Desire In The Desert: Sheikh's Rule

“She’ll be busy on this one.”

A minute later she yawned. “We should get some sleep. Or at least try,” she said.

She was right. He’d woken this morning into a nightmare and hadn’t had time or thought to even run a comb through his hair. His only consideration for the last fourteen hours had been Tara and he knew she would be his purpose until she was home safe. Yet, as he met the blue smoke of Kate’s eyes, he felt oddly connected, calm.

Minutes seemed to tick by like hours. She yawned again and stretched out on one of two leather sofas that rested against opposing corners of the sprawling office. He got up and brought a blanket to her, laying it gently over her.

“You should get some sleep, too,” she suggested.

But fifteen minutes later he knew she wasn’t going to sleep, either. He could hear her turn this way and that. He stood at the window, the thought of sleep an impossibility. He leaned against the ledge. There was nothing for them to do and nowhere for them to go, and it was killing him.

Suddenly her phone buzzed a warning for an incoming text message. He turned around and switched on a nearby light as she sat up, the blanket spilling around her waist, and pulled her phone from her pocket. There was something oddly erotic at seeing her in that state, sleepy, although she hadn’t slept, her hair mussed, as if she’d just had a passionate... He bit back the thought.

“I didn’t know that you left my number for the tower dump info,” she said.

“My phone stays here,” he said, his voice husky with conflicting emotion, fear for Tara, desire for Kate. Only one of those emotions was acceptable and it seemed he could control neither. “I’ll take the satellite phone.”

“I suppose I should have assumed that as we’re not taking your phone with us.”

“Right. Zafir will be acting in my stead. Pretending to be me.”

She paused as she read the message. She frowned. “The location changed slightly. Barb says the original call came from thirty miles southeast of Marrakech.” She scrolled down and then looked up.

“We head out at first light exactly as we planned, nothing changes,” he said. “Anything else?”

“I’d suggest we leave earlier. We could be going deep into the desert or not.” She shrugged. “It’s a crap shoot at this point and we don’t know what we might encounter. We can make up time on the highway at night, head in the general direction of that call. That way, if anything goes wrong or changes—we’re already on the road. I’d feel better about that. I’m sure you would, too.”

Minutes passed and turned into an hour. The silence was becoming unbearable.

Then Emir’s phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket and looked at the caller ID.

“Faisal.”

He was surprised, and yet oddly not, to see that it was his brother. Faisal was the only one in the family who hadn’t known about Tara. He guessed that was no longer the case.

“Yeah,” he answered, thinking how few telephone conversations he had with Faisal except on a business level. They usually communicated by text. That fact alone told him that Faisal knew what had happened.

“I heard about Tara, man.” There was tension and worry straining Faisal’s voice.

Emir gripped the phone, wishing he had news, something to give his brother, hope for all of them. Faisal was close to Tara in ways neither he nor the rest of his brothers were. For Zafir and Emir, and even Talib, she had been the child they had raised. For Faisal, who was nearest in age, she was his childhood playmate and friend, and even now, as adults, they were close to each other. That was one of the key reasons why Emir didn’t trust Faisal not to go off on a mission to kill those who had taken his sister. As a result, they had delayed telling him.

He’d meant to call in the minutes before he put together what was needed to take him and Kate safely into the desert, but Faisal had beat him to it. “How’d you find out?”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Soon. I didn’t want...”

“I had a right to know.”

“I know and I would have...” He stopped. He’d waited too long. But what was done couldn’t be undone and justification wouldn’t change anything. “Who told you?”

“Talib called.”

“Talib,” he said, and his voice held little inflection as he fought a red cloud of anger. At another time he would have torn a strip off Talib for going against his wishes. But this was an emotional time for all of them. Faisal needed to be told. Emir had just wanted to ensure that the way Faisal heard wouldn’t set him off.

“Where are you?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer, knowing that Faisal could be impulsive when it came to something this serious, especially if it involved Tara. His fist clenched and his temple pounded, and he didn’t want to hear the answer. His brother could be on a flight to Morocco for all Emir knew. That was the last thing they needed. Too many people looking and Tara could pay with her life. He turned, startled as a gentle hand touched his arm, and he was looking into blue eyes that reminded him of an azure sea. He took a step back, looked away from her mesmerizing eyes, unsure what to make of Kate’s touch, but her intent was clear. Calm down.

“At home.” Faisal’s voice was strained. “But I’m debating if that’s smart, if...”

Relief flooded through him that Faisal hadn’t boarded a plane and wasn’t halfway across the Atlantic on his way there. Hearing his voice...for a moment it was like Tara was in this room, like everything was right. But that wasn’t the case. She was still missing. But Faisal was cooperating, for now. “Stay there. We don’t need—”

“Me flying over there.” Faisal cut him off. “And killing the creeps who did this and anyone else who stands in my way?” Anger and sarcasm laced his words. “Don’t worry. I’m not coming over. Not yet. I know we need calm heads to find them and get Tara back, but once that’s done...” His words trailed off.

“We’re doing everything necessary—”

“Stop!” Faisal warned. “I know you’re on this. Adam’s already briefed me. No worries,” he said before Emir could add anything to that. “Adam will be kicking butt if I make a move to go over there. But, man, I can’t do nothing. At least, I’m having a hard time doing it.” He laughed. A dry, humorless sound that seemed to make fun of his words more than anything else. “Can you find her? Will you be enough, you and K.J.?”

“We have to be. We need you in Wyoming,” Emir reiterated, knowing it was a fact Faisal was well aware of and, despite what he’d said, probably the one reason he was still there. They’d acquired a number of high-profile cases over the last months and Emir only expected more. And, like Faisal, Talib was also occupied with managing their office here, at least until Tara was found. The only difference was that Talib could still be involved, if necessary, for he could be here on a minute’s notice, unlike Faisal. He knew that would be tough for Faisal to take, but it was how it had to be.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, an edge to his voice that wasn’t normally there. “Damn. I just hope she’s not frightened.”

Frightened. It was a word that hung thick and dark between them. They’d rather have Tara pissed than frightened, but reality danced and darted unspoken between them.

“We’ll find her.” Emir felt like he was repeating a phrase he’d committed to in blind faith. But this couldn’t end any other way than the way he wanted it to end—with Tara, at home laughing with them and at them, as she always did.

“You’re still at the compound?” Faisal asked.

“Yeah,” Emir said. “But not for long. I’ll fill you in soon. Kate and I—”

“Kate?” Despite the gravity of the situation, there was an amused edge to Faisal’s voice that made Emir feel oddly defensive.

“K.J.,” he said, shifting to the initials that it seemed everyone else used, and yet she’d asked him to call her Kate. But it was more than that. To him, she was Kate, not K.J. He shifted the phone from his left ear to his right, as if that would change the fact that his brother had just hinted there might be something in his feelings for Kate that was more than employer and employee. Utterly ridiculous. He liked her. They were partners in this case, nothing else. “We’re heading out just before dawn. We’re trying to play it low-key, not look like we’re doing anything more than waiting.”

“So what do you have on them?”

“Not much. We think there might be two groups, unorganized, possibly not working together. We’ll track them to the last phone call and from there, after what Ahmed said, we think they might be heading into the Sahara.” He hesitated. What they had was so little—nothing to go on. “Zafir will handle negotiating with them going forward.” He didn’t mention the fiasco at the airport. None of that was relevant, not now, at least not to Faisal, and could only convince him that he was needed. Right now, giving him less information was for the best, as was involving less people.

“Exactly what I would have done,” Faisal said shortly, the frustration evident in his voice.

“Look, I’ll be in touch.” Emir hesitated again. “If you have any...”

“Ideas. Yeah, you bet I’ll call. And, by the way, about K.J.—Kate,” he corrected, that infuriating hint of amusement back in his voice. “You might only have known her for a short time, but I believe our father fell for Mother in the space of twenty-four hours.” He chuckled at his dig.

“We’ll find her,” Faisal said, the humor replaced by an edgy determination.

“We will,” Emir repeated and clicked off. So far he’d managed to ensure that Faisal was staying put, for now. He sank back in the rich leather chair that had been his father’s, put his elbows on the massive desk and lowered his head to his arms.

“Bloody lie,” he muttered, for, despite his words, in his heart he was very afraid there was the possibility of failing, of losing Tara. It was a possibility he’d refused to admit but it was a fear that had harbored like a thorny intruder in his heart since the beginning.

Chapter Seven

Kate looked at her watch. “I feel like we should have something substantial to move on but yet if it were like any other case...” Her voice trailed off.

“But it’s not,” he said. “Especially the way it’s been going. They’re not following a norm. Two demands for money. You know that’s not normal or, at least, standard behavior.”

“They’re not rushed. They feel like they have time. That’s a good thing.”

He didn’t reply as he stood at the window, the same one he’d stood at all those hours ago after he’d first received the news of Tara and while he’d waited for his brothers. He was pulled to the window, and had been throughout the evening, to the lights of Marrakech that seemed to lead him beyond and to the outside of the city. But there was no promise of answers. All he could see was a memory, Tara’s face—smiling, happy. But all that had vanished. Instead she was in jeopardy. He tried to focus on the city, on taking his mind elsewhere and in that way relaxing enough to possibly come up with another angle—an idea that had yet to be considered.

He turned, looked to the right at the lights of the more modern city center and business hub. Then his gaze moved to where the ancient beginnings of Marrakech lay, taking in the labyrinth of tight streets and passageways, where businesses and residences hid behind ancient walls and where tourism and local shopping blended easily with snake charmers and tattoo artists.

The art and culture that crowded the narrow streets came from a heritage they all shared, from beginnings somewhere deep in the heart of the wind and sun-carved desert. It was a place of mystery and charm and one that hid the good as easily as it hid the bad.

His grip tightened on the window ledge. This was doing no good at all. For it was from the country’s heart that Tara had been taken.

“Emir? What is it?”

Kate’s voice had that caress, subtle, unintentional, but it reached to the heart of who he was, to places he hadn’t let anyone in, in a very long time.

He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t bear the sympathy he told himself he knew she was feeling. She didn’t understand—couldn’t—for, no matter how well intentioned, to her, Tara was just a case. She couldn’t be anything else, for Kate didn’t know her. They’d never met. “Nothing. Get some sleep while you can.”

“I already tried that, didn’t work.”

He could hear her moving quietly in the darkness. Only the wafting scent of coconut combining oddly with the faint scent of myrrh alerted him that she was near. He didn’t know how it had come to be, that the scents of his homeland seemed such a part of her.

And then she was beside him. “It’s beautiful even at night.”

He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“She’s not just a case,” she said as the moments of silence turned into minutes. “Not to me. Not like you think.”

He started. How had she read his mind? She lay a hand over his where it rested on the ledge. She’d done that before, but this time heat seemed to run through his core, connecting them in a way he was unable to analyze, wanting him to turn to her to...he pulled his hand away.

He was torn. Worry for Tara, fury at her captors and now the conflicted feelings toward Kate. He had to get it together and that meant focusing on something completely different.

There were hours before they could move into action but, in the meantime, they needed to set safeguards in place. He picked his phone up and turned it over. “It’s our only contact with them—the pigs who have Tara.” He put the phone down. “I don’t like the idea of leaving it...of trusting...”

“Zafir will be fine,” Kate assured him. “They’ll never know it’s not you. And we’ll be in touch.” She looked at her watch. It was only 7:55 p.m.

“How do you know he won’t slip? That—”

“You’re not giving him credit.”

He shook his head. “Zafir’s good, but this is Tara we’re talking about. Any one of us could break under the pressure. We—”

“Stop.” Her shoulder brushed against his. “I’d work with any of you in a heartbeat. And in a case like this, the most important one you’ll ever work, no one’s going to mess up.” She looked at him and he knew she could see the doubt in his face. He couldn’t hide it. He’d never doubted any of their abilities before, but it had never mattered so much.

“Zafir is good,” she repeated. “You know that. And I can vouch for him. I’ve read some of the cases he was involved in.” She smiled. “Despite the talk—he’s good.”

Emir turned to face her. She’d taken the elastic out of her hair and now her long, straight, blond locks hung loose and soft, framing her face and skimming well past her shoulders.

“Interesting, your brother.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rumor is that he’s always got a romance going. Most recently a model. Gorgeous redhead.” She laughed.

“Office talk?” He frowned. He abhorred gossip.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I was trying to lighten the mood. Inappropriate, I know...”

He glanced down and saw that she wove her fingers together—long, delicate fingers. Sensitive fingers, Tara might have said, but Tara had always been an intuitive sort. Is, he reminded himself. They’d find her.

“Emir, listen.”

She shifted, her hair gleaming in the gentle, low light of the reading lamps. Again the delicate scent, the combination that was so uniquely her, wafted from her and seemed to overwhelm him, to make him more aware of her than he wanted or needed to be.

“I’m listening,” he said.

She looked up at him. “I feel like there’s something eluding us.”

“So let’s go over it again—what we know,” he said with relief to be doing something.

She leaned against the desk.

He leaned back against the window ledge. “I don’t know what we could have missed. She was taken by one, maybe two, men outside the gates, but we know there were others involved.”

“If two of them died this afternoon, how many are left?” Kate asked as if the attack had been no more traumatic than a trip to the grocery store.

“What are you suggesting?”

“That there are no others.” She shrugged. “I know that sounds unrealistic, impossible even, but we have to explore every option.”

“That isn’t an angle we’ve even considered.”

“There hasn’t been a demand in hours. Since the attack...” Her words hung in the silence between them, which seemed dark and treacherous now that the disturbing alternative had been presented.

“I don’t think it’s possible.” The truth was that he didn’t want to think it was possible since it brought forth so many other options. But that wasn’t who he was; he had to go there—to explore possibilities that were difficult to consider.

“That she’s out there in the night...” His voice threatened to break. He took a deep swallow and breathed out the last word, and it almost broke him. “Alone.”

He pushed away from the window and began pacing the room. He stopped as he faced the window again, his thoughts focused on the terror of that one thought. It was more horrific than anything that had come before. A shudder ran through him, deep and agonizing. He couldn’t imagine his baby sister alone, possibly terrified.

“She’s tough,” Kate said. “That was clear in everything I’ve read. And, truly, what I said earlier, I’m sorry. I’ve only added more worry by introducing the possibility.”

“Don’t be.” He cut her off, hearing the gravel edge of emotion in his voice.

“I doubt very much if it’s true. There’ll be another demand. Those men might be a splinter group or part of the main group who wanted you out of the picture for whatever reason, and me, as well. I think both those explanations hold more validity than my other theory.”

“We can’t discount anything.”

“And definitely not the fact that they’re going to be demanding more money. Three hundred and fifty thousand, considering what your family is worth, isn’t a lot for all the trouble they’re going to. They seem to know you won’t call the authorities.” She cleared her throat. “And having said that, ignore my last hypothesis—that there are no others. It doesn’t fly.”

“You’re right.” He took a breath. “But why are they taking their sweet time to demand more?”

“To put you on edge. Which will obviously give them an advantage. You are kept guessing, the stress of waiting, of inertia, wears you down.”

He knew she was right about everything but the thought of Tara alone, left in the desert to find her own way out or die. Once that idea had been introduced, he knew it would be almost impossible to dispel.

“I think our original theory that they are a group who, for some reason, started acting against each other is far more plausible,” Kate said. “Forget my earlier musings. I was thinking aloud, exploring possibilities.”

There was something intuitive about her; a calming presence that put him off balance and made him want to take her in his arms and kiss her.

“Emir?”

He pushed the inappropriate thought from his mind and gave her his full attention.

“It was a theory that probably isn’t very plausible. Hopefully we’ll have more information, a direction, before we hit the road. If not, we get moving, anyway. With any luck, by this time tomorrow, this will be over—or...” She hesitated. “Or at least close.”

Silence hung between them for a minute then two.

“Do you think they meant to keep you from leaving Marrakech and following them?” Kate asked as she mulled over the profiles of the deceased pair of attackers.

“By attempting to kill me or, more appropriately, us?” He could hear the amusement in his voice. If it hadn’t been about Tara, he would have enjoyed sparring with her—going over the theories, discounting them, coming up with new ones.

“I don’t think they expected me or Dell. And when they realized you weren’t alone, it all fell apart.” She stood, paced the length of the office.

“So, opening fire at the edge of airport property was to threaten the family.”

“Exactly. You were the one who would go after them. They knew that.”

“And Faisal or any of the others wouldn’t?”

“Faisal is an ocean away. Zafir is more apt to play their game and, of course, Talib will agree with Zafir. He usually does.” She smiled. “Not that Talib doesn’t have his own mind, but he tends to think much like Zafir.” She looked at him. “Whereas you? You will play to a point but it won’t stop you from going after her. You’re more like Faisal than you know.” She smiled. “You’re wondering how I know that.”

“Am I?”

“I’ve studied many of the agency’s past cases and I’ve spoken to Adam. I might not be completely right, but I think I’m close. As far as Talib is concerned?” She put a finger to her chin as if considering. “Middle child. I filled in the blanks—classic.”

“Assumption,” he said with a pained attempt at a smile. “But impressive.”

“And you? Oldest child, responsibility of raising a younger sibling foisted on you at a young age. Serious. Determined. In charge. Textbook.”

“So this was all about getting me out of the way?” he asked and couldn’t kill the sarcasm in his voice. “The theory must seem like overkill, even to you.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not,” she said. “Think about it.”

There were so many different angles in any kidnapping case and because it was Tara, there seemed even more. The silence since the last call they’d received from the kidnappers terrified him, not for himself but for Tara. She was everything and it was up to him to make sure she came back, for their family was nothing without her.

“Emir...” Kate began, her hand reaching for his.

He shook his head. He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d felt any lower, any more desperate. It was an out-of-control feeling that terrified him and he knew he had to get it together.

He looked at Kate and wished that he hadn’t. He couldn’t handle the compassion in her beautiful eyes. Her lips were slightly parted and seemed to offer the only chance at hope he had in this dark and dreadful night.

He leaned down and, as his lips met hers, he felt the power of what the two of them were and had proved only a few hours ago. Now he felt a different power, the power of where her soft lips could take him, where the taste of her could lead, where... He drew back, leaving the kiss as only a sweet meeting, a gentle caress, leaving the potential behind.

“I’m...” He wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say. His emotions were playing with his logic and all he wanted to do was to kiss her again. He shoved the feeling back. The life-and-death adrenaline rush had awoken another primitive need, nothing more.

But as he turned his back to her and faced the city, the haunting tones of the call to prayer began. The ancient notes pierced the silence and taunted the occupants of that one room in the Al-Nassar compound with the reminder of how life was so much more important than the moments that defined it.

And worse, that time was slipping away.

Chapter Eight

Monday, September 14, 8:15 p.m.

Emir’s phone beeped just as the call to prayer ended, as if the solemnity of the one had somehow influenced the other. He pulled the phone out of his pocket as his eyes met Kate’s and he knew they were on the same page. She connected with him like no one, no woman, ever had. It was different than how he connected with Zafir, for this connection felt intimate. It was another thought he didn’t want to consider. All he wanted to consider right now was that they were back in business.

“Zafir,” he said for Kate’s benefit. He’d known without looking at his phone, with an instinct that they’d had since birth, that it was his twin. “What do you have?” he asked. He nodded at Kate’s look and pressed the speaker button as he alerted his twin, “You’re on speaker.”

“An ID on one of your attackers. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything on the other. But the one we did find...well, he’s got an interesting trajectory.”

Emir looked up and met the full impact of Kate’s thoughtful yet intense look. She was leaning forward, her chin in the palm of one hand and her phone in the other. He started when he realized she was recording the call. She was good, proving once again that she was one step ahead of him.