The Sheikh’s Second Chance Lover

by Rayner, Holly

  Brooke wrapped up her granola bar wrapper and tucked it back into her pocket. “Is it hard on you being away from your parents?” she asked. “I can’t imagine living on the other side of the world from my mom. Just being in New York was tough.”

  “Honestly, it’s nice for me,” Ali said. “I hope that isn’t offensive,” he hastened to add. She’d recently lost her father; maybe he shouldn’t be admitting how much he enjoyed being away from his own family.

  But she shook her head. “It’s fine. Everyone’s family is different.”

  He nodded. “My parents are pretty overbearing. Even from Shunayy, they try to control what I do.”

  “But how can they?” Brooke asked. “I mean, what do they do? Call you and make you report on everything you’re doing?”

  “No, it’s more like…” Ali paused. How could he explain this without giving away too much? He couldn’t exactly tell her that his parents had hired bodyguards to make sure he was both safe and where he was supposed to be at all times. Normal families didn’t do that.

  I should have asked Wellers about this, Ali realized suddenly. He hadn’t expected to make any real friends in Vermont, so he hadn’t bothered to clarify how tightly guarded the secret of his true identity needed to be. Would it be okay to tell Brooke the truth? It wasn’t as if she was a secret assassin, so what would be the harm in her knowing?

  But he knew what Wellers would say if he told the truth without asking. It would be unacceptable. He might even be forced to flee Vermont again, to head for some other safe house in some other part of the world. Maybe he’d even be sent home.

  He didn’t want to leave Vermont, he realized. Not even to go back to New York. He didn’t want to leave because Brooke was here, and looking at her now, he realized his feelings for her ran even deeper than he’d suspected.

  She wasn’t just a hot neighbor. She wasn’t even just a friend.

  She was staring at him. “It’s more like what?” she pressed.

  He hated this. It was so hard to build a relationship with someone when you had to constantly avoid the truth. What if he was never able to tell her who he really was? Even if she shared his feelings, anything she felt would be based on a lie. He had no way of knowing if she liked the real him.

  Or what if she did like him, but he told her the truth someday and it made her hate him? What if she felt betrayed and unable to forgive him for his deception?

  Brooke got to her feet. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she said gently. She knew, he could tell, that something was bothering him. And rather than trying to pry, she was letting it go.

  Ali got to his feet. “Let’s get to the water,” he agreed, feeling utterly dishonest.

  6

  Brooke

  Blaine had started coming over every day, whether they were working on the sculpture or not. Sometimes she went to his apartment first, early in the morning, pulling him out of bed and taking him off on whatever adventure she had planned for her own day. But just as often, he came to her first, complaining of boredom and looking for something to do. No matter how they spent the early part of their day, whether it was working on the sculpture, fooling around downtown, or driving through the countryside, they usually ended up back in Brooke’s apartment by evening. There was nothing to do in Blaine’s apartment—he didn’t even have a TV—so hers had become the default hangout.

  Brooke was surprised by how much time they were spending together. She supposed part of it was that Blaine didn’t know anyone else in town. But he was charming and personable, and it wouldn’t be that hard for him to make friends. She had shown him by now where the Jasperville bar was. But he persisted in spending his Saturday nights with her, even though more often than not she chose to stay in.

  For that matter, Brooke thought, why was she giving him so much of her time? She hadn’t been out with her high school friends since the day Blaine had moved in. She’d seen her mother, but even that time had been cut short because she and Blaine had made plans to order pizza and watch an action movie. It wasn’t like her to get so caught up in one person like this.

  Then again, it had been a while since she’d had a crush.

  Her feelings had become impossible to deny. Spending every day with the shape of his body in her hands, carefully molding him, she could think of little else. It was all she could do to stay focused on the work, to keep their sessions professional. But she was determined to do it. The last thing she wanted was to scare him away.

  It wasn’t just a physical attraction, either. She loved how eager he was to embrace new things. He was wide-eyed and full of wonder every time he experienced some aspect of Vermont or small-town living he’d been previously unaware of. He had dedicated himself to the challenge of getting his driver’s license and was doing outstandingly well. They had even begun cooking together; tonight they were in the process of making an apple pie. Blaine’s biceps flexed as he rolled out the dough for the project, and Brooke had to look away.

  “How much longer on the sculpture, do you think?” Blaine asked her.

  “Hard to say,” Brooke hedged. He had posed for her fully nude for the first time today—in fact, he had just put his clothes back on half an hour ago—and she wasn’t in the right mindset to discuss an end to the work. “Definitely at least another week.”

  “I didn’t realize sculptures took so long.”

  “Well, you’ve got a complicated physique,” she teased.

  “Complicated!” He turned toward her, mock-outraged. “What does that mean.”

  “Bow-legged stance, noodle arms…”

  “Oh, you’re in trouble.” He scooped her up suddenly and tossed her over his shoulder. Brooke squealed and pretended to struggle until he tossed her on her back on the couch.

  She sat up. “Hey, we need to put the pie in the oven.”

  “I can do it.” He headed back over to the kitchen.

  “Get a fork from the drawer and press the tines into the edge of the crust all the way around, okay? Just make a little pattern.”

  “Okay.” He opened a drawer, then paused. “Um. Brooke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why do you have a gun in your kitchen?”

  She sat upright. “Crap. I forgot that was in there.”

  “You forgot you had a gun in your kitchen drawer?”

  “That isn’t where it goes,” she said. “I was cleaning it, and then you were coming over and I didn’t want to have it sitting out on the table when you came in, and…crap.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s back up. Why do you have a gun?”

  “My dad and I used to hunt together,” she explained, climbing over the arm of the couch and joining Blaine in the kitchen. “I don’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t stand to get rid of his guns after he died. I clean them sometimes, and it reminds me of when he first taught me how to do that.”

  “So there’s more than just this one.”

  “Yeah.” She led the way into her bedroom, opened the closet, and spun the combination on the locker where the other hunting rifles were kept. After she’d put the pistol from the kitchen away in its proper place and secured the locker again, she turned to Blaine. “Did that totally freak you out? I’m sorry.”

  He laughed. “No, of course not. I’ve seen guns before.”

  “You have?”

  “Not in the kitchen drawer, but yeah.”

  “Have you ever fired one?”

  He nodded. “I’ve had firearm training since I was young.”

  “Firearm training?” Brooke was surprised. “That’s wild. Is that normal in Shunayy or something?”

  Blaine looked suddenly awkward, as if the conversation had taken a turn he didn’t like. “Not really. Rich families do it sometimes.”

  “Oh,” Brooke said. “That makes sense, I guess. I didn’t learn until I was a teenager.”

  “And it was your dad who taught you?”

  “Yeah. He took me out hunting for my sixteenth birthday.”

&
nbsp; “You kill anything?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “A rabbit.”

  “Did you cry?” He smiled. He was teasing her again.

  “No. I hate rabbits,” she laughed. “I don’t know why anyone gets all sentimental about them. I did refuse to shoot any deer, though. I think my dad thought that was a weird place to draw the line, but he went with it. We only ever hunted small animals.”

  “Softie,” he smirked.

  “Hey, I may not want to kill deer, but I can peg a target from fifty feet away.”

  “That’s amateur stuff.”

  “Oh, really.” Brooke wasn’t sure if she was still flirting or if she was just plain irritated. “It took me a good two years to be able to do that.”

  “You must not have the natural gift,” Blaine said. “You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, though. Not everyone has it.”

  “And I suppose you have it.”

  “Well.” He shrugged, an unconvincing show of modesty.

  “If you’re so good, let’s go out to the woods,” she said hotly. “You can put your money where your mouth is.”

  “You want to actually go kill some animals to prove a point?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “And you said I was a softie! No, I want to set up targets.” She pointed toward the kitchen. “Go get some soda cans out of the recycling bin.”

  “Me? Why me? What are you going to do?”

  Brooke spun the lock on her weapons locker again. “I’m going to put this pie in the fridge, and then I’m gonna load up a couple of rifles for us. We’re going out into the woods, and we’ll just see who’s the better shot!”

  * * *

  Brooke drove. She knew they couldn’t start shooting in just any wooded area; there were specific places where that kind of thing was allowed. She knew where she was going. It was the same part of the woods she’d always come to with her father.

  They had stopped by Blaine’s apartment to give him the opportunity to change, since he’d gotten in the habit of wearing tracksuits to her apartment on sculpting days—there was no point in dressing up when his clothes were just going to spend most of the day on the floor. Brooke understood this, and yet there was something about the casual ease of their afternoons together, facilitated by his attire, that made the whole thing seem much more intimate. Seeing him in a flannel and jeans always felt strange, like he was overdressed.

  She parked the car by the side of the road, walked purposefully to the trunk, and pulled out the two rifles she had prepared. She checked that the safety was on for each of them before handing one to Blaine. In her other hand, she took up the plastic grocery bag full of soda cans they’d collected and strode into the woods, trusting that Blaine would follow her.

  After about a quarter of a mile, they came to a clearing. This was where Brooke’s father had first taught her how to use a gun, and she remembered standing here as a teenager, her father’s arm bracing hers, feeling overwhelmed and important as she’d aimed and fired at her own very first soda-can target. She had missed, she remembered, and she had been embarrassed, but her father’s corrections had been gentle, and by the end of the day she’d been knocking over cans like a pro.

  I miss him, she thought now, slipping in and out of the memory. I wish we had spent more time together in the years before he died. He had been proud of what she was doing in New York, of course, but that was time she could never get back.

  A split-rail fence ran through the clearing. It was clearly old, no longer in use. Whatever property line it used to denote was probably long since null. Brooke walked over and lined up the cans on the top rail, leaving several feet between them. Then she returned to Blaine, who was examining the barrel of his gun.

  “All right,” she said. “You’re up first.”

  Blaine stepped back. “That’s okay. You can go first.”

  “Are you scared?” she taunted him. “I thought you were a natural at this. Isn’t that what you said? Come on, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about from little old me, right?” She nudged him. “Get up there, slugger. Show me this gift you have.”

  Blaine chuckled and scuffed his foot in the dirt. “I might have been exaggerating.”

  “Oh really!”

  He grinned sheepishly. “The truth is, I’ve never even fired a gun before. Never even held one until now.”

  “Oh my God, you liar.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I just wanted you to think I was cool.”

  “I already thought you were cool! And here you had me thinking I needed to drag you all the way out here to one-up you at something you can’t even do! You’re such a goof!”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I’m a goof?”

  “I just can’t believe you would make up a story like that! Weapons training since you were a little kid. I should have known that was malarkey.”

  “Is there a reason you’re talking like somebody’s grandfather right now?”

  “Is there a reason you’re acting like a child?”

  “Come on, don’t be mad,” he said. “I thought it was really cute how you got all competitive about it.”

  Brooke shook her head, exasperated. “Well, now that we’re out here, we might as well go ahead and do this. You want a shooting lesson?”

  “Sounds fun,” Blaine agreed. “It’s not dangerous, is it?”

  “Not if you follow instructions. Go stand over there.” She directed him to a spot a few feet behind and to the left of her. “Now watch me. This is the stance you want for the best support. Hold the gun like this, release the safety, sight along the barrel, and…” She squeezed the trigger. The rifle fired, and several yards away, one of the cans pinged and flew off the fence.

  “Nailed it!” Blaine cheered.

  “Your turn.” She beckoned him back over. “Okay, hold up the gun. No, widen your stance…yeah, like that.”

  “Am I holding it right?” He shifted the gun in his hands. “This feels weird.”

  “You want it to be more level.” She stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his, suddenly very aware of the press of his body against hers. “Like this. See? Then you can look right along the barrel. You want the target in the sight. Do you see it?”

  “I see it.”

  “Okay, release the safety. Here.” She guided his thumb. “Are you ready?”

  “I think so.”

  “Take a deep breath, then exhale and pull the trigger.”

  Blaine breathed in. She felt his torso expand and stepped away to avoid the recoil of the gun.

  He turned. “Where are you going?”

  “You don’t need me right there. You can do it.”

  “I’m going to mess it up.”

  She laughed. “You were so confident about this!”

  “Yeah, but I told you that was all fake.”

  “Okay, but you can do it. I did this when I was sixteen. Go ahead, raise your weapon,” she encouraged.

  He did so.

  “All right. Aim and fire.”

  Blaine breathed in again and exhaled slowly. Brooke was pleased to see he’d remembered her instructions. He was going to be good at this, she thought, if he could manage to relax.

  He missed the target, but not by much.

  “That’s okay,” she assured him. “Do it again. This time make sure you keep it in your sights the whole time. Don’t blink. Hold your arm as steady as you can.” She stepped close to him again, bracing his arm with her own. “I’ll help.”

  Blaine glanced back at her but said nothing. He took aim again, breathed deeply, and fired.

  The bullet pinged off a soda can on the fence, knocking it to the ground. Blaine spun around. “Hey! I did it!”

  “Put the safety on,” Brooke said. “Always put the safety on.” She monitored Blaine as he found the safety and engaged it before setting the gun gingerly on the ground. “Accident prevention is the most important thing when you’re using a gun.”

  He nodded, exuberant. “I can’t believe I hit it! My v
ery first time out!”

  “That was a tough shot,” she agreed. “I didn’t hit any my first time.”

  “So I am a better shot than you!” he crowed.

  She slugged his shoulder gently. “Or maybe you’re just not sixteen years old!”

  Blaine scooped her up in an embrace and spun her around. “This is awesome. I can’t believe I did it!”

  Brooke laughed. “You were right. You’re a natural.”

  He set her down gently, his arms still around her waist. He was smiling, and she was smiling, and before she knew it her lips were on his.

  Brooke didn’t know who had leaned in first—even later, back in her apartment, deconstructing the afternoon, she wouldn’t be able to figure it out. All she knew was that the clearing had disappeared, to be replaced by Blaine’s broad chest and strong arms and the scratch of the stubble he’d grown lax about shaving since she’d met him. All the tension she’d felt over the past few weeks, all the anxiety about whether they would or wouldn’t cross this line, evaporated into thin air, and all she could think of was losing herself deeper within his kiss.

  They broke apart after a moment and regarded each other. Brooke was short of breath, stunned and amazed. Had this just been a spur-of-the-moment thing? Had he simply been caught up in the thrill of hitting his target? Or was it possible he’d been thinking of her as long as she’d been thinking of him and today had simply been the catalyst?

  It was Blaine who spoke first and answered her question. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that.”

  Brooke felt her face light up. “One more thing you’re a natural at.”

  7

  Brooke

  “You know,” Brooke said one night a couple weeks later, scrubbing clay out from under her fingernails, “we don’t always have to hang out at my place.”