“I’m her best friend, the godmother of her children, and I was her emergency contact until she got married three years ago,” she said in the most serious tone she could muster. “You need to tell me what’s happening.”
There was a pause, and then the man spoke again. “Your friend’s been in a car accident.” He paused again, lowering his voice as he went on. “That’s all I can tell you.” Another long pause, and then the man’s tone changed, and what he said next told Pen everything she needed to know. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really, really sorry.”
6
“We’re so sorry to make you all attend a funeral on Thanksgiving Day. And knowing Willow, she’d have been sorry too.”
A few polite chuckles and some murmurs rose up from the small crowd gathered at Parson’s Funeral Home in Fargo. The funeral director had given a short, respectful speech, and now Willow’s spouse Randy was up at the podium, her eyes red and bloodshot but her face smooth with makeup. Randy spoke haltingly, and Pen frowned and shook her head as she tried not to stand up and say, “Hell yes, Willow would have been sorry! There’s no reason to have the funeral on Thanksgiving Day, you attention-hog! Willow’s not going anywhere! She’s already gone! The funeral could have waited for the day after Thanksgiving, yeah?”
“But knowing Willow,” Randy added, doubling down on her joke, “she’d have been more sorry to make you all come in on Black Friday and miss out on the shopping deals!”
Pen winced and rubbed her forehead. Willow hated shopping, and she’d always rolled her eyes at the folks who lined up outside Target or Sears at the crack of dawn for all the Day-After-Thanksgiving sales. She wouldn’t have felt any regret for making people wear black and dab their eyes politely at Parson’s Funeral Home instead of buying another oversized television set!
OK, you’ve got to calm the hell down, Pen told herself, dabbing her own damned eyes and wondering how much more of this awkward speech she could take. Randy’s handling this by making bad jokes, and you’re handling this by getting angry that Randy doesn’t know Willow as well as you knew her. But that’s to be expected, isn’t it? Hell, you’ve known Willow since the two of you were teenagers! You knew her when she was still fucking men! You were the first one she called after she’d slept with a woman the first time! You were maid of honor and best bitch at her wedding! And you think it should be you giving the eulogy, don’t you?
But Randy is her spouse, and that’s how it goes, Pen told herself. You’ll have your chance to give your speech when they open it up to the floor. What does it matter who goes first? Willow wouldn’t care. Willow would know it was you that came first. Willow does know.
She does, Pen told herself as she glanced up at the dark yellow ceiling of the funeral home. She could feel the tears streaking her makeup, and she dabbed her face again and then stood and made her way to the restroom. She could hear the crowd reward Randy with another round of awkward chuckles, and she stared at her reflection in the mirror and shook her head. She was about to burst into tears, but then she smiled instead.
Maybe Randy made the right choice having the funeral on Thanksgiving, it suddenly occurred to her, and as she thought it her heart filled to the point where she worried it might burst. She nodded at herself again, smiled so wide it hurt, and took a deep, sighing breath. Then she went back out to the main room, waited politely for Randy to finish, and finally stepped up to the podium without bothering to pull out the speech she’d carefully written the previous night.
“Be grateful,” she said. “Not sad, but grateful. Grateful that you had those times with Willow. Grateful that she was ever in your life. Grateful that she didn’t suffer much in death. Be grateful. Grateful for everything that Willow brought into your life. Be grateful. That’s all I have to say.”
Pen blinked as she stared at the faces in the crowd. Then she blinked again as another face came to mind, a face that Willow had brought into Pen’s life—sent into Pen’s life. A face that Pen would never see again.
Good riddance, Pen thought as she finished what she had to say and stepped away from the podium. I don’t want to see that weirdo again, anyway. Who acts like that?! Who goes from being charismatic and funny to becoming a goddamn madman and then suddenly shuts down and leaves?! To hell with him! I’m grateful he’s gone!
The rest of the funeral was a blur of tiny sandwiches, lemonade, and hot tea, and Pen smiled and shook hands and thanked people for their compliments on her speech. She hugged Randy and Willow’s twins, quietly reminding them she was their godmother and would always be there for them, no matter what. They barely understood what was happening. They’d only been adopted a few years earlier from Colombia, and all of it probably still seemed like a dream to them. Pen was sad they wouldn’t ever get to know Willow as they grew up, but she was grateful because the loss might hurt less. Those kids had been through enough, losing their own parents in a freak accident when they were caught in the crossfire during a shootout between Colombian Police and the Colombian Drug Cartel.
But as Pen slowly drove home alone, navigating through icy patches on the road, glancing at snow-banks that rose six feet high on the sidewalks and shoulders, she couldn’t help see the Sheikh’s face in her mind’s eye, feel his touch on her body, smell his masculine scent in the air. They’d had a connection, hadn’t they? And he probably though she was a weirdo-freak for those dumb comments she’d made: “Was Zahaar your imaginary playground where you built sandcastles and declared yourself king?”
A king, Pen thought as she frowned and wondered if that could be true. She didn’t know a lot about the Middle East, and she’d assumed that most countries didn’t have kings and queens anymore. But there was something about Rafeez, the way he’d carried himself, his lazy, cool confidence, his expensive, tailored clothes, that heavy, diamond-studded watch. And hadn’t he said he had bodyguards waiting outside? She’d assumed it was just a joke, but he’d said it matter-of-factly—yes, as part of a joke; but the joke wasn’t about the bodyguards.
Shit, tell me I didn’t just insult some whacko Arab king, Pen thought as she got home and rushed indoors to her computer, furiously typing in all the spellings of “Rafeez” and “Zahaar” she could think of until finally she gasped and smacked herself on the forehead when she got a Wikipedia entry for “Sheikh Rafeez, leader of the Kingdom of Zahaar.”
She raced through the article, her eyes burning as her mind whirled from the memories of what had happened on her living room floor just a day ago.
“Oil billionaire. Only child and sole heir to the throne. Educated in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and England,” she muttered as she read, her head shaking involuntarily as she pushed aside the thought that this oil billionaire had been about to knock her up and she’d slapped him across the damned face and told him to pull out!
Pen almost laughed out loud when she realized what she was thinking. And then she was ashamed for thinking it. She hated herself for thinking it. But she couldn’t help it, and finally she just said screw it and let the fantasy wash over her: North Dakota woman pregnant from a casual encounter with an Arabian Sheikh! What happens next?! OMG!
Sounds like a teaser for a cheesy Mills and Boon romance, Pen thought as she heard the telltale sounds of her birds getting restless for their feeding. She smiled and pushed aside the fantasy even as she realized she was wet beneath her black slacks, her cotton panties soaked in a way that surprised her because she hadn’t noticed she was aroused. Still smiling, she grabbed her coat and headed out to her birds.
Of course, she told herself with a touch of melancholy, nobody writes a Sheikh romance where the heroine is a vegetarian turkey farmer with a fat ass.
7
Rafeez pushed aside the thought of her beautiful round ass as he watched the sand dunes roll by. He’d been out hunting for desert fowl, but he’d come up short. Not a bird in sight. It was almost like they’d fled his kingdom. Flown South for the
winter or something.
The Sheikh smiled tightly as he glanced toward the sun through the heavily tinted, bulletproof windows of his gold Range Rover. The car moved silently through the desert, the driver maneuvering along the crests of the dunes, navigating by GPS as the caravan of Range Rovers made their way from the open sands towards the paved road that would take them back to Zahaar’s Capital City.
Soon Rafeez caught sight of the tallest minarets of Zahaar rising up on the horizon. He’d always thought those minarets looked like a sea of erections popping out of the desert: straight, thick shafts with a head on top. He smiled again as he wondered what his people would think if they knew that their exalted Sheikh’s thoughts were perpetually focused on one thing and one thing only.
“Well, two things,” Rafeez muttered, clenching his fists as he thought of that “little” farmgirl’s big, beautiful rear globes. He could feel himself get hard, and he shifted on the smooth white leather seat as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could almost taste the sweetness between her legs, smell her thick feminine musk as he imagined pushing his face back between her thighs. Why had he not finished what he’d started? She’d aroused him in a way he’d never experienced in even his wildest, most memorable sexual encounters, and yet he’d abruptly ended the encounter without climaxing!
Stop it, the Sheikh told himself, shifting again in his seat as his erection made his pants so tight he winced. You are obsessed. It is not healthy. She is just a woman. One of many in your past. One of many more to come. Forget her. She means nothing. Nothing!
Rafeez closed his eyes and inhaled deep, trying to push the image of Penelope Peterson out of his mind. But she was lodged in there, and the Sheikh clenched his fists tighter and shook his head as they approached the outskirts of Zahaar’s Capital City.
I should have finished what I started, the Sheikh thought as he glanced absentmindedly at a new shopping mall that was under construction. There were construction projects underway all over the city—part of the Sheikh’s efforts to invite foreign investment. Indeed, that had been the reason he’d agreed to attend Charlotte’s wedding—to raise his profile in the West, perhaps get the Kingdom of Zahaar mentioned in academic circles and political circles as being an up-and-coming nation that was safe to invest in because its ruler was not a fanatical nutcase.
Rafeez went through the sequence of events once again: The phone call from Charlotte. His decision to fly to North Dakota. The snowstorm. That conversation with the short-haired caterer. And then a blind date with a turkey farmer!
The Sheikh frowned as he thought back to his fruitless hunting trip in the desert. The desert fowl he usually hunted for sport were flightless birds that were a distant cousin of the North American turkey. He frowned again, rubbing his stubble as a strange thought began to take form.
Ya Allah, he thought as his frown morphed into a wicked grin. The reason I left without finishing, without taking my pleasure, without satisfying my need is that I wanted to show her that I was in charge, that no matter how aroused I was, I could and would walk away from her if she did not show me the respect I demand as a Sheikh and king. It was a game. It was sport. It was a hunt. That is why I cannot get her out of my mind, yes? Because the game has not been played out. The sport is only just beginning. The hunt is far from over.
All right then, the Sheikh decided, still grinning as he nodded and pulled out his phone and dialed. I showed you that you could not break me, no matter how much I wanted you, no matter how strong my body’s need was. Now I will show you that I can break you. I will show you my power. The power of wealth. Let us put my wealth against your principles and see what wins, yes?
“Ibd din allahi,” he barked into the phone when one of his assistants back at the Royal Palace of Zahaar answered after one ring. “Her name is Penelope Peterson. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota. Get me her phone number.”
8
“What?” said Pen, staring out the window as she listened to the voice on the phone. “I don’t understand. What did you just say? You want to buy all my birds? Why?”
“I will release them into the desert,” came the Sheikh’s unmistakable voice. “They will live in the shade of the palm trees, cacti, and desert shrubs that grow around the Great Oasis of Zahaar.” He paused. “Then I will hunt them.”
Pen blinked as she listened to this lunatic say things that barely computed in her frazzled mind. The tingle that had gone through her body when she’d answered the “Blocked ID” call only to hear the Sheikh’s voice come through was now a raging current of electricity that had Pen’s head buzzing so hard she could barely hear anything. And what she heard sounded like the ramblings of an eccentric madman.
“You’re going to release my birds into the desert and then . . . hunt them?! In what world does that make any sense at all?!” she managed to say, still blinking as she stared out the window at the white landscape outside. The storm had passed, and although it was well below freezing, the sun was out. It actually looked like a desert out there, with white rolling dunes of pristine snow covering her acreage.
“In the world where I offer you one hundred thousand dollars . . . per bird,” replied the Sheikh with a steady nonchalance that made Pen pull the phone away from her ear and then glance at it to make sure she wasn’t imagining this conversation.
But the phone’s call timer was ticking away, and so Pen took a breath and got back on. “You’re offering me what?” she said, her voice so soft she could barely hear herself talk. Or maybe it was the blood pounding in her head when she heard the Sheikh confirm his offer. “You realize I have almost two hundred birds. That would be . . . it would be . . . what, two million dollars?”
“Twenty million dollars,” said the Sheikh just as Pen calculated it out in her head and almost choked at the number. “And your birds would be free in the wild. They would live in the shade all day, and the desert nights are cool and comfortable. They would be happy.”
“But you’re going to hunt them!” Pen said, trembling as she wondered if she was having a dream. The only thing that confused her was whether this was a fantasy or a goddamn nightmare!
“As man has done for millions of years,” came the Sheikh’s calm voice. “The birds will have a sporting chance in the wild. A better life than living cooped up in some barn for six months a year, with nothing to excite or amuse them besides their daily feeding.”
“And being hunted by some weirdo king with a shotgun is going to excite and amuse them?” Pen shook her head, her eyes widening as she stared out over her white desert. “You’re insane,” she said blankly. “I knew it when you left, and this only confirms it. Please never call me again.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then the Sheikh’s voice came through in a hard monotone. “You are turning down twenty million dollars? And I am the one who is insane? What is your current source of income, if you do not mind me asking?”
“Um, I do mind you asking!”
The Sheikh grunted over the phone. “That answers my question. Your current source of income is nil. Zero. Nothing. You are probably on welfare, supported by your bloated government because of your misguided, childish notion that it is somehow cruel and inhumane to eat animals even though it is as human as it gets. Man has hunted and eaten birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and goddamn insects since the first ape stood upright and walked the Earth. And—”
“You’re the goddamn ape!” Pen shouted into the phone, not sure whether she was laughing in amusement or hysteria.
“Ah,” said the Sheikh, his calmness driving Pen almost berserk. “Throw some racism in there to top it off, yes?”
“How is that racist?! I’m not calling all Arabs apes. I’m just calling you an ape!”
“It is not racist towards Arabs,” said Rafeez. “It is racist towards apes. Have you ever observed gorillas in the wild? They are peaceful, gentle creatures.” He pa
used, taking a breath, his voice deepening in a way that made Pen weak in the knees, wet between her legs. “And I most certainly am neither peaceful nor gentle.”
“That I agree with,” Pen said, her eyelids fluttering as she was taken back to the way the Sheikh had taken her . . . or almost taken her. Again she was reminded that although he’d seemingly lost control, was about to come inside a woman he’d just met, in the end he’d showed supreme control by stuffing his throbbing cock back in his pants and walking out the damned door! “You’re not peaceful. You’re not gentle. And you’re not making any sense. I mean, why would you even call me out of the blue and make this ridiculous offer?” She took a breath as she closed her eyes and tried to push away the thought that she already knew the answer to her question. This wasn’t about turkeys, just like their first meeting hadn’t been about a freakin’ turkey! He’d shown up at her doorstep because Willow had sent him there. He’d shown up because for some reason he’d trusted Willow’s judgment that the two of them needed to meet. And she’d let him into her house because she’d trusted Willow too.
This was Willow’s gift to her. Her last gift as a friend.
What had Willow said the last time they’d hung out? “We need to find you a man. A real man.”
So are you going to reject Willow’s last gift to you? Or are you going to be grateful and accept it?
Be grateful, Pen thought as she remembered how those words had come to her lips out of the blue at Willow’s funeral. Just like the Sheikh had come to her out of the blue. Yeah, he’d disappeared into the blue just as quickly, but now he was back with this outrageous offer to buy her turkeys for twenty million dollars and ship them to the Middle Eastern desert!
Grateful for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 16) Page 4