Engaged to the Doctor Sheikh

by Meredith Webber

  He could be my cousin, she thought, then turned to Tariq, who was discussing the patient’s progress with a nurse.

  Could be?

  There was one way she could find out for sure.

  ‘You could test me,’ she said, then realised she’d interrupted. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but it just occurred to me and seemed to make sense. We’re not siblings but perhaps, if I am related, I have the “kink” you spoke of—the slight chromosomal difference. Many bone-marrow donors aren’t close relatives—that’s why we have the worldwide donor register.’

  Tariq and the nurse were both staring at her.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ she insisted. ‘It’s worth a try!’

  ‘But we’re not here for this. I want to show you the mobile clinic.’

  Tariq was obviously thrown by her suggestion, but Lila wasn’t about to give in.

  ‘I can see that anytime,’ she told him. ‘Well, later, but you must have a pathology department, let’s test me now. Consider for a moment that Nalini really is my mother—you’re the one who saw the resemblance and took me to the palace as family. If that’s the case, then I’m related to Khalil. And if I’m compatible enough to help, isn’t it better to know sooner rather than later?’

  The nurse was speaking now, apparently urging Tariq to go along with the idea, although she was speaking in the local language so Lila was just guessing.

  ‘You know what’s involved if you are compatible?’ Tariq asked, and Lila smiled.

  ‘More or less, but right now that’s not important. If I’m not a good match it’s not an issue.’

  He frowned at her.

  ‘Are you always this impulsive?’ he demanded, and Lila had to laugh.

  ‘Ask my family,’ she said. ‘They will all tell you I am the most cautious, careful, planning kind of person they have ever known. I’ve been teased about it all my life, but this is right, I can feel it. Please, Tariq, what harm can it possibly do?’

  Tariq stared at her, taken aback by how beautiful she was when she laughed, mesmerised by the glint in her eyes and the lingering smile on her face.

  She’d swept into his life that morning and he’d met her with anger in his heart because she had come to his country wearing something precious to his people—something stolen long ago.

  Then he’d seen Nalini in her and been thrust back to his childhood, and his confusion—aided by exhaustion—had grown from there.

  And now she was insisting on a blood test so she could offer herself as a donor to a cousin she’d never met?

  A ‘maybe’ cousin...

  Of course it was unlikely she’d be compatible—the chances possibly as high as a million to one. Although as a reasonably close relative, if she was a reasonably close relative...

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  Not that she seemed to mind. She pressed her fingers to the glass of the observation window as if taking farewell of Khalil, then fell in beside Tariq as he strode down the corridor. Her head bobbed about level with his shoulder and she took three steps to his two, but she kept up with him, as if accepting some unspoken challenge.

  A pathology nurse, alerted by Khalil’s nurse, was waiting in a nearby blood collection room.

  ‘Do you want blood or a cheek swab?’ Lila asked him as they entered.

  ‘I think blood,’ he said, resigned now to the test and thinking ahead to being able to check other things from the blood.

  ‘Makes sense,’ Lila told him, greeting the nurse with a warm smile and settling into the chair. ‘You can get the HLA match from either but if you’ve got blood you can check for any infection I might have.’

  Tariq thought of the HLA—human leukocyte antigen—a protein on the surface of white blood cells that needed to be matched to the recipient’s. His own had been nowhere near a close enough match, and back when Khalil had first been diagnosed that had been devastating. Tariq couldn’t help but feel responsible for the young half-brother who would rule the country because he had chosen a different path.

  You were following your head, not your heart, he reminded himself, and glanced towards the woman whose sudden appearance in his life was causing so much disruption. The nurse was sticking a plaster over the tiny pinprick on the inside of her elbow.

  ‘See, it took no time at all,’ Lila said, smiling at him. ‘So now you can show me our mobile clinic.’

  He explained to the nurse about the tests he wanted done, then escorted his new colleague along a corridor towards the back of the building.

  ‘It’s a good thing there are signs here in English,’ she said, ‘or I’d need a guide like Sousa to show me around the hospital.’

  He glanced at her, wondering if she was as carefree as she sounded. Or was she covering tumultuous emotion with light chatter? It seemed to him she must be, given all that had happened to her since her arrival in Karuba less than twelve hours ago.

  He’d have liked to ask, and, realising that, he had to wonder why.

  Did it matter what she was feeling?

  And on considering that question, he rather thought it did—which was a conclusion as surprising as the discovery that his new employee had arrived in the country wearing the Ta’wiz.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LILA FOLLOWED TARIQ out of yet another door. If left on her own she’d never find her way out of the hospital, let alone back to the palace!

  He strode across a courtyard to a large garage, pressing numbers into a key pad and watching a long door slide open.

  Inside, painted dark blue and gold, stood a pristinely new prime mover with two trailers attached.

  ‘Oh, it’s a B-Double! What a beauty!’ Lila exclaimed, heading around to the driver’s side and hoisting herself up to open the door and look inside.

  Only it wasn’t the driver’s door but the passenger’s.

  ‘Oh—of course—you drive on the wrong side of the road over here.’

  She yelled the words from her perch high above Tariq, then clambered across the two beautifully constructed seats to look at the controls.

  ‘We’re supposed to be looking at the clinic in the trailers,’ Tariq said, though there wasn’t much conviction in his voice, as if her actions had bemused him.

  ‘Oh, but I just have to check this out first,’ Lila told him. ‘It’s fantastic and from the look of it will take you anywhere. Was it built here or did you have to import it?’

  ‘Germany.’

  The answer was brief enough for Lila to realise maybe she was overdoing her delight.

  Never mind, she’d check out the prime mover some other time, preferably when Tariq wasn’t around.

  She clambered back over the seats, climbed down the first steps, and leapt lightly to the ground.

  ‘Pop, my foster father, drove big rigs,’ she explained, then fell in beside him once again as he led the way to the lead semi-trailer, slightly smaller than the second.

  ‘I’ve had this set up as a mobile theatre. Although the primary purpose of the mobile clinic will be paediatric, there are always adults who need attention, often quite urgently, so it made sense to be prepared for anything. It’s very basic, for minor surgery only, and as all the mobile clinic doctors have had anaesthetic training, the second doctor can always step in as anaesthetist if required.’

  He used a key pad again to open the door and Lila peered in at what looked like a very small but beautifully appointed emergency department. A few chairs to wait at, a desk taking minimal space, two curtained-off areas that would be treatment rooms, and a closed door at the end—the operating theatre?

  ‘Did you design it?” she asked, turning to Tariq and reading satisfaction on his face as he looked around.

  ‘Bit by bit, and slowly but surely, with a lot of input from other medical staff. We will carry everything we need,
even down to blood and plasma supplies, oxygen, anaesthetic, surgical tools, gowns, gloves—the lot.’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ Lila told him, and was pleased when he smiled.

  ‘But wait until you see the second part,’ he said, leading the way out of the unit and relocking the door.

  ‘Oh, but it’s fantastic!’ He had opened the door on the larger trailer and she gazed around in awe at the paintings of animals and birds on the walls of the unit, feeling the smoothness of the floor that had been made to look like sand.

  ‘The animals and birds, are they local species?’ she asked, and was shown the peregrine falcon, the leopard, a little rabbit-like creature Tariq told her was a cape hare.

  ‘And that’s a gazelle, isn’t it?’ Lila asked, pointing to a shy-looking animal peering around a curtained cubicle.

  ‘It is indeed. You’ll learn the rest in time. The children will educate you because they have grown up with these creatures.’

  ‘Even the fox?’ Lila asked, pointing with delight at a cheeky red fox digging its way out from behind a cupboard.

  One corner was fenced off with soft carpet and toys, while bookshelves held bright picture books. Even the curtains of the treatment rooms were decorated with pictures of the desert dunes, and the mountains Lila had seen as the plane came in, while a friendly camel seemed to loom over a cabinet.

  ‘It’s very special,’ she said, and saw the pride on Tariq’s face.

  ‘It will be your domain, you know, although I will do the first trip with you, to introduce you to the chiefs and make arrangements with them for your accommodation. The second doctor on other trips will treat adult patients, and work with you when you need him or her. You’ll also have a nurse, Rani, and an aide who doubles as administrator, Sybilla, on your team, and a—I don’t know how to describe him—a guide who will oversee the operation. He will be accommodated with the driver, but it is he who will be your protection at all times.’

  ‘Protection?’ Lila queried.

  ‘Not from the tribespeople but from trouble. He will handle things like the timetable, sort out delays, and generally make life run smoothly for you and your staff.’

  ‘He sounds like a great guy,’ Lila said, ‘not to mention useful.’

  ‘He is,’ came the reply, but it was less definite than Lila had expected. In fact, the words kind of fizzled out as if in saying it Tariq had been struck by some other thought.

  Lila poked around inside what she realised now was a converted shipping container. What fun this would be—and what a great chance to see the country of her mother—if Nalini was her mother—the place she’d sought in her dreams for so long.

  As Tariq stepped outside, he thought about how testing for bone-marrow compatibility included a DNA test—but it was strictly confidential.

  Maybe later she might like to know—ask about DNA testing as confirmation of who she was...

  Did it matter?

  He had no idea, he only knew that if he’d been thrown into complete turmoil by the arrival of his newest hospital recruit, how in heaven’s name must she be feeling?

  Lost?

  Bewildered?

  Overpowered by too much information too soon?

  He glanced at her, and saw that the honey colour had faded from her skin, and small lines had appeared on her cheeks.

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ he said, more roughly than he’d intended. ‘Come, we will return to the palace and you can sleep. There is no need for you to work tomorrow either. This must have been a tumultuous day for you.’

  She offered him a tired smile that, if his heart had had any say in it, might have felt a tweak, but with his head in charge it did little more than anger him for pushing on when obviously the visit to the mobile clinic had proved too much for her.

  ‘This way,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Home?’ she asked, with a better smile this time.

  And this time his head lost the battle...

  * * *

  They drove back to the palace in comparative silence, Lila pointing out the way the moon laid a silver path across the water towards the city, Tariq telling her that the dunes by moonlight were even more beautiful.

  ‘I want to see them, I want to see it all,’ Lila told him. ‘And the flamingo lake the steward on the plane told me about and—’

  She stopped abruptly.

  ‘I want to ask you something but I’m afraid it will sound silly,’ she said.

  ‘I doubt if anything would sound silly after what we’ve discovered today,’ Tariq told her, and was rewarded with another smile.

  ‘It’s about sand,’ she said. ‘The box my mother had, the box I keep remembering, had sand in it and I’m sure the sand was pink. She would put a little of it into the Ta’wiz, but only a little, and very carefully, as if the pink sand was precious and she couldn’t afford to spill it.’

  Now Tariq felt his heart at work for a different reason. That Nalini—it had to have been Nalini—having left her land, had kept the sacred sand that meant so much to all his people. Not only kept it but guarded it jealously.

  Lila was waiting for an answer, but he wasn’t sure he could speak through the emotion in his throat.

  He took a deep breath, told his head to take control, and explained. ‘There is pink sand, in just one place in Karuba—a special place. The legend of it goes back through many, many generations of our people to the founding father, who was born on the sand near the flamingo lake. It was a long time ago—a time when many women died in childbirth, as did his mother. The story says she bled to death and the sand turned pink with blood, stayed that way ever since. People leaving the country take some of the pink sand with them. It is their connection to their land, almost like a promise to return.’

  There, he’d said it, but when he glanced towards his companion to see her reaction, he saw her shoulders shake and tears running from her eyes.

  Moved beyond measure, he reached out and drew her close, nestling her slight body against his, murmuring soothing words, unconsciously returning to his native tongue.

  But surely that’s how her parents would have soothed her, he thought, leaning over slightly to breathe in the slightly lemon tang of her hair.

  He felt her body settling, then stiffen as she tried to ease away.

  ‘I’m okay now,’ she said, the words muffled as she wiped at her tears. ‘It was the thought of my mother taking it as a promise to return. A promise she couldn’t keep.’

  ‘Some things are beyond our control,’ he told her, his heart definitely affected by the words.

  ‘I know, and at least now I know why it meant so much to her. I’ve always remembered the pink sand, you see, and for so long I thought I must have imagined it. In my mind I can see it, but whenever I looked up countries with pink sand, nothing was ever right.’

  ‘Well, now you know,’ he said gently as the car entered the palace gates.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and as the car slid to a stop at the main entrance, she opened the door and slipped out, whispering a quiet goodnight.

  Tariq waited long enough to ensure Sousa was at the door, waiting for Lila, before asking the driver to drop him at his quarters.

  What must have been the longest day on record was finally coming to an end...

  * * *

  Lila slipped off her shoes outside the door, and felt the last remnants of energy from what had been a very long and eventful day drain from her.

  ‘Come,’ Sousa told her, taking her by the elbow and leading her into the house. ‘I have a small meal ready for you, then a bath and straight into bed. You have done too much on your first day in the country.’

  Done too much and found out too much! Lila realised. And it was the ‘finding out’ part that was causing her most concern. Yes, she had a nam
e for her mother, all the pieces slotting into place, making her more sure than ever that Nalini—Tariq’s Nalini—was her mother. But where did the theft fit in? Why would her mother have been so desperate to leave the place she’d clearly loved that she would have stolen what were obviously precious treasures?

  Especially when she intended to return—didn’t the sand tell her that?

  She stood at the doorway leading out into the courtyard, and looked at the beautiful garden, turned to a fairy wonderland by the moonlight and probably some discreet lighting.

  Had her mother stood here?

  Thinking of what?

  A man?

  A man she loved?

  Dreaming impossible dreams of them being together?

  A night bird called somewhere in the garden, another answering it.

  Lovers?

  * * *

  Sleep had come easily, but some inner clock had Lila up at dawn. Dressing swiftly, she went out into the garden, wandering along the paths, pausing to admire a beautiful topiary peacock, its tail spread in front of a sculpted, leafy female.

  Small hedges divided the garden into rooms, sometimes with a reflection pool or a fountain at the centre, and off to one side slightly higher hedges formed a labyrinth. She danced along its paths with delight.

  ‘I understood the idea was to follow the path in quiet contemplation,’ a voice said, and she turned to see Tariq outside the outer hedge.

  ‘Only until you get into the centre,’ she told him. ‘Then you ask your question or make a wish—well, that’s what we believed as children when we drew labyrinths in the sand at the beach.’

  ‘And did you ask a question or make a wish?’ Tariq asked, intrigued by the thought that the hedge pattern had a deeper meaning. For Lila, at any rate.

  ‘I asked a question,’ she told him.

  ‘And the answer made you skip all the way back?’

  He sounded so cynical she had to laugh.

  ‘Of course it did. I asked if I’d done the right thing in coming to Karuba and in my heart I knew immediately that I had.’ She paused, then added, ‘And in my head as well,’ nodding towards the bits of golden script that could be glimpsed through the foliage on the outer walls.