She ignored it and finally it stopped, allowing her to concentrate on her headache, and the fact that her eyes felt as if someone had been shovelling grit in them all night.

The bright sunshine didn't help.

With her hand shading her eyes, she made it to the bathroom. She was in the shower when the phone began to ring again. Sarah, she thought. It would be Sarah, worrying about her. She'd call her back…

She washed her hair, brushed her teeth. Decided to forget about getting dressed until she'd had coffee.

The local newspaper was lying on the mat. Her gran had liked her to read the local news to her…

She bent to pick it up, groaning as the headache she thought she'd defeated slid forward and collided with the back of her aching eyes.

Then she groaned again as she saw the front page. It must be a slow news day, because she seemed to fill the front page, staring like a rabbit caught in the media headlights, with the Trash or Treasure expert beside her displaying the khanjar. In full colour.

The headline read: ARABIAN 'PRINCESS' AT ROADSHOW.

What?

The doorbell rang and without thinking she wrenched the door open, certain that it would be Sarah. She'd taken to dropping in every morning over the last few weeks, to see if she needed anything. She usually came round the back, letting herself in with her "good neighbour" key, as she had yesterday when she'd heard her cry for help when the floor had given way.

Clearly the fact that the phone had gone unanswered was causing her concern, but since she'd bolted the back door last night the key would be useless.

But it wasn't Sarah, who was tiny-apart from around the middle, where she was spreading spectacularly-and fair; the figure that filled the tiny porch was her opposite in every conceivable way.

Tall, spare, broad-shouldered, male, there was nothing soft about him. His features were austere, chiselled to the bone, and his olive-toned skin was positively Mediterranean against a snowy band-collared shirt, fastened to the neck. His hair was thick and crisply cut. But it was his eyes that held her.