The Madanis weren’t ready for that yet.
‘But tourists should come,’ she said, easing away so she could look at him—following her conversation, not his thoughts. ‘Because even the little I’ve seen of it is beautiful and special. Special interest tourism perhaps, so groups come to learn about the culture, and the people who have lived here since the days of the Silk Road. There’s history here, and beauty, things beyond fast-food outlets and fancy hotels.’
Forget someone coming to see the view and local customs. Forget showing public displays of affection. The words she’d just spoken told him she was beginning to understand his homeland—maybe even beginning to love it.
And his joy was so great, how could he not think to hell with protocol and draw her into his arms, this wise woman he so wanted to be his? He kissed her, gently at first, a thank-you-for-those-words kiss, then he kissed her with his heart involved, trying to tell her how he felt—how much he—
Loved?
The word had certainly been there in his thoughts but he pushed it away, substituting wanted her, no matter the obstacles being put in the way.
Could he talk to her about it?
Explain?
But she had given up her old life for him—coming with him to Madan. How could he bother her with the shenanigans going on at the palace?
And was that really his reason for staying silent, for dealing with it on his own? Or was it the centuries of Madani blood in his veins that decreed such things were the business of the man of the family?
He had been educated in the Western world and believed in the equality of men and women, but that inbred Madani pride kept him from burdening her with problems that he, alone, could solve...
* * *
For Lauren, the kiss warmed all the places the ‘if’ had turned cold, and fired the senses Malik so easily aroused, but they were in a public place so they broke apart and walked around the outlook side by side, decorum keeping them a few inches apart.
But sensuality could zap across a few inches and her body ached for him.
He took her home after their brief tryst, and stayed to eat cakes with Nim and his friends from school, a picnic laid out by the kitchen staff on mats in the shade of a large apricot tree.
The children chattered around him, and Nim grew noticeably straighter and taller as his uncle, as he knew him, sat beside him.
And when the feasting finished, while Nim said farewell to his friends, Lauren walked with Malik back to his car.
‘There is more than your concern about the state of your nation worrying you,’ she said quietly, and he looked at her and smiled.
‘I will work it out,’ he said. ‘I would speak of it if I could, but it is not our way, but I will work it out!
He kissed her swiftly on the lips.
‘Trust me on that!’ he said, and she found herself believing him.
Then he was gone and she could only wait, wondering how long it would be before she would see him again, how long before they could kiss again, make love again—slowly this time—enjoying the discovery of each other, skin on skin.
She shivered as desire coursed through her. It was probably better if they didn’t kiss again—not until everything was sorted and they could be together properly...
For ever?
Right now, for ever didn’t matter, though she longed for that with all her heart. But even a part-time relationship with Malik would be better than none at all.
Was this love?
Was this how Lily had felt about Tariq?
Had a kiss made her bones melt?
A touch send fire through her body?
* * *
At the hospital, with the measles epidemic waning, Lauren was now on regular shifts, and although previously she’d been called to wherever she was needed most in either of the hospitals, she was now back where she felt she belonged, nursing children.
The little girl with encephalitis was off her drip and recovering slowly, but because she needed to be kept quiet for a few weeks, she was still in the hospital. The lad with the club foot was allowed home, his ankle and lower leg still in a cast so he moved, with surprising speed, on small crutches. The other children she’d met on her first visit had mostly been discharged.
Lauren, who even in the children’s hospital was moved around, was on duty in the emergency department—depleted of a number of staff because of the overtime everyone had worked during the measles epidemic.
She wasn’t even sure she had someone who spoke English to interpret for her, and, as her own lessons had been interrupted while they’d been so busy, she was worrying about this when a group of people, young and old, came in. She was used to the locals and their manner of dress—the women usually in the loose trousers and tunics, scarves around their heads, while the men wore much the same, only their trousers would be striped and their headgear a cap or intricately wound turban of some kind.
But this group were bright with colour, the women in flaring skirts of purple and orange, pretty blouses on the top, the men in the striped trousers but with bright jackets of red, or blue, or orange, while the barefooted children, pressed shyly against the adults’ legs, all wore simple tunics in the striped material of the men’s trousers.
As Lauren moved towards them, one of the men stepped forward and said something she didn’t understand, but it was clear from his gestures he wanted to see someone else.
Graeme had been here long enough to know the language, but he was having some much-needed time off so Lauren gestured to one of the aides to speak to the group.
The aide spoke to a man who held a young child in his arms, the limpness of the little body suggesting he or she was far from well. Then, with the man in the lead, the group followed the aide to a cubicle, Lauren tagging along behind, aware she’d have to be the one to examine the child.
The child, a girl Lauren discovered when she pushed her way to the front of the group, lay on an examination couch, the man guarding her, the others still clustered around.
‘They have to go,’ Lauren said to the aide, waving her arms in a shooing motion and wishing she knew more local words, wishing she was a faster learner.
The aide proved her worth, although the protests were voluble enough for Lauren to know they objected to being pushed out.
The aide returned and together they removed the child’s tunic. She was so hot to the touch Lauren knew drugs alone wouldn’t reduce her temperature, so she mimed washing down the child while she dissolved some dispersible aspirin in water, drew it up into a syringe, and eased it into the child’s mouth, sitting her up a little so she could swallow.
‘We must cool her,’ she said to the father as they worked, and wondered if the aide knew enough English to translate, for she was saying something to the man.
‘Now I look at her throat,’ Lauren said, opening her own mouth and pointing to the back of it. She lifted a spatula to hold down the tongue and shone a small torch into the mouth.
The tell-tale inflammation of the tonsils and white spots at the back of the throat suggested an infection and for the child to be so ill, a streptococcus infection was a good bet, but Lauren took a swab for testing to be sure.
She checked the girl’s ears, but there was no apparent problem there, and all the while her mind worried around one word, penicillin.
Would the man—presumably her father—know if she was allergic to it? The chances were she’d never had it, so no one would know.
But penicillin was the most effective treatment for strep bacteria, which might already be causing inflammation throughout the girl’s body, particularly in the joints.
She left the aide sponging the girl down and went in search of the young registrar.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked him when she’d explained the dilemma.
‘Phone Dr Madani,’ was his reply, and Lau
ren couldn’t blame the young man. He was only on a rotation through the children’s ED, and probably had little hands-on experience with children.
Dr Madani’s phone number was readily available, yet Lauren was reluctant to call. He knew her as a capable paediatric nurse—would he expect her to handle it?
And what matter of government business might he be involved in that she’d be interrupting?
Taking up his time when he’d already spent so much time at the hospital.
She phoned Dr Madani.
‘Lauren, you are all right? Nimr?’
Wasted minutes with assurances, trying to brush away his concern so she could ask about the child.
‘There’s no one here to interpret,’ she explained to him. ‘I know she has a fever and what looks like a strep throat, but I’m wondering about using penicillin. I also need to know how she’s feeling—if her joints are aching, that kind of thing.’
‘Put the father on the phone,’ Malik said, and Lauren sighed with relief, although deep inside she knew this wasn’t good enough. She had to make more effort to learn the language—and practise more—in order to truly help these people.
But she passed the phone to the father, waited while Malik spoke to him, then the father handed back the phone.
‘Were you thinking rheumatic fever?’ he asked, and Lauren nodded, then realised she needed to speak and said yes.
‘Go with the penicillin. Her joints are hurting, but admit her and we’ll think about steroids for her joints when we see how she’s doing. Keep up the aspirin until her temperature comes down, and, Lauren...’
He paused and she waited.
‘They are tribal people, nomads, and it will be hard for them to understand she has to stay in hospital. I have told the father, but the two people only with the child policy isn’t going to work.’
Lauren thanked him and pocketed her phone. She drew up penicillin and, explaining as best she could, injected it into the child. She started a drip to keep fluid levels up, and wrote up the instructions on the chart that would go with the child to the ward.
But when it came time to transfer the girl, she went along with the orderly, wanting to make sure she would be settled in a room so her family could stay with her.
‘It’s impossible,’ Kate, the sister on duty in the ward, grumbled at her. Kate was South African, and was working here as part of a working holiday that would take her around the world, pausing here because she was now engaged to an American oil man. ‘The family will give her whatever remedies they think will make her better.’
‘If they’ve been doing it down through many generations, whatever they give her probably won’t make her worse,’ Lauren said. ‘At least they’ve accepted that whatever they usually use hasn’t worked because here she is in hospital.’
Kate continued to mutter under her breath, but Lauren knew she’d see the girl was well looked after. But Malik had been right, there were at least eight people in the room with the patient, and that wasn’t counting a tiny baby, hidden in a sling under one of the women’s robes.
Her shift ended slightly later than it should have, and, knowing Nim would already be in bed, she went back to the ward to check on the young girl.
To her surprise, the crowd in the room had cleared, although the man she’d taken for the father remained there, sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall, his dark eyes constantly moving about the room as if some danger might lurk near his child.
‘Has he eaten anything?’ she asked the nurse who came in to check the drip.
‘Not a thing,’ she said, ‘although we offered him some food.’
‘But not food he would like,’ a deep voice said, and Malik appeared in the doorway.
He spoke briefly to the man, who replied at far greater length, then apparently started to argue with Malik.
Lauren let it go on for a minute, but as their voices rose, she pointed to the child and ushered them both towards the door.
All this for a meal?
Finally, the voices stopped and Malik re-entered the room.
‘He is particular about what he eats and his wife will have prepared his meal, but he felt he could not leave his child.’
Lauren caught on at once, and shook her head.
‘So you have offered to stay with her while he eats?’ she guessed. ‘In spite of the fact you’ve hardly slept in more than a week, and are probably in need of feeding yourself!’
He smiled at her and shook his head.
‘But you are also here,’ he said, ‘and that, for me right now, is more than food or sleep.’
Lauren could only smile and shake her head, the beauty of the meaning of the words flooding warmth into her innermost being—into her very soul...
And if the ‘if,’ whatever it might be, happened or didn’t happen, she’d always have those words tucked into her heart to warm lonely nights and bring cheer on hectic days...
CHAPTER NINE
WITH THE MAN GONE, Malik examined the little girl, gently pressing on her knees and ankles, searching for signs of swelling.
He was reaching for the chart when Lauren said quietly, ‘I’ve sent a swab from her throat to the lab and asked for it to be put through as soon as possible, and I’ve booked her for Radiology tomorrow.’
She grinned at him.
‘So it’s a good thing you’re here so you can explain those things to the father when he comes back and he doesn’t think we’re kidnapping her when we take her across to the old hospital. I’ve asked for chest X-rays to check her heart and lungs, and an ECG in case it’s already affecting her heart.’
‘You don’t need me, then,’ Malik teased, because he wanted to see her smile again.
‘Oh, we definitely need you when it comes to explanations. I’ve come across men at home who’d prefer a man told them what was happening with their child because there are still men who think another man will know better, but this man? I couldn’t tell him the sun would rise in the morning, because even if I spoke the language he wouldn’t believe me.’
Malik reached out and touched her shoulder, wishing he could hold her, willing himself not to.
‘That man and all the men that came before him had to be head of the family. Our people have always been aware of danger. And when there’s danger, there must be a leader—one person who tells the others what to do so you don’t get panic and mayhem. It is how they have always lived. How we have always lived.’
‘And because there’s been no one ruler since your father died, what you have now is panic and mayhem?’ Lauren said.
‘Total chaos,’ he answered, and thought maybe he could take her in his arms, hold her for just an instant, but before he could move the door opened and the man returned, accompanied by an older woman.
The child’s grandmother?
Malik explained about the tests they would do in the morning, about having to take the little girl through the corridor between the hospitals, and, yes, he could go with her.
‘Are you off duty?’ he asked Lauren, thinking even if she wasn’t he’d find someone to replace her. He couldn’t just walk away from her now he’d seen her.
‘An hour ago,’ she told him with a smile, and he touched her hand, just fleetingly, as they walked together to the desk for her to sign out.
‘Then we shall go and eat,’ he announced. ‘We will go to the market—which, yes, I did close, but it has since reopened—and we will eat as our nomad friend will have eaten tonight. You and Nimr, because my mother fancied food of other countries and her kitchen staff reflect that in what they serve, haven’t tasted many of our dishes.’
‘You’d be better off grabbing a sandwich—which your mother’s staff do very well—and getting some sleep,’ she said, concern for him evident in her eyes.
‘I will sleep when we have eaten,’ he promised.
‘I will even send for another car to take you home, so I am not tempted to do other than sleep should I go first to your place.’
But as they were now in the shadowy dark of the car park he could put his arm around her shoulders and draw her close, feeling her body warm against his, feeling his own respond predictably.
He sighed.
This was not how it should be. They should be married by now, and he’d be taking his excitement home and bedding her—touching her, teasing her, learning what she liked, and what made her cry out—
Al’ama! What was he thinking?
He clicked open the car and opened the door for her, careful now not to touch her lest it inflame already overheated desires.
But to take her now—to lie with her at the house again, not married to him—would bring shame on her and, by implication, on Nimr. To do it once was bad enough and although the memory of that brief encounter was burned into his very bones so he ached whenever they were together, he would not, could not, repeat it.
His staff might be loyal, but gossip was the lifeblood of his people. He would not have her the subject of that, would not have her talked about in the market.
It had happened, yes—that heated, irresistible evening—but no more until they were married, and if that meant avoiding opportunities to be alone with her, then that was what he must do.
So why are you taking her to dinner?
He ignored the question that had whispered in his head, because he knew the answer.
He needed to be with her, needed it like he needed air to breathe and water to drink.
And he was rationing their contact, trying to see as little as possible of her.
He sighed as he slid behind the wheel, and she reached out and touched his knee.
‘Is it so very hard, sorting out the problems you have at the palace?’
He rested his hand on hers, squeezed her fingers and turned towards her, tucking a wayward curl behind her delicate ear.
A Wife for the Surgeon Sheikh Page 11