He did have a pair of hefty gold bracelets hanging around his wrist, gleaming dully in the low light of the cantina, and there was nothing like gold to bring out the mercenaries and
bandidos
in backcountry Brazil. Of course, people who had known him before he'd disappeared swore that even if he had found an ancient lost city of gold, the wealth wouldn't have interested him nearly as much as the archaeobotany of the site. But even she could see that he'd changed in some rather dramatic ways from the photograph on his book jacket, maybe more than the people who had known him before realized.
    Regardless, he was ushering her out the door, and he had a couple of very
bandido-looking
dudes staring holes in the middle of his back.
    “You do know there's a man with a knife watching us. Right?” she asked.
    “Think nothing of it,” he replied with a shrug.
    “Do you know him?” she asked, taking another quick glance and thinking a lot about it. She'd been on more than a few waterfronts along the Rio Negro, and in more than her share of roughneck bars back home in the States, once or twice in less than ideal situations. In her opinion the only situation less ideal than a grim-faced man with a knife was a grim-faced man with a gun. Whether the men were Wyoming cowboys or Brazilian
caboclos
, the outcome was never good.
    “The one with the knife in the orange T-shirt is named Juanio. The man trying to hide a shoulder holster under his vest is called Luiz.”
    “Shoulder holster?” That meant a gun. The day was definitely taking a dive.
    “Garimpeiros,”
he explained, as if that would be reassuring.
    “Gold miners,” she translated aloud, her curiosity and wariness ratcheting up a few dozen notches. Gold miners were the bane of much of the Amazon and a particularly poisonous thorn in her side.
    “Don't worry. They're only here to entertain me.”
    Annie didn't bother to hide the doubtful arching of her eyebrows. “And are you finding them entertaining?” No one could be that self-assured when he had a man with a knife and another with a gun at his back.
    He glanced down at her, and his mouth curved into a mischievous grin. “Very.”
    “And the woman?” she asked, wondering how, or if, the dancer was involved.
    His grin broadened. “Cara? Part of the package. She dances a few dances. Juanio buys me a few drinks, and Luiz makes sure I don't get distracted by any
garotas
who wander in off the street.”
    Annie slanted him a glance, hardly classifying herself as a
garota
, a lovely girl, who had wandered in off the street. She knew what people saw when they looked at her. “Four-eyed academic” and “muddy-kneed botanist” came to mind, and “pint-sized pit bull” had been mentioned more often than she cared to admit, especially by other field researchers, especially if they were in her field. “Lovely girl” would be a stretch on her best day.
    In two more steps, he had her back outside, under theeaves of the cantina's tin roof, the rain pouring down not six inches from where they were standing.
    “I'd say Luiz is doing a damn good job.” Drunk or not, and she wasn't at all sure anymore, he'd just given her a first-class bum's rush.
    He answered with a negligent shrug and stepped out from under the eaves. The rain sluiced down his body, instantly plastering his clothes to his rangy frame. He tilted his head back and dragged his hands through his hair, letting the water wash over him. For a moment, he looked like a river creature, sleek and wet, all lean muscle and coiled power, half of this world and half of the other, the rain a veil between water and air. Then he stepped back under the