Page 1 of A Ranger for Christmas
Chapter 1
Austin, Texas
Friday, December 19, 7P.M.
You’re a hard woman to find.Professor Marisa Thompson stared at the text.You’re a hard woman to find.Was this a joke? No one was looking for her. She’d barely been back in Austin forty-eight hours. But as she reasoned this was a mistake, silent warnings whispered.
As she considered responding to the number with the Texas area code, a knock at her office door had her sliding her phone back into her back pocket.
“Professor Thompson, bet you don’t know what the other professors are calling you?”
Marisa raised her gaze to the junior professor’s smiling face. Kyle Stone wore a Santa hat cocked sideways over shoulder-length sandy blond hair and his nose glowed red, a sign he’d had too much tequila punch at the history department’s holiday party. She tugged off her glasses and tossed them on a pile of manuscripts she’d marked up in red ink. She reached for a cold cup of coffee, stood, and moved to a small microwave in the corner of her office. Christmas music drifted through the hallways of Garrison Hall. “I don’t bet. But it’s Scrooge, no doubt.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest and he strolled into her office. “How’d you know?”
“I have a reputation.”
“Their teasing is good-natured.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He pouted, clearly making fun of her sour mood. “Why didn’t you make an appearance at the party?”
“Just didn’t.” She put the mug in the microwave and punched in one minute. Behind the lectern or cutting through the jungles to a Mayan ruin, Professor Marisa Thompson was at home. Ancient languages buried by time, neglect, or malice were easier to grasp than a holiday packaged in disappointment and wrapped in bows of false promises. The Christmas season was a time to be endured, not celebrated.
“More sour than usual.”
“I miss the jungle.”
You are a hard woman to find.The text tugged at her concentration before she brushed it away.
She’d returned two days ago from a six-month sabbatical spent in the jungle west of the Yucatan in Mexico, hunting for evidence of the Mayans who’d lived in the region one thousand years before the Spanish had arrived. Two weeks before she was to leave, she stumbled upon a hole in a large limestone mound. The hole had been carved out centuries ago by grave robbers and offered a glimpse into a tomb. She’d been able to squirm inside the hole and with a light had found a cavern covered with ancient writings. It had been the single most important find of Mayan language in decades. She’d wanted to keep digging and work until the entire site had been mapped and catalogued. But her time and money had run out thirteen days later and she’d been forced to leave her ruins behind, until she could find sponsors to pay for her return.
“Everyone was asking about you. This is your first Christmas back in Austin in several years.”
The seasonal travel had been deliberate. Life was easier when she vanished during the holidays. However, this year a lack of funding and the university’s schedule dictated a return tocampus to teach graduate classes in the spring semester. And so here she now sat in her small office, trying to immerse herself in her ancient languages and hide from the holidays and festive coworkers. Of course, she could go home to her Hyde Park home in central Austin, but that would mean facing too many unpacked boxes delivered this morning from the storage company. The boxes had valued papers and books and memories—items that belonged to her mother, items she’d not been able to look at in the seven years since her mother’s death.
“Bradley and Jennifer were there. He’s been talking nonstop about your trip to Mexico and your find.”
She allowed a twinge of disappointment with the mention of the ex-boyfriend. “That so?”
Kyle lowered his voice a notch, speaking in a conspirator’s whisper. “He’s itching to work with you on your find.”
Six months ago Bradley had dubbed her adventure a fool’s errand. “He wasn’t the one sifting through rubble and rock in one hundred degree heat.”
“He’s never loved field work.” Kyle picked up a limestone rock from Marisa’s bookshelf. “Hard to chase the financing when you’re in the boonies.”
Marisa studied the rock in Kyle’s hand. Found at her latest dig, it reminded her that she belonged in the jungle, not here. “I suppose.” The microwave dinged; she removed her coffee and sipped. The coffee tasted bitter.
“Aren’t you supposed to pick up toys for your brothers?”
She glanced at the clock on her desk. “Damn.”
Thanks to her trips to Mexico, she had avoided family gatherings, but this year had no credible excuse exonerating her from her father and stepmother’s big holiday party. She wasn’t close to her dad and his second wife, but they had two sons, Travis and Tyler, seven-year-old twins. As much as shedreaded the holidays, she had a begrudging affection for her half brothers, whom she’d not seen in over six months.
Kyle glanced at his black explorer’s watch. “If you hurry you can make it.”
The shopkeeper had called and warned her that today would be the last day he’d be open before Christmas. He was closing early this year to go on a holiday vacation. If she didn’t pick up the toys today, she’d not get them until after New Year’s.
