Lord of the Desert

Chapter Two

But all Maggie’s plans for her vacation and her new job went up in smoke the next morning as she accepted an unexpected long-distance call from Jacobsville, Texas. “I hate to have to tell you this,” Eb Scott, a friend of hers told her quietly. “Cord’s been hurt. He was doing a job in Florida a week ago, putting a small explosive device in a barrel for remote detonation and it went off in his face.”

Every drop of blood drained out of Maggie’s face. She gripped the telephone receiver like a lifeline. “Is he…dead?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

An eternity of seconds later he said, “No. But he wishes he was. He’s blind, Maggie.”

She closed her eyes, trying to see that proud, independent man walking with a cane or a guide dog, trying to pick up the pieces of his life alone. “Where is he?” she asked.

“Gretchen’s brother, Marc, was in Miami when it happened. He picked up Cord and brought him home when he was released from the hospital. Cord’s at his ranch outside Houston.” There was another hesitation. “I didn’t know until Marc phoned me on his way back to Miami.”

“Is Cord alone?”

“All alone,” Eb said irritably. “He wouldn’t come down here and stay with Sally and me in Jacobsville, or even with Cy Parks. He doesn’t have any family of his own, does he?”

“Only me,” Maggie said with a hollow laugh, “if I qualify as family.” She hesitated, thinking fast. “I suppose he’d kick me out if I came home to stay with him.”

“Actually,” Eb said slowly, choosing his words, “Marc said he was calling for you when they took him to the hospital.”

Her heart jumped. That was a first. She couldn’t remember a time in their lives when Cord had needed her. He had wanted her, but only once, and he hadn’t even been sober…

“I phoned Cord as soon as Marc said he’d taken him home. Cord told me he didn’t think you’d want to look after him, but that I could call you if I wanted to,” Eb added dryly. “So I’m calling you.”

“What incredible timing,” Maggie said, her nerves raw. “I’m on my way to a new job and I have a week’s vacation left…” She glanced at Gretchen, who was eavesdropping unashamedly, and grimaced. “I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll fly out this afternoon if I can get a flight to Brussels and then a nonstop flight home.”

“I knew you would,” Eb said gently. “I’ll let Cord know.”

“Thanks, Eb,” she said sincerely.

“My pleasure. Have a safe trip. And Marc said to tell Gretchen to be careful about going anywhere alone while she’s over there.”

“I’ll tell her. Cord…the blindness…is it going to be permanent?” she asked.

“They aren’t sure yet.”

She thanked him and hung up. “Cord’s been hurt,” she said without preamble, “and I have to go home, today. I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch…”

Knowing how Maggie felt about Cord, Gretchen would have allowed herself to be carried off by bandits rather than express any fear at being alone in a foreign country. “Don’t you worry about me. I can take care of myself,” Gretchen said with more confidence than she felt after Maggie explained what was going on. “But what about your job, Maggie?”

Maggie stared at her friend and her mind went into overdrive. A plan was forming…

“You can do it.”

Gretchen gaped at her. “What?”

“You can go to Qawi and take the job. Just listen,” she said when Gretchen started to protest. “It’s exactly what you need. You’ll vegetate in that little law office in Jacobsville. You’ve already given up most of your life to nurse your mother. It’s time you got a look at the real world. It’s the chance of a lifetime!”

“But I’m a paralegal,” Gretchen groaned. “I don’t know how to organize parties and write press releases. And the sheikh is expecting a widow with dark hair…!”

“Tell him you’ve dyed it, and don’t mention that you’re a widow,” Maggie said, dragging out her suitcase and heading for the closet where her clothes were hung. “You can use my ticket and I’ll give you all my spare cash.”

“This is a very bad idea…”

“It’s a wonderful idea,” Maggie countered. “You’ll have the time of your life. You may even find an eligible bachelor.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” Gretchen mused whimsically. “I can be wife number four wrapped up from head to toe in somebody’s harem!”

Maggie shot her a dry look. “You’ve got a lot to learn about Muslim women. They live by values we used to, and they have their own power. They have the vote in Qawi and several other countries, and their own independent finances. But there are plenty of Christian women and men in Qawi. Rumor has it that not only are the majority of the people Christian, but that the sheikh himself is one. His parentage is mixed.”

“As I recall, there was a rumor about the sheikh’s perverse sexual appetite,” Gretchen reminded her friend. “You told me yourself.”

“That was cleared up on the INN interview,” her friend said absently. “Senator Holden said that the sheikh himself had started those rumors to get Pierce Hutton’s wife to safety before her stepfather could harm her. They say he never got over Brianne Hutton.” She started pulling clothes off hangers. “Mrs. Hutton isn’t really pretty at all, but she has a beautiful smile and she wears clothes with a real flair. Maybe the sheikh was attracted because she’s so blond.”

“I suppose he’s very dark, isn’t he?” Gretchen asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him, and there aren’t many photos of him floating about. Even at his investiture, he was wearing a ceremonial bisht over his robes, along with a headcloth and an igal, and he managed to keep his face partially hidden from the international press.” Maggie finished packing, her mind still on Cord even as she organized her papers and her purse.

“Maybe he’s got warts,” Gretchen said wickedly.

Maggie wasn’t paying attention. She looked around the room. “If I’ve forgotten anything, send it back to me, will you? Here.” She handed Gretchen a handful of Moroccan paper money and some coins. “I can’t take this out of the country, anyway, and I won’t have time to change it. You spend the next week here and then fly on to Qawi. By the time the sheikh finds out you aren’t me—if he ever does—you’ll be so comfortably situated that he’ll probably keep you on anyway.”

“Optimist.” Gretchen hugged her friend.

Smiling, Maggie picked up the phone and spoke briefly and urgently to the kind man at the desk. “Thanks,” she said after a minute. “I’ll be right down.” She went to get her things together, and spoke to Gretchen over her shoulder. “He’s getting me a ticket. The car will be waiting downstairs. Mustapha’s taking me to the airport. Remember, don’t go out of the hotel grounds alone. Promise me.”

“I promise. Maggie, you be careful, too. I hope Cord’s okay.”

“Without his sight?” Maggie asked sadly. “All I can do is what he’ll let me do, and it won’t be easy. But maybe I can help him adjust. At least he needs me. That’s never really happened before.”

“Miracles happen when you least expect them,” Gretchen said comfortingly.

“I hope so. Cord could use one. Write to me!” she called as she grabbed up her hastily packed bag and went out the door.

“Of course.”

There was such a hollow silence in the room after Maggie’s departure that Gretchen could hardly bear it. There were television programs, but only on a handful of channels, and most of them were in Arabic or French. Only the news channel was in English. The room was a good size, but it was claustrophobic under the circumstances. Gretchen had to stretch her legs. She decided to go and play in the swimming pool. She might as well get a little sun while she could.

The afternoon was lonely, although she met other tourists and began to recognize them on sight. But she sat at a table by herself during the afternoon and evening meals and went up to her room early. She imagined that Maggie would be on her way back to Brussels by now to catch her flight home. She’d be alone, too.

She thought about their missed day trip and thought that perhaps the next morning she could get Mustapha to take her on the tour of the Grotto of Hercules that she and Maggie had planned for today. Then, she could go to the coastal city of Asilah the following day. It would be something to look forward to.

She slept restlessly, but felt oddly refreshed when she awoke the following morning. She put on a sleeveless yellow-and-white patterned long dress with a white knit jacket over it and left her hair long around her shoulders as she went to the concierge to see if he could help her find Mustapha.

In her haste, she ran almost headlong into a very distinguished-looking man in a gray designer silk suit. He caught her shoulders to steady her when she lost her footing and his twinkling black eyes searched her face amusedly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I mean, excusez-moi, monsieur,” she corrected, because he looked French. Sort of. He was elegant and he might have been handsome, except for the deep scars down one lean, clean-shaven cheek. His straight hair was as black as his eyes, and he had a grace of carriage that was rare in a man so tall. He was darker than most American men, but not radically so, and lighter than some of the Arabs and Berbers she’d seen here. He was very tall. Gretchen only came up to his chin.

“Il n’ya pas de quois, mademoiselle,” he replied suavely, in a deep voice, as soft as velvet. “I am undamaged.”

She grinned at him, liking the way his eyes sparked. “I’ll watch where I’m going next time.”

“You are staying here?” he asked with a polite smile.

She nodded. “For a few days. I’m on my way to a new job in Qawi, but I wanted a vacation first. It’s beautiful here.”

“A new job in Qawi?” he prompted with unusual interest.

“Yes. I’m going to work for the sheikh,” she said confidingly. “Public relations,” she added. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

He was quiet for a space of seconds and his quick, intelligent eyes narrowed. “Do you know this part of the world well?”

“It’s my first time out of the United States, I’m afraid,” she said. She smiled again. “I feel so stupid. Everybody around here speaks at least four languages. I only speak my own and a little Spanish.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Amazing,” he murmured.

“What is?”

“A modest American.”

“Most of us are modest,” she told him, grinning. “Well, a few of us are rude and conceited, but you mustn’t judge a whole country by a handful of people. And Texans are usually very modest, considering that our state is better than all the others!”

He chuckled. “You are from Texas?”

“Oh, yes,” she told him. “I’m a certified cowgirl,” she added dryly. “If you don’t believe it, I’ll rope a cow for you anytime you like.”

He chuckled again at her enthusiasm. He couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone like her except for once, a few years ago. He pursed his chiseled lips and studied her again, closely. “I understand that Qawi is smaller than even one of your states.”

She looked around her with eyes that seemed to find everything interesting. “Yes, but America is pretty much the same wherever you go,” she pointed out. “Here, the music is different, the food is different, the clothes are different, and there’s so much history that I could spend the rest of my life learning it.”

“You like history?”

“I love it,” she said. “I wish I could have gone to college and studied it, but my mother had cancer and I couldn’t leave her alone very much. I had to while I worked, of course, but I couldn’t take classes, too. There was no time. And no money. She died four months ago and I still miss her.” She smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble on like that.”

“I enjoyed it,” he replied, and seemed to mean it. “Mademoiselle Barton!” the concierge called to her.

It took several seconds for her to realize that the concierge had mistaken her for Maggie. Which was just as well, she supposed. She excused herself, went around the tall man with the briefcase in one hand, and went to the desk.

“Mustapha has already left to take a party of our guests to the Grotto of Hercules,” he said apologetically. “But if you still wish to go, our car is at your disposal, and we can ask one of the other guides to accompany you.”

“I don’t know…” Gretchen said hesitantly. She didn’t think she was going to enjoy the trip all alone.

“Excuse me,” the tall man interjected, joining her at the counter. “I had planned to go see the Grotto myself. Perhaps I could intrude on the young lady’s company…?”

She looked up at him with pure relief. “Oh, that would be lovely…I mean, if you’d like to go?”

“I would.” He glanced at the concierge and spoke rapidly and in a language Gretchen couldn’t begin to understand. Comments passed back and forth and the concierge chuckled to himself. Gretchen was wondering if her impulsive acceptance was going to get her into trouble. She knew nothing whatsoever about the stranger…

“The gentleman is quite trustworthy, mademoiselle,” the concierge said to her when he noticed her worried look. “I can assure you that you will come to no harm in his company. Shall I ask, uh, Bojo—another guide—to bring the car to the front door now?”

Gretchen glanced at her companion, who nodded.

“Yes, then.” She hesitated. “But your briefcase…”

He handed it to the concierge with another brief spate of comment in that same musical but puzzling language and turned to Gretchen with a smile. “Shall we go?”

The hotel’s stately Mercedes, with a tall, intelligent Berber at the wheel, easily identified by the way he wore his mustache and beard, slid easily into the flow of traffic. Their guide, like the taxi driver at their arrival in Tangier, had the window down and spoke volubly to other drivers and pedestrians with long, sweeping waves of his arm as he passed them. The stranger told her that he’d instructed Bojo to take them first to the Caves of Hercules, which she’d wanted to see earlier, and then on to Asilah.

“Bojo was born in Tangier. He knows half the population and is related to the other half,” the tall man said, lazing back against his seat with crossed arms to observe her.

“Like back home in Jacobsville,” she said, understanding. “Small towns are nice. Everybody knows everyone else. I don’t think I’d be happy in a big city, where I wouldn’t know anybody at all.”

“Yet you left your small town to take a position in a foreign—very foreign—country,” he said, and it was a question as much as a statement of fact.

She smiled absently as she looked past the driver’s head to the narrow city streets ahead, lined with palm trees and pedestrians in brightly colored clothing. “With my mother dead, and no close relatives, I seemed to be looking at a dead end of a future back home.”

“You are not married, then?”

“Me? Oh, no, I’ve never been married,” she said absently. “I had a boyfriend.” She grimaced. “He thought I’d inherit a lot of property and money when my mother died, but the property was mortgaged to the hilt and there was only enough insurance for a simple funeral. He just vanished after the funeral. He’s dating a banker’s daughter now.”

Her companion’s face hardened visibly. He was studying her intently, but she didn’t notice. “I see.”

She shrugged. “He was nice to me, and at least I had someone for a little while, when Mama was the worst.” She sighed as her eyes followed the coastline. “Before, I never got to date much. She’d been sick for a long time, you see, and there was only me to take care of her. My brother helped as much as he could, of course, but he works for the government and he travels most of the time.”

“And there was no one else who could have helped you? A close friend, perhaps?”

She shook her head. “Just my friend Maggie, but she lived in Houston. Lives in Houston,” she faltered. “I lived on our little family ranch with Mama that my brother managed to save. We have a foreman who lives there now and works for shares.”

“This friend,” he persisted in a deceptively lazy tone. “Did she come abroad with you?”

“Yes, but she had to go home unexpectedly.” She frowned, wondering if she should be so forthcoming with a total stranger.

“And left you all alone and at the mercy of strangers?” he taunted in a soft, teasing tone.

She glanced at him with a suddenly impish smile. “Are you going to offer me candy and ask me to go home with you?” she asked.

He chuckled softly. “I abhor sweets, as it happens,” he said, crossing his long legs in their elegant slacks. “And you seem a bit too astute to be picked up in such a manner.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she murmured. “I’m partial to chocolates. I could be a real pushover to anybody with a pocketful of Godiva soft centers.”

“A fact I shall have to have to keep in mind, mademoiselle…Barton,” he said, so suavely that she missed the faint hesitation in his voice.

She searched his dark eyes, not liking to start off their friendship with a lie. “Mademoiselle Brannon,” she corrected. “Gretchen Brannon.”

He took the hand she offered and lifted it to his mouth. She grinned. “Mademoiselle Brannon,” he corrected. “Enchanté.” His eyes narrowed. “I understood the concierge to call you Mademoiselle Barton.”

She grimaced. “That’s Maggie Barton, my friend and my roommate. Her foster brother was terribly injured in an accident and she flew home this morning.” She bit her lower lip. “I probably shouldn’t ramble on about it, but she wants me to do something that isn’t quite ethical and my conscience is killing me.”

He leaned back, his eyes calm and faintly amused. “Please,” he invited with a gesture of one lean hand. “Often it helps to speak of problems to an uninterested but objective stranger.” When she hesitated, he chuckled. “We are strangers, n’est pas?”

“Yes. And I don’t guess you know anybody in Qawi?”

He lifted his eyebrows expressively.

She shrugged. “Well, Maggie got a job working for the sheikh there and since she can’t take it now, she wanted me to take her place without telling anyone who I was.”

His eyes were twinkling. “You disapprove?”

“She wasn’t really thinking straight, or she wouldn’t have suggested it. I don’t like telling lies,” she said flatly. “And I’m not any good at them, either. Besides, I don’t think I can pass for an executive-type businesswoman who’s also a widow. I’m not sophisticated and I don’t know how to plan parties or welcome visiting dignitaries. All I know how to do is legal work. I worked for a firm of attorneys in Jacobsville.”

He listened attentively, his eyes narrow with speculation and a half smile on his wide, thin mouth. “Amazing,” he murmured.

She looked up at him with wide gray eyes. “What is?”

“Never mind.” He searched her eyes. “So you think the job is beyond your capabilities?”

“Certainly it is,” she said. “I’m going to finish my vacation here and then fly to Amsterdam and go home,” she added, making her decision as she spoke.

One dark, elegant eyebrow lifted. “Do you believe in fate, Miss Brannon?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. I think you should go to Qawi.”

“And live a lie?” she murmured unhappily.

“No. And tell the truth.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward abruptly. “I know the Sheikh of Qawi. Rather, I know of him,” he said unexpectedly. “He is a fair man, and he admires nothing more than honesty. Use your friend’s ticket. Take the job.”

“He won’t give it to me,” she interrupted. “He was emphatic about Maggie’s qualifications, and one of them, for some reason, was that she’d been married…”

“Tell him the truth, and take the job,” he repeated firmly. “He will make allowances. I happen to know that his need of an assistant is personal and immediate. He will not want to waste time trying to find someone else with Madame Barton’s qualifications.”

“But I’m not qualified,” she emphasized.

He smiled. “To meet people?” he chided. “You and I are strangers, yet here we are sharing a holiday trip.”

She let a smile touch her soft mouth. “That was only because I almost knocked you down,” she pointed out. “I can’t really make a habit of it, just to meet people.”

He waved a hand. “I think you will make an excellent assistant.”

“As I mentioned earlier, I can’t speak any other language except Spanish.”

“You can learn Arabic.”

“And worst of all, I’m not Muslim,” she worried.

“Neither is the sheikh.” He leaned forward with a grin. “Qawi is unusual as a nation in the mixture of her cultures. There are as many Jews and Christians as there are Muslims, owing to an unusual colonial history. You will feel right at home,” he assured her. “And in the past two years, it has become an ally of both the United States and Great Britain.” He grinned wickedly. “Oil contracts are lucrative temptations to democracies. How many friends Qawi has gained because of her new wealth!”

She smiled. “You make this sound very easy,” she told him.

“As it is.” He frowned as he studied her oval face. She was attractive, but no real beauty. However her features were nice, and she had warm eyes. Her mouth was perfect. He grimaced as he looked at it and mourned for what he could never experience again. Her hair, though, was what fascinated him. It was platinum blond, obviously long, and definitely natural. She reminded him, oh, so much, of Brianne Martin…

She was looking at him, too. She wondered how he’d gotten those scars on his face. There were others on the back of his left hand, the same side as those on his face.

He saw her curiosity and touched his cheek lightly. “An accident, when I was much younger,” he said frankly. “There are other scars, better hidden,” he added in a harsh undertone.

She smiled self-consciously. “Sorry,” she said at once. “I didn’t mean to stare. They’re not disfiguring, you know,” she added easily. “You look like a pirate.”

His eyelids flickered. “Mademoiselle?”

“You need an eye-patch and a cutlass and a parrot, though,” she added. “And one of those sexy white ruffled shirts that leaves half your chest bare.”

His delight was in the explosion of brilliance in his black eyes, in the hearty laugh that fell like music on her ears. She had a feeling that he laughed very rarely.

“Oh, and a ship,” she continued. “With black sails.”

“One of my ancestors was a Riffian Berber,” he told her. “Not quite a pirate, but very definitely a revolutionary.”

“I just knew it,” she said with glee. She searched his dark eyes and felt a thrill in the pit of her stomach that had no counterpart in her memory. Her breath was catching in her throat. No man had ever made her feel so feminine. “Have you ever ridden a camel?” she asked.

“What prompted that question?” he asked.

She indicated a man standing with a small herd of camels at the front of a hotel on the coast, whose parking lot they were just entering. “I really do want to ride a camel before I go home.”

“There are no saddles, you know,” he said as the driver parked the car and got out to open the door for them.

Gretchen looked at her gray slacks and sandals. “No stirrups, either?”

“No.”

She looked longingly at the camels. “They’re so pretty. They’re like horses on stilts.”

“Treachery!” he remonstrated. “To compare a mere beast of burden with something so elegant as our Arabian horses!”

She arched her eyebrows and looked up at him. “Do you ride?”

“Of course I ride.” He looked at the camels with distaste. “But not in a suit.” An Armani suit, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

She caught his sleeve lightly. She didn’t touch people often, but she felt safe with him. He wasn’t a stranger, even though he should have been. “Please?” she asked. “I don’t even want to go far. I just want to know what it’s like.”

It was like gossamer strands of silk brushing open nerves to have her soft green eyes look at him that way. Her fingers weren’t even touching his skin, but he felt their warmth right through the fabric, and his breath caught. Something unfamiliar tautened his tall, fit body.