by Jane Toombs
After telling Yasmin from now on it was Mama’s duty to see that she bathed and changed into nightclothes, he retreated to the living room while Linnea readied the child for bed and tucked her in. Prowling about, he noticed some drawings on a desk in the corner and paused to study them. The nearby artist’s gear led him to believe they were hers. Well executed, certainly, though the subject matter wasn’t to his taste. He preferred brains to be covered by skulls, scalps and hair.
He heard Yasmin call for him plaintively from the master bedroom, reminding him once again of the imperious squeaks of the baby bird he’d raised as a child. Come at once, I need you.
“Both the mother and the father bird feed their fledglings,” his grandfather had told him when he’d asked permission to keep the helpless little thing. “Your grandmother has already told you she doesn’t care to have this bird around, so she won’t help. You’ll have to be mother and father in order to raise it.”
Which he’d done. Now, with Yasmin, there was someone to share in her raising. He blinked and shook his head. What was he thinking? He’d done his part, he was no longer involved. Linnea was capable of caring for her daughter without any help from him.
He entered the bedroom to find Yasmin sitting up in the bed. She immediately demanded a story. “Not until you lie down,” he told her in Arabic.
She squirmed around until she lay flat and let Linnea cover her with a sheet. “About that boy named Saud and the Ghoul,” Yasmin said. “And the little sister.”
The tale was one he had been told as a child, about the Ghoul who haunts the great desert. At first, despite the fact it was no more than a cautionary child’s story, a fairy tale, he’d thought it might scare Yasmin so he hadn’t told it until he’d run out of all the others he could remember. He’d been wrong to worry—Saud’s escapade was her favorite.
He’d learned to draw it out, speaking slowly and repeating words and phrases to give Yasmin a chance to grow drowsy before he finished. He hadn’t quite gotten to Saud’s meeting with the Ghoul when he saw Yasmin’s eyes droop shut. He lowered his voice, slowing to a singsong as he continued. As always, he went on to the end before stopping.
He nodded at Linnea, inclining his head toward the door. They both went out and he followed her into the kitchen.
“She fell asleep long before you finished,” Linnea said over her shoulder.
“As a child I was taught never to leave a tale half told.”
“Would you like coffee?” she asked. “There’s still some in the pot, though it may be a trifle bitter by now. And maybe a sandwich?”
“Coffee, yes, please,” he said. “What’s in the pot will be fine.”
“I have some homemade blueberry cobbler left.”
Ah, a woman who cooked. Yasmin was fortunate. “You’ve tempted me,” he said, smiling. “I can’t resist your temptation.”
Before she turned away, he saw with amusement that her cheeks had grown remarkably pink. He preferred to think she blushed because she was attracted to him, though he knew the likelihood was greater of her being angry with him.
The cobbler was excellent. So was the coffee, strong and aromatic, exactly as he enjoyed it. She fixed herself a glass of chocolate milk and sat one stool away from him, sipping at the milk while he ate.
“You are talented at more than art,” he told her when he’d finished.
“Thanks,” she said.
He decided to begin bluntly. “You don’t like me being in your house,” he said.
She bit her lip. “It’s not you, not exactly.”
“Because I am Kholi?”
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. “I don’t want you to think I’m prejudiced but...” Her words trailed off.
“But you were married to Malik Khaldun,” he said, finishing for her. “Since you divorced him, it was, I assume, a negative experience. Be assured all Kholi men are not like him.”
“You knew Malik?”
He nodded. “I did. We were not friends.”
“Then you can understand why I divorced him.”
“Yes. Malik was—difficult.”
“When I started divorce proceedings, he was furious. He—he kidnapped my baby when she was scarcely three months old.” Linnea’s voice quivered. “He took her to Kholi, knowing I wouldn’t be able to find her or have her returned to me. He was her father, but I never believed he abducted her because he really wanted Yasmin. He meant to get back at me.”
She was probably right. Malik had always been vindictive, a Khaldun trait. “I am not Malik,” he pointed out.
Linnea sighed. “I’m aware of that. It’s obvious you’ve taken good care of Yasmin on the trip here. She adores you.”
“While you continue to have reservations. Both about me and about Yasmin being your daughter.”
Linnea slid off the stool, collected the dirty dishes and brought them to the sink. She stood with her back to him, rinsing them off while she said, “She’s not my birth daughter, she’s not the little girl Malik took from me.”
Talal rose and crossed to her. Leaning against the refrigerator, he said, “Despite your claim, you intend to raise her. Am I correct?”
“In that sense she is my daughter.” Linnea swung around to face him. “You’ll never take her away from me.”
“I have no intention of doing such a thing. Still, it’s difficult for me to understand how you can be so certain she’s a changeling based merely on the color of her eyes.”
For a moment he thought Linnea was about to defend her position, then she frowned at him and said, “I refuse to discuss it any further. But I do expect when you return to Kholi that you’ll tell your great-uncle, the king, he must find the baby Malik Khaldun kidnapped, his child and mine. I’ll never be satisfied until she’s returned to me.”
Seeing the futility of arguing, Talal straightened and shrugged. “If you insist. I’m not returning immediately, though.”
“Good. Because I don’t think Yasmin is ready to let you go. She needs to be weaned away from you. While you’re working on doing that, I need to dig out my Arabic phrase books and study them so I can try to understand her after you do leave.”
About to tell her he hadn’t planned on remaining in New York any longer than absolutely necessary, that he’d intended to fly to Nevada by the end of the week, Talal held back. Much as he longed to fly west, he found he wasn’t quite ready to desert Yasmin. Nor was he, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, ready to leave Linnea just yet. To this there’d been added yet another problem.
Apparently taking his silence for agreement, she said, “Now that we’ve settled things, let’s go to bed.” She flushed and added, “What I mean is, I suggest we turn in.”
He couldn’t resist. “Together or separately?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean!” She turned her indignant face from him and would have stalked off if he hadn’t grasped her wrist.
“I was taught never to go to bed until I wished my hostess a peaceful good-night,” he said, raising her right hand to his lips and bowing over it. “Maddamti,” he murmured.
Instead of touching his mouth to the back of her hand, on impulse he turned it over and brushed her palm with his lips before releasing her. Without waiting for her reaction, he left the kitchen and walked along the hall to the guest bedroom.
Linnea stood staring at the spot where he’d been, her right hand pressed to her breast. She wanted to be upset, to be irked and annoyed with him; instead, she was suffused with a feeling of warmth. “This won’t do,” she muttered. “This won’t do at all.”
The warmth stayed with her while she loaded the dishwasher, checked the doors and turned out the lights. If Yasmin likes him, she told herself as she slipped into bed beside the girl, he can’t be all bad. Even if he didn’t believe her. That was okay, because she wasn’t entirely certain she completely believed him—he could be in on this changeling business. She had no proof he wasn’t.
In her sleep, Yasmin turned an
d cuddled next to her. Linnea stroked her soft hair, feeling peace settle over her, the peace Talal had wished her before he went to his room. She’d never give up her search for the child she’d borne, but this little girl Talal had brought her soothed her grieving heart.
Linnea had no idea how long she’d been asleep when she was jolted awake by Yasmin’s voice calling “Mama!”
“Toilet?” she asked the child. “Bathroom? Potty? Drink? Water? Do you hurt?”
Her only response was Yasmin’s spate of Arabic. In desperation, Linnea rose, picked up the girl and trotted down the hall to Talal. His light was on, and he was sitting up in bed. She plopped onto the edge of the bed, still holding Yasmin, and demanded, “Tell me what she wants. Is something wrong with her?”
Yasmin squirmed away from her and crawled to Talal, repeating the same words. He chuckled, turned Yasmin over onto her stomach and began rubbing her back.
“When we shared hotel and motel rooms and she woke at night,” he said, “I’d get her to go to sleep again by rubbing her back. That’s what she wanted you to do.” He reached over, took her hand and brought it to Yasmin. “Take over, Mama.”
Relieved, Linnea rubbed the girl’s back. Finding the position awkward, she shifted so she was lying next to Yasmin. She continued to stroke her back gently, hardly realizing when she began to croon the same bye-lo lullaby she’d sung to her baby.
After a time Talal turned out the bedside lamp and Linnea stopped crooning, ready to take Yasmin back to her own bed. But when she tried to lift her, Yasmin resisted, whispering in Arabic.
“She wants you to go on singing.” Talal’s voice sounded drowsy.
Resuming the song and the stroking, Linnea told herself she’d wait until Yasmin fell asleep before trying again to move her. With the child between her and Talal, no part of him touched her, but she was very much aware of him being there. His scent seeped into her consciousness, a clean, male smell that surrounded her, triggering enticing thoughts of how erotic his skin would feel against hers.
An Arab proverb she’d heard quoted popped into her head. “Only a fool gets a snakebite from the same snake hole twice.”
Malik had been a Kholi male. Maybe they weren’t all like him, but she had no proof Talal wasn’t. And she didn’t intend to find out.
Yasmin wriggled closer to her, putting a hand to her cheek and patting it. “Mama,” she murmured. Before Linnea could take the child into her arms, Yasmin turned away and said, “Talal.”
He spoke to her in Arabic, soft, soothing words. Though she didn’t know their meaning, Linnea knew they were words of affection. He seemed to be as fond of Yasmin as she was of him.
“She doesn’t seem inclined to sleep,” Talal said. “Maybe another story will do the trick. Why don’t you tell her one and I’ll translate.”
Childhood tales flitted through Linnea’s mind and she realized, like Talal’s story of the desert ghoul, most of them had scary parts. “How about Goldilocks and the Three Bears?”
“Yasmin has never seen a bear or even a picture of one,” he said. “Isn’t there a tale about three goats? Goats she knows.”
“How about trolls? There’s a troll in that story.”
“I’ll change the troll to a ghoul when I translate. Don’t tell all the story at once. Pause now and then to let me catch up.”
Linnea propped a pillow under her head before beginning. If anyone had told her yesterday that she’d be lying in bed with a Kholi man—a sexy one, at that—telling bedtime stories, she’d have had a good laugh. Nothing was less likely. Yet here she was.
“Once upon a time,” she began, “there were three billy goats....”
As she listened to Talal’s slow, singsong translation, aimed at sending Yasmin to sleep, she yawned. When he paused, it took her a moment or two to recall where she’d left off. “Trip-trap, across the bridge,” she said.
When she finished, he took up the story in Arabic. How soft his voice was, low and soft, a lover’s voice. Linnea relaxed as she listened, her eyes drifting shut. Since she didn’t understand what he said, she found herself providing her own meaning to the words, words Malik had never said to her.
My love, my only love...
Talal, supporting himself on one elbow, ended the story. Yasmin, next to him, didn’t move, and he smiled in satisfaction. Asleep at last. Expecting Linnea to scoop up the girl and carry her off, he peered across Yasmin at her when she didn’t. A streetlight slanting through the slatted blind at the window provided scant illumination but enough to tell him that she also slept.
His lips quirked in amusement as he pictured her dismay when she roused and discovered she’s been sleeping in the bed of a man she mistrusted, a Kholi man, at that. The worst kind, as far as she was concerned.
He lay back on his pillow, closing his eyes and anticipating the awakening. An hour later, he was far from amusement. True, the child separated them so that there was no contact between their bodies, but that didn’t prevent her subtle scent from invading his territory. Though he could identify most expensive perfumes, hers evaded him. Light and floral, mixing with her own scent, it was a sensual combination that would tempt any man.
Even if Yasmin had not been in the bed, he wouldn’t so much as lay a finger on Linnea. Never mind how he longed to taste her soft lips, to hold her close and feel her respond to him. In the unlikely event she would respond, that is. But even if she would, he’d already decided she was, for him, forbidden. Taboo.
They were already at odds. He might not believe she knew what she was talking about when she claimed Yasmin was not the daughter she’d borne to Malik Khaldun, but he was aware she believed it. This strange conviction of hers had the potential to cause trouble. Perhaps an international incident if she decided to go public.
“I can count on you,” his great-uncle had said. “You’re the diplomat I was never able to be. Deliver the child quietly, give the woman the time she needs to recover, then notify the media. After all, in uniting mother and child, we’ve righted a wrong, we’ve proven our humanity, which, of course, strengthens our position with the Americans. A bit of publicity, therefore, will not be amiss.”
Yes, it would make a great story, one the media would pounce on with glee. Unfortunately, unless he could convince Linnea not to share her doubt with anyone besides him, at this point publicity was to be avoided at all costs. So was any intimacy between him and Linnea.
Strange, she was anything but the usual carefree, frankly sexy type of American woman he was usually attracted to. She was what he thought of as a keeper, reminding him of Karen, his brother’s wife. Not her looks so much as her tenderness toward Yasmin, the daughter she claimed wasn’t hers and yet would not give up. Keepers were the kind of women men married.
Damn. He couldn’t recall ever being so aware of a woman as he was at this moment. As he’d suspected, she’d been wearing a sleep-T. He could imagine how the soft cotton garment had crept up her thighs as she turned in her sleep, revealing enticing flesh waiting for his caress. Cursing his stupidity for landing himself in this predicament—wanting her and unable to touch her—he considered claiming the bed in the master bedroom as his.
No, the only pleasure he was going to get from the situation would be her reaction when she woke to find herself in bed with him. He didn’t intend to miss that, so he’d stay where he was, frustration and all.
What a story it would make for his friends. Except, he realized, because Linnea was involved, this was one story he would never tell them. Hadn’t he already called her maddamti, my lady? In any culture, in Kholi or America, anyone who was truly a man didn’t speak idly of a lady.
He heard her sigh and felt her shift position in the bed. Her toes came in contact with his foot, flesh against flesh. Not on purpose, he was certain, but that didn’t stop the tingle that rose from his foot to his groin.
Talal groaned and reluctantly moved his foot away from hers. He’d be surprised if he slept at all. Never again would he share the bed
of a woman he couldn’t make love to. Linnea may be the one to have the last laugh.
Chapter Three
Unsure whether she was awake or asleep, Linnea felt her cheek being stroked lightly. Caressingly. A pleasant, loving touch. If she opened her eyes she’d know whether or not it was a dream, but if it was, the dream would dissolve, so she tried to stay suspended between sleeping and waking.
“Ya, Mama,” a child’s voice whispered in her ear.
Linnea started, her eyes popping open. Sunlight filtering through the blinds showed her Yasmin’s heart shaped face. The little girl put a finger to her lips and pointed. Linnea glanced to her right and gasped..
A man lay sprawled on the other side of Yasmin. As she was still sleep-dazed, it took her a moment to understand who he was. Talal Zohir. She was in bed with Talal! As she stared at him, his eyes opened and he grinned wickedly before murmuring something in Arabic.
The words were vaguely familiar. She thought they meant something like “good morning.” He didn’t seem in the slightest surprised at her presence.
Linnea eased from the bed, pulling down her sleep-T as far as it would go as she stood up. “I don’t find a morning that begins like this particularly good,” she snapped. “Come, Yasmin, let’s get dressed.”
The child looked at her with a puzzled frowned. Before the obviously amused Talal could jump in with the correct Arabic phrase, Linnea beckoned to Yasmin, using what was apparently the universal gesture for “come with me,” because the girl immediately slid off the bed and followed her from the room.
How had Talal managed once they arrived in America ? Linnea wondered as she took Yasmin into the bathroom.
After dressing herself and Yasmin, she led the girl into the kitchen, where Yasmin immediately climbed onto one of the counter stools and pointed, saying “Ba-na-na.”