Harrison gave the sedan a fifty-fifty chance of making the turn. He grabbed second gear, bouncing wildly in his seat. Julia was staring straight ahead at the headlight beams flashing on rocks, sand and the occasional boulder or outcrop.
He wrestled the steering wheel, keeping them on course, until they finally made it to the relatively smooth surface at the bottom. Then, he dared to glance in the rearview mirror, pressing on the accelerator, and bringing the Jeep up a gear.
The sedan had made the turn, but it was forced to slow down on the trail. Good. He was bringing them out on the dunes behind Hebba Hill. He hoped they’d have radio trouble after they got stuck.
Julia turned to watch him.
“You’re crazy,” she said.
He couldn’t help but grin. “Are you wishing you’d taken your chances with the police?” He watched carefully for the signs of the track that would take them up the other side of the wadi.
She glanced at the headlights behind. “Not exactly. But this isn’t looking so good.”
“I have a plan,” said Harrison, as he spotted the trail.
He jerked left on the wheel, bouncing them up a trail equally rough and steep. Julia shut up and hung on, while he glanced at the tachometer to optimize each gear.
They were down into first before they crested the hill. It was a short fifty meters before the rocks and packed dirt gave way to full-on sand. Harrison used the time to get his speed up, hitting the dunes, fishtailing for a moment before he settled in, then streaking off across the unbroken desert.
“Watch out behind us,” he told Julia. “Tell me what happens.”
She swiveled in her seat, stretching her arm across the back.
“Nothing,” she said. Then, “Wait. I see headlights. They’re out of the valley. Speeding up. Coming.” She paused.
“Did they make it to the sand?”
“I think they might be stuck.”
Harrison smacked the steering wheel with his palm. “Yes!”
She turned to him. “That was your plan?”
“That was my plan.”
“What about planes?”
He shook his head. “Planes are unlikely. Even if they wanted to send one up, it would take quite a while to get it here, and this is a very big desert. They have no idea which way we’ll go.”
All in all, he was feeling pretty satisfied.
Then her small hand covered his on the gearshift.
He warned himself not to react to her touch, nor to react to the contrast of her pale, delicate hand against his rough, larger one.
“I can’t let you do this,” she said in a voice that was both brave and terrified at the same time.
“It’s done.”
“No, it’s not done. They know who you are. They know where you live. You’re a fugitive from justice.”
“I’m taking a pretty girl out for a ride in the desert. I don’t believe there’s a law against that.”
“Nobody’s going to believe you didn’t notice the police car in high-speed pursuit.”
“Who’s to say that was a police car?”
She compressed her lips, eyes narrowing in annoyance.
“Seriously, Julia. We do not know that was a police car.”
“It was. And eventually you’ll have to go home. And I can’t let you put yourself in trouble for me.”
“As I told you before, I have options.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “Turn around, Harrison. Let’s go back.”
He chuckled. “Right. Because I’m not already in trouble.”
“You can tell them-”
“Julia.”
“You can explain that-”
“Shut up.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, extracting the red booklet he kept on him at all times.
He tossed it into her lap. “Get out of jail free card,” he told her.
Her hand left his, and she picked the booklet up. “What?”
“Diplomatic passport.”
“Who are you?”
He took a breath.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “The Right Honorable Lord Harrison William Arthur Beaumont-Rochester, Baron Welsmeire.”
“I get a kick out of the fact you can remember all that.”
“Why do you have a diplomatic passport?”
“I’m a special ambassador to the UAE.”
“And they can’t put you in jail.”
“They can’t put me in jail. They can send me home. But that’s a pretty big gun. They would run the risk of causing an international incident by sending me back to Britain.” This time, he reached out and covered her hand. “I can’t see them doing that over charges of attempted horse theft. Particularly when I was the victim.”
But then Harrison frowned to himself. Truth was, he couldn’t see them chasing Julia and him through the desert over those charges, either. Something strange was happening here, and it was something that had little to do with the enforcement of law in UAE.
Somebody was after Julia. And, Alex was right, Millions to Spare and Leopold’s Legacy had to be involved. Either Julia knew something, or somebody thought she knew something. Either way, Harrison had to keep her out of their hands until he could figure out what was going on.
Brittany was grateful when Alex finally decided the horses were getting tired. She’d been exhausted for an hour, and her inner thighs were burning from the friction of the leather saddle. She gritted her teeth, dismounting slowly and painfully.
The horse grew impatient, and shifted, and she grabbed for the saddle horn.
“Whoa.” Alex was beside her in an instant, bracing her from behind.
She gasped as one of his hands contacted her chafed skin. But his support allowed her to get safely to the ground.
“You okay?” he asked, stepping back to stare worriedly down at her.
“Fine,” she told him, brushing off the skirt and settling the soft shoes back on her feet. She was sweaty and sticky, and her thighs were going to take days to heal. Not to mention the fact that she smelled like a horse.
This was not what she’d pictured when she’d agreed to visit Harrison. She sucked in a thick breath of the sultry midnight air. It wasn’t what she’d pictured at all.
“We can stow the saddles.” Alex nodded toward an abandoned hut on the opposite side of the dusty road. “And put the horses in the paddock. I’ll call Nuri later and let him know where to find them.”
Then he gazed up and down the dark road. “What do you think? We’ve come fifteen, twenty miles?”
“I have no idea,” said Brittany, debating whether to unsaddle Cedar Twist or leave that chore for Alex.
“I think we’re a little way west of Route Eleven. But I’m not sure how far…”
“Are we lost?” In the end, she took pity on the horse, edging carefully over to it and reaching for the cinch.
“We’re not lost. I’d just like to give the taxi a precise location.” He flipped open his cell phone.
Brittany’s heart sighed at the thought of a taxi. A lovely, soft-seated, air-conditioned taxi that would take them back to Cadair and her lovely, large bathtub. She’d have something tall and cool, an iced tea, or maybe champagne and orange juice. They’d served some flakey almond croissants earlier, and she was starving. The party was probably over by now, but surely they could rustle up something.
Visions of frosted glasses and ice cubes dancing in her head, she heard Alex speaking Arabic on the phone. Then he clicked it off and stuck it back in his tuxedo pocket.
“Why didn’t you call someone at Cadair?” she asked.
“They might be monitoring the phones.”
“Oh.” She pulled off the saddle.
Alex quickly lifted it from her arms.
“Then, won’t they check the taxi?”
Halfway to the little hut, he looked back over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when it drops us off at Cadair, the police
are going to see us.”
“The taxi’s taking us to a hotel.” He continued his journey, climbing the single step and pushing open the pale-green door that hung on one hinge.
A hotel?
Well. She supposed that made sense. And she could live with a hotel. Just, please, let them have a nice suite available, with a whirlpool tub and twenty-four-hour room service.
“Are we going into Dubai?”
“To Ajman.” Alex went to work on the other horse. “It’s closer, and I want to leave a trail of bread crumbs.”
Brittany watched him work efficiently on the buckles and straps of Roc’s saddle. Even the expensive tuxedo couldn’t make him look civilized. His shoulders were too broad, his chest too deep. He had big, rough hands, a darkly defined brow, a broad nose and the kind of square chin that would make other men think twice about crossing him.
“So you’re an American,” she ventured.
He cracked a small smile. “I’m an American.”
“How did you meet Harrison?”
“He advertised for an international lawyer.” Alex straightened and effortlessly lifted the saddle from the big animal. “We have newspapers in America, you know. And I do read.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I thought you said you were a soldier.”
“I was a soldier.” He crossed the road to the shack once more, talking over his shoulder while he walked. “When I wasn’t busy shooting people, I studied law.”
“They let you do that?” she called.
“Yes, ma’am, they let us study pretty much whatever we want.” He walked through the door, then shortly returned. “As long as we keep shooting people in our off-hours, of course.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
He went to work on Cedar Twist’s bridle. “You do know I’m joking, right?”
No, she hadn’t. “You’re not a lawyer?”
“No, I don’t shoot people. You don’t go to law school during the day and shoot people in the evenings.”
“Oh.” Well, she hadn’t assumed he meant every evening. “Then, what did you do?”
He crossed to Roc, removing the stallion’s bridle, as well. “I was involved in the Gulf War, early on, aerial reconnaissance.”
“You fly planes?”
“Yes. I prefer that to killing people.”
She fought a smile. “Good to know.”
He gathered up the two bridles and gave her a nod. “I would think so. What with the two of us all alone out here on this deserted little road.” Then he turned once more toward the shack.
She stared after him in frozen silence, suddenly hyperaware of the quiet, the heat, his excruciatingly powerful maleness.
It hadn’t occurred to her to question her safety. It certainly hadn’t occurred to her to question his intentions.
He exited the shack, looming closer, his feet sending up small puffs of dust into the still air, his powerful arms swinging with his determined walk, his dark eyes watching her.
“Oh, hell,” he spat out, making her jump. “I was joking. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She tossed her head. “I’m not scared.”
He stopped in front of her, hands going to his hips. “I protect people,” he stated, the offense clear in his tone. “I would never, ever, not in a million years, harm a defenseless woman.”
It occurred to Brittany that his words would ring a lot truer if he wasn’t shouting them at her.
Julia moaned loudly, folding her arms on the dashboard of the Jeep and dropping her sweaty forehead onto them. “I’m melting.”
The sun had cleared the eastern mountains two hours ago, but Harrison refused to run the air-conditioning. He claimed it wasted fuel. And while she was firmly against the idea of running out of gas in the middle of a desert, she was also firmly against the idea of dying of heatstroke with the Jeep still running.
“Buck up,” said Harrison. “I don’t think it’s more than ninety-five.” The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up, and he’d long since discarded his tux jacket and bow tie.
“But we’re in an oven.” She sat up and gestured to the heat waves rolling up off the sand. “We’re actually cooking!” She tugged at the collar of her dress. “And I’m wrapped in foil.”
Harrison started to laugh.
“Don’t,” she barked at him. Whatever the metallic fabric was, it held in every ounce of heat and moisture. “I swear, I’m going to rip this thing off my body.”
“Be my guest,” he said. Then he nodded ahead down the faint sand track. “But you might want to have something on when we meet up with them.”
Her gaze darted out the windshield.
Half a dozen colorfully dressed men on horseback were riding toward them. The troop looked like something straight out of Arabian Nights.
“Bandits?” she asked Harrison, her sweat suddenly turning cold.
“I have no idea,” said Harrison. “There are a lot of different tribes out here, doing a lot of different things in the desert.”
“Are they dangerous?” Their windows were all down, and the fabric top of the Jeep offered little protection if somebody meant them harm.
“Looks like we’re about to find out.”
The group drew closer, kicking up dust and revealing a camel amongst the horses. If Julia wasn’t so frightened, she might have appreciated the fascinating spectacle.
As it was, she held her breath while the riders separated around the Jeep, passing by on either side. Harrison didn’t slow down, which Julia thought was exceedingly wise.
When the last of them streamed past, she allowed herself a sigh of relief. Perhaps they were merely fellow travelers, moving from one village to the next.
“Uh-oh,” Harrison muttered, glancing in the rearview mirror and pushing his foot down on the accelerator.
“What?” Julia twisted her head.
They were coming back.
“This can’t be good,” she intoned.
“Tell me about it.” He shifted gears.
But the riders were gaining on them, whooping and shrieking in a chantlike fashion. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a greeting.
They passed by, arms raised, some with swords, peering in the window, before peeling off to circle around again.
“Be nice if you had a head scarf,” said Harrison.
But she had nothing she could use. For the first time today, she was glad of the full coverage provided by the evening gown.
“What do we do?”
“Just what we’re doing.”
And then she saw him.
Outside her window.
His chin was covered, his forehead obscured by a white-and-blue headdress. But she recognized his nose, and those piercing eyes, and the uneven eyebrows.
And then he peeled away, like the others, circling back around for another pass.
“Holy shit,” said Julia, whooshing back in her seat.
“What?”
“I know that man.”
“How?” Harrison demanded. “Why?”
“From the track. He gave me Millions to Spare’s name. He thought I was placing a bet.”
Harrison stared at her for a moment.
“Hang on,” he said, gearing down, popping the clutch and increasing his speed.
The Jeep rattled frighteningly, but the horses and camels began falling behind. At first they were lost in the dust. And then, as the Jeep reached fifty, she knew they had to be gone.
“It has to be a coincidence,” she said, more to herself than to Harrison.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
She was trying not to panic. She was seriously trying not to panic. “So he went to the track. Lots of people go to the track. Don’t they?”
“He learns you’re interested in Millions to Spare. Millions to Spare dies, and then he practically ambushes us in the desert? That’s one hell of a coincidence.”
“It could happen,” she insisted.
“You want to bet your life on it?�
��
Julia stared back at the dust plume funneling out behind them, then turned to the endless desert in front of them.
“Whatever you do,” she told Harrison, “don’t turn on the air-conditioning.”
Chapter Nine
Four hours later, death was beginning to feel preferable to spending another minute in the bouncing Jeep under the broiling desert sun.
Julia was half-asleep-or maybe she was half-delirious from thirst and heatstroke-by the time Harrison stopped the Jeep and killed the engine. She groggily blinked open her eyes. They’d long since run out of water. Dust had scratched her eyeballs raw. It had seeped into her hair, her clothing, her very pores.
Harrison lifted his sunglasses and parked them on top of his short, dark hair. “Are you all right?” he asked in a voice that sounded as raspy as hers felt.
“Great,” she answered, bracing her hands on either edge of her bucket seat and easing her body upright. “Where are we?”
“Khandi Oasis. I doubled back.” He pocketed the keys to the Jeep in the breast pocket of his dust-streaked dress shirt. “It should take them a while to find us.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Hopefully, forever.”
She tried to smile at his joke, but her dry lips felt as if they might crack.
She glanced around at the collection of white huts and square buildings set amongst coarse grasses, thorn trees and palms. “Is there a hotel here?”
“Not exactly,” said Harrison, setting the brake and reaching for his door handle.
“A tent?” she asked, getting less particular by the second. If it was out of the sun, out of the wind and had any kind of a beverage available, she was in.
“I have a friend here. He may have a cottage we can use.”
Julia breathed a sigh of relief. “Lead me to him.”
While she pawed at her door handle, Harrison rounded the front of the Jeep to help. He held out a hand while she straightened her reluctant legs. They were decidedly weak as she rolled to her feet.
Then the world began to buzz and spin.
“Uh-oh,” Harrison’s voice was hollow and distant, and she felt his arms close around her.
She woke up on her back, in a cool room, with a fan turning lazily above her. As she blinked her way back to reality, bright fabrics came into focus against stark, white walls. Woven baskets and hammered silver dotted the tables in the room, while bentwood, rattan chairs were interspersed with vividly colored rugs.
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