He chuckled. ‘I think I lost my olfactories with the cigarette-mud infusion.’ As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, he kissed her forehead. ‘And I must have lost my taste buds to those energy bars. I can’t even taste the mud on your skin, just oats and raisins.’
She was asleep; she had to be. She was on the hot sands dreaming of her perfect man in a strange oasis. Alim couldn’t be real, this incredible man who seemed to need her.
She’d always been a late bloomer. She’d waited until she was twenty-five to dream of her teen idol, The Racing Sheikh, and make him hers. Any moment now she’d wake up in Shellah-Akbar, with Malika shaking her awake, and the rounds of the day would face her, caring for the babies and children, cooking the foods their little stomachs could handle, treating the men and women whose hunger made their teeth weak…
Not ready to let go of her dream, she moaned and lifted her face to his. ‘Alim…’
The lovely ache sitting low in her belly intensified when he whispered her name and lowered his mouth, hovering just above hers—
‘Hana, we have to go now,’ he murmured, his breath brushing her mouth like a caress.
Lost in desire and joy and hope, she took a few moments for his words to sink in. ‘What?’
Then she noticed the light at the edge of the bush.
‘There’s a light over there. I think someone’s left their Jeep unattended. We have one shot to get it.’ He put her shoes on fast, shoving the socks in her pocket; then he helped her to her feet, hands beneath her armpits, holding her up. ‘You okay?’
Feeling ashamed by her stupidity—how ridiculous was it to want him to kiss her and he was thinking of their welfare?—she nodded, and in silence bent to shoulder her backpack while he used a branch to eradicate all traces of their presence here.
She set off after him as fast and quiet as possible. He indicated for her to follow his steps. She saw the broken branches, the crackling-dry leaves on the path, and put her feet where his had been every time.
Alim was going faster, circling the edge of the copse away from the waterhole and back to where the light had been. Surrounded by enemies, night bordering on daylight, there was only one chance for them to get out of here: the biggest risk of all.
Chapter Six
ALIM didn’t have to tell Hana what to do. She followed him without argument when he took over for the sake of their safety, as she’d jokingly said she would.
A woman who could lead when necessary, yet handed over the reins without question when she knew someone had greater knowledge? Hana was a rare and strong woman…she was everything that his wife Elira had never been, despite Elira’s high birth.
Hana was everything he didn’t deserve—the happiness, the joy in living he’d taken from Fadi with a stupid dare of a bachelor party…
Don’t blame yourself, had been Fadi’s last whisper. But how could he not?
He stopped when they came to the thin end of the protecting little maze of bush. Hana, watching his every step, stopped behind him. ‘What’s the plan?’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Do we check for keys, or hot-wire it?’
‘Both if necessary,’ he whispered back, his gaze scanning the area. He scented danger like the changing scent of the wind.
‘If it’s me you’re worried about, don’t. I know how to run to the target. I was the naughty child in the family, and learned to bolt to the broken paling in the back fence to escape when my mother came at me with the wooden spoon.’
He turned his face, smiling at her. ‘Somehow I can imagine that.’
She grinned, the mercurial imp that lifted his spirits smiling from her eyes, and he rejoiced. ‘Which part? That I’m fast?’
‘No, that you were the family rebel,’ he retorted.
‘Why would you think that about me? I’ve been so obedient to your every command.’
‘Right,’ he snorted softly. ‘Stop making me laugh when we’re in danger.’
‘Let us joke and laugh, for this morning we could die,’ she misquoted, her eyes twinkling like the morning star he called her.
It made him ache to kiss her—but that was his constant companion, had been from the moment he’d first seen her eyes. Whether that craving was friend or enemy he no longer cared. His feelings for Hana grew hour by hour, minute by minute, and he knew she desired him…
What? You find one woman who wants you, and it makes you forget everything you aren’t?
She desired him after seeing his deformed body. It was a miracle in itself; he could barely get his mind around it. But when she looked at him like that, every other thought, even the self-hate, flew out of his mind, replaced only with the fast-beating heart, the aching body, the hope…
Can it, you fool; you need to save Hana. Having scanned the area as much as possible, he put out his hand. ‘Give me your backpack.’
She handed it over, and drew deep breaths. ‘Ready.’
There was no way to protect her now. He threw up a prayer for her—Allah’s will be done with him, he didn’t matter—and muttered, ‘Keep as low as you can and zigzag.’
She nodded. ‘On your count.’
On three he took off at a dead run for the Jeep, jumping from side to side in case of enemy fire. Let it be open let it be open…
He felt Hana beside him all the way as if she were his shadow, running and jumping left, right, left, right. She split from him at the Jeep’s front, heading for the passenger side, accepting his driving skills could save their lives.
The driver’s door was locked, and he cursed helplessly—but Hana yanked her side open and dived in, unlocking his door. ‘No keys, can you hot-wire it?’
‘I can try,’ he muttered, wishing his training included less princely duties and more modern-day Aladdin techniques. ‘Leave the doors open.’
Within two minutes the wires he was crossing had created no spark. He growled in frustration as he returned each wire to its place. ‘I can’t do any more. The wires I’ve taken out might not be in correctly. I can’t risk the car not starting or they’ll come looking for the cause.’
‘Wait.’ Hana was feeling inside the glove compartment, and beneath the console. ‘Look for a spare key. In these dangerous times they’d need to keep one hidden.’
It was precious moments they didn’t have, but there was no alternative. ‘You look inside, I’ll do the outside.’ At least she’d be less exposed in there. He dived back out of the car, crawling beneath the engine, searching frantically.
A few minutes later, he wanted to shout in triumph; from the passenger tyre shield he held aloft a key that had been taped to its inside.
He threw himself back into the driver’s seat. ‘Get your seat belt on.’ He gunned the engine, put it in the lowest gear and took off, avoiding the mine-laden waterhole region and the bushy scrub, and heading for the sand hills.
Mere seconds passed before they heard shots. The third one blew out the rear window, sending shards of glass through the cabin. ‘Get down, Hana,’ he barked, keeping the gear low and upping the accelerator until the engine whined with the need to gear up. He’d done sand rallies before; this was the only way to manoeuvre the Jeep while going as fast as possible.
This was a chase that only his skill with driving, theirs with bullets, and the depth of the fuel tanks would determine.
He revved the Jeep to breaking point. It screamed in protest, but began the steep climb up the hill. ‘Find some ballast if you can,’ he shouted, ‘any weight to put in the back and keep balance.’
Hana pulled off her belt and crawled over to the back as another shot hit the back door. She didn’t scream, but said tersely, ‘I can stay back there for a few—’
‘No.’ The single word contained all the authority he’d held in his life. ‘Find something that won’t blow up if it’s shot.’ Or die, he thought but didn’t say.
‘There are two twenty litre water containers!’ Slowly, groaning with the exertion, she hefted one of them over the back. ‘We can keep one bac
k for drinking in case we make it.’
‘In case? Are you impugning my driving skills, or maligning the water I found?’ He tried to sound light, but he was too busy trying to get up the hill, searching for signs of harder terrain.
‘Just keep driving,’ she muttered. ‘These taps aren’t so easy to open.’ She grabbed their backpacks. ‘I’ll refill the canteens with fresh water.’
She was right. They needed all the advantages they could get in this race of life and death.
‘There are guns in the back,’ she cried, sounding exultant.
‘Can you shoot?’ he shouted as he jerked the wheel left, avoiding more shots from the two Jeeps chasing them, two hundred metres behind, not yet on the hill. Somehow he doubted she could shoot. Saving life was Hana’s thing.
‘No,’ she admitted, ‘but I can try. If nothing else it might scare them off.’
‘It might also blow a hole in our roof,’ he yelled, hating to say it. ‘Any change in balance forces me to adjust my driving to that, and we don’t have time.’
‘Okay.’ She crawled back into the front seat, falling back to the middle section with a shocked cry as the jeep jerked with the forced low gear.
‘Sorry,’ he yelled over the whining engine.
‘It’s—okay.’ The words were strained—too strained to be shock from the fall.
‘You’re injured.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Dislocated shoulder,’ she said in a breathless voice. ‘I can’t climb back over.’
He cursed his stupidity. Fool, he’d been relying so much on her intelligence and resourcefulness over the past days he’d forgotten she wouldn’t know how to compensate for his sudden driving changes. ‘Stay on the floor. Lay with your injured shoulder upward.’
‘All right.’ A few moments later she said, in a voice laced with pain, ‘Tell me when you need to jerk the car again.’
Not even a complaint when she must be in agony—that was his brave, beautiful dawn star. ‘Now,’ he yelled, and counted to three in his head before shifting the wheel left.
He couldn’t hear her over the straining engine, but the adjustments she had to make as the Jeep moved must be making her light-headed. ‘You okay?’
‘Yup.’ She didn’t say more, which told him how hard it was for her to speak.
‘I can’t help you yet, Hana. Can you hang in there until we lose these clowns?’
‘Y-yup. I’m good.’ She could barely talk now, but she tried—and pride filled him. She was incredible, a woman in a thousand, a queen in a miner’s daughter’s skin.
More bullets hit the Jeep, but because he was driving up and in a zigzag fashion, he’d made it close to impossible to hit the tyres or fuel tank. He called to her before every adjustment he made, and counted to three each time. She was so quiet she might have passed out with the pain. Concern for her lifted his guilt and urgency to stop to higher levels.
Half a tank of fuel left. Even using precious stores to avoid the enemy and outrun them, he’d have enough fuel to reach his truck, if it was where Abdel had said it was, thirty kilometres northwest of their current position. If the truck was untouched still he had the satellite phone, and could call the pilot who came in three times a week from Nairobi. The four pilots on call had to answer the call to any aid worker in trouble. He could meet them while they were still far from the refugee camp—and he could save Hana.
Up one hill, down another, he shifted gears with the terrain, jerking the Jeep from side to side and over again, finding the strongest terrain for faster driving. This was the race of his life—to save his dawn star.
Hana hadn’t let him down once, in all they’d been through. He wouldn’t let her down now.
Hana came to with a cry of anguish, as pain more intense than any she’d ever known ripped through her entire body. She struggled to sit up, but something held her down.
‘Lie still, Sahar Thurayya. I only have one pull to go—’ Alim’s hand on her left shoulder pinned her to the ground outside the Jeep, while the other had her injured arm, just below the armpit. By the position of the sun, it was early afternoon. ‘Take a deep breath and try to relax. One, two—’
And he pulled her arm before he said three, before she could tense up in instinctive response to expected pain. She screamed as the click inside her body put tendons, bone and muscle back in their respective places; white cells poured into the injured parts to heal, causing swelling. She fell back to the ground, dragging in jerky breaths until the worst of the agony subsided, and the spinning in her head slowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ he said in a neutral tone, wrapping the last of their rags around her body, tying above the shoulder in a makeshift sling. ‘I’m sorry my driving put you in this pain, and I couldn’t reset your arm before you woke up.’
‘How long was I out of it?’ she panted, feeling the world shifting beneath her again.
He held out two ibuprofen tablets, and put them in her mouth when she opened it. Then he gently lifted her in his arms and gave her water to swallow them. ‘Almost two hours. I wish it had been in a bed.’ He touched her face. ‘You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever known.’
The gentlest touch, made in compassion, and the earth shifted beneath her again. In her body’s pain she was too weak to fight the desire, the longing.
‘Alim…’ The tiny moan was filled with the longing she couldn’t hide, longing so intense it outstripped even her pain.
He bent his face to hers, and she caught her breath. His lips brushed hers, soft, too soft. ‘Soon,’ he whispered, and she ached with the intimacy of his voice, the desire he didn’t bother to hide, combined with the tenderness that broke her defences, already stretched as thin as a balloon. ‘When you’re safe, my dawn star, we’ll have time to see where our hearts lead us. For now, it’s my turn to take the lead. Trust me, Hana. I swear I’ll save you.’
As he lifted her into his arms and laid her tenderly across the lowered passenger seat, she said softly, ‘You’ve already saved me.’
‘They’re not far behind,’ he replied in grim purpose. ‘I had to stop, or your arm could have been permanently injured.’ He pulled the seat belt on for her. ‘I’ve rigged my jacket against the roof handle in a loop for you. When I say “now”, use your good arm to hold yourself steady.’ He roped the torn-and-tied sleeve of the jacket over her good wrist. ‘Okay?’
She smiled at him, touched that he’d risked his life for the sake of her arm, when she could have waited longer for treatment…touched beyond measure that a man as important as Alim could put her before his needs. ‘I’m good to go.’
His eyes shone—and she swallowed a lump in her throat, seeing the pride there: pride in her. ‘Of course you are. That’s my Hana.’ He closed the passenger door and ran around to jump into the driver’s seat. ‘If we get lucky there’ll be an afternoon wind to cover our tyre tracks; but I’ll have to go as fast as possible. I’m going to try for second gear, to reduce engine noise…’
Unable to speak, she nodded. My Hana, he’d said…and in his arms, she’d felt so cherished.
In a daze of pain and exhaustion, she closed her eyes and allowed the dreams to come. They were insubstantial things that would wither when the real world returned, but if these sweet phantoms were all she could have, she’d cling to them for as long as she could.
He took off in low gear, building the engine up. The hum and whine of the engine was strangely soothing. She felt him trying to keep the jerks of the engine to a minimum, to save her from pain; and her heart, so long starved of such cherishing, overflowed in tender gratitude.
She didn’t know when she slipped into sleep, but when she opened her eyes, it was past nightfall. Alim was driving with no headlights, bumping over obstacles he couldn’t see. She didn’t have to ask why.
‘Are you all right?’ She pulled her good arm from the torn jacket to touch his hand.
‘I’m fine.’ He turned a face filled with strain to smile a
t her. ‘You slept for six hours. Feeling better?’
She nodded. ‘What’s wrong?’
For answer, he passed a compass to her. ‘Are you up to a little navigation? My eyes suffer from night strain—another reason I left the circuit—and my glasses are in the truck. Shifting my focus from the terrain to the compass is giving me a headache.’
‘Of course I can navigate—but can’t we stop for a minute for the ibuprofen?’
‘You took the last of it for your shoulder.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she cried. ‘You’re not yet over the concussion, and eye strain can—’
‘Can it, Hana,’ he interrupted, his voice warm with laughter. ‘I’m the big, strong man in this scenario, in control, and feeling pretty good about it. Me Tarzan, you Jane, remember—so, Jane, I need to know what our current direction is.’
She grinned, and checked the compass. ‘We’re heading northwest, Lord Greystoke.’
He chuckled. ‘What degree?’
She squinted at the compass, and told him.
‘Put your arm back in the jacket, Hana. I need to adjust the Jeep. We’re ten degrees off course.’
He didn’t need to tell her why; he’d been letting her sleep. She threaded her arm through, tugged hard and nodded. ‘Go.’
He turned the wheel hard towards the north. Hana gritted her teeth, but the pain was far less savage than she’d expected. The combination of muscles and bone being back in place, and the tight sling he’d fashioned for her, had promoted rapid healing.
Now her first concern was for him. ‘You’ve been awake twenty-four hours, Alim. No wonder you have a headache. You need to rest, and we still have the willow bark.’
‘What I need is coffee,’ he said in grim humour. ‘If you can pull that off for me, I’d be really grateful. A few days without it and my body’s still in withdrawal.’
‘You must be exhausted. Can’t we—?’
‘Not now. The afternoon winds were too minor to make a difference. We need to keep ahead.’ He jerked a thumb back. ‘There’s a dust cloud five or six kilometres back. If I can see theirs, they can see ours—and they can drive in shifts.’
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 130
