But joy would come in time, he decided, for this was a good thing in so many ways. Enough for now she had agreed and they could celebrate.
‘Then come,’ he said. ‘We won’t stop here this morning. We’ll ride a little further.’
He led the way, guiding Saracen up the steep sandstone slope behind the wadi, knowing Mershinga would follow. At the top the land levelled out and it was here he’d asked his people to set out the picnic. He pulled Saracen to one side of the track and waited until Mel reached the top, then enjoyed again the look of wonder in her eyes for from here she could see the desert spread in front of her, wave upon wave of dunes and cliffs, while behind her the city was bathed in the golden rays of the rising sun, the new buildings sparkling like jewels in the morning light.
‘A tent?’ Mel said, looking behind her now at the strange black shape.
‘A picnic just for us, to celebrate our engagement,’ Arun said, and the doubt that had been nagging at Mel ever since she’d made up her mind the previous night now returned—full strength.
‘It’s not really an engagement,’ she protested. ‘We’re doing this for the baby—a marriage of convenience—you said so yourself.’
Arun had dismounted, tied the stallion’s reins to a hitching post by the tent, and was now holding Mershinga’s head, waiting for Mel to join him at ground level.
‘Then we shall celebrate you agreeing to marry me,’ he said, apparently unperturbed by her downgrading of their arrangement.
She slid off the horse, glancing uneasily towards the small tent, not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved when a white-clad attendant appeared in the doorway, unrolling a brightly coloured rug onto the sand in front of it.
‘Come,’ Arun said, taking her arm and leading her forward. ‘For you today the best Zaheer can offer—breakfast in the dunes.’
He was so obviously proud of his country Mel weakened, turning to him with a teasing smile.
‘The best? Better than the desert by moonlight?’
‘It too is the best,’ he said, so seriously she felt a little hitch in her heart and knew again how very easy it would be to love him…
They sat cross-legged on the carpet while the attendant prepared the special savoury pancakes Mel had eaten at the apartment. But these, cooked over a small brazier, were even more delicious, the yoghurt served with them thicker and creamier, the spice tastes more tantalising.
Or was it the company that made it all seem special?
She glanced sideways at Arun and caught him watching her.
‘Your family,’ he said quietly. ‘You didn’t answer me yesterday. An accident? Divorce?’
Mel shook her head.
‘You will tell me?’
He phrased it as a question but she heard it as…not a demand so much as a need to know, and realised he deserved the truth.
‘My mother died when I was born, my father opted not to have anything to do with a newborn baby who had, in his eyes, killed his wife. His family also turned away—supporting him, I think, rather than outright rejecting me. My mother’s mother took me and raised me, and she died two years ago.’
Mel shrugged to show it no longer mattered and most of the time it didn’t, but when Arun put his arm around her and drew her close she felt the loss again and had to swallow hard.
‘You told me you were terrified, and I didn’t understand. Yet you went ahead with this pregnancy?’ he said, and she realised it wasn’t her lack of family that had drawn his sympathy but his understanding of her stupid fears.
‘It’s such a rare occurrence these days it’s hardly likely to happen twice in two generations,’ she said, then added the bald truth. ‘And it wasn’t so much fear of dying that freaked me out, but leaving behind a child with no one to care for it.’
‘Hence Charlie,’ Arun murmured, more to himself than Melissa, as understanding of her situation not only dawned on him but caused him actual pain.
He moved slightly away on the pretext of passing her a plate of fruit.
So she had said yes to his proposal as the best option for her child.
And what was wrong with that?
Hadn’t he couched his proposal as an offer of security for both her and the child?
Wasn’t this what he wanted? A marriage of convenience?
He knew it was, knew the attraction was an added bonus, so why was he feeling perturbed?
Because it put him on the same level as this Charlie she spoke of—a bloodless wimp who would settle for marriage without the love of this strong, resourceful, beautiful and sexy woman.
She was talking of the children she wished to see again in A and E, of radiology appointments, but he couldn’t get his mind around her conversation while his heart—no, it couldn’t possibly be his heart, it had to be his pride—was suffering.
‘I will arrange it,’ he promised, although the promise he made to himself was very different.
He would change her thinking. He would woo and win her so she came to him in marriage wanting him, not a job or a safe haven for her child.
And that reminded him of her fear and he put his arm around her again, and held her as the sun’s rays warmed the sands and the dawn slipped quietly into day.
‘We should go,’ Mel said, though having acceded to the marriage idea and with her hunger satisfied she felt pleasantly relaxed and could have sat on the carpet with Arun’s arms around her for a very long time. ‘I’ve got work to do and I’m sure you have as well.’
She edged away, standing up and shaking sand from her loose trousers, then, remembering it was less than twenty-four hours since Jenny’s wedding, she turned to him.
‘I don’t want a big-deal wedding with all those people,’ she said. ‘You must have easier ways to get married here. A place where just the two of us can go?’
He smiled the lazy smile that started a quiver in her chest and said, ‘You’ll deny our people an excuse to party?’
‘They’ve been partying all week for Jenny’s wedding,’ Mel reminded him. ‘That’s more than enough.’
Then something, maybe the quiver she’d felt earlier, prompted her to add, ‘Our wedding’s different anyway. It’s a convenience, remember.’
Arun’s face was raised to look at her, and the morning sun was shining on it, so she saw the shadow that passed across it, although usually his emotions were as carefully masked as the faces of the veiled women.
Did he not like being reminded that that’s what it was?
Would he rather pretend it was a love match?
No, he was far too practical to think that way.
Wasn’t he?
Mel pondered the question as they rode back to the compound where she showered hurriedly and dressed—again in loose trousers and tunic top, though thinking that she’d have to tell Jenny about the pregnancy and marriage fairly soon.
Before everyone knew…
The car was waiting at the door, Arun standing beside it.
Mel tried to read his expression but once again his face was wiped of all emotion.
Did the women wear masks and veils because they had less success at hiding their feelings than the men, although surely their eyes, the so-called windows of the soul, would give their emotions away?
‘You are worried about the children?’ Arun asked, as the driver steered the car through the compound gates.
Mel turned to him.
‘Was I frowning?’ she asked, and before he could reply she explained, ‘I was thinking of masks and veils and whether as well as hiding beauty they hide emotion.’
Arun studied her for a moment, then smiled.
‘Or perhaps conceal it so only the most persistent of lovers can penetrate the screen.’
Mel nodded slowly.
‘So love is the key?’ she said, her voice so quiet he barely heard the words.
And when he did make sense of them—literal sense—he wasn’t sure he understood what she was saying.
Neither was he about to find out because she was spe
aking again, more loudly this time.
‘How do I move around the hospital? Even when I know my way somewhere, like to the apartment or to A and E, how do I get access?’
Could she switch from talk of love to talk of work so swiftly?
Because that’s all it was? Talk?
He didn’t like the idea, but he, too, could make the switch.
‘I will get you a key card that has your ID on it—it will get you wherever you want to go in the hospital and will also open the door to the apartment,’ he said, then he muttered away in his own language for a moment, explaining as they arrived at the hospital that he must be as stupid as she was, so calmly accepting that she would continue working here.
‘It is not your job,’ he added, though he knew it was futile.
Out of the car now, she turned and smiled at him.
‘Ah, but it will be—that’s the whole point.’
‘If you mean of our marriage, I am not marrying you to get a good paediatrician on staff. Kam and I had already interviewed someone who will make an excellent head of paediatrics. If you wish to work, then having you set up a paediatric surgical unit would be a bonus for our people.’
He knew he was speaking stiffly—hopefully not pompously—but her attitude to their marriage was grating on him. Not that he’d expected honeyed tones and melting glances, but they shared a strong attraction so surely a sense of—fondness? warmth?—wouldn’t hurt!
Mel raised her eyebrows at him, aware he wasn’t happy but unsure why. Did he want her to pretend it was a love match?
She shook her head in denial of her thoughts, knowing, the way she was beginning to think about him, that such a pretence would be dangerous for it would be too close to the real thing.
Thinking in terms of the convenience was much better, and remembering it was for security for her baby, not for the joy of being in Arun’s company, was far, far safer for her mental well-being.
She followed him towards the main foyer, putting thoughts of love and marriage out of her mind—screening them off—determined this time to notice where they were going so she could begin to find her own way around the hospital.
‘Do you want to go up to the apartment?’
Expressionless face, voice devoid of emotion, yet still Mel shivered, thinking of what could happen should they go up to the apartment—remembering how good it would feel to be in his arms again.
‘Best not,’ she said, hoping her own face was as expressionless as his. ‘Maybe the ICU then A and E. I’ve got a lot of those children I saw yesterday lined up for tests and scans, so I’ll need to see them again, then there are all the others.’
They were walking towards the lift and she noticed the corridor that led to A and E.
‘You spoke of clinics in different areas and I’m sure you mentioned hospitals, plural, when we spoke earlier, so why have these children not been seen somewhere else?’
She stood beside him while Arun pressed the button for the lift, a frown lowering his dark eyebrows.
‘I wondered that myself, so I asked, and found they do not trust the other hospital—the old one which Kam and I have been trying to remodel bit by bit—because they say their children get sicker there than they are before they go in. And at the new one, this one, there have been no women doctors in the A and E department—I did not realise that—and a lot of the women who came yesterday are tribal women, not city women, and they did not want to talk with a man who wasn’t a relative. There are baby clinics in the country, and here in the city, where women take their babies and a nurse will treat the child or give advice, but when the advice was to take the child to see a doctor, they held back.’
‘Poor things,’ Mel said, and Arun must have heard genuine empathy in her voice for he turned towards her.
‘Poor things?’
He looked so worried she put a hand on his sleeve.
‘To believe there is something wrong with your child and not be able to talk to someone about it.’
Arun nodded, but once again guilt was gnawing at him. That he hadn’t known things were so bad—that he’d travelled the world to learn more in his specialty while at home facilities were so poor women were unable to get help for their sick children.
But it was useless feeling anger at the old man who, even ill, had clung to his power, refusing to allow his sons to fully modernise the old hospital or to nationalise the new hospital so free services could be provided to everyone.
‘We will fix things,’ he said, making the words a promise, knowing he would keep it.
They made their way to the ICU room where the baby was. Mel stopped at the door and stared around in disbelief. The pristine white room had been transformed into a fairyland, with toys, mobiles, posters and cards making it so vibrantly alive Mel had to blink a couple of times before she could take it all in.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, turning to Arun who had obviously seen the decorations the previous evening when he’d come in.
‘Just because the family cannot be here with Tia and the baby, it doesn’t mean they can’t send gifts.’
‘Well, they’ve certainly done that,’ Mel agreed, making her way to the crib where Sarah Craig was waiting to hand over the baby’s chart.
The baby was doing far better than Mel had hoped, and she told Tia, adding, ‘I’m sure it’s all the attention you are giving him that is making him stronger every day.’
Tia beamed at her.
‘My mother’s attention too and soon his father’s for my husband is coming back to be with me when the baby has the operation—is that not wonderful news?’
‘The very best,’ Mel agreed, giving Tia a hug.
Then she turned to Sarah.
‘If you can get someone, a nurse would do, to relieve you, I could use your help again downstairs in A and E.’
‘All but done,’ Sarah told her. ‘I’ve only been waiting for you to arrive. There’s a nurse standing by to take over here. She’s done a shift with the baby before so she knows what to watch for.’ She glanced at Arun. ‘If that’s OK with Dr al’Kawali,’ she added, smiling at him.
Mel wasn’t sure if Sarah was checking with her nominal boss that this arrangement had his approval or pandering to him because he was such a handsome and sexy man.
And surely the squirmy feeling in Mel’s stomach couldn’t be jealousy…
Had she seen five hundred babies and small children? It certainly felt that way. As he had the previous day, at some stage Arun had appeared and drawn her off to a small sitting room, ordering her to sit, to eat, to drink some fruit juice or tea.
Sarah had worked in tandem with her through the morning, but had disappeared before Mel went to lunch, presumably to return to the ICU.
Or maybe she’d been off duty, working to a roster because she was actually employed by the hospital.
Though Mel doubted that would be the case. Most doctors she knew would keep working while there were still patients to be seen.
‘Who’s next?’ Mel asked the young nurse who’d been helping her all day.
‘No more,’ the woman said. ‘His Excellency says no more.’
‘His Excellency?’
‘The sheikh—Dr Rahman al’Kawali—he says no more. They must come back tomorrow or the next day. The women at the reception counter are even now making times for them to come. His Excellency says you must stop before you are exhausted.’
Dark eyes looked anxiously into Mel’s.
‘You will do this—stop—or he will be very angry.’
‘Oh, will he, now?’ Mel said, then realised she couldn’t bring Arun’s wrath down on this poor defenceless woman’s head. ‘And have you seen him very angry?’
The woman shook her head.
‘But I have heard. It does not happen often, but when things are not as they should be—the floor soiled, or the staff careless—then he can be angry. Justly so, of course.’
Of course, Mel echoed silently, remembering how angry he had been when s
he’d told him about Charlie—coldly angry.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to blot out the memory, and opened them to find not the nurse but Arun—the sometimes angry sheikh—standing in front of her.
‘So, you are ready to go?’
‘Back up to the apartment? Do you mind me staying there? It seems easiest, but if it’s a nuisance or is breaking some rule for engaged couples or might offend someone—I’m sorry, I’m a bit muddled at the moment.’
He made an exasperated noise and seized her hand, dragging her out of A and E, back into the small room where she’d eaten lunch.
‘You can’t keep working like this,’ he stormed. ‘It’s not right—and it’s too much for you.’
Disconcerted by the grasp he still had on her hand, Mel tried to ease away.
‘If you add “in your condition”, I’ll scream.’
To her surprise he smiled, and as the stern, rather forbidding face softened with the smile, all the reasons she shouldn’t be so close—shouldn’t be touching him—stirred to life again, firing every nerve in her body, so when he drew her closer, she didn’t resist. In fact, far from it. She let her body slump against his, feeding on his strength.
‘And will this draw such a fierce reaction?’ he asked softly, his eyes holding hers as his lips moved closer, claiming her mouth with a hunger that burned like fever through her body.
‘Arun, no…’
The protest died on her lips, for his hands were now smoothing across the loose fabric of her shirt, and her sensitive breasts were responding to the teasing touch, her nipples hardening to buds that sought more than teasing.
‘The apartment…’ she managed to murmur, and he eased away, taking her elbow and guiding her out of the room. Mel was in such a daze, or haze perhaps, she once again forgot to take note of the corridors they walked along, or the turns they took.
Looking back, Mel could see that day set the pattern for the days to come, although most days they didn’t ride, spending the dawn together in bed, wrapped in a tangle of arms and legs and the warm pleasure they took from each other’s bodies.
Looking back, she could see she had already been falling for the man she was to marry, although instinct told her to hide it, not only from Arun but from Jenny and Kam. Sticking to the script of how convenient it was for them to marry, for the baby, and to make it easy for her to take on this wonderful new job, setting up a paediatric surgical unit in the hospital, secure in the knowledge the baby would be well looked after and lavished with love from the family.
The Sheikh Surgeon's Baby Page 12