Desert Doctor, Secret Sheikh

by Meredith Webber

  Jen shook her head.

  ‘The women there are capable and experienced. One of them at least is a competent midwife, I’m sure of that. She will have explained things to the young mother and she’ll watch to see the baby feeds. It’s just the risk of infection in the wound or internally that bothers me. I need to go to check for that, but you needn’t come. In fact, I’m probably safer on my own, because if two go they can keep one of us as ransom for the other to return, as they intended doing with Hamid.’

  Kam heard the words, even heard sense in some of them, but if Jenny thought he’d let her go over that border alone, she was mistaken.

  That was thought number one.

  Thought number two was more a question—what lay behind this sudden rush of common-sense words from a thoroughly exhausted woman? Why was she discussing this at all when she should be finishing her breakfast then having a sleep before beginning, belatedly, her day’s work?

  He sensed something beneath the words, some hidden reason for them, but maybe that was because so much about him was also hidden. She’d talked of her suspicions of him, and he’d parried them, but now he wished with all his heart that he hadn’t had to lie to her—or maybe not lie, but at the least conceal the truth. Especially now they’d talked so much of trust.

  ‘OK, that’s breakfast done,’ she said, looking up at him and smiling, but it was an open friendly smile, not the hidden one he’d hoped to see earlier, peeping out almost shyly. ‘I’m going to follow my cup of tea with a couple of belts of coffee and that way I’ll get through to afternoon. I’ll feel better tonight if I have a nap this afternoon.’

  Kam didn’t protest, although when she’d finished a small cup of coffee and bent over to put her sandals back on he stopped her.

  ‘Wait.’

  He looked towards the serving woman who told him her friend had gone to get the slippers.

  ‘Wait for what? What’s going on?’ Jen asked, and Kam smiled at her, reminding her of the need for distance and pretence.

  ‘You didn’t answer me about soft slippers,’ he said. ‘Someone is making some for you.’

  ‘Someone is making me slippers? Making slippers while I ate breakfast? That’s impossible!’

  But the other woman had returned and she now came towards Jen, shyly offering a pair of the prettiest slippers Jen had ever seen. A deep maroon, a colour she knew came from the dye of a local desert plant, and decorated with embroidered flowers.

  Kam took them from the woman, exchanging words, then he slipped them on Jen’s feet.

  ‘They feel as smooth as velvet,’ she whispered, wriggling her toes to luxuriate in the softness.

  ‘They’re made from felted camel hair,’ Kam explained. ‘I think young girls learn to make slippers almost as soon as they learn to walk, and there always seems to be someone making them in every camp.’

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ Jen said, pointing her toes in front of her the better to admire them. ‘Will you thank her for me, and thank whoever gave them to her? Should I offer to pay—to buy them?’

  Kam smiled again, the smile slipping over the broken barriers around her heart and touching it with happiness.

  ‘You’d insult them if you offered to pay and, of course, I thanked them. And now, Dr Stapleton, let’s get you home—you can’t walk across the sand with those pretty feet.’

  He bent and lifted her again and although she wanted to protest—should protest, she could have worn her sandals across the sand between the tents—she didn’t, content to steal a few minutes in his arms, impersonal though they may be.

  He had to stop carrying her, Kam realised as he held her against his chest and felt his heart beating with desire. Oh, that he could be carrying her into his own tent, a beautiful woman he’d claimed as his!

  Of course, he didn’t have a tent, and this particular beautiful woman certainly wasn’t his.

  She couldn’t be his, she of the wanderlust and he in need of a stay-at-home wife…

  He set her down inside the big tent, and was pleased to see Lia and Akbar sitting with Hamid between them, the little boy prattling on about his adventures, the parents happy just to have him there.

  When Akbar saw Kam he did nothing more than nod, but the nod said a thousand things that words could never have said. Kam nodded back, understanding between the two of them, though Lia had to put her thanks and happiness into words, a stream of them, until Akbar held up his hand for silence then announced he was moving back to his own tent now.

  ‘He’s leaving?’ Jenny asked, as Lia helped her husband stand and a conversation she couldn’t follow went on between the men.

  ‘They want to be in their own tent,’ Kam explained, and Jenny nodded.

  ‘I can understand that. They want to be a family. You will tell him to call in each day so we can check his wounds.’

  Kam smiled at the anxiety in her voice.

  ‘I will,’ he promised, not telling her he’d already given Akbar this advice, only he’d suggested every second day. Jenny was more anxious than he was, worrying that any adverse consequences in the camp might jeopardise her TB programme.

  Jenny headed for her corner of the tent, knowing her hair must be like a bird’s nest beneath the shawl still wrapped loosely around it, knowing her body needed a break from Kam’s proximity while her heart needed to recover from his gift of slippers, for she knew he must have asked for them and probably would pay for them.

  Wasn’t there a bumper sticker back in the real world about senseless acts of kindness? That’s all these were, she told herself. Washing her feet, finding slippers for them—it meant nothing more than kindness. It was her folly that they turned her heart to mush…

  She dragged the brush through her tangled hair, letting it pull at the knots, thinking pain might help restore some common sense. It didn’t work, her heart beating faster as she heard Kam talking to Marij or Aisha as they began the morning testing.

  At least she’d got the knots out with her efforts, so now she could plait it, then a quick wash, a change of clothes and she’d be ready to start the day.

  A deep sigh started way down near the pretty slippers and escaped in a rush of air. Had it only been twelve hours ago she’d stood here, washing, and wishing she could change into something pretty, worrying that her meeting with Kam on the rock would look too much like a date if she did?

  Some date!

  She washed, dressed then joined the two nurses, noticing as she passed that Kam had set up a kind of clinic near the doorway of the tent and was tending what looked like a deep cut on one of the small boys who hung around her most of the time.

  Detouring towards them, she realised the rest of the boys were hanging back.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked Kam, as she drew closer and saw the jagged cut that slashed across the child’s forearm.

  Kam turned to her and smiled then motioned the other boys closer.

  ‘Did you ever swear allegiance to a gang? Become a blood brother, or in your case a blood sister? Your boys have formed a—I suppose club is a better word than gang, and had to mingle blood to take their oath. Problem was, the only knife they had was a kitchen one and it was blunt, so they used the top of a tin can and Ahmed here went a little deep.’

  Jen wasn’t sure if smiling was the right response, but she was fond of the boys and they were now eyeing her warily, so she did smile, then said to Kam, ‘It’s not dangerous, this club, is it? I wouldn’t like them to be swearing blood oaths to maim or kill or steal or do anything bad. Without school to attend, they could get up to all kinds of mischief.’

  Kam finished winding a bandage around the now cleaned wound and sent the boys off with a warning to be careful, and it was only as they turned to go that she realised one of them was carrying Rosana on his back.

  ‘You want to know what their blood oath was?’ Kam asked, smiling so broadly Jen knew it wasn’t bad, although the way the smile made her feel fitted the description only too well.

  She nod
ded, and his smile became a chuckle.

  ‘They’ve adopted Rosana,’ he said. ‘The oath was to protect her at all times, both now and all through her life. That little girl has got herself a family, even if they are all nine or ten. They’ll grow up and so will she, and pity help any young man who might fancy her later on. He’ll have to run the gauntlet of those boys, and really prove himself worthy—What’s wrong?’

  Jen shook her head, aware tears were seeping from her eyes and slipping down her cheeks but unable to stop them.

  ‘They are so good—there is so much goodness,’ she finally managed, swiping at the tears that still escaped her brimming eyes. ‘Here in a place where people have so little, and where hope is close to dying, those little boys have pledged to help that child…’

  Kam could not help himself. He pulled Jenny into his arms, steered her into the relative privacy of the space she called her bedroom and held her close, rocking her in his arms until he felt the tension ease out of her.

  He tilted her chin and looked down at her face, using his handkerchief to wipe the dampness from her cheeks.

  ‘How can you do this work when you feel the pain of others so strongly?’ he asked, his voice gentle but bemused.

  ‘How can I not do this work?’ she replied, offering him a strained smile. ‘When I see the problems other people have, how can I not do something, however small, to help?’

  She kissed him lightly on the lips, readjusted her scarf and slipped away from him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JENNY worked hard through the morning, uninterrupted by the usual requests for medical help as Kam was seeing those who felt sick or were injured in some way. She wanted the slides done and the medications put out by early afternoon, so she could have a sleep before returning to the rebel camp.

  The thought brought a slightly grim smile to her lips. One night of adventure and she was considering this return to the other side of the border as calmly as she’d catch a train to the city back home in Brisbane.

  Better than considering other consequences, she decided, although a slight tremor of apprehension in her abdomen suggested she didn’t feel quite as blasé as she’d like to be. The chief could keep them there. Or he might be so angered by them leaving the previous night, he would kill them.

  Somehow, Jenny thought not. Regardless of the cause of the fighting, the chief was intelligent enough to know they weren’t part of it, and that making them part of it could bring retribution down not only on his head but on the heads of his people.

  ‘No more patients, so I’ll help with the slides.’

  Kam settled himself beside her, causing consternation in her lungs and happy little leaps of delight in her heart.

  She concentrated on the consternation.

  ‘You didn’t come to help me out but to check the needs of the place and start a medical clinic. Have you contacted your brother? Asked him about a tent for it? Mentioned a well?’

  Kam took a group of red-marked slides and slid the first onto the plate of the microscope.

  ‘I’ve spoken to my brother,’ he said, knowing it wasn’t the reply Jenny wanted but unwilling to tell her a lie and unable to tell her he’d done no more than say he was alive and his research was going more slowly than he’d expected.

  Not exactly a lie but there was no way he could leave until Jenny’s trips across the border had ceased.

  Unless, of course, he could provide her with a suitable escort, but who?

  And as far as the well and other things were concerned, he was aware that radio messages could be monitored easily and hadn’t wanted to alert the rebels over the border to the fact that he might be a person of power. If he’d spoken of the camp’s needs, Arun would immediately have got things moving, and the chief in the captured village might begin to wonder. And mention of their adventure of the previous evening would undoubtedly bring Arun rushing to the mountains, a complication Kam didn’t want to think about.

  Not least because his brother had a way with women, an ease about him that drew women in, so a mild flirtation led to something more very quickly…

  Suffice it to say he didn’t want his playboy brother anywhere in Jenny’s vicinity. Not for selfish reasons, he told himself, but because he’d sensed a vulnerability in her from their first meeting, and now to know she’d lost her husband and unborn child…

  ‘Have you gone to sleep there, or is there something on the slide I should know about?’

  Jenny’s question jerked him back to the present.

  ‘No, this one’s good. I put it where?’

  She showed him and continued writing notes for medication, but working so close to her was distracting, while thinking of her crossing the border again tonight—

  Gut-knotting—there was no other word for it.

  ‘I think I’ll check the boys,’ he said, and stood up, knowing he couldn’t stay beside her without trying to persuade her not to go. Yet he knew, short of tying her to a tent peg, there was no way to stop her.

  Stubborn woman!

  Beautiful woman…

  ‘Thanks for all your help,’ she said, as he eased away.

  ‘Sarcastic woman!’ he said aloud, then hurried from the tent.

  Jen was glad he’d gone. Having him so close had been distracting, to say the least.

  He’d washed her feet!

  She had to stop that thought recurring in her mind. Surely if she wanted to think of his kindness she should be thinking of the way he’d sheltered her as she’d slept the previous night, his arm around her shoulders, the air between them zinging with the attraction they’d both now admitted, but him understanding her halting explanation of inexperience and honouring her wish to not take the attraction further.

  ‘You go,’ Marij said to her an hour later, when the daily medications had been given out and the testing finished. ‘Aisha and I will do the rest. We can put the slides together and we know the medication plan as well as you do. You go and sleep.’

  Aisha looked as worried as she sounded.

  ‘I’m not that tired,’ Jen told her. ‘I think doctors get enough early training of sleepless nights to be able to handle them with ease.’

  ‘I do not worry over your lack of sleep,’ the nurse replied. ‘I worry about you going back to that place again tonight. It is dangerous. It is stupid that you go. And that man who goes with you has not the sense of a rabbit that he lets you go. Look at what they did to Akbar.’

  ‘They thought he was going to steal from them—he did not tell them about Hamid in case they hurt the boy. I suppose he was lucky he was only flogged, not dealt some far worse punishment.’

  Aisha shuddered.

  ‘You are right, although I think even over there they are no longer barbarians who would cut off the hand of a thief.’

  Jen joined in the shuddering, but was quick to reassure Aisha that she’d be all right.

  ‘They want me healthy and with both my hands,’ Jen joked, ‘so I can look after the new mother. Just pray there are no complications.’

  ‘I will pray for you,’ Aisha said, and Jen knew she would. ‘Now, go and sleep.’

  Jen obeyed the order this time, suddenly so tired it was the only thing to do. Who knew what mistakes she might have made if she’d stayed there?

  She woke at five, her internal alarm in perfect working order, and found her water containers full and her wash basin already filled with water for her wash.

  The little boys or Kam?

  Deciding it didn’t matter but thankful that she didn’t have to fetch it herself, she stripped off, found a towel to stand on, then soaped herself all over. After three years with Aid for All, she was an expert at bird-baths, as she called her splash, soap and rinse routine, and now rinsed off all the soap and dried herself, pleased to know the rose scent of the soap lingered on her skin.

  Now, what to wear? The long tunics she put over her jeans were fairly tight fitting, and the one she’d been wearing had hampered her as she’d climbed the mo
untain the previous night, but jeans on their own weren’t the answer for a visit to the rebel camp. She opened her suitcase and dug to the bottom, pulling out a long full skirt she’d bought at a market in Colombia. It was black but a wide band around the bottom of it was decorated with beads and braid, making it a little festive.

  A long-sleeved blouse, also black, would complete her outfit and with a scarf around her hair, she’d almost pass as a local. Well, not quite almost…

  She dressed then brushed her hair, a refrain—should get it cut—accompanying each stroke. Not that she would, for her hair having grown it since the accident, was the symbol of her new life…

  Kam was waiting outside, and for a moment she thought she saw admiration in his eyes, but he made no comment on her clothing, simply nodding to her then leading her swiftly through the camp towards the place where they were to meet their guide.

  ‘I’ve some bread and water in my backpack,’ he told her, ‘but I think with us coming at this hour, they will offer us food.’

  An idle conversation but there was something bothering him, so when he paused and looked around the camp and then up at the sky, she asked, ‘What’s wrong? Something other than us going back across the border? What else is worrying you?’

  ‘There’s a storm coming,’ he said, then continued on his way, leaving Jen to follow.

  Which she did, although she, too, looked up at the sky as she walked. No sign of clouds but, then, there was no sign of the sky either. A hazy greyness, so pale it was almost white, was all she could see.

  ‘There are no clouds,’ she pointed out, as she caught up with him again.

  ‘But what do you see?’ he asked.

  ‘Haze? We get heat haze in the summer—is this the same?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘This haze is caused by dust—there’s a sandstorm brewing.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them, but does that matter? We’ll be in a vehicle, we’ll still be able to get there and back, won’t we?’

  This time he smiled as he shook his head.

  ‘Windscreen wipers don’t clear dust from the windscreen, and sand in a storm can strip a car of paint—that’s how fierce these storms can be.’