The Sheikh's Guarded Heart

‘No…’ The word seemed stuck in her throat but she swallowed it down and said, ‘No, it’s just…’ It was just that her grandmother’s brainwashing had gone deep. Bad girls let men touch them. In her head she knew that it wasn’t like that, that when people loved one another it was different, but even with Steve she’d found the slightest intimacy a challenge. Not that he’d pressed her.

He’d assured her that he found her innocence charming. That it made him feel like the first man in the world.

Innocent was right. No one but an innocent booby would have fallen for that line.

While she knew that this was different, that it had nothing to do with what her grandmother had been talking about, it didn’t make it any easier, but she managed a convincing, ‘It’s fine…’ refusing to let fall tears of rage, remorse, helplessness—a whole range of emotions piling up faster than she could think of words to describe them. After a long moment in which the man waited, apparently unconvinced, she said, ‘Truly.’

‘You must tell me if I hurt you,’ he said, gently lifting the hair back from her face.

All she wanted was for him to get on with it, get it over with, but as he gently stroked the cotton over her skin it was just as it had been with her hands, her arms. He was tenderness itself and her hot, dry skin, dehydrated and thirsty, seemed to soak up the moisture like a sponge.

‘I’m just going to clean up your scalp here,’ he warned. ‘I think you must have caught your hair when you were struggling with the seat belt.’ It stung a little. Maybe more than a little because he stopped, looked at her and said, ‘Shall I stop?’

‘No. Really. You’re not hurting me.’ Not much anyway.

Pride must abide.

Words chiselled on to her scalp.

He lifted her long tangled hair, holding it aside so that he could wash the nape of her neck, and she gave an involuntary sigh. If she could only wash her hair, she thought, she’d feel a hundred times better.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘I will wash your hair tomorrow.’

She was smiling into the soft wool keffiyeh coiled around his neck before she realized that he’d answered her unspoken thoughts. She considered asking him how he’d done that. Then waited. If he was a mind-reader she wouldn’t need to ask…

There was a tap on the door and someone called out.

He rapped out one word. He’d spoken in Arabic but the word was unmistakable. Wait. Then he laid her back against the headrest and she whispered, ‘Shukran.’ Thank you.

She’d bought a teach yourself Arabic course, planning to learn some of the language before joining Steve. She hadn’t just want to be a silent partner. She’d wanted to be useful. A bit of a joke, that. She’d served her usefulness the minute she’d so trustingly signed the papers he’d placed in front of her.

Hanif al-Khatib smiled at her—it was the first time, she thought. The man was so serious…Then he said, ‘Afwan, Lucy.’

Welcome. It meant welcome, she thought. And she knew he meant it.

In all her life, no one had ever treated her with such care, such consideration, as this stranger and quite suddenly she was finding it very hard to hold back the dam of tears.

Obviously it was shock. Exhaustion. Reaction to the accident…

She sniffed, swallowed. She did not cry. Pain, betrayal, none of those had moved her to tears. She’d learned early that tears were pointless. But kindness had broken down the barriers and, embarrassed, she blinked them back.

‘You are in pain, Lucy?’

‘No.’

He touched a tear that lay on her cheek. ‘There is no need to suffer.’

‘No. They gave me an injection. I just feel sleepy.’

‘Then sleep. It will make the journey easier for you.’ Then, ‘I will return in a moment,’ he said.

She nodded, her mind drifting away on a cloud of sedative. She jerked awake when he returned.

‘I hope you will not mind wearing this,’ Hanif said, helping her to sit up, wrapping something soft and warm around her, feeding her arms into the sleeves.

She had no objection to anything this man did, she thought, but didn’t have the energy to say the words out loud.

‘How is she?’

Hanif had left Zahir in Rumaillah to make enquiries about his guest and now he roused himself to join him in the sitting room of the guest suite.

‘Miss Forrester is still sleeping.’

‘It’s the best thing.’

‘Perhaps.’ She’d been fighting it—disturbed, dreaming perhaps, crying out in her sleep. It was only the sedatives prescribed by the hospital keeping her under, he suspected. ‘What did you discover in Rumaillah? Was the embassy helpful?’

‘I thought it better to make my own enquiries, find out what I could about her movements before I went to the embassy. If you want my opinion, there’s something not quite right about all this.’

‘Which is, no doubt, why you tried to dissuade me from bringing her here,’ Hanif replied, without inviting it.

‘It is my duty—’

‘It is your duty to keep me from brooding, Zahir. To drag me out on hunting expeditions. Tell my father when I’m ready to resume public life.’

‘He worries about you.’

‘Which is why I allow you to stay. Now, tell me about Lucy Forrester.’

‘She arrived yesterday morning on the early flight from London. The immigration officer on duty remembered her vividly. Her hair attracted a good deal of notice.’

He didn’t doubt it. Pale as cream, hanging to her waist, any man would notice it.

Realising that Zahir was waiting, he said, ‘Yes, yes! Get on with it!’

‘Her entry form gave her address in England so I checked the telephone number and put through a call.’

‘Did I ask you to do that?’

‘No, sir, but I thought—’

He dismissed Zahir’s thoughts with an irritated gesture. ‘And?’ he demanded.

‘There was no reply.’ He waited for a moment, but when Hanif made no comment he continued. ‘She gave her address in Ramal Hamrah as the Gedimah Hotel but, although she had made a booking, she never checked in.’

‘Did someone pick her up from the airport, or did she take a taxi?’

‘I’m waiting for the airport security people to come back to me on that one.’

‘And what about the vehicle she was driving? Have you had a chance to look at it? Salvage anything that might be useful?’

‘No, sir. I sent out a tow truck from Rumaillah, but when it arrived at the scene, the 4x4 had gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘It wasn’t there.’

‘It can’t have vanished into thin air, Zahir.’

‘No, sir.’

Hanif frowned. ‘No one else knew about it, other than the woman at Bouheira Tours. What did you tell her?’

‘Only that one of their vehicles had been in an accident and was burnt out in the desert. She was clearly shaken, asked me to describe it, the exact location. Once I had done that she said that I must be mistaken. That the vehicle could not belong to them. Then I asked her if Miss Forrester was a staff member or a traveller booked with them and she replied that she’d never heard of her.’

‘She didn’t want to check her records?’

‘She was quite adamant.’

‘Did you tell her that Miss Forrester had been injured?’

‘She didn’t ask what had happened to her and I didn’t volunteer any information.’

‘Leave it that way. Meanwhile, find out more about this tour company and the people who run it. And Zahir, be discreet.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE room was cool, quiet, the light filtering softly through rich coloured glass—lapis blue and emerald, with tiny pieces of jewel-bright red that gave Lucy the impression of lying in some undersea grotto. A grotto in which the bed was soft and enfolding.

A dream, then.

Lucy drifted away, back into the dark, and the next time she woke the light was brighter but the colours were still there and, although she found it difficult to open her eyes more than a crack, she could see that it was streaming through an intricately pieced stained glass window, throwing spangles of colour over the white sheets.

It was beautiful but strange and, uneasy, she tried to sit up, look around.

If the tiny explosions of pain from every part of her body were not sufficiently convincing, the hand at her shoulder, a low voice that was becoming a familiar backdrop to these moments of consciousness, assured her that she was awake.

‘Be still, Lucy Forrester. You’re safe.’

Safe? What had happened? Where was she? Lucy struggled to look up at the tall figure leaning over her. A surgical collar restricted her movement and one eye still refused to open more than a crack, but she did not need two good eyes to know who he was.

Knife in his hand, he’d told her to be still before. She swallowed. Her throat, mouth were as dry as dust.

‘You remember?’ he asked. ‘The accident?’

‘I remember you,’ she said. Even without the keffiyeh wound about his face she knew the dark fierce eyes, chiselled cheekbones, the hawkish, autocratic nose that had figured so vividly in her dreams.

Now she could see that his hair was long, thick, tied back at the nape with a dark cord, that only his voice was soft, although the savage she’d glimpsed before she’d passed out appeared to be under control.

But she knew, with every part of her that was female, vulnerable, that the man who’d washed her as she lay bloody and dusty on a hospital couch was far more dangerous.

‘You are Hanif al-Khatib,’ she said. ‘You saved my life and took me from the hospital.’

‘Good. You remember.’

Not that good, she thought. A touch of amnesia would have been very welcome right now.

‘You are feeling rested?’

‘You don’t want to know how I’m feeling. Where am I?’

Her voice was cracked, dry, and he poured water into a glass then, supporting her up with his arm, held the glass to lips that appeared to have grown to twice their size. Some water made it into her mouth as she gulped at it. The rest dribbled down her chin, inside the collar.

He tugged on the bow holding it in place and removed it, then dried her face, her neck, with a soft hand towel.

‘Should you have done that?’ she asked nervously, reaching for her throat.

‘Speaking from experience, I can tell you that the collar doesn’t do much good, but the doctor advised keeping it in place until you were fully awake.’

‘Experience? You crash cars that often?’

‘Not cars. Horses.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they crashed me. Polo makes great demands on both horse and rider.’

‘At least the rider has the choice.’ Then, ‘Where am I? Who are you?’ His name and ‘safe’ told her nothing.

‘When I lived in England,’ he said, ‘my friends called me Han.’

‘When I lived in England…’

Her brain felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool, but she was alert enough to understand that this was his way of reassuring her that he understood western expectations of behaviour. Why would he do that unless she had reason to be nervous?

‘What do your enemies call you?’ she snapped back, pain, anxiety, making her sharp. She regretted the words before they were out of her mouth; whatever else he was, this man had saved her from a terrible death. But it was too late to call them back.

His face, his voice expressionless, he replied, ‘I am Hanif bin Jamal bin Khatib al-Khatib. And my enemies, if they are wise, remember that.’

Her already dry mouth became drier and she shook her head, as if to distance herself from what she’d said. Gave an involuntarily squeak of pain.

‘The doctor prescribed painkillers if you need them,’ he said distantly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ She was finding it hard enough to think clearly as it was and she needed all her wits about her. Needed answers. ‘You told me your name before,’ she said. Only this time there was more of it. Steve had explained about the long strings of names and she knew that if she could decipher it she would know his history. ‘Bin means “son of”?’

He bowed slightly.

‘You are Hanif, son of Jamal, son of…’

‘Khatib.’

‘Son of Khatib, of the house of Khatib.’ The name sounded familiar. Had Steve mentioned it? ‘And this is your home?’

Stupid question. Not even the finest private room in the fanciest hospital had ever looked like this. The carved screens, folded back from the window, the flowered frieze, each petal made from polished semi-precious stone, furniture of a richness that would have looked more at home in a palace…

‘You are my guest, Miss Forrester. You will be more comfortable here than in the hospital. Unless you have friends in Ramal Hamrah with whom you would rather stay? Someone I could contact for you?’ he continued. ‘We tried calling your home in England—’

‘You did?’

‘Unfortunately, there was no reply. You are welcome to call yourself.’ He indicated a telephone on the night table.

‘No.’ Then, because that had been too abrupt, ‘There’s no one there.’ No one anywhere. ‘I live alone now. I’m sorry to be so much trouble,’ she said, subsiding into the pillows, but not before she’d seen the state of her arms. The cuts had been stuck together, the grazes cleaned, but the effect was not pretty.

‘Don’t distress yourself. They’ll heal very quickly. A week or two and they’ll be fine.’ Then, ‘Are you hungry?’

‘I don’t want to put you to any more trouble,’ she said. ‘If I could just get dressed, impose on you to call me a taxi.’

‘A taxi?’ He frowned. ‘Why would you need a taxi?’

‘To take me to the airport.’

‘I really would not advise it. You should take a day or two to recover—’

‘I can’t stay here.’

‘—and it will undoubtedly take that long to replace your passport, your ticket. I’m sorry to have to tell you that everything that you were carrying with you was destroyed in the crash.’

‘Destroyed?’ Without warning she caught a whiff of petrol amongst the mingled scents of sweat, dust, disinfectant that clung to her. ‘They were burned?’ And she shivered despite her best effort not to think about how close she had come to being part of the conflagration. ‘I need to see someone about that,’ she said, sitting up too quickly and nearly passing out as everything spun around her.

‘Please, leave it to my aide. He will handle everything,’ he assured her. ‘They will be ready, insha’Allah, by the time you’re fit to travel.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you being so kind to me?’

He seemed surprised. ‘You are a stranger. You need help. I was chosen.’

Chosen?

She put the oddity of the expression down to the difference in cultures and let it go, contenting herself with, ‘You pulled me out from the car wreck. For most people that would have been enough.’ Then, realising how ungrateful that must have sounded, ‘I know that I owe you my life.’

That provoked another bow. ‘Mash’Allah. It is in safe hands.’

For heaven’s sake! Enough with the bowing…

‘I’m in no one’s hands but my own,’ she snapped back.

She might owe him her life, but she’d learned the hard way not to rely on anyone. Not even those she’d had a right to be able to trust. As for the rest…

‘We are all in God’s hands,’ he replied, without taking offence, no doubt making allowances for her injuries, shock, the fact that sedatives tended to remove the inhibitions. Her grandmother hadn’t held back when she’d finally surrendered to the need for pain relief. A lifetime of resentment and anger had found voice in those last weeks…

‘I’m sorry,’ she said carefully. ‘You’re being extremely kind. I must seem less than grateful.’

‘No one is at their best when they’ve been through the kind of experience you’ve endured,’ he said gravely.

This masterly, if unintentional, understatement earned him a wry smile. At least it was a smile on the inside; how it came out through the swellings and bruises was anyone’s guess.

‘You need to eat, build up your strength.’

She began to shake her head and he moved swiftly to stop her. ‘It would be better if you did not do that,’ he cautioned, his hand resting lightly against her cheek. ‘At least for a day or two.’

She jumped at his unexpected touch and he immediately removed his hand.

‘What can I offer you?’

What she wanted most of all was more water, but not if it meant spilling half of it down herself like a drooling idiot.

Maybe she’d said her thoughts out loud, or maybe he’d seen the need in her eyes as she’d looked at the glass, because he picked it up, then sat on the edge of the bed, offering his arm as a prop, but not actually touching her. Leaving the decision to her.

‘I can manage,’ she assured him, using her elbows to try and push herself up. One of them buckled beneath her and all over her body a shocking kaleidoscope of pain jangled her nerves. Before she fell back he had his shoulder, his chest, behind her, his arm about her in support, taking all her weight so that her aching muscles didn’t have to work to keep her upright.

‘Take your time,’ he said, holding the glass to her lips. Raising her hand to steady it, she concentrated on the glass, avoiding eye contact, unused to such closeness, such intimacy. He did not rush her, but showed infinite patience as, taking careful sips this time, she slaked what seemed to be an insatiable thirst. ‘Enough?’ he asked when she finally pulled back.

She nearly nodded but remembered in time and instead glanced up. For a moment their gazes connected, locked, and Lucy had the uncomfortable feeling that Hanif bin Jamal bin Khatib al-Khatib could see to the bottom of her soul.

Not a pretty sight.

Hanif held the glass to Lucy’s lips for a moment longer, then, easing her back on to the pillow, turned away, stood up. Her body had seemed feather-light, as insubstantial as gossamer, yet the weight of it had jarred loose memories that he’d buried deep. Memories of holding another woman in just that way.

Memories of her dark eyes begging him to let her go.

From the moment he’d cut Lucy Forrester free of the wreck she’d been attacking his senses, ripping away the layers of scar tissue he’d built up as a wall between himself and memory.

She smelt of dust, the hospital, but beneath it all her body had a soft, warm female scent of its own. He’d blocked it out while he’d held her safe on his horse, cradled her as she’d whimpered with pain, drifting in and out of consciousness in the helicopter, other, more urgent concerns taking precedent. But now, emergency over, he could no longer ignore the way it filled his head. Familiar, yet different.

He could not tell if it was the familiar or the different that bothered him more. It did not matter, but he clung to the glass as if it was the only thing anchoring him to earth as he took a deep steadying breath.

He was no stranger to the sick room, but this was more difficult than he’d imagined. Dredging up the poignant, painful memories he’d worked so hard to obliterate from his mind.

She is different.

And it was true. Noor had been dark-eyed, golden-skinned, sweet as honey. The unsuspected, unbreakable core of steel that had taken her from him had lain well hidden within that tender wrapping.

Lucy Forrester was nothing like her.

The difference in their colouring was the least of it. His wife had been strong, steady, a rock in a disintegrating world, but this woman was edgy, defensive, troubled, and he sensed that she needed him in a way that Noor never had.

The glass rattled on the table as he turned back to her. ‘I’m sure you would enjoy some tea,’ he said. ‘Something light to eat?’

‘Actually, right now, all I want is the bathroom. A shower. To wash my hair.’

Lucy Forrester shuffled herself slowly up against the pillows, obviously finding it painful to put weight on her bruised elbows, but determined to have her way.

He knew how she felt. He’d taken hard falls back in the youthful, carefree days when he’d thought himself indestructible. Had chafed impatiently through weeks laid up with a broken leg.

‘That’s a little ambitious for your first outing,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe if I brought a bowl of water, you could—’

‘I’m not an invalid. I’ve just got a few bumps and bruises,’ she said, then let out an involuntary cry as she jerked her shoulder.

‘That hurt?’ he enquired, with an edge to his voice he barely recognised, annoyed with her for being so obstinate.

‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I always whimper when I move.’ Then, ‘Look, I know you’re just trying to help, but if you’ll point me in the direction of the bathroom I can manage. Or did you want to come along and finish what you started in the hospital?’

‘I apologise that there are no women in my household to help you. If you think you can manage—’

‘Too right, I can. I’ll bet you wouldn’t allow your wife to be washed by some strange man, would you? Probably not even a male nurse.’

There were men he knew, members of his family even, who would not allow their wives to be examined by a male doctor, let alone be touched by a male nurse. He had long since passed that kind of foolishness.

‘I would willingly have let my wife be cared for by a Martian if I’d thought it would have helped her,’ he said.

Would have? Past tense?

Oh, no, Lucy thought, she wasn’t going there…

‘Look, I know you’re just trying to help and I’m grateful, but I’ll be fine once I’m on my feet.’

He looked doubtful.

‘Honestly! Besides, it’s not just a wash I need and I’m telling you now, you can forget any ideas you might have about trying out your bedpan technique on me.’

‘You are a headstrong woman, Lucy Forrester,’ he said. ‘If you fall, hurt yourself, you may end up back in the hospital.’

‘If that happens, you have my full permission to say I told you so.’

‘Very well.’ He glanced around as if looking for something, and said, ‘One moment.’ And with that he swept from the room, dark robes flowing, the total autocrat.

Oh, right. As if she was planning to hang around so that he could enjoy the spectacle of her backside hanging out of the hospital gown.

Sending encouraging little you-can-do-it messages to her limbs, she pushed the sheet down as far as she could reach. Actually it wasn’t that far and, taking a moment to catch her breath, she had to admit that she might have been a bit hasty.

Ironic. All her life she’d been biting her tongue, keeping the peace, not doing anything to cause a fuss, but the minute she was left to her own devices she’d done what her grandmother had always warned her about and turned into her mother.

Impulsive, impetuous and in trouble…

If Hanif bin al-thingy hadn’t been passing she’d have been toast, she knew, and it wasn’t worth dying over.

Money.

She’d been broke all her life and when she’d had money she hadn’t known what to do with it. At least Steve had given her a few weeks of believing herself to be desired, loved.

He might be a cheat, a liar, a con man, but he’d given value for money. Unfortunately there were some things that she couldn’t just chalk up to experience and brush aside. Which was why she had to get out of here…

Everything was going fine until she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand up. That was when she discovered what pain really was.

She didn’t cry out as she crumpled up on the floor. She tried, but every bit of breath had been sucked out of her and she couldn’t make a sound, not even when Hanif dropped whatever he was carrying with a clatter and gathered her up, murmuring soft words that she didn’t understand; the meaning came through his voice, the tenderness with which he held her.

Idiot! Han could not believe he’d been so stupid. He was so used to total obedience, to having his orders obeyed without question, without explanation, it had never occurred to him that Lucy would ignore his command to stay put until he found the crutches, the ankle splint, which had been tidied away by someone as he’d dozed on the day bed in the sitting room.