by Annie O'Neil
He was letting her under his skin. Too much. Too deep. And far too personal for his liking.
Robyn’s presence here was solely for Amira, he reminded himself, putting meter after meter behind him in quick succession. None of this was personal excepting where it affected his daughter and her well-being. It was the only logical explanation for the surge of emotion he had experienced this morning.
He pushed open the doors to the hospital and looked out onto the busy street.
The early-morning bustle of the day sped past him as people went about their daily lives, blissfully unaware their leader was very busily trying to yank Cupid’s wayward arrows out of his chest.
CHAPTER SIX
“WELL, THIS IS all a bit mysterious.” Robyn tried her best to keep the trepidation out of her voice, but could see she’d been unsuccessful when Idris all but rolled his eyes.
So much for finding her way back into his good books. He’d been aloof ever since he’d left the hospital. Well. If aloof meant not around, then he had been extra aloof.
Not that she could blame him.
This was a business trip, not a touchy-feely sobfest about her bad luck in the procreation department. Her focus was meant to be on Amira and Paddington’s future. Two diligent hours of work at the hospital later, she was back at the palace, wearing her best winning smile, trying to make up for the morning’s unintended gaffe.
She felt a tug on her hand. Amira. “Do you like horses?” she asked.
“Very much.” Robyn nodded emphatically. Riding had actually been one of her favorite escapes a few months after she’d had the hysterectomy. Work had been her first escape. But on the days she found being with the children at the hospital was too much to bear, she’d take herself away for the weekend, hire a horse at a stables and ride and ride and ride until the pain—for a moment at least—had ebbed away.
She looked up at Idris—something she seemed to do automatically now. Whether it was to check for his approval or to see what he was thinking she wasn’t sure; all she knew was that in the space of a few days her mind’s orbit had changed and Idris... She shook the thought away, reminding herself those who wore wax wings were never wise to fly too close to the sun.
“Are we going riding?”
“Something like that,” Idris said with a quick nod.
No smile. No flash of a shared passion. Nothing. Subconscious or not, it told her one thing. She was here to learn and listen, not to get excited or become attached as too often happened when it came to the children who unwittingly pulled her heartstrings. With the way Amira was affecting her, Robyn was beginning to feel like the entire string section of a full-blown orchestra! No matter how hard she tried, remaining scientific and critically indifferent was impossible.
Caring made her a better doctor. But it came with a risk. Caring made the failures, or, more pointedly, the losses...cut too deep. That she was her own worst enemy was one way of looking at things. Hell-bent on destroying what little peace of mind she had would be more accurate.
Robyn squared herself to Idris wishing he’d treat her more like the highly respected surgeon she was than some thorn in his side. Being here, after all, wasn’t her bright idea.
“Any chance you’re going to tell me what it is we will be doing?”
A flash of irritation lit up his eyes. No attempt to try to hide it, either.
His behavior rankled. She felt as though Idris had thrown her into an emotional boxing ring. Round one, attacking her with his words, laying bare her biggest sorrow. Round two, pulling her into his arms, caressing her, holding her until her tears had dried. Now here she was in round three at arm’s length again with little chance at gaining ground.
“We’re going on a little trip. Away from the capital.”
Amira nodded, her little heart-shaped face so earnest as she read her father’s lips all the while weaving her fingers through Robyn’s.
When their hands were as one, Robyn’s heart skipped a beat—a warning sign that she was getting too close. Wanting too much to have a family of her own.
Idris reached across and took Amira’s other hand, compelling the little girl to release her own, take a hop-skip and stand by her father’s side.
Knockout.
“I thought you might like to see some other parts of the country,” Idris began, mercifully oblivious to her internal monologue. “It will be informative for you both to meet the people Amira will one day rule. See why her future, and the success of her operation, are so important.”
Robyn looked down at the little girl, relieved to see a smile of anticipation on her face.
“Are we going to your favorite places?” Robyn signed and spoke.
Amira shook her head no, and gave a little jump of excitement.
“She’s not traveled extensively in the country,” Idris said, drawing Robyn’s attention away from his daughter.
“Why not?”
It was a simple enough question but Idris seemed to need time to formulate the best answer. An overprotective parent? It was hard to blame him. She’d be gun-shy, too, in his shoes.
People began appearing out of doorways, arms full of luggage and packages.
“What’s all this?”
“Supplies, mostly. Not all of it will be in the vehicle we take, but there will be a few follow-up trucks with us. I never like to go into the...less fortunate parts of Da’har without bearing gifts.”
“I thought gift giving was normally to someone in your position, not the other way around,” Robyn quipped lightly.
“No.” Idris’s lips tightened, his gaze darkening even further. “That’s not the case in Da’har.”
With a quick move of his eyes, she watched as he reminded himself his daughter was present. The man who ruled the land, the one setting an example for his daughter, took over the impatient, irritable one she seemed so easily to elicit.
“My family, just the two of us now—” he nodded to his daughter “—have benefited enormously from the natural resources of this kingdom. I make no show of hiding either my gratitude or my good fortune in being born into the ruling family of Da’har. It is inevitable that society—no matter the largesse of its leader—will suffer at least some inequalities.”
Robin flushed under the intensity of his gaze as he spoke.
“There will always be people richer than others. Just as there will always be those who seem happier, more intelligent or naturally gifted with incomparable beauty.”
He paused for a moment, eyes narrowing as they raked the length of her. If he was trying to tell her she was beautiful, he was going to have to work on the delivery. If he was trying to tell her otherwise... Her breath caught in her throat.
Don’t go there, Robyn.
“We try to make the imbalance of life’s offerings less obvious. Bringing gifts is our way of doing this. I thought we would also stop by the hospital. The storerooms will be made available to you if you’d like to collect some things and hold a small clinic for one or two of the tribal communities we will be visiting.”
“Oh, I’d love that!” Robyn clasped her hands together, trying her best to push the “examination” out of her mind.
She bit down on her lower lip and watched as he delivered a few instructions to an approaching staff member. A part of her ached for him, was forgiving of his mood swings. He was a man doing his very best to find his place in the world after only just surviving the initial, suffocating waves of grief he must’ve experienced when he lost his wife. A man trying as best he could to raise his daughter.
A flurry of commotion took over as Amira’s nanny appeared and took her away to change. Robyn’s newly purchased clothes had disappeared from her room and were being loaded into a car somewhere inside the vast compound.
“Ten minutes. The car will be at the front of
the house. Don’t be late,” Idris instructed as he turned away to leave.
She nodded her assent, not that he was looking at her to notice, then looked around the extraordinary central courtyard of the house with fresh eyes. The fountains, the beautiful tiles, the comfort of it all...was this who Idris really was? Had inviting her here been his way of showing Robyn his gentler side?
She sat on the edge of the fountain, drawing her fingers across the surface of the pool, flowered lily pads moving in the tiny current she’d created. She wondered, for a moment, if this was what she’d done to Idris’s life. Created a disturbance. Or—her lips turned up into a grin as she whirled her finger around in a circle—stirred things up for the better.
She looked up from the aqua pool, eyes moving from balcony to balustrade soaking in the beauty, trying to remind herself what she knew about Da’har.
Unlike similar kingdoms comprised of several tribes, Da’har had never experienced civil unrest. The rule—while held by one family—was far more progressive than in many of its neighboring countries. The city, what little she’d seen of it, sang of a place where tradition and progress met on an even footing. The same things were embodied, here in Idris’s home. History and a look toward the future. A place that exemplified all that was good that had come from Da’har’s rich, cultural past.
Such a contrast to the starkly modern palace he had been living in when he had been married. Perhaps, when there had been life and love in it, its sharp angles and cool facade had taken on a different hue.
She ran her fingers through the water again.
Idris’s heart was in the past. It seemed to be the place where his decision making came from. That painful, hollowed-out place where light was a scourge to the grief he’d so clearly settled into.
How, she wondered, would his daughter be able to duck out from under his protective wing with an eye to the future?
A sigh whooshed out of her chest. The pair of them had so much responsibility. And, weighted with grief as Idris’s story forever would be, could make seeing a new future—a different future—next to impossible.
* * *
“I feel like a chauffeur with the pair of you sitting back there!”
“We’re very busy drawing everything we see,” Robyn playfully retorted. “And hadn’t you better keep your eyes on the road? Precious cargo and all that!” She was feeling strangely protective of the bond she and Amira were sharing—just a simple exchange of words, but the teaching of signs and sometimes sketches on the large notepad they had balanced on their laps was letting Robyn into Amira’s world. Showing her just how much the somber little girl understood and could communicate.
“I thought I’d show you things, items of interest, along the way,” Idris grumbled. “But I can’t get a word in edgewise with the two of you going on about camels and birds and who knows what else.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous!” Robyn replied absently, eyes still on the drawing of a...was that a solar panel next to the waves?
“I am not jealous.”
Robyn sat upright and looked into the rearview mirror, her eyes just missing Idris’s irritable glance. When his gaze returned to the mirror and meshed with her own, she saw a hit of relief. As if a mutual need for the other was confirmed within that brief moment. A need she hadn’t yet acknowledged.
A heat grew in her belly and the atmosphere shifted from playful to taut as Amira, thankfully, remained deeply engrossed in her drawing.
Idris returned his focus to the road, but she could see from the stiffening of his shoulders he had felt it, too. The connection.
“It is tricky,” Robyn began tentatively, “with Amira needing to read lips. I don’t want her to feel left out.” Idris’s eyes remained focused on the road. He was leading a relatively impressive group of vehicles through the countryside. When he’d said Robyn could “raid the store cupboard” at the hospital she hadn’t expected a warehouse.
“Of course,” Idris replied stiffly as if that had been the point he’d been trying to make all along. “She is the reason you’re here.”
“Although—” a surge of chance-taking overtook her “—most children her age aren’t all that interested in what adults yammer on about.”
“Most children her age don’t have a country to be responsible for.”
“True.” Robyn leaned forward, resting her arm on the back of the empty passenger seat. “If you’re fishing for compliments about your daughter, I can tell you for free, she’s exemplary.”
“And the rest of your advice?” Idris’s lips twitched with something. Pride? Humor? Or another streak of irritability she seemed to have a knack for tapping? “Does that come with a price tag?”
Robyn laughed. Whether he was annoyed or not she lived in a far different world to Idris and his bottomless coin purse. “If it’s medical advice you’re after, and I didn’t need to pay my rent or eat, I would work at Paddington’s for free. Especially if it meant keeping the doors open longer.”
“Sounds like you mean it.”
“I do! Being head of the surgical ward is—well, I don’t so much like the public side of things, but helping the children, working with the children... It really is my passion.”
“Even though—”
“Yes,” she answered quickly. “It’s hard sometimes, I admit, but...”
“And how about this move to the outskirts of London—”
“To Riverside Hospital?” It was hard to keep the derisive tone out of her words, but she was grateful for the change of conversation topic. Surprised, in fact, he’d brought it up at all.
“Yes.” Idris nodded, eyes occasionally meeting hers in the rearview mirror as the city sights began drifting away and the road curved into an ever-increasing expanse of desert. “What would be so bad about moving there?”
“Everything!”
“Won’t it have new facilities, new equipment?”
“It would be a soulless replication of what we have now. A business park of a hospital.” Just like that palace of yours—sitting empty in the middle of such a thriving city.
“And the reason for the move?”
“The board wants to sell the site. It would,” she acquiesced with a sigh, “bring a lot more money to the hospital—but a lot of added expense for all of the patients and their families with the travel, the hotels.” She pulled herself up short. “I feel like I’m giving a speech and that’s not really my turf.”
“No? It was sounding quite convincing to me.”
This time she was certain he was smiling.
“I think speech making is more likely your terrain.”
“When necessary,” he conceded. “But this—” He drew his hand along the view spreading out before them as they crested a steep hill. “This is the terrain that sings to me.”
Robyn was speechless. The capital city was on the sea and very beautiful, but the vast peninsula they were overlooking now was absolutely breathtaking. A huge sprawl of orchards and marshland and the most extraordinary coastline was spilling out beneath their hillside vantage point.
“No wonder...”
“No wonder what?” Idris asked.
“You’re so passionate about Da’har. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
* * *
“No more so than—” Idris stopped himself short, forcing himself to tear his gaze away from Robyn for fear of betraying what he really wanted to say. That she was beautiful. Fiercely intelligent. Passionate about children when others in her shoes would have walked away.
Being with her brought life back to parts of him he’d long ago consigned to the past.
“No more dedicated than you are to Paddington’s,” he said instead.
“Birds of a feather, us two.”
From Robyn’s tight reply, he w
ished he’d just said what he’d meant to.
No more beautiful than you are.
Pretending he was unaffected by her beauty was increasingly difficult. He was beginning to wish he had selected one of the potbellied, middle-aged male surgeons who’d all but kowtowed to him for the honor of doing Amira’s surgery. But Robyn?
She didn’t kowtow. She didn’t beg.
First impressions? A scatterbrained wood nymph. The more he grew to know her, the more he appreciated how right he had been to go with his gut. Much like him, she was a woman who didn’t bother with charades. She was the best and didn’t need to try to impress. It wasn’t arrogance. It was simply the way it was. Her commitment, lauded skill and ability to help his daughter weren’t the only factors at play.
He was moved by Robyn. She reached places in his heart he had slammed shut for good, and the thought of opening those doors, of letting himself love again? It was easier to imagine Amira being able to hear than envisioning himself happy and in love.
“What are those?” He followed the line Robyn’s finger drew, catching glimpses through the side mirror of his little girl’s face pressed up against the window, her eyes actively absorbing everything she saw. This was a first for her and he felt a twinge of remorse they hadn’t done this earlier. That he’d opted to drive instead of sit alongside her and tell her his childhood tales of exploring the nooks and crannies of the fertile valley below them.
“It’s a solar farm. For the orchards and farms,” he explained.
“The orchards? I would’ve thought there was more than enough sun to ripen the crops.”
“You’re right on one count. We have more than enough sun, but not enough water. What you can’t see, beyond the mountain range at the far end of the valley, is a desalination plant. We built it out of sight of the handful of villages that populate this valley as it is less than complementary to the rural setting. The electricity made helps pump the water from underground tunnels here into marshlands and into reservoirs for the orange groves and pomegranate orchards.”
