The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance)

by Melissa James

  A few minutes later, he wanted to shout in triumph; from the passenger tyre shield he held aloft a key that had been taped to its inside.

  He threw himself back into the driver’s seat. ‘Get your seat belt on.’ He gunned the engine, put it in the lowest gear and took off, avoiding the mine-laden waterhole region and the bushy scrub, and heading for the sand hills.

  Mere seconds passed before they heard shots. The third one blew out the rear window, sending shards of glass through the cabin. ‘Get down, Hana,’ he barked, keeping the gear low and upping the accelerator until the engine whined with the need to gear up. He’d done sand rallies before; this was the only way to manoeuvre the Jeep while going as fast as possible.

  This was a chase that only his skill with driving, theirs with bullets, and the depth of the fuel tanks would determine.

  He revved the Jeep to breaking point. It screamed in protest, but began the steep climb up the hill. ‘Find some ballast if you can,’ he shouted, ‘any weight to put in the back and keep balance.’

  Hana pulled off her belt and crawled over to the back as another shot hit the back door. She didn’t scream, but said tersely, ‘I can stay back there for a few—’

  ‘No.’ The single word contained all the authority he’d held in his life. ‘Find something that won’t blow up if it’s shot.’ Or die, he thought but didn’t say.

  ‘There are two twenty litre water containers!’ Slowly, groaning with the exertion, she hefted one of them over the back. ‘We can keep one back for drinking in case we make it.’

  ‘In case? Are you impugning my driving skills, or maligning the water I found?’ He tried to sound light, but he was too busy trying to get up the hill, searching for signs of harder terrain.

  ‘Just keep driving,’ she muttered. ‘These taps aren’t so easy to open.’ She grabbed their backpacks. ‘I’ll refill the canteens with fresh water.’

  She was right. They needed all the advantages they could get in this race of life and death.

  ‘There are guns in the back,’ she cried, sounding exultant.

  ‘Can you shoot?’ he shouted as he jerked the wheel left, avoiding more shots from the two Jeeps chasing them, two hundred metres behind, not yet on the hill. Somehow he doubted she could shoot. Saving life was Hana’s thing.

  ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘but I can try. If nothing else it might scare them off.’

  ‘It might also blow a hole in our roof,’ he yelled, hating to say it. ‘Any change in balance forces me to adjust my driving to that, and we don’t have time.’

  ‘Okay.’ She crawled back into the front seat, falling back to the middle section with a shocked cry as the jeep jerked with the forced low gear.

  ‘Sorry,’ he yelled over the whining engine.

  ‘It’s—okay.’ The words were strained—too strained to be shock from the fall.

  ‘You’re injured.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Dislocated shoulder,’ she said in a breathless voice. ‘I can’t climb back over.’

  He cursed his stupidity. Fool, he’d been relying so much on her intelligence and resourcefulness over the past days he’d forgotten she wouldn’t know how to compensate for his sudden driving changes. ‘Stay on the floor. Lay with your injured shoulder upward.’

  ‘All right.’ A few moments later she said, in a voice laced with pain, ‘Tell me when you need to jerk the car again.’

  Not even a complaint when she must be in agony—that was his brave, beautiful dawn star. ‘Now,’ he yelled, and counted to three in his head before shifting the wheel left.

  He couldn’t hear her over the straining engine, but the adjustments she had to make as the Jeep moved must be making her light-headed. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yup.’ She didn’t say more, which told him how hard it was for her to speak.

  ‘I can’t help you yet, Hana. Can you hang in there until we lose these clowns?’

  ‘Y-yup. I’m good.’ She could barely talk now, but she tried—and pride filled him. She was incredible, a woman in a thousand, a queen in a miner’s daughter’s skin.

  More bullets hit the Jeep, but because he was driving up and in a zigzag fashion, he’d made it close to impossible to hit the tyres or fuel tank. He called to her before every adjustment he made, and counted to three each time. She was so quiet she might have passed out with the pain. Concern for her lifted his guilt and urgency to stop to higher levels.

  Half a tank of fuel left. Even using precious stores to avoid the enemy and outrun them, he’d have enough fuel to reach his truck, if it was where Abdel had said it was, thirty kilometres northwest of their current position. If the truck was untouched still he had the satellite phone, and could call the pilot who came in three times a week from Nairobi. The four pilots on call had to answer the call to any aid worker in trouble. He could meet them while they were still far from the refugee camp—and he could save Hana.

  Up one hill, down another, he shifted gears with the terrain, jerking the Jeep from side to side and over again, finding the strongest terrain for faster driving. This was the race of his life—to save his dawn star.

  Hana hadn’t let him down once, in all they’d been through. He wouldn’t let her down now.

  Hana came to with a cry of anguish, as pain more intense than any she’d ever known ripped through her entire body. She struggled to sit up, but something held her down.

  ‘Lie still, Sahar Thurayya. I only have one pull to go—’ Alim’s hand on her left shoulder pinned her to the ground outside the Jeep, while the other had her injured arm, just below the armpit. By the position of the sun, it was early afternoon. ‘Take a deep breath and try to relax. One, two—’

  And he pulled her arm before he said three, before she could tense up in instinctive response to expected pain. She screamed as the click inside her body put tendons, bone and muscle back in their respective places; white cells poured into the injured parts to heal, causing swelling. She fell back to the ground, dragging in jerky breaths until the worst of the agony subsided, and the spinning in her head slowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ he said in a neutral tone, wrapping the last of their rags around her body, tying above the shoulder in a makeshift sling. ‘I’m sorry my driving put you in this pain, and I couldn’t reset your arm before you woke up.’

  ‘How long was I out of it?’ she panted, feeling the world shifting beneath her again.

  He held out two ibuprofen tablets, and put them in her mouth when she opened it. Then he gently lifted her in his arms and gave her water to swallow them. ‘Almost two hours. I wish it had been in a bed.’ He touched her face. ‘You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever known.’

  The gentlest touch, made in compassion, and the earth shifted beneath her again. In her body’s pain she was too weak to fight the desire, the longing.

  ‘Alim…’ The tiny moan was filled with the longing she couldn’t hide, longing so intense it outstripped even her pain.

  He bent his face to hers, and she caught her breath. His lips brushed hers, soft, too soft. ‘Soon,’ he whispered, and she ached with the intimacy of his voice, the desire he didn’t bother to hide, combined with the tenderness that broke her defences, already stretched as thin as a balloon. ‘When you’re safe, my dawn star, we’ll have time to see where our hearts lead us. For now, it’s my turn to take the lead. Trust me, Hana. I swear I’ll save you.’

  As he lifted her into his arms and laid her tenderly across the lowered passenger seat, she said softly, ‘You’ve already saved me.’

  ‘They’re not far behind,’ he replied in grim purpose. ‘I had to stop, or your arm could have been permanently injured.’ He pulled the seat belt on for her. ‘I’ve rigged my jacket against the roof handle in a loop for you. When I say “now”, use your good arm to hold yourself steady.’ He roped the torn-and-tied sleeve of the jacket over her good wrist. ‘Okay?’

  She smiled at him, touched that he’d risked his life for the sake o
f her arm, when she could have waited longer for treatment…touched beyond measure that a man as important as Alim could put her before his needs. ‘I’m good to go.’

  His eyes shone—and she swallowed a lump in her throat, seeing the pride there: pride in her. ‘Of course you are. That’s my Hana.’ He closed the passenger door and ran around to jump into the driver’s seat. ‘If we get lucky there’ll be an afternoon wind to cover our tyre tracks; but I’ll have to go as fast as possible. I’m going to try for second gear, to reduce engine noise…’

  Unable to speak, she nodded. My Hana, he’d said…and in his arms, she’d felt so cherished.

  In a daze of pain and exhaustion, she closed her eyes and allowed the dreams to come. They were insubstantial things that would wither when the real world returned, but if these sweet phantoms were all she could have, she’d cling to them for as long as she could.

  He took off in low gear, building the engine up. The hum and whine of the engine was strangely soothing. She felt him trying to keep the jerks of the engine to a minimum, to save her from pain; and her heart, so long starved of such cherishing, overflowed in tender gratitude.

  She didn’t know when she slipped into sleep, but when she opened her eyes, it was past nightfall. Alim was driving with no headlights, bumping over obstacles he couldn’t see. She didn’t have to ask why.

  ‘Are you all right?’ She pulled her good arm from the torn jacket to touch his hand.

  ‘I’m fine.’ He turned a face filled with strain to smile at her. ‘You slept for six hours. Feeling better?’

  She nodded. ‘What’s wrong?’

  For answer, he passed a compass to her. ‘Are you up to a little navigation? My eyes suffer from night strain—another reason I left the circuit—and my glasses are in the truck. Shifting my focus from the terrain to the compass is giving me a headache.’

  ‘Of course I can navigate—but can’t we stop for a minute for the ibuprofen?’

  ‘You took the last of it for your shoulder.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she cried. ‘You’re not yet over the concussion, and eye strain can—’

  ‘Can it, Hana,’ he interrupted, his voice warm with laughter. ‘I’m the big, strong man in this scenario, in control, and feeling pretty good about it. Me Tarzan, you Jane, remember—so, Jane, I need to know what our current direction is.’

  She grinned, and checked the compass. ‘We’re heading northwest, Lord Greystoke.’

  He chuckled. ‘What degree?’

  She squinted at the compass, and told him.

  ‘Put your arm back in the jacket, Hana. I need to adjust the Jeep. We’re ten degrees off course.’

  He didn’t need to tell her why; he’d been letting her sleep. She threaded her arm through, tugged hard and nodded. ‘Go.’

  He turned the wheel hard towards the north. Hana gritted her teeth, but the pain was far less savage than she’d expected. The combination of muscles and bone being back in place, and the tight sling he’d fashioned for her, had promoted rapid healing.

  Now her first concern was for him. ‘You’ve been awake twenty-four hours, Alim. No wonder you have a headache. You need to rest, and we still have the willow bark.’

  ‘What I need is coffee,’ he said in grim humour. ‘If you can pull that off for me, I’d be really grateful. A few days without it and my body’s still in withdrawal.’

  ‘You must be exhausted. Can’t we—?’

  ‘Not now. The afternoon winds were too minor to make a difference. We need to keep ahead.’ He jerked a thumb back. ‘There’s a dust cloud five or six kilometres back. If I can see theirs, they can see ours—and they can drive in shifts.’

  She sighed. ‘I could take my share of driving if I hadn’t fallen.’

  ‘If you want to help, talk to me. Keep me awake. Tell me something interesting.’

  That took her aback. ‘Such as?’

  ‘All the down and dirty details of your life,’ he said, but in a warm, teasing voice. ‘What made you want to nurse in the Sahel, of all places?’

  What would he think if she answered honestly? It was as far removed from my life in Perth as possible, and too far out of Mukhtar’s limited range of imagination in his search for me. ‘The Florence Nightingale effect,’ she said, shrugging. ‘I saw documentaries on Africa, the ads for Médecins Sans Frontières and CARE Australia. I wanted to help.’

  ‘How long have you been in Africa?’

  She stared out of the window, seeing nothing but blackness, and felt a tug of longing for the pretty, twinkling lights of the city against the Swan River in her beloved Perth. ‘Five years.’

  ‘How long did you live in Shellah-Akbar?’

  ‘Six months.’ Six short months, yet she’d been there longer than anywhere else. She was always ready to disappear. Her superiors expected it, knew she was on the run from someone. Her stores of food and canteens, the burq’a she used but that she didn’t attend the mosque, told everyone what she was, but they didn’t ask questions. They reassigned her whenever she showed up at one of the refugee camps—always a different camp, and a village in another direction.

  She’d hoped to remain at Shellah-Akbar longer. For the first time in a long time, she’d felt among friends. Despite Sh’ellah’s interest in her, she’d felt part of the wider family with the villagers’ unquestioning acceptance and friendship. She’d felt—almost safe.

  ‘It’s a good place to hide,’ he commented in a thoughtful tone as he geared up to drive down a hill. She started, so closely did he mirror her thoughts.

  She didn’t answer him, couldn’t without lies.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. ‘I’m glad you couldn’t lie to me.’

  ‘I owe you better than that.’ She blinked hard against the stinging in her eyes.

  He put the pedal to the floor to ride up yet another hill. ‘You owe me nothing, Hana…but you’re not going to tell me your story, are you?’

  It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer that, either.

  ‘We should only be half an hour from the truck.’

  She said awkwardly, ‘That’s good.’ The sooner she got away from him, the sooner she could start her life over without these silly dreams.

  ‘Have you been back to Abbas al-Din since you left as a child?’ was his next question.

  ‘Only twice.’ Once for three months, during her sister Fatima’s meeting with her future husband and during the time of their courtship and marriage; once to meet Latif. She’d still be there now, happily living with Latif in a house beside Fatima, if only—

  ‘Did you like it?’ he asked, oddly intense.

  Out of nowhere she heard Mukhtar’s last words to her, the night she knew she had to get out fast and never come back. I have to get out of Abbas al-Din. You’re my passage to a new life in Australia. Hate me all you want, I don’t care. I’m still rich enough to give you a wonderful life, and to take care of your family. Latif won’t have you now. Your family has accepted the marriage will happen. You will marry me, Hana!

  She shuddered, wondering if Mukhtar had managed to find a way out of the country without her; if Latif had found another wife—

  ‘Was it so bad?’

  She willed calm, even managed to smile at him. ‘It has wonderful culture, some amazing beauty.’ It certainly wasn’t the fault of the country that one of its sons had run drugs through the family import-export business, and that he was good at covering it up. If she hadn’t caught him making a deal when she’d come to visit Latif—

  ‘How long has it been since you were there?’ she asked, to turn the conversation.

  He looked at her, his eyes like a blank wall she’d run into. ‘You know, don’t you? The world knows what happened.’

  He’d left three years ago, and he’d never returned. He’d checked out of the hospital the day after Fadi’s funeral, long before his graft surgeries were finished. According to news reports, he’d sent a letter asking his younger brother Harun to take his position.
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br />   ‘You must miss home. I know how much I miss Perth.’ Awkward words; she cursed her clumsy mouth. So inadequate for all the pain he’d been through.

  ‘So Australia is home to you?’

  She shrugged at the deft turning of the subject. ‘I grew up there. Perth is beautiful, isolated from the rest of the country. Like Abbas al-Din it has deserts all around, and spectacular beaches. It has similar seasons, too. Hot and hotter.’ She grinned. ‘I think we’re a tad too far west again.’

  He nodded. ‘We had to avoid some bad territory—now,’ he warned her of the Jeep’s movement. She hung onto the loop. When he’d turned the Jeep, he asked, ‘You feel Australian?’

  Slowly, she said, ‘Yes and no. It’s an unusual experience, growing up between two diverse cultures.’

  ‘I didn’t spend much time in the West until I was a man,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘How was it for you?’

  She bit the inside of her lip and thought about it. ‘We spoke Arabic at home, and English everywhere else. We dressed modestly, but in Western clothing,’ she said, feeling awkward. ‘We were brought up to respect our faith and to live in peace with our neighbours, but we were still…different, you know?’

  She shrugged again. ‘I never quite knew who or what I was, but I was happy enough.’ That was why her dad had encouraged her to return to Abbas al-Din, to meet Latif when she finished her nursing degree. Australia had been good to their family socially and financially, but her parents had wanted their children to know their home country and culture, and marry where they’d feel comfortable.

  She’d gone into her engagement with eagerness. Latif was a gentle, kind man in his mid-thirties from a good family, successful and ready to become a husband. He’d listened to her, made her smile, and with Latif she had felt happy. And best of all, when he’d promised to respect her opinions and wishes, she had known she could believe him. She’d liked Latif, very much.