Gibran promised to be on his best behavior—without her even asking—and she trusted him to be discreet. If nothing else he was trained for subtlety and even deception.
The girls sang and chattered on the drive into the foothills. She tried to see the village through a stranger’s eyes, but even then it seemed pretty and welcoming, not primitive and backward as she’d feared at first.
Maybe she was just growing more comfortable with Gibran. He didn’t seem as judgmental as she’d first assumed. And he was great with the girls. He teased them and asked them questions that made them laugh. And they boldly quizzed him about his life and what he liked and disliked. Aliyah learned that he preferred trucks to horses and blue to yellow, and that he had once played guitar in a band when he lived in France.
Aliyah hadn’t warned anyone that she was coming—not that she ever did—so she pulled up in front of her parents’ house with some trepidation. Quite likely they were in Nabattur at the stall.
“Hello?” she called, pulse quickening.
“Aliyah!” Her grandmother pulled the door open, and her youngest niece rushed out, then stood and stared at Nasri and Parsia. They all waved hello to each other, suddenly shy and silent.
“Inna, this is Gibran, he’s…a member of the royal family. This is my grandmother Barkhat.”
Her grandmother bowed low, and Gibran responded in kind. “I’m pleased to meet you,” he said in a low voice. He looked very tall and imposing next to the small doorway, with its green paint faded by the sun.
“Do come in.” Her grandmother ushered them in, and the girls ran first, after their cousin, then Aliyah, and Gibran stooped so as not to bang his head on the doorframe. They sat on rugs on the floor—traditional style—and Aliyah’s grandmother brought them some pastries she’d baked.
To Aliyah’s surprise, Gibran kept the conversation going, asking polite, non-probing questions about the weather, the family business, the date harvest, and other stuff she was fairly sure he had no interest in whatsoever.
He was being nice. And making a big effort. And he looked adorable while he did it.
Aliyah’s youngest sister brought more young cousins in to join the party, and soon they were running around and climbing onto Gibran, who bore their noisy attentions with a smile.
Aliyah sipped her mint tea, trying to ignore a thick, heavy feeling growing in her chest. The more time she spent with Gibran, the more she liked him. It had been easier to categorize him when he was prickly, obtuse or insulting. Now he was being kind, thoughtful and friendly she had no idea what to make of him.
And every time she looked at him—at his broad arms, his strong jaw, his sturdy back—a flare of unwelcome arousal heated her body.
After about an hour she suggested that maybe they should head for home. Gibran asked if they could walk around the village, and since the children all chorused that they wanted to show him around, she had to agree.
Soon they were walking along the unpaved streets, past the ancient mud brick houses, each door painted a bright color that had faded in the sun. Goats and chickens wandered past them, and children played games. The whole village was only a few hundred yards long, all the houses clustered around a well in the center, and Gibran gave Parsia a ride back on his shoulders because she’d grown tired of toddling around.
Naturally she was nervous about seeing her baby hoisted up into the air, but Gibran held her little legs tight and made her wrap her arms around his head, so that he could hardly see. Aliyah’s heart clenched to see how delighted Parsia was by the attention. She felt sad that her children didn’t have a father to dote on them. Yes, they had three kind “uncles”, but it wasn’t quite the same.
Other villagers came out to greet them, all rather shy and deferential now that she was a queen. The girls stared curiously at Gibran, who stood a head taller than most of the local men, and she could swear she saw a couple of them whisper behind their hands, glancing at her.
At last they made their way slowly back to the car, which now bore a layer of dust on its shiny paint. Parsia wailed at having to come down from her high perch, then Nasri started to cry that it was her turn, and soon both girls were hysterical and inconsolable.
“I think its naptime,” murmured Aliyah, embarrassed that their fun outing had turned into a screamfest. No doubt this would banish any fantasies of fatherhood that might be lurking somewhere in Gibran’s complicated mind.
“Indeed it is.” Gibran whisked the sobbing girls into the car and buckled them in, before Aliyah could even attempt to take charge. Then he started singing.
The girls paused in their sobbing.
“Thank you,” he said. “I was having a hard time hearing myself sing.” He continued, as they stared in wide-eyed amazement, tears still shining on their cheeks. He climbed into the passenger side—silently inviting Aliyah to drive again—so she climbed in and started the engine.
He continued to croon as they drove down from the foothills, and soon the girls were flopping in their seat belts.
“Do you think I dare stop?” he whispered after a few minutes.
“They’re fast asleep.” Aliyah glanced back over her shoulder. “You handled that brilliantly.”
“It’s my Foreign Legion training,” he said with a wink.
“It’s your kind heart,” she said.
“My heart is made of rusted steel, so that’s impossible.”
“You’d like to think that, but you’ve just proved otherwise. You were very sweet to my grandmother and all the children.”
“Maybe I want to guarantee another invitation to your bed tonight.” He mouthed the words your bed silently, but she knew what he meant.
Her insides quivered and heat flooded her core. Oh dear. How did he do this to her? She’d thought her life was all planned out, safe and secure, and that as long as she was polite and well-behaved she could continue her quiet widowed existence.
Gibran had now turned all that upside down. Inconvenient needs and desires crowded her brain and racked her body. “I take back all the nice things I said. What have you done to me?”
“Awakened you from a slumber. Saved you from a life of boring routine.”
“Maybe I was better off sleeping through life.”
“No way.” His big hand on her thigh sent heat through her traditional dress. It was hard to keep her eyes on the road, even though she now had to drive in an almost straight line across the open desert.
“Hey, I’m trying to drive!” She whispered, not wanting to wake the girls.
“Okay, I won’t interfere with you while you’re operating a motor vehicle. But tonight….” He let his hot gaze roam over her body, which responded with a sizzle of arousal.
Aliyah sucked in a breath, trying not to think about how great her life would be if Gibran were a regular part of it. That would never happen. He’d made that perfectly clear. Their affair was temporary, secret and bound to end in tears just as this morning’s enjoyable outing had.
Sooner or later almost everything did.
That afternoon Gibran headed out to southern Satya to talk to the men they believed were family of the pilot. Although they claimed to have no information on where their son and brother had disappeared to, he wanted to watch their reactions as he tested out some of his theories about a conspiracy on them. It was a long drive, almost two hours, and he traveled with two younger guards who accompanied him in the car while he drove.
After two hours of driving on rutted wagon tracks, they approached a tiny village, only four squat houses hugging a rock outcropping, and lacking the fat goats and chickens of Aliyah’s more bucolic hometown. As their car pulled into a clearing, no one emerged.
They brought powerful firearms, but Gibran decided to make his initial approach unarmed, to set them at ease, with the two men in the car providing cover.
No one emerged from the houses, which was odd. Usually simple curiosity would draw these country people out of their homes to see who’d arrived.
Gibran’s gut flared a warning as he watched the silent buildings. He checked his phone for service, and wasn’t surprised to find it a useless lump of plastic and metal. They were on their own out here.
The two guards were silent, tense, and he could smell their sweat. They were both too intimidated by him to say anything—which in general he appreciated—but he could tell they were scared.
“If I climb out with a gun, it will make people clam up and we’ll never get anything out of them.” He glanced at the tiny dark windows. “We’re here to gather information, not enemies.” He was talking to himself as much as them. Frustrated by his slow progress on solving the crimes, he wanted to come back to the palace with some real results tonight.
His brothers still admired him as a successful expert in his field, but if he couldn’t find out who was behind this series of events, they’d soon lose respect for him, and he didn’t want that to happen.
And Aliyah would be so pleased if he shut down this string of violent attacks and made life safer for all of them. Tonight he’d lie in her arms and forget about all of this for a few hours—but first he had a job to do.
He’d gone into worse situations than this. Much worse. These were simple villagers, who might be wary of strangers. Maybe they’d soon be welcomed and offered coffee and almond cakes. Though looking at the spindly, half-dead almond trees between the houses, he rather doubted it.
“Don’t fire unless I command it,” he hissed under his breath.
He climbed out of the car, heart pounding. The bulletproof vest under his shirt gave him a measure of protection. He tried to smooth his face into a neutral expression as he approached the nearest building. “Hello,” he called, in the local language.
No response. Right now the place looked like a ghost town. He’d worn a long robe and wrapped his head in a scarf so he looked less out of place. He approached the first front door, whose blue paint had faded almost to white in the sun, and knocked. His ears pricked as he heard a trace of movement inside.
Someone was in there—listening and watching.
He had to remember that he wasn’t in Ubar, where he had license to do whatever was needed to solve the crime. Right now he was simply a visitor in a foreign country, albeit one with a porous border and an almost identical culture.
These people were probably much like Aliyah’s family, living the same lifestyle their ancestors had pursued for centuries, suspicious of change and strangers.
“Hello,” he called. “I know you’re home. I just want to talk.”
He heard a scrabbling sound, probably a dog being held still. His gut flared another caution. But he hadn’t driven here to turn around and go home with no information. How could he relax and lie with Aliyah tonight if he’d made no progress at all? He decided to pursue a more aggressive tactic.
“I have information about your missing relative. Please, speak with me.”
A moment of silence ticked by, then he heard an all too familiar sound that made dread spike in his gut.
The sound of a rifle being cocked.
“Back up!” he yelled to the men in the car. He stepped instinctively to the side, behind the doorframe. The doors of the car flew open and the two men sprang out, guns at the ready.
Adrenaline seared through him as he waited for a shot—or for someone to emerge—but the eerie silence descended as his two men crouched behind their bulletproof car doors, waiting. He could hear his pulse pounding in his head and feel a bead of sweat trickling down his back…then everything exploded.
.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Gibran’s injured!”
Osman’s words tore through Aliyah’s brain. They were in the garden, seated near the fountain, discussing the upcoming contest until Osman’s phone rang.
“Oh no. What happened?” asked Sam.
Osman spoke rapidly into the phone. Aliyah could make out something about Satya. Her heart crumpled when she realized he was miles away, probably far from help.
Osman gave very specific instructions and grabbed Sam’s phone to order more men to meet them with ambulance services.
Aliyah felt the blood drain from her body. She’d spent all day longing for the moment when he’d be back in her bed tonight, holding her and making her feel safe.
Now he was injured, possibly still in danger.
He could even die.
A whimper escaped her mouth before she could stop it.
“Aliyah, what’s the matter?”
“Gibran, is he badly hurt?” She had to ask.
Osman was still talking on the phone. “He’s been shot, more than once.” He paced back and forth now, brow deeply furrowed. “They’re trying to stop the bleeding. They’re in the middle of nowhere.” He let out a curse—which was something Aliyah had never heard him do before. Obviously the situation was dire.
She could feel her breath growing shallow and her heart thudding.
“Will he be okay, Mama?” lisped Parsia.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she stammered. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. Or him being hurt.
Nasri ran into her arms, lip quivering. “I like Gibran.”
Aliyah held her close, hugging her to her chest. They’d all shared such a wonderful morning, with Gibran showing fatherly warmth to the girls. Now they’d grown attached to someone they shouldn’t have and it was all her fault.
She tried to shove down tears that threatened to emerge as sobs. After yesterday’s outburst she needed to keep a grip on herself.
“He’s alive,” said Osman grimly. “Shot in the leg and in the lower torso. I’m heading out there.” Zadir jumped up to join him.
“Let me come, too.” Sam was already on her feet.
“No, Sam,” said Ronnie, grabbing her arm. “You’re pregnant. You need to stay safe.”
Her chest rose and fell, but she didn’t try to pull her arm away. “Please be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
Aliyah wanted to beg to come, but she knew her place was here with her children. Her heart pounded painfully as she watched Osman and Zadir run for the west gate, where a car now stood waiting. Other staffers sprang into action, implementing now-familiar emergency security protocols.
Sam shook her head. “I just can’t bear this violence,” she murmured. “He came here to help stop it, and now he’s a victim? It’s too awful.”
“I wish we had more information about how badly hurt he is.” Ronnie bit her lip. “And I wish we could do something.”
“Let’s get a bedroom ready for him.” Aliyah sprang to her feet. She had to do something or she’d go out of her mind. “We’ll make sure everything they might need is on hand, and that a doctor is waiting.”
“Won’t they take him to a hospital?”
Aliyah sagged. “I suppose you’re right. Tears surged again. “I just want to do…something.”
“We could pray, Mama,” whispered Parsia. “That might help.”
Now Aliyah felt hot tears on her cheeks, as she tugged her daughter close. “You’re right, sweetheart. Let’s pray.”
They all held hands, gathering all the positive energy they could muster. Aliyah prayed with all her heart that Gibran’s injuries wouldn’t be fatal, that they wouldn’t kill anything in him, including his fierce and bold spirit.
Gibran awoke from a dream in which he’d been walking next to Aliyah along an empty road through the desert. He was talking to her but she couldn’t seem to hear him, and each time he tried to reach out and touch her, his hand went right through her. He wanted so badly to kiss her, to hold her, but nothing he could do or say seemed to reach her.
Waking up was even worse. He couldn’t see anything. Thick greyish blackness crowded around him, mocking him. When he tried to rub his eyes, his hands wouldn’t move. Pain laced the lower half of his body and although he could move his legs, it hurt even worse when he tried.
“Hey!” he called.
“I’m here.” Footste
ps rushed into the room. So he was in a room.
“Where am I?”
“The hospital in Nabattur.” The voice sounded like a young man’s.
“Why can’t I see?”
“It’s night.”
Gibran blinked. This was just darkness? He’d thought he was blind. But how could he be sure he wasn’t? “Can you turn a light on?”
Footsteps on the floor again, and the snap of a light switch. Blinding light from an overhead florescent strip made him scrunch his eyes closed, but sent relief flooding through him.
He tried to lift his hands, but couldn’t, and as he squinted down—hey, he could lift his head!—he saw his wrists were tied to the bed with leather straps.
Panic spiked through him. Was he a prisoner?
One way to find out. “Untie my hands.”
“Uh…” The young man—dressed like a hospital orderly—looked hesitant. “Let me see if that’s okay.”
Gibran frowned as the boy moved out of his line of vision. He strained his ears—was there anyone else around? Why couldn’t he remember what happened?
“Gibran!” Osman’s deep voice boomed over him and he heard several people enter the room, though he couldn’t turn his neck enough to see them. They moved around in front of him and he could make out Osman, Zadir and Amahd, all silhouetted against the strip light.
“Why are my hands cuffed?” He couldn’t hide the suspicion in his voice. Was this some kind of conspiracy against him?
“Untie him,” Osman commanded the attendant. “We didn’t want you to hurt yourself. You weren’t fully conscious but you kept trying to get out of the bed. The doctor said it was safer to sedate you and prevent you from moving. We wanted to bring you back to the palace but they want to assess your wounds in the morning.”
“Wounds?” He tried to sound calm. He knew something was seriously wrong with his legs, because they burned like fire.
“You were shot three times, once in the lower torso, where it narrowly missed a kidney, once in the thigh and again in the calf. Your fibia was shattered and they’ve pinned and splinted it.”
Desert Kings Boxed Set: The Complete Series Books 1-6 Page 58
