Night Of No Return

Deep inside, something tugged at her, a feeling sharp and insistent, clearer than memory but less easy to name. Enough, already, she told herself. She’d known the man for no more than an hour—oh, it was ridiculous even to say she’d known him. She’d found him, that was all, and she’d done what she could to keep him alive. She didn’t even know his name. If she still felt somehow connected to a man she didn’t know, that wasn’t surprising, was it? Under the circumstances…?

She remembered the shock of his eyes opening and meeting hers, the sense that the world had just tilted, sending her life spinning off in an unplanned direction. Romantic foolishness, but not surprising, really. Under the circumstances.

When Tim sighed she glanced back at him, ready to be distracted. “Wishing for that horde, are you?”

“With hordes, come funding. Another generator would be nice. We could get a new air conditioner. Hey, isn’t the path thataway?”

“This way is shorter.” The path Tim had indicated was a fairly easy track that went around the rocky hill. Nora preferred a more direct route, up the hill and through a narrow notch between thrusting boulders. “You’ve been in Egypt long enough for your blue blood to have adjusted to the heat. We already have an air conditioner.”

“No, we don’t. We have a noisemaker you turn on for a few hours that occasionally coughs up a little cool air.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Which summed up most of their equipment. Theirs was a shoestring operation, and with all the small disasters that had beset them lately, those strings were getting frayed. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said, addressing herself as much as Tim as she eased out of the vee-shaped cleft and back onto more nearly horizontal ground. “Even if this fellow gives Ibrahim a good report, we’re not going to get any substantial increase in funding. Not unless we make a major find.” She started up the hill.

Tim followed slowly. “We’d have a much better chance of that if we had the people and equipment to do the job right.”

Didn’t she know it. “I could have sworn I gave you my speech about ‘paying our dues’ when you signed on, but if you need to hear it again—”

“I know, I know. This is my opportunity to get out of my ivory tower and learn the basics of fieldwork. The problem is, I like my ivory tower. It’s air-conditioned, and there are no bugs.”

He slipped, grabbing awkwardly at the rock, swore, and finally managed to clamber out and stand beside her. “And there aren’t a lot of mountains to cross to get to my office at the museum, either. Look at this.” He held out his hand, displaying a scraped palm. “I’m damned if I know why you have to play mountain goat just so you can find a place to run. Don’t you get enough exercise on the dig?”

A smile tugged at her mouth as she turned back to head down the hill. Camp lay below them. “You like air-conditioning. I like to run.”

“Well, aside from being a blasted nuisance and hard on my epidermis, your runs aren’t safe. Especially with everything that’s been happening lately.”

“A few petty thefts don’t make it unsafe here—as safe as you can be in the desert, anyway.”

“If we stay in camp. But you keep wandering off by yourself.”

Out of consideration for Tim’s scraped hand, she chose the easiest way down, circling around a large sandstone outcropping that wind and weather had sculpted into a shape she could only call phallic. “There’s a lot of poverty among the tribes. Not that I mean to accuse the Bedouin, but they’re the only people out here other than us.”

“Just them, us, and the occasional terrorist.”

“Are you still harping on that theory? Terrorists blow up things. They don’t steal a couple of cases of canned food for the glory of the cause.”

“What about our first generator?”

“We don’t know that it was tampered with.”

“The mechanic said—”

“I know what he said. I wish he’d kept his dire mutterings to himself, since you seem to have taken them so much to heart. He also said it could have been damaged in transport.”

“Mahmoud’s gas tank didn’t get sugar in it by accident.”

“Mahmoud isn’t exactly Mr. Congeniality. The man collects enemies the way dogs collect fleas. Look, Tim, there are times when I appreciate your stubbornness—”

“You ought to. You could teach a camel the meaning of the word. Hey!” he said as they rounded the outcropping. “Looks like our timing is right on the money.”

They had come out on a rise just above the camp, which was located in one of the larger wadis—a much wider channel than the one where she liked to run. A cloud of dust was moving slowly along the dry watercourse, nearly obscuring the truck that caused it.

“If we hurry, we can get there about the same time as Mahmoud,” she said, picking up the pace.

“About your morning run—”

“Tim,” she said warningly.

“Nora, even if terrorists aren’t lurking nearby, it isn’t safe for you to go running alone. You could turn an ankle or get bitten by something nasty.”

“That’s why I always run in the same place. If I’m late getting back, you’ll know where to come looking for me.”

“I don’t want to have to come looking for you. Why can’t you exercise in camp?”

“Aside from the fact that I enjoy running?”

“Yeah, aside from that.”

She shrugged. Her reasons were too private to speak aloud. Wildness calls to wildness, she thought. When she was running along a twisting wadi, away from everyone, she could allow herself to dream. Weren’t dreams as important to life as safety? Yet maybe…maybe she’d been dreaming too much lately. Dreaming about one thing, the same thing, over and over. The man. The one she would never see again.

The truck pulled up in a cloud of dust just as Nora reached level ground, and every member of her small crew descended upon it. The small crowd wasn’t enough to block her view, but the truck itself kept her from seeing who climbed out of the passenger side. She lengthened her stride, as curious as the others were about their visitor.

Mahmoud headed straight for the cookstove in front of the main tent, where a pot of coffee was perfuming the air. Nora greeted him briefly.

Their guest was speaking to Gamal in fluent Arabic, his back to her, when she rounded the front of the truck. He’s Egyptian, then, she thought. Not surprising, if he came from the museum. His clothing, however, spoke of the West—khaki shorts much like her own, a plain pullover shirt and Nikes. A lot of Egyptians did wear western clothing, though the more devout would have disapproved of his shorts.

He wore no hat, which made her frown, but she would hold off on the lecture until she saw if he was foolish enough to do that in the heat of the day. His short hair was as black as her own, and his body told her he was younger than she’d expected—young and attractive, with a lean, muscular body.

The sight of those masculine shoulders, slim hips and strong legs made her hormones kick in with a pleasant little rush, but Nora didn’t doubt her ability to keep any tickle of desire under control. She’d been doing it for years.

DeLaney, however, was another story. The youthful college student might start mooning after their guest instead of Tim.

Of course, Tim would probably be relieved if she did. Nora was smiling when she spoke. “Welcome to the dig. I’m Dr. Nora Lowe.”

“Yes,” he said, in a low, pleasant voice as he turned to face her. “I know.”

His eyes met hers. Amber eyes. Clear as sunlight trapped in time, smiling down at her.

Chapter 2

Alex looked at the astonished face of the woman he’d crossed an ocean to deceive, and his mind emptied of all but scattered impressions. Smooth skin, tanned to honey. Unpainted lips. Eyes the color of the dawn sky overhead, startling pale in that tanned face…soft blue eyes that looked as dazed as he felt.

A single thought appeared from nowhere: It couldn’t really happen like this, could it?

Immediately, he was irritated, and the irritation cleared his mind. What kind of question was that? What couldn’t happen? Because the question made no sense, he shoved it away.

Long habit had him smoothing his features into an amused grin. “We weren’t properly introduced the last time we met, were we? I’m Alex Bok.” He held out his hand.

The dazed look hadn’t cleared from her eyes. “Alex.” She took his hand and he felt a second shock, but this one was purely sensual. Understandable, and distinctly pleasant. “Alex Bok?” Her gaze sharpened, and he knew she’d recognized the name. “Any relation to Franklin and Elizabeth Bok?”