The look had to have been a mistake. He was a nowhere man with no home, no position. He had nothing to offer any woman but ugliness, emotional baggage and a cartload of regrets—and he suspected she had more than enough of her own without taking his on board. Whatever that look had been, she didn’t, couldn’t want him. He could take that. Just keep commando crawling and don’t look.
‘The creek bed’s lined with stones for the next few kilometres. Take these,’ she murmured tersely a few minutes later, flipping some leather gloves back at him. ‘You’ll sweat, but it’s better than leaving a blood trail behind for jackals and dogs to find.’
‘Thanks,’ he muttered back, pulling them on. The skin of his hands had begun to rip, and his clothes were well on their way to becoming shreds, but his hands were the worst. He pulled out a plastic bag from his pack, and shoved it between his T-shirt and the dying jacket to keep his scars from bleeding. If nothing else, it would stop the blood from touching the ground for a few more minutes.
‘Come on,’ she whispered in clear impatience as she crawled on.
That was the only conversation they had in two hours.
The sun had risen above the eastern rim of the creek wall before she called a halt. ‘We’re only seven or eight kilometres from the village, but this overhang’s the best shelter we’ll find for hours. Let’s eat and get some sleep.’ She leaned against the overhang wall and stretched her back and shoulder muscles with a decadent sigh before rummaging in her backpack.
Refusing to watch—she was killing him with every shimmering movement of her sweetly curved body, her pretty face—Alim sat beside her and stretched too, over and over to work out the kinks—and he was surprised to find the concussion hadn’t left him revolted by the thought of food as it always had before when he had concussion, after hitting his head in a race. Despite that his brain was banging against his skull and his eyes ached and burned, his stomach welcomed the thought with rumbling growls.
So he stared when all she handed him was a raisin-nut energy bar.
‘Eat it slowly. It’s all we can afford to use. I’d only saved enough for me to escape with, so half-rations are all we have.’ She surveyed his face, his eyes. ‘You’re in pain. Take a few sips of the willow bark before you sleep.’
Irritated by her constantly ordering him around, by seeing him as a patient after their gruelling trek, he flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘I’ll sleep it off.’
‘Don’t be stubborn. You’ll be no use tonight if the pain gets worse. You’re less than twenty-four hours from concussion. Take the willow bark, and some ibuprofen with it.’
She was really beginning to annoy him with her imperious, ‘don’t be stupid’ tone. No woman apart from his mother had ever spoken to him this way. But she was right, so he obeyed the directive, drinking a long swig of the foul medicine with one precious tablet.
‘Go ahead and say it.’ She sounded amused.
He turned to her, saw the lurking twinkle in her eyes. There were smile-creases in her face through the caked-on dirt. And no poetry came to his mind. No woman had ever laughed at him, either, unless he’d made a joke. ‘What?’
She waved a hand as scratched and cut as his. ‘You know, the whole “don’t boss me around, I’m the man and in control” routine. You’re the big, strong man, and dying to put me in my place. Go on, I can handle it.’ Her teeth flashed in a cracked-mud smile.
With her words, his ire withered and died. ‘Did it show that much?’ he asked ruefully.
She nodded, laughing softly, and he was fascinated anew with the rippling sound. If he closed his eyes, he didn’t see the maiden from the bowels of the worst pig-pits, torn and bleeding and coated in mud. She stank; they both did—but he’d rather be here smelling vile beside Hana than in a palace with a princess, because Hana was real, her emotions honest, not hidden because of his station in life. She laughed at him and teased him for his commanding personality, and once the initial annoyance wore off he rather liked it.
‘I have no right to assert my authority over you.’ Stiff words from a man unused to apologising for anything—but it felt surprisingly good when it was out there.
Flakes of dried mud fell from her forehead as her brows lifted. ‘Did that hurt?’
He sighed. ‘You really are Australian in your outlook, aren’t you? You bow to no man. Your father must have had a really hard time if he was the traditional kind—’
He closed his mouth when he saw the look in her eyes. Devastated. Betrayed. A world of pain unhealed. And hidden deep beneath the pain was defiance. She was fighting against odds he couldn’t see, and he sensed she’d refuse to show him if he asked.
If she’d pushed his buttons, she hadn’t once pried into his life. He’d done both without even thinking about it. ‘Hana…’
She slipped down to lie on the uneven ground. ‘I’m going to sleep. I suggest you do, too. We have to go faster tonight.’ Her body flipped over as she turned her back on him.
It was another unwanted first in his life—yet it didn’t rouse his fierce competitive instincts, but filled him with remorse. She didn’t want his apology, because he’d hurt her, a woman who’d risked her life and given up her home for him, a man she’d met less than a day ago.
Aching to reach out and touch her, he contented himself by touching her with words…and this time it wasn’t hard. ‘Hana, it was a silly joke, but I hurt you. I’m sorry. I won’t pry again.’
After a moment, she nodded. ‘I’m going to sleep now.’ Her voice was thick.
‘Goodnight,’ he said quietly, feeling an emotion once totally foreign to him, but now all too familiar. Shame.
He didn’t sleep for a long time, and he suspected she didn’t either.
Hana awoke to the heavy warmth of Alim’s arm around her.
It was comforting. It was arousing and it was beautiful. For the first time in years, she didn’t wake up feeling so utterly alone…
It was a prison trapping her beneath the will of the man, choking her. Giving in to a man’s wants and desires had subjugated her until she’d had no life left.
‘Get off me.’ She fought to make the words calm. This was Alim, not Mukhtar, whose criminal acts, blind obsession and selfish needs had ruined her life; but she could feel the rising panic, the memories of the night he’d tried to make his lies come true.
‘Hmm?’ He moved in closer, holding her. He was aroused, moving against her bottom as though he had the right.
‘I said get off.’ It wasn’t a half-request any more. She was almost yelling in her fury and panic to get away.
She felt him stir, this time in wakefulness. ‘Huh, what? Oh.’ Too slowly, still half asleep, he lifted his arm and moved away. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t awake,’ he mumbled in Gulf Arabic.
Hana struggled for a semblance of serenity, breathing deep, closing her eyes. I am in control of my life, my decisions. I am—
I am alone. No man controls me.
There. She’d done it. She opened her eyes and said gently, ‘It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.’ Her nose wrinkled, and she forced a smile. ‘Especially with the way I smell at the moment.’ She spoke in English, with a marked Australian accent.
‘It’s not just you, Sahar Thurayya,’ he replied in a strange mixture of English and Arabic. ‘I currently offend myself. Alim from the Pigpen.’ He chuckled, wrinkling his nose in turn.
Hana had to wrench her gaze from him. His laughter highlighted his scars, taking the handsome face a level higher, to a dark, dangerous male beauty. Combined with his poetic turn of conversation, it was no wonder women fell at his feet. It was a wonder she hadn’t already—
Fallen for him. Two days and she was already in way over her head, lost in stormy seas without a life preserver, and he hadn’t even touched her. But, oh, she’d touched him and she knew… Did he have any idea how it had felt for her, having her hands on his body? Had she given away the aching throb low in her belly, singing in her blood?
‘I think a more appropriate name for me at present would be Dawn Stink,’ she said lightly, turning to her backpack. ‘Or Evening Stinker, since it’s after sunset. Are you hungry, Pigpen, or do you need ibuprofen? We have to eat quickly and go. Sh’ellah’s men will be looking for us. I just hope they haven’t worked out that you were the truck driver, since we ran.’
‘I’d like both food and painkillers, please,’ he said, warm laughter still in his voice. ‘So you can call me Pigpen, but never use my name. It’s a telling omission,’ he added softly—and she knew he’d seen her reaction to his body yesterday, was testing her…
She handed him an energy bar, ibuprofen tablets and a canteen without looking at him. ‘I told you before. I’m waiting to see if you live up to it.’
‘Well, I certainly live up to Pigpen.’ He took the medicine before eating, and she sensed a question coming before he spoke. ‘Do you keep all men at a distance, or is it only me?’
The light tone in no way hid the serious intent of the question, but it wasn’t aimed at her. The look in his eyes—haunted by bleak self-disgust—told its tale to a trained nurse. She’d seen it many times with burns patients—the horror-filled self-loathing inspired by seeing how they’d look for the rest of their lives. The soul-deep belief that nobody would ever look at them without revulsion, or, worse, they’d always have to endure the awkward, averted eyes and half mumbles of people who didn’t know what to say to the poor freak…
What could she say? Nothing, except the truth—that when she’d touched his body, she’d felt he was anything but a freak. That something had awakened in her, beautiful as sunlight on water or the first shooting of a new flower, and now merely looking at him made that budding desire blossom through her veins as fast as grapes on a vine.
She felt herself flushing deeper than the heat of early night allowed. ‘Only the ones who put my village at risk and force me to run from my home,’ she replied, the quipping note in it a thin sheet covering her pain: both for him and herself. For the first time since leaving Perth, she’d finally felt safe in Shellah-Akbar, as if she belonged somewhere.
Was that why she felt such a kinship to him…because he was a lost soul, just as she was?
A long silence followed; it pulsed with questions he didn’t ask. ‘I’m sorry, Hana. I came to help but did more damage than good. How unusual for me.’
She turned her face at the self-mocking bitterness, but he’d stood, looking around. For a second time, she opened her mouth and closed it. Despite seeing his near-naked body, sharing a bed with him, faking sex and massaging his body, saving his life and waking in his arms, she didn’t know him well enough to attempt comfort.
And yet every time she looked in his eyes, she saw the mirror held up to her face…
When will you learn to love yourself, my Hana? Her mother had first asked that when she was about eleven, and its echoes still rang unanswered in her heart. Always trying to prove something—that you’re the fastest, the smartest, the strongest, most independent, that you don’t need anyone—and you never see how vulnerable it makes you.
Looking at Alim now, she felt the echo of her mother’s sadness in the heart of a man she’d only known a short time, a man born to wealth and privilege, raised to rule a nation as the spare, thrust into the position after—
Hana closed her eyes. They were two of a kind, seeing themselves through a warped reflection of what they’d done…or should have done. Or what they’d left undone. Nothing was good enough.
She ached to comfort him, but didn’t even know how to comfort herself after five years. The only thing he could do to forgive himself was to go back to the world that needed him as much as he needed to be there, to find restoration in his family and his people.
But how could she tell him that when she couldn’t make herself go home, couldn’t face her own family?
‘How bad will it be for the village?’ he asked as he turned to look at the north.
She glanced at him, saw the readiness to blame himself for anything that happened at Shellah-Akbar, and deliberately softened her tone. ‘They’ll tear it apart to find the supplies—but they’ve done that before, and found nothing.’ She chewed her energy bar, choosing to hide the worst from him, and acknowledging that she felt some need to protect him. He was carrying enough guilt on those broad shoulders. ‘I told Malika and Haytham to hold to the story that you’re my husband, and we ran because we overheard the men speaking about Sh’ellah’s plans for me.’
‘Will they believe it?’
If they told Sh’ellah that, he’d go on a rampage to find me and kill you. She kept her tone gentle. ‘They might believe it. If they can’t find the food, they’ll have nothing else to go on.’
‘Where do you hide the food?’ he asked, his voice thick, and she knew she hadn’t fooled him a bit.
She carefully didn’t look at him as she said, ‘We trade on the old custom of fear of the dead, and bury everything in graves, usually beneath the coffins of the children.’
‘Your people will do that?’ he asked, sounding startled.
Understanding what he was asking, relieved to take the topic from anything that hurt him so deeply, she nodded. ‘At first they resisted, so I did it myself. Then, when Sh’ellah’s men wouldn’t disturb the dead, and the spirits didn’t destroy me for what I’d done, they helped me. I’ve found many people will put aside the most frightening of their customs and beliefs in their need to survive,’ she said quietly, ‘to save their children.’ Her parents would have done the same. It was always family first…which was why they’d had to choose: marry Hana off quickly to a bad man, or ruin Fatima’s chances of ever finding a good man. Fatima had only been seventeen.
It was said that to understand was to forgive…but though she’d always understood the dilemma her parents had faced, choosing to bow to community pressure, and sacrifice one sister for the sake of the other, she’d never found forgiveness in her heart. I was innocent, too! Did you ever for a moment think I hadn’t done what he said?
Alim turned towards the south, squinting in concentration. ‘What will you do now?’
‘Go to the refugee camp.’ But she couldn’t stay there for long; it was too public, too exposed. Her father might have sent someone to look for her there, ask for her by name, or for a woman with her description, including the Australian accent—which was why the burq’a came everywhere with her, and she spoke Maghreb whenever possible. ‘Then they’ll reassign me to another village that needs a nurse.’
‘There’s a dust cloud about four kilometres away, heading towards us,’ he said, frowning to the south.
‘Pick up anything that tells them we were here, use your jacket to cover footprints and body imprints and let’s go,’ she said tensely. She pulled a ripped cotton sheet from her backpack in four pieces, and tied two to his ankles, and to hers. ‘It’s far from perfect, but the ground is so dry our footprints will be difficult for their trackers anyway.’
‘Do we run, or try to jump from rock to rock as long as we can?’
Caught by the innate wisdom—he’d assumed they’d keep hiding in the creek bed, and he was right—she smiled at him, and found her foolish lungs trapping air inside her when he smiled back. ‘Tonight you’ve earned your name, Alim. The rocks, as fast as safety allows.’
‘I have my moments—as do you, happy woman.’ He winked at her. She could tell he was pleased—her foolish heart certainly leaped at the smile, at the unexpected emotional intimacy—and the inexplicable sense of oneness she’d felt with him from the first moment she’d seen him torn and bleeding in the truck came back in double force. She couldn’t tear her gaze from him—and the worst part was it was as emotional as it was physical. She felt bound to him somehow.
‘We have to go,’ he said softly, his eyes warm, dark as he smiled, and his mouth—oh…
‘Yes,’ she whispered, her eyes locked on his h
alf-smile, lips parted, breathing fast. A thrill so strong it almost hurt ran through her, breasts to fingertips. Her body swayed towards him.
He bent until his breath whispered along her lips like a tender kiss. ‘We must go now, Sahar Thurayya. I won’t let him take you, not while there’s breath in my body. Let me go first this time, my star. I’m actually useful at jumping rocks and finding the most stable ones.’
She couldn’t speak, aching for the almost-touch…but she managed a nod.
He bent to pick up the packet from his energy bar and made a mess of the soil where they’d slept, and the moment passed—no, it didn’t pass; it slipped into his pocket, into her heart, awaiting its chance. And she knew it would come.
She followed him from rock to rock, leaping like mountain goats, her mind in turmoil, her heart and body fighting for—what? There could be nothing between them. She’d only known him two days, yet she ached and hurt with desire for him as she never had for any man.
Taking the lead yet asking her first was just another way he’d shown her the man he was. Alim was a complex blend of traditional and modern, Arabic and man of the world—but even with his humour and his kindness, and a smile that melted her inside, he was still a man; and she wasn’t free to feel attracted to him, or to dream of a future.
She was trapped…if not by this life on the run, then by tradition, her father’s pride—and by Mukhtar. She might not have made the vows herself, but her father had done so for her, and he’d signed the marriage certificate in her name. She hated the man her father had given her to in marriage, but she had no choice. Mukhtar had made sure of that.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEY’D been leaping and running alternately for a couple of hours when Alim’s brain began crash-banging against his skull and his feet no longer felt certain on the ground.
The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance) Page 5
