A Wife for the Surgeon Sheikh

by Meredith Webber

  Well, she hoped there was plenty...

  ‘Please go out and invite him in.’

  * * *

  Wondering if this was a quirk of democracy in this country or because the woman didn’t want to be alone with him, Malik went, returning with the driver, who’d protested he was quite okay and happy to wait without food.

  But already aware that he was dealing with a stubborn woman, Malik had insisted.

  He found the woman in question bent double over a large chest freezer, pulling out various plastic-wrapped containers and muttering to herself.

  ‘We’re having shepherd’s pie,’ Nimr announced. ‘It’s my turn to choose and it’s my favourite.’

  Malik looked at the boy he knew yet didn’t know and felt pain stab into his heart.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘Do you make it out of shepherds?’

  The boy laughed.

  ‘No, silly! Mum makes it with meat, and puts potato on the top, and it’s yummy and you don’t have to cut it up so it’s easy to eat.’

  Malik smiled at the boy, feeling a weird kind of pleasure that the child had offered him this small confidence.

  ‘Ha, knew I had one!’

  The triumphant cry from the freezer had them moving into the kitchen where their pink-cheeked hostess, apparently fully recovered from her faint, had emerged from the freezer in triumph.

  Seeing the two men, the driver trying to hide behind the door, her cheeks went a deeper pink.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I tend to cook a lot on my days off, and I always make different sizes of each dish for when Joe’s here—’

  ‘And when Joe and Aunt Jane both come,’ Nim finished for her, turning to the visitors to hold up four fingers. ‘That’s four, you see, and tonight it’s four too.’

  Perhaps embarrassed by her son’s delight in the visitors, his mother had stripped layers of plastic from the frozen dish and set it going in the microwave. And with her back resolutely turned to the two men, she was peeling carrots and cutting chunks of broccoli off a large green head.

  Wishing it was my head, no doubt, Malik thought, as she slashed the knife down.

  Her shoulders rose as he watched and he knew she was taking a deep breath.

  After which, she turned towards her visitors and said quietly, ‘It will be half an hour. Would you like to wait in the living room? Perhaps you’d like a glass of cold water?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Malik said, then aware of the driver lurking behind him, remembered his manners.

  ‘This is my driver, Peter—’

  ‘Cross,’ their hostess finished for him, stepping forward and, to Malik’s surprise, giving the man a hug.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Peter, I hadn’t realised it was you I made fall out of the car. How’s Susie?’

  The man held up crossed fingers.

  ‘So far, so good, Lauren. You know how it goes.’

  ‘I do indeed,’ Lauren told him. ‘Now, a glass of water, each of you?’

  ‘That’d be lovely,’ Peter said, and well aware that he’d lost what little conversational control he might have had, Malik agreed, following the other man back into the living room.

  It was Nimr who brought the water, two tall glasses balanced on a round tray.

  Malik took his, thanked the boy, and wondered what on earth one said to start a conversation with a four-year-old.

  Not that he needed to worry, for the boy sat down on the sofa next to the driver and, easily adopting the role of host, turned to Malik to explain.

  ‘Susie’s my best friend at kindy. She’s been sick. She wears cute hats because she’s got no hair. No one minds she’s got no hair anyway, and when she first had no hair we all shaved our heads, even the girls, to show it was okay, but she wears the hats because she likes them.’

  Malik turned to Peter, who was smiling at the boy.

  ‘Leukaemia?’ he asked quietly.

  A nod in reply, and, although knowing many of the childhood variants of leukaemia had a high rate of recovery, Malik didn’t want to probe too deeply.

  Particularly as the earlier conversation and the man’s crossed fingers now made sense. Susie must be in remission at the moment, and Malik knew only too well the tightrope parents walked at such times.

  ‘And we have rabbits at kindy too,’ Nimr announced. ‘Sometimes in the holidays some of the kids get to take them home but Mum says we can’t because she has to work and Joe can’t be expected to look after a rabbit and me.’

  Malik hid a smile. The boy was obviously repeating his mother’s words, but his aggrieved tone left his listeners in no doubt about his opinion of this edict.

  ‘Do you have rabbits?’ he asked.

  Malik shook his head.

  ‘No rabbits, but we do have many interesting animals where I live, and many dogs that are tall and run very fast and are called saluki hounds.’

  Nimr seemed to ponder this information for a moment, then said knowledgably, ‘Hound is another name for a dog. I like dogs, but—’

  Malik was pretty sure he was about to hear Mum’s opinion of keeping a dog when they were called into the kitchen for dinner. Considering it was little over an hour since she’d fainted in the gateway, Sister Lauren Macpherson had done a sterling job.

  The small wooden table had a blue bowl of flowers in the middle of it and four places neatly set, with water glasses in front of each place.

  Nimr had gone in front of them and lifted a tall, plastic jug of water from the refrigerator.

  ‘See how strong I am,’ he said, holding it a little higher.

  ‘But not quite strong enough to pour,’ his mother said, as she saved the tilting jug and filled the water glasses.

  ‘Maybe when I’m five,’ Nimr said, climbing onto what must be his accustomed chair.

  He was a confident young man, Malik realised, and polite as well. His work as a paediatrician had brought him into contact with countless children, and he’d learned to appreciate the ones with good manners and the quiet confidence he sensed in the boy.

  And something very likeable.

  He tried to think back to when he and Tariq had been children, but suspected that Tariq had probably not been likeable even then.

  Lovable, yes!

  He, Malik, had adored him, as had their mother, but he’d been a tease, daring his brother to do things that they’d known were wrong, laughing when Malik had refused.

  Was it that challenge to try everything—good or bad—that had led him to drugs, or simply the jet-setting lifestyle he’d led from his late teens, money giving him the freedom their restricted upbringing had denied them?

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE MEAL WAS simple but delicious, and, perhaps sensing an atmosphere he didn’t understand, it was his driver who kept the conversation going, with considerable help from the boy, who was happy to join in on any subject.

  Although, Malik realised rather sadly, the man was steering the conversation so the boy could join in, no doubt because he had a child of the same age.

  He was wondering how he’d react to children of his own—certainly he’d never experienced a meal like this as a child of Nimr’s age. He’d still have been eating with the women and listening to their high-pitched chatter and gossip—

  ‘Now, I think Sheikh Madani wishes to talk with your mother, young Nim, and Joe’s still at training, so how about I do your bath and bedtime story?’

  Peter Cross’s words had broken into Malik’s memories, and Nimr was already excusing himself from the table, only too willing to have someone different supervising his bedtime routine.

  ‘Thanks, Peter,’ his hostess said, confirming Malik’s suspicions that the man was a close family friend.

  Through their children or through the hospital?

  He didn’t ask as Lauren was speaking again.

  ‘I�
��ll just rinse off these dishes and stack the dishwasher and be with you shortly.’

  ‘I can rinse dishes,’ Malik said, stacking dirty plates together, before standing up and carrying them to the sink.

  He read the surprise on her face, and couldn’t help adding, ‘Don’t judge me by my brother,’ before setting to work on his task, rinsing the plates and passing them to Lauren—he had to get used to calling her that in his mind—to stack into place.

  She was silent as she worked, but as she shut the door of the machine and set it to wash, she said quietly, ‘I didn’t know him well—your brother, I mean. He’d barely arrived in Australia when the—the accident happened.’

  Which made him wonder if he’d spoken too harshly.

  He sought to make amends.

  ‘I’ve often wondered if I knew him at all,’ he told her, ‘although as children we were inseparable.’

  ‘It’s because Nim doesn’t have a brother—or even a sister—that I like him to go to kindy where he can play with other children, and he’s so looking forward to going to school next year.’

  ‘Aren’t we all,’ a deep, slightly fractured voice said, and Malik turned to see Joe in the doorway, back from wherever he had been.

  ‘Peter tells me you’re wanted in the bedroom for a goodnight kiss,’ he said to Lauren, who, to Malik’s considerable surprise, said quietly, ‘Perhaps you’d like to say goodnight, too.’

  ‘Joe and I have things to discuss about the new boys’ club we want to set up in the community centre, so we’ll talk in the kitchen,’ Peter said as they met in the short passage. ‘Would you like us to bring coffee in to you and the Sheikh?’

  * * *

  Lauren shook her head.

  This was all getting far too matey, in her opinion, but she was thankful the two men would be there.

  ‘Do they worry about you, that they are staying close?’ her guest asked, as they walked towards the boy’s bedroom.

  ‘I doubt that, but they know it would be wrong of them to leave me here with a stranger.’

  ‘You have loyal friends,’ he said with a smile, and that was a mistake. Not the smile, which was warm and slightly teasing, but the way it made her feel.

  Tingles from a smile?

  For pity’s sake, this was the man who had quite possibly killed her entire family—except for Nim.

  Yet she’d been conscious of that inner—what, tension?—from the moment she’d first seen him and wondered if that’s how Tariq had made Lily feel...

  Stupid! That’s what it was.

  Especially as the man wanted to take her child...

  She opened the door into the bedroom, but the excitement of the visitors had meant she’d left it too late to get her goodnight kiss.

  But she could leave one, and she leant over the child she loved with all her heart and kissed him gently on his cheek.

  She turned to the man who stood watching in the doorway.

  ‘He’ll be sorry to have missed you,’ she said quietly, but knew he hadn’t heard her. He was watching the sleeping boy and the sadness she read in his eyes was almost more than she could stand.

  She slipped past him, heading for the living room, aware he was following her, horribly aware of him.

  She took the armchair and waved the man towards the not-very-comfortable sofa, which had been cheap and had very quickly taken to the shape of her and Nim’s posteriors so no one else’s quite seemed to fit it.

  And she wouldn’t think about his posterior either...

  ‘So talk!’ she said, determined to find out exactly what he wanted. Why he’d come. She knew he’d come for Nim, but she wanted to know why.

  ‘Do you know much about Madan?’

  The question, when it finally came, surprised her, as he’d seemed more like a man who’d cut to the chase and she knew the chase, in this case, was Nim.

  ‘I know the usual stuff from the internet. It’s a small country, with enough oil beneath its sands to make it wealthy. Incredibly wealthy, if the way Tariq threw money around was any indication. I know my sister hated it, preferring to spend her time jet-setting around the world to glitzy hotels and ultra-trendy resorts—to wherever there was a party going on. Although, to be fair, that all stopped once she became pregnant.’

  She watched the man as she spoke, and saw his face darken, but when he spoke she could hear regret, and also love, in his voice.

  ‘My brother was not a wise man.’

  Lauren waited. He was here for a reason, so it was his story to tell.

  He began slowly. ‘My father, in his declining years, was also not wise. His mind weakened and he began to listen to those around him—to listen to advice that would benefit the speaker but not the country. He had governed well but strictly, refusing to allow the new-found wealth of the country to change it.’

  A pause, before he added rather bitterly, ‘In any way!’

  ‘And his advisors?’ Lauren asked when the man had sat in brooding silence for a few moments.

  ‘Advised stupidity. Advised progress, but far too quickly for the land or the people to handle. We are the keepers of our land, our settlement built around a large oasis so for many, many centuries we have been an important place on the trading routes that cross from Asia to Europe.’

  ‘Like the Silk Road—I’ve read so much about that, it’s such an ancient highway.’

  Malik nodded.

  ‘Traders followed the routes, but they required new supplies of food, and sometimes shelter, always new animals—camels and sheep—to replace those they lost along the way. So really our people are farmers and shopkeepers—that has been their role for generation after generation.’

  ‘And it’s changed how?’

  He didn’t need to look at the woman to see her interest. It charged her voice, and something deep inside him whispered a small hope.

  Maybe this sister would be different...

  ‘In the beginning, the oil men who held the leases built a hotel for their senior staff and guests, and an air terminal and runways for their planes. Then my father and his friends took this as progress—as the way to go. They built a bigger hotel and an airline company. And more hotels and shopping malls, all the things they thought a desert city might need to attract the tourist dollars, but—’

  ‘You feel money would be better spent on other things? On things that benefit your own people, not the tourists.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Hospitals and schools, a university and training colleges. With health and education our people can go anywhere, do anything. They can become the doctors and the architects and engineers of the new Madan. They can build a city for them and their families, a city they would want to live in.’

  ‘And a shopping mall doesn’t cut it?’ she said with a smile. But she’d heard the real passion in his voice, and understood his desire to give his people the skills to live in this new world—their new world.

  Would Tariq have felt the same?

  But something told her that this man had a deep integrity his brother had lacked, and admiration for him joined the whatever else it was that had been going on inside her...

  ‘So, where does Nim come into this?’

  He didn’t answer immediately—this man whose name meant Protector of the King.

  Did he see it as his duty to protect Nim or did he want him for reasons of his own?

  ‘The country will, one day, be under Nimr’s rule, so he needs to grow up there, to learn the history and know the people. But until he comes of age, which is twenty-two in Madan, the head of state will be his regent.’

  ‘Which is you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not necessarily. As the closest relative, yes, it should be my position, but you must understand that until my father died less than a year ago, I had assumed Nimr had been killed in the
accident.’

  ‘But surely someone—your father—would have received a report? The investigation from the police, the coroner’s office, along with the inquest results, all took for ever, I know, but he’d have seen the final reports, surely?’

  He nodded.

  ‘There were many reports,’ he said, ‘but none that I had seen until after my father’s death and I was going through his papers. It was then I realised the child had survived, and began my search for him.’

  ‘And found us!’

  ‘Just so!’ Malik said, then those observant eyes studied her for a few moments, before he added, ‘I would never harm either you or Nimr, you must believe that. I did not kill my brother and your family, but I have sworn to find out who did, and I shall.’

  He paused, but she’d heard both the commitment and determination in his voice.

  ‘But that is for the future,’ he continued, while she wondered why she believed him—she who had trusted so few people in the last four years.

  Think about it later, she told herself, turning her attention back to his words—his explanations.

  ‘I cannot afford the time to make it a priority. Right now, my country needs strong rule—a plan for the future and immediate direction. As Nimr’s regent—if the child is seen to be in my care—I can appoint people who will provide that. I’ll have to do a certain level of official business, but I am a doctor, not a politician, and once I have the right people in place, I can return to my job at the hospital, such as it is.’

  ‘So you want to take my son?’ Lauren said, her voice shaking with the tension she was feeling. The man had made a valid argument, and he was as closely related to Nim as she was. Except—

  ‘Except you can’t!’ she said. ‘I’ve adopted him and he’s legally mine. I’m quite sure there must be someone—yourself, no doubt—who’s the next in line after him. Take the reins yourself or use someone you trust. Let Nim grow up an ordinary Aussie boy.’

  ‘Surrounded by security and with you living in fear of what might happen to him?’ Malik snapped. ‘Do you not understand I would protect him with my life? Do you not believe that? But I cannot do it while he is here.’