by Lucy Monroe
At any rate, she couldn’t exactly deny it. Her field assistant was right. Not only had Asad insisted on being their go-to guy, she was pretty sure he’d want to accompany them on their first foray out of the encampment. She could only hope he would limit himself to the one time.
Her instincts told her to hope all she wanted, but the man was going to become her shadow, big-time busy sheikh or not.
Asad proved her first supposition right later that evening when they were all sharing dinner in his tent.
For the sake of her own sanity, she tried to talk him out of it. “That’s not necessary. I’ve been doing this for almost four years, Asad. I know what I’m doing and Russell can read his pocket transit with the best of them.”
“Nawar is looking forward to an excursion. Would you deny her?”
The little girl in question was looking up at Iris with pleading brown eyes.
Oh, not fair. Iris shook her head. “Of course not.”
“But can this wait until the day after tomorrow? Grandmother has planned a welcome feast for your arrival.”
“What? Why?”
“You are our guest,” Genevieve said, as if that explained everything. “It would be bad manners not to do so.”
“But surely Russell and I can start our work tomorrow and return in time for dinner?” she asked, feeling desperate.
She had to get away from Asad’s home and remind herself why she was in Kadar.
“It will be much more than a simple meal,” Asad said.
Genevieve smiled in a way that was catching. “I thought perhaps you would enjoy witnessing the preparations and this aspect of our way of life.”
It would be churlish to refuse, but how Iris wished she could do so. “I would love to. Thank you for the offer.”
“I could go on my own and start the measurements,” Russell offered.
Surprisingly, it was Asad who shook his head before Iris had a chance to veto the idea. “While traditionally, men do little to prepare the food, we will have our own things to attend to for the feast. You must not miss the opportunity to experience this part of our world.”
“Thank you, Sheikh Asad.” Russell smiled, his youthful eyes glowing with excitement at the thought. The traitor.
Asad inclined his head.
“Grandmother has said we will have mansaf. It’s my favorite, but we don’t have it very often,” Nawar piped up.
“Is it?” Iris asked with a smile for the tiny girl so unlike her father in looks, but so similar in every other way. “If I remember correctly, that used to be your father’s favorite, too.”
She’d even tried to make it for him once, looking up a recipe online for the traditional stewed lamb and yogurt sauce served over rice. An indifferent cook, Iris had been disappointed but not surprised when the dish had turned out only so-so, even to her palate. Asad had thanked her for the effort, but informed her that traditional Bedouin food had to be prepared in the traditional way—over a campfire—to carry the full flavor.
It was a criticism and excuse for the dinner’s mediocrity all-in-one and she hadn’t been exactly sure how to take it. Any hurt feelings she might have had were dispelled by the passionate lovemaking that followed dinner, however. He’d made it clear that no matter the outcome, her efforts had been very much appreciated.
She didn’t repeat the mistake of attempting to cook food from his homeland for him again.
“It still is,” Nawar said with a giggle. “Grandmother says we are just alike.”
“I’m sure your grandmother is right.” Iris ruffled Nawar’s hair.
“Tomorrow I will show you the baths in the caves,” Genevieve said. “I’m sure my grandson showed proper decorum and skipped that part of his tour with you.”
Iris didn’t know about proper decorum, but the older woman was right. “Asad didn’t mention any baths.”
She had to admit to a feeling of relief at the thought that the next few weeks would not be spent without a proper soak.
“There are natural hot springs in the caves to the south of the encampment,” Asad said now.
“The women use the upper caves and the men the lower ones. I suppose they think they can handle the hotter water better,” Genevieve said with a loving smile for her husband of several decades. “Hanif discovered them when he was a boy and gifted the caves to the tribe upon our wedding.”
It was a romantic story and Iris found herself smiling, as well.
“It just goes to show that for the thousands of years our people have wandered these lands, they remain a mystery to us,” Hanif said. He turned to Russell. “Mr. Green, you will join me for coffee in the morning with the other men, yes?”
“Russell, please,” her field assistant said with a grin. “And I would be honored. I’ve been eager to try the real thing ever since I learned we were coming to Kadar.”
“Ah, so you understand that what comes out of an automatic drip maker is nothing like it?” Asad asked sardonically with a look at Iris that said he wasn’t talking only of coffee.
“I’m willing to be convinced of it,” Russell said unsurprisingly. The man was a caffeine addict with a particular fondness for coffee.
If Asad had researched Russell, he couldn’t have made a better ploy to get him otherwise occupied in the mornings.
*
Somehow, regardless of her best efforts, Asad managed to accompany Iris on her trek to her room when it came time to find her bed later that evening.
Which said something about his efforts versus hers, she supposed. Or, perhaps it was the level of determination she should be looking at. The possibility that Asad’s might be stronger than hers in this regard was disturbing on more than one level.
She liked the idea that she might not be wholly dedicated to minimizing their contact no better than the thought that he was far more determined to spend time with her than he should be.
“So, what do you think of my city of tents?” he asked just as she reached her doorway and thought to slip inside without incident.
Her hand on the edge of the curtain that covered the entrance to her apartment, Iris stopped. “It’s amazing.”
“You do not find the remoteness too disconcerting?” he asked with a certain level of disbelief.
A wry smile curved her lips and she met his dark brown gaze squarely. “Asad, last month I spent two weeks in the middle of the East Texas desert doing an updated geological assessment for an oil company. The truth is, your nomadic home is more sophisticated and busy than ninety percent of my assignments.”
“Do you enjoy being away from home for such long periods?”
Prepared to give the answer she always offered when asked that question, she was surprised when honesty spilled forth instead. “At least when I’m on assignment, there’s a reason for me spending so much time alone.”
“Your work.”
“Yes.”
“It’s very important to you.”
“It’s all I have.” She looked around them, noticing his grandparents had already made it into their chamber down the long corridor that ran the width of the tent.
Nawar and Fadwa had gone to bed hours earlier. But still, the sense of family permeated the impressive dwelling.
“We’re not all like you, with relations who miss us when we’re gone,” she added in an even tone.
“Your parents are still living.”
“The last time I saw them was Christmas two years ago. We took a winter cruise together.” She’d bought it for them as a gift with hopes of building something more of their relationship now that she was an adult.
It hadn’t worked. They’d been no more interested in getting to know the grown-up Iris than they had the child. And as much as it hurt to admit, looking at them through adult eyes, she realized her parents were not people she would particularly care to know well, either.
She’d finally given up hope of having anything resembling a real family and hadn’t bothered them with so much as an email since. Though
now she realized that she’d begun to give up that particular dream when Asad had left.
She simply hadn’t been aware of it until her parents’ continued indifference pounded the final nail into the coffin that had been her hope.
“Two years ago? But that is criminal. Why would you neglect your parents so shamefully?”
His absolute inability to understand charmed her when she thought probably she should have been offended. But to discover the worldly sheikh so naive in even one area was rather captivating.
“When was the last time you saw your parents?” she asked curiously.
“Last month.” He cocked his head to the side, studying her like a specimen under glass. “I travel to Geneva three times a year.”
So the decision to allow his grandparents to raise Asad, and groom him to take over as sheikh, had not destroyed their relationship completely. He might resent it somewhat, but he still cared for his parents and she was certain they cared for him, as well.
“Your family is happy to see you when you do, I imagine.”
“But naturally.”
She nodded. Lucky him. Even after the barbaric bargain, he had parents and siblings who loved him and wanted to see him. And probably a lot more often than the three times a year he went to see them. “For your family, yes. We aren’t all so lucky, Asad.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “In the ten months of our liaison, you never mentioned a visit from or to your parents. I assumed it was because you saw no reason to introduce me to your family.”
It was a reasonable hypothesis, considering the fact Asad himself had not been thinking in terms of a future together. He’d no doubt assumed that while he’d returned home on winter and spring break to see his family, she’d been doing the same. Instead, she’d spent those weeks by herself on campus missing him more than she ever had her parents.
He’d never made any move toward introducing her to anyone in his family and because of her past, she hadn’t found that odd. Only later had she realized that a man did not introduce his relatives to a casual lover. Particularly not a man slated to one day become sheikh.
Silly her. Iris had thought he was waiting for the right time when the truth was, there was never going to be any such thing for them.
“Once again, I guess we were both guilty of making assumptions.” She shook her head, tired and in no mood to prevaricate. “I don’t have a family, Asad. I had an egg and sperm donor who were kind enough to financially support me until I graduated from university.”
He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “That is a very cynical thing to say about the people responsible for giving you life.”
“I don’t expect you to understand. Your parents allowed your grandparents to raise you in the ways of the Bedouin and while I’m sure you felt abandoned by them, no matter how much you might deny it, the truth is, they never gave you up. Not really. My parents kept legal rights to me, but for all intents and purposes, I was their unwanted ward, not their daughter.”
“And you called my grandparents’ deal with my parents barbaric,” he said in a tone laced with a heavy dose of shocked disapproval.
She just shook her head. He was right. She was in no position to judge and certainly Asad had far more of a family than she did. Though she noticed he didn’t deny feeling abandoned by his parents.
He frowned, looking like he wanted to say something more.
She put her hand up in a silent bid for him to leave it. “Like I said, I don’t expect you to get it. Why should you? I never did, and they were supposed to be my family. I’m tired and I want to go to bed. All right?”
Though why she was asking him, instead of just going into her room, she didn’t really know.
“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to share mine,” he said in the same teasing tone he used to employ to lighten things when they got too serious when they’d been together.
She’d avoided telling him the truth about her parents because it shamed her to admit she was unloved, but she remembered now the other reason that she’d kept the truth buried. Asad had been so very good at keeping her smiling and happy, she’d been loath to bring the pain of her left-behind childhood into the present.
And, back then, there had still been that tendril of hope that one day her parents were going to realize Iris was someone they could enjoy having in their lives.
She gave him a smile now, not nearly as forced as it should have been. “You’re an idiot.”
She’d said the same words, or something like them, to Russell earlier, and knew it was because, even after everything, part of her still considered Asad to be a friend.
Perhaps, for a woman like her—who trusted with such difficulty—once trust was given, it could never be withdrawn entirely. The ramifications of that possibility were not good for her heart, not at all.
Unaware of her inner turmoil, Asad gave her a lazy smile she hadn’t seen in a very long time. “No, an idiot would let the opportunity slip by.”
For a terrible uncertain moment, Iris was tempted to take him up on the offer. She’d never felt like she belonged anywhere like she did in his bed. It had all been a fantasy, but it had felt real. In his arms, she’d felt like she had a family.
And it had almost killed her to lose him.
She wasn’t setting herself up for that again. She couldn’t.
She didn’t bother to reply, but simply slipped into her room. Tying the cords that would keep the curtain snugly over her doorway while she slept, she ignored the tears tracking down her cheeks.
*
The next day, as much as she tried to hold herself aloof, Iris found herself falling under the spell of the four-year-old daughter as easily as she had the father six years before. Nawar had spent the entire day, except her nap, acting as Iris’s shadow.
It had been a busy day, filled with preparations for the feast and chatter with Asad’s female relatives.
Iris had enjoyed herself so much that she’d felt guilty for not working, despite the fact a phone call from Sheikh Hakim had made it clear that he did not expect Iris to begin her geological assessment until after she’d been officially welcomed into the city of tents.
Now that the food and party preparations were over, Genevieve had told Iris it was time for their personal preparations. Iris had intended to wear the single dress she’d brought with her for what she’d believed was to be a remote field assignment, but Genevieve would not hear of it.
She and Nawar had made a big production out of choosing a galabia from Genevieve’s wardrobe for Iris to wear to the feast. And the small girl had now appointed herself as Iris’s instructor in the ways of bathing in the communal baths of the Sha’b Al’najid.
They were now soaking in the largest of the pools fed by an underground hot springs in the women’s section of the caves, after a cursory wash with fragrant soap and water left to cool in large bowls near the pools.
“You must rest. No splashing or swimming,” the small girl said with a very serious mien. “After a long time, we wash again with the sand from the bottom of the pool.”
Iris wondered what a long time meant to a small child and smiled. “I bet that makes your skin very soft.”
Nawar gave her a solemn nod. “Grandmother says so.”
“And our hair?” She’d found it odd that they didn’t shampoo before coming into the communal pool of mineral waters.
“We’re supposed to wash it first,” Nawar admitted with a frown.
Oho, the little one didn’t like washing her hair. “Don’t you want your hair soft like your skin and shiny like silk?”
“The soap gets in my eyes.” Nawar gave a childish pout. “It stings.”
“I think I can help you wash your hair without getting soap in your eyes.”
“Fadwa tries, but she says I move too much,” Nawar replied doubtfully.
“You seem very good at staying still now.”
“Thank you.” Nawar gave Iris a guilty look. “I don’t like to w
ash my hair.”
“So, perhaps you move more when Fadwa is trying to get it clean than you should, hmmm?”
“Maybe.”
Iris nodded. “Well, you will simply have to do better for me, because if I get soap in your eyes it will make me very sad.”
“I don’t want you to be sad.”
“Thank you.”
Iris successfully washed the child’s long dark hair without getting soap or water in her eyes after their soak and then sand scrubbing. Nawar was ecstatic and begged Iris to promise to wash her hair from now on.
“As long as I am here, I will. All right?” More than that, Iris could not promise.
They dressed for the party in the bathing caves after drying and brushing their hair. Genevieve had insisted on lending Iris a sheer silk scarf to be worn over her head and around her shoulders in the traditional manner. It matched exactly the heavily embroidered peacock-blue galabia she’d given Iris to wear earlier.
Walking back to the sheikh’s tent, Iris felt like an Arabian princess.
“I have not seen that galabia in a long time,” Asad’s grandfather said when Iris and Nawar entered the dwelling. “It was always one of my favorites.”
“Oh…I shouldn’t have worn it, but Genevieve insisted,” Iris said, feeling awkward.
“Nonsense.” The old sheikh gave her a rakish smile and Iris could see what had attracted Genevieve all those years ago. “Naturally my wife chose it for you to wear. It is the perfect color to bring out the cream of your skin and that red shine in your hair so uncommon among our people. The other guests will be in awe of the beauty of the women of my house.”
Iris blushed at the praise.
“I agree, Grandfather. The peacock galabia is lovely on Iris.” The words were complimentary, but Asad gave his grandmother what couldn’t be mistaken for anything but an admonishing look.
The older woman returned his gaze, her own serene. “Nawar chose it.”
Asad’s brow rose. “It is the traditional dress of the women of my house.”
It had seemed rather a coincidence that the brightly colored trim around the skirt of Nawar’s little party dress was styled after peacock feathers. And Genevieve’s peach silk galabia had peacocks amidst the intricate gold needlework covering the garment. Even Fadwa’s dress had tiny peacock feathers embroidered along the hem.