The Sheikh’s Surprise Heir: The Karawi Sheikhs Series Book One

by Leslie North

The pilot spoke into the growing tension. “There’s an emergency exit at the back of the plane. We’ll have a better chance of reaching her from there.” He waved them in that direction.

  Knowing that there was nothing that he could do for her from here, the prince quickly exited the plane. The aircraft rested cockeyed, part of its undercarriage crumpled, making it easy to jump down, and the others were right behind him.

  He swung around and pointed to the nearest of the bodyguards. “Haydar. Go with one of the pilots and Ambassador Cham and get us some transportation out of here. Or at least find a radio.”

  The copilot, now standing without aid, nodded, stood straighter, and started toward the nearby hangar. The guard followed, and belatedly, the ambassador hurried after them.

  Iman’s voice sharpened as he turned to the remaining guards and snapped, “You two! We’re not leaving until that woman is out, do you understand me?”

  The senior pilot was already working on opening the emergency door. “It’s bent. We’re going to need something to pry it open if one of us is going to fit in there to go after her. There should be something in the hangar that we can use.”

  Iman nodded to him. “Go on. Take the men with you. You’ll search faster that way.”

  Pushing himself up, he peered through the cramped opening maybe big enough to stick his arm through, up to the shoulder at best. Not nearly large enough for a man to crawl in through or out. He could see a small span of her bare legs in the aisle.

  Blood was trickling down.

  “Can you. hear me?” he called out.

  There was no answer.

  He grasped for something to say, to get a rise from her. “You’re a terrible stewardess,” he commented. “I’m going to complain when we get back.”

  That did the trick. “It’s flight attendant,” she snapped. “And I’ve got a few choice words to say about you, as well.”

  “We can compare notes when we get you out,” he said with a chuckle of relief before he paused again, then asked, “Where are you bleeding from?”

  “I…I’m not sure. I can’t really see, and I don’t feel any pain. Shock, I guess. I think if I can cut myself out of the seatbelt, I can crawl out. Something’s pushing on it, and I can’t get to it.”

  Immediately, Iman fished for his pocket knife and pulled it out of his pocket. “Can you put your hand down? Reach by your legs, your feet?” He saw her hand reach down and touch the floor. “Good. I’m going to slide a pocket knife towards you.”

  Wedging his arm through the opening, he had enough wiggle room to slide the knife across the canted floor. “Move your hand back a little,” he guided her. “It’s right at your fingertips.”

  When she was able to grab it, he breathed a small sigh of relief.

  “Thanks,” he heard her mutter. “Almost got it.” She grunted softly before releasing a small moan of victory.

  Iman held his breath as he watched her shuffle her legs. The large shelving unit on top of her moved a little, and something else crashed, opening up the space in front of him. “Natalie!”

  “Careful, Your Majesty,” she grunted. “Or I might think that you care.” She slithered out of the chair, and he soon saw her whole body as she squeezed through the now wider opening.

  “It’s actually Your Royal Highness,” he corrected as he watched her ease herself backward toward the door. Blood stained her uniform, but it looked to be coming from her arm. “I won’t be Your Majesty until I take the crown.”

  She propped herself up against the wall and sighed. “My apologies. I’ll try to remember that,” she said dryly. Shrugging out of her jacket, she held up her arm and examined it.

  “How is it?”

  “Could use some stitches. The pain in my head is worse.”

  Impatiently, Iman looked behind him. “This is taking too long. I sent someone for a pry bar. I’m going to check on that. I’ll be right back.”

  “If I die in this plane, I will come back and haunt you for the rest of your life. I’ll complain loudly about all the coffee you’re wasting,” she joked.

  “Hey, don’t get mad at me. You’re the one who can’t make a cup of coffee.” He looked at her seriously. “Don’t be frightened. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m not scared. I’m swooning. My Prince and hero.” She laid one hand over her heart, and he chuckled and shook his head. In any other circumstance, he’d be pissed at her attitude, but if it helped her deal with her fear, he would put up with her sarcasm.

  Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he stripped it off and threw it to the ground as he jogged to the hangar. When he ducked inside, he saw the pilots searching the hangar and found the ambassador and two guards clustered around a jeep, arguing, while the third guard, muttering under his breath, cranked the ignition.

  When it roared to life, they all cheered.

  “It can hold six. Go get the prince,” one of the guards said in a gruff voice.

  “The prince is right here and wondering why you aren’t helping pry the plane door open,” Iman growled.

  Amyad ducked his head. “I apologize, Your Highness, but your safety is our first priority. We have a vehicle we can use to get help. We’ll send someone back for her. Please get in.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Iman stared at the man coldly. “The vehicle seats six. All of you can go. Send word to the palace and get an emergency crew. A doctor as well, if you can find one.”

  “We’re not leaving you!”

  “You are because that is the only way that I know you’ll return,” he said calmly. He leveled a steely gaze, forcing Amyad to meet his eyes. “That is an order from your prince, and if you do not obey it, I will have you exiled. Do you understand me?”

  He knew all too well how his family would react. News of his father’s illness hadn’t reached most of the residents of Haamas, so the fact that Iman had flown to an international meeting in Chicago was being kept quiet. They would sweep up the airplane accident, pay off everyone on the plane, and pretend the whole thing had never happened. If someone died, that would be one less person they had to worry about.

  Ruthless. Cold. Iman was expected to be the same, but he was not about to let that woman die today.

  The six other men piled into the open jeep, Nabih perhaps a little more slowly than the others, and drove off.

  He briefly watched the vehicle speed away and turned back to the matter at hand. After exploring the empty hangar, he found a stack of tools piled in the corner. Grabbing a pry bar, he headed back out—and froze.

  A dark cloud hovered over the horizon, growing visibly before his horrified eyes.

  Sandstorm, and from the way it was rising to cover the sky, Iman could tell that it would be here within minutes.

  Racing to the wreckage, he slammed the bar into the opening and began to pull. “We’ve got to move,” he ordered. Adrenaline surged through him, and he wedged the door open enough for her to squeeze out.

  “Wait,” she muttered as she started grabbing for things. As she filled her jacket with a few bottles of water and a medical kit, Iman climbed in and roped an arm around her waist. “I can walk!”

  “Would you quit arguing with me, woman!” Holding her to his chest, he dragged her out of the plane and easily scooped her up in his arms. She was tiny, not much over five feet without her heels, and couldn’t weigh more than one hundred and twenty pounds. A few grains of sand whipped around them and bit into his face as he held her close and sprinted to the shelter.

  He’d barely set her down and managed to shove the door shut against the onslaught of the wind before the view outside the windows darkened, engulfed in sand, and the wind moaned against the building like a thousand prowling beasts.

  “Wow,” Natalie muttered as she pulled herself up and looked out the window. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Welcome to the desert, Princess.” He gently pulled her arm up and examined it. “You’ll need stitches, or you’ll scar.”

  “Won’t be the
first scar,” she said with a shrug as she bent down and pulled out a small box. “I got the medical kit from the plane. Got some water, too. I don’t know how long the storm will last, but there’s more food and water within reach. Where’s the rest of your guys?”

  Iman picked her up gently and set her on the workbench. “Let me. They got a vehicle working, so they’re heading to the nearest town to bring back help. Hopefully they won’t be longer than a few hours.”

  “Some bodyguards they are,” she grumbled. He poured some antiseptic on a pad and gently cleaned her wound. She flinched, and he had to fight the urge to blow on it to help alleviate the pain. “Leaving their precious prince here.”

  “It was a command.” He didn’t tell her that he’d stayed for her sake.

  Her eyes searched his, and he realized that she knew.

  An awkward silence fell between them as he finished cleaning up the nasty gash and wrapped it as tightly as he could.

  “So,” she said at last as she lowered her arm and inspected his work. “Is it just a pretty title, or do you actually rule over your little kingdom?”

  “My father is the Crowned Sheikh. As the eldest, I am Crown Prince. I have two younger brothers, but the kingdom will come to me when my father passes or retires. The royal family is still politically involved, but Haamas has a prime minister as well.” He gave a humorless snort. “An old friend of the family.”

  “Sounds cozy.” Natalie gripped the ledge of the counter and carefully lowered herself. “To be honest, I’ve never even heard of your country.”

  “We are part of a number of small independent kingdoms.” He frowned at her. “How’s your head? Are you dizzy at all? Do you hear ringing in your ears?”

  A small smile spread over her face. “I don’t think I have a concussion.” She tilted her head to one side and studied his face. “This bedside manner is an interesting side of you. Bandaging wounds. Diagnosing concussions.”

  Iman was captivated by her smile. She had small features. In a crowd, she’d be hardly noticeable. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a bun that had come loose, and what little makeup she wore had disappeared under a streak of grime on her cheek that he itched to rub off, but when she smiled, her blue eyes sparkled, and he’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  “My brothers and I were a little rough on each other,” he explained. “We used to fight a lot, and I’m not talking gentle tumbles on the floor. We’d fight and whale on each other, but we knew that if our parents found out, there’d be hell to pay, so we always cleaned each other up afterwards to hide the evidence.”

  The wind howled and beat against the shelter, and Iman wondered if the building would even hold. The windows were blanketed by sand, and only the dim, flickering bulb hanging from the rafters served as a light. Natalie walked around slowly as she explored, and he took a minute to admire her body. Out of that bulky flight attendant jacket, her curvy hips and slender waist were all too obvious. The first few buttons of her shirt were undone, showing a hint of cleavage, and his need for her buried itself deeper inside him. He could still feel the softness of her skin and smell the faint perfume that lingered on her clothes.

  “Sounds brutal,” she commented. “You and your brothers really not get along?”

  “It wasn’t so much that we didn’t get along as much as it was the fact that we were always together. We were homeschooled,” he said wryly. “In some respects, we’re very much the same, and in others, we’re all too different. Bahir and Riyad were given more freedom than I was, and I was always a little jealous.”

  “Boys will be boys,” she murmured. She started to say something else but stopped. He followed her gaze to the windows. A small amount of light was seeping through, and he heard her sigh in relief. “It looks like the storm is over. Think the guys will be back soon?”

  “Probably not,” Iman hedged.

  “What makes you say that?”

  His smile did nothing to lighten his grim expression. “Their vehicle was a convertible, and they left only minutes before the storm.”

  3

  Natalie ached. It wasn’t the pain from her head or the wound in her arm, but it was the fire that erupted inside her when Iman touched her. He surprised her so much that she didn’t even know which way was up. Surviving a plane crash, trapped in an abandoned plane hangar with a complete stranger, isolated by a sandstorm. These things should have terrified her, but all she could do was think of him.

  She paced and asked questions and did whatever she could think of to keep him at arm’s length. “So you’re thinking that the storm slowed them down a bit?” she asked nervously.

  “It’s possible that they outran it, but they were lucky to even get the jeep started, and those vehicles aren’t designed to go fast. If they didn’t outrun it, chances are good that the vehicle crashed or stalled.” He paused and added, “Frankly, I have no idea where we are.”

  “Zane, the senior pilot, said that we were over Egypt about twenty minutes before we crashed.” Natalie said nervously. Egypt had a high rate of violence against women, and she was suddenly very glad that she wasn’t alone.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said in a low voice. “You have nothing to fear.”

  Except maybe falling under his spell. “I guess it must have been nice having siblings. I never had any growing up. It was me and my mom, and she worked a lot, so it got lonely.” She was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “We lived in an apartment complex, though, so there were always kids around to play with, but they never stayed long. Turnover rate was high in the city I grew up in.”

  She felt his eyes following her wherever she went, but he didn’t respond to her comment. When she looked out the window, she saw a clearing sky. Turning, she said, “I’m going to head back out to the plane and get some rations and more water before we’re hit with another sandstorm.”

  “No, you won’t,” he insisted, moving to plant himself between her and the hangar exit. “I’ll go.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re never going to fit through that jammed door,” she said, trying to brush by him.

  His hand snaked out and wrapped around her waist. As he bent down, his lips teased her ear. “I said, no.”

  Stilling, she closed her eyes and allowed herself the pleasure of enjoying his touch. The heat radiating between them. The surprisingly hard body that she could sense beneath that suit. Her heart hammered against her chest, and desire pulsed inside her.

  She wanted him.

  “We only have two bottles of water. If help is days away, it won’t be enough,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “I’ll pry the door open and get the rest of what we need.” Iman’s hands traveled to rest on the flat of her belly. “You’re shaking.”

  “Just a little scared,” Natalie whispered.

  “Liar.” With a chuckle, he released her and headed to the door of the hangar, and then he was gone.

  Natalie wrapped her arms around herself and took a few shuddering breaths. What was wrong with her? An hour ago, she’d wanted to strangle him, and now all she wanted to do was strip him naked and see if he looked as good as he did in her overly heated imagination.

  The single light bulb over her head started to flicker erratically. Concerned that it might go out, Natalie followed the cord to the receptacle and found a strand of lights. Plugging it in, she held it like a flashlight and started to explore the hangar, reeling the strand of lights out as she walked. It was mostly cluttered with old machinery, but she did find an aged light aircraft hiding underneath a layer of tarps. Uncovering it, she hooked the lights on a wooden beam and opened the door. Dust caked the controls and surfaces, but it offered a more comfortable place to hang out than the floor. Climbing in, she sat back in the small leather seat and rested her head.

  “Natalie!” Iman shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Back here!”

  It didn’t take him long to find her. “Don’t do that,” he demanded when
he reached the door to the small plane, sounding a little breathless, as if he’d hurried to join her.

  “Don’t do what?” She accepted the bottle of water he extended to her as he climbed in. “I did some exploring, and if we’re going to be here for a while, I’m not going to sit on the floor or the hard benches. This is more comfortable.”

  “Still, I don’t like it when you disappear.”

  “And I don’t like it when you boss me around.” Exhaustion was starting to set in. “Did you find anything?”

  “Enough water to last us a couple of days, if it comes to that, and some food packages in the refrigerator. We might as well eat them now, or they’ll go bad.”

  “Oh, the sandwiches!” Natalie accepted one and unwrapped it. “I never got a chance to eat my own lunch because someone kept running me around like a chicken with my head cut off.”

  Iman took a bite of his own sandwich and leaned back in the seat as he chewed. “You know, for someone who works in the service industry, you’re not very peppy.”

  She chuckled. “I didn’t go into this job to meet new people. I wanted to travel, and this was the only way that I could afford it. I only recently moved into the private charter business. My schedule is more stable, and the money is better, but I don’t get to explore and sightsee as much as I used to.”

  “So why do it?”

  “I get to meet handsome heroes like you,” she joked. He rolled his eyes, and she fiddled with the controls in front of her. “It’s my mother. She’s been in the hospital for a few months, now. Cancer.” She swallowed hard. “I need the money to pay her medical bills, and I need the better hours so I can spend time with her.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Iman said softly. He reached out and touched her wrist. “I know what you’re going through, though. My father is sick as well. Cancer. It’s a soul-wrenching disease, isn’t it? We flew in the best doctors in the world, but it doesn’t matter.” He immediately withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why?” Natalie said wryly. “Because my mother is in an underfunded hospital? Don’t worry about it.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “It’s like you said. Cancer’s a bitch.”