Oasis of the Heart Read online

  'That's where we come in,' Piers had said excitedly. 'Once they realised how difficult it was going to be, they were only too glad to let us take care of all the arrangements for them.'

  He threw himself down at his desk and looked over it at Cairo, who was still reeling from the shock of finding that she was to be sent off into the middle of the Sahara. 'What's the matter? This is the break we've been waiting for, Cairo! If we make a success of this job, word will get around, and we'll just take off. They'll be beating a path to our door in no time.'

  'Why do I have to go?' she demanded. When they had first set up their consultancy, they had planned to operate in European cities, not in the wilds of North Africa. Cairo didn't know anything about deserts, other than the fact that she was sure she never wanted to see one.

  Piers waved a casual hand. 'It has to be someone who speaks French so they can deal with the government officials.'

  'You speak French,' she pointed out, unimpressed.

  'Not as well as you. Besides...' Piers hesitated, and fiddled with his pen '...

  they particularly asked for you.'

  'For me? Why me?'

  Her partner couldn't quite meet her eyes. 'They thought your Middle Eastern experience would come in useful in a place like Shofrar.'

  'My what?' Cairo gaped at him, and Piers had the grace to blush. Haydn Deane, it turned out, had been intrigued by Cairo's unusual name when Piers had first approached them, and he had been quick to capitalise on their interest by embroidering the truth about her experience.

  Cairo was horrified. 'Piers, being born in Egypt and spending five years in Bahrain as a child hardly qualifies me as an expert on the Middle East! And even if it did, Shofrar is in North Africa, in case you haven't looked at a map recently.'

  'Haydn Deane don't care about that,' said Piers, on the defensive. 'All they care about is getting the arrangements for the shoot fixed up. What difference does it make? I know that you can do the job with or without any experience, and the important thing was to get the contract.'

  'It doesn't sound very ethical to me,' said Cairo stringently. 'In fact, it sounds remarkably like lying.'

  'You'd never guess that a girl who looks as sophisticated as you do could have such old-fashioned ideas,' Piers grumbled. 'Sometimes I think an uncomfortably puritanical heart lies beneath that glamorous image of yours.'

  When Cairo still looked mutinous, he leaned forward persuasively. 'Look, you can't let stupid principles stand in the way of us getting this contract. If you're going to turn down opportunities like this, you might as well go back to waitressing, and you'll never pay your father's debts off that way, will you?' It was an unkind shot, and Cairo's lips tightened, but she knew that Piers was right. Her father was depending on her now.

  'It'll be easy,' Piers went on confidently. 'If this contract goes well, we'll be able to repay your godmother the money she lent you to get started, and then we'll start raking in the profits, you wait and see. All you've got to do is get yourself up that plateau.'

  How?

  Cairo hoisted herself upright now, propped the pillow up behind her and leant back against the wall with a sigh. She had to think. There must be some way she could get up the plateau. She could live with disappointing Piers and Haydn Deane, but she couldn't let her father down. For the first twenty-five years of her life, he had given her everything, and now it was her turn to do what she could for him.

  In her mind, she went over her conversation with Max Falconer again.

  Perhaps she had just approached him the wrong way? She had been hot and tired and cross, and so had he. Thrown off balance by those piercing eyes, -she had probably been more brittle than she intended, Cairo decided. He might not have understood that she was offering him a business deal. Money hadn't been mentioned; he might well have thought that she was asking him to take her up as a favour.

  That was it! Cairo sat bolt upright, convinced that she had found the reason for Max's hostility. She would talk to him again tonight, when they were both in a better mood, and explain that she was fully prepared to pay for hi& services. Judging by his shabby clothes and battered old truck, he might welcome some extra cash.

  Confidence restored, Cairo swung her legs off the bed and rummaged in her suitcase for her most flattering outfit. She would pull out all the stops this evening, and Max would be so bowled over by her charm that he wouldn't be able to resist coming to a deal! Cairo had a momentary qualm as she hung up her black dress and tried to imagine Max Falconer being bowled over, but she shrugged it aside. After a shower and a beer, he would be much more approachable. He might even apologise for being so unhelpful...

  It was lucky that she had been able to stay at the camp, Cairo decided as she washed her hair, remembering the primitive hotel in Menesset with a shudder. If she hadn't met Bruce Mitchell she could be there now. Bruce was the administration manager of the huge construction camp some ten miles from Menesset, and it was he who had told her where she might find Max.

  'He comes and goes as he pleases, but he's based at the camp with the rest of us, so you've a better chance of finding him there than anywhere,' he had said. 'Why don't you come back with me? We've some guest rooms that don't get used much in the hot season, so you could stay there until Max turns up.

  It's not very grand—just a bar and a mess where all the unmarried men eat—but I know they'll all be delighted at the prospect of some female company for a change.'

  Max Falconer hadn't seemed very delighted, Cairo remembered as she wriggled into her dress. Smoothing it down over her hips, she studied her reflection critically and wondered what he would think. Her face was so familiar to her that she normally gave it little thought, but tonight she leaned closer to the mirror and stared at herself as if she had never seen it before, trying to see herself through Max's eyes. She had an unusual, triangular face, with a wide jaw and high cheekbones, and green eyes slanting like a cat's below winged brows. Her thick, waving blonde hair was bluntly cut to the jawline. It was a memorable face, she decided. Max might not have liked her, but he would recognise her when he met her again, and, at the thought, she remembered with some puzzlement that moment when she -could have sworn that she had met Max before. He wasn't the forgettable type either.

  His image rose before her, peculiarly vivid. She could picture those startlingly light eyes with absolute clarity, could have drawn exactly the line of his mouth and the angle of his cheekbones. Without quite knowing why, Cairo shivered.

  The dress was one of her favourites, left over, like all her clothes, from the good days before the easy, luxurious world her father had built for her had fallen about her ears. Exquisitely cut, the soft black material flattered the soft curves of her body and gave her skin a luminous glow. In spite of its demure design, it was an undeniably sexy dress, and always made Cairo feel good when she wore it.

  Would Max think it was sexy? Unaccountably, Cairo felt a blush steal up her throat at the thought of his eyes upon her. In the normal course of events, she would never even have noticed him, she told herself. There was nothing special about him, except for those light eyes that looked through you, and that quality of tightly coiled strength. He had no warmth, no charm, nothing to recommend him at all. She wouldn't care a bit about what he thought if it hadn't been for the fact that she wanted to charm him into doing what she wanted. That was what she convinced herself, anyway.

  When Bruce Mitchell took Cairo into the bar that night, there was a brief, stunned silence as seventy-five pairs of male eyes took in the vision standing in the doorway. Used to admiration, Cairo took it all in her stride, but was annoyed to find her own gaze straying round the room in search of Max.

  She spotted him eventually, leaning against the bar at the far end, and her heart gave an uncomfortable jolt. He was half turned away from her, and, even though he was surrounded by tough-looking men, Cairo couldn't help noticing how distinctive he was. It wasn't anything to do with how he looked; there were plenty of lean, rangy-looking m
en around with deep tans and dark brown hair, but there was a cool air of self-containment about Max that set him apart. He didn't smile very often, but whenever he did his smile caught at the edge of her eye and her gaze would flicker over towards him.

  If Max was aware of her presence in the bar, he gave no sign of it, and Cairo couldn't help feeling rather put out. She knew quite well that she was a very attractive girl, and just about every other man in the place was eyeing her with appreciation, but Max didn't even seem to have noticed she was there at all.

  The longer his shoulder remained resolutely turned towards her, the more determined Cairo became to attract his attention. She smiled and laughed and chatted animatedly, gathering a cluster of admiring men around her, but no matter how many times she glanced over at Max he continued to ignore her. Cairo's green eyes began to take on a frustrated glitter. How could she charm him if he wouldn't even notice her?

  'How did you get on with Max?' Bruce asked her as they went into the mess for dinner. 'Is he going to take you up with him tomorrow morning?'

  'Tomorrow morning?'

  'Yes, he told me he was going straight back up on to the plateau. Usually he stays here for a couple of days, but I wondered if it might have been because you wanted to go up as soon as possible.'

  It was far more likely that he was going back to get out of her way, Cairo reflected, but there was no point in telling Bruce just how disastrous her confrontation with Max had been.

  'We haven't finalised the details yet,' she said vaguely. 'I can't quite remember where he said he would be setting off from.'

  'Probably up by Oued Misra.' Bruce was as helpful as she had hoped. 'The quickest path leaves from there, and I know Max usually goes that way. He sends his supplies up by donkey, and they go by an easier but much longer route, but I wouldn't have thought he'd take you that way.'

  Cairo's brain was ticking furiously. 'Does it take long to get to Oued Misra from here?' she asked artlessly.

  'About forty minutes in a car. Max gets one of the drivers to drop him off, so no doubt he'll take you with him.'

  Cairo ate her meal thoughtfully, her .mind working busily on contingency plans. Her best bet was still to persuade Max to think again, she decided. If he wasn't going to do what any normal man would have done and come over and say hello, she would just have to go over to him. There was no sign of him in the mess, but when they went back to the bar she caught sight of a lean, compact figure heading towards the door, and, murmuring an excuse to Bruce, she hurried after him.

  The door swung to behind her as she stepped out into the night. Max was standing a few feet away, hands dug into his trouser pockets, staring down at the ground as if in deep thought. The light from the mess windows caught one side of his face, highlighting the strong cheekbones and the decisive line of his jaw. A weird sense of deja vu swept over Cairo without warning, and she hesitated, caught off balance by the sudden certainty that she had come up behind Max like this some time before.

  Probably a trick of the brain, Cairo told herself. She had read somewhere about the effect being cause by nerve messages to the brain getting ahead of themselves. At least that would explain why she should feel there was something familiar about a man she could swear she had never met before in her life. It wasn't just a case of not remembering his face. She couldn't even imagine a place where she might have come across anyone as different as Max Falconer. He was English, of course, but that was absolutely all they had in common. No, she couldn't have met him before. She was sure of that.

  Still, it was a strangely unsettling feeling, and Cairo made a deliberate effort to shrug it aside as she stepped forward. 'Hello,' she said.

  Max's head jerked up, but he didn't respond to her greeting. Instead he watched her silently, with eyes that were shadowed and unreadable in the darkness.

  'I was hoping to see you this evening,' she said after a moment. His grimly silent presence was unnerving.

  'Why?'

  Cairo suppressed a sigh. Couldn't he at least try to be pleasant? She tried a charming smile. It had left Bruce Mitchell and half the men in the mess looking dazed, but won absolutely no response from Max. 'I wanted to apologise,' she persevered. 'I suppose I didn't pick a very good time to pester you this afternoon.'

  'There's never a good time to pester me, Miss Kingswood,' Max said discouragingly, and Cairo gritted her teeth.

  'I just thought I might not have explained myself very well.'

  'I'm not stupid,' he pointed out in a harsh voice. 'I know exactly what you want. You want me to take you up on to the plateau so that you can make plans to bring in a lot of people who want to waste their time and money taking photographs of something people don't need and won't use in a place they won't even recognise.'

  Cairo reminded herself of her resolve to be charming, and managed a light laugh. 'That's putting it rather bluntly!'

  'It's putting it honestly—not a concept much used in the advertising world, I agree.'

  Cairo took a deep breath and tried again. 'I didn't think you hadn't understood what I wanted. I just thought you might not have appreciated that I was proposing a business deal. I'm not asking you to do this for free. I'm quite prepared to pay for your services.'

  'The answer is no,' said Max, dangerously calm.

  'I don't care what it costs,' Cairo said recklessly. 'Are you sure you can afford to give up a chance like this? You could earn more in one trip than the rest of the year.'

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew that she had made a mistake. 'I've had just about enough of you,' said Max with such contempt that she winced. 'I've met your type before. You think that, just because you've got money and smart clothes, all you have to do is crook your finger and everything and everyone will fall at your feet. Well, the desert's not like that, and nor am I. Neither of us is for sale. I wouldn't take you or anyone like you anywhere near the plateau, no matter how much you paid me, so you may as well go back to the city where you belong and learn to take no for an answer.'

  CHAPTER TWO

  CAIRO shaded her eyes from the glare and watched the car disappear into the distance. When it was no more than a tiny dot smothered in a tell-tale plume of dust, she swallowed. She must be mad!

  The silence settled about her like a heavy blanket. Before her, the desert stretched out, flat and brown and empty as far as the horizon and beyond.

  Behind her loomed the plateau, an intimidating mass of rock that dropped down to the boulder-strewn wasteland where she stood.

  Cairo had never felt so alone in her life. Nothing moved. The silence was so absolute that she could hear her heart beating, and, even this early in the morning, the heat was already intense. She turned to look uncertainly up at the plateau to which she had been so determined to climb. The steep, narrow path soon disappeared into a tumble of rocks; she would never be able to find her way by herself.

  She would never be able to make it back to camp either, she remembered with a lurch of her stomach. Bruce's driver had been reluctant to leave her here alone, but she had assured him that she had arranged to meet Max and that he needn't wait, terrified that he would hang around until Max appeared and spoil her plan. Now she sat down abruptly on a rock as the enormity of what she had done hit her. She didn't want to think what would happen if Max didn't come.

  She didn't really want to think about what would happen if he did, either.

  Well, it was too late to change her mind now. Cairo stiffened her spine. She wouldn't have needed to take a risk like this if Max had been more reasonable, she grumbled to herself. If she succumbed to heat exhaustion out herevit would be all his fault. When Max had turned on his heel last night, Cairo had been so angry that her determination to get up to the plateau had hardened to a steely refusal to let him get away with the last word. If he thought he could get the better of Cairo Kingswood with a few sharp words, he was the one who had another think coming! Haydn Deane, Piers, even her father were forgotten. All that mattered was not letting
herself be beaten by Max Falconer.

  She had lain awake for hours, desperately turning alternatives over in her mind. This plan had occurred to her early on, as soon as Bruce had mentioned where Max began his trek up the plateau, but she had rejected it at first as being too foolhardy. As the night wore on, though, it became clear that if she wanted to get up to the plateau she would have to take the risk.

  She had been ready early in the morning and had gone to find Bruce Mitchell's Indian driver as soon as she had established that Max hadn't yet left. The driver had been surprised at her request to drive her to the Oued Misra, but as Bruce had put him at Cairo's disposal he merely shrugged and started the car. Now all Cairo could do was hope that Bruce had been right when he said that Max would leave from here.

  If he had decided to go some other way...

  'Don't even think about it,' Cairo told herself out loud, jumping to her feet as her voice echoed in the silence. Think about Daddy instead.' Her determined face softened, as she thought about her father. Her mother had died while she was still a baby and Jeremy Kingswood had cosseted and adored his only child ever since, showering her with presents and every luxury money could buy. It was too late when Cairo had found out that the money wasn't his at all, but she had stood by him through all the scandal and disgrace, knowing that he had done it all for her.

  Now it was her turn to look after him. They had sold everything they owned—the cars, the yachts, the houses and apartments, the pictures and antiques were all gone—and Cairo had vowed to pay off what remained of his debts so that they could both start again with a clean slate. If it meant risking her life in the fierce desert sun, well, that was what she would do.

  Her eyes ranged the landscape, looking for some sign that she had not made the most appalling mistake, and, in spite of all her bravado, her knees shook with relief when a cloud of dust along the horizon announced the approach of a vehicle. Let it be Max, she prayed as she put her rucksack out of sight and slipped behind the boulder.