The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum

by Meredith Webber

He really cares about things like that, Liz realised, hearing the depth of emotion in his voice. It made her want to like the man—but liking him, given the unexpected physical attraction, was probably not a good idea.

  ‘So we’ll need a stabilisation room and experienced staff for it. The equipment is much the same as we’ll have in the unit, a crib with a radiant warmer, oxygen, a hand-operated neonate resuscitator, suction pump, examination light, laryngoscope set, and all the usual renewable equipment. I think two cribs in there would be enough, and with the provision for hand washing and infection control—bins, etc.—you’d need close to a hundred square feet. Is that doable?’

  ‘It will be,’ he said, and she heard it as a promise and wondered just how it must feel to be able to decide you wanted something then go right ahead and get it, or get it done. He’d wanted a neonatal paediatrician and here she was on a flight to a place she’d never heard of two weeks ago.

  He’d lost her, Khalifa realised. She’d returned from the cabin and slid into her seat, and though he’d longed to talk to her—to ask more about the tragedies in her life, and things that weren’t tragedies—he knew he had to respect her silence. In all truth, he knew silence was best, because he couldn’t understand his desire to know more and that bothered him more than anything.

  Then she’d asked a question and when he could have kept her talking because even if the talk was work related, hearing her voice gave him pleasure, but, no, he’d cut her off with one short sentence and now the opportunity was gone.

  Telling himself this was for the best didn’t work, and the words and numbers on the pages in front of him danced around so he could make no sense of them at all. Fortunately, Saif came in, offering light snacks, telling their guest about mint tea which, he felt, would refresh her.

  ‘Or perhaps you would like to try mint lemonade,’ he said.

  ‘Mint tea sounds lovely,’ Liz told him, smiling so naturally at him that once again Khalifa felt a twist of what he refused to consider was jealousy.

  Saif returned with the tea and crescent-shaped almond biscuits dusted with icing sugar, a delicacy he knew was Khalifa’s weakness. Liz relaxed back in her seat as she sipped the tea, and nibbled on a biscuit. It meant that, without being too obvious about it, he could watch her—see her in profile—a high forehead and long straight nose, full lips, a darkish pink against her creamy skin, slightly open at rest, and a chin that suggested she’d hold her own in any argument.

  The shapeless garment she wore—so like the all-concealing gowns he knew from home—was made of fine enough material for it to lie softly on her body, showing him the shape of heavy breasts and the bulge of her pregnancy, her body, hidden though it was, so obviously lush and ripe.

  It had to be the celibacy—not actually deliberate, although early on his guilt over not spending enough time with Zara before her death had certainly meant he’d not looked at another woman. After her death he’d thrown himself into work, continuing to learn exactly what it meant to be leader of his country, and an affair had been the last thing on his mind.

  As it was now, he told himself firmly, but just as he forced himself to make sense of the words on the papers on front of him, the distraction in the plane with him spoke again.

  ‘Leaving the stabilisation unit for the moment, the rule of thumb for a neonatal unit is three beds for every thousand deliveries, so realistically we’d only need three beds. If we add one or perhaps two critical-care beds to that, and another two for babies that might be brought in from elsewhere, we’re up to six or seven, with two in the stabilisation unit. I know I should wait and see the space, but I’m thinking if it’s close enough to the labour rooms for us to handle the stabilisation, perhaps in a divided-off corner of the neonate unit, it would ease any staff pressures and make the whole unit more financially viable.’

  Was she as involved in this as she sounded, or was she attempting to sound detached because the brief glimpse of her life she’d revealed earlier had embarrassed her?

  He guessed it would have. Even on such brief acquaintance he was reasonably certain she was not a woman who would confide in any but the closest of friends. So telling him about her brother had been a sign she was unsettled.

  Because she was on her way to an unknown destination?

  Or because of him?

  He had to concentrate on work.

  ‘Don’t worry about financial considerations—stick to what you feel will work best.’

  She flashed a smile in his direction.

  ‘That’s a dangerous statement to make, but I won’t spend your money foolishly. We don’t want staff hanging around doing nothing, because they’d become bored, and bored staff can let something slip. Better that we train a pool of staff for the unit, nurses who already work with babies in the nursery, then we can call on them when we need them. We can do the same with the hospital doctors. Interns on roster in the nursery can do some special-care training, spend two or three days with us so they see the routine.’

  ‘You’ll do the training?’

  Another smile.

  ‘Let’s get the unit up and running first,’ she said. She was packing up her papers as she spoke, and added, ‘And I really can’t do any more until I see the space, so perhaps you’ll tell me about the falcons.’

  The smile slipped away, and she added quickly, ‘Although I have a book to read if you’re busy.’

  But falcons were his passion, his one diversion from the world of work, so the invitation to talk about them was tempting.

  ‘You know they’re hunting birds?’

  ‘Birds of prey, yes,’ she said, warm interest in her voice and the sparkle back in her eyes.

  ‘We train them to hunt for us. In days gone by, they provided food for the tribe, but now we hunt for pleasure. Although there are many, many breeds of falcon, we have three main ones we use, the gyr, the saker and the peregrine. We cross-breed them for strength and speed, and in all breeds the female is the bigger and the stronger.’

  ‘I suppose she needs to be to ensure her babies have food,’ Liz said, and for the first time he saw her hand rest on her swollen belly.

  Perhaps she wasn’t as detached as she had appeared…

  ‘They’re migratory birds but these days we don’t catch and train wild birds visiting our land. They are protected and we have breeding programmes aimed at increasing their numbers. The birds we breed for hunting have passports, much like you and I do, with a photo of the bird and details of its genealogy.’

  ‘To prevent inbreeding?’

  It was a natural question, but Khalifa was warmed by her interest.

  ‘Partly,’ he admitted, ‘but also to prevent theft, and so a lost bird can be returned to her owner, but the main reason is so unscrupulous people can’t pass off wild birds as bred ones.’

  Now she was frowning.

  ‘Is it such a big business that people would do that?’ she asked, and he had to laugh.

  ‘Wait until you see a falcon judging at one of our hunting expos. Every man there thinks he has the best bird. Envy, greed, pride—these qualities are universal, and in our country, no more so than at a falcon judging.’

  The laughter made him human, Liz decided. That’s why it affected her so much. One minute he was the complete businessman—an aloof, even kingly, businessman, and then he laughed and it wasn’t just the fizzing and the sparking, but warmth spread through her, seeping into all the places that had been frozen solid since Bill’s death.

  Renewing her.

  He talked on, about his birds, about watching them in flight and feeling a surge of freedom as they rose into the air, then the swoop as they sighted prey and plunged back to earth.

  ‘They can travel at three hundred and fifty kilometres an hour,’ he said.

  ‘And if they mistime their swoop and hit the ground?’

  He laughed again.

  ‘It happens more often than you’d think and, yes, they can be killed or badly injured. In our falcon hospital we h
ave a cabinet with drawers of feathers, so damaged feathers can be replaced, the replacement chosen from hundreds to most closely match the bird’s plumage.’

  ‘How do they attach a feather?’

  ‘With a needle and thread, of course.’

  Liz found herself laughing, not at the story but with delight that in this strange world to which she travelled was a land where people sewed carefully matched feathers back onto their birds.

  Saif broke the merriment, coming in to ask what she would like for whatever meal they happened to be up to now, offering a choice of salads and open sandwiches, small meatballs or arancini. He handed her a menu, pointing out larger meals if she wanted something more substantial but in the end she left the choice to him.

  ‘You are hungry?’ Khalifa asked, after Saif had consulted him and departed.

  ‘All the time, it seems,’ she admitted, and for a moment Khalifa wondered if she’d say more—blame her pregnancy for her hunger maybe—but once again it seemed the subject was off limits.

  Had the father of her baby hurt her in some way?

  Could, heaven forbid, the pregnancy have been the result of a rape?

  But no matter how it had been conceived, surely once she’d decided to carry the baby to term, she should have been bonding with it, talking to it, comforting it with touch as well as her voice. He remembered how he’d felt when he’d heard he was to be a father—proud and pleased, a little anxious that he’d prove up to the task, and even though he’d not been as involved as he should have been, a small kernel of excitement and anticipation had come to life within him.

  Only to die with his wife and child.

  Was this why her attitude towards her unborn child bothered him? Because to him it spoke of a lack of caring, yet in other ways he knew this woman to be extremely empathetic, and very caring.

  He longed to know more, yet knew it wasn’t his business, and as for the attraction he felt towards her—that was nothing more than a distraction. Saif had set a tray of diverse snacks in front of her, and she was smiling with delight, thanking him for his kindness, sampling things and praising him.

  And undoubtedly it was jealousy he, Khalifa, was feeling.

  What he needed was a parachute.

  He pictured flinging himself off the plane and smiled at the stupidity of the thought, but deep inside he knew he’d have to do whatever he could to avoid this woman’s company. Yes, they’d have to consult from time to time, but he would throw himself into work, both the work of government and his work as head of the surgical department at the hospital, so there’d be no time for him to be distracted by a flame-haired siren.

  A pregnant, flame-haired siren!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SAIF took the dishes before asking Liz to prepare for landing, and as the plane dropped lower in the sky and banked, she looked out of the window, seeing a land mass emerging from the clouds, then as the mass became clearer, she made out a long ridge of mountains like a spine running down the curving stretch of land—the land looking golden against the brilliant, blue-green sea that surrounded it.

  ‘Oh,’ she cried, as the island took shape. ‘It’s a dragon!’

  Khalifa nodded, his smile one of approval and delight.

  ‘Al Tinine—the dragon,’ he said, and Liz felt a shiver of excitement. What might lie ahead in this magical place, this dragon land of myths and legends? A land of deserts and oases, of hunting birds with passports, and an enigmatic man who made her fizz and spark when he laughed?

  She watched as the plane dropped lower, seeing now the red harshness of the mountain range, the softer red of desert sands spreading away from it, splotches of green here and there—oases, she imagined—and then a city that from the air looked pink.

  Could it really be?

  The wheels touched down and the engines roared as it slowed. They were here—in Al Tinine. In Najme, in fact, for Khalifa had told her they’d fly straight to the city where his new hospital awaited her.

  Disembarking from the plane was a relief, Liz told herself, yet as she walked down the steps to where a big black four-wheel-drive vehicle waited, she felt a sense of regret.

  She and Khalifa hadn’t actually become friends, but they’d laughed together once or twice and she’d felt a connection to him—as if some indefinable bond was holding them together.

  As wild a thought as the stories of Scheherazade, she told herself, looking around the flat expanse of the airfield and smiling as she noticed not high-rise buildings or even factories on its outer limits but hills of sand.

  The Endless Desert—wasn’t that what Khalifa had called it?

  And suddenly she was excited, looking forward to every minute of this experience, looking forward to being positive and cheerful and, yes, successful in this new venture. She even gave the baby a pat, although getting too attached was still definitely not on—not when Oliver was likely to come out of his coma and want his child.

  She’d be its aunt—Oliver couldn’t take that away from her—but whether, with Bill gone from his life, Oliver would let her get close to the child, she had no idea.

  Neither could she think about it right now for Khalifa, who had exited the plane before her, was talking to the driver of the big vehicle, talking anxiously, then taking out his mobile and pacing back and forth as he spoke to someone.

  He glanced towards her, shook his head, then ended the conversation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving to stand in front of her, ‘but there’s an emergency at the hospital and I’m needed there. I would have liked to take you to the palace and see you settled in, but I will have to go directly to the hospital and then my driver will take you from there.’

  Palace?

  Maybe she’d misheard.

  Setting that aside, she hurried to assure him she’d be all right.

  ‘What kind of emergency?’ she asked as she slid into the car.

  Khalifa was in the front seat and turned to look at her.

  ‘A pregnant woman with a meningioma in the occipital region of her brain. It must be a fast-growing one as the first sign she had was the loss of vision in one eye. Given her condition, we can’t use drugs, or radiotherapy so—’

  ‘How pregnant is she?’ Liz’s brain switched into work mode.

  ‘Thirty-four weeks.’

  ‘And the surgeon needs to get into the back of her skull.’ Liz was thinking out loud. ‘At thirty-four weeks you could take the baby—give the mother some betamethasone to accelerate foetal lung maturation, then do a Caesar. We can provide care for a thirty-four-week neonate.’

  ‘We?’ Khalifa queried, a slight smile lurking on his lips.

  ‘I’ll be there. I’ll come in with you. What’s the point of bringing me all this way to loll around in some palace when a baby might need my help?’

  ‘But you can’t—You’ve just got off a plane.’

  ‘And if you say it’s because I’m pregnant I’ll probably hit you.’ Liz interrupted his faltering arguments. ‘This is what I do, Khalifa. And if you’re removing a tumour from this poor woman’s brain, the last thing she’ll need is to wake up and find you’ve sent her baby off to some hospital miles and miles away.’

  Liz hoped she’d made her point, but when Khalifa did respond it was with a question of his own.

  ‘You understand I’ll be doing the operation? You know I’m a surgeon with special interest in tumours of the brain?’

  Liz grinned at him.

  ‘Do you really think any woman would go off with a man to a strange country without at least checking him out on the internet?’

  He returned her smile.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said, ‘at how many women would do just that.’

  ‘Not this one,’ Liz assured him. ‘You’d told me you’d studied medicine, but hadn’t talked much about your surgery or said whether you were still practising. I must admit it was reassuring that as a doctor you’d at least understand what is needed in any hospital unit. The fights I’
ve had with bureaucrats who think the setting-up and staffing within a hospital are all about getting the numbers right and meeting something they invariably call the bottom line.’

  Khalifa nodded.

  ‘These men exist in my life as well, but at least I have the power to cut off their heads if they annoy me.’

  The lurking smile told her he was joking, and she smiled back as she said, ‘I’d better remember that, hadn’t I? I don’t think my head would look too good raised on a pike outside this palace you talk of.’

  She hesitated, then, aware she was showing her ignorance or possibly naivety, added, ‘Is it really a palace? And, anyway, I don’t need to stay with you. Surely there are staff quarters at the hospital.’

  His smile broadened and warmth rushed from her curling toes to the top of her head, revealing itself, she was sure, in a rich blush.

  ‘You will stay with me. The place is big enough for dozens of visitors—welcoming strangers and taking them in is part of our culture. And while not a palace in the style of a western fairy-tale, as the home of the ruler, it is called that.’

  ‘But wouldn’t the home of the ruler—the real palace—be in the capital?’

  The smile turned to laughter.

  ‘Does not the English queen have many palaces? Balmoral and Windsor and who knows what others, as well as the one in London. Now, we will stop talking nonsense about palaces, and you will see Najme as we drive into it.’

  It was pink! All the buildings not pink stone but pink bricks or pink earth, made perhaps from the local sand—red desert sand. Liz was fascinated, and wanted to ask many questions, but Khlaifa was back into work mode, speaking crisply and confidently on his mobile to someone at the hospital, giving orders for the preparation of a theatre, for a crib, for specialist staff.

  In English, Liz realised with a surge of relief. If most of the staff spoke English she wouldn’t have to learn Arabic, although as she looked at the flowing script on signs in front of buildings she knew she’d like to learn it—to speak it and to write it.

  Another challenge.

  One she could forget, she told herself firmly. She probably wouldn’t be here long enough to find her way around, let alone learn the language.