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“Thanks for the thought,” she mumbled back against his chest. “Kisses to you, too. Hot, sexy ones with tongue and bare skin and sweat and--.”

“I get the idea,” he chuckled. “And don’t distract me. Ready to get back to work?”

“No, but I’ll do it anyway,” she sighed. “I could use some help pulling out the battery. The leads are corroded and need cleaning. Then we have to pray the thing’s still got a little charge left in it.”

He smiled over at her as they walked back to the barn. Her voice had a note of new hope in it, as well. They might just make it out of this mess alive, after all. “I can always give Big Red a push down the road to get it turning over.”

“You? Push a tractor?” she exclaimed. “You know, the sad part is I wouldn’t put it past you.”

They traded smiles and stuck their heads into the guts of the disemboweled tractor together.

Once they’d wrestled the heavy battery out of the machine, he turned his newfound energy to building a distiller and starting a fire underneath it. Carefully, he ladled the precious water into his apparatus and waited for clean water to startdripping out. When he had about a half-cup of water collected in an empty tin can, he carried it over to Piper.

“Drink.”

“You drink it. You’re stronger than I am and more important to keep functional. One of us has to make it out alive and tell people how to stop the virus,” she retorted. So. She realized how close they both were to the end of their physical resources, too, huh? He should have known he couldn’t fool her.

He responded, “You’re the one who knows how to fix our ride out of here, and there will be more water for me in a few minutes.”

She relented and downed the hot liquid.

They took turns drinking doses of the water as it emerged from his distiller. And gradually, as they each put away upwards of a gallon of distilled water, they began to feel better. Almost human. His headache diminished to a dull throbbing, and he noticed that Piper moved more quickly, with more precision, as she worked on overhauling the tractor. For his part, he was able to pitch in and help with lifting the heavy parts and horsing them back into place as dawn approached and she finally started putting the engine back together.

Finally, the moment of truth was upon them. It was time to see if the tractor would run. “This may not work,” she warned as she climbed into the seat.

“If it doesn’t, we’ll hole up here today, distill a bunch of extra water, and head out at night fall.”

“Can we make love before we go?” she asked hopefully.

He laughed. “Honey, we can make love every night for the rest of our lives if you want.”

Her head snapped around as she stared at him. The rest of their lives? Whoa. Was he ready to go there? It was one thing to think the rest of their lives was going to be twenty-four hours. But now that they’d found water, they could be talking decades.Was he prepared to commit for a long, full lifetime? As in forever?

She turned the key in the ignition and the engine gave a mighty sputter. And went silent.

“Again,” he suggested.

She turned the key once more and the engine popped and smoked…and caught. It ran rougher than the desert outside, but it was by God running. She’d done it.

She announced, “I think if we give it a few minutes to burn the gunk out of it and get the good diesel fuel running through it, it’ll smooth out!”

He didn’t care. He would ride this sputtering, jerking wreck all the way to Khartoum if he had to. As long as they got out of this mess alive and together. He moved over to the big barn door and shoved it all the way open.

“Need a ride, sailor?” Piper called to him.

Grinning, he grabbed the backpack and the gallon jug of extra water he’d distilled earlier. He climbed up and sat on the fender of one of the big tires beside her. He had to duck as the tractor passed out of the barn, but the sky opened up overhead, the last stars of the night winking out of sight as they emerged from the barn.

They’d done it. They were going to live to see another day.

Piper guided the tractor down the long driveway and, as they approached an actual dirt road, called to Ian, “Which way?”

He pointed to the north. She turned the tractor onto the road and accelerated cautiously. She prayed her jerry rigs and taped together fuel lines would hold up long enough for this old wreck to reach a working telephone. And a shower. And a freaking walk-in freezer.

The temptation was great to shove the throttle to the forward stop, but she schooled herself to patience. Every yard of road they put behind them was one less she and Ian had to walk. She estimated they putt-putt-ed down the road at about eight miles per hour. A hot, dusty breeze blew in her hair, and even though the morning sun was bright, she felt a lightness and freedom of spirit she hadn’t felt in as long as she could remember.

They were in a hurry and they needed to get out of the desert and find a phone, but she was with Ian, they’d found water, they had transportation after a fashion, and they werealive. After coming so close to death in the desert, that word held a whole new richness of meaning for her.

Ian’s hand came to rest on her shoulder and she glanced up at him. He smiled down at her and then closed his eyes and threw his head back, lifting his face to the morning sun. He felt it, too. The special exultation of cheating death.