by Holly Rayner
As she went, Dakota turned to the sun and wrinkled up her nose at it. It wouldn’t be able to steal away her happiness this time. She and Majeed had found yet another way to prolong their story.
Chapter 20
The hangar where Majeed had left his plane was owned by a decrepit old man in bib overalls who looked like he would be more at home on a farm. He grunted at Majeed and Dakota as they entered and accepted the slip of paper and stack of bills Majeed passed through the window into his booth.
“It should be gassed up and ready to go,” Majeed said. “Are you sure you’re ready to make this trip, Dakota? It’s a long one.”
“We’ll be making stops, won’t we?”
“Of course, yes, to refuel.”
“No problem, then,” she said confidently. “I’ve flown to Baraq before. I can handle it.”
The plane was waiting for them in a three-walled shelter. Majeed climbed in and checked the fuel gauges, reporting that they were good to go. Dakota climbed the ladder and took her seat beside him. She felt a sudden thrill of anxiety, although there was no reason to yet. She had her passport in her pocket, and she was at perfect liberty to leave the United States. Until she stepped off the plane in Baraq, she wouldn’t have broken any laws.
She buckled herself in, and Majeed carefully steered the plane out onto the runway. He turned on his radio and, with a crackle of static, exchanged words Dakota didn’t really comprehend with the man in the overalls. “Okay,” he told her. “We’re cleared for takeoff. You’re sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “There isn’t anything I want more.”
Majeed brought his plane around a curve. The runway stretched out long and flat in front of them. Then, the plane began to accelerate. The nose tipped up into the sky, and they were aloft.
They landed at LAX, not on the main jetway that international planes used but on a small lot for private planes. “I’ve got to refuel,” Majeed said. “Then we can go get something to eat.”
They had been in the air for nearly three hours. Dakota knew it was only a short hop compared to what was to come, but she was still grateful for the chance to stretch her legs. They boarded a shuttle to the terminal and found an empty table at a chain burger restaurant. Majeed, as pilot, stuck to soft drinks with his lunch, but Dakota ordered a beer.
“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” she asked. “Sneaking away for a romantic rendezvous.”
“A bit more than that,” he said. “You realize I’ll have to fly you back, don’t you?”
Dakota gasped. She hadn’t thought of that, but of course she wouldn’t be able to fly back commercial. “I’m so sorry, I should have thought—”
Majeed shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Wait,” Dakota said. “You don’t have to do that at all. You can drop me off in…in Greece, or something, and I can fly back from there. There’s nothing to stop me from doing that, I’m at perfect liberty to be in Greece. And that’s not a long trip for you.”
“You misunderstand me,” Majeed said. “I’m looking forward to flying you back, Dakota.”
“You are?”
He smiled. “Anything that prolongs our time together is good news, in my opinion.”
Dakota raised her beer to that thought and took a long drink.
A few minutes later, their burgers arrived at the table. Dakota had persuaded Majeed to order one with guacamole, and she laughed as he took his first bite, enjoying the way his eyes widened at the creamy taste. There were so many things they could share, so many cultural firsts they could expose each other to if only they had the time, she thought. Their lives would be so different if they only had more time.
At sunset, they landed in Honolulu. Majeed checked the plane into a hangar overnight, and the two of them ventured inland to find a hotel.
“Should you call home?” Majeed asked her.
Dakota thought about it. “I won’t yet,” she said. “It’s possible no one will even notice I’m gone. I often go days without speaking to my parents and my brother. And before we left I notified my job that I had an emergency to take care of, and they agreed to delay my training until I get back. I might return before anyone in my family misses me, so I won’t call attention to it.”
Majeed nodded. “I need to call, though,” he said. “I was supposed to be back from my business meeting first thing tomorrow morning, and we’re obviously not going to make that.”
Dakota went outside so Majeed could make his call in private. The sun was low in the sky, and from where she stood she could see a white sand beach lined with palm trees. For a moment, she allowed herself to fantasize that she and Majeed were staying here instead of flying out in the morning, that they were finally enjoying their long overdue honeymoon.
That night, once again, they wrestled with their attraction to each other. This time most of their clothes ended up on the floor, and by the end they were gripping each other’s hands to keep them still. Dakota nearly sobbed in frustration, longing to make love to him. But how could she ever let him go again if they did? It would be impossible.
The longest flight of their journey took them from Honolulu to Tokyo. Majeed and Dakota left first thing in the morning, knowing they would be exhausted by the time they arrived.
Because the whole day would be spent on the plane, they had stopped at a convenience store before leaving and gathered an array of snacks and drinks. Once they reached altitude, they passed the time talking and playing games. Dakota taught Majeed how to play Truth or Dare, and he taught her a game from his childhood in which the players took turns telling a story, competing to make it as outrageous as possible.
When they landed in Tokyo, it was the middle of the afternoon. They made their way on foot from the runway to the terminal. Although many signs were subtitled in English, everything was in Japanese, and for the first time the scope of what she was doing really hit Dakota. She had run away to a foreign country without letting anybody know where she was. Never before had she been this far off the map. If her family was looking for her, they wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin.
It didn’t help matters that her sense of time was askew. They had left Hawaii in the morning. Given the number of hours she had spent on the plane, Dakota felt as if it should be evening by now. In fact, she knew, it was actually afternoon the following day. They had gone so far ahead that it felt like they had lost time.
Dakota bought a few bottles of Japanese soda and a tray of sushi for the last leg of the journey. In truth, she wasn’t feeling very hungry. She was overwhelmed and excited. There was only one more flight, one more span of distance to cross, and she would be home.
“You’ve been staring out that window for an hour,” Majeed said, and Dakota could hear the smile in his voice.
“I just can’t wait to see it,” she replied. “It’s like Christmas morning.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every Christmas, when we were children, my brother and I would camp out in each other’s rooms,” Dakota said. “We’d wake up early in the morning, but we weren’t allowed to come downstairs and open our presents until our parents called us. So we’d take turns peeking out the door at the piles of packages waiting for us downstairs. We’d dare each other to see who was brave enough to tiptoe the farthest down the stairs before running back up to safety, where we wouldn’t be caught by our parents. It was almost as much fun as the presents themselves.”
“It sounds like a great tradition,” Majeed said quietly.
Dakota didn’t say what she was thinking—that it was a tradition they could have passed along to their own children one day. She and Majeed had such diversity between them. Their children would have inherited a wealth of wonderful traditions. Now there would be no children.
Majeed pointed, suddenly, out the front canopy. “There,” he said.
And there it was. Rising over a dune, the Kezab skyline came into sight. Even in the distance it was gleaming, the
sun brightly reflecting off the metal skyscrapers, and Dakota felt like she was awake for the first time in weeks. “It’s still here,” she said.
Majeed laughed. “Did you think it would go somewhere?”
“No, I just…”
She found she couldn’t quite explain it. The idea that Kezab, which had been unceremoniously yanked from her life, was still the same city it had always been, touched her somehow. The city didn’t belong to her. She belonged to it.
At a loss for the exact words, Dakota simply smiled. “I’m just so glad to be back.”
Chapter 21
“We’ll land on the airstrip by the old lighthouse,” Majeed said. “It hasn’t been used in a long time but should be in good enough shape for a small plane. Be prepared for a bumpy landing though.” He seemed to be deciding on the spur of the moment.
Dakota turned to look at him. “Is that a good idea? I mean, is it allowed?”
He laughed heartily. “Dakota, none of this is allowed. We’ll be breaking the law as soon as you get off the plane. Landing a private plane on an abandoned airstrip is definitely less of a problem than smuggling an exiled westerner into the country.”
“And you think by the lighthouse is the best place to land? Are there any alternatives?”
“I think it’ll attract the least attention,” he said. “If we land at the airport, you’ll be spotted right away. If we go to my private hangar, we’ll have a few more minutes, but we won’t be able to call a family car to take us anywhere so we’d have to get a taxi. And if the driver so much as looks at you…”
“Game over,” Dakota agreed. “Okay, the airstrip it is.”
She saw the lighthouse as they approached. It was an aging wooden structure and had clearly been out of use for some time. The wood was rotting, and in several places the boards were broken or missing. Still, the whole thing had a rather romantic look—or perhaps that was just Dakota’s state of mind. She could hardly keep from lunging across the seat and into Majeed’s arms, and only his need to keep his focus on landing the plane kept her in her seat.
The sun was setting as they touched down. Dakota jumped out of the plane the moment Majeed opened the door and took off toward the shore, cautious but curious. The place seemed to be deserted.
She pulled her shoes off, stepping onto the warm sand in her bare feet. The beach here was grainy, not like the beautiful white sands of Honolulu, but Dakota didn’t mind. She ran down to the waves and jumped over a few of the breakers, feeling like a child skipping rope. She was so happy to be here, on the right side of the planet, finally back home. Even the air smelled good in Baraq, not heavy and wet like it did in Seattle.
Back on the beach, Majeed had pulled out a blanket and laid it on the sand. He was now working on constructing what looked like a small hill. “It’s a backrest,” he said, registering Dakota’s inquisitive expression. “I thought we could lay back and watch the sunset.”
Dakota thought back over the last few sunsets she’d seen—walking outside her hotel in Hawaii, and before that, drinking wine on her apartment balcony and feeling sure Majeed was about to leave forever. And now here they were, still together, spinning out their days.
“Yes,” she said, suddenly overwhelmed at her good fortune. “Let’s do it.”
Majeed packed down the sand carefully so it wouldn’t slide out from under them and laid his blanket over the top of the slope he’d constructed. He sat down, leaning back as if he was sitting in a recliner, and pulled Dakota down to sit beside him. She threaded her feet in the cooling sand. “It’s so beautiful here,” she said quietly. “The sunsets are so much brighter than they are in Seattle.”
“I liked the Seattle sunset,” Majeed said.
“What?” Dakota waved an arm at the stunning colors appearing on the horizon before them. “How could you, when you grew up looking at this?”
“It made me think of you,” he said. “You in the years before I knew you. I wish we had met each other sooner, Dakota. All that time you were living in Baraq, we were attending the same parties, and we never even spoke to each other. If we had, if we’d become friends sooner…”
“I don’t think anything would have happened between us,” Dakota said. It was something she’d thought about too. “How could it have? You were royalty. I would never have considered you a realistic option for romance.”
“I would have considered you,” Majeed said.
“No, you wouldn’t. Come on.”
“I would,” he insisted. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me that you weren’t royal.”
“But I was a Lee,” Dakota pointed out. “Even if you did like me, you would have known that your family would never consider me appropriate. And even if they had, my father would have put a stop to things the moment we’d tried to get his blessing. The only way this ever could have happened between us was the way it did, mandated by the Emir.”
“Do you ever think about the wedding day?” Majeed asked.
“All the time,” Dakota admitted.
“You looked so beautiful,” he murmured, leaning over to kiss her temple. “I bought copies of every magazine the next morning. You were on the cover of all of them, you know. The runaway princess.”
“I was?” For a moment she pictured a Kezab newsstand covered in her face. “But why did you buy the magazines?” she asked. “You had all the footage and pictures from the wedding.”
Majeed shook his head. “My father deleted the footage he recorded, and the photographer never delivered the pictures because we didn’t pay him—”
“You didn’t pay him?” Dakota interrupted. “Why not?”
Majeed looked embarrassed. “My father said that because the marriage didn’t take place, he wasn’t required to pay any of the vendors.”
“So nobody got paid?” Dakota was stunned. “That’s outrageous, Majeed.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get money to some of them as I can, but it’s hard. Most of my expenditures are tracked.”
“That’s crazy. They really have you under their control.”
“It won’t always be that way,” Majeed said. “When I’m married, I’ll become the head of my own household, rather than a member of my father’s.”
“Even though you’ll still be living in his house?”
“Yes,” he said. “Marriage is a particularly important milestone in the royal families, where traditions are more strictly observed. When I marry, I’ll officially take on the title of Sheikh.”
“I thought you already had that title.”
“We use it unofficially, but it’s not formal until I marry.”
“Hmm.”
Dakota dragged her toes through the sand. She didn’t like to think about Majeed getting married. She should have been his bride, but the way things were going now, any wedding he had would have to be to someone else. She knew he would have preferred to marry her too, but how long would he feel that way before he got over her and moved on to someone else? He must be one of the most sought-after bachelors in all of Baraq. She was sure he could have any woman he wanted. He wouldn’t stay hung up on her for long.
The sun slowly sank past the horizon, seeming as it did to fall into the sea.
“Is it okay to leave the plane on the landing strip?” Dakota asked anxiously.
“Not really,” Majeed said. “But the place is abandoned, and the plane isn’t likely to be found there. I’ll come back in the morning and take it to the hangar, but in the meantime, you and I need to get some sleep.”
“I second that,” Dakota agreed. Their journey had been long and exhausting, and although the adrenaline had kept her going for the past few hours, she was starting to crash. She felt acutely the fact that the last good sleep she’d had was all the way back in Honolulu. “Where’s this place we’re going?” she asked.
“There’s a little hotel, just up the coast here,” Majeed said. “It’s far enough out of the way that I think we’ll be safe. We can stay here ton
ight while we figure out what to do next.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to go into Kezab at all?” Dakota asked. “I really miss the city.”
“Hopefully,” Majeed said. “The hotel will be a good test. We’ll see if your disguise fools the people working there. If it does, we’ll know it’s probably safe to try in a bigger crowd.”
“What if it doesn’t fool them?” Dakota asked, feeling nervous.
“It probably won’t matter,” Majeed reassured her. “I’m still a member of the royal family. I’ll tell them I got a special exemption to bring you over. They won’t question me. And if they do, I can always buy their silence.”
Dakota adjusted the headscarf she was wearing. It covered not only her hair but the lower half of her face as well, and she knew it would be very hard to recognize her in it. On the other hand, though, she did have one of the most famous faces in Baraq. It was always possible someone would notice her white skin and blue eyes and figure out who she was.
The hotel was a beautiful pink stucco building that appeared like an oasis in the distance after a while. It was lit up with soft lights that made it glow, so Majeed and Dakota could see it even from several yards away. As they got closer, Dakota saw that it was surrounded by carefully tended hedges and tiled walkways.
“This is a really nice place,” she said, taking in the architecture of the building. “Have you stayed here before?”
“No,” Majeed said. “My family has a home on the beach, so we always stayed there when we visited. I would have taken you there, but it’s too big a risk. One of my siblings might have walked in at any moment since we’re all allowed to use the place. It was much safer to take you somewhere public and hide you in plain sight.”
Dakota hoped he was right about that. Her nerves spiked as Majeed led her through the automatic sliding glass doors into the crisp, cool air conditioning of the lobby. It was late at night, and the place was empty of guests. Only the three women working behind the desk were there, and they all turned to look at the newcomers. They immediately clustered together like birds and began whispering to each other.