Kitabı oku: «The Sheikh Who Stole Her: Sheikh Seduction / The Untamed Sheikh / Desert King, Doctor Daddy», sayfa 3

Chapter Three

He wasn’t the sort of man who dealt well with failure. Seeing the abandoned construction site that had been his pet project set Tariq’s teeth on edge. Yet it was nothing but a minor annoyance compared to the rage that he felt over the attack, over his men being killed, over Sara Reeves being put in danger. He was mad at himself, too, for not anticipating it, for being unable to do more.

The Hummer was barely rolling. At this stage, they would have moved faster on foot, but he didn’t want to abandon the vehicle in plain sight.

“This is the oasis?” Sara stared at him with incredulity in her expressive blue eyes that said she found the place hideous.

She, on the other hand, was beautiful, even covered with sand and blood. And what kind of man was he to notice things like that after what had just happened to his men?

“It will be,” he stated. He didn’t need one more person to question or make fun of his enterprise, whether she had the most beguiling eyes he’d ever seen or not. “Who was Jeff Myers to you?”

More than a business partner; on that Tariq would stake his life. He’d seen the way the man had looked at Sara when he thought nobody was watching.

She glanced away. “An old friend.”

He waited.

“We were supposed to get married. B. T. Reeves was my father’s company. Jeff brought needed capital and got half the firm for it. I inherited the other half after cancer took Dad.” She pressed her lips together as if she’d said too much. “Everything was supposed to work out perfectly with the two of us getting married.” She seemed compelled to explain, anyway.

“Except the wedding never happened.” Tariq wanted to know why, realized this wasn’t the time to ask.

“Where is the water?” She seemed eager to move off the subject.

There’d been plenty of tension between her and her partner; Tariq had read that clearly in the car before the attack. Judging from the man’s quiet resentment and sullen attempts to dominate her, she must have been the one who’d broken off the relationship. Jeff Meyers had wanted to regain control, probably to get her back. Tariq couldn’t blame him.

He thought of the tender way she had buried the man she no longer loved, no longer even liked, if their earlier interaction was any indication. But she had worried that his body should be found for his family. She was loyal to the end.

And right now, she was gazing at Tariq expectantly.

Yes, the water. “Under the sand.”

He pulled the Hummer inside one of the buildings, which had walls standing but no doors or windows yet. They hadn’t gotten that far with the project.

She jumped out. “There aren’t any palm trees.”

Her innocent remark pricked him more sharply than it should have.

He wasn’t daft; nobody needed to explain to him what an oasis should look like. Tariq tempered his irritation. He was getting too sensitive about this venture and all the questions that still swirled around it in the media—damaging publicity financed by his enemies.

“Can’t put in landscaping until all the heavy machinery is out of here.” He saw the place as it would be when the work was completed, this room a banquet hall fit for the most discriminating guests. He shook off the sense of frustration as he strode out the back of the building.

“It’s not what I expected.” She trailed after him.

He’d spent his life escaping other people’s expectations. He wasn’t about to start worrying about hers, regardless of whatever unreasonable attraction he felt for her. “The oasis will be a resort with a capital O.”

“Ah,” she said, but appeared uncertain still, her face softening, giving him a glimpse of what she was like with her defenses down. Of course, every expression was appealing on Sara Reeves.

“There was a real oasis here, but the well dried up about fifty years ago.” He searched for the best place to weather the storm, noticing as he did so that the satellite dish was missing. Probably knocked down by the unusually savage storm they’d had a week ago. “When we were looking for a site for a new project and had some surveys done, we found plenty of water. The water table is now deep below the bottom of the well our ancestors dug in the sand.” The desert had gotten drier and drier over the last century.

“So you’re from around here?” She gave him a searching look. “You talk like an American.”

“I lived in the States for a while.” Sometimes he thought it’d been too long, sometimes too short. He watched as her gaze flitted over his buildings. She didn’t seem impressed. It annoyed him more than it should.

“MMPOIL is branching out?” she asked.

“The oil won’t last forever.”

Now was the time to set up other businesses, to start to develop other industries. His people’s future depended on these initiatives, and he took them seriously, even though he’d received plenty of ridicule as a result. His generation had grown up oil rich. They’d seen nothing else, could imagine nothing else. They couldn’t fathom that the revenue and the lifestyle it brought would ever end. And if any such unpleasant thought did cross their minds, they took care of it with a shrug and an insha’Allah—it’ll be according to Allah’s will.

“This place is huge.” She looked back at him finally. She had eyes the shade of the desert sky right after a rare rain took all the sand particles out of the air. A captivating blue that brightened further the few times she let her guard down, never longer than seconds at a time.

The top of her head was even with his nose. She was slim but strong, inside and out. She might bend, but she wouldn’t break. She had nearly maimed the bandit who’d grabbed her.

Tariq forced his gaze away from her lips, which might look soft if she ever relaxed. “Twenty acres. Someday it’ll be a five-star resort that will draw visitors from all over the world.”

He also had a convention center complex in mind for another location, closer to Tihrin, and a long list of other projects he fought with his enemies to bring to fruition. All things that were suddenly low on his list of priorities.

He headed toward the cluster of luxury villas, the most completed buildings. No doors or windows here, either, but the floors were tiled and the roofs finished, the sunken pools in the bathrooms set up with plumbing, if not yet hooked up to water.

“Wow, this is amazing,” Sara said, with a fair dose of surprise in her voice as she took in the brilliant colors of the mosaic tiles depicting scenes from nature, similar to those at the ancient ruins to the west of them.

“We’ll get water and look for the satellite dish.” The latter had to be near the tall building it’d rested on, probably buried in sand. They had used it during construction to amplify cell phone signals, since the nearest tower was so far away. Tariq needed to talk to his brothers, and let Omar, Husam’s father, know about his son’s abduction, although the kidnappers might have contacted him by now.

Tariq sympathized with the anguish the man must be in, and to a degree, he blamed himself. He should have noticed when the bandits took Husam, and done something to prevent it. He owed as much to Omar, an old family friend who had been there for Tariq’s father until the end. But Tariq had been so focused on Sara, and sure that Husam could hold his own …. No time to dwell on all that now. Before he could be of any help to Husam, he first had to save Sara and himself.

Water. Satellite dish. Car.

If for some reason he couldn’t get a connection, he would fix the Hummer with whatever scraps he could scrounge, and take Sara to the nearest town as soon as the storm blew over.

“You work with the sheik, you must have his direct line,” she was saying. “Even if you think someone from your company might be involved, we could tell him to send only his most trusted men.”

She’d be surprised to know just how few trusted men the sheik had. “Stay here,” Tariq murmured.

The building provided shade, the windows strategically placed so that even without air-conditioning the cross breeze would bring relief to the occupants. He moved through the villa, squinting against the sun when he stepped outside and headed for the trailers the workers had used before they left. Padlocked. He strode back to the Hummer for the tire iron and used it to bust the lock on one door.

The four cots inside made for cramped quarters, and the air was stale, still carrying the smell of sweat that clung to the bedding. He dug through a tin chest at the foot of one bed and took the single clean blanket. His next stop was the canteen. There, he got a twenty-liter pot, used the tire iron to break the Plexiglas in the vending machine, and filled the container nearly to the brim with small packages of snacks, before returning to the villa.

“Hungry?”

She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, eyeing the food he carried.

He tossed the blanket onto the floor and spread it out with her help, then poured his loot in the middle. “I’ll go get water.” And he’d keep an eye out for that satellite dish. On the off chance he had been the main target of the attack, he wanted to warn his brothers. If someone was after control of MMPOIL, they would be next.

“What can I do to help?” She stood gracefully, although she had to be exhausted both physically and emotionally. She walked to the door with him.

“See if there’s anything left in the car we might need while we’re here.” He hurried toward the main water pipe, keeping her in his line of sight as she made her way back to the Hummer.

She disappeared inside the building only briefly, soon coming back into view with what looked like an armload of garbage.

When the pot was filled, Tariq started to return, but something caught his eye near an outlying building.

“I’ll go look around,” he called out, waiting until she reached the villa before he did so. His gaze settled on the shapeless business suit she wore—probably in deference to the customs of his country. Idly, he wondered how she dressed at home, in her own element. His mind readily skipped to form-fitting, skin-revealing outfits he’d seen plenty of during his time in California.

He thought of those years with nostalgia. Nothing would ever be that simple for him again. He had grown an impenetrable shell in the four years since he’d been back in Beharrain, an armor needed to protect him from his enemies, from the pain of betrayals. Only lately had he been realizing that while it served its purpose of staving off attacks, his shield was also beginning to imprison him.

He set the water down and strode toward the distant lines in the sand. Sara Reeves had asked him to send for his most trusted men. Truth was, he did not, could not, trust anyone except Omar—the man who had been a mentor to him since his return—and his brothers. He would ask his brothers for help. He wanted to get Sara away from danger, wanted to be back in the city himself, back in his own element. Once the sandstorm passed, tracking the bandits would be impossible, all signs of them erased. He would have to use other avenues to investigate.

Omar and all his manpower and wealth were probably working on finding Husam already.

The tire tracks came from the west and disappeared into a partially completed building that would be a hotel someday, fashioned after a famous medieval palace that had stood along one of the caravan routes many hundreds of years ago. Tariq preferred modern architecture like his company headquarters, but the resort had been designed to please tourists and fulfill their expectations.

Clenching his teeth, he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. It looked as if a number of trucks had passed in and out during the last couple of days. Any earlier and winds would have swept away the tracks by now. This was the season for sandstorms.

Tariq entered the building carefully. Only the first two floors were standing, nothing but the load-bearing walls. He checked around, but didn’t find anything beyond some trash and cigarette butts. A gust of wind rose and pushed against him as he came out and strode across the sand.

“I got all the empty bottles,” Sara said as he walked in with the pot of water. “We can fill them up for the road.”

He nodded. In the desert, water was always the first thought—and the last.

“And I got everything that would burn,” she added. “In case we need to start a fire. I found a lighter.”

He listened to the desert for a few seconds, not liking what he heard. The winds heading for them were strong. “We’ll probably stay the night.” There was plenty of scrap wood around the construction site, and what she’d gathered would make perfect kindling.

She deposited her load in a corner, then gestured toward the door. “So what happened here? Why was this place abandoned?” She brought the bottles to him.

“Put on hold,” he corrected. He wasn’t the type to give up on something he’d started. Although some said his years of living abroad had washed the Bedu blood from his veins, apparently, enough remained. He would not give up the fight. “Permits were recalled.”

Suddenly, and without any explanation, about three months ago. Just like everything else he’d tried to do, this project had met an impenetrable wall. He had a hard time getting new businesses off the ground. And even MMPOIL, which tens of thousands of his people depended on for survival, was regularly sabotaged. Tariq had managed to keep the company together only with sheer will and unending vigilance.

He didn’t want to think that Omar had been right when he’d opposed the new projects. Tariq had put it down to the old man’s age. But perhaps Omar knew the country better and was more realistic.

A pang of guilt pricked Tariq at how much he owed Omar. And now he had let his mentor down by losing his eldest son.

“Did you have a bad builder? You’d think people who worked for a sheik would pay attention. Why were the permits revoked?” Sara tilted her head, exposing her graceful, slim neck, an expanse of creamy skin.

“Politics. Who knows?”

Her blue eyes hardened. She probably knew something about corporate maneuvering.

Tariq could go back at any time to the life and the company he had left behind in Sacramento. He’d been a valued executive there. Their doors would always be open to him, they had said. Staying there would have been easier. Certainly safer. But his fate, his destiny awaited in the desert he barely knew, and with the people who treated him as a foreigner. People whom, nevertheless, he loved. He cared little about the danger to his life, only to the degree that it would affect those who worked for him, and depended on him for their own safety.

His men had been killed today, Husam taken. The bandits had meant to take Sara, too. That had to be a coincidence. They’d seen her and wanted her; what man wouldn’t? He couldn’t fathom her being in any way connected to them. But he couldn’t let any option go unexamined.

“Is this your first trip to the Middle East?” He watched her closely as he unscrewed the caps.

“And likely the last,” she said. “No offense.”

He could detect no telltale sign of deceit in her gestures or her voice. She had clear, honest eyes. If someone wanted her kidnapped, it would have been so much easier to do from her hotel, at night when she was alone, rather than when she was with a convoy that included armed guards. And who would have known about them going by car instead of taking the chopper, anyhow?

He thought of something else. When he did make his call, he was definitely going to ask for the helicopter to be looked at for signs of tampering. Until he knew more about that, he would focus on their only clue so far: Husam.

Now that he thought of it … “Wouldn’t it have been easier to kidnap Husam when he was on his way home from work, alone in his car?”

Sara drew up her eyebrows as she considered. “Anything had to be easier than an armed convoy,” she said after a moment. “So what are we missing?”

He shook his head. Damned if he knew.

“Husam called someone before we left. He joined the convoy unexpectedly. Maybe he knew the bandits. Maybe he went with them willingly.”

“Why? And why kill everyone?”

“They wanted to take me,” she said with a pensive expression.

“I have no trouble believing that he found you attractive, but kidnapping you? He could have just asked you to dinner.” Tariq had considered that himself, after he’d gotten off the elevator and she’d gone up to the helipad.

He hadn’t worked closely with Husam, but from all signs, the man seemed a competent businessman, hardly given to such outrageous crimes as kidnapping a woman. He was Omar’s son. Was it possible for the fruit to fall that far from the palm?

“Okay. Fine. I’m just trying to consider all the possibilities.” She straightened her spine and glared at him.

He admired her strength. Shortly after the attack, she’d been out there in the burning sun, helping him dig the grave.

He held her gaze. “A weaker person would still be curled up somewhere in shock.”

Her expression softened marginally at his compliment. “I want to make sure we do whatever it takes to get out of the desert. They are not going to get me,” she said.

“No, indeed.” He would see to that.

She gave him a tremulous smile that made something clench in his chest.

“I’m glad we have these.” He filled the last few bottles. “If we left the water in the pot, it would evaporate in the heat, and get dirty in the meantime.” Intermittent gusts of wind swirled sand in from outside. “Be careful if you go out. I saw some tire tracks.”

“You think the bandits visit this place? Why isn’t there any security here?” she asked with some alarm, moving to help when the last bottle wobbled and nearly tipped.

“There’s not much of value that’s movable.” The heavy machinery had returned to Tihrin when it had become obvious that the obstacle his enemies had put in his path wasn’t one that could be speedily removed. “The site is on tribal land, anyway.” No one from the tribe would damage the property. The people were loyal to their sheik.

For the most. Tariq thought of the possibility of Husam’s betrayal. He didn’t want to believe that one of Omar’s sons could be like that, but now that Sara had planted the thought in his head, he had a hard time dismissing it. Maybe he’d been too focused on fighting with his enemies in the government, and had overlooked the dogs that slinked around his own backyard, waiting to bite when his back was turned.

Leaving her to screw on the caps, he strode to the window to look out at the endless desert, which, instead of sheltering him, as it had done for countless generations of his ancestors, had haunted him throughout his life.

“No time to set up the satellite before the storm.” Locating the two-hundred-pound piece of equipment then dragging it back onto the roof would take considerable effort. He glanced at Sara and found her squaring her slim shoulders.

“I still think you should call Sheik Abdullah as soon as we can. He should be able to protect us.” She seemed confident of that, coming back to it once again.

Everyone always thought that the sheik could do everything. But he hadn’t been able to protect his family, he hadn’t been able to protect his people, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to protect her.

And that he regretted profoundly.

“I am the sheik,” he said.

Chapter Four

“What sheik?” She stared at him dumbfounded. He didn’t look like a sheik. The first time she’d seen him—that morning in his Western-cut suit, with his unaccented English—she’d thought he might be American.

“Tariq Abdullah.”

Sheik Abdullah! Oh, God. “But—If you’re the sheik, why didn’t they take you to be ransomed? Why take Husam?”

He shrugged. “They had no way of knowing I would be coming along. Could be they didn’t recognize me in the heat of the battle. They had a goal and they were focused on that.” He glanced toward the main entrance. “I’m going to make sure you get on a flight out of here as soon as possible.”

Outside, the wind was swirling the sand.

“The bandits took my passport,” she said, dazed. In novels, sheiks usually carried the soon-to-be-ravished heroines to their royal tent. Here she was, at a grim construction site, sitting on a blanket made in China.

“Then you will be taken to the U.S. embassy. They’ll handle everything.” He looked out over the desert where the wind was picking up.

Sheik Abdullah. She took a deep breath and blew it out, wondering feverishly if she’d said anything to offend him so far. If she messed up the deal she’d come here for … She was thinking for a moment as if everything was business as usual. Then pain hit her in the solar plexus as she remembered Jeff, whom some protective instinct had pushed out of her mind, so she could function. Images flooded her brain—of blood-soaked sand—and the job and the contract became insignificant.

Jeff was gone. She was alive only because of Tariq. Sheik Tariq.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she said. “Sheik.”

He turned back to her, crooked his head and actually smiled. Not the full-blown thing—heaven knew they had little to smile about—but a self-deprecating stretch of masculine lips over gleaming white teeth. Her breath got stuck under her breastbone.

“I think, all things considered, calling me Tariq would be fine. I hope I haven’t hurt you much while trying to help.”

“Good choice, considering the alternative.” She could barely feel the bump at the back of her head. She didn’t want to think about what would have become of her by now if the bandits had taken her.

Sheik Tariq Abdullah. She was going to need a few seconds to process that.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“At first I wasn’t sure I could trust you.”

“Understandable.”

He was nothing like she had expected. She’d been resigned to not meeting Sheik Abdullah at all. He was famous for being reclusive, an astute businessman who managed his tribe’s assets with little personal publicity. Supposedly, a person could be in a business relationship with one of his companies for years and never once see him.

As a man, Tariq went beyond a woman’s wildest fantasies. He was perhaps the most physically appealing male she had ever met, although he was not handsome in a conventional way. She found the energy that radiated from him mesmerizing. His movements betrayed strength and confidence. But the whole sheik business … She had a hard time picturing that. Where were his camels and his flowing robes, his tents and his Bedouin tribesmen?

“Why didn’t we go to your tribe’s camp instead of here?” She would have felt safer with people around them, especially the sheik’s desert warriors.

The look on his face was one of faint amusement. “Except for a few small groups, my tribe rarely camps anymore, unless on a hunting trip for sport. They live in towns and villages south of Tihrin.”

A day ago, hearing that would have been a major disappointment to her romantic soul. At the moment, however, she had bigger things to worry about. Still, she couldn’t let it go without a question. “There are no more Bedouin?” But she’d seen pictures in the tourist guides.

“Bedu. We call ourselves Bedu. Foreigners call us Bedouin. Some tribes still have nomadic groups. I don’t know any tribes that live fully in the desert anymore. Mostly, they come and go.” He watched her, raising a dark eyebrow. “This saddens you?”

Was she that transparent? “I suppose. Doesn’t it sadden you?”

He shrugged. “I grew up in a palace in Tihrin, then was sent abroad. I never lived in the desert.”

So much for her sheik-flying-over-the-sand-dunes-on-the-back-of-his-black-Arabian-stallion fantasies. But one word caught her attention. “Palace?”

The expression on his face hardened as he walked away from the window. “My father was the king. And after him, my half brother,” he said. “We’d better secure this place before the storm hits. We don’t have long. See what you can do in here. I’ll search outside for anything we might be able to use for protection.”

Tariq was royalty? Sara knew that the term sheik meant prince or king, but also knew that it wasn’t strictly that way in real life. The guy who sold carpets in a small store across from her hotel called himself Sheik Jumah. She’d figured Sheik Abdullah was a tribal chief. She had no idea he was the son of a king.

She was staring at Tariq, slack-jawed.

“Sara?”

“Yes?”

“You know, I was really starting to like you. Don’t go all weird on me now.”

He was starting to like her! She resisted some deeply buried teenage instinct to ask, In what way? “No problem.”

He was starting to like her. Yeah, that went a long way toward settling her down. Not.

Maybe she could gather her thoughts and act nonchalant by the time he returned. He seemed to be aiming for the door, picking up the tire iron on his way.

“You must be related to the current king then,” she said without meaning to, her thoughts rambling.

“The king is my cousin. My grandfather was a powerful king and he had many sons.”

“What happened to your father and your half brother?” Did kings retire? She’d read up on the country’s economics with a special eye toward the petroleum industry, but hadn’t spent time on its history.

He stopped on the threshold, and she watched his face darken, his jaw tightening. “They were killed. Bad luck seems to be the only dependable companion for the men in my family. You could say we’re cursed with it.”

HE CAUGHT SIGHT of a shadowy, moving shape between buildings to his left as he stepped outside their shelter. Too small to be a man. Tariq squinted against the sun as he gripped the tire iron and moved closer, keeping undercover, ready to fight.

A hyena.

The animal watched him instead of running away, simply skirted him when he got closer. Tariq shouted and clapped. It growled at him, ribs sticking out under the shaggy fur. Could be trouble yet. They would definitely need that fire during the night. The villa didn’t have a door, nothing to keep uninvited visitors out. And the hyena might not be their biggest problem. Tariq thought of the tire tracks in the sand as he moved on.

The mangy beast followed.

If there was to be a fight, he hoped to regain his full strength before it happened. He hadn’t lost a dangerous amount of blood, but enough to slow him down. He didn’t like the feeling.

He shook the tire iron at the animal and considered throwing the heavy weapon, then thought better of it as the hyena snapped its powerful jaws at him. Leaving himself unarmed didn’t seem smart.

Those jaws could crush his bones with laughable ease. They went along with the beast’s superacidic stomach, which could digest his whole prey—fur, flesh, bones, down to the last split hoof. If hyenas had a life philosophy, it had to be along the lines of “waste not, want not.”

Sara would have to be told to stay inside.

Sara Reeves.

Tariq had had lovers—both innocent and worldly-wise. But he’d never experienced the instant connection and overpowering attraction he felt for her. From the first moment in that elevator …

He’d known who she was. He kept a close eye on what business was being conducted at MMPOIL each day. He hadn’t meant to meet her—that had been fate. But once he did, he’d had to join her on the trip to the wells, had to be near her again. He’d been thinking about asking her and Jeff Myers to dinner that evening, just so he could spend time in her company.

He had her company now. But he regretted the circumstances, and wished more than anything to keep her safe. It would be best for her if she left the country. Which she was eager to do, no doubt.

First he would get her to the embassy, then mount an investigation. He would find Husam and learn what was going on. He would bring the murderers to justice. But when he was done with that, he would go and find Sara Reeves again.

He went back to the workers’ trailers and broke open a few more locks, got all the blankets he could find, grabbing a box of nails, too. When he returned to Sara, she was standing at the window as if mesmerized by the darkening horizon to the east.

“Storm’s almost here.” He dropped his load onto the floor. “See if you can seal up the windows.” He went to the area that would be the bathroom and started shoveling sand out of the sunken tub, got it empty in only a few minutes.

“What are you doing?” She pulled a blanket from the pile.

“We’ll be stuck here for a while. And we could both use a bath.” The pool-like tub was four times the size of an ordinary bathtub, designed to be luxurious. It would take him a number of trips, carrying water, but he should be able to fill it at least partially. Cleaning up would give them something to do while they waited out the storm. Her clothes were covered in dry blood, and his wound needed tending.

“Stay inside and keep this close.” He carried the tire iron to her. “You can use this as a hammer. Or a weapon. There’s a hyena somewhere outside.”

Her eyes went wide.

“If it tries to come in, just give me a shout.”

“Would it attack?”

“Probably not yet. Assessing us for now. It’s a night hunter, and more likely to make a move then. I’ll get the fire going as soon as I’m done with this.”

He dumped whatever water was left in the pot into the pool, then went to get more. As he did, he heard the sound of hammering—Sara nailing blankets over the window holes in the walls. She was making good progress. He hoped to do the same. He figured they had fifteen minutes at most before the storm hit.

THE WIND HOWLED like a wild animal, trying to get into their firelit shelter. The doorway was blanketed off, the fire a safe distance inside, an opening in the ceiling for the not-yet-built staircase providing a way for the smoke to get out.