purchased from a street vendor in Cairo, wiped his brow and replaced the damn thing. It was late March—high tourist season in Egypt, when the temperatures were supposed to be bearable—but out here in the desert it was still hotter than sin. Pretending to be the tourist he wasn’t, he pulled his camera from his backpack and snapped a picture of the workbench and its smattering of useless artifacts. Then he lifted the lens and photographed the worksite. The tomb’s entrance. And lastly, the crew meandering around.
This tomb would probably end up being a bust like all the others he’d visited so far this trip, but he’d learned long ago that sometimes a photo picked up things you missed on first examination.
And if there was one thing he was meticulous about, it was his research.
Unfortunately, that research had all been for crap so far. And his contacts were giving him shit as well. If he didn’t score big soon, he was gonna be flying coach back to Miami.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen, if I can have your attention. The tour is about to begin.”
Pete turned like the rest of the herd and looked toward the sun shelter where a woman dressed in khaki pants, a work shirt and boots was giving directions to the group in both Egyptian Arabic and English. He couldn’t see her face, shielded by a worn Mariners cap pulled low over her brow, but her voice had an unusual lilt that piqued his interest.
One, it was American, and anytime there was an American woman working the site he was scanning, he had an immediate in. He hadn’t met one who’d been able to see through his bull.
But two, and most importantly, she had the kind of voice that did it for him. Smooth and direct, but hinting of sinful sex all at the same time.
He lifted the camera and snapped her picture. Maybe this tour would be different from the others after all.
He shifted his pack to his back, looped his camera strap around his neck and moved the equipment so it hung down his chest. Then he slipped his hands into the pocket of his cargo pants and waited to be bored out of his mind.
Except he wasn’t. As the tour progressed and their guide—a Katherine Meyer—showed the group of mostly American tourists the worksite and outlined the project’s goals, he found himself intently listening. The woman knew her stuff. She managed to make the dull artifacts they were unearthing sound mysterious and exciting. And when she hinted that the tomb could possibly be the last resting place of Nefertiti, she had the entire group ooh-ing and ah-ing like she was Jacques Cousteau about to un-cover buried treasure from the bottom of the ocean.
Half an hour into the tour and he still hadn’t gotten a good look at her face, but he had the impression of dark eyes and hair, a slim body and graceful hands.
She gave directions for the group to enter the tomb and move down the corridor, then to the right where they would enter the first burial chamber. Pete knew the really exciting stuff would be cordoned off from tourist view, so he listened carefully to what she had to say about the religious texts and images adorning the closest chambers. It often gave clues to what or who was buried deeper within.
But as she stood at the entrance to the tomb and the group filtered past her, disappearing down into the darkness, Pete found himself strangely stunned into stupor. Up close she wasn’t just attractive, she was a knockout. Mahogany hair that fell to her shoulders in a gentle wave, dark chocolate eyes, a straight nose and one damn sexy mole on the upper right side of her perfectly pink mouth.
He put the two together—that sultry voice he’d been listening to all morning and those sinful lips he was now staring at—and even roasting in the hundred-plus-degree heat, he grew rock hard.
“Are you all right, sir? You look a little pale.”
He nodded slowly but couldn’t seem to get his brain to click into gear so he could stop staring.
“Here.” She pulled a water bottle from the pack looped around her waist and smiled. The sweetest grin he’d ever seen. Which only jacked him up another ten degrees. “Take mine. It just gets hotter once you get inside.”
Holy hell, she had no idea.
He took the bottle she held out for him, waited while she passed by and headed into the corridor.