She returned to his bedside with a cup of water. She took a sip first, then handed it to him and he drank in turn, his eyes on hers. The cup of agreement and peace: a traditional sign of mutual respect. A tradition he’d once given and accepted with so little thought—but now, looking in those brave, sad eyes, he felt the full honour of her offer.
It told him far more about this woman than anything that had come from her mouth. She was from Abbas al-Din, no matter what language she spoke.
Her eyes smiled, but her hand didn’t touch his as she gave him the cup. ‘Thank you.’
He noted she didn’t use his name; she still kept her distance. In Hana’s eyes, obviously trust was something earned, not given. He wondered how high the cost had been for misplaced trust in the past. Why did a woman with such pain beneath her smile risk her life and virtue in a place where nobody would live, if they had a choice?
‘I’m afraid you can’t leave yet. They know the supplies went somewhere, and you’re the only stranger in the district,’ she said as he filled his parched throat with cool water. ‘Sh’ellah will have placed a dozen men on every way out of the village. They’ve been here several times in past months, collecting more than half our millet and corn harvest to feed his soldiers,’ she said, bitterness threading through her voice. ‘With a stranger in the village, they’ll be watching all of us for weeks to come.’ She sounded strained as she added, ‘So I’m glad of your promise, since we will have to share my hut as husband and wife. There’s only one bed here.’
He choked on the final gulp of liquid. Coughing, he turned his gaze to her. Strange that, with a throbbing headache and eyes stinging, he knew where she was at all times. His ears strained for the swish of her burq’a. She made a sound he’d heard all his life so alluring, so incredibly feminine. She seemed to infuse her every movement with life, light and beauty.
She made a sound of distress as she went on, ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to bring in a spare bed in case Sh’ellah’s men raid during the night, or lead a sneak attack. We have to sleep in one bed or risk suspicion—and out here suspicion is explained with an assault rifle.’
Alim stared at her back, so unyielding, refusing to face him. He thought of every day of his adult life spent avoiding this kind of intimacy, using the death of his young wife ten years before—the wife he’d liked but had never loved—as his excuse not to fulfil his duty and remarry. He thought of his adopted career of car racing, travelling from place to place, never settling down—holding himself off from living. Even now, wasn’t he in hiding?
And he smiled; he grinned, and then burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Hana turned on him at the first sound of the chuckle bursting from his lips. Her veil fell from her lower face, showing lush dusky lips pursed with indignation. Her eyes flashed; even in the midst of angry demand, her voice was like the music of a waterfall. Her face, now revealed for a moment in all its glory, was harmony to its symphony.
And he was a complete idiot to think of her that way.
But it was the first time he’d truly laughed in three years, and he found that once he started again, he couldn’t stop. ‘It’s—it’s so absurd,’ he gasped between fresh gusts of mirth.
Hana straightened her shoulders and looked him right in the eyes for the first time—and hers were contemptuous. Every feature of that lovely face showed disdain. ‘Maybe it’s ridiculous to you, but if it saves the lives of a hundred people—and I presume you care about their lives, since you risked your life to come here with food and medicines for them—I’ll put up with the absurdity. The question is, will you?’
Chapter Two
‘WHAT’S the unusual note in your accent?’ the sheikh asked her, his tone abrupt at the subject change, but his dark green eyes were curious. Assessing her beyond the questions his simple words spoke. ‘You haven’t lived in the emirates all your life.’
Hana felt as if he were dissecting her without a scalpel. So he hadn’t been fooled by her use of Maghreb, nor put off by her unaccustomed abruptness.
Not in the six months she’d been here in the village had simple conversation been fraught with such danger. If he knew the truth about his so-called saviour, he could take her freedom away with a snap of his fingers.
Her heart beat faster at the thought of saying anything—but thousands of Arabic girls grew up in Australia. Not so many people from Abbas al-Din had lived in Perth, of course, but enough that she wouldn’t be easily traced.
Then she laughed at herself. What a ridiculous thought—as if Alim El-Kanar would care enough to trace her past! This wasn’t the kind of information she needed to hide; it wasn’t the reason she’d been shunned by her people. ‘I was born in the emirates, but raised in Australia from the age of seven,’ she answered, realising that a few minutes had passed while she’d been lost in thought—and that he’d allowed her to think without interruption.
‘Ah.’ He relaxed back on his pillows; she’d barely noticed his tension until then. ‘I couldn’t place the twang. Are you fluent in English?’ he asked, changing languages without a break in speaking.
She nodded, answering in English. ‘I lived there from the ages of seven to twenty-one, and went to state-run English schools.’
He grinned. ‘You sound totally Aussie now you’re speaking English.’
She laughed. ‘I guess that’s how I consider myself, mostly. My dad—’ she’d practised so long, she could say ‘dad’ without choking up any more ‘—was offered an opportunity in the mining industry. He was a miner, but saved enough to go to university, and became an engineer. So he was rather unique in that he knew both sides…’ And that was way too much information! She clamped her lips shut.
‘I can see why any big mining corporation would want him,’ he said, sounding thoughtful.
She’d started this, she had to finish or the sheikh would remember the conversation long after he was gone. She forced a smile through the lump in her throat, ‘Yes, the money he was offered was so large he felt it would be irresponsible to the family to not take it. When we’d been there a little while, he and Mum felt it would be best for us if we retained our culture, but understood and respected the one we lived in. We lived not far from other Arabic families—but while we attended Islamic lessons, we also attended local schools.’ And she’d just said more words together about herself than she had in years. She closed her mouth.
After a slow, thoughtful pause, the sheikh—she couldn’t help but think of him as that—said, ‘So if your father was in the mining industry, you lived in the outback? Kalgoorlie or Tom Price, or maybe the Kimberley Ranges?’
Her pulse pounded in her throat until her breath laboured. ‘No, we didn’t, but he did. We—my mother, my sisters and brother and I—lived in a suburb of Perth, and Dad lived in Kalgoorlie and came home Fridays. He wanted us to live close to…amenities.’
The sheikh nodded. She saw it in his eyes: he’d noticed the omission of the word mosque.
Even thinking the word was painful. She couldn’t enter a mosque without people wanting to know who she was and where she was from; and she couldn’t lie. Not in a holy place.
So she didn’t go any more.
‘Did you always wear the burq’a?’ he asked, with a gentle politeness that told her he respected her secrets, her right to not answer.
‘No. I’m from a moderate Sunni family. I wear it for protection.’ She shrugged. ‘Sh’ellah’s very sweet to us—most of the time. But he could turn without warning.’
He’s already sent men to ask if I have a man, or whether they can see whether I am young and pretty enough for his tastes.
She kept the shudder inside. Sh’ellah might be sixty-two, but he was a man of strong passions. Though he kept two wives, he had concubines in droves—and those were the women who pleased him. The others he discarded…and none of them ever came home.
Since she’d had the first warning of Sh’ellah’s tastes, she’d kept the burq’a on as a knight’s
armour, wore her fake wedding ring like a talisman. She’d claimed her husband was travelling, and he’d soon be on his way here.
Her time here was over. Now she’d claimed the sheikh as her husband, Sh’ellah would expect her to leave with the sheikh when he went. Otherwise she’d become fair game. She had two backpacks packed and ready, hidden in the dirt beneath her hut, ready to disappear at a moment’s notice, to head by foot to the nearest refugee camp if need be. It was two hundred and sixty kilometres away, but she knew how to find edible plants filled with juice, and collect dew from upturned leaves. With two or three canteens of water, some purification tablets, three dozen long-hidden energy bars and a compass, she could travel at night and make it in fourteen days.
She’d been used for a man’s purposes once. She’d rather die than be used that way again.
The sheikh nodded, as if he understood what she’d left unsaid. Maybe he did, if he’d been in the Sahel long enough.
‘Were you brought up in the emirates?’ She turned to the pit fire as she asked, making an infusion of her precious stores of willow bark for his fever in a tiny hanging pot. If people were seen to be carrying things into this hut, Sh’ellah’s men would be searching here in minutes. She’d give them no excuse to pay attention to her.
She didn’t have to wonder if he noticed she’d lapsed into their native language; she saw the flickering of those dark eyes, and knew he was sizing her up like one of his chemical equations. He took long moments to answer. ‘Yes.’
That was it. Flat and unemotional-sounding, a mirror-world of unhealed pain behind the thin wall of glass, ready to shatter at a touch. She spooned some of her infusion into a cracked plastic mug. ‘I’m sorry I have no honey to sweeten this, but it will lessen your pain.’
She saw the surprise come and go in his face. He wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to volunteer why she minded her own business; but she knew he’d think about it. Why she asked nothing more, demanded no answers in return for hers. ‘Drink it all.’
He nodded, and took the cup from her. His fingers brushed hers, and she felt a tiny shiver run through her. ‘You don’t call me by my name.’
She drew a breath to conquer the tiny tremors in her hands. What was wrong with her? ‘You’re a stranger, older than me, and risked a lot to help our village. I was taught respect.’
‘I’m barely ten years your senior. I gave you my name,’ he said, and drained the cup. He held it back out to her with a face devoid of expression, but she sensed the challenge within. The dominant male used to winning with open weapons…and beneath lurked a hint of irritation. He didn’t like her calling him older. She hid the smile.
‘You gave your name, but it’s my choice to use it or not.’ She took the cup back, neither seeking nor avoiding the touch. Just as she neither sought nor avoided his eyes. It was a trick her mother had taught her. Everything you give to a man he can refuse to return, Hana. So give as little as possible, even a glance, until you are certain what kind of man you face.
It had been good advice—until she’d met Mukhtar.
‘You don’t like my name, Sahar Thurayya?’
She washed the cup and returned it to its hook on the wall. Since she had no bench or cupboard, all things were either stacked on a box or hung on walls. ‘I’m waiting to see if you live up to it.’ She didn’t comment on his poetic name for her, but a faint thrill ran through her every time she heard it. Just as she caught her breath when he smiled with his eyes, or laughed. And when he touched her…She closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer. Four hours in this man’s company, three of them when he’d been unconscious, and she was already in danger.
‘So I must live up to my name?’ Again she heard that rich chuckle in his voice. Without even turning around, she could see his face in her mind’s eye, beautiful even in its damaged state, alight with the mirth that made him look as he had four years ago, and she knew she was standing in emotional quicksand. ‘My brother always said I was misnamed.’
Alim: wise, learned.
She didn’t ask in what ways he was unwise. He’d risked his life over and over for the thrill of racing and winning…
‘It seems we were both misnamed,’ he added, the laughter in his tone asking her to see the joke, as he had.
Hana: happiness.
I used to live up to my name, she thought wistfully. When I was engaged to Latif, about to become his wife, then I was a happy woman.
Then Latif’s younger brother Mukhtar came into her life—and Latif showed her what her dreams of love and happiness were worth.
‘I need to check on my other patients,’ she said quietly. Checking to be certain her veil fully covered her, she walked with an unhurried step towards the medical tent—it hurt to rush since she had twisted her knee climbing into his truck—feeling his gaze follow her for as long as she was in sight.
Alim watched the doorway with views to the medical hut long after he could no longer see her. He still watched while the setting sun flooded the open door, long after his eyes hurt with the brightness and his head began knocking with the pain that would soon upgrade as the foul stuff she’d given him wore off.
She didn’t draw attention to herself in any way—quite the opposite, including the burq’a the colour of sand, obviously handmade. She moved as little as possible, said nothing of consequence. She certainly wasn’t trying to seem mysterious. Yet he sensed the emotion beneath each carefully chosen word; he saw the pain he’d caused her by saying her name didn’t suit her.
She’d been a happy woman once—that much was obvious. Something had happened to turn her into a woman who no longer saw happiness in her life or future.
There was a vivid life inside her, yet she lived in dangerous isolation in an arid war zone, in a hut with no amenities, far from family and friends. She was like a sparkling fountain stoppered without reason, a dawn star sucked down into a black hole.
He wanted to know why.
What would she look like if she truly smiled or laughed? To see her hair loose, wearing whatever she had on beneath the soft-swishing burq’a…
The last rays of the setting sun painted the ochre sand a violent scarlet. He blinked—and then it was blocked as her silhouetted form filled the doorway. She took on its hues, softened and irradiated them until she looked ethereal, celestial, a timeless beauty from a thousand Arabian nights, trapped in a labyrinth, needing a prince to save her.
‘Do you need more pain relief yet?’ A prosaic enough question, but in her voice, gentle and musical, it turned their native language into harps and waterfalls.
Alim blinked again. Stupid, stupid! He’d obviously knocked the part of his brain that created poetry or something. He’d never thought of any woman this way before, and he knew next to nothing about this one. Perhaps that was the fascination: she didn’t rush into telling him about herself, didn’t try to impress or please him. He was no Aladdin. If she needed a prince, he wasn’t one any more, and never would be again. Then he would become a thief: of his brother’s rightful position, stolen by a death he’d caused.
And if he kept thinking about it, he’d explode. Time to do what she was doing: make his thoughts as well as their conversation ordinary. ‘Yes, please, Hana.’
The shock of sudden pain hit his eyes when she left the doorway and the west-facing door took back the mystical shades of sunset, vicious to his head. It felt like a punishment for turning his saviour into an angel.
He’d obviously been alone too long—but after three years he still wasn’t ready to show any woman his body. If he couldn’t even look at himself without revulsion, he couldn’t expect anyone else to manage it, let alone find him remotely attractive. Yet there was something about Hana that pulled at him, tugging at his soul—her beautiful eyes, the haunted, hunted look in them…
Hana’s unveiled face suddenly filled his vision, and he blinked a third time, feeling blinded, not by the sun, but by her. Catching his breath seemed too hard; speech, impossible.
Though her words were plain, it felt as if she was doing that thing again, saying too much and not enough. Talking about codeine to hide what she was really feeling.
Had he given himself away, shown that, despite his best attempt at will power, he couldn’t stop thinking of her? The internal war raging in him, desire, fascination and self-hate, was so strong it was no wonder she saw it.
Then he realised something. He wasn’t itching. He hadn’t had the stress-trigger since he’d woken. And the scent of lavender and something else rose gently from his body. She’d rubbed something into his skin while he slept. She’d not only seen the patchwork mess that was his scars, but treated them.
The permanent reminder that he’d killed his brother, his best friend…
Grimly he swallowed the foul brew she handed him, wishing he could ask for something to knock him out again. He handed it back with no attempt to touch her. She didn’t want him, and touching her threatened to turn swirling winds of attraction into gale-force winds of unleashed desire that could make him start wanting things he didn’t deserve.
‘Thanks,’ he said briefly, keeping his words and thoughts in prosaic English. Arabic had too many musical cadences, too much poetry for him to hear her speak it, see her lovely form and not be moved to his soul. But she couldn’t possibly feel the same after seeing him. He revolted himself, and for more reasons than the physical.
‘I’m fine if you need to see to your other patients. I’ll sleep now.’ He turned from her.
‘You should eat first. You don’t want to wake up hungry at midnight.’
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 124
