Heather Graham (4 page)

Something was wrong. He didn’t know Crosby’s life history, but he knew the man. And he knew—

His thoughts suddenly froze as his body tensed. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what had alerted him to another presence, but he knew he wasn’t alone. Years spent filming in the world’s hot spots had left him with a keen awareness not unlike that of a guerrilla fighter.

Who would be sneaking in on him? It wasn’t the hotel boy. He had vaguely registered minutes before that someone had quietly entered, lightly clicked a tray upon the parlor table and just as quietly left.

Without moving, he lifted his eyelids just a shade, in a manner that left his thick, dark lashes still shielding his eyes. He was ready to whip into split-second action if he discovered danger, his muscles tensed to catapult him into a fighting stance, his fingers ready to grab the liquor bottle, the only available weapon.

His tensed muscles seemed to freeze and heat at the same time as his covert glance fell upon the intruder. He was swamped by both incredulity and outrage and was—possibly for the first time in his life—momentarily speechless.

The intruder was a woman.

She might just have stepped off the veranda of a Paris café. His first surreptitious assessment was of a very cool, very sophisticated woman. Her elegant skirt suit was both tailored and ultrafeminine, in a crisp and clean cream color that seemed incongruous when compared to the heat. And the low-brimmed suede hat she wore at an intriguing and fashionable angle over one eye made her look as if she had walked out of a fashion magazine. She was about five foot six, and as fashionably sleek as her outfit. Her eyes, he noted, were an extraordinary shade, neither green nor hazel but a unique blending of amber and lime that was shockingly arresting and bizarrely intriguing. Besides the paralyzing effects of simply seeing a woman—any woman—suddenly appear in his bathroom, he was annoyed to realize that he was further immobilized by the enticing mystique of those eyes. He gave himself a mental shake and continued his secret scrutiny, registering that her hair, pulled into a chignon and neatly secured—not one strand out of place—beneath that chic hat, could no more be called blond than her eyes could be called hazel.

It was pale gold. Not platinum, because it had deep, rich color. Spun gold, filigree. …

He broke his thoughts off furiously. What was she doing invading a man’s privacy as if she were the Queen of Sheba herself?

And she was just the type of woman he disliked: no broken nails because she never lifted a finger.

She stood in the threshold of the doorway, looking upon the clothing-littered bathroom with great distaste but also with annoying resignation, like royalty stooping to visit the poor.

The outrage of this unknown woman snooping around his bathroom and looking down her nose while she did so suddenly made his temper snap. His eyes flew wide open, and his voice was a thundering whip crack.

“What in damned hell are you doing here!”

She jumped, and a flush seeped into her cheeks. He noticed that for a moment she looked very uncomfortable—and that she was very carefully keeping her eyes upon his face. But she recovered her composure very quickly. He could literally see the stiffening of her spine as she stepped into the bathroom and gingerly took a seat on the commode, crossing one elegant, nylon-clad leg over the other.

Dan did a double take. The strange woman had the uncanny ability to sit on a toilet seat as if it were the throne of England. But she sat with determination, apparently ignoring the fact that a man’s bathroom was not the place to have a discussion.

“I’m sorry, Mr. D’Alesio,” she began smoothly but quickly. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last two weeks and—”

“Who the hell are you?” he lashed out again.

“Dr. Randall, Mr. D’Alesio; Dr. Alex Randall. I kept writing after you responded because you obviously didn’t understand that it was imperative that I see you—”

“You’re Dr.
Alex
Randall?”

She completely ignored the obvious insinuation behind his question and continued to speak, still keeping her eyes carefully level with his. “Yes, I’m Alex Randall, and I wrote, I wired and I called, and I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, but it seemed to be the only way to get to see—”

“Had it occurred to you,
Dr.
Randall, that I might be busy, as my letter suggested?” Sitting like a little queen upon her porcelain throne, she was really irritating him. He felt like a fool, trapped naked in a bathtub. And after his long day, she was the wrong side of too much. So cool, so sophisticated, with that delicate femininity, aggressively—but with the best of drawing-room manners—accosting him.

She was so perfectly put together, from dress to hair to face. Her skin was as flawless as marble, her lipstick a perfect coral gloss upon a perfectly shaped mouth, and it even appeared as if she was wearing false eyelashes. No amount of mascara should rightfully give such a golden blond woman such incredibly dark, thick lashes.

Irritation and aggravation flashed through her provocative amber and green eyes at his question. “Mr. D’Alesio, I must get through to see Ali Sur Sheriff. And I understand that you’re one of the few people—”

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

Pardon? She issued “pardon” so politely while she interrupted his bath …

“Why do you want to see Sheriff?”

“Because of Dr. Crosby. You see, Ali Sur Sheriff was, I believe, the last known contact with Jim Crosby and—”

Dan’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the woman. Crosby, he knew, wasn’t married; he was widowed or divorced or some such. Who was she? No one too close; Jim had mentioned in his hotel room that although he was as fond as any man of the fairer sex, he liked being free as a bird and had no intention of making any commitments. The marble-perfect little doll reigning over the toilet seat had mentioned that she was a doctor. A Ph.D.? An Egyptologist? A beautiful parasite trying to hone in on Jim’s successes?

“Listen, Miss—” Dan interrupted, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the rim of the tub.

“Doctor,
” she interrupted in turn, with a core of steel in the cool tone of her voice. “Dr. Randall.”

His eyes flew open again. “Miss—Mrs.—
Doctor
—it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me. I wouldn’t take a simpering rose like you out into the desert to meet Ali if I thought you had a legitimate reason—which I don’t. Now get the hell out of my bathroom.”

It appeared the simpering rose had a bit of a temper. He saw her eyes narrow sharply, her slim gamine chin protrude at a strong angle as her head tilted. She stood, long fingers curling into fists at her sides as she lashed back at him. “You listen to me, D’Alesio! I am not any simpering rose, I’m a damned good Egyptologist and I’d weigh my desert knowledge against yours any day. And I’ll tell you another thing, Mr. World Famous Journalist—I know Jim Crosby a hell of a lot better than you do and I don’t care if you’re Walter Cronkite and Henry Kissinger rolled into one, I can guarantee you will
never
get an interview with Crosby when he’s found if you don’t—”

His eyes had slowly become dangerous, obsidian slits as she spoke, and he broke into her speech with a soft, cutting disdain that seemed to fill the room. “Sorry, Dr. Randall, but I believe Jim Crosby is a man of his word. I think you should reassess the situation. I just don’t see Jim Crosby breaking his word over any bedroom antics.”

“Bedroom antics …?” She echoed his words with confusion; then comprehension filtered into her flashing eyes, to be followed by indignant outrage. “How dare you—”

Suddenly he’d had enough. He was dead tired and worried half sick. All he’d wanted out of the night was a bath and some sleep—and relief from the anxiety caused him by the puzzle of Jim Crosby.

And instead he’d gotten this—this powder puff barging into his bathroom and issuing threats. And making him feel uncomfortably like some nude centerfold in a woman’s magazine.

His irritation and wrath reaching a breaking point, he suddenly stood up. He noted with perverse pleasure that she blanched slightly and took a step backward, her eyes involuntarily taking in his body before latching on to his eyes again.

“Mr. D’Alesio,” she snapped. “Your sense of decency is about on a par with that of a desert goat!”

“Mine!”

It was absolutely the last straw. He stepped out of the tub, no longer aware of his nudity, and moved menacingly toward her, the water sluicing from his body. His temper had simply snapped, and before either of them could say more, he grasped her cream-sleeved arms, lifted her bodily a foot off the floor and started striding through the bedroom to the parlor—and the door.

She gasped with outrage at his forceful touch, the amber streaking through her eyes until they blazed gold as they met his while she jounced along, her body leaning against his. “I promise you, D’Alesio, you will definitely live to regret this—”

He smiled pleasantly despite the sizzling black jet that sparked from his eyes. “Will I? We’ll see.”

The door was still slightly ajar, probably from her unsolicited entry, he thought grimly. He edged it farther open with his foot and set her down on the outside. As she gasped again for breath and struggled to regain her composure, he noted that he had thoroughly soaked her perfect cream suit. It clung to the curves of her figure, and he was annoyed that he noticed their fullness and firmness and that her clothes outlined her angles so deeply and provocatively.

“It’s been a pleasure, Dr. Randall,” he said quickly, suddenly realizing again that he was nude and now standing in an open doorway. “Let’s not do it again, though, huh?”

He closed the door in her face with a firm click.

He heard her fist immediately slam against it. “We certainly won’t, D’Alesio. I’ll find Sheriff on my own, Mr. D’Alesio—and I’ll also find Jim Crosby.” Her haunting voice became very sweet. “And I sincerely doubt you’ll be doing any documentaries on the great discoveries of the twentieth century—not in this field, at any rate.”

He heard the perfect staccato click of her heels as she started down the hallway.

Who in the world was she, and what in the world did she want?

He leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his chest, then realized that the parlor windows were open to the street and a couple of kids were pointing upward and laughing.

“Damn!” he muttered, automatically doubling over and trotting back toward his bedroom.

If she hadn’t burst in on him, if she hadn’t irritated him so, if it hadn’t felt quite so absurd sitting in the tub while the “queen” swept in … he might have found out who she was. Was she Jim’s mistress? Lucky guy. She might look like a rose petal, but she was also stunning. Thinking of her now made him wonder what it would feel like to pull the pins out of that rich gold-filigree hair … see the lime and amber eyes smolder to gold with passion … touch that alabaster skin. …

Actually, he thought dryly, he was wondering what it would be like to go to bed with her. She was delicate, she was elegant, she was fastidious, cool, regal … And she’d probably do very well in a wet-T-shirt contest, too!

He laughed aloud at the incongruity of his thoughts, then sobered. She had threatened him! She had barged into his bathroom, made him feel like a fool. His jaw took on a slow twist, and he sauntered to the bed to sit and pick up the phone.

“Raj? There’s a woman heading downstairs. You’ll notice her, believe me. She’s not the type of female a man would miss. I want you to get someone to follow her. See where she heads next.”

He had fallen asleep when Raj called him back. The Arab had had no difficulty discovering what the woman was up to.

“She called the airport from the desk, Mr. D’Alesio. She’s got a flight into Abu Dhabi just a few hours after yours. And then she called one of the guide agencies and requested a man familiar with all the Arab countries who was willing to travel for at least a week.”

“Thanks, Raj,” Dan murmured speculatively. He hung up his phone and stared at the ceiling. The little witch! She was going to go straight after Sheriff!

Who was Dr. Alex Randall, and just what was she after?

If he had her in front of him he’d be tempted to throttle her.

He mused for several minutes longer, aggravated with himself for the impatience that had cost him that knowledge; aggravated with her for breaking in on him and issuing threats like the Queen of Sheba.

So her desert knowledge far surpassed his, did it? She looked too fragile to withstand one sandstorm. But she was an Egyptologist, he reminded himself. She had to have learned something to earn that degree.

Or was she really a Ph.D.? She might have made up her title; he had no proof of anything about her. Only her say-so.

Besides which, he thought with a little grin, Egyptian antiquities had become tourist attractions and perhaps she had come to add them to a private collection. And even if she was an Egyptologist, she probably knew nothing of the Arab world she was about to enter. In the actual desert, life was not so civilized, according to Western standards.

He was suddenly wondering just how much she actually knew about the Middle East—about the emirs and sheikhs who ruled their tribes in the United Arab Emirates today almost as they had through the centuries.

She must know something, he thought. She had had the sense to hire a guide to enter a world where women were still treated as property rather than as individuals. Yet even with a guide, a woman—especially a blonde—might find certain places, ruled by tribal law for centuries, dangerous.

He began to worry a little. What if she was someone special to Crosby? He really couldn’t allow the man’s fragile mistress to go traipsing alone into a desert where just the shade of her hair would make her worth countless camels and goats, a land of Islam where slavery was permitted in the Koran, the holy book of those who “submitted to God.”

A slow grin worked its way along his mouth as he thought of a way both to teach her a lesson and to protect her.

Ali would probably find the plan amusing and lend his full support. And, Dan decided, mentally doing a bit of arithmetic, he should have plenty of time to set his little scheme into action.