The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance)

by Melissa James

  Nothing, thank God. Hana dragged in a deep sigh of relief, and finally allowed herself a moment to look at her patient’s face.

  ‘No, no,’ she whispered, horrified.

  She’d known as she ran to save this man’s life that he’d pulled off the impossible today—but the feat suddenly didn’t seem quite so impossible, if he was who she thought he was.

  Please, God, just make it a freak physical resemblance…because if it was him, then by his mere presence he’d brought far more danger to the village than by any supplies he’d brought.

  Even Sh’ellah’s followers would know him. Most men loved fast sports and money, and this man combined both. Just put a helmet on him and it was the former face of the world’s most expensive racing-car team. He’d won the World Championship twice—and brought both riches and research to a once-struggling nation. He’d found oil and natural gas reserves in a place few had thought to look, with his chemical background and analytical racing driver’s mind.

  ‘La!’ he muttered, in either fever or concussed confusion. ‘La, la, akh! Fadi, la!’

  No, no, brother! Fadi, no!

  In dread, Hana heard the words in the Arabic native to her childhood home country, begging his beloved brother Fadi to live. It broke her heart—she knew how it felt to lose those she loved—and then she listened in horror as he relived the drive to the village in graphic detail, including the complex mixture of chemicals he’d used to blind Sh’ellah’s men.

  The fine-chiselled, handsome face—the faint scars of burns on his cheek, the horrific wounds on his body…even his miraculous escape today made perfect sense. He’d obviously had extensive training in the creation of compounds, and how much of each to add to make something new—such as a flare that could blind the men chasing him.

  ‘This is all I need,’ she muttered in frustration to the delirious face of Alim El-Kanar, the missing sheikh of Abbas al-Din. ‘Why couldn’t you be anywhere but here?’

  The former racing-car champion kept muttering, describing the flare-bomb he’d made.

  At the worst possible moment, the sound of a dozen all-terrain vehicles bumping hard and fast over the non-existent road reached her. Sh’ellah’s men all spoke Arabic similar to that of the man lying in front of her. They’d identify him in moments, take him for enormous ransom…and destroy any evidence of their abduction. Within ten minutes she and all her friends would be blown to bits: another statistic to a world so inured to violence that they’d be lucky to make it to page twenty of a newspaper, or on the TV behind some Hollywood star’s latest drunken tantrum.

  ‘Fadi—Fadi, please, stay with me, brother! Stay!’

  She had to do it. With a silent apology to the hero of her village, she heated a wet cloth over the fire and shoved it over his famous features to accelerate the fever already beginning to burn under his skin; she rubbed him down with a dry towel to make the temperature of his arms and legs rise. Her only chance lay with scaring the men into staying away from him…

  And by shutting him up. She put her fingers to his throat and pushed down on his carotid artery, counting a slow, agonising one to twenty, until he collapsed into unconsciousness.

  He had to be dreaming, but it was the sweetest dream of angel eyes.

  Alim felt the fever creating needle-pricks of pain beneath his skin, the throbbing pain at his temple…but as he opened his eyes the confusion grew. Surely he was in Africa still? The hut looked African enough with its unglazed windows, and the cooking fire in the centre of the single room; the heat and dust, red dirt not sand, told him he was still in the Dark Continent.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked the veiled woman bending over the cooking fire.

  When she turned and limped towards him, he recognised the vortex of his centrifugal confusion: his angel-eyed goddess wasn’t African. The face bending to his was half covered with a veil, but the green-brown eyes that weren’t quite looking in his, gently slanted and surrounded by glowing olive skin, were definitely Arabic. They were so beautiful, and reminded him so much of home, he ached in places she hadn’t disinfected or stitched up.

  Perhaps it was the limp—anyone who climbed into a moving truck would have to hurt themselves; or maybe it was her voice he’d heard in fevered sleep, begging him to be quiet—but he was certain she’d been the one to save his life.

  ‘You’re in the village of Shellah-Akbar. How are you feeling?’ she asked in Maghreb Arabic, a North African dialect related to his native tongue—haunting him with the familiarity. She was from his region—though she had the strangest accent, an unusual twang. He couldn’t place it.

  Intrigued, he said, ‘I’m well, thank you,’ in Gulf Arabic. His voice was rough against the symphony of hers, like a tiger sitting at the feet of a nightingale.

  Her lashes fluttered down, but not in a flirtatious way; she acted like the shyest virgin in his home city. But she was veiled as a married woman, and working here as the nurse. He remembered her rapping out orders to others in several languages, including Swahili.

  His saviour with the angel eyes was a modern woman, too confident in her orders and sure of her place to be single. Yet she chose to remain veiled, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  She must be married to a doctor here. That had to be it.

  It had been so long since he’d seen a woman behave in this manner he’d almost forgotten its tender reassurance: faithful women did exist. It had been a rare commodity in the racing world, and he’d seen few women that intrigued him in any manner since the accident.

  ‘Now could you please tell me the truth?’

  The semi-stringent demand made his dreams of gentle, angel-eyed maidens drop and quietly shatter. He looked up, saw her frowning as she inspected his wound. ‘It’s infected,’ she muttered, probing with butterfly fingers. He breathed in the scent of woman and lavender, a combination that somehow touched him deep inside. ‘I’m sorry. I had to cover the sutures with make-up and your hair, and increase your fever so Sh’ellah’s men would believe you had the flu.’

  ‘I’ve had far worse.’ He saw the self-recrimination in those lovely eyes, heard it in the soft music of her voice. Wanting to see her shine again, he murmured, ‘You were the one who came to the truck. That’s why you’re limping.’

  Slowly she nodded, but the shadows remained.

  ‘Did you stitch me up?’

  Another nod, curt and filled with self-anger. Strange, but he could almost hear her thoughts, the emotions she tried to hide. It was as if something inside her were singing to him in silence, crying out to be understood.

  Perhaps she was as isolated, as lonely for her people as he was. Why was she here?

  ‘May I know my saviour’s name?’ he asked, his tone neutral, holding none of the strange tenderness she evoked in him.

  The hesitation was palpable, the indecision. He took pity on her. ‘If your husband…’

  ‘I have no husband.’ Her words had lost their music; they were curt and cold. She turned from him; moments later he heard the tearing sound of a medical pack opening.

  He closed his eyes, cursing himself for not understanding in the first place. It had been so long since he’d dealt with a woman of his faith he’d almost forgotten: only a widow would come here, and one without a family to protect her. So young for such a loss. ‘I’m sorry.’

  With a little half-shrug, she leaned down to his wound. ‘Please lie still. If your wound is to heal—and it has to do that, fast, before Sh’ellah’s men return—I have to clean it again.’

  He should have known she wouldn’t be working on a man in this manner if she was married, unless she’d been married to a Westerner, and then she wouldn’t be veiled.

  The veil suited her, though. The seductive sweep of the sand-hued material over her face and body covered her form in comfort but protected her skin from the stinging dirt and winds without binding her. And the soft swish of the hand-stitched material as she walked—how she moved so beautifully with a limp was unfathomable, but he k
new his angel was also his saviour.

  She walks in beauty like the night. Or like a star of the sunrise…

  ‘Thank you for saving my worthless life, Sahar Thurayya,’ he said, with a bowing motion of his hands, since he couldn’t move his head without ruining her work.

  A brow lifted at the title he’d given her, dawn star, a courtesy name since she refused to give him her true name, but she continued her work without speaking.

  ‘My name is Alim.’

  To give her that much truth was safe. There were many men named Alim in his country, and courtesy demanded she introduce herself in return.

  ‘Though dawn star is prettier,’ she said quietly, ‘my name is Hana.’

  Hana meant happiness. ‘I think dawn star is more suited to the woman you’ve become.’

  She didn’t look up from the intricate task of cleaning hair and packed-on make-up from his wound. ‘You’ve known me all of ten minutes, yet you feel qualified to make such a judgement?’

  She was right. Just because she was here, cut off from her own people, and was radiant with all forms of beauty but happiness—she seemed haunted somehow—gave him no right to judge her. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said gravely in the dialect of his homeland.

  ‘Please stop talking,’ she whispered.

  It was only then that he noticed the fine tremors in her hand. So his mere presence, their shared language, hurt her heart as much as hers did him. He closed his eyes and let her work in peace, breathing in the clean warm air and scent of lavender, a natural disinfectant.

  She still wasn’t risking using the medicines he’d brought, then.

  When she seemed to be almost done with his wound, he murmured, ‘Where’s my truck?’

  ‘Abdel drove it out to a remote part of the area. The villagers wiped all traces of the tyre tracks from the way in and out of the village. Don’t worry, he’ll hide it well, and will give you exact coordinates so you can get to it when you’re feeling better.’

  ‘Who am I?’ When she frowned at him, obviously wondering if concussion had given him temporary amnesia, he added, ‘To Sh’ellah’s men, when they came? Who did you say I was?’

  The fingers placing Steri-Strips over his wound trembled for a moment; again her agony of indecision felt like shimmering heat rising in waves from her skin.

  He waited in silence. It seemed the last thing she needed was his voice, his language and accent reminding her of what she no longer had—though he wondered why she wasn’t home with their people. Why his presence hurt her so.

  She put the last Steri-Strip over his wound, and stepped back. ‘When they came, I wore a full burq’a so they’d assume I was married. If they can’t see, there’s less for them to be tempted. You know how life is here.’

  Intrigued again by this woman and the most prosaic acceptance of the ugly side of life, he nodded.

  ‘When they came in here, they assumed you were my husband. Even unconscious, your presence as my man inspired respect for me, and protected me from abduction and rape—for now at least,’ she finished bluntly. ‘Sh’ellah still wants us to believe he’s our saviour, and we’re not giving him any reason to think otherwise.’

  Alim saw the bubbling mass of emotion inside her pull apart into distinct, jagged pieces. Memory began returning to him like little shards of glass. She’d risked her life to come to him in the truck; she’d done so again by treating him in her hut, and claiming him as her man. He owed this woman his life at least twice over.

  Slowly, as delicately as if he were creating an explosive cocktail of chemicals, he said, ‘I’m privileged to be your husband in name, Sahar Thurayya. I’d be more honoured still if you would trust me while I’m here. It won’t be long.’

  She returned to his bedside with a cup of water. She took a sip first, then handed it to him and he drank in turn, his eyes on hers. The cup of agreement and peace: a traditional sign of mutual respect. A tradition he’d once given and accepted with so little thought—but now, looking in those brave, sad eyes, he felt the full honour of her offer.

  It told him far more about this woman than anything that had come from her mouth. She was from Abbas al-Din, no matter what language she spoke.

  Her eyes smiled, but her hand didn’t touch his as she gave him the cup. ‘Thank you.’

  He noted she didn’t use his name; she still kept her distance. In Hana’s eyes, obviously trust was something earned, not given. He wondered how high the cost had been for misplaced trust in the past. Why did a woman with such pain beneath her smile risk her life and virtue in a place where nobody would live, if they had a choice?

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t leave yet. They know the supplies went somewhere, and you’re the only stranger in the district,’ she said as he filled his parched throat with cool water. ‘Sh’ellah will have placed a dozen men on every way out of the village. They’ve been here several times in past months, collecting more than half our millet and corn harvest to feed his soldiers,’ she said, bitterness threading through her voice. ‘With a stranger in the village, they’ll be watching all of us for weeks to come.’ She sounded strained as she added, ‘So I’m glad of your promise, since we will have to share my hut as husband and wife. There’s only one bed here.’

  He choked on the final gulp of liquid. Coughing, he turned his gaze to her. Strange that, with a throbbing headache and eyes stinging, he knew where she was at all times. His ears strained for the swish of her burq’a. She made a sound he’d heard all his life so alluring, so incredibly feminine. She seemed to infuse her every movement with life, light and beauty.

  She made a sound of distress as she went on, ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to bring in a spare bed in case Sh’ellah’s men raid during the night, or lead a sneak attack. We have to sleep in one bed or risk suspicion—and out here suspicion is explained with an assault rifle.’

  Alim stared at her back, so unyielding, refusing to face him. He thought of every day of his adult life spent avoiding this kind of intimacy, using the death of his young wife ten years before—the wife he’d liked but had never loved—as his excuse not to fulfil his duty and remarry. He thought of his adopted career of car racing, travelling from place to place, never settling down—holding himself off from living. Even now, wasn’t he in hiding?

  And he smiled; he grinned, and then burst out laughing.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Hana turned on him at the first sound of the chuckle bursting from his lips. Her veil fell from her lower face, showing lush dusky lips pursed with indignation. Her eyes flashed; even in the midst of angry demand, her voice was like the music of a waterfall. Her face, now revealed for a moment in all its glory, was harmony to its symphony.

  And he was a complete idiot to think of her that way.

  But it was the first time he’d truly laughed in three years, and he found that once he started again, he couldn’t stop. ‘It’s—it’s so absurd,’ he gasped between fresh gusts of mirth.

  Hana straightened her shoulders and looked him right in the eyes for the first time—and hers were contemptuous. Every feature of that lovely face showed disdain. ‘Maybe it’s ridiculous to you, but if it saves the lives of a hundred people—and I presume you care about their lives, since you risked your life to come here with food and medicines for them—I’ll put up with the absurdity. The question is, will you?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WHAT’S the unusual note in your accent?’ the sheikh asked her, his tone abrupt at the subject change, but his dark green eyes were curious. Assessing her beyond the questions his simple words spoke. ‘You haven’t lived in the emirates all your life.’

  Hana felt as if he were dissecting her without a scalpel. So he hadn’t been fooled by her use of Maghreb, nor put off by her unaccustomed abruptness.

  Not in the six months she’d been here in the village had simple conversation been fraught with such danger. If he knew the truth about his so-called saviour, he could take her freedom away with a snap of his fingers.

>   Her heart beat faster at the thought of saying anything—but thousands of Arabic girls grew up in Australia. Not so many people from Abbas al-Din had lived in Perth, of course, but enough that she wouldn’t be easily traced.

  Then she laughed at herself. What a ridiculous thought—as if Alim El-Kanar would care enough to trace her past! This wasn’t the kind of information she needed to hide; it wasn’t the reason she’d been shunned by her people. ‘I was born in the emirates, but raised in Australia from the age of seven,’ she answered, realising that a few minutes had passed while she’d been lost in thought—and that he’d allowed her to think without interruption.

  ‘Ah.’ He relaxed back on his pillows; she’d barely noticed his tension until then. ‘I couldn’t place the twang. Are you fluent in English?’ he asked, changing languages without a break in speaking.

  She nodded, answering in English. ‘I lived there from the ages of seven to twenty-one, and went to state-run English schools.’

  He grinned. ‘You sound totally Aussie now you’re speaking English.’

  She laughed. ‘I guess that’s how I consider myself, mostly. My dad—’ she’d practised so long, she could say ‘dad’ without choking up any more ‘—was offered an opportunity in the mining industry. He was a miner, but saved enough to go to university, and became an engineer. So he was rather unique in that he knew both sides…’ And that was way too much information! She clamped her lips shut.

  ‘I can see why any big mining corporation would want him,’ he said, sounding thoughtful.

  She’d started this, she had to finish or the sheikh would remember the conversation long after he was gone. She forced a smile through the lump in her throat, ‘Yes, the money he was offered was so large he felt it would be irresponsible to the family to not take it. When we’d been there a little while, he and Mum felt it would be best for us if we retained our culture, but understood and respected the one we lived in. We lived not far from other Arabic families—but while we attended Islamic lessons, we also attended local schools.’ And she’d just said more words together about herself than she had in years. She closed her mouth.