Oasis of the Heart

by Jessica Hart

  'Yours hasn't,' she said, but she knew that she lied.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RIGID with humiliation, her body still throbbing with treacherous need, Cairo expected to lie awake all night, but in the end she fell into a deep sleep brought on by sheer exhaustion.

  She stirred as the first rays of the sun fell across her face. Opening her eyes slowly, she blinked. The air was suffused with a soft purply-gold light, and for a moment she lay contentedly, aware only of the deep silence and strangely haunting beauty of the place, but, as sleep dissolved, memory seeped back, and she stiffened.

  She was lying on her side, staring at rock pillars that guarded the entrance to the gully where they had slept. She could sense Max lying still beside her, and very cautiously, she turned her head to see if he was still asleep.

  He lay on his stomach, his face turned towards her. Cairo's mouth twisted as her gaze rested on his sleeping figure. The muscles in the powerful shoulders were relaxed, but she could recall only too vividly the feel of their strength beneath her fingers. In sleep, his face looked younger, less hard, and his mouth was slightly curved, as if he smiled while he dreamt.

  Cairo's stomach clenched, remembered how its touch had devastated all her defences. How was she going to face him this morning, with his kiss still strumming along her senses? Easing herself out from her sleep sheet, she slipped on her shoes. She didn't want to risk waking him by getting fully dressed, so she crept to the entrance of the gully, still in the long T-shirt she had slept in. She just needed to be alone for a while.

  Below the rock pillars, she hesitated. Facing her was what looked like an almost identical gorge. If she walked down there for a while, she wouldn't get lost, and it would be easy to find her way back to Max.

  Max. The early morning light threw the texture of the rocks into patterns of pink and gold, and softened the shadows to blue, but Cairo barely noticed.

  She had wanted to be alone, but the memory of Max was so vivid that he might as well have been walking beside her, his hand on her thigh, his mouth against hers.

  Cairo walked more quickly, trying to shake off the memories. She would pretend nothing had happened. If he thought she was going to make a big scene, he would soon discover his mistake. She would be icily polite when required, but ignore him for the rest of the time, and with any luck he would be the one to feel ashamed.

  The gorge twisted slightly, and without warning dropped away into a steep slope, covered with rocks and rubble. Wrapped in her thoughts, Cairo slithered and scrambled down. The last bit was a sheer drop down eight feet or so, but she swung herself down from a boulder without thinking, so intent was she on how to show Max that his kisses didn't matter to her in the least.

  The morning air was clear and fresh, and she began to feel calmer as she walked on. She had been letting Max and this eerily beautiful plateau get to her. It wasn't like her to get so worked up about a couple of kisses, she who had always prided herself on her cool sophistication! Well, it wouldn't happen again. All she had to do was get through the next couple of days, and then she could put Max Falconer out of her mind once and for all.

  Deciding that she was more than capable of facing him now, Cairo turned and made her way back along the gorge, and it was only when she reached the steep drop she had jumped down so carelessly that she realised that getting back to Max was not going to be as easy as she had thought.

  She bit her lip as she looked up at the boulder wedged about halfway up the sheer slope. It was just too high for her to climb up to, and its smooth sides offered no hold if she tried to jump. Cairo walked carefully along the bottom of the slope, looking for some other way to climb out, but it was hopeless, she realised in consternation. It had been such a little drop on the way down, but now the rock seemed as sheer and unscalable as a wall of glass.

  If she could just get up on to that boulder, she would be able to haul herself the rest of the way. Cairo tried a few futile jumps, and then launched herself at the wall, but there wasn't so much as tiny crevice to dig her fingers into, and her feet scrabbled helplessly against the smooth rock.

  Gasping for breath, she stepped back. This was ridiculous. It wasn't as if she was stuck at the bottom of an abyss. All she had to do was climb a few feet.

  There must be a way!

  She wondered whether Max was awake, whether he had missed her yet.

  Would he come looking for her? The very thought of him was steadying.

  Cairo took a deep breath and jumped again for the boulder, but as she fell back, she stumbled and twisted her ankle badly beneath her. She cried out as she felt the wrench, and for a minute could only sit in the dust, biting her lip hard until the pain subsided to an ache.

  She hadn't broken it, anyway, she thought, stretching her leg out gingerly to examine her ankle. It was just a sprain, but it hurt vilely. She would never get up that rock now, she thought in rising panic. How could she have been that stupid?

  Stupid, thoughtless, criminally careless. It was nothing to what Max would say to her when he found her. If he found her.

  Cairo struggled awkwardly to her feet, wincing as her sprained ankle touched the ground. 'Max!' she called. 'Max!' She could hear her voice echoing off the walls of the gorge. The emptiness of the sound chilled her before, incredibly, there was an answer, faint and disembodied in the distance.

  'Cairo?'

  'I'm here,' she called, almost sobbing with relief.

  A couple of minutes later, Max appeared at the top of the slope, and Cairo's world, which had been rocking as the full realisation of her danger hit her, steadied abruptly at the sight of him. From below, he was silhouetted against the sky, and she couldn't see his expression properly, but it was clear that he was livid. Cairo didn't care. He was there, and she was safe.

  'What are you doing down there?' he asked furiously. 'Do you realise how long I've been looking for you?'

  'I just wanted a walk,' said Cairo. 'It didn't seem too difficult to get down, but now I can't get back up again, and I've twisted my ankle.'

  'I hope it hurts,' Max said savagely, relief at finding her merely fanning the flames of his anger. 'I've told you about wandering off on your own, but do you listen? No! Anyone else would have learnt by now that the plateau is a dangerous place, but not Cairo Kingswood! No, she just gets out of bed and strolls off, without letting me know that she's going at all, let alone where! I don't suppose it occurred to you to wonder how I might feel waking up to find you gone?'

  If anything, she would have thought he'd be glad, Cairo thought, but she didn't want to provoke him any further. 'I'm sorry,' she said meekly.

  'One of these days you're going to find that it's too late to be sorry. If I had any sense I'd leave you down there and teach you a lesson!' said Max, refusing to be placated, but he negotiated his way down the stony slope with care and then lowered himself over the tip to the boulder Cairo had been trying to reach.

  Lying on his front, he stretched his hands down towards her. 'If you can get hold of my hands, I'll pull you up.'

  It took a couple of attempts, but at last Cairo managed to grab hold of him and feel the strength flowing through his hands. Red-faced with effort, he hauled her slowly upwards, while she braced herself against the rock with her good foot until she was able to collapse into an untidy heap against the hard comfort of his body. For a long moment, nothing could be heard but their wheezing as they tried to get their breath back, then, suddenly aware of the T-shirt rucked up to her thighs, Cairo pulled it down awkwardly and struggled upright, unable to prevent a gasp of pain as her injured leg took her weight.

  'Let me see,' Max ordered. He took her foot in a firm grasp, and although his probing fingers were unexpectedly gentle, his expression was grim as he let her go. 'Twisted,' he confirmed. 'Which means that you've become even more of a liability than you were before, if that's possible.' He got to his feet carefully in the limited space. 'I don't think I've ever met anyone capable of being as stupid, selfish and totally irrespon
sible as you, Cairo,' he said in a cold, quiet voice, and she quailed, even though she recognised dimly that much of his anger stemmed from the after-effects of fear for her. 'You forced me to bring you up here, you've slowed me down and distracted me from my work, and now, when we're a whole day from the camp and we're running low on food and water, you go and sprain your ankle because you're too self-centred and stupid to listen to my advice about your own safety! I suppose you realise that if it hadn't been for you, I could have finished here today and started back to the camp? Now we're going to have to wait until that swelling goes down and you can walk again.'

  'I can walk today,' said Cairo in a small voice. He was right. She had thought only of herself. She had been just as selfish and arrogant as he said. 'I just need to strap it up.'

  'Don't be even more stupid than you've shown yourself to be already! You can't go anywhere on that ankle today.' Max took her arm roughly and pulled her up from the boulder, continuing to harangue her as he half led,-half dragged her up the slope.

  Cairo bit down on her lip to keep from crying out as she limped behind him, but the stones underfoot kept skidding beneath their feet, and she was almost at the top when she slipped and would have failed down to the bottom again if Max's grip had not held her. Her weight pulled him off balance; he stumbled but managed to save himself by grabbing at the stones with his free hand before he could slide back.

  Cairo saw his hand slip between two stones, dislodging them, and heard a sharp, indrawn breath that was somehow more chilling than a cry of agony.

  'Max?' She clutched at his arm with both her hands as his face went grey and he sank to his knees, holding his wrist. 'Max, what is it?'

  The muscles in his neck were standing out like cords as he fought the pain.

  'Bitten,' he managed to say with enormous effort. 'See what it was.'

  Cairo looked around frantically, and her horrified eyes fell on the tail-end of a snake slithering away between the rocks. Her involuntary recoil dislodged a shower of small stones which slid down and fell over the drop. 'Max, we've got to get off this slope,' she said urgently. 'Can you move?'

  Later, Cairo never knew how they managed to make it the last few feet to the top of the slope, and Max buckled at the top. Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she dragged him over to the deep, cool shade of a rocky outcrop and dropped to her knees beside him. His lips were drawn back in a terrifying grimace of pain as he leant back against the rock, and his temples were wet with sweat.

  He was clutching his hand protectively to his chest, and when she leant over, she could see the two ugly puncture marks.

  'Did you see what it was?' he croaked. 'Any markings?'

  She shook her head. 'It was a snake, but I just saw the tail, not enough to describe it.'

  Max closed his eyes. 'Have to wait and see,' he muttered. 'Don't know how poisonous.'

  Cairo was terrified by his appearance, but she forced herself to sound calm.

  'Max, I'm going to get the first-aid kit from your rucksack,' she said clearly, hoping he could hear her. 'Keep as still as you can until I get back.' His eyes were still tightly closed, but he managed a nod, and she touched his hair in a fleeting gesture of reassurance. 'I won't be long,' she promised.

  She limped back down the gorge as fast as she could. Every step jarred her ankle, but she clenched her teeth and wouldn't let herself rest. She couldn't believe how far she had walked without noticing it. It would take her ages to get back to Max at this rate. If only she could go a bit faster. If only she hadn't twisted her ankle. If only she hadn't set out on that wretched walk at all!

  Cairo's face was white and set by the time she made it back to where they had camped. Max's rucksack was already packed up, his sleeping mat rolled and strapped on top, and she decided to take it all. There was no question of moving Max, so she would just have to make him as comfortable as she could. She could come and get her own stuff later.

  She was desperate to get back to him, but forced herself to strap up her ankle first. She would be able to make better time if she had some support, she realised, and dressed awkwardly before struggling to hoist his pack on to her back.

  Bent double by its weight, and limping heavily, it was only force of will that got Cairo back along the gorge. Later, when she tried to pick up the pack, she simply couldn't do it, but at the time, with the vision of Max lying there in agony, she simply blocked out everything but the need to get back to him as soon as possible.

  He was lying so still when Cairo got back that for one heart-wrenching moment she thought he was dead. 'No!' she whispered, as the world went black, but then he moved his head, and she fell to her knees beside him, careless of the pain that jolted up from her ankle. 'Max! Oh, Max! Can you hear me?'

  With tremendous difficulty, he opened his eyes and looked into her face.

  'You came back,' he mumbled.

  'I'm sorry I was so long. I couldn't go very fast.' Cairo fumbled with the lid of the water bottle and held it to his lips so that he could drink. Then she found the flannel, splashed water over it with an unsteady hand, and wiped his face and neck. She didn't know if it helped at all, but she was desperate to do something. His lips were white and pressed firmly together. 'How do you feel?' she asked, hoping her voice didn't reveal the stark terror that she. felt.

  'Alive,' he whispered, and, in spite of the pain, a tiny smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'That's a good sign. If it had been any of the snakes I was worried about, I'd have been dead by now.'

  Cairo examined the first-aid kit, her hands shaking with exhaustion and fear.

  There was no anti-snake serum, but she found some penicillin tablets and made him take four. Unrolling the sleeping mat, she managed to haul and push Max on to it and tucked the sleeping bag around him. He was very drowsy and sweating profusely, and his eyes were unfocused when she lifted the lids.

  Why was she so useless? Max had been right; she just wasn't capable of dealing with an environment as alien as this one. She had read a book on desert survival before she left, and there had been a whole section on how to deal with bites and stings, but it was a complete blank now. All she could remember was that she had to keep his arm as still as possible. Cairo sat back, being careful not to jar her ankle, and tried to think. What she needed was some kind of splint. A search back along the gorge revealed some dead, sun-bleached branches of an ancient acacia tree which for some mysterious reason had chosen to grow in this inhospitable spot. She chose the straightest and smoothest for the splint and gathered the others for a fire that evening.

  'Do you know what you're doing?' Max asked in a weak voice as she crouched beside him and began bandaging his arm with much more confidence than she felt.

  Reassure the patient, Cairo remembered. 'Oh, yes,' she said breezily. 'I've done a first-aid course.'

  'Really?'

  She looked down into his face and faltered. The grey- green eyes were clouded with pain but managed to glint with more than a touch of scepticism.

  'Well, no,' she confessed. 'I thought it would make you feel better if you thought I was confident. I'm just using my common sense.'

  'I didn't know you had any of that,' Max whispered, but a taut smile lifted the corners of his mouth once more.

  'I haven't given you much reason to think so, have I?' she said, and bowed her head over her bandaging, overcome with remorse.

  His good hand reached across and touched hers. 'I'm sorry I shouted at you, Cairo,' he said with difficulty. 'I was so afraid I'd never find you, and then there you were suddenly. I don't know why, I just lost my temper...'

  His voice died away, and Cairo clasped his hand in instinctive reassurance.

  'It's all right, I understand. I deserved everything you said. It doesn't matter now, anyway. All that matters is getting you better.' She looked down anxiously at her handiwork. 'Is the bandage too tight?'

  Max managed to shake his head. 'Perhaps you know what you're doing after all,' he muttered.

  He seemed
to lapse back into drowsiness after that. Cairo finished tying on the splint and then sat back, pushing her hair tiredly behind her ears. He was still sweating profusely and in obvious pain, but she didn't think there was much more she could do for him at the moment.

  Desperate to keep herself busy, she turned her attention to sorting through Max's pack to see what supplies they had. Water wasn't an immediate problem, but she didn't know how long it would last if. they had to stay there any length of time. She would have to be careful with it.

  Max carried the tiny paraffin stove in his pack as well, and, after some fiddling, she managed to make it work so that she could make him some sweet tea. It seemed to revive him a little, and when he had finished she had some herself. She hadn't had anything before she set out on this morning's fateful walk, and hunger and exhaustion were combining to make her feel faint. She wouldn't be any good to Max if she passed out as well, so she ate an orange and a couple of dry biscuits.

  It was the longest day of Cairo's life. About four o'clock, when the savage midday heat had lessened, she struggled back to fetch her own rucksack. It was far lighter than Max's had been, but, even so, it took all her reserves of strength to carry it to the gorge. The walk jarred every nerve in her injured ankle, but she just gritted her teeth and told herself that she deserved every moment of pain. She felt burdened down by guilt and remorse and fear.

  Max hardly seemed aware that she had gone. When she put her hand on his forehead, he was burning with fever, and the glow of the setting sun deepened the flush in his cheeks.

  It was the most beautiful sunset. Cairo watched the shadows lengthen and darken until every ripple in the sand, every texture in the rock was etched in black and red. She found herself noticing tiny details—the perfect curve of each pile of sand blown against the sides of the gorge, the grains glittering like metal, the shadow thrown by the battered enamel mug as it stood on the ground- as if by concentrating on them she could forget about the nagging ache of fear for Max.