Sheikh, Children's Doctor...Husband

by Meredith Webber

  For a moment Alex thought he might kiss her, then he muttered what sounded like an oath of some kind and walked away, heading for a shadowy part of the garden she hadn’t yet explored.

  Drawn by the pain she’d heard in the words, she followed, finding him beside an ancient, black-trunked, gnarled old tree.

  ‘This tree was here before the palace—here before my ancestors first camped in this place. It symbolises continuation, shows us that life goes on no matter what. It is frankincense—you know it?’

  Alex came forward and touched the rough trunk.

  ‘I know the scent of it now,’ she said. ‘It’s everywhere.’

  ‘It made our fortune in the early days—not just this tree but many like it. They grow in only a few places. Here, feel the trunk.’

  He took her hand and held it against the rough bark, pressing her fingers into what seemed like a cut in it.

  ‘The frankincense gatherers cut through the rough bark to the living tree beneath and it bleeds. Can you feel the small lump there? We call it a tear, as if the tree cries with pain yet its pain gives us life in the same way as a mother’s pain gives life to her child.’

  He took his hand away and Alex looked up at the night sky through the fine silvery leaves of the ancient tree, wondering exactly what Azzam had been telling her, knowing it was important to him.

  Now, as she watched, he pulled a small pen-knife from his pocket and again ran his hands across the bark of the tree, feeling for a cut perhaps, because when he turned back to her he had two small, clear, tear-shaped lumps of frankincense which he pressed into her hands.

  ‘You take my tears with you when you go,’ he said quietly, ‘and also my heart.’

  Alex closed her fingers tightly around the little buds, and was trying to make sense of his words when he bent and kissed her lightly on the lips, before disappearing as quietly as he had come.

  Alex stayed beneath the tree, the tears of frankincense biting into her palm, until the sky was dark enough to see the stars. She tried to find the constellations Azzam had pointed out to her, but their brightness was blurred by the tears that had filled her eyes.

  Eventually she made her way back to her room, where Hafa scolded her for sitting outside when the cool night air was descending. Waving away the young woman’s concern and fending off offers of dinner—food was the last thing her churning stomach would accept—she went into the dressing room and found the jeans and shirt she’d put on one morning that seemed an aeon ago.

  ‘You can go home tomorrow if you wish.’ Wasn’t that what Azzam had said?

  She didn’t wish to but she had to go sometime and the way she was feeling, the sooner she made the break, not only from him but from the children and Samarah, the easier it would be.

  She would go tomorrow…

  She put out the jeans and shirt, telling herself she’d leave in her own clothes, set her socks and sneakers beside them, aware how pathetic they looked on the chair in the sumptuous dressing room. She was contemplating a shower when a knock on the bedroom door sent her back in that direction.

  Clarice!

  ‘Hi!’ she said, breezing in as if they were best of friends. ‘Azzam said you’re leaving soon so I thought I’d say good-bye and offer a suggestion. I was going to fly home to the States to see my folks tomorrow, but things have changed so the plane is free. I know the pilot well. Shall I let him know you’ll go tomorrow? The plane’s all fuelled up and the staff on standby so it’s a shame not to use it.’

  Had Azzam sent her?

  Was this what he’d wanted to say but couldn’t?

  Pain filled Alex’s body but there was no way she was going to show it.

  ‘If that suits Azzam and the rest of the family, tomorrow would suit me too,’ she said, enunciating each word carefully in case a careless syllable might open the floodgates of her pain.

  ‘I’ll arrange it all and send someone to let you know when the car will pick you up,’ Clarice told her, smiling brightly as if she’d just accomplished some difficult mission.

  Hafa returned as Clarice departed, bringing a tray with juice and fruit on it.

  ‘You must eat something,’ she told Alex, and to please her Alex took a piece of melon, but she knew she’d never get it down past the wedge of sadness in her throat.

  ‘I am leaving tomorrow,’ she told Hafa, who cried out and waved her hands, chattering half in her native language and half in English, obviously not happy about it.

  ‘I would like to see Samarah before I go. Would it be best now or in the morning, early?’

  Hafa frowned then shook her head, finally going across to the phone and phoning someone, talking volubly with much hand-waving.

  ‘Samarah’s woman said to come now. They have finished dinner and are having fruit and sweets. You will join them?’

  How could she not? Alex thought. Samarah had become a friend.

  ‘I don’t think I like goodbyes,’ she said to Hafa as the young woman led her to Samarah’s rooms. ‘I’m not used to them.’

  ‘But you will return,’ Hafa said. ‘You will want to see the children, and maybe the village when it is rebuilt.’

  And risk seeing Azzam?

  Risk renewed pain when just maybe some of the wounds she could feel now in her heart were healing over?

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, but so quietly perhaps Hafa didn’t hear her.

  ‘There are visitors,’ Hafa explained as they entered the big room. ‘They came late but will take sweetmeats with us, as will you.’

  Hafa led her to what Alex now realised was a privileged position by Samarah’s side. Alex sank down onto a cushion, and smiled at the older woman, who was looking so much better since she’d returned home. Except her dark eyes were concerned and worry creased her forehead.

  She touched Alex’s hand.

  ‘I am sorry you are leaving,’ she said quietly. ‘Sorry in too many ways to tell you. My son, I think, is making a mistake, but a mother cannot do more than guide her children, she cannot bend them to her will.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Alex said, giving Samarah’s fingers a little squeeze, wondering what Azzam had done to make his mother looked so worried. ‘But he is a good son, you know that,’ she added, hoping to reassure the woman.

  ‘Yes, perhaps too good,’ Samarah said, then to Alex’s surprise she leaned forward and pressed a kiss on Alex’s cheek. ‘We will meet again, my dear,’ she said. ‘The genie in the lamp has promised me this.’

  And reaching into the folds of her tunic, she pulled out the little lamp and handed it to Alex.

  ‘You left it in the colonnade when you played with the children, but I kept it safe for you, as I will keep the children safe. You may be sure of that.’

  Tears were brimming in Alex’s eyes again, and the lump in her throat now made speech impossible. She gave Samarah’s hand one last squeeze, then stood up and moved towards the door, Hafa behind her, chattering about the children, but Alex’s head was too full of sadness to hear the words.

  After six weeks back at work it seemed to Alex as if she’d never been away. One day slid into the next. She worked night shifts at the hospital, day shifts at the clinic, slowly but steadily reducing Rob’s debt.

  She hadn’t heard from the money-lender so she’d assumed Azzam had been as good as his word and transferred a week’s wages into her account to cover the payment that would have been taken out while she was away. One day she’d have to check the figures, so she’d know how much she had in reserve for an emergency, but right now doing anything apart from going to work, doing her job and coming home was beyond her.

  She picked up the little lamp and rattled the tears of frankincense she kept inside it, the only tangible reminders of that magical time. She touched the lamp gently, wanting to rub it, to find a genie, to make a wish…

  But what wish?

  Not money, that was for sure. She’d pay off Rob’s debts in time. No, what she’d wish for was impossible, for how
could Azzam suddenly appear in her tiny bed-sit?

  Yet her hands still held the lamp, feeling its warmth, wondering if wishes might come—

  The sharp knock on the door made her drop the precious object, but she caught it before it hit the floor and she put it down safely on the small table before going to see who was there. Working the hours she did, she rarely socialised, and never had visitors, not ashamed of her tiny home but aware that even two people made it feel crowded.

  Azzam barged through the door then stared around him in amazement, before turning to stare at her in what looked very like disbelief.

  ‘Why are you living like this?’ he demanded, anger she didn’t understand written clearly on his usually inscrutable features.

  Not that she was understanding much of anything. What was he doing there? How had he found her? What did he want?

  Of course she hadn’t rubbed the lamp!

  ‘It’s my home,’ she managed, eventually, but apparently that didn’t satisfy him, for he took a turn, three strides, around the small space and faced her again.

  ‘Your home? What are you? Some kind of stoic? Are you doing penance for some unnameable sin? You have a million dollars in the bank and you live like this? Ah, it’s that you won’t touch my money! That’s it, isn’t it? Do you feel I did you such wrong you won’t accept it from me? Well, let me tell you, misyar marriage or not, you were entitled to a dowry! It is your money, Alex, not a gift but an official dowry such as is required by law.’

  Alex had slumped onto the end of her divan when he’d mentioned the money in the bank, and her mind had stopped working about then. However, he was looming over her, still angry, but looking down now as if he expected some kind of answer.

  There was only one thing she could say.

  ‘What million dollars?’

  Maybe two things.

  ‘What bank?’

  All that did was make him angrier, for this time he whirled faster in his pacing around the room while she battled the silly delight dancing in her heart at the sight of him.

  ‘You don’t know?’ he growled as he came past her again. ‘Do you never check your account?’

  ‘My bank account?’ Alex queried, but faintly, as it was hard to get her brain working on this subject when it was busy trying to stop her heart misbehaving. ‘My pay goes into it and my expenses come out of it by automatic transfer. I usually know, maybe not to the cent, about how much I have in there. A couple of hundred dollars for emergencies—I always try to keep that.’

  Azzam shook his head. He’d come to ask Alex to marry him—to be his wife forever—but first he’d had to practically force the woman at the clinic where she worked to give him Alex’s address, and now he’d walked into a room smaller than his dressing room, to find it was her home. Now she was telling him she tried to keep a couple of hundred dollars in the bank for emergencies. This was poverty…

  ‘You’re a doctor, you earn good money, yet you try to keep a couple of hundred dollars in the bank for emergencies. Where does your money go, Alex? What is this obligation you spoke of that forces you to live like this?’

  Wrong question and big mistake! Fire flashed in her pale eyes and she stood up, tall and proud in front of him, confronting him just as she had in the rose garden so long ago.

  ‘That is none of your business,’ she said, her small, determined chin tilted towards him, eminently kissable lips right there.

  Which was when his anger died away!

  ‘Oh, but it is,’ he whispered, and he leaned forward and brushed the lightest of kisses on those irresistible lips. Then, as she’d neither slapped his face, nor moved away, he put his arms around her and tucked her slight body up against his, holding the precious woman he’d so nearly lost close to his heart.

  ‘You see, I love you,’ he said, because there didn’t seem any other way to say it. ‘Love you so much that to walk in here and see you living like this, I was shocked and hurt and angry. And if you want the truth, because I was so uncertain coming here, so afraid I wouldn’t find you, or worse, find that you didn’t love me, anger took over.’

  She squirmed against him and he realised he was holding her far too tightly. He eased his grasp and she looked up at him again.

  ‘Say that last bit again,’ she suggested, frowning at him now.

  ‘Which last bit?’

  ‘The bit about being afraid you wouldn’t find me, or worse—the bit after “or worse”.’

  He tried to think what he’d said but the words had come out in such a rush they’d disappeared beyond recall.

  ‘I can’t remember.’ He was probably frowning right back at her, but over not remembering, nothing to do with her, with Alex, with the woman he loved.

  ‘You said you were afraid I might not love you,’ she reminded him, speaking sternly and adding, ‘what makes you think you no longer need to be afraid of that?’

  He had to smile.

  ‘Because you’re still in my arms? Because I know that when I kiss you properly in a couple of seconds, you’re going to kiss me back? Because the love I feel for you is so strong it cannot possibly be one-sided? We are one, Alex, you and I, destined, some would say, to be together.’

  Enough of words, his hunger was for her lips.

  He bent and kissed her, properly this time.

  Alex had told herself she wouldn’t respond. But only seconds earlier she’d told herself she’d escape from his hold and that hadn’t worked either. Now she tried, really tried, to hold the emotions welling up inside her in check, but as his lips moved against hers, questing and exploring, her good intentions vanished and she kissed him back.

  Her lips took on a life of their own, demanding and voracious, as all the pent-up love and disappointment, the heartbreak of parting and the joy of seeing him again melded into an inferno of need, transmitting itself to him through something too volcanic and elemental to be called a kiss.

  Yet that was all it was. She realised that as they broke apart, silent, breathing deeply, staring at each other. Alex’s legs gave way and she sank back down onto the divan, looking up at the man who’d reappeared, like a genie, in her life.

  She shook her head but the image didn’t go away so she knew he was real. Actually, the taste of him on her tongue and the slight soreness of her lips told her he was real. He crossed the room, two strides, and took her only chair from beside the table, bringing it across to sit in front of her.

  ‘If I sit on that thing you obviously use as a bed, we won’t talk and we need to talk, Alex, both of us. I will start for I have wronged you in too many ways to count.’

  He reached out and took her hand, holding it, as he had once before, in both of his.

  Touched her palm.

  ‘Did you keep my kiss?’

  She held out her other hand, fingers curled as if holding something.

  ‘It’s safe in here,’ she said, and the smile he gave her, so full of love, flooded her body with happiness.

  ‘That is good,’ he said, serious again, ‘for with that kiss I gave you my heart.’

  She could only stare at him, words beyond her. Did he mean it? Had he loved her back then but not asked her to stay? What—?

  He held up one hand as if he sensed her questions.

  ‘That night, in the colonnade, I came with the intention of asking you to marry me, to stay on in Al Janeen as my wife—a real wife, not just a misyar one. In some ways I was confused and uncertain about that because the time had been so short, yet I knew, deep inside me, I had found a very special love, a love that would not only last forever but would grow and flourish into something beyond imagining.’

  Alex shook her head. Just so had she begun to feel, although she’d had no idea Azzam had shared those feelings. Should she tell him? Was it her turn to talk? This was so unbelievable, sitting here in her tiny bed-sit with a prince telling her of his love. How had Cinderella managed it?

  He touched her lips, telling her he wasn’t finished, and she guessed she wasn
’t going to enjoy whatever was coming next.

  ‘Before I could speak to you, Clarice came to me, she told me she was carrying Bahir’s child, and unless I married her, she would return to America and bring him or her up there. Later, when my mind was less confused, I realised she wanted nothing more than to stay on in Al Janeen, but as the queen she’d always believed she was, not just as Bahir’s widow. If you understand families, you will understand I could not let her take Bahir’s child to America, to grow up not knowing his or her heritage and people; to grow up perhaps with a stepfather with different values and beliefs, who saw no need to instil the right principles in the child.’

  Alex imagined the scenario only too clearly. Hadn’t Clarice told her the plane was booked to fly her, Clarice, home to the U.S., taking Bahir’s unborn child with her?

  ‘She blackmailed you?’

  Azzam shook his head.

  ‘It’s an ugly word, Alex, one I doubt you even understand, but in effect that’s what it was. She…required, I suppose is the word, that I marry her, even wanted it to be immediately, but I could not marry my brother’s widow before the mourning period was over—the very idea was beyond consideration. But I knew I had to save the child—my brother’s child—and so I agreed.’

  ‘And now?’ Alex prompted. ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘She isn’t pregnant, never was,’ Azzam said bitterly. ‘She lied when she first told me, even showed proof with a test stick one of her women friends gave her. Later, when she was still insisting on an immediate marriage, I began to wonder and arranged for her to see an obstetrician and that’s when it all came out. But in deceiving me that way, she made me hurt you. That is what angers me most, that she made me cause you pain.’

  ‘Oh, Azzam,’ Alex said softly, and she slid off the couch to kneel beside him so she could put her arms around his waist and rest her head against him, knowing words alone wouldn’t heal the hurt he was feeling. ‘You did what you had to do. Believe me, I know about family.’

  He didn’t answer for a moment then he tilted her chin so he could look into her face.

  ‘Tell me,’ he commanded, and she found herself obeying, telling him of Rob, of his job in the bank, of his need for ‘stuff’, as she’d always thought of it, and the embezzlement, then his stupidity in thinking he could borrow more to pay it back, her mother’s shame and drawn-out death from cancer, and her—Alex’s—determination to protect her brother’s wife and child from the money-lender and to clear the family name.