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“Huh?”

“You managed the PHP guys brilliantly. They were prepared to kill us until you diffused the situation.”

“Wait. You’re complimenting me?”

A chuckle came over his shoulder. “I happen to think you’re a fine operative. And now that I’ve seen how fucked up your background is, I’m all the more impressed with who you’ve managed to become.”

“Okay, you have to help me out here. Was that a compliment or not? The background bit could be taken either way.”

He stopped and turned in that deceptively quick way he had of moving, and she all but ran into him. He grabbed her arm to steady her, and said, “I’m trying to tell you I think you’re amazing.”

“Okay, now Iknowwe’re dying. Give it to me straight, Ian. How much time have we got left?”

He laughed and squeezed her nose playfully through her cotton facemask. Commencing walking again, he said thoughtfully, “If we got exposed to the virus two days ago, I’m guessing we’ve got about five days left before we get sick. Any preference how we spend it?”

“Hmm. We’re not far from Lake Tahoe. I hear it’s gorgeous. Maybe we could go up there to spend our final days.”

“It is tempting to chuck all this stuff and just spend our remaining time together, isn’t it?”

She was staggered to hear that out of Mr. Mom-and-Apple-Pie. “Tempting, yes,” she answered carefully. “But I know you. Never in a million years would you walk away from your duty. You’ll die in the harness before you give up pulling.”

“Ox analogy aside—thanks,” he muttered.

“You’re welcome.”

“You can go if you want,” he offered. “When we get back to Overton, I’ll find you a ride away from Las Vegas and the virus. In fact, I’ll feel better if you do go.”

“And I’ll feel better if you come with me,” she replied tartly.

“I’ve got to see this through.”

“As do I,” she responded.

“I’ll focus better on what has to be done if I’m not worrying about you constantly,” he retorted.

“Fine. Then I guess we’ll just have to work together so we always know where the other one is and we don’t worry about each other.”

He half-turned, clearly to argue, but then exhaled hard. “You’re right.”

“Say that again?”

He glared at her humorously. “You heard me the first time.”

“Can’t bring yourself to let those words pass your lips twice in under a minute, huh? Heck, you’re almost fun to be stranded with in the desert, roasting alive. If I ever need to go to Hell, I’ll be sure to bring you along.”

That made him laugh outright. “Deal.”

They started walking, and a strange calm came over her. It was as if out here, all alone, with nothing but dirt and rocks as far as the eye could see, they were in a world apart from reality. Their own private universe. Who’d have thought a vast expanse of dirt and rocks could feel so intimate?

They walked for a while in as companionable silence as she supposed was possible given the horrendous conditions. Under normal circumstances, they would never try to move in this heat. They would find shade, hunker down, and conserve body moisture until the sun went down and temperatures fell. But her father and a mysterious terrorist calling himself El Noor had made that impossible.

So hot she was getting lightheaded and dizzy, she distracted herself by asking, “Who do you suppose EL Noor is?”

“No idea. I’d sure like to find the guy, though. But he’s a problem for another day. Right now, we have to find civilization.”

“And pray your tampering with my father’s bomb disabled it,” she added fervently.

The next four hours were the longest of her life. Each step was more painful than the last as the bottoms of her feet burned inside her shoes. She developed a pounding headache, and she didn’t want to think about how dehydrated she was becoming. She and Ian had covered every inch of skin theycould by rolling down their sleeves and pulling up their collars. They even wrapped their hands in the remnants of the white t-shirt. It made her feel a thousand degrees hotter, even though intellectually she knew the coverings ultimately to be helpful in cooling her body.