Desert Sheikh vs American Princess

by Teresa Morgan

  "Are you going to make me ask?"

  He turned to see Noelle with her arms folded and her toe tapping on the plush carpet of his office. That carpet had been a gift from one of the Askari hill tribes on his coronation. It had taken thirty women six months to spin the wool, dye it, and finally, to tie the thousands of individual knots that made up the crest of Askar.

  All so that he had something to walk on. And now, would he walk on Noelle? Or was it Kalilah he was walking on?

  Or was Sheikha Farouk walking on him?

  "Fine," Noelle said, sounding strangely calm. "I'll bite. Why are you marrying her?"

  "It is not final yet," he found himself saying. Clinging to the words, to the idea that perhaps there was another way...

  "Sheikha Farouk seems pretty sure it's final," she insisted. "Also, they both seem evil. What's with that?"

  Evil? No. Sheikha Farouk's actions were understandable, at least to him. "I cannot see how this is your business."

  "Walid." Oddly, Noelle didn't lose her temper. "You're not acting like yourself."

  "You do not know me." They had met mere weeks ago. "Are you basing your judgment on the romantic drivel I wrote to you this morning? I would not trust that if I were you."

  "Yeah, because you're in the habit of lying to me all the time." She twitched up a corner of her mouth skeptically. "Maybe I haven't known you all that long, but I feel like I'm starting to see you for who you really are. And I think that the key to everything you do is that you want to help Askar. That you would kidnap someone for Askar. That you would even marry someone you didn't want to for Askar."

  She had come so close, but not close enough. Askar, yes. He had a responsibility. But what drove him was not his country. It was his guilt.

  "So," she continued, "how does marrying this girl--who is way too young for you, by the way--help Askar? She'll suck as queen. She'll make you a worse king by making you miserable. You will spend all your time cleaning up her messes instead of ruling fairly, like you have so far."

  Ruling fairly. He couldn't help reacting. A tiny snort escaped him.

  She cocked her head at him. "What's even weirder is that I think you know all this."

  "Your jealousy is unattractive."

  "You think I'm just jealous of her?" She tossed her hair to one side. "Okay, I have to admit. Maybe a little. It isn't super fun to know that you crawled out of bed with me and started planning your next lover, but I will be long gone by the time you marry that girl. So what is it with you, Walid? What's going on?"

  "What is going on with me is not your concern. Do not trouble yourself." He drew indifference around himself like armor. All the while, some small voice inside him counseled that he should simply tell her his dilemma. On the other hand, the last person he had revealed his need to had cornered him into marrying her granddaughter.

  "But Walid--"

  "No, Noelle. I intend to--" Here he could not force himself to say marry. His mouth refused to form the word. "--become engaged to Kalilah Farouk shortly. There is nothing you can do to stop it."

  "If it's what you want. But I don't think you want it, and I don't think what you're doing is good for the country that you love."

  He refused to let the truth of her words get past his armor. "Then why have you come to see me this morning? Why were you in my waiting room in the first place, embarrassing me in front of my respected guests?"

  "Stop it, Walid. You haven't bullshitted me yet, so don't start now. If you're embarrassed of me, that's on you. You kidnapped me, and no one forced you to sleep with me last night. I'm actually pretty sure that part was your idea."

  He turned away, unwilling to look her in the eye. And also unwilling to apologize.

  "As for the reason I came here, you can just live in suspense."

  By the time he turned back to her, she was gone.

  Noelle was right. And he could not admit she was right. He needed Sheikha Farouk's money, and that was all. The matter was simple. Only Noelle's presence injected complications.

  He could rid himself of the complications by ejecting her from his palace. And yet... if her father paid his debt in the next four days, the matter became even more simple. He could delay the engagement and review his options. On the fifth day, the payment had to happen. On that, he had no choice.

  To keep all avenues open to him, Noelle would remain in the palace.

  The only thing that troubled him now was her final phrase. What should he be living in suspense for? What did she intend to do?

  Nine

  TWO DAYS LATER, Noelle craned her neck to squint at the tallest palm in Askar. At least the handcuffs let her do that.

  She was off the palace grounds for the first time since she'd tried to make the U.S. embassy. Askar, she'd realized, was a stunning country.

  When her parents had been here, one of Walid's lackeys had escorted them on an excursion into the desert. Sure, it had been nice. They'd driven twenty minutes into the desert and ended up sitting on a dune, watching the sun set over the city of Deira. Now, that felt like a safe little prepackaged tourist excursion.

  The real desert, where they were now, felt utterly wild. The sun burned down at her as if the planet had a malevolent will to reach across space and torment everything it saw with nuclear heat. All around, an infinite sea of golden sand beckoned.

  Their convoy of five SUVs was a ship bobbing on an ocean, only it was an ocean of dry emptiness. But one wrong step away from the trucks and no one would ever be able to find you. You might be less than a mile from safety, and you'd never know it.

  Sort of like the real ocean, actually.

  On either side of the patchwork-paved road, the dunes swept up and away like waves petrified in the instant before crashing. Sweeps of gold sand, curved into the two thin lanes of asphalt, forcing vehicles to slalom between them. Or, in the case of their trucks, just drive over the humps when necessary.

  In the distance, beginning to be touched by a dipping sun turning orange at the edges, in the middle of the sea made of sand, hung a valley of tepid green. The Agatir Oasis. She'd been surprised to learn that an oasis was not a single pool of crystal water flanked by a couple of palm trees. That was what you thought when you got your information from Bugs Bunny cartoons, she supposed.

  An oasis was actually a valley that had access to water, fed by an underground spring. Sometimes the spring didn't even reach the surface. Agatir, for example, just had a really reliable well, enough to support a medium-sized village.

  A village, plus the oldest, tallest palm in Askar. One that held a jeweled secret.

  The tree rose into the sky above the rooftops in the distance, dominating the buildings that spread out from its base. She'd never seen a palm so tall.

  Apparently, the village was pretty proud of the palm. From what Suzette had told her in the two-hour journey, the palm was kind of their thing. Apparently the tree, and its grove, had been sacred to the djinn-worshipping religion that dominated Askar in pre-Islamic times. Under Walid's rule, with its freedom of religion that he'd instituted, some of the spirit worshippers were coming out of hiding and resuming the rites they'd observed in secret for hundreds of years.

  Of course it didn't hurt Walid at all that these were the folks who believed he had djinn blood in him. You had to support a guy who might be related to your not-quite-gods.

  Whatever else Walid was, the guy was not dumb.

  Except when it came to the thing that drove him to think about marrying that Kalilah person. Then he was magnificently stupid, the idiot.

  "Princess?" asked her driver, in heavily accented English. "Might we continue? You did mention we are in some hurry."

  Noelle looked to the convoy to see that a dozen pairs of eyes looking back at her. Uh, okay, so she when she'd yelled for the trucks to stop to let her catch a glimpse of the palm, she was the only one who'd gotten out to look. She was the only one who thought the sight was anything worth looking twice at.

  Everyone else was
checking their email on their phones. Or trying to figure out what the crazy foreigner thought was so special that she stared at it for five solid minutes.

  "Um, good idea." They should get a move on before the pursuers caught up. "Let's get a move on."

  Back in the truck, she barely got her belt buckled before the engine lurched forward.

  Seemed like every guard, every driver, and every servant in the palace was one of Suzette's nieces or nephews. With the flick of a finger, the cook had arranged this excursion. Five trucks, twelve people, and the supplies for all of them to stay for a couple of days.

  It wouldn't be a couple of days, though. They didn't have that kind of time. They'd be lucky if they got overnight, and Noelle doubted even that.

  No problem getting her out of the palace, of course. Two more of Suzette's nieces had been on guard. One of them even jumped into the last truck in the lineup.

  She was beginning to wonder if Walid really ruled Askar, or if he only imagined he did.

  How much longer? Bonnie asked, in true eleven-year-old style. Can this guy drive any faster?

  I don't know, and no, she shot at her friend, but cool relief popped into her at hearing from Bonnie. She'd been silent since they left the palace, making Noelle wonder if she was into this.

  Bonnie had seemed gung-ho when they'd first started examining the map, and not put off by the whole altar thing falling through.

  The chapel and everything in it had been the ruse. The map was the real thing, though--and she'd managed to figure out what an entire battalion of the German army hadn't. She hugged the knowledge to herself. Maybe there'd be magazine articles about her. Archeology Monthly or something.

  Once she'd figured out nothing in the chapel worked, that you couldn't trust any of the ceiling spotlights, she'd moved on.

  Secret ink, said Bonnie. Secret ink is a classic.

  Drawing on her knowledge of pirate maps, Noelle had seen what no one else who'd ever held the map had. What Sheikh Osman had hidden in plain sight.

  She'd lit a candle and held up the map. Close to the flame, but not too close, of course. In the middle of the desert an icon had appeared. A palm, woven into the fabric with fiber that only stood out when lit from behind. Before going to Walid with it, she'd consulted Suzette, who'd told her about this palm tree, and that the one on the map corresponded to the real-life one.

  In fact, the real palm was the only item on the freaky map that was in the right spot. So, didn't it have to be the location? Plus, Palm of Askar? The location was right there in the name of the jewel.

  It was so simple, and so twisty. The truth in a lie that wasn't a lie.

  Then she'd gone to ask Walid to come with her to find the jewel. Nope, he'd been arranging his arranged marriage instead.

  She shoved that out of her head and concentrated on the magazine story. This was going to be awesome. Especially when Walid's gold-rimmed eyes turned relieved at not having to marry Kalilah. She couldn't wait to get to the palm.

  Not to mention that clock tick-ticking in the back of her mind. They were being followed. No way they weren't being followed. He was coming.

  Their convoy had to get to the tree before they got caught and dragged back to the palace. Just had to.

  "How much longer?" She leaned forward as far as her seatbelt would let her and asked the driver, "Can you drive any faster?"

  *****

  Walid fumed behind the wheel of the 4x4, as he had been doing for over two hours. Again, he had felt her leave the palace grounds. How? How did that happen? Why should he be able to feel where Noelle was?

  A pull that he could not ignore had wrenched him from the day's business and forced him to the palace garage. Not his private one, but the place where the motor pool was stored.

  He had wasted fifteen minutes arguing with his security team over the wisdom of him going on his own, losing moment after moment as Noelle sped away from him. Finally, he had simply chosen the nearest vehicle, walked to it, and begun to drive. He paid no attention to his security detail rushing to organize into the few remaining 4x4s and come after him.

  Agatir Oasis. He knew exactly where she was going. Any student of the map would.

  Of all the ridiculous stunts Noelle had attempted, this one was--well, not worse than jumping out her bedroom window, but truly, it was a reckless act.

  She was punishing him for her encounter with the Farouks. There could be no other reason for this. Her possessiveness of him and jealousy had eclipsed her rational thought. All she had desired was to get revenge on him for even thinking of another woman only hours after leaving the bed where they had spent a night of passion and sharing, becoming ever closer.

  Her thinking mind was not engaged. She was operating solely on jealousy.

  His potential fiancée did not care enough to be jealous. Kalilah had made it clear he was free to do as he wanted, even after their marr--

  The word would not form, even in his mind. His engagement, he corrected.

  And here was Noelle, who was so jealous of another woman he had no interest in that she ran into the desert, pulling it around her like a blanket.

  Ridiculous.

  Yet if it was so ridiculous, why did he savor the thought? A woman--not simply any woman, but one who also happened to have a pirate princess living in her head--wanted him all to herself. Had anyone ever been jealous of him that way? Had anyone taken the kind of interest in his life, in him, that she had? The only reason she would do such a thing was if she cared about him.

  A novel concept. Someone who cared about him. She cared about him. Noelle Oldrich cared about him.

  It felt... strange.

  And he was making plans to get engaged to another woman. Perhaps Noelle's actions were not the ridiculous ones.

  No. No, he must do what was right for Askar. That meant acquiring the money required for the pipeline. Getting engaged to Kalilah.

  He had driven through Agatir Oasis on autopilot and was now coming to the grove of the palm. He recognized some of the rougher vehicles from his motor pool.

  A dozen of his servants scrambled around, pitching traditional-style black tents, lifting faded carpets out of 4x4 trucks. A circle of men argued around a pile of loose twigs and wood that would eventually become a fire, he supposed.

  At the center of it all, with her back to the palm and somehow managing not to be overshadowed by the vastness of the tree, stood a calm figure, letting the others orbit around her. Noelle's eyes followed the progress of his vehicle half-lidded. Her flat-lipped, head-cocked expression gave no clue to the emotions driving her. Her hands were folded demurely in front of her long dress.

  He tore at the wheel to turn into the circle of their makeshift camp and pounded on the brakes. He ripped at the emergency brake and didn't even bother pressing the off switch before leaping from the truck.

  He marched in a straight line toward Noelle, ignoring the servants who had to rush out of his way or get stomped on by His Royal Majesty.

  She stood her ground, lifting her chin into the air in regal style. As he got closer, he saw her hands were not just folded, but her wrists were caught in a pair of handcuffs. Someone had dared to do that to her.

  Rage blossomed, a heat in the base of his stomach, and before he remembered that he did not raise his voice, he shouted for the keys to the cuffs. In moments, the metal had been removed from her and she rubbed her wrists, which blushed red.

  "Thanks," she said, blandly, and eyed his outfit. The dark Italian suit was not the ideal clothing for the desert. The polished dress shoes were already scuffing in the sand. "Didn't have time to change out of your suit?"

  "What do you think you are doing?" His voice was still raised, for some reason. "Why were those on you?"

  He turned to yell at the nearest servant, but they seemed to have all retreated to behind the circle of vehicles. A neat trick. "Why were these on her?"

  He felt a light touch on his jaw, her fingers turning his face back to look at her. "I was
the one who insisted on the cuffs. To show you I wasn't trying to run away."

  Her words made no sense to him. She could not have known that he would arrive at this place after she did. His dark sea of rage and frustration, a torrent that had been rising since he had known she left the palace, had burst the thin dam that had held it back.

  "What do you imagine you are doing? Once again, you have stepped into territory you do not understand, with barely anything to protect yourself. This impulsive behavior must stop, do you comprehend me?"

  About this point in his rant, Noelle seemed to become intrigued with a point about a yard behind his head. To anyone who was not in his position, looking into her eyes, it would appear she paid rapt attention to every word he said. Only he could see that her gaze was not focusing on him, that, in fact, she was effortlessly ignoring each phrase unleashed from his mouth.

  Yet he could not stop himself from speaking. A symphony of anger rushed out of him, a masterpiece of pent-up irritation. It was only when the final echoing chord of the performance had drained to silence that her focus came back to him, not that distant horizon.

  "I assume you're done now," she said, her tone as pleasant as if he'd been asking her how her day had gone. "I'm glad you're here."

  Walid refrained from putting his hands to his temples to stop his head from spinning. "Why would that be?"

  She grinned, pure mischief in her smile. "We're about to find the Palm of Askar."

  "Noelle, I understand your enthusiasm, but you will not find anything here." Shaking his head, he gestured in a wide wave to the surrounding area. "The treasure is not buried here. I studied the map as well, when I was a child. No doubt you realized that the only feature of the map that is correct is the icon of the palm tree. The jewel is not here. You can no longer see the holes, but this area was carefully excavated, inch by inch, by the Germans."