- -
- 100%
- +
Annette looked a little startled by the venom of her reaction. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked innocently. ‘Didn’t you like him?’
Joanna slanted her young assistant a sardonic smile. Still of the age to believe in romantic dreams, Annette had been drooling for weeks over the prospect of meeting the celebrated Alex Marshall in the flesh. And if anyone could succeed in melting that rock-hard heart, she reflected with an odd twinge of an emotion she didn’t care to explore too deeply, it could well be Annette. Small and extremely pretty, with a cloud of dark curly hair and huge brown eyes, fringed by the longest, silkiest lashes, she could wind almost any man around her little finger.
But Joanna felt a certain responsibility for her; after all, she wasn’t even twenty-one yet, and she was here to complete the field-course portion of her degree, not to flirt with a man as dangerous as Alex Marshall. ‘I…hardly had time to form an opinion,’ she responded, taking a slightly flexible approach to the truth. ‘He was only here for a few minutes.’
‘Yes, but what was your first impression?’ Annette persisted eagerly.
Joanna shrugged her slender shoulders, hoping to convey the most supreme indifference. ‘He seemed rather too full of himself for my taste,’ she dismissed casualty.
Annette regarded her with naïve sympathy. ‘You’ve never really fancied anyone much, though, since your divorce, have you? Oh, I’m sorry…’ she rushed on anxiously as Joanna’s jaw tensed. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it…I…’
Joanna laughed drily. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she assured her, all her attention on checking the focus of the camera. ‘I certainly don’t. I was very well rid of the rat, and I have no intention of falling into the same trap ever again.’
‘You mean…you don’t ever want to get married again?’ the younger girl protested, aghast at such a prospect.
‘No, thank you,’ Joanna asserted with calm certainty. ‘Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I’m afraid. I much prefer being single.’
‘You can see the strata the ores are in.’ Alex pointed out, sweeping his powerful binoculars along the ridge of yellow hills on the far side of the valley. ‘It runs right along—that line of slightly darker rock.’
His young companion nodded. ‘I see it. What were the final results of the drilling tests?’
‘Most of the ore is very high grade.’ Alex confirmed, rolling out the large-scale map on the bonnet of the Land Rover. ‘We’ll start blasting here, beneath that outcrop to the left, and work our way along this way.’
Greg bent his fair head over the map, checking the contours of the hills against the area Alex had marked. ‘I see. Where do you intend setting up the work-camp?’
‘Where would you suggest?’ Alex returned to him.
Greg frowned, concentrating. Newly qualified with an engineering degree, he felt it was important to make a good impression; Alex wasn’t the sort to do him any favours just because he was his cousin. ‘I’d say…just there.’ He pointed to an area closest to the river, at the opposite end of the ridge from where blasting was to begin, and lifted his binoculars to check that it was as suitable as it appeared from the map.
It looked a pretty inhospitable place—a rough, rocky, sun-baked hillside, with just a few straggling thorn bushes and some parched grass for vegetation. The back door of hell. He swung the glasses along the ridge, and then back again abruptly. ‘What’s going on down there?’ he asked, focusing in to take a better look.
Alex felt himself tense with unreasoning annoyance. So the damned girl was proving a distraction already!
‘I forgot to mention it,’ he remarked dismissively. ‘I just found out about it last week. There’s some female doing an archaeological dig. Don’t worry—it won’t be a problem to us. I checked with Makram—she’s only got permission to stay until we’re ready to start blasting.’
‘You forgot to mention it?’ Greg slanted him a quizzical glance. ‘You run into an angel like that out here in this God-forsaken place, and then forget all about it? Pull the other one.’
Alex raised one dark eyebrow in surprise; ‘angel’ was hardly the word he would have chosen. He lifted his own binoculars, sweeping along the ridge to find the half-hidden hollow where the tombs were clustered. But there was no sign of the aggravating Ms Holloway—just one of Greg’s pint-sized brunettes, squatting on the ground, mending the handle of an old shovel. He vaguely recalled that there had been some mention of an assistant, but he couldn’t remember her name.
‘That’s not her…’
At that moment she emerged from the entrance of the tomb. As he watched, she reached up for a rope suspended from a block and tackle, and began to haul on it. God, she must have muscles on her like a navvy, he reflected in horror—a man could get quite a shock trying to cuddle up to that at night!
‘There she is,’ he told Greg. ‘The one in the yellow T-shirt.’
Greg looked, but didn’t seem impressed. ‘You can keep that one,’ he accorded generously. ‘I’ll take the brunette.’ He let his gaze linger for a long time. ‘Mmmvery nice indeed.’
Alex laughed with sardonic humour. ‘You’re supposed to be here to work, not admire the scenery,’ he reminded him drily.
Greg grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry. But there’s no harm in getting to know our neighbours, is there? After all, I’m the one that’s going to be stuck out here doing all the hard work—you’ll just be buzzing in and out in your little toy helicopter, looking important.’
Alex snorted at that friendly dig at his pride and joy, his Bell Jetranger, which he piloted himself. ‘The privilege of rank,’ he returned loftily. ‘Besides, they won’t be here much longer—once we start blasting, they’ll have to clear out.’
He lifted his binoculars again, watching the girl as she finished hauling up a trolley-load of rubble, and tipped it into a wheelbarrow. All that heavy work certainly kept her in good trim, he reflected, somewhat revising his earlier opinion. Most of the women he knew dieted to the point of tedium, and spent hours working out in aerobics classes, but any one of them would have killed for a shape like that.
But he had an unpleasant suspicion that she was going to prove herself to be a damned nuisance—she seemed perfectly capable of launching a campaign to delay him until she had finished excavating her piecious tombs. He lowered the binoculars, and swung himself behind the wheel of the Land Rover.
‘Come on—if you’ve seen all you need to see out here we might as well be getting back to town,’ he grunted impatiently. ‘I’ve got some calls to make.’
Greg glanced at him faint surprise, but climbed into the passenger seat beside him. ‘Right-ho,’ he agreed easily. ‘Although…it wouldn’t hurt just to stop on the way and take a closer look at the bottom of that ridge,’ he added with a wolfish grin.
Alex slanted him a look of ironic amusement. ‘Strictly business, of course?’
‘Oh, of course.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘THERE’S a Land Rover coming this way—the same one that went past an hour ago.’ Annette stood up straight, shading her eyes with her hand as she peered along the dusty road. ‘I wonder who it is?’
Joanna barely glanced around as she checked the balance on the block and tackle they had rigged above the tomb entrance. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she responded with a careful lack of interest. It had been a week since her unfortunate encounter with Alex Marshall, but she had known it wouldn’t be long before he was back.
Of course, it might not be him in the Land Rover, but there wasn’t much reason for anyone else to be driving along that rough track through the desert—it didn’t lead anywhere but to an old oasis, long deserted since the water had dried up.
‘There’s two of them,’ Annette announced. ‘I think one of them’s Alex Marshall himself!’
There was a lilt of excited anticipation in her friend’s voice, and Joanna felt an odd little stab of something she didn’t care to put a name to. If Annette should succeed where she had failed in persuading him to delay the start of his operations, it would be all to the good.
‘He’s going to stop.’ Annette swiftly brushed the dust from her shorts, and pushed her hair back tidily from her face. ‘At least it’s nice of him to say hello.’
Joanna snorted derisively, refusing to leave her task. If Annette chose to make the effort to be pleasant to the arrogant Mr Marshall, that was up to her—all she hoped was that she would retain enough common sense not to let that smooth charm turn her head; she had no confidence at all that he would have any scruples about taking advantage of her youth and innocence to entertain himself.
She took the rope, and wrapped it around her hands, and began to pull. She had loaded the trolley a little more than some of the others, and it was maybe a little too heavy for her to lift on her own, without Annette to help, but there was a certain vicious satisfaction in meeting the physical challenge. Gritting her teeth, she felt it begin to budge.
It was just an odd prickle of awareness that warned her that he was watching her. She did her best to ignore it, but it would have taken a stronger will than she possessed to resist the temptation to slant just one covert glance in the direction of the Land Rover.
He sat resting his arms across the steering-wheel, a faint smile curving that cynical mouth as he responded to Annette’s flirtatious advances. He was wearing those dark sunglasses again, so it was impossible to be sure of exactly which way he was looking—and she certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking it bothered her in the slightest. Turning him an aloof shoulder, she continued hauling up the sack of rubble.
She had managed to raise the heavy trolley to the top of the wooden ramp they had rigged at the entrance to the tomb, to make it easier to tip the rubble out into the wheelbarrow, when she sensed that he had come up behind her. He leaned casually against the rock wall at the entrance to the tomb, regarding her with a faintly mocking smile. ‘Isn’t that a bit too heavy for you?’ he enquired, deliberately provocative.
She returned his look with a frosty glare. ‘Not at all,’ she responded, tying up the rope and manoeuvering the wheelbarrow into place. The front-panel of the trolley was designed to lift out, allowing the contents to pour out easily.
He laughed softly. ‘You’re a very independent lady, aren’t you?’ he taunted.
‘Very.’ The wheelbarrow was awkward to manage, but she’d be damned if she’d concede, with him standing there watching her. Somehow she managed to trundle it over to the dump and tip out the rubble, struggling to ignore him; but it wasn’t easy—she could feel the heat of his gaze with every move she made.
There had been a time, a long time ago, when she might have been flattered by that sort of interest from such an attractive man. Brought up to believe that a woman’s role was to be pretty and pleasing, and not to threaten the fragile male ego in any way, she had seen marriage as the only goal a woman needed in life. She had taken her university degree simply as a way of passing the time, and her father had been delighted when she had married one of his brightest young protégés.
Real life had come as a rude awakening. Happy only to be helping her husband, she had been merely puzzled at first to find that she was the one doing most of the research, while he took all the credit. It had dawned on her only slowly that she was being used to advance his career, but with that realisation had come the stirring of her own ambition.
Paul hadn’t liked it, of course, when she had started to assert a little independence; he had done all he could to keep her in what he saw as her place—he had even sunk so low as to try to persuade her to have a child, and when she had refused he had called her an unfeminine bitch. And then he had compounded the humiliation by starting an affair with one of her oldest friends.
The divorce had been painful, but at least she was older now, and wiser—too wise to fall for a man like Alex Marshall. Her defences had been erected with care. The first of them was her deliberate neglect of her appearance—which made it all the more disconcerting that he seemed not to have noticed that her hair was such a mess, her clothes old and work-worn. If the newspapers were anything to go by, he usually went for the sleek, well-groomed sort—models and actresses, mostly. But she sensed that he was the kind of man who would always have an eye for a woman, even if she was dressed in a sack.
He watched her walk back from the tip, trundling the barrow. ‘How’s it going?’ he enquired. ‘Found anything interesting yet?’
Joanna slanted him a suspicious glance from behind her sunglasses. The remark seemed casual enough, as though he was merely making conversation—except that she doubted Alex Marshall ever made casual conversation without having some ulterior motive. He was probably concerned that if she came across something really valuable the Egyptian government might change its priorities and allow her to continue the dig.
‘We’re still clearing the passage into the burial-chamber,’ she returned warily. ‘It’ll be at least a week before we can get through.’
‘I checked with your friend Mr Makram from the Department of Antiquities,’ he informed her, a definite hint of steel underlying his bland tone. ‘He confirmed that your licence was only granted on the condition that you vacate the site as soon as I declare it unsafe.’
‘I’m perfectly well aware of that,’ she responded with icy dignity, all her attention on unravelling the rope, which had somehow got itself tangled around the pulley. Damn—the thing would be just a fraction too high for her to reach! She balanced herself somewhat precariously across the tomb entrance, stretching up on tiptoe, all too acutely aware that her T-shirt, which admittedly had seen better days, had parted company with the waistband of her jeans, permitting him a tantalising glimpse of her slim, suntanned midriff.
He came over, reaching up easily and freeing the rope. Again she felt that sudden sense of vulnerability as he brushed against her, and she breathed the musky male scent of his skin. She stepped back, struggling to control the ragged beating of her heart.
‘Th…thank you,’ she managed, her voice sounding oddly unsteady to her own ears.
‘Don’t mention it…’
There was a strange huskiness in his tone, as if he too had been affected by that fleeting touch. She lifted her eyes to look up at him and found him looking down at her. Something was weaving a spell around them, holding them both in a kind of thrall…
‘Where are you staying?’ he enquired softly.
All of a sudden red lights and alarm-bells started going off frantically inside her head; that question, in her experience, had all too frequently been the prelude to a request for a date. Instinctively she retreated on to the defensive. ‘Why do you want to know?’ she countered jaggedly.
At once that smile took on a sardonic twist—whatever she had seen, or thought she had seen, was gone. ‘Simply out of concern for your safety,’ he returned drily. ‘I wouldn’t like to think you’d be out here after dark. I’ll be moving my men out here over the next couple of weeks, and while I can guarantee that they’ll be kept too busy during the day to even think about a woman, once that whistle blows their time’s their own.’
She glared up at him in angry defiance, her hands on her hips. ‘Are you trying to intimidate me, Mr Marshall?’ she challenged.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Ms Holloway,’ he returned, placing a mocking emphasis on the title she had insisted on. ‘I was simply making you aware of the situation. There’s more than one reason why this site may be considered unsafe for you.’
‘Thank you,’ she responded tartly. ‘I’ll try and remember that.’
‘I would if I were you.’ Now his voice held an unmistakable warning. ‘I don’t like people trying to stand in my way.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ She allowed a sardonic edge to creep into her own voice. ‘Whoever they are.’
‘Oh?’ He arched one dark eyebrow in mocking enquiry, knowing exactly what she meant. ‘You’ve taken an interest in my past career?’
‘Who could miss it?’ she retorted with cool disdain. ‘You seem to have a flair for publicity.’
‘Not intentionally. And you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers.’
‘Oh? You mean it’s all a pack of lies?’
He laughed without humour. ‘Well, not quite,’ he conceded. ‘Let’s just say the tabloid version tends to be somewhat economical with the facts.’
She slanted him a sceptical glance. Maybe that was true, to some extent; but there was no mistaking his arrogance, or his ruthlessness—it was written into every line of that hard-boned, aquiline face. A small shiver ran through her. He was the kind of man who would get what he wanted—whatever he wanted. And he wouldn’t be too particular about his methods.
She shrugged her slender shoulders in a gesture of indifference, turning her attention to setting up the trolley ready to bring up another load of rubble. ‘Anyway, it’s really no concern of mine…’
‘Ah, there you are!’
Joanna turned, startled, as Annette appeared, a fairhaired young man in tow—the one who had been in the Land Rover with Alex. Until that moment, she had completely forgotten that they were there.
‘Sorry to have been so long,’ Annette added, blithely unaware of any tension between the other two. ‘I was just showing Greg the Nomarch’s tomb. Greg, this is Joanna. Joanna—Greg Taylor.’
Joanna found herself shaking hands politely, murmuring some sort of greeting.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Annette added, oddly breathless, ‘I’ve suggested that Greg and Alex might like to drop by and have dinner with us tonight. That’s all right with you, isn’t it?’
The words were casual enough, but there was a glow in Annette’s brown eyes as she glanced up at the young man by her side that hinted that it was very important indeed that she should agree. And he seemed equally smitten, smiling down at her as if she were the embodiment of all his dreams.
So that was the way the river was running! Neither of them had wasted much time, Joanna reflected, with a wry twist of amusement. It looked like a classic case of love at first sight. But it did place her in something of a quandary. The last thing she wanted was to have Alex Marshall come to dinner, but how could she possibly stand in the way of two such love-birds?
‘Of course it’s all right,’ she forced out, her smile rather brittle. ‘So long as they don’t mind what they get—it’s my turn to cook.’
‘Oh…No, it’s all right—I’ll cook,’ Annette offered quickly, her cheeks a pretty shade of pink. ‘I wouldn’t want to give you the extra work.’
Joanna interpreted this very astutely as Annette’s understandable desire to show off her excellent cooking skills. She laughed with dry humour. ‘All right—I’m more than happy to leave it to you.’
Annette’s eyes signalled her thanks, but her manner towards Greg was breezy. ‘Well, we’ll see you tonight, then. We usually work here till quite late, so we don’t eat till about nine. Will that be OK?’
‘Yes, of course. Er…it will, won’t it, Alex?’
The older man shrugged his wide shoulders in a gesture of acceptance. ‘Oh, I think we can manage it,’ he confirmed lightly, the incipient smile that lingered at the corners of his mouth indicating that he was mildly amused by what was going on. ‘Thank you for the invitation.’
Annette smiled up at him a little apprehensively; it was clear that, in spite of her earlier boldness, she found him rather intimidating. Which was probably just as well, Joanna reflected drily; he’d eat her for breakfast.
As the other couple moved away, Alex turned to her. ‘I hope it isn’t too much trouble for you?’ he enquired just a shade too solicitously—he knew how much of an effort it was going to cost her to sit through this meal.
‘Of course not,’ she returned, the hint of frost in her tone intended to warn him that even if the other two were hovering on the brink of romance, it changed nothing between them.
But he merely smiled with mocking humour. ‘Then I shall look forward to it,’ he murmured, impeccably polite. He held out his hand to her. ‘Until tonight.’
Joanna hesitated, her heart suddenly fluttering in alarm at the thought of allowing those strong, sensitive fingers to enfold her own. But if she avoided the challenge, he would have scored some kind of victory. So she kept the touch fleeting, drawing back before he had time to capture her.
‘Until tonight,’ she concurred.
With a farewell nod, he swung himself into the Land Rover. ‘Come on, Greg, we’d better get going—we’ve got a ferry to catch.’
The younger man had some difficulty tearing himself away, but with a last wave he too climbed into the Land Rover, and it disappeared down the road in a swirl of yellow dust. As soon as it was out of sight, Annette gave a little skip of joy, dancing in a circle.
‘Oh, Jo…I Isn’t he gorgeous’? You do like him, don’t you?’
Joanna smiled wryly. ‘He seems very nice,’ she agreed, trying not to sound too cynical. ‘And he’s certainly keen on you.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Annette’s brown eyes betrayed all the soaring leap of her emotions. ‘You’re not just saying that?’
Joanna gave her friend a playful hug. ‘You’d have to be blind not to see it.’ She felt a faint twinge of envy, recalling how she had once been so young and eager for life—before life had taught her some hard lessons.
‘I had to invite both of them.’ Annette added earnestly. ‘It would have looked much too obvious just to invite Greg by himself. I didn’t want him to think I was too forward. You didn’t mind, did you?’
Joanna laughed, struggling to keep her grip on her sense of humour. ‘Mind?’ she responded, feeling rather as if she was drowning. ‘Why on earth should I mind?’
‘Oh…Is that all you’ve got to wear?’
Annette had spoken impulsively, and now she was trying to smile to soften the impact of her words. But Joanna was defiant. ‘Of course—what’s wrong with it?’ she challenged, a hint of belligerence in her voice as she surveyed her own reflection in the chipped mirror screwed to the back of the door.
She had chosen, from the rather limited selection in her wardrobe, a plain white cotton shirt, cut like a man’s, and a pair of loose brown cord trousers. She had tied her hair back at the nape of her neck with a green Paisleyprint scarf, and her only concession to ornamentation was a loose, quilted waistcoat and a silver-buckled belt.
It was a deliberately unfeminine outfit—unlike Annette’s swirling Indian-print skirt and pretty embroidered top. But then Annette would look dainty and feminine whatever she wore. And anyway, Joanna didn’t have anyone to impress.
‘It’s just…I thought…’ Poor Annette was embarrassed, and Joanna hugged her, laughing teasingly.
‘You’re the one to shine tonight,’ she reminded her. ‘They’re not coming to see me.’
Annette glanced up at her, frowning slightly. ‘I don’t know,’ she mused. ‘It struck me that Alex was more than a little interested in you.’
‘I doubt it.’ Joanna responded drily. ‘I’m not exactly his type—he goes for raving beauties.’
‘Oh, but…If only you’d make a little bit of effort…’ Annette began to protest. But Joanna cut her off with a forceful shake of her head.
‘No, thank you,’ she insisted. ‘It just leads to complications.’
A shadow of sympathy darkened Annette’s sparkling eyes. ‘Oh, Joanna—I wish…If only you could meet someone you really liked. Not all men are like your exhusband, you know.’
‘Oh?’ Joanna chuckled teasingly. ‘You’re speaking from wide experience here, are you?’
Annette giggled. ‘No, of course not. But you know, I never thought I’d meet anyone like Greg.’
‘I’ve no doubt he’s quite unique.’ Joanna conceded, with a hint of sardonic humour. ‘Unfortunately I’m finding that with every passing year I’m getting even more picky.’