Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) (17 page)

She stopped just inside the edge of the shadow, debating whether it was worth the risk to keep going into sunlight, where Arif would see her if he glanced shore-wards, or whether she should be satisfied with having covered half the beach, when she saw something odd. The cruiser’s dinghy was coming slowly towards the beach—so slowly that the engine noise was inaudible. Simultaneously she saw something else—a little cairn of stones a few meters away, just above a long line of sea-weed. Human footprints obliterated all other marks in the sand immediately around the cairn, but leading up from the water she saw several meters of the markings she knew better than her own palm.

Someone had already found a recent nest. Found it but not sabotaged it yet—stopped by the storm, perhaps. And were they coming now to finish what they’d started? Because now she could see that there were two figures in the dinghy, and they did not want to attract attention. What other reason could they have for coming in at a snail’s pace?

Aly froze. It was them. She was sure of it. These men were saboteurs. And they had a motor cruiser capable of unknown speed, and
Janahine
was crippled. If they saw her they might get spooked, abandon their attempt, up anchor and make their getaway. She would never know who they were. Even if she caught the name or number of the boat, impossible without binoculars—it might have been rented for cash. The registration number might be fake.

She could scream for Arif—but would he hear her shriek over the noise he was making himself? She could hear the banging from here. And even if he did hear, what could he do? Only roar over in the dinghy to try and confront two men who, if they weren’t actually armed, would soon be long gone.

Her best option was to maroon the men on the beach. Then Arif would have time to call for reinforcements. While they were sabotaging the nest, she might have time to get to their dinghy. She had no knife, but she could set it adrift, then swim to
Janahine.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was doable. And it was the only chance she had.

Slowly, slowly Aly backed into the shadows till she was deep in gloom against the arm of rock, then turned and ran for the water, lightly, her toes hardly making a mark in the sand. Only when she was in the water did she let herself turn to look at the two men.

They had beached now. Thirties, dark-haired, wearing loose black swim trunks and each carrying something they took care to keep hidden against their bodies as they walked. They walked in the last rays of the sun, moving up the beach with the kind of innocent swagger that children bent on mischief adopt to throw off suspicion. Aly dived under and swam hard till her lungs were desperate, then lifted her face to the surface and breathed. She was still in shadow, and the shadows were getting darker by the minute. The dinghy was half in shadow now.

The men were digging.

The water stank of diesel. She swam until she had the dinghy between herself and the men, blocking their view of her, and then with a few strokes she was crouched on the sand in a few inches of water, and her hands gripped the flat back of the dinghy. She gave an experimental tug, and her heart sank. It was too heavy, they had pulled it too far ashore. She would have to stand up to get real purchase, or abandon the idea and just swim to
Janahine
and hope for the best.

She heard a shout, looked to her right, and there in the shallows stood one of the men, half bent over to fill a plastic bucket with water, staring at her with his mouth hanging open. Younger than she had thought—no more than early twenties.

Everything happened at once. In a do or die effort, Aly stood up and tried to drag the dinghy into the water, the man dropped his bucket and started towards her, the second man, on the beach digging, hefted his spade and approached from the other direction, to trap her in a pincer movement.

And into all this, there erupted the deep, throaty roar of
Janahine’
s dinghy.

Chapter Seventeen

“Get into the water,” Arif shouted. “Get out of range.”

Aly whirled and belly-flopped into shallow water, hand-walked out till she was in water deep enough to swim, then dived down and swam hard. She heard the sound of a gunshot and prayed that her ears didn’t deceive her when they told her it had come from the direction of the sea.

She swam till she was starving for oxygen, then surfaced, impatiently wiped the saltwater from her eyes and looked shoreward.

It seemed to be game over. The little dinghy, probably holed by a bullet, was half collapsed on the sand, where the incoming tide pushed and pulled at the limp plastic. The dinghy’s spotlight showed the two men standing on the beach with their arms up. As she watched, Arif approached them, taking care to stay out of the spotlight’s glare, casting no shadow to cover any sudden moves.

Farhad remained in the dinghy, its engine quietly turning over. She thought he held a gun, but in the darkness it was hard to be sure.

Arif was approaching the men from behind now. He patted them down, one after the other, took something from the pocket of one of them, and patted them both down again more thoroughly. When he was satisfied, he shouted, “Are you there, Aly?”

His voice rang across the water, bringing with it the certain truth that if she had a choice, that voice would be her compass for all the rest of her life.

“I’m here.”

“Go back and call Fouad on the satellite. Tell him to send a police helicopter—he can raise one with the harbor police at Ausa.”

“Got it,” she cried, already taking her bearings, and put her head down and worked her aching muscles without even feeling the pain.

She was glad that he hadn’t asked if she could or was willing to swim in a dark sea, he took it for granted that she must and would do her part, and her heart swelled with gratitude. If nothing else, he considered her an equal partner in crime. The lights of
Janahine
were her guide, and when she got to the ladder she leapt up on deck and paused for a moment gazing shoreward. The scene hadn’t changed. Arif was in shadow, the two men in bright light, Farhad invisible in the darkness.

She shouted, “All okay?”

“We’re good.”

She waited no longer, but dashed down the hatch and reached for the satellite. Fouad’s number was the first one listed, and he answered on the second ring.

When she ran back up on deck, she saw Jamila standing at the rail staring toward shore, wringing her hands and moaning helplessly. “It’s okay,” she told the other woman soothingly. What was the Arabic for “all is well,” dammit, why could she remember nothing?
“Bo-khair, bo-khair,”
she said, smiling and miming a lack of need to worry.
“Farhad bo-khair.”
What was the good of studying a language if in the heat of the moment it all escaped you?

Her hair was dripping down her back, and the breeze was cool on her wet skin, but Aly couldn’t bear to go below. Jamila noticed her shivering, and with an exclamation of horror rushed below, returning a moment later with Arif’s bathrobe. She slipped her arms into it gratefully, inhaling the scent of him, and let the memory of his lovemaking warm her. Then the two women stood together, watching until the police helicopter had arrived and departed, and Arif and Farhad were in the dinghy and heading back to the yacht. Jamila then remembered some duty, but Aly stood waiting till the little boat was tethered and the men came aboard.

Then without any conscious decision, she rushed to him and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank God, thank God,” she cried.

Arif wrapped her tight in his arms, and said, “How could you take such a dangerous risk?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t—I was only going ashore to look for nests, but then the men came.”

“Ah, I see. I thought you saw them and went ashore to challenge them.”

“No. Who are they? Is it Big Pharma, or—”

“They are Kaljuks. Whether they are agents for global corporations or for the Kaljuk government remains to be seen, but they are undoubtedly Kaljuks.”

…

After they had eaten the quick meal Jamila set in front of them, they were all too exhausted to think of anything but sleep. But the need for human comfort after such terrors was too much for Aly, and at the door to her cabin she paused. “Arif, could I…could we be together for awhile? I don’t mean—”

He held the door of his cabin open for her. “Come,” he said softly. And so Aly fell asleep on Arif’s chest, wrapped in his arms and a comfort unlike anything she could remember ever feeling before.

In the morning, Aly walked the beach alone while Arif and Farhad struggled one last time with the sail. The police had taken away the cruiser, but the deflated dinghy was still there, flapping lazily in the waves. She covered up the hole over the nest where the men had been digging, measured and then false marked it before returning to the yacht. Then they limped back to Ausa Town, where they would be stuck at least two days while
Janahine
was being repaired.

Arif booked a suite in the Glen Eden Resort, though she heard him abandon his incognito and pull rank as a Cup Companion before he could get the booking. By the time they had packed their things, been picked up by the hotel limo and deposited into the kind of shimmering elegance Aly hadn’t seen since her father’s arrest, it was nearly noon. It was a two-bedroom suite, and her duffel bag and working backpack had been put into one of them, along with two large packages that were Princess Shakira’s gift to her.

Aly immediately went out to walk the beach, leaving Arif at work.

…

He sat at a massive desk in the suite’s great room, which looked out over the gardens down to the sea. From this height he could see the tiny figure moving along the white sand through the umbrellas and the sun-worshippers, steady and purposeful. He worked quickly until his phone rang. He picked it up without looking at the caller ID and said, “I’ll call you back in five minutes, Fouad.”

“This is not Fouad, and I hope you can spare a few minutes for your mother even though you are so busy,” said his mother, with a smile in her voice.

He closed his laptop, leaned back in his chair, rubbed his scalp, and smiled. “And when has a few minutes ever sufficed you,
Ummi
?”

“You are right. And especially today I may need a little extra time,” she said.

He allowed himself to be led. “Why would that be, I wonder?”

“Absorbing shock always takes time, my son. And you needn’t prompt me, I will tell you. I hear that you are in love.”

Arif’s heart paused for a beat. “Suha,” he guessed.

“
And
the Princess Shakira,” his mother amended. “Should I be offended that they know before your own mother?”

“Do you tell me that they both told you in so many words that—”

“That you have found the love of your life, your Rose, yes, and that she is, most surprisingly, English. I say surprisingly because you have told me so many times of your absolute determination to marry a Bagestani woman. But perhaps, with a determination like that, I should not be surprised at all.”

“Perhaps.”

“The gods love nothing so much as a laugh. Shakira says that the tone of your voice when you speak of her is a dead giveaway, and Suha says it is all written in your eyes. The testimony of two such close observers cannot be ignored. Who is she, Arif? Shakira says she is ferociously independent. Suha said she studies turtles.”

“Aly Percy is an environmental scientist who has made a study of the Johari turtle. She is here to examine them in situ.”

“And you are helping her. And in helping her, you have fallen in love,” his mother said comfortably. “You’ve known each other only a very short time, I hear—but that these things happen is unmistakable, as I know. And is the scientist in love with you?”

“No,” he said. His hand tightened on the receiver as he gazed out at that determined little figure so far away from him. His groin ached with hunger. She had asked for human comfort from him last night, and after holding her all night, feeling the way she trusted and melted into his embrace, he no longer believed that she feared him or remembered their lovemaking with distaste. But still his heart remembered that she had fled from him. And she had had a reason.

“Suha said it was in her eyes.”

“Suha perhaps saw what it pleased her to see.”

“Well, if she doesn’t love you yet, you surely know how to make a woman love you, Arif.”

He shook his head. “You have a natural bias for your son. But even if that were true, Aly has to know what life she would face. If I am going to ask such a sacrifice of her, she has to consider it knowing what it means. I will not rush her. I must give her time,
Ummi
.”

“Your father never gave me time,” his mother pointed out.

“Exactly,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk and stare out the window at the grey-green mounds across the green and turquoise and midnight bay. Then, as if she were the polestar, his gaze found her on the beach again.

“That has a rather ominous sound, my son. What exactly do you mean by
exactly
?”

“
Baba
didn’t give you time, and look where it put you.”

He could hear the frown in her voice. “I’m looking. What do you want me to see?”

“A lifetime on foreign soil, divided between two different cultures, two different ways of being, never quite at home in either place.”

He heard the peal of her laughter, and then she sobered. “No, Arif, that has been
your
fate. It is
your
soul, not mine, that is divided between two cultures, and for that I am to blame. I insisted on giving my children access to my language and culture, without ever realizing what an impact it might have on your sense of stability. You are now determined to embrace your Bagestani side to the exclusion of everything else, and that is your choice. But please don’t tell me you make it on my behalf.”

“Tell me,
Ummi
,” he challenged her. “Tell me that you have never regretted your choice.”

“Never is a big word,” his mother responded. “Of course sometimes I have looked at what I lost rather than what I gained. Mostly when I was angry with your father, who, let us be plain, is not an easy man. But if you mean did I ever, in cold blood, sit down and wish I had not married him, the answer is no. A big no. A huge no. I love your father and my life is immeasurably richer in every way for having married him. Do you mean to tell me you have doubted this?”

“You always seemed to miss your old life when we were growing up.”

“Naturally when I was telling you about Ireland, encouraging you to go there and study, or just teaching you about my half of your heritage, I remembered the life with fondness.”

“
Ummi
, you are trying to rewrite history,” Arif said gently.

“No, my son.
You
are. You decided at some point in your life not to be half Irish, but to be fully Bagestani. You decided to turn your back on that part of who you are. I cannot argue that decision with you, but I can tell you that whatever you believe, your choice actually changes nothing. You are half Irish. You grew up speaking two languages. You were at university in England. This woman, if you marry her, will not have anything like the difficulty I had adjusting, because you will know and understand the English side of her. So let me advise you not to let that stand in your way. You do not have my blue eyes for nothing, Arif. Now, tell me all about her.”

…

Arif went out to join Aly on her walk.

“We walked this beach yesterday,” he protested mildly when he caught up with her.

“And it has to be done again today,” Aly informed him. “Ideally, as I told you, every beach should be walked every morning. But you didn’t have to come.”

“Yes,” he said, reaching to take her backpack. She gave it up gratefully. Between lovemaking and the storm, her body was a wreck.

He walked close beside her, and his body heat reached out and enclosed her, the memory of his touch turning her muscles liquid. She staggered, and Arif reached his arm around her back to steady her. Her whole being inclined into the embrace, and sensing it, his arm tightened. Now her arms tormented her with the need to hold him, her thighs ached to draw him into her heat.

“This is the first time I’ll have a chance to walk the same beach three days running,” she said, her voice high and false as she resisted her needs, “and I’m eager to see if there will be any new nests today and tomorrow. It may give us a hint as to how much is happening generally this year.”

“Nothing so far?”

“No, and the beach by this time is so trampled that I’ll be lucky to notice. But I wanted to do it anyway. You never know. Tomorrow I’ll come out at dawn.”

They reached the nest they had marked and fenced yesterday, and Aly bent down to look for signs of activity. There were a few human footprints inside the fence, showing that people had stepped over the barrier, which was not a problem, and a few more showing that several people had stopped to read the notice. Aly straightened with a groan and rubbed her back.

“I’m completely wrecked,” she complained. “Every muscle is screaming for mercy.” And every drop of blood was screaming for him, but she couldn’t tell him that.