Heart of Fire by Linda Howard

archaeological colleagues would investigate the Anzar. It was a hope, nothing more, but she felt better having made the effort.
    She thought about using the letters as a guarantee, telling Rick and Kates about them once they reached the site, but then realized that Kates would simply not return for his belongings. The hotel manager would assume that they had all died in the interior. If he ever did open her letter, it would be too late; Kates would already have left the country.
    She would have to keep her precautions to herself, and her pistol close at hand. It was the best she could do. She was scared, but only a fool wouldn't have been. At least Ben would also be keeping his eyes open. She couldn't trust him sexually, but she thought she could trust him to try to keep her safe. After all, his neck was at risk, too.

    "How long will we be on the boats?" Jillian asked, standing on the docks and watching the black waters roll past. Manaus was actually located on the Rio Negro, seven miles upriver from where the river would add its clear black waters to the yellow of the Amazon. The two currents were so strong that the rivers flowed side by side without mixing, black and yellow moving sinuously along like a huge serpent, for about fifty miles before finally merging their forces.
    "Two weeks, give or take a day," Ben replied without looking at her. His attention was on the loading of the last of their supplies.
    Inwardly she groaned at the thought of two weeks cooped up on board, but didn't complain out loud. There was no help for it. Riverboats were the only way to get their supplies upriver to where they could begin the trek on foot.
    "Coming back, that time will be cut in half," he said. "We'll be riding with the current rather than against it, for one thing. For another, we won't be bringing all of these supplies out, and the load will be a lot lighter."
    They had eight helpers, counting Dutra. Ben had hired an additional seven, five Brazilians and two Indians from the Tukano tribe. The two Indians, one on each boat, were silently distributing the weight of the supplies so the loads were evenly balanced. Ben divided his time between the two boats, his eyes shaded by dark sunglasses but missing nothing. He knew exactly where every item was, how much they had of it, how long their supplies should last. If they hadn't found this lost city by the time half of the supplies were gone, tough. They were coming back out anyway. He figured he'd have more trouble with Jillian than with any of the others if that happened, but he'd bring her back if he had to string her up on two poles like a peccary and carry her out.
    When she had arrived on the docks this morning, ready to leave, it was the first time he had seen her since he'd left her hotel room two nights before. She had clubbed her shoulder-length dark hair, and in the bright sun it gleamed as lustrously as mink. "Put your hat on," he said automatically. He himself was bareheaded, for he hadn't wanted to take the chance that Dutra would recognize him if he wore a hat and sunglasses. He'd gotten rather fond of the khaki hat and had brought it along, but for now, if the sun got too hot for him, he would put on his usual baseball cap.
    She obeyed. He liked the way she looked in her sturdy canvas pants and white short-sleeved shirt. With the straw fedora set firmly on her head, she was brisk and no-nonsense, her experience showing in every move she made. The canvas pants also revealed every delicious curve of her rounded buttocks, and he whistled silently to himself. She'd be sleeping beside him on the crowded deck for two weeks, and every night of those two weeks was going to be pure temptation. Nothing else, though, damn it. Not with four other people right beside them.
    "What do you think of our friend Dutra?" he asked in a low voice.
    She didn't have to look at the man in question to see him in her mind, and she suppressed a shudder. "We'll be lucky if he doesn't kill us all," she