Sheik Protector (14 page)

“Rain?” Julia sounded as surprised as he felt.

It wasn’t the season for rain. The windstorm must have blown some clouds in from someplace far away. “It does rain, even in the desert. Just not a lot.”

Another fat drop followed the first. And within minutes, they were in the middle of a downpour.

He headed toward the tall dunes to his right, not wanting to get caught in a lowlying area. An hour passed before he reached them, navigating by his headlights. The visibility in the dark night with the rain coming down like that was about the same as it had been in the sandstorm. When he reached the top, he shut off the truck. They were going to have to wait this out, too.

“Water,” Julia said in a weird voice.

“Yes. Lots of it.” He turned toward her and drank in her beauty, wondering how long the rain might last, ready to pull her into his arms again.

“The market was on fire,” she said, apparently focused on something else entirely.

He shrugged. “I kicked over an oil lamp.”

“The sandstorm. It’s wind. Air.”

He couldn’t really focus on the sandstorm. His mind was filled to the brim with images of what they had done while waiting it out.

“Fire. Air. And now water.” Gingerly, she held up the sack that hid the god statues. “Do you think—”

“Coincidence,” he said, despite the unease that sent a small shiver down his spine.

“What would earth be? Quicksand?”

“Don’t say that.” He looked through the windshield, feeling decidedly uncomfortable now.

They waited out the rain in tense silence, each contemplating the impossible. They didn’t have to wait too long. When the sky cleared and the stars came out, the rain having washed all the sand out of the air, he got out once again to survey the damage.

He could see nothing where the two cars had been, half a mile behind him in the low passage. Not the top of a car, not a radio antenna, not a single man. But some of the sand dunes on the other side were gone, the landscape rearranged. And suddenly he knew what had happened. Too much rain had come down all at once, the sand unable to absorb it that quickly. The wet sand had run like a mudslide, had buried the two vehicles and all the men inside them.

Not all. He swore as gnarled hands grabbed onto his ankles and yanked him off balance. Mustafa rolled from under the pickup. He must have crawled up to them in the storm unseen.

A curved dagger sliced the air in the direction of Karim’s throat. He jerked out of the way. He understood now that Mustafa would never stop until he was dead. In Mustafa’s mind, Karim was connected to evil just as Aziz had been, because of the idols.

“You have offended the One God. You must die.” Mustafa got to his feet at the same time as Karim. He was between him and the truck, the rifle on the front seat.

Mustafa hadn’t brought his. Could be the sand had jammed it when they’d gotten caught in the sandstorm.

Karim could see from the corner of his eye Julia lifting the weapon. He didn’t dare to fully look at her, wanted Mustafa to forget all about her and focus on him. He feinted to the left, then lunged forward on the right side, caught the man in the middle and they went down.

Down, down, down. All the way to the bottom of the dune where muddy sand pulled at them. The side of the dune could still cave in and bury the both of them as it had buried Mustafa’s last two cars.

He grabbed the man’s right wrist, but the old man’s zealous hate doubled his strength. Karim got on the bottom somehow as they rolled, the tip of the dagger less than an inch from his good eye.

Careful now
.

He rolled Mustafa and they broke apart, then stood again.

Karim could feel every one of his broken ribs, every knife wound they had inflicted on him during his torture. He hadn’t had food or water in nearly twenty-four hours. He was unarmed against a fanatic whose sole purpose in life was to kill him.

To the ball of pain that was his body, death might have been a relief.

Except that Julia was waiting for him on top of the dune. Doing more than waiting.

The next second, a bullet slammed into the sand between him and Mustafa. Karim stepped back. Would have been good to know just how good a shot she was.

It didn’t matter at the end. Mustafa looked up at her, and the momentary distraction was enough to take the man down. This time, when they rolled, luck seemed to desert the old bastard as his dagger pierced through his clothes and skin, straight into his heart.

When Karim got back to the truck and took the rifle from a trembling Julia, he had her sit back in the cab while he checked around the tires and made sure the soil was stable. He had brushed off what Julia had said about fire, air, water and earth, but he couldn’t shake his sense of unease. He’d seen quicksand up close and personal before, and he didn’t care for seeing it again.

Looked like they’d run out of human enemies. He didn’t want to have to face more of nature’s peril on this trip. They’d had plenty enough adventures already.

He got back in and drove slowly, in the direction where the sand looked the most stable. He didn’t dare breathe easily until he reached the edge of where rain had fallen and he was back on dry sand again, then on a rocky plateau he recognized. They had somehow gotten back to the area that hid his grandfather’s cave.

In a few minutes, when the distinct shape of the rock above the cave came into view, Julia figured out where they were, too.

“Why did we come here? Shouldn’t we ride straight to Tihrin?”

“We are putting the statues back,” he said.

She offered no objections.

In five minutes they were at the cave, in another fifteen down at the pool in the first cavern.

“I’d like to go with you,” she said.

And this time, he didn’t argue.

They made it through the underwater passage without trouble—his rope was still stretched in place—and entered the second cavern. They were in complete darkness, had to go by feel.

“Stay right behind me,” he said, and felt Julia’s slim hand on his back. “The granite was straight ahead.”

He walked that way until he hit the cave wall, groped around until he found the first niche. The rest was easier after that. He wasn’t sure if he put the right statue in the right place and wasn’t too concerned about it. He wanted to be out of there.

“Okay, now the skull.” He reached up but couldn’t feel the hole the last artifact belonged in. And the granite was a sheer vertical wall, no purchase for his feet anywhere to climb. “I’m going to have to lift you up.”

She moved closer immediately. “What do you think the skull is about?” She’d already examined it up in the first cave.

“The skull of a tribal ancestor. Could be of some mythical hero.” He handed her the golden piece, a shiver running down his back as the skull rattled inside, then lifted her up.

“I got it. It’s in there,” she said after a moment. “You can put me down.”

He did so gently, passing up the opportunity to pause and hold her in his arms.

The first time they had come here, the cavern was a place of wonder. He had felt comfortable spending the night. Now the air pressed down on him, goose bumps rose on his skin and his only thought was to get out of there as fast as possible.

They stumbled toward the sound of the waterfall and that led them back to the pool. He slipped in first, caught Julia as she came after him, groped around for the rope.

“I got it,” she said next to him and held his hand as they submerged.

They went back as quickly as they could. The journey home was always easier.

They didn’t hang around in the first cavern, but went up the rope.

“I will talk to the queen and make sure she has the cave locked up and off-limits,” he said.

Julia simply nodded thoughtfully. She didn’t speak until they were in the car and he was pulling away from the cave.

“How do you know which way to go?”

He understood her question. The sandstorm and the rain had done a good job of obliterating the road. But he had the knowledge of his Bedu ancestors, the knowledge of the desert. “I can navigate by the stars.”

They were about half a mile from the cave when the earth began to shake. And they watched in the light of the full moon, stunned, as dunes rose up and others sank, the landscape undulating before them like waves on the sea. He’d been through earthquakes, but never one in the desert.

He grabbed on to her when their car lifted, moving gently up, then down as the earth shifted beneath them. The whole thing lasted less than two minutes, leaving them both more shaken than the sandstorm and the rain put together.

“Are you all right?”

She didn’t respond. Instead she was staring over his shoulder.

He turned, reaching for his gun at the same time. But it wasn’t their enemies miraculously catching up with them again. It seemed they had been stopped for good, stopped forever, had stayed where they’d been, buried in the sand.

He blinked when he realized at last what Julia was looking at. The giant rock that had marked the cave was gone. Nothing but flat desert as far as the eye could see. He could hear Julia swallow behind him.

“I think that was the earth part,” she said.

Five years later

Julia took another handful of postcards from the maid just as Karim strode through the door. As always, he took her breath away. And when he opened his arms to her, she walked into them.

He kissed her thoroughly, then bent to kiss her belly. “How is my little princess doing in there?”

“ Impatient to come out. These are for you.” Each summer, they received dozens of postcards from the Sibling Link Camp. Karim had donated Aziz’s Star Island home to the charity. They, of course, immediately offered Julia her job back, but her hands were busy at the moment with other kid-related projects. She was, however, thinking about setting up a similar program here in Beharrain, had already talked about it to Queen Dara, who had pledged her support.

“How was your day?” She smoothed a dark lock of hair into place on his forehead.

“Good. And it’s about to get better.” He grinned and kissed her again. “I got an e-mail from the P.I. He traced your sisters to Texas. Looks like they were adopted together.”

Her throat tightened. He had hired a top-rated agency to conduct the search for her lost sisters, no expenses spared. He had promised godmothers for their daughter. And when Karim promised something, he delivered.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, her heart filling with love and hope.

A smile hovered over his lips. “How grateful are you?”

She swatted his hand. “I’m too huge to be
that
grateful.”

He gave her a tragic look that made her laugh. She kissed him. “I suppose I should show some gratitude.” She nibbled his lips. That distracted them for a while.

“Almost forgot. Tariq is ready to show off his twin girls. We are invited tomorrow for dinner,” he said when they reluctantly pulled apart.

“I can’t wait to see them.” The timing all worked out perfectly, her sister-in-law delivering just weeks before Julia was due. Their girls could grow up together. A cramp nudged her in the back. “I wish this kid was out already and
they
were coming to visit
us,
” she said as her son, little Aziz, flew across the room and lunged himself at Karim.

“Are we going to the camel races, Dad? Are we leaving right now? I’m ready.” He was a bundle of energy, deep dark eyes and dark hair, always ready for adventure. He was a happy child, always a smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that his parents, the rest of his large family and the tribe adored him.

“After lunch.”

“I already had lunch. Mom let me have it early. I couldn’t wait.”

Karim crooked an eyebrow and put on his sheik face. “All your vegetables?”

“All.” Aziz’s face twisted with distaste.

“Your mom and I have to eat, too.”

“You could have
maraq
at the races. You always say they make the best
maraq
.”

“Maybe it will rain.” Karim was teasing him now.

“Dad, it won’t rain.”

“What if we have a sandstorm? It’s the season for it.”

“We are not going to have a sandstorm,” Aziz announced, full of confidence. And if he said it, they could believe it. He seemed to have a strange connection to inclement weather. “We could get some sweets after the
maraq
.”

Julia smiled at her son, always a wheeler and dealer. She answered Karim’s questioning look with a nod.

And her son caught that, of course, and lunged himself at her next. “Thank you, Mom!”

She kissed the top of his head before rubbing the dull ache in her back.

She had been organizing the new nursery all day—not that she couldn’t ask the staff to do it. But arranging her daughter’s things gave her so much pleasure. She’d rearranged the baby books on the shelves a dozen times, along with the stuffed animals at the foot of the crib; she’d looked at then refolded pink onesies and layette sets. The nursery was large and bright, one of the most beautiful rooms in the palace.

Her new home was a far cry from her cramped apartment in Baltimore. She didn’t miss her old life—she was surrounded by love and family here. But she did miss her ache-and-pain-free body. Even a sheik’s physician couldn’t make that side of pregnancy disappear. She rubber her back again.

Karim immediately looked concerned, reaching for her arm. “Are you going to make it? We could stay home.”

She smiled at the gentle way he touched her, at the love that shone in his gaze, her breath catching at the answering love in her heart. “Are you kidding me? She’s her father’s daughter. She would never interrupt a camel race.”

And her smile widened as her firstborn whooped at hearing that.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-2210-0

SHEIK PROTECTOR

Copyright © 2008 by Dana Marton

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