Heather Graham Read Free

correspondence. You are right, Jim; I am an adult and I have spent my life studying and researching and dreaming of just such a venture as ours.
    She drew out a sheet of her monogrammed paper with the tiny etched oasis scene in the far right corner.
Wayne [No Dear Wayne, just Wayne. Anyway, how had he known she was going to be in Egypt? A lucky guess? He knew her father, he knew her own expertise. If he had read that James was bringing an assistant, wouldn’t he expect it to be her? It didn’t really matter. When she saw him, she could ask him. Right now she had to write a brief, noncommittal note],
    I’m sorry, I cannot make Cairo on the seventeenth. If you wish, I will meet you in the dining room of the Luxor Egyptian on same date.
    She hesitated a long time before signing the short note. And then she brought her pen back to the paper.
Love,
    Alex
    Feeling satisfied with her solution—one that proclaimed her her own person and yet stated she would be willing to see him, Alex copied off the Luxor address on Wayne’s envelope and applied postage to her letter. She would have to mail it first thing in the morning. She strode with light steps into her kitchen.
    Life suddenly seemed incredibly beautiful—a dream in process of fulfillment, a chance to begin again.
    Fifteen minutes later Alex brought a small broiled steak and a large salad with all the trimmings into the living room. For company she turned the TV on, not bothering to check the program listings.
    It seemed strange that one of the men Jim had mentioned in his letter suddenly came to life before her.
    Dan D’Alesio.
    It was a rerun, the special on the different hotbeds of unrest in the Middle East, delving into the turmoils of centuries past which, never resolved, now exploded again and again.
    It was an excellent documentary, and D’Alesio was good. He was a striking man, dark, well built and apparently agile. He climbed the cliffs of Afghanistan as well as the soldiers he accompanied. His report was intelligent and articulate and more. He gave it something—a rare insight.
    Alex could understand why Jim had agreed to let him film the expedition.
    She had never met D’Alesio, but Jim had been impressed by him at their first meeting. And she would be meeting him soon. For a totally inexplicable reason, she felt a tiny trail of chills shoot down her spine as D’Alesio’s dark eyes seemed to meet hers across the barrier of the color screen.
    They were powerful eyes, she thought, chuckling and giving herself a little shake. So dark, brooding, yet sharply alert. They were jet; they were the intensity of slow-burning fire. They were cool, and yet they were a tempest.
    Alex finished her steak and rose to carry her dishes into the kitchen. Meticulously she washed and dried them and tidied the kitchen. She wanted the apartment in perfect order before she left.
    She showered and carried a few of her books into the bedroom, hoping to make it a very early night. She was susceptible to jet lag and therefore liked to fly across the Atlantic with an abundance of sleep behind her.
    With a glass of wine at her side, she went over various notes, then idly thumbed the pages of a large pictorial book on ancient Egypt. But it was hard to concentrate on either her notes or the pictures. Her mind kept leaping from Jim to Wayne, from hieroglyphics to Wayne, from the Sphinx to Wayne. She even began to wonder if she should back out of the expedition. This was her chance to reconcile her personal life.
    Don’t be more of a fool than you’ve already been! she warned herself harshly, and as if in emphasis to the warning, the phone at her bedside began to ring stridently.
    She answered it hastily. “Hello?”
    “You were supposed to call!”
    “Oh, Kelly! I’m sorry, I—”
    “No excuses,” Kelly said and chuckled, and as the soft, husky sound reached her, Alex shook her head slightly. Kelly’s natural voice was incredibly sexy. She should have been doing voiceovers for