Desert King, Doctor Daddy

by Meredith Webber

  Gemma ran back into the alley and grabbed a bolt of cotton. The stall-holder, obviously understanding, passed her scissors. Water would relieve some of the pain of the burn victims but would dirty water cause more problems through infection?

  She heard Yusef issuing orders and someone appeared with a big bottle of demineralised water. ‘I will get more,’ the stranger said, and dashed off again. Gemma cut and ripped the cloth, thinking to cover the worst of the burns. Once covered, she could damp down the cloth to cool the skin. All the patients needed fluid and she saw that some of the women gathered there were already offering water to the injured.

  ‘Here, here,’ someone called, and she moved towards the man, who was cradling a child in his lap. The little boy’s leg was obviously broken, as if he’d been thrown into something with the blast, but he’d escaped burns. Gemma stabilised the leg with strips of cloth, then saw blood dripping onto the white material. The man, the father, had a wound in his arm and when Gemma looked she saw a shard of glass still sticking out of it.

  It was deeply embedded and although the wound wasn’t spurting, blood was pulsing out, probably because the glass itself was plugging the artery. Gemma cut more strips of cloth, wound two of them into a tight circlet and put it around the piece of glass then wrapped the lot and told the man to stay still.

  Ambulances were arriving and she signalled to an attendant, showing him the man’s arm, explaining the wound and the embedded glass, pleased the attendant could speak English. He took the man and the child in the first ambulance, along with the woman Yusef had carried from the fire.

  Yusef? Where was he? Two fire-engines had arrived and men in uniform with fearsome-looking equipment were working in the devastated section of the alley where more injured people could be trapped.

  Gemma suspected Yusef was also in that area, and though she feared for him, there was still work for her among the injured, the ambulances taking the most serious cases first, but leaving first-aid equipment for her to use.

  She continued on, cleaning wounds, bandaging, warning people to watch for infection, although she knew that most of them didn’t understand what she was saying. But they thanked her, and some shyly touched her hair, which as usual was escaping its confinement and springing up around her head, her scarf having been used as a sling long since.

  ‘You should not be here!’

  Yusef’s words were so fierce Gemma shot up from where she’d been wiping the face of a little boy, and faced the angry man, his haughty bearing every inch that of a highness for all the filth of his clothing.

  ‘Am I breaking some tradition?’ she demanded. ‘Is there a rule that says a woman can’t help people in need? I’ve seen other women helping here.’

  He glared at her.

  ‘You know I don’t mean that. I mean it is not your place—no, I don’t mean that either—but you should have gone to safety with Yanne as I told you, not put yourself in danger coming down here, where more explosions could have occurred.’

  ‘And you didn’t put yourself in danger?’ Gemma shot back at him. ‘At least I had the sense to stay out here in the open. You were poking around in there where whole buildings could have collapsed on top of you.’

  She hadn’t realised just how anxious she’d been about him until the angry accusation came tumbling out.

  ‘It was my duty,’ he said, very cold and formal. Putting her back in her place—a reprimand for yelling at his mightiness?

  ‘As it was mine to help the injured,’ she reminded him.

  He hesitated then nodded towards the road where more ambulances were pulling up.

  ‘There is plenty of help now for the injured,’ he pointed out, his tone softer. ‘I must stay while the fire experts investigate the cause. My driver will take you back to the compound.’

  ‘But I need to talk to Yanne—’ Gemma began, only to have her protest cut short by a touch of Yusef’s hand on her arm.

  ‘If you could see yourself you would not argue, and it is already mid-afternoon. You can talk to Yanne tomorrow.’

  He waved his hand and the uniformed driver appeared, bowing to Gemma then indicating she follow him to the car.

  But she couldn’t leave, certain once she did so that Yusef would go back inside the unstable building. She looked into his dark eyes, past the smut and soot smeared across his face, and saw the weight of his responsibility there—and the pain of it.

  He would do what he had to do—she knew that—and all she could say was, ‘Be careful. Please!’

  A slight movement of his lips, the gleam of white teeth behind those lips.

  ‘I will,’ he said, and walked away, back to where chaos still reigned as the stall-holders tried to salvage something from the ruins of their wares.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BACK in the guest house, Gemma thanked the driver and hurried into the building, not wanting anyone to see her in her filthy state. But it was as if Miryam was expecting her, coming to her and leading her into the bathroom where she’d run a bath, scattered rose-petals on the surface, and laid out one of the indigo gowns.

  ‘It is comfortable for you to rest in,’ she said to Gemma. ‘You bathe and I will bring food and tea to your room so you can eat then sleep. The people are grateful for what you do today.’

  ‘How could you know what’s happened?’ Gemma asked, then she saw herself in the bathroom mirror and laughed. ‘Apart from the fact that I look such a mess!

  Miryam shrugged.

  ‘We hear things. Everyone hears things,’ she said, and Gemma could only shake her head. Then she remembered the explosion and fear for Yusef gripped her again. Had someone known he was at the souk? Had the explosion been an attempt on his life? Was the unrest he spoke of more serious than she’d thought?

  ‘If you hear things,’ she said urgently to Miryam, ‘do you know what happened to cause the explosion and fire?’

  ‘Of course,’ Miryam said. ‘It was gas. One of the first things the new highness did was to tell people they must not use old gas tanks. He even made new ones available so people could come and take them for free but the traders in the markets they know best and keep using the old ones. It is because they explode the new highness wanted them changed, but never has there been a bang as big as that one, so maybe now the traders will learn.’

  Gemma thanked Miryam, and shut the bathroom door, pondering the problems of the ‘new highness’ as she stripped and climbed into the lightly scented bath. From tribal unrest to matters as small as replacement gas tanks—did the man have to handle everything himself? Concern himself with even such minor things as gas tanks?

  Of course he would if they were matters of life and death, she realised as she washed greasy soot and smears of blood from her limbs, but her heart ached for him, seemingly alone at the head of his country—trying to be all things to all people.

  Not that it should matter to her. To her he was a business associate, nothing more, or so she should continue to remind herself.

  She was still thinking of Yusef and his duties—and not necessarily as a business associate—as she lay down on her bed and drifted off to sleep, jet lag and the morning’s activities catching up with her. Miryam woke her at six, with a message that His Highness wished to speak with her. He was in the courtyard, Miryam explained, playing with the children.

  Playing with the children? Tall, upright, slightly remote Yusef? And wasn’t he supposedly so busy? Uncharitable thoughts pushed through Gemma’s head as she dressed, not hurrying exactly but aware a summons was a summons, the awe in Miryam’s voice as she breathed the words ‘His Highness’ enough to tell her that.

  ‘He sent this gown.’

  Gemma’s head was still fuzzy with sleep so the words didn’t mean much, but when Miryam spread the emerald-green gown on the bed, the light from the window catching on the golden threads, Gemma’s lungs stopped working while her heart beat out a frenzied tattoo.

  It doesn’t mean anything, her head told her too-excitable body, w
hile to Miryam, who was touching the gown with something akin to reverence, Gemma managed to say calmly, ‘Oh, it’s the material I admired this morning. How kind.’

  But as she slipped the wondrous gown over her head and saw the way the colour brightened her eyes and lit up her hair, her heart continued to believe it was a special gift.

  Wanted to believe—for all he’d said anything between them was impossible.

  And for all she knew that it was true…

  There were women in the courtyard with the children, looking just like the butterflies Yusef had described in their bright silk gowns. And everywhere the children played and tumbled—like nothing more than a litter of puppies. He’d got that right as well!

  He sat, bare-headed in the twilight, on the wide loggia outside the big house she now knew was his. The older woman Gemma had met at breakfast was by his side, while Fajella played at his feet, looking up at him from time to time, winning a smile that made Gemma’s heart ache just to see it.

  The little motherless child, the busy man—how hard it must be for the two to form a bond. From what she’d learned he saw Fajella mostly as she slept—he must seem like a stranger to the little girl.

  But as Gemma approached him it was as if invisible strings ran between them. Once again the sensations she’d experienced in the rose garden outside the hospital returned and her skin prickled with awareness of his presence, her blood thickened in her veins as desire threatened to choke her.

  Cool, act cool, she told herself, for in spite of his talk of attraction, it was ridiculous to believe he too might be feeling the things she was feeling, although his eyes, as he’d seen her in the gown, had gleamed and she thought she’d seen a tiny nod of acknowledgement.

  ‘Good evening.’

  Ultra-cool, but little Fajella looked up at Gemma’s voice and gave a crow of delight then started on unsteady legs towards her new friend.

  And towards the steps!

  Gemma sprang forward to catch the infant before she fell, Yusef also going into action, so the two of them met, hands grasping the child, fingers touching, awareness searing so strongly through Gemma that she knew he had to feel it.

  Her eyes met his and time stood still, the sexual attraction that had flared to life between them with that first kiss sizzling in the air around them so strongly Gemma wondered if the other women in the area could see it, feel it, smell it even, like ozone after lightning!

  Or was her over-active imagination colouring the situation? Yusef’s voice as he retrieved his child and thanked Gemma was coldly formal, his face so blank she wondered if she’d imagined the flash of desire in his eyes and the whisper of her name on his outgoing breath. He stood there, Fajella hitched on his hip, and looked across the courtyard, apparently catching someone’s eye for one of the women came and took his daughter to play with the other children.

  ‘Folly!’ Yusef muttered to himself. It had been folly to send for her—to give in to his need to see her again, if only in the company of others, especially see her in the dress that highlighted so well her vivid beauty. But now she was here, he had to speak to her, to thank her for the way she’d helped the injured, as if that was the only reason he had sent for her. Not by a word or glance could he betray the inexplicable sexual attraction he felt towards this woman, betray the strength of his need to see her, touch her, be near to her. The women of the family would be watching them, and all were sharp enough to spot a secret liaison, even to suspect a hurried kiss.

  Not that a hurried kiss with Gemma would ever be enough. He knew that in some deep instinctive way. He would always want more…

  ‘Were there any fatalities in the explosion? Have you heard how those injured are doing?’ she asked, settling down on the top step of the loggia as if all her life she’d sat on floors. Knowing he couldn’t join her on the step, he resumed his seat beside his father’s senior wife, and replied in what he hoped was a suitably regal manner.

  ‘One man was very badly injured, burns to sixty per cent of his body, but we must be thankful that the other injuries were not as severe. Yes, some have bad burns but all were treatable. Some people have other injuries, broken limbs, cuts and bruises, but apparently that end of the market was quiet at the time.’

  He watched as she took in what he was telling her, and saw her lips curve into a slight smile.

  ‘Quiet?’ she queried. ‘I wouldn’t like to see it when it was busy.’

  He returned her smile—that was acceptable surely. He was handling this well. There’d been a momentary lapse when he’d first seen her, and again when their hands had touched earlier, but he was back in control now.

  ‘But it has thrown your plans out,’ she continued. ‘I still believe it’s important to speak to some of the women before I can make any definite suggestions. Is there some way I can contact Yanne directly to discuss things with her, so you do not need to waste any more time with me?’

  Did she really think time spent with her was wasted? Not that he had time to spend with her, there was always so much to do, but with Abed returning soon, perhaps—

  ‘Are you listening?’

  Her demand was so abrupt his stepmother started, then she looked from him to Gemma and he could see questions forming in her mind.

  ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day.’ He rushed into an apology. ‘I will arrange for Yanne to come here in the morning. She will bring some women from the different tribes.’

  Gemma smiled as she thanked him and as the smile stirred something in his chest, he realised he could stay no longer there in front of her—or anywhere in her vicinity—not in public. He stood up.

  ‘You will excuse me, but whenever possible when I am at home it is my custom to read a story and put Fajella to bed at this time. Miryam will look after you.’

  Aware he was probably arousing even more suspicion among the women with this abrupt departure, he walked across to where Fajella was crawling up the steps—far more successfully than she’d been heading down them. But to his dismay it wasn’t him she sought but the new friend she had found in Gemma.

  It had to be the hair—fascinating to a little girl surrounded by black-haired women.

  ‘Perhaps tonight I could read the story,’ Gemma suggested, as the little girl gripped her fingers and tugged at her hand.

  How could he get out of that one?

  Gemma looked up at Yusef, aware something had shifted in their relationship, the air between them charged with static.

  He nodded, almost curtly, then reached out to take his daughter from her.

  ‘We can do it together,’ he said, and strode away, Gemma following in his wake, unable to work out if he actually wanted a little of her company in private—as she most certainly longed for just a little of his—or if he had suggested it in order to get her alone and perhaps tell her to stay away from his daughter.

  Once in Fajella’s bedroom, he dismissed Anya, telling her he would send for her when he departed. The little girl chose a book from a pile beside her bed—in Arabic of course—then, to Gemma’s surprise, Yusef chose another one, in English, reminding his daughter, in English again, that Gemma wanted to read the story to her.

  So Gemma sat on the edge of the cot, the side down, and read a story about a little girl who wanted a pet and a zoo that sent different animals for her to try. It was obvious Fajella knew the story for she followed it, using a tiny forefinger to open up the tabs on each page, revealing the animals behind them. Yusef, meanwhile, leaned negligently against a chest of drawers, surrounded by dolls and bears but looking no less regal and imposing for his surroundings. He said nothing, but Gemma could feel his watchful gaze on her the whole time, for all that he was here to tuck his daughter into bed.

  ‘Your turn,’ Gemma said to him as she finished the story, although Fajella was about to fall asleep, her eyelids heavy, her gaze fixed on nothing in particular.

  Yusef took Gemma’s place on the edge of the cot, and though Gemma knew she should leave the room, the musical cade
nce of Yusef’s voice as he read the other story, and the naked love on his face as he looked down at his daughter, held her spellbound.

  The little girl fell asleep and Yusef, stood up, covered the child with a light quilt, pulled up the side of the cot, and adjusted the nightlight until it was nothing more than a faint glow.

  Gemma made to leave the room, but his hand on her shoulder halted her. With a gentle but firm grip he turned her, so they stood together in the semi-darkness.

  ‘I am so weak a man it might be best if I cede the title of ruler and let my brother govern our land,’ he growled. ‘If I am not strong enough to resist an attraction that I know is impossible, how can I show strength in ruling my country?’

  The words ground from his lips as if they’d had to push through a lot of resistance to reach the air.

  ‘Not seeing you at all, that’s the answer to this thing that has happened between us, but can I do it? No! A minute, an hour out of your company and I am looking for excuses to send for you. It is not good enough!’

  He turned away from her and paced the room, fortunately large enough to allow a little pacing.

  ‘I could go home,’ Gemma suggested, suspecting he was genuinely upset, probably more at what he saw as a lack of manly strength and moral fibre than at the attraction.

  ‘And leave the job undone? Leave the women and children without access to the full range of medical care they need? You would do that?’

  ‘Not willingly,’ Gemma admitted, ‘but what do you suggest?’

  The broad, white-clad shoulders lifted in an elegant shrug.

  ‘We go on as before. You do your work, we will see each other as part of that, and this attraction—we will take it no further.’

  ‘Good, because this part of “we” has no desire whatsoever to take it further,’ Gemma told him, trying for haughty but falling miles short as it was such a bare-faced lie. But the last thing she wanted was for this man to suspect the strength of her attraction to him.