She stopped at the bathroom door. "We'll be out of here in fifteen minutes. You'll have to put the contacts and beard back on. Fatima will bring you a native robe and a burnoose and sunglasses."

"Won't the sunglasses look too much like a disguise?"

"Not in an open Jeep. Everyone wears them in desert country."

"And what role are you playing this time?"

"I'm your driver." She made a face. "Complete with draperies and a smothering veil. You have the easy part."

"A woman driver in a Middle Eastern country?" he asked skeptically.

"Oh, men aren't above teaching women modern skills that will serve their august masculinity," she said. "Women chauffeur men all over Said Ababa." She added, "But, of course, no woman is allowed to drive without a man in the car or written permission from the closest male relative.

That would give her ideas above her station. It's really a charming country."

"I've found it so."

Ronnie remembered the video shot of Gabe bruised and defiant and felt the same surge of anger she had known the first time she had seen it. "This is going to be a piece of cake. I've got forged papers that can't be faulted, if we're stopped. They won't be able to touch you again. I promise, Gabe."

He smiled at her, a warm genuine smile that held neither irony nor sarcasm. "I feel greatly comforted. With such a fierce protector I'm certain I'm as safe as in my own hometown. That being the case"-he made a gesture with his left hand that was both grandiloquent and regal- "you may floss."

"I told you there wouldn't be any trouble." Ronnie pressed on the accelerator and the Jeep picked up speed. "Smooth as oil."

"Oil isn't all that smooth when it gushes out of the ground." Gabe glanced back over his shoulder at the town receding in the distance. "And it tends to be explosive. We're not home free yet. We got through the checkpoint and I don't seeany ground pursuit, but the Red December has helicopters."

"They won't be able to spot us once we reach the hills." She jerked off the heavy veil and wig and threw them on the floor. "Lord, those things are hot. You wonder how the Said Ababan men manage to survive those veils."

He lifted his brows. "It's the women who wear them."

"But it's the men who make the women wear them. You can bet if I had to spend more than twenty-four hours in one, I'd go gunning for the male chauvinist who put it on me."

"Dear me, how savage," he murmured. "Have you considered that it may only be our poor male chauvinists' insecurity that makes us veil our women from other men?"

"That's their problem." She shot him a glance. "And you shouldn't include yourself in that lot. You're not a chauvinist or you wouldn't send women reporters into war zones."

"I have my protective moments, but I try to fight them." He smiled. "For instance, at the moment I'm fighting the impulse to tell you to put on that veil again."

She stiffened. "You are?"

"Don't get bent out of shape. I merely thinkyou should cover your head before this desert sun takes its toll."

"Oh!" She picked up the veil and draped it over her head. "I didn't think. You're right."

He looked at her in surprise.

"Well, I may be independent, but I'm not an idiot," she said in answer to his unspoken question. "Recovering from sunstroke isn't what I have planned for the next few months."

"What do you have planned?"

"I don't know. Yugoslavia maybe."

She saw him stiffen. "Why doesn't that surprise me? You do know snipers are still shooting newspeople over there."

"I make a small target." She grinned. "And I'll leave my bull's-eye sweatshirt at home."

"Very funny." He didn't sound amused. "Why don't you give it a rest for a few months… prodding you get out of here without being shot."

She shook her head. "I get restless."

"So you go looking for guerrillas to shoot at you."

He sounded definitely uptight. "No, I go looking for pictures to take," she corrected. "And Yugoslavia should provide some dandy opportunities."

"I don't doubt it. With any luck you'll findyourself tossed in a secret concentration camp or raped or taken-"

"Luck goes in cycles," she interrupted. "I figure I've had my bad luck for the next five years." "Yeah, sure," he muttered. "Geez, what are you beefing about? You've had your own Yugoslavias and I'm not one of your people."

"Aren't you?" He gave her a glance of exasperation and frustration. "I think you're very much mine."

Possessiveness. She felt a strange breathless-ness that had nothing to do with the desert sun. She had known he was possessive, but it felt odd being sheltered under that umbrella herself. "You forget I'm strictly free-lance. I have no intention of hooking up with your network."

"Why not? I can offer you excellent money and unlimited opportunities."

She shrugged. "I'm free-lance," she repeated. "I like it that way."

"And I don't," he said flatly. "At least, if I was your boss, I could monitor your movements and know what the hell you were up to." She shook her head. "Dammit, take the job." "Dammit, I won't. I know you're grateful tome, but you don't have to do anything to show it." She added lightly, "I'll have my Emmy."

"So you're just going to walk away."

"No, you're going fly away. Once we reach Sedikhan, I'll go my way and you'll go yours."

"I don't like that scenario."

"Too bad," she said. She was silent a moment and then burst out, "Look, you don't have to pay me back. I owed you. Now we're even, okay?"

"You owed me?"

She nodded. "And now we're even, so stop worrying about it."

"And what did I do to incur this debt?"

"Never mind." She shot him a sly glance. "Maybe you were my inspiration. Pygmalion to my Galatea."

"First Daddy Warbucks and now Pygmalion," he muttered. "And I don't believe a word of that crap."

"That's your choice."

"Why do you owe me?"

She didn't answer.

"I'm going to find out, you know," he said softly. "I'm not going to stop until I do."

And Gabe Falkner's determination was legendary. She had made a mistake. She should have left it alone, but she had been afraid his sense of obligation would be stronger than his curiosity. "We'll see. You'll probably forget all about it when you get back to the States."

"I won't forget. Not about Said Ababa and not about you." He paused. "You definitely top my list of unforgettable people."

He topped her list of unforgettable people also. She suddenly knew she had wanted him to be less than the larger-than-life man she had studied all these years. Maybe the reason she had been so determined to free him was that she, too, had wanted to be released from bondage. Instead she was finding herself drawn even tighter, closer.

"I'm flattered, but that would be pretty stupid of you. You'll have to work on it. There's no sense dwelling on people who are no longer in your life." She pointed to the hills in the distance. "You see that hill with the bald top? There's a small plateau just behind it where a helicopter can land. We'll set up camp, radio your people in Sedikhan, and then wait for the helicopter."

"Oh, will we?"

That hadn't pleased him either. She sighed. "Cripes, what do you want me to do? Put on that blasted veil again and meekly let you handle everything? It's a good plan."

He suddenly smiled. "I know it is. Sorry, you ruffled my feathers again."

His smile was warm and as rare as the man himself, and she felt a sudden despair. It was hard to keep a distance from a man who could admit he was wrong. How the devil was she going to forget the bastard, if he kept showing her facets of himself she found appealing?

"Well, I guess your feathers aren't as easily ruffled as some I've run across. I suppose I'll forgive you."

His smile deepened with amusement. "I'm most gratified."

Ronnie looked up from the fire she was building as Gabe turned off the radio. "Who's John?"

Gabe strolled over, then dropped down on the ground on the other side of the fire. "John Grant."

"Have you been together a long time? He was all choked up."

"Seven years. He was the producer of my first television news show. He's executive vice-president now." He swallowed. "And I'm pretty choked up myself. I wasn't sure if I'd ever see him again."

No macho denial of emotion. She liked that. Dammit, she was afraid she was beginning to like everything about him. "When I set up the pickup, I talked to a Daniel Bredlowe."

"Dan is my executive assistant."

"They like you." She made a face. "Of course, it's easier to like a boss who's cooped up in a prison than underfoot all the time."

"True, but I really think they don't actually detest me even when I'm around. Of course, I could be wrong."

The fire was burning brightly now and she sat back on her heels. "No, they jumped on the chance of getting you out. Bredlowe even offered to come with me."

"You should have let him. Dan's good in a tight corner."

She giggled as a thought occurred to her. "But where would we have put him in the bordello? Under the bed?"

"Certainly not in it." His voice was suddenly thick. "There wasn't room for anyone between us."

Her cheeks flamed as she remembered him pressed against her, her legs clinging to his naked hips. "No, there wasn't." She looked away from him. "I didn't want outside interference. Evanwas nervous as it was." She stirred the fire. "The helicopter won't get here for an hour or so. My instructions were not to come until full dark. If you like, I could make some coffee."

"Not unless you want some. I'm too wired for caffeine at the moment. I have enough adrenaline running in my veins to run the generator at Hoover Dam."