The Sheikh's Jewel

by Melissa James

  Amber was curled against him like a contented cat, her head on his chest, her body wound around his, one leg and arm holding him to her. He smiled, and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was splayed across his body; her breaths warmed his skin.

  Unable to make the mat to give his morning prayer, he gave his thanks in silence, deep and heartfelt. Thank you for helping me find the way back to her again.

  They’d made love twice, first in a frenzy and then slow and ecstatic. They’d said words of need and pleasure and love during the past four hours.

  Now it was time for the next step.

  ‘Amber.’ He bent his head to kiss the top of her head. ‘Love, we need to talk. No, I said talk, my jewel.’ He laughed as she kissed his chest, slow and sensuous. ‘I’ve made some arrangements for us I hope you’ll like.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ she mumbled through kisses. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Are you listening?’ He laughed again. She was peppering his torso with kisses and caresses, and he was getting distracted.

  ‘Uh-huh, I always listen to you. Mmm…’ More kisses. ‘Hurry, habibi, it’s been at least two hours since we made love. I need you.’

  ‘I’ve secured us two part-time, unpaid places on a dig only half an hour’s drive from the University of Araba Numara…and while I do my doctorate, you’ll be finishing your course face to face.’

  That stopped her. Completely. She gaped up at him. ‘You know about my course?’

  ‘Why do you think I applied for positions near that university? I’ve known everything you’ve been doing the past four months—and it made me so proud of you.’

  ‘You—you don’t mind?’ she asked, half shyly. ‘About being a woman and getting all high distinctions, I mean?’

  ‘No, of course not—I’ve heard you’ve got lots of distinctions—I’m so proud of you. I’ve never felt threatened by your intelligence, Amber,’ he said quietly. ‘And I trust you completely. As I said, your success has made me so proud of you, mee johara. I married a woman of great intellect as well as good taste—in loving history and her husband.’ He winked at her. ‘Do my arrangements meet with your approval?’

  ‘Approval? Oh, you have no idea! I love you, I love you!’

  ‘We’ll be living in the same tents as everyone else, I warn you,’ he put in with mock-sternness, but was turning to fire again at her touch. ‘And it will mean no babies until you’re done with your course.’

  Again she looked up at him, almost in wonder. ‘You don’t mind waiting for children?’

  ‘I’ve waited all this time for you,’ he murmured, with the utmost tenderness. ‘I can wait a little more for our family to start.’

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered again, with all the vivid intensity of her nature, and pulled him down on top of her.

  Strange how falling down actually felt like flying…

  EPILOGUE

  Eight years later

  ‘IT’S a girl!’

  In the sorting tent, deep in diagnosis of the siftings he’d just dug up, Harun frowned vaguely at his wife’s excited voice coming from behind him. ‘Hmm? What was that?’

  ‘Harun, we have a new niece. Hana had a girl about an hour ago.’

  ‘That’s great. Look at this piece I found, mee johara. Is this beer jug belly Sumerian, do you think?’

  ‘Harun, look at me.’ Gently he was turned around. He knew, having finished her archaeology degree last year, as excited by the past as he could ever hope for, Amber wouldn’t risk disturbing his findings. But, as she always said, without families there wouldn’t be history to discover. ‘Hana had a girl an hour ago. They named her Johara.’

  The look in Amber’s eyes warned him to return to the present. He blinked, focusing on what he’d only half-heard, and slowly grinned. ‘That’s wonderful! We have a niece at last. Kalila will be thrilled.’

  Their five-year-old daughter always felt left out of her boy cousins’ rowdy play. She was a girly-girl, and even though she was as enthusiastic as her parents on the digs, she somehow managed to stay clean. The only time she had someone as fastidious as her on the digs was when Naima stayed for the school breaks. Kalila adored her cousin, and followed her around like a puppy.

  At not yet four, their son Tarif fitted in splendidly with his male cousins, rolling around as happily on the palace floors, indulging in masculine play with his father and uncle. But when on the dig, he confined his rougher antics to the hours Harun kept sacred for play with his son. He knew better than to disturb any promising-looking holes in the ground, though Harun swore their son was a genius from the day he’d inadvertently found the site of an ancient temple’s foundations when he was trying to poke in a snake hole. ‘Abi, Abi, pretty rocks over there,’ he’d said, growing distressed until Harun followed his little son to the other side of the tell, where they hadn’t yet sectioned off the ground to look.

  Amber grinned. ‘I’ve booked the jet for Monday. I can’t fly after that, as you know—’ the slight stress on know told him if he didn’t remember she was twenty-seven weeks pregnant, he’d better catch up with real life and fast ‘—and I want to see my…well, my sort-of namesake.’

  ‘Oh, of course she is.’ Harun grinned again. ‘I’m sure they named her for you, my jewel,’ he assured her with mock-gravity.

  Laughing, she swatted him with her fingers. ‘You could at least pretend to believe it. You know I’m in a very delicate state right now.’

  Both brows lifted with that one. ‘Um, yes, very delicate,’ he agreed. ‘Remind me again how your delicate condition meant you had to crawl ahead of me five days ago into an unstable subterranean chamber?’ Not to mention that, at night, she was the one to instigate loving as often as he did. They’d have at least six children by now, if they hadn’t planned their family carefully around Amber’s studies.

  Finding no answer for his teasing, Amber put her nose in the air; then she looked at the small piece he’d found. ‘Oh, I do concur, it is part of a beer jug, and it definitely looks the right period. It’s a shame it isn’t Amalekite. We’re still not there,’ she teased, backing off as he mock waved his fist at her. ‘It’s a very good piece. But you might want to call the family and congratulate them before you get lost in the Sumerian period again,’ she suggested, turning his face back to her as her opinion distracted him. ‘One more,’ she murmured, kissing him again, deepening it to keep him in the here and now.

  ‘One more kiss like that and I’ll forget the Sumerian artefact as well as our new niece,’ he mock threatened as his body awoke.

  ‘Not you, my love,’ she retorted, laughing. ‘And anyway, there’s always tonight.’

  As if on cue, the baby kicked its father, squirming around as if to say, Not again, you two! It was a chant almost everyone on any dig said to them, sooner or later. Whether it was over their almost scary connection over their love of ancient history or their knowledge of ancient finds, or their touching and kissing so often when they were together, the protest was as loud as it was meant in fun. I wish I could find what you two have, was the lament of so many people on the digs, when another relationship failed with someone who could never understand the archaeologist’s absorbing passion for the past.

  ‘Okay, little one, okay,’ he said softly, caressing Amber’s belly, leaning down to kiss his child. ‘I think you’re being told to rest, my jewel.’

  ‘I think I am.’ She smothered a yawn. ‘Tarif will wake in about an hour, so I’d better get there.’ She gave him one final kiss. ‘But I want to hear all about the jug later—and don’t think the other part of tonight’s forgotten, either.’

  ‘Never,’ he assured her with a wink. ‘Both have been duly noted.’

  ‘And call Alim,’ she reminded him a final time, at the tent flap. ‘Don’t forget to call Naima too. Tell her the car will pick her up the day we arrive, if Buhjah doesn’t have anything else planned for her.’

  Grinning, he waved in acceptance. Amber returned to their family tent where Tarif still slept in
a partitioned-off section, and at the other end Kalila endured her long-suffering tutor’s lessons on mathematics.

  Harun, smiling as he always did when Amber had been with him or when he thought of his family, pulled out his phone to call his niece. Naima was thrilled she had a new girl cousin, and, after consulting with Buhjah, told him she could join in the family celebrations. He chatted with her for a few minutes longer, hearing all about her studies and her other family, the antics of her younger half-brothers at home, before hanging up with a smile.

  Then he called the palace to congratulate Alim and Hana, and to hear about his new niece. The bubbling joy in his brother’s voice when he spoke of their new ‘little jewel’ made Harun’s cup run over.

  He was a blessed man.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781459230484

  Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Chaplin

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