by Jessica Hart
'You can't walk for a couple of hours,' Cairo protested, horrified. 'I'll go.'
'With your ankle?' Max struggled to sit up. 'You'd never make it.'
' I haven't had a raging fever,' she pointed out tartly. 'And my ankle's much better. Look.' She tested it on the ground to show him, although it took a heroic effort not to wince.
Max was hauling himself to his feet, putting his hand out against the rock to steady himself. 'You can't possibly go on your own,' he said, irritated by his own weakness. 'You'd get lost.'
'You could draw me a map.'
'No,' he said as they faced each other stubbornly. 'I'm not letting you go.'
If only he meant it, Cairo thought wistfully, and then pulled herself up. She wasn't in love with him, she'd decided that last night. No matter what happened, she would have to go back to London in the end, and she didn't want to think about how desolate she was going to feel then.
'Max, you're not strong enough to go,' she told him firmly. 'Look at you, you can hardly stand!'
'I'm all right,' he said obstinately.
'You're not all right! You're sick!'
'Don't nag, woman!' snapped Max, exasperated. 'If you're going to make such a fuss, we'll both go.'
It took them much longer than two hours, and the walk was a struggle for both of them, but neither would admit it, and they kept each other going until they arrived at last at the guelta.
There, where the water table ran near the surface, oleanders flourished in a riot of pink flowers, their narrow grey-green leaves silver-bright in the sun.
The pool itself was still and secretive, edged with rushes and lilies, and a lizard with a bright blue back lay sleepily sunning himself on a rock.
An air of peace and profusion hung over the tiny oasis. Cairo forgot the jabbing pain in her ankle as she limped beside Max below a line of cedar trees humming with bees. They shared an orange at the water's edge, and she felt a sensuous lethargy steal over her. The orange juice was sweet on her tongue, sticky where it dribbled down her chin, and the faint fragrance of the oleanders drifted on the hot, dry air.
Max sat beside her, listening to the bees. Everything about him seemed very distinct. Cairo could see the dust on his hat and the lines of exhaustion at either side of his mouth. The walk had been a nightmare for him, but he had refused to give in, and it was only by pretending that her ankle hurt that she had persuaded him to stop frequently and rest.
The water from the guelta looked green and unappetising, but Max rigged up a filter, and then they boiled it before pouring it into their containers and dropping in sterilising tablets for good measure. They talked easily together as they worked, and, when they had finished, sat by the guelta and shared a mug of tea. Cairo had always been a girl who liked champagne and cocktails, but sitting on a boulder next to Max, with the air sweet and vibrant with bees, passing the enamel mug between them, she knew that no drink would ever taste better than that tea.
'It's beautiful here, isn't it?' she sighed, her eyes on the cedar trees and the stark grandeur of the gorge beyond.
Max glanced at her. 'I never thought I'd hear you say that the desert was beautiful. I thought you hated it?'
'I did,' said Cairo, wondering just when she had changed her mind. 'I suppose I just got used to it,' she added lamely. 'I still find it all a bit overwhelming, but it doesn't terrify me the way it did before.'
'Perhaps you'll have got something out of this trip after all,' said Max.
'You've had to learn a lot about yourself over the last few days. It's probably not what you wanted to take back with you from the plateau, but self-knowledge is a far more useful thing than finding a few locations for some ridiculous commercial.'
'I suppose so,' said Cairo glumly. Max's words had brought back all the problems she had pushed to the back of her mind. What was she going to do about arranging a shoot for Haydn Deane? They would be expecting to hear from her any day now.
Max seemed to read her mind. 'At least you tried. It's not your fault that some idiotic executive chose somewhere totally inaccessible for the shoot.'
'No,' Cairo sighed. 'You were right all along. It was a stupid idea.' She looked around her, at the still, silent magnificence of the scenery. 'Even if it were possible, I don't know that I'd want to bring a team of fashion people up here, all giggling and gossiping and complaining,' she said slowly. 'It would spoil everything.' She glanced at Max. 'I can understand now why you didn't want to bring me with you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have forced myself on you like that. You must have thought I was just as bad.'
Amusement touched the corners of Max's mouth. 'Actually, I thought you were worse.'
'Worse?' Surely she hadn't been that bad? Cairo's lips tightened in chagrin, but when she stole another glance at him she saw that he was smiling.
'I've changed my mind,' he assured her. His voice was deep and very warm, and Cairo's heart leapt. Careful, she reminded herself.
'You mean I'm only "just as bad"?' she said, determined not to be caught out twice.
'No,' said Max. 'You're better.' There was a pause. 'Much better,' he added softly.
Cairo didn't dare look at him. She could feel a tide of heat surging up her throat and spreading over her cheeks. She cleared her throat.
'Er—I... good... good...' Heavens, she was stammering like a schoolgirl! 'I'll tell the advertisers that a shoot on the plateau really isn't practical,' she said, desperately forcing herself back to normality. Her voice sounded horribly squeaky, and she cleared her throat again. 'It just doesn't look very good for our business if our first job turns out to be an abject failure.'
'Suggest somewhere else,' said Max. He must have noticed her confusion, but gave no sign of it.
'Where?' Cairo's voice had returned to normal and she was worrying in earnest now. 'I haven't got time to scour the desert for another location and make all the arrangements.'
'Why can't you just go back and tell them the truth? That the desert's no place for them. They could make just as effective an advertisement in a London studio!'
'I know,' said Cairo. 'But if I say that, they won't offer us any more jobs and they won't recommend us to anyone either. They'll just think I wasn't capable of making the arrangements.'
Piers would think that too. Cairo's green eyes shadowed as she remembered how much depended on her making a success of this job. Her father's haggard face swam into her mind.
'I've got to go back with something,' she said, determinedly.
'Is this job really so important to you?'
Cairo thought about the promise she had made her father. She thought about her godmother who had had enough faith in her to lend her the capital to start up the business, and about Piers who had swept her along on the tide of his enthusiasm. The job wasn't important, but they were. She didn't want to go back to London to battle with her father's debts. She wanted to sit on and on with Max in this tranquil oasis and never have to leave, but she couldn't let them down.
'Yes,' she said quietly. 'It is.'
Max's eyes rested on her face. 'I could take you to a couple of sites when we get back to the camp if you like,' he offered abruptly. 'They'd make a spectacular backdrop to any photographs, and you'd be able to reach them by four-wheel-drive from Menesset without any problems.'
'Could you?' Cairo's face lit up, and then her smile faded in puzzlement.
'Why would you do that for me after all the trouble I've been?'
There was a pause. 'I know what lengths you'll go to to get this wretched job done,' Max said gruffly after a moment. 'I dread to think what would happen if you decide to go jaunting about the desert by yourself. At least if I go with you, I don't need to be wondering just what kind of trouble you've got yourself into. Besides, I've got to collect some samples from that area. I could do that at the same time.'
Cairo glowed at the thought. She would still have to leave, she reminded herself hastily, and this tingling warmth was just relief at the prospect of finding a possible
site for Haydn Deane. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she could spend an extra day or two with Max.
'Thank you,' she said simply, and, without thinking, she reached over and touched his hand. 'I'll do whatever you tell me,' she promised.
'I'll believe that when I see it,' Max grunted, but his mouth twitched, and when his eyes met Cairo's neither could resist smiling. His teeth looked very white against his tanned face and the light eyes were warmer than she had ever seen them.
Careful, Cairo told herself as her heart soared. It's only a smile. So what if his eyes crease with secret laughter and just looking at his mouth makes it hard to breathe? It doesn't mean you're in love with him. It just means you've been alone together for too long.
His grin was fading, but his eyes held hers. Cairo could feel the air tighten between them, and she took her hand uncertainly from his. The bees humming in the background seemed unnaturally loud. He's going to kiss me, she thought with a queer mixture of panic and exhilaration, and she knew that she would never be able to control her reactions if he did.
'I.. .I...' She swallowed. 'What about some more tea?'
Max's eyes shuttered. 'Good idea,' he said.
Two days later, they were climbing down towards the pick-up truck which was waiting for Max in the shade. Far below them, it looked like a model car left by some child in a giant sandpit. Cairo watched it with mixed feelings.
Part of her longed to have finished this gruelling walk, and part wanted to stop time so that she could stay on the plateau alone with Max. Reaching that truck would be like stepping back to reality.
He had promised to show her some different locations. Cairo found herself clinging to the prospect. At least it meant that she didn't have to say goodbye as soon as they reached the foot of the plateau.
The last two and a half days had been difficult. Since that moment at the guelta, Max seemed to have withdrawn. The rather wary warmth they had established together had dissolved into a new and more unsettling tension.
One minute they would be talking quite easily together, the next their eyes would meet and conversation would falter while the atmosphere between them tightened yet another screw.
Lying stiffly next to Max at night, Cairo would wonder whether it would have been different if she hadn't jumped up to make the tea. Would Max have kissed her? Would his lips have been cool and persuasive against hers, and how would he have reacted to the aching need of her response? Cairo told herself she was glad she hadn't allowed herself the chance to find out.
It was impossible to know what Max was thinking. Sometimes she would look up to find him watching her, but his guarded expression gave nothing away. He might never have intended to kiss her at all. His arm was still bandaged, but he had recovered remarkably quickly from the fever, and sometimes she wondered dismally if his illness had been the only reason for the unexpected understanding that had flowered so briefly between them.
It's better this way, Cairo reminded herself as she rounded another sharp twist in the path. Her ankle was much improved, except for the occasional twinge, but going down was proving to be even worse than climbing up the plateau. The weight of her pack threatened to tip her forwards, and her knees trembled with the effort of keeping her balance.
Max was even more remote and withdrawn today. Cairo worried that he might be still suffering the after-effects of the venom, but he brushed her concern aside.
'I thought you were in a hurry to get home?' he said when she suggested resting at the camp for a day before starting the long trek down.
Cairo thought of Haydn Deane drumming their fingers on their glossy desks as they waited for her to report back to them. 'I am, but it's not worth you collapsing halfway down.'
'I'm not going to collapse,' Max said irritably. 'The sooner we get off this plateau, the better.'
Did that mean he was anxious to get rid of her? Cairo wondered miserably.
The things Max had made her leave behind were still sitting behind the boulder with the white stone on top of them. It was hard to believe that she could ever have thought that she would need them. They all seemed quite irrelevant now, Cairo thought as she packed them slowly away in her rucksack.
After one surprised look, the driver seemed to take Cairo's presence for granted, and he chatted cheerfully to Max in Arabic as they jolted over the corrugations, evidently exclaiming over the story of the snakebite. Cairo wondered if Max was telling him that it had all been her fault. She was squeezed between the two men on the bench seat, and stared out of the window, trying not to think about the lean strength of Max's thigh pressed against hers, or the arm which he was resting along the back of the seat. If she tipped her head back, she could lean against it.
She might have been a rather awkwardly shaped rucksack for all the notice Max took of her. He talked to the driver the whole way while she sat silently between them with a brittle look of unconcern on her face.
When they got to the camp, Cairo climbed out and stood uncertainly by the truck. It felt strange to be surrounded by buildings and people again.
Everything seemed small and unimpressive after the towering gorges on the plateau.
'I presume you left your things with Bruce?' Max said, lifting her rucksack out of the back of the truck and dropping it on the ground beside her in a cloud of dust.
Cairo nodded. 'He said I could use the guest room as long as I wanted.'
'I'll bet he did,' said Max nastily. 'You've got a night here, so I'm sure he'll be only too delighted to catch up with you again. If you want to go and see these sites, we'll have to leave at five o'clock tomorrow morning. I'm sure you're desperate to get back to civilisation.'
'Yes,' she said flatly. This was the old, hostile Max. Nothing had changed.
How had she ever thought that it could? Making him a few cups of tea while he had a fever wasn't going to convince him that she was anything other than a thoughtless, superficial city girl like his mother.
Cairo looked down at her rucksack, remembering what he had said about her learning something from her experience on the plateau. He had said that she had coped, that she had guts. Once or twice, he had almost seemed to like her. It was as if coming back to the camp had reminded him of all the things-she represented, and that he hated so much.
She wanted to shout at him, to tell him that she had changed, that she wasn't quite the same girl who had demanded to be taken up the plateau. Max had done more for her than simply guide her through the rocks, and it suddenly seemed very important to tell him that.
'Max, I...' she began, and then stopped, unsure of how to thank him properly.
He looked at her, his light eyes suddenly alert. 'Yes?'
'I just—'
'Cairo!' Bruce had caught sight of them as he was driving past, and he brought the car to a stop with a squeal of brakes and jumped out. 'What a wonderful surprise!' Before Cairo had a chance to say all she wanted to Max, he was bearing down on them, a delighted smile on his face.
'You're a sight for sore eyes,' he said. 'Only a girl like you could spend several days on the plateau and still look as beautiful as when she set out!'
Cairo had found Bruce charming before; now his compliments seemed empty and ridiculous, but he had been more than generous in giving her the use of a room and his car, and she could hardly snub him.
'Hello, Bruce.' She smiled and let him catch hold of her hands and kiss her on both cheeks. Over his shoulder, she could see Max looking boot-faced.
He obviously thought she was being superficial again. What did he expect her to do? she thought in a sudden burst of anger. Push Bruce away?
Bruce was picking up her rucksack, insisting on driving her along to the guest rooms. Cairo felt stifled by his effusive personality. Max would' have made her carry her own pack and walk.
He was watching Bruce fussing round her with a saturnine expression. Cairo glanced at him, hoping against hope that he would suggest meeting her later, but he merely gave her a curt nod.
Was that all he could say, after all they had been through together? Cairo was hurt and angry, and too proud to show it. Instead, she turned to Bruce with a brilliant smile and let him bear her off to her room.
She was horrified when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her face was sunburnt and so thickly covered in dust and sand that she hardly recognised herself. She looked tired and thin, and her hair felt like straw.
Only the blazing green eyes were the same.
'I prefer you this way'. She could remember the timbre of Max's voice, the exquisite relief of knowing that she could sleep, knowing that he was there beside her. The shade had been deep and cool, and when she had woken her face had been pressed against his upper arm so that she could breathe in the smell of his skin...
Cairo shook herself free of the memories, horrified at the look of dark, naked longing in the eyes that stared back at her from the mirror. She mustn't do this to herself. She must think about finding a location for Haydn Deane, about going home, about seeing her father and telling him she had made a start at paying off his debts, about anything other than Max and the way he walked and the way he turned his head and the way his hands felt against her skin.
She felt better after a shower. She had to wash her hair three times to get out all the sand and tangles, but at last it bounced silkily about her jawline in thick, streaky golden waves. Her face was still very brown, but at least it was clean, and her slanting eyes shone a deep, clear green.
Cairo slipped on a cool, silky blue dress and felt more like her old self. Bruce was openly admiring when he picked her up and walked her over to the mess, but although she tried hard to respond she couldn't help missing Max's astringency. This was ridiculous! She had only been away from him for two hours, and already her pulse had quickened at the thought of seeing him again.