He hated that. Hated to be weak. Hated to need.
He hurried to see his father, walking in on the king without knocking. His father looked up from his morning paper. “As’ad, what is wrong? You do not look well.”
“I am fine. Kayleen has left.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You must not give her permission to leave the country, or take the girls with her. Those are my children. The law is clearly on my side.”
His father frowned. “Kayleen said you did not love the girls. That they would be better off with her. Was she wrong? What do you wish?”
Love. Why did it always come back to that? As’ad walked to the window and stared out at the horizon.
What did he wish?
“I want her back,” he said quietly. “I want her here, with me. I want the girls to return. I want…”
He wanted Kayleen smiling at him, laughing with him, close to him. He wanted to see her stomach swell with their baby, he wanted to ease her discomfort when she was sick. He wanted to see the girls grow and learn and prepare for college. He wanted to walk each of them down the aisle, only after terrifying any young man who would claim one of them as he had claimed Kayleen.
What if Dana was in a love with a man who did not love her back? What would he do?
Kill him, he told himself. He would kill the suitor in question, then take his daughter home where she belonged. He would insist she not be with anyone who did not love her desperately. Because that was what she deserved. What they all deserved. He could not let them go under any other circumstances.
Didn’t Kayleen deserve the same?
He already knew the answer. He believed it. But if it was true, then shouldn’t he let her go to find such a man?
No!
The roar came from deep within him. He faced his father. “No. She is to have no one but me. I am the one who first claimed her and I will not let her go.”
His father sighed. “We have let go of the old ways. You will not be allowed to claim a bride who is not interested in marrying you.”
“I will convince her.”
“How?”
“By giving her the one thing she wants.”
The king looked doubtful. “Do you know what that is?”
As’ad finally did. “Where is she?”
Mukhtar hesitated. “I am not sure…”
“I am. Where is she? I know she has not left the country. Lina told me. Where is she hiding?”
And then he knew that, as well. “Never mind. I’ll find her myself.”
* * *
Kayleen did her best to smile. The puppy was adorable, as was Pepper as the two of them tumbled together on the rug by the fire. Dana and Nadine were off with the older girls. Despite the sudden change from a palace to a desert camp, the sisters had adjusted well. They thought they were on a fun adventure.
Kayleen wished she could share their excitement and flexibility. While she appreciated that Sharif and Zarina had taken them in, she longed to be back at the palace. Life under the stars offered a level of freedom she’d never experienced before, but it was difficult to even breathe without thinking of As’ad.
She ached for him every minute of every day. She knew she had to stay strong and she was determined not to give in to the need to see him, but there were times when the pain overwhelmed her.
Zarina hadn’t asked any questions when Kayleen had shown up with the girls. Instead she’d offered a comfortable tent and acceptance by the villagers. But it was a temporary situation—in a few days the tribe would return to the desert and Kayleen would have to find temporary housing until she could leave El Deharia.
Perhaps in the city somewhere. A small house. Lina had promised it would only take a couple of weeks for her paperwork to be pushed through the legal channels. There were advantages to a royal connection.
Thank goodness As’ad hadn’t been interested in hurrying the adoption. If he had she wouldn’t have been able to leave. Royal children could not be taken from El Deharia without the royal parent’s permission.
She touched her belly and remembered the last time they’d made love. If she was pregnant, she would be trapped forever. Imagine the irony if she at last had the baby she’d long desired.
“I will not think of that,” she whispered to herself. “I will stay strong.”
She might not know the future, but she was confident she could handle whatever life threw at her. She’d stood up for what she believed, she’d faced As’ad and turned down the half life he’d offered. She’d been willing to lose everything to gain her heart’s desire. There was some peace in knowing she’d been true to herself. Unfortunately peace did not seem to ease pain.
She stood and walked to the fire, where tea always boiled. After pouring herself a mug she stared up at the clear sky. Only two days until Christmas. They would celebrate out here, under the stars, then return to the city.
She turned back to the tent, only to stop when she saw a man riding toward the camp. For a moment her heart jumped in her chest, but then she realized he wore traditional clothes. One of the young men who came and went, she thought, looking away. Someone’s husband.
Several of the tribespeople called out to each other. Kayleen tried to figure out what they were saying, but they were speaking quickly, yelling and pointing. Was there a problem?
Then she looked back at the man and recognized him. As’ad. But he was unlike she’d ever seen him before. He looked determined, primal. This was no prince in a suit—this was a sheik.
She stood her ground, reminding herself she had nothing to fear. He couldn’t hurt her worse than he had when he’d admitted he didn’t love her and that her love for him was a well-timed convenience. She shook out her long hair, then raised her chin. Pride and determination stiffened her spine. She didn’t move, not even when he rode his horse right up to her.
Their eyes locked. She had no idea what he was thinking. Despite everything, she was happy to see him, happy to drink in the male beauty of his hard features. She wanted to touch him and kiss him and give herself to him. So much for being strong.
“I have claimed you,” he told her sternly. “You cannot escape me.”
“You can’t hold me against my will. I’m not your prisoner.”
He dismounted and handed the horse off to one of the young boys who had run up. Then he stalked over to her.
“You’re right, my heart. I am yours.”
She blinked. What had he called her? And what did he mean that he was her prisoner? What?
He touched her face with his fingertips. “I have missed you. Every second of every day since you left me has been empty and dark.”
She swallowed. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I. My course was set—the plan clear. I would marry appropriately, father sons, perhaps a daughter or two, serve my people and live my life. It was arranged. It was my destiny. Then one day, I met a woman who leads with her heart, who is fearless and giving and kind and who bewitched me.”
She couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t seem to be such a big deal. This was all good, right? He was saying good things. Maybe, just maybe, she could hope.
“Kayleen, I was wrong,” he told her. “Wrong to think I knew so much more, that I was in charge. You swept into my life and nothing was the same. It was better—so much better. I miss you desperately. You and the girls. I need to see you smile every day. All of you. I need to hear your voices, your laughter. You cannot take my daughters from me and you cannot take yourself.”
She ached for him. Giving in seemed the only option. But how could she?
“I won’t live in a loveless marriage,” she told him, fighting tears, fighting the need to surrender. “I deserve more.”
“Yes, you do. I was wrong to suggest such a thing before. You deserve to be loved, to be worshiped. To be the best part of your husband’s life.”
He took her hands in his and kissed her knuckles, then turned her wrists and kissed her palms.
> “Let me be that man,” he said quietly. “Let me show you all the ways I love you. Let me prove myself again and again, then, when you are sure, continue to test me.” He stared into her eyes. “I will not fail, my heart. I will never fail. Because I love you. Only you. I did not think it was possible, yet here I stand. Humbled. Needing. In love. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me? To give me another chance?”
“Say yes.”
The words were whispered from behind her. She sensed all three of the girls standing there, willing her to give As’ad the second chance he asked for.
“Yes,” she whispered, then threw herself into his arms.
He caught her and pulled her close, saying her name over and over, then kissed her and held her as if he would never let her go.
He felt so right, next to her, she thought, nearly bursting with happiness. Then there were more arms and he pulled back only to let the girls into their circle of love.
He picked up Pepper and put his arm around Nadine. Kayleen pulled Dana against her and they held on to each other…a family at last.
“I’m so happy,” Kayleen told him.
“As am I. Perhaps not as quick a learner as you would like.”
“You figured it out.”
“Only because you had the strength to leave me. You will always do the right thing, won’t you?”
“I’ll try.”
He kissed her again, then frowned. “Why do you cry?”
“I’m not.”
She touched her cheek and felt wetness. But it was cold, not warm and wasn’t a tear.
Pepper shrieked. “It’s snowing. As’ad, you brought the snow machine to the desert!”
“I did not. There is no way to power it out here.”
Kayleen looked up. Snow fell from a clear sky. Perfect snow. Miracle snow. Christmas snow.
He set Pepper on the ground. She joined her sisters and the other children, running around, trying to catch snowflakes in their hands and on their tongues. As’ad pulled Kayleen close.
“You must promise to never leave me again,” he said. “I would not survive it.”
“As you will never leave me.”
He laughed. “Where else would I want to be? I have you.”
“For always,” she told him.
“Yes,” he promised. “For always.”
Love burned hot and bright in his eyes. Love that filled the empty space inside of her and told her she had finally, finally found her way home.
* * *
* * * * *
If you loved what you just read, you won’t want to miss Susan Mallery’s latest page-turning novel, Sisters Like Us. Keep reading for a special preview!
There wasn’t a holiday on the calendar that Harper Szymanski couldn’t celebrate, cook for, decorate, decoupage, create a greeting card about or wrap in raffia. There were the biggies: birthdays, New Years, Fourth of July. But also the lesser celebrated: American Diabetes Association Alert Day, Auntie’s Day, National Massage Therapy Awareness Week. Why weren’t there greeting cards to honor that? Didn’t everyone need a good massage?
Despite a skill set that made Martha Stewart look like a slacker, Harper had never figured out a way to monetize her gift for setting a table to commemorate anything. She’d tried catering about ten years ago, but had quickly discovered that her need to overbuy and overdeliver had meant losing money on every single job. Which left her in the awkward position of trying to make a living the hard way—with two semesters of community college and sixteen years of being a stay-at-home mom.
Retail jobs and the pay that went with them hadn’t been close to enough to support herself and her daughter post-divorce. Three online aptitude tests had left her even more confused—while getting her degree in biochemistry and going on to medical school sounded great, it wasn’t actually a practical solution for an over-forty single mom with no money in the bank. Then an article in the local paper had provided an interesting and almost-viable idea. Harper had become a virtual assistant.
If there was one thing she knew it was how to take care of the details. You didn’t get good at a basket weave Fourth of July cake without paying attention. One year after filing her business permit, Harper had five main clients, nearly a dozen more who used her services intermittently and almost enough income to pay her bills. She also had her mother living in the apartment over the garage, an ex-husband dating a gorgeous blonde who was—wait for it—exactly fourteen years younger than Harper because they shared a birthday—a sixteen-year-old daughter who had stopped speaking to her and a client who was desperately unclear on the concept of virtual in the world of virtual assistants.
“You don’t have to drop off your bills every month,” Harper said as she set out coffee, a plate of chocolate chip scones that she’d gotten up at five-thirty that morning to bake fresh, a bowl of sugar-glazed almonds and sliced pears.
“And miss this?” Lucas Wheeler asked, pouring himself a mug of coffee. “If you’re trying to convince me coming by isn’t a good idea, then stop feeding me.”
He was right, of course. There was an easy, logical solution. Stop taking care of people and they would go away. Or at least be around less often. There was just one problem—when someone stopped by your home, you were supposed to take care of them.
“I can’t help it,” she admitted, wishing it weren’t the truth. “It’s a disease. I’m a people pleaser. I blame my mother.”
“I’d blame her, too, if I were you.”
She supposed she could take offense at Lucas’s words, but he was only stating the obvious.
In some ways Harper felt as if she was part of the wrong generation. According to celebrity magazines, fifty was the new twenty-five, which meant almost forty-two should be the new what? Eleven? Everyone else her age seemed so young and carefree, with modern attitudes and a far better grasp of what was in style and popular.
Harper was just now getting around to listening to the soundtrack from Hamilton and her idea of fashionable had a lot more to do with how she dressed her dining room table than herself. She was like a 1950s throwback, which might sound charming but in real life kind of sucked. On the bright side, it really was her mother’s fault.
“Speaking of your mother, where is she?” Lucas asked.
“At the senior center, preparing Easter baskets for the homeless.” Because that was what women were supposed to do. Take care of people—not have actual careers that could support them and their families.
“I, on the other hand, will be paying your bills, designing T-shirts for Misty, working on the layout of a sales brochure and making bunny butt cookies for my daughter.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that bunny butt is just a polite way of saying rabbit ass.”
Harper laughed. “Yes, but they’re an Easter tradition. Becca loves them. Her father is dropping her off tomorrow afternoon and I want the cookies waiting.”
Because maybe if there were bunny butt cookies, her daughter would smile and talk to her the way she used to. In actual sentences that shared bits of her life.
“You sorry you didn’t go?” Lucas asked.
“To the memorial? Yes.” She thought for a second, then added, “No. I mean I would have liked to pay my respects and all, but Great-Aunt Cheryl is gone, so it’s not like she would miss me showing up.”
The drive from Mischief Bay to Grass Valley would take practically the whole day. Harper couldn’t imagine anything more horrible than being trapped in a car with her ex, his girlfriend and her daughter. Okay, the Becca part would be great, but the other two?
The worst of it was that while Great-Aunt Cheryl was actually Terence’s relative, Harper had been the one who had stayed in touch, right up until her death two months ago.
“Terence is forty-four. What is he thinking, dating a twenty-eight-year-old?” She glared at Lucas. “Never mind. You’re the wrong person to be having this particular conversation with.”
Because while her client was a handsome, s
ingle, fifty-year-old man, he also dated women in their twenties. In his case, their early twenties.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Is it all men or just you and my ex? Oh, dear God, the one thing you have in common with Terence is me. Did I do something to make you all date twenty-somethings?”
“Calm down,” Lucas said mildly. “I was dating younger women long before we met. It’s not you, it’s me.”
“Where have I heard that before?” She glanced pointedly at the clock on her microwave. “Don’t you have crimes to solve?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”
He rose and carried his dishes to the sink. Lucas was about five-ten, nicely muscled with a belly way flatter than hers. He wore jeans, cowboy boots and a long-sleeved shirt. He was a detective with the LAPD, and from what she’d learned about him in the nine months she’d been working for him, he’d always been a cop.
He returned to the table and slipped on his shoulder holster, then grabbed his blazer. “How do you make bunny butt cookies?”
She laughed. “It’s easy. You take a round sugar cookie frosted in pink icing, add two small oval sugar cookies decorated with pink candy for feet, use a miniature marshmallow for the tail and viola—bunny butt cookies.”
“Save me a couple.”
“I promise.” She would put them in a little box that she would decorate for the holiday. Because she simply couldn’t hand someone cookies on a plain paper plate. If she tried, the heavens would open and release a plague of locusts at the very least.
Oh, to be able to buy packaged cookies from the grocery store. Or prepared spaghetti sauce. Or a frozen entrée. But that would never happen because it wasn’t what Harper was supposed to do.
She carried the rest of the dishes over to the sink, packed up the uneaten food, then retreated to her large craft room with its built-in shelves and giant tables and cupboards. After finding a nice bunny-butt-cookie-sized box, she studied her ribbon collection before selecting one that would coordinate. While her glue gun heated, she sorted through her fabric remnants to find one that was Easter appropriate and wondered what other women did with the time they saved by not making every stupid thing by hand.
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