Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  She lowered her eyes, visibly struggling to keep the sudden tears that had filled them from falling. “I see.”

  Did she? He found himself struggling with the urge to rave and rant, trying to justify his decision, begging her to approve it, to exonerate him, to understand it was for her best.

  “You don’t want a woman like me on a mission you’re leading. I know how men of your culture view easy women, and you no doubt think me that, think I’d be a liability.”

  That was what she saw? “Janaan …”

  She raised eyes glittering with hurt and determination. “I admit it was only due to your restraint that nothing happened between us. But if you’re afraid I think you’ve given me a green light to pursue you, that I’ll make any sort of demand, you’re gravely mistaken. I’m here to get to know the other side of my heritage while joining an effort I always wished to join. Once it’s over, I’ll leave this country, where I’m clearly not welcome.”

  Malek would have been amazed at her resolve if he wasn’t going crazy with fury at her conclusions.

  She thought he believed her easy for offering him a night of unparalleled, unrepeatable solace? When he’d never known such contentment, such greed for more, for everything, with another human being? When he’d been blown away by her generosity, her guilelessness, her trust, by her fervent desire to lift his burdens and by how she truly had just by being near, even when he couldn’t bring himself to share them with her? Though they hadn’t made love, their night together had been his life’s first true intimacy. He wanted more, would never stop wanting it.

  And that was exactly why he had to send her away.

  If she stayed within reach, he’d reach out for her. And she’d reach back. And she’d get hurt.

  He was tempted to let her believe her version of the matter so she’d go. He couldn’t. He owed her the truth. At least some semblance of it to explain why he was refusing her clearance.

  “Janaan, every word you just uttered is pure insanity. There’s no one like you. And I want you. I want you, Janaan. And that makes it unethical of me to include you on a mission where I’m not only your leader but your host and sponsor, too. It would be abusing my power, taking advantage of my position. Of you.”

  She gave a little laugh, a cornered, incredulous sound. “The concept of abusing your power doesn’t even apply. You’re not my employer. I’m a volunteer, if you haven’t noticed. I’m here offering all I can offer of my own free will, for free.”

  She meant far more than her medical services. She was offering all of herself, was telling him it was a conscious decision on her part, with no expectations in return.

  Temptation rose to unendurable levels. But he had to fight it. For her. He shook his head, determined not to let this go any further. “I am more sorry than I can ever express, Janaan.”

  “But, Malek.”

  He struggled to shut out the desperation that seized her face, felt the last words he’d say to her gut him on their way out. “No, Janaan. This is final. Samheeni ya habibaty”

  He surely wouldn’t forgive himself.

  With a ragged goodbye, and one last look, one that would have to last him a lifetime, he turned and left the only woman he’d ever craved. The woman he loved.

  Yes, loved. Ya Ruhmaan, how he loved her. He’d never thought he could love. Now he knew he could, to unimaginable heights, to fathomless depths, with all he had in him, knew he’d never love again. For his heart had woken up only to love her. And to love her forever.

  Jay kept missing the keycard slot. She swore, feeling tears of agitation rushing to her eyes.

  She felt like one big bruise. She shouldn’t wonder at that with all the ricocheting she’d done in the last couple of months. Not to mention since she’d met Malek. And that last blow before he’d walked out of her room that morning. And tomorrow she’d be veering off on another tangent, out of Damhoor. Never to return.

  She pulled in a deep breath and tried to fit the card in her door again—and it receded out of reach!

  Her eyes snapped up, a dozen unformed fears leaping in her mind, and there, in the semi-darkness, stood Malek.

  Everything fell away. He was here. Here.

  She couldn’t think why. Couldn’t think at all. Didn’t care. He was here. He’d given her another chance to see him. She raised her face up to him like a sunflower would to the sun. And he was dragging her inside, his hands burning her with his reality and agitation?

  “Malek?” she choked, dread mushrooming. Something had happened. Something personal this time.

  “Don’t even try to tell me you’re not manipulating me this time.” Her mouth dropped open at his harshness. “And don’t give me the ‘I don’t know what you’re taking about’ innocent routine. You know damned well what you did and why you did it.”

  She stared up at him, mute, uncomprehending.

  His rage only spiked. “And you’re not doing it. You are not going to Darfur, Janaan. I forbid you.”

  It took a moment for his meaning to sink in as his eyes and breath blasted her.

  Answering anger snapped her out of her enervated state, made her shake off his hands. “You may be lord of all you survey where GAO missions in your region are concerned, but you have no say outside it.” He smiled, ridiculing, arrogant, almost vicious. She cried out, “You can’t have that kind of reach!”

  One eyebrow rose, all malicious challenge. “Can’t I?”

  So he could. Now she knew.

  “What about all this talk about not abusing your power?” she seethed.

  “Oh, I’ll make an exception this time.”

  This was a side to him she hadn’t suspected. The ruthless sheikh who thought nothing of forcing people to bow down to his whims. It made her as mad as hell.

  “How dare you?” she snarled. “You already deprived me of this mission, but how dare you presume to interfere in my decisions when they in no way impact on you?”

  “I beg to differ.” He seemed to expand, his voice taking on a frightening edge. And she wondered what he’d be like with all his refinement and restraint gone. He’d be a destructive force of devastating magnitude. “Missions in Darfur are dangerous. And you will not go where you’ll be in danger. I forbid it.”

  Their gazes dueled for a long moment. Then she turned away, processing what he’d said, elation over his concern for her well-being seeping into her soul, warming it after the deep-freeze where seeing the last of him had plunged it.

  It didn’t warm it enough to melt her anger. She turned on him again. “Thanks for the concern, but I’ve fended for myself all my life and I won’t let you dictate my actions. Darfur was always my second choice, and I always knew that joining GAO carried risks. I’m not less than the other volunteers who risk their lives daily. At least I have no one who needs me or will be hurt if something happens to me.”

  Malek felt her words hacking at him like razors.

  That she’d go where she’d be in danger, where he couldn’t reach her, tampered with his sanity. That she expected something would happen to her during her service, that she accepted that it wouldn’t matter—it was beyond endurance.

  He roared, “You’re only doing this to force me to change my mind, forcing me to choose the lesser evil!”

  A disbelieving, sarcastic sound crackled on her lips. “How could I have been sure you’d find out about my plans before I left tomorrow for them to have the desired effect? And why should I think endangering myself would sway you when I thought your reasons for refusing my assignment had nothing to do with me and everything to do with preserving your honor and your position?”

  Would his head burst in outrage? “You think this self-preserving, unfeeling. rot motivated my decision?”

  “I think myself too insignificant to have done so.”

  And at that moment he was capable of fatal violence. Too bad the bastard who’d damaged her most was already dead.

  He finally snarled, “You’re a fool, Janaan, to even think anyt
hing so unfounded of yourself. Is that what your father and those siblings made you believe? They’re insignificant. You can’t let their selfish cowardliness affect your self-worth.”

  She gave an easy shrug. “I don’t think I’m insignificant to the world at large, just to someone of your status, someone who has to look at the bigger picture. Contrary to thinking you self-preserving or unfeeling, I’ve seen how selfless and compassionate you are …” She stopped, glared at him. “Or, at least, can be.” She walked to the door, opened it for him. “Now, if you’ll, please, leave so I can get ready for my early flight?”

  He took the door from her, closed it with great restraint. “You’re going nowhere but under my protection. Whatever your reasons for signing up for Darfur, they worked.”

  She gave him a withering look. “That’s presuming I still want to join your mission. Which I don’t. I’m not going where my presence is considered the lesser of two horrors, where I’m considered a liability. I accept the blame for this label as I indulged in an inappropriate level of intimacy with you, but I can’t do anything about it now but promise that you’ll never see me again.”

  He grasped her shoulders when she made to turn away. “I take all the responsibility for whatever happened between us. And you wanted to join this mission, wa b’Ellahi’l allei’l Uzeem, you’re joining it even if I have to haul you there and keep you under lock and key.”

  He let her go as if her flesh burned him, stalked to the door.

  Before he closed it behind him he rasped over his shoulder, “And, Janaan, don’t worry. The three-feet rule is over. During the coming two months, I promise to keep my distance.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MALEK KEPT HIS promise. For two weeks so far. They’d felt like two bleak—if madly busy—years.

  Jay didn’t know what she would have done without Hessuh and Saeed’s companionship. They’d made it possible to bear Malek’s alienation, and had also become her guides to the ways of the land and communicating with its people.

  They’d embarked on their mission the very next day in a convoy of a mobile surgery unit, ob/gyn, dentistry, internal medicine and ophthalmology units, twenty accommodation trailers, six Jeeps and two ambulances. It was mind-boggling the resources Malek had made available to GAO.

  They’d reciprocated by sending thirty volunteers, including her. And knowing that Malek couldn’t spare enough medical staff post-disaster, in addition to the logisticians, health educators and cultural experts who made GAO rise above other humanitarian efforts, a good percentage of the thirty were doctors. She was the only emergency doctor. Malek was the only surgeon.

  He had brought along the same number, including his aides and core team from the relief efforts. As far as humanitarian missions other than in time of disaster went, this one was a whopper.

  They’d traveled south through Damhoor, bypassed all reasonably self-sufficient towns and villages, made their stops at communities of semi-settled Badu in their winter camping grounds along the borders.

  The third tribe they were with, Bani Hajjar, was like the other two before it, leading their lives according to customs that hadn’t changed in millennia. But while that was efficient for the most part, it hadn’t done their health much good.

  In the desert you survived if you were born robust and stayed that way. Acute illnesses and injuries were usually fatal, and chronic diseases that modern medicine had long since found cures for or controlled were treated with tribal remedies, but it was accepted that the afflicted would be aleel, sickly, and remain so until they withered and died.

  They still had a major job of convincing the tribe to accept what modern medicine had to offer them. When they succumbed, she felt it was only due to their awe of Malek.

  He organized both teams’ efforts, gave her the leader’s position within GAO’s medical team. When she wasn’t fulfilling the demands of her position, she was sharing the ob/gyn unit with Hessuh, her trailer-mate, and together they’d taken care of hundreds of women, in an incredible variation of conditions. More incredible was what these women put up with health-wise, and still functioned well, practically supporting the whole tribe’s way of life.

  Although they were less segregated than town and village women, and weren’t generally veiled, they had a much lower status than men but certainly worked the hardest. Tending flocks, doing housework, cooking, raising children, drawing water, spinning and weaving, setting up and dismantling tents. She’d invariably overestimated a woman’s age by ten to fifteen years. It was accepted here that a woman would be worn out and old by forty.

  With each case Jay felt her blood boil at their conditions and, worse, their acceptance of them.

  Hessuh had just finished examining a woman who, after looking her and Jay over, had launched into a defense of their way of life, extolling how women were protected by a strict code of honor, could move about relatively freely and were allowed to sing and dye their long hair with henna.

  “Protected, strict code, relatively freely—allowed!” Jay mumbled as soon as the woman stepped out.

  Hessuh gave her a placating pat. “It’s too entrenched. They know nothing else, think there’s nothing else to know, or should be known. So don’t you start preaching women’s lib.”

  “You’re saying they should be left as they are?”

  “I’m saying it’s sometimes not right to import our views of what’s right or fair,” Hessuh said, making Jay feel like an over-zealous fool. Her next words defused the feeling—on purpose, Jay bet. Hessuh was an astute, thoughtful woman. “And then time and the march of civilization work wonders. This woman was my grandmother. Look how far I’ve come since her generation.”

  “If you’re the example of what waiting for natural progression to install changes brings, I’m all for it,” Jay said. “You’re one amazing woman, Hessuh.”

  Hessuh laughed. “The way you speak your heart and mind, whether it’s good or bad, never ceases to amaze me, Jay. We’re not big on that here and it’s aib … shameful to express what you genuinely feel or think. Another reason it’s such a pleasure to be around you is that you don’t make digs at me.”

  “Who can make digs at you? You’re great, all around.”

  Hessuh smirked. “Other women, of course. Feminine jealousy is elevated to an art here, so it’s something to bear in mind when you’re judging women’s conditions. Some of women’s worst and most vocal enemies here are women. I am unmarried, so a danger to every woman’s husband, especially as I’m also loose and naked.” She looked wryly down her modestly attired, lithe, curvaceous body. “I’m a doctor so I make them feel underachieving and so on. But instead of wishing or trying to change their status, they attack mine.”

  “A case of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, huh?” Jay chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I guess every victim has some responsibility in perpetuating their suffering.”

  Hessuh sighed. “Apart from the social ranks at the top, it is women who single-handedly raise children here. It’s they who raise their male children to think of women as lesser beings.”

  “Why?”

  “As I said, patriarchal conditioning has become a part of the female psyche here. And then there is another feminine side to the equation. A man here brings his wife to the family home. A mother wants to make sure her son will bring her a subordinate as she’d been to her own mother-in-law.”

  “But—that’s sick!” Jay cried.

  “It’s how it works. But as I said, time is changing things. My sister is married to a Damhoorian engineer who thinks her more than his equal. So it’s not all doom and gloom. The less advantaged classes are where social rigidity and injustices are most perpetuated, not only here but all over the world.”

  Jay gave a slow nod. “I guess you’re right. Wow, Hess. You keep giving me insights into the culture I would have never come to see on my own. Getting to know you is one of the best ways I’m learning about Damhoor today.”

  Hessuh’s lips twisted. “You mean an
unmarried woman in her early thirties in a land where marriage is viewed as a woman’s only reason for existence and where a woman over twenty-five is an ajooz, a hag? An obstetrician when marriage is considered a woman’s only viable ‘career’?”

  “Yeah, all that. Also unveiled when all the local women I’ve seen wear veils to one degree or another. How come?”

  “That’s another example of what time and the right people in the right places can achieve.” Hessuh smoothed the gleaming wealth of her long mahogany ponytail. “I personally owe being unveiled to Sheikh Malek. He made a decree that women who work in the medical field can dress however they choose—but only a handful took him up on his offer. He also lets girls enter medical school here when our only local female doctors had their education abroad, like I did, also thanks to the vision of another man—my father. In the last six years the number of females in medical school has risen to almost that of the males.”

  So it had come back to Malek again. As it always would.

  Hearing about him and his achievements, which was constant when everyone, even her GAO partners, had something new to relate about him, only slashed at her rawness.

  She groped desperately for a change of subject. “So, to continue my curiosity—what does Hessuh mean?”

  “Share,” Hessuh said briefly, a challenging expression on her face, as if she was daring Jay to make a comment.

  Jay obliged. “So that’s why you share everything with me!”

  Hessuh let out that ready, tinkling laugh. “I knew you couldn’t resist it. My name is the noun, not the verb, dear lady. Though don’t ask me what my father was thinking when he named me. Share of what, b’Ellahi? I always asked him. After thirty years of racking his brains, he came up with a satisfying answer. I’m his share of life’s happiness.”

  “And you’re my share of this mission’s,” Jay teased. “I wouldn’t replace you with the lion’s share.”

  Their banter was interrupted by their next patient, a woman of sixty who Jay mistook for almost eighty, with a jarring pink and violet dress and blue dots tattooed all over her face.