“Sure. You said it would be nice to go somewhere warm and sunny for a week. You said it would be a snap, a free vacation; you said there would be good food, interesting surroundings, and exotic ruins. You said it involved next to no work for you and none at all for me.”

“Did I?” she said grimly, still staring at an e-mail. “It appears I may have misspoken.”

The “it” they were talking about was the result of a telephone call from Julie’s cousin Annie, who managed the Hacienda Encantada, a small, rustic/luxury dude ranch and resort, mostly patronized by Americans and Canadians, located in the hills above the peaceful little weaver’s village of Teotitlan del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico. Annie, it seemed, had to go back to Winston-Salem in mid-December to clean up the final details of a messy divorce, and could Julie fill in for her for a week or so? It was the slow time of year, so there really wouldn’t be much to manage. Julie would live right there at the Hacienda-best room in the place-so lodging and food would be taken care of. And Gideon was more than welcome to come along if he wanted to. The food alone, Julie assured him, was worth coming for. They had a wonderful Oaxacan chef that he would love. Dorotea’s cooking was famous. Her recipes had been featured in Sunset and Gourmet.

It meant that Julie would have to take vacation time off from her supervising park ranger post at Olympic National Park, but December was a slow time of year in the Olympics-not many wayward hikers to rescue-so it had suited her fine. As icing on the cake, the Hacienda would pick up the round-trip airfare-for both of them.

It hadn’t been hard for Julie to convince Gideon to join her. Not only did it sound terrific, but mid-December would be during his winter break from the University of Washington-Port Angeles, and so Julie had called Annie back the next day to tell her the deal was on.