Sheik's Rule

by Ryshia Kennie

The words had barely left her mouth before the remaining dirt biker came ripping over the dune, full throttle, as if he’d been waiting for this moment.

  Emir swerved the Jeep, gunning the engine as much as he dared, angling, making them less of a target while Kate kept their remaining attacker busy having to swerve right and then left as he dodged her shots.

  No matter her difficulty in the Berber village, here, Kate was good. It was a rogue thought and one he couldn’t entertain as he veered again, shadowing the maneuvers of the biker, making them a more difficult target.

  He could see Kate, both hands on her handgun, her eyes narrowed. She pulled the trigger. The bike skidded, throwing the rider as the bike rolled down a small sand dune.

  “He’s not moving,” Emir said, looking in the rearview mirror at the fallen biker.

  He looked at Kate. Her face was flushed and there was a troubled look to her eyes as she glanced at him, and he realized the earlier smile had been all about the joy of the chase. The kill was another matter. He gripped the wheel as he turned in the direction of the first downed biker.

  As they approached, and the Jeep slowed, Kate was out, crouching, her handgun raised and ready to fire. The biker lay sprawled thirty feet ahead.

  Emir threw the Jeep into Park and followed Kate, his gun in both hands. But the biker still wasn’t moving.

  Kate looked back, nodded when she saw Emir in position just behind her and shifted to her left, carefully moving forward until she reached the body. She pushed the biker’s shoulder with her foot—nothing. She squatted and turned the body over. It was a man, thin, with a scruff of dark beard, maybe thirty years old. “He was at El Dewar. I remember him standing between the houses. It was just a moment and then he vanished.”

  Emir could see the man’s rifle was thrown five feet away and that his body lay in an awkward position. It was clear without bending to check that his neck had been broken.

  “There’re no more answers here,” Kate said grimly. She strode over to the bike that lay eight feet away from the corpse. A worn leather bag hung over the seat. She opened it, her expression grim, and pulled out a water bottle and a cell phone. “A disposable phone,” she said, turning it on. “Nothing.”

  Emir came up beside her. “What are you saying? That he’s not one of the kidnappers?”

  “I don’t think so, but he’s obviously not innocent. He knows something and it seems like he was trying to prevent us from going any farther.”

  “We’re not finished here yet,” Emir said grimly. “Let’s go back. Maybe there’re answers there.” He shrugged in the direction of the other downed biker.

  Five minutes later they were at the body of the second biker. Like the first, he was dead. But, unlike the first, they didn’t recognize him at all and he carried nothing but his pistol, a water jug and an extra magazine for his weapon.

  Kate stood and took a step back.

  The wind was quickly picking up and already it was whipping at their clothes and driving sand into their faces. Emir slipped his sunglasses on and she did the same.

  “We’re going to have to leave him here,” he said with a final look at the body. “I’ll alert Zaf when the satellite connects again.” The satellite had been down since they’d begun this leg of their journey.

  His heart was pounding. No matter how many times he was in a gun battle, he never liked them because the outcome always meant someone was going to die. Yet, when he looked over at Kate, he saw the flush on her cheeks and a slight curve to her lips, as if she was about to smile.

  As the wind whipped a strand of hair across her face and she turned to look at him with eyes that sang with excitement, he realized that, no matter how much he disliked killing, there was one thing he’d never admitted. That it was eclipsed by the heady power of the afterglow, of being the one still alive. They might have killed two men but the alternative was that they would have been killed themselves. The silent communication between them had reminded him of that and he knew in that moment he couldn’t have asked for a better partner.

  They drove in silence for a while. Their only goal was to get as close to the oasis undetected as they could before night came or the storm hit—whichever came first.

  The ringing of the satellite phone made Kate jump. “We’re back in business,” she said with relief in her voice.

  Emir picked up the phone before the second ring ended. “What do you have?”

  “Ed hasn’t been working security like he led us to believe. In fact, I’m not sure what he’s been doing. I’m doing more digging. Two things. First, I think Tara’s kidnappers are on to us,” Zafir said. “They haven’t followed up with any additional demands. I’m getting worried and I think it was a mistake to go after them.”

  “We didn’t have a choice,” Emir said and frustration wove through the words.

  “Okay, look, keep your eyes open. You’ve got bigger trouble coming. There’s a sandstorm forecasted. You need to take shelter. Weather reports look like you might have another clear hour, maybe less.”

  “Less. It’s starting up already.” Emir’s tone gritted. He told Zafir what had happened and about the bodies they’d left behind.

  “Give me your coordinates,” Zafir growled. “I don’t like any of this”

  A minute later Emir turned to Kate. “We’re going to have to camp for the night.” It was something they’d both known for a while now. “If we didn’t suspect we were heading into a storm, Zaf’s confirmed it.”

  The earlier excitement was gone. Kate’s full lips were tight with tension. She gripped the dash, staring out over the desert with a grim look as if he’d sentenced her to life instead of one night.

  And he knew her worry, knew it tenfold, for it meant his sister must spend one more night alone with her kidnappers.

  His jaw tightened as he navigated a rut. The Jeep bounced and the tires spun as they hit hard, flat sand. As they came out of the dip, the wind began to whip around them. They had no choice. They didn’t stand a chance in unfamiliar terrain in a sandstorm.

  Emir shifted the Jeep down a gear and veered left, taking the dune that loomed ahead at an angle, as it was steeper than any of the others they had yet to encounter. Straight-on and he could visualize the rollover that would follow. They were close to the oasis. According to Kate’s last coordinates, less than ten miles away.

  “We need shelter!” Kate yelled five minutes later over the roar of the wind. “We can’t go any farther.” Sand pelted the vehicle and it was getting more and more difficult to see. But, according to the map, there were sandstone cliffs on the other side of this ridge. Before they’d been attacked, they’d been taking it slow, scouting the area—noting the weaknesses, the strengths, buying time. Now they were about to be swallowed in the storm if they didn’t get to shelter quickly. Just as that thought ran through his mind, the first shot rang out.

  “What the—?” Kate bit off the rest of her comment as she swung around in the direction of the shot, her gun in her hand and crouching in her seat, taking what cover she could.

  Emir swerved right then left, taking them dangerously close to a rollover. He looked over at Kate who was on her knees as she put herself in a position to defend them both. He couldn’t have asked for a better person to ride shotgun.

  “Go left,” Kate shouted over the din of the Jeep’s engine and the wind. “I think they’re using that break to the right between the dunes.” She glanced left. “This storm is going to be our cover pretty soon.”

  He couldn’t agree with that assessment more, but all he could do now was get them as far away as possible.

  She was firing blindly through the partially opened window, but there was only a distant shot returned and that indicated that the shooter might be on foot.

  “So much for sneaking in,” Emir said, his hands clenching the wheel as he realized w
hat this could mean.

  “We’ll work around it, Emir.” She looked at him with lips tight. She was perched on the seat as if poised to launch. They were over a mile from the first shot and, through the waves of sand and gusts of wind, he could see the rise of a hill to their right. The storm had intensified and was now driving sand so thick that there was no going much farther. They were as far away as the storm would allow.

  They were so close to Tara and yet so far.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “There.” Kate pointed as a bank of low-rise cliffs appeared to their right.

  “It should work,” he agreed as he fought to keep the Jeep moving in the right direction. The sand was beginning to act like water as it moved with the wind that churned it.

  The visibility had rapidly decreased. Some storms could come out of nowhere, swallowing you in a sea of sand, while others were slower moving and, often, longer lasting. This one wasn’t hitting them out of nowhere but it was rapidly getting worse.

  Within minutes he had the Jeep angled in the direction the wind was coming from, using it to act as a barrier.

  “We’ll set up the tent beside the Jeep,” he said. “We could stay in the Jeep if I thought this thing was going to blow over quickly, but all signs look like it might run through the night.” A gust of wind hammered him from behind, pushing him forward. He looked at Kate, who was struggling to double her ponytail to keep it from whipping against her face. The scarf she’d been using had blown away minutes ago.

  They wrestled with the tent to get the anchor lines secured.

  Finally, inside the tent, Kate shivered, clutching her arms. “It’s getting cold.”

  It was late afternoon but the temperature had plummeted and inside the tent it was only slightly less chilly than outside.

  He tossed her a blanket. “Thanks,” she said as she wrapped it around her shoulders. “One night, not too bad,” she said. “Maybe the kidnappers will get in touch with Zafir by then. I don’t know why they’re waiting.”

  “Any number of reasons, but thinking of any of them isn’t going to help us.”

  “Maybe,” she said with doubt in her voice. “I don’t think that last attack was planned. I mean, they shot at us twice and the second was so distant. I think whoever it was, unlike the bikers, they were shooting blind.”

  “As in we could have been anyone and not someone necessarily after them.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I suppose we’ll soon find out once the storm is over.” He knelt by the small, portable heater. “We’ll get this going and it should warm up fast.” He glanced at her with a smile. “Just like home.”

  “Home with dehydrated stew for supper,” she said with a smile more poignant than humorous.

  “Not even that,” he said. “We have no stove. Unless you want it cold, but I’m not sure how that will work with cold water...”

  “Stop,” she said with a laugh.

  The storm had intensified too fast and they had taken what they could from the Jeep. He’d managed to grab a bag with food supplies and she’d gotten blankets, but after that the storm had taken charge. The camp stove among a few other things had been left behind.

  They had shelter and, more importantly, they were alive. They had lived and others had died.

  She wasn’t sure how it happened but suddenly she was in his arms and his lips were on hers. Her heart beat wildly as he held her tight against him and she could feel him hard and ready against her belly. His lips were warm and oddly soft in a demanding, masculine way as they parted hers, and her heart pounded in time with his.

  She wanted to hold him tighter and demand more. And yet it all seemed too soon and too much. For the first time she had thoughts that hadn’t occurred to her before. He was her boss. Her job mattered. Sex with the boss wasn’t the best career plan she’d ever had.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  His knuckle ran along the edge of her cheek, caressing it, as his tongue tasted the edge of her lips. “What’s wrong?” he asked thickly, his desire still hard between them.

  “No, Emir. Not now.” Why did she say that? Not ever was what she meant to say as the wind howled and the tent rocked and sand pelted against the canvas.

  He caressed her breast.

  She couldn’t have wanted him any more than she did in that moment. Instead she pulled back, forcing him to let her go.

  “You’re my boss,” she muttered.

  His dark eyes raked her face but he said nothing.

  She moved away from him but the tent wasn’t large. She found herself next to the heater, a heat that was safer than the kind of heat he offered.

  “We need to get some food, get some sleep and make a plan,” she said.

  An awkward silence seemed to descend after those words. She looked at him from beneath her lashes. His back was to her and he was going through their supplies. Apparently he wasn’t fazed by rejection.

  “Here’s one of your demands met,” he said, holding up a can. His expression was placid, like nothing had happened between them.

  He tossed her a can of soup followed by a spoon and she peeled the metal lid back. Despite the fact that it was cold and, as a result, slightly congealed, it was exactly what she needed.

  Ten minutes later she set the empty can aside. The storm was still going full force and as the wind pushed and pulled at the canvas, the noise was almost alarming. It was dark except for the occasional flicker of a flashlight they used to navigate the space. The wind rocked the tent and she wondered if it would hold.

  “Ignore it,” he advised. “We’ll be fine.”

  But there was pain in his eyes and she knew that he thought of Tara.

  “We’ll all be fine,” she said. “Tara, too.”

  He didn’t say anything. Instead he handed her a tin of rice pudding.

  “No.” She laughed. “There’s something about rice in pudding—no.”

  “Don’t know what you’re missing.”

  He took a spoonful of pudding that some employee had thrown into the kit and grimaced as he swallowed. He held out his spoon. “You sure?” he asked with a smile.

  “From the look on your face, yes,” she said with a laugh and then immediately turned serious. “We’re seven miles from the oasis. That’s what I got from what I saw of landmarks before the storm hit and from matching it on the map,” she said thoughtfully.

  He put the tin down. “We could walk in once the storm...”

  “A mile of that is going to be a fairly challenging climb through the cliffs that are backing the oasis. Not wise in the dark.” She paused. “I’ve been thinking about the kidnappers. They’ve been playing you, taking their time.”

  “And?”

  “I think we buy time, make them nervous. Play the game they’re playing right back at them. We put ourselves in position to move on them by nightfall.” She looked at her watch. It was now only seven. “Tomorrow.”

  “And Tara has to spend another day and night with them. Anything could happen, they could kill...”

  “They need her, Emir. I think we put her in less danger if we bide our time, make them sweat a bit more, than if we try to move in without any idea of the environment in which they’re holding her. Tomorrow we’ll be prepared and we can use the night to our advantage.”

  Hours later she slept and awoke to see that it wasn’t quite as dark, that the storm had abated and that she was cold. She looked over. Emir was sitting up, his gaze thoughtful.

  She sat up, too. “What’s going on?”

  “Not much,” he replied. “Almost daylight. We’ve got about an hour.”

  “Did you get any sleep?” she asked as she blinked and rubbed her eyes.

  “No.” He shook his head. “You got some sleep anyway.”
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  “I did,” she replied as she ran a hand through her hair. “I must look a mess.”

  “No,” he said softly, his eyes intense as they swept over her. “You look beautiful.”

  “Beautiful?” she repeated. She’d just been through a gunfight, a sandstorm—killed a man. No, two.

  “They needed to die, Kate,” he said as if he’d read her mind, as if he knew that despite the thrill of battle she was not a killer. “It made me sick the first time and the second. It makes me sick every time,” he said.

  “I threw up the first time,” she admitted. “And almost quit.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said softly, meeting her eyes. His were like molten chocolate, the look in them more of that of a lover than of a friend or colleague or even boss.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you, Kate,” he said in a gravelly whisper.

  She shivered.

  “You’re cold. The heater isn’t much. Come here,” he said and he could hear the edge in his voice.

  He moved closer to her until he was right beside her. He lifted the blanket from his shoulders and brought it around both of them, and pulled her close to him, using his body to warm her. “Neither of us will be any use to Tara if we use all our energy trying to keep warm.”

  But it was only a few minutes of them sitting like that, with her pressed against his side so tight that he could feel the softer contour of her breast, that he knew it had been a mistake. Nature hadn’t built enough restraint in him to hold a woman more sensual than any he’d met before and just keep her warm, or for that matter a woman he’d been attracted to since he’d first set eyes on her.

  He tipped her face up and kissed her long and hard, his tongue tasting her, relishing it all; the sweet taste of the cinnamon gum she’d chewed just after awakening, the hot feel of her tongue as it mated with his, the sleek feel of her skin, all awakening a desire in him that ached to be appeased.

  He took a deep breath and reminded himself of why he was there, that she was his employee, as she had reminded him—a partner for now. She couldn’t be anything else. And none of that mattered. For the beat of his heart told another story.