Falling For Her Reluctant Sheikh

Okay, that deflated her anger balloon a little. Except that bit about the unclean water, and her not having the tablets … “Maybe not, but you’re not going to get my bag because you want to put me out. So don’t get too smug and superior just because you have a valid reason for going on this trip.”

She pretended he hadn’t said she smelled good, because she really didn’t know what to do with that information. Thank him? Give him the name of her favorite perfume?

“Fine.” He grabbed the radio handset and said something she didn’t understand as the truck rolled on.

The other truck hadn’t yet passed through the gate, and she turned to look over her shoulder, trying to work out what he’d just done. “Why did you agree to my coming in the first place if you’re so all fired against it?”

“I was tired, Jay was persistent,” Khalil answered, hanging the radio handset back in its place.

With how stringently he wanted her to not go with him, Adalyn had no illusion he would wait if she climbed out of the truck and ran to pick up her bag. Resigned, she dragged on her seat belt.

Looking at him made her angrier. Looking out the side window made her feel sick. Looking out the front terrified her. She went with angry and twisted slightly under the confines of her overly tightened seat belt to look at Khalil.

Even scowling, as he was, he was handsome. That probably played into his privileged air. Royalty, doctor, handsome … It all added up to spoiled and used to getting what he wanted. He probably had insomnia because his bed was too lumpy, like the princess and the pea.

“I don’t buy it,” she said, trying to ignore the way her stomach squeezed and rolled with every creak and crackle from the window she’d broken. The wind tore at the shards, barely holding together. What if the bits flew up and got in his eyes and blinded him and he crashed them into something deadly? She chanced another glance back at the hole, mentally calculating what was safest—for the windows up front to be up or down. If she rolled down her window, would the air flow drag the shards into the cab or push them out of the truck rather than in? Maybe they wouldn’t fly around at all. Maybe this was just another paranoid scenario playing out in her mind, like the thousands of fiery deaths she’d imagined on the way there.

Stay on topic.

Khalil was the topic. And narrating all her bloody imaginings to him wouldn’t inspire any sort of confidence that she could help him. “I can’t believe that with this level of aversion you left the situation to chance. You’re too domineering and controlling to leave this up to fate. You fit the alpha-male mold even without the royalty stuff added on, but without even knowing me you counted on me chickening out. That’s dumb. Maybe you should try to sleep more.”

Antagonizing him probably wouldn’t inspire confidence in her, either.

He looked sideways at her, his eyes off the road long enough to increase her worry. She took a deep breath and tried to relax her arms and shoulders. With the road rushing at her, she couldn’t even release a fraction of that tension. She closed her eyes and tried again, channeling the physical manifestation of her fear to her right hand, where she could at least grip and abuse the armrest on the door and he might not see.

“You should try to sleep now,” he said, his voice remarkably level.

“Yeah, that won’t happen. I tried to sleep all the way here. It didn’t work at all.”

“Try again.” Whatever anger she’d roused in him earlier was now gone. He could’ve been telling her the time of day for all the emotion reflected in his tone. Maybe she hadn’t antagonized him so much after all. “We have a few hours’ drive ahead of us.”

“That may be, but …” But. But how much should she reveal? Would it make him act like less of a jerk if he knew what she was putting herself through for him? Or, more accurately, for Jamison? Or would he just use it as ammunition to get her back out of the truck and his presence? “I can’t sleep in a moving car. Or plane. You should be able to understand someone not being able to sleep when they want to. I would love to go to sleep and block all this out, but I can’t.”

“The truck scares you?”

“All vehicles scare me,” she muttered, and laid her head back, eyes still closed and arms now folded. “They’re dangerous. People die all the time in car accidents.”

Her voice became small and thready with the last statement, reminding him of her history in a way that left him feeling unaccountably exposed and irritated. When their parents had died, Jamison had been away at school with him, and Khalil had witnessed firsthand how destructive it could be to lose both your parents in your formative years. He’d pulled Jamison back from his more destructive actions, distracting him in whatever way he’d been able to … including a couple of fistfights just because picking a fight and making Jay mad at him had been the better alternative to the things he’d been about to do.

Had anyone helped her with her grief? If she really was scared of all vehicles, she must have felt put through the wringer to get here.

And that thought didn’t help, either. He wanted her to go, but using a fear born of the death of her parents to make her do what he wanted seemed like the worst kind of evil.

CHAPTER THREE

ADALYN WHITE-KNUCKLED HER way through the desert trek. Now and then Khalil talked to her, and she knew it for what it was—distraction. However much he didn’t want her there, when it mattered he was kind.

When they reached the camp location he turned and looked at her. “Take a few minutes to collect yourself before you get out, but don’t take too long—the sun is reaching its zenith and the heat will rise very quickly now that the air-conditioning isn’t running.” Nevermind the now somewhat larger hole in the back window …

She nodded, finally letting herself look out the dusty windows at the little tent village. “Khalil?”

Saying his name stopped him from climbing down, though the door was open. He closed it enough to dampen their voices and kept his low. “Don’t call me Khalil. I’m Zain while we’re here. The people know me by one name—having you use another will confuse things.”

“Right.” She nodded, still not thinking all that clearly. “Zain? There’s a man running toward the truck.”

That effectively took his attention from her. Zain-not-Khalil climbed down immediately and closed the door. Through the broken window she could hear them speaking, but that didn’t mean she understood the words. What she did pick up on was the urgency in the man’s voice. She leaned over to get a better view of him gesturing quickly toward one of the nearby tents.

“Adalyn, I need your help.” Zain still sounded as authoritarian as Khalil had, but it made her move despite the earlier order to stay until she’d collected herself.

Adalyn climbed out and rounded the truck, meeting him at the back. “What’s wrong?”

“His son is sick, and they’ve not been able to even keep water in him for two days.”

Adalyn looked at the man and then at Khalil, nodding. “What do you want me to do?”

He’d already pulled open the back doors of the truck and climbed in. “I want you to assist me. My medics aren’t here yet, they went back to get your bag. So you’re my nurse for now.” In the back, he dug into a couple of different trunks and one cooler, pulling out supplies and stuffing them into an actual old-time doctor’s bag.

“Nurse. Okay.” She nodded, even if she wasn’t sure what he wanted. “My clinical skills are rusty. I haven’t actually treated injuries and illness since residency.” Wait, what had he said? “Did you say that they went to get my bag?”

“Yes.” He answered her question first, then added, “If you can follow instructions, you’ll be fine.”

“I can follow instructions.” That probably wasn’t the correct word for it, considering he was more giving orders than helpful instructions. But she could follow orders, too, when it suited her to do so.

“Get the doors. Then catch up.” He jumped down, ushering the worried father with him off in the direction of the nearby camp.

Adalyn climbed into the truck, closed the trunks and flipped latches, then jumped down and did the same with the double doors at the back. Without the prospect of the vehicle moving, it lost its ability to scare her. Just having the chance to move and focus on something aside from imminent death let her compose herself. By the time she rounded the truck Khalil had reached a tent and she barely caught sight of him ducking to enter through the flap. Five more seconds and she might not have even known which tent he’d gone to.

As she hurried across the sandy expanse, the sun heated her dark hair to temperatures it never saw outside styling appliances. The long, thick, chestnut fall of hair carried that heat down her back so that by the time she reached the tent and called a greeting, she wished she’d pulled it up. Or cut it. Or maybe that she’d just let him head off into the desert on his own, rather than fighting to come with him. The man hadn’t been wrong in warning her that she wasn’t built for this kind of adventure. New Orleans heat was a different creature entirely.

“Zain?” She said his fake name, not knowing what the protocol was to enter someone’s tent. You couldn’t exactly knock or ring the bell.

“Come.” He had that autocratic edge to his voice again.

She pulled open the flap and stepped inside. It smelled like a sick ward, but it was somewhat cooler than the air outside, something she was thankful for.

In the center of the tent a woman covered in layers of undoubtedly uncomfortable cloth held a small child in her lap. From the sweat matting his short hair and the color of his face, Adalyn could tell his fever had reached worrisome levels. Without asking any other questions, she stepped over and knelt with Khalil.

“Rotavirus,” he said. “I need to set up an IV and get some fluids into him.”

Khalil hadn’t had much time to diagnose or examine before she’d gotten there, and that meant no time to sort out his supplies. When she opened the satchel and pulled out a bag of saline, she looked at him. “You expected rotavirus?”

“They had an outbreak of it a few weeks ago, and that’s actually the vaccines I’d intended to give.”

Rotavirus … What did she remember about this? Not usually deadly, but it could be. Poor drinking water and sanitation usually caused outbreaks.

“Are any other children ill?” While she quietly asked for updates—just making sure that her rusty information wasn’t going to cause tetanus—she fished out other supplies. The IV kit. Alcohol preps. Tourniquet.

“Not right now. But we’re not going to be able to give the vaccine to him for a couple of days, just to make sure.” The more he talked, the longer he was within the small tent, the more like a regular man he seemed … and less like an angry dictator. “They should be healthy before it’s given.”

Though he looked somewhat severe still, tension no longer stood out in cords down his neck. No matter what kind of edge he had in his voice when he spoke to her, when he spoke to these people … his people … Khalil’s voice became much gentler. She didn’t even need to understand the words to know what he was doing. Comforting. Reassuring. Explaining treatment. The things a good doctor did. Was this the man that Jamison called his best friend?

Adalyn waited for a lull in the conversation to ask, “How can we keep the other children from getting it?”

“My medics have a new purification system they’ll set up when they get here. And we’ll see what we can do for other interventions.” He looked at her, his honey-brown eyes taking on the quality of examination, and before he even said anything she knew what he was looking at. Inside the tent, sheltered from the sun, her skin still burned. She was going pink. Her sunburn had already started. And she’d probably have freckles before they got back to the palace.

“I didn’t swim in sunblock before I left this morning, which I should have done. I will remedy that when they get here with my bag.” It still shocked her that he’d given in on that. She kind of wished she’d been nicer to him in the truck, and she hadn’t thanked him yet … “I misunderstood. When you said ‘Fine,’ I thought you just meant you weren’t going to quarrel with me, but you meant the bag, right?”

He nodded and tied the band around the unconscious boy’s arm, then began prodding for a vein.

“Thank you … Doctor.” She’d almost called him Khalil, it had been on the tip of her tongue. She should probably stop thinking of him as Khalil if she wanted to maintain his cover. Which she did. He’d done something kind for her in getting her bag, maybe she could turn this situation around and still get him to let her help him. Maybe tomorrow after he’d had a night of sleep he’d be more reasonable about it. Maybe she could win him over, get his cooperation … and shorten the length of time she’d need to stay there, away from home.

Despite feeling and feeling for a vein, he still hadn’t picked up the needle or alcohol prep.

“It’s hard to find a vein when they’re very dehydrated,” Adalyn said. This was actually something she was good at.

“I know.”

“Of course you do. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate you didn’t. I was thinking out loud. But, as rusty as most of my clinical skills are, I’m actually really good at IVs.” He looked at her, the weight of his gaze settling on her, considering. He’d let her do it if she convinced him. “I can hit it. If you like. It’s actually something that I do regularly for an elderly neighbor. She’s not a child, but she’s got tiny veins.”

“Your neighbor needs you to set up an IV for her?”

“I do blood draws for her weekly to take with her to her anticoagulation appointment. I draw in the morning when I get in from work, we put it into a thermos and she takes it with her. They can never hit the vein without several stabs, so she prefers it if I do it.” Rather than give a fuller recitation of her most recent IVs, she figured she’d said enough for him to decide and quieted to let him work it out.

“I appreciate the offer.”

The woman who held her child hadn’t said anything, and Adalyn didn’t know how much English she understood, if any. So she did what she could and smiled, reaching over to pat the woman’s arm. “It’ll be okay. We’re going to help him.” And then asked Khalil, “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, but ignored her offer in favor of palpating the tiny arm for a vein.

“Upper arm might be better. I’d say leg, but they can kick those out pretty easy.”

He flipped off the tourniquet and moved to the boy’s other arm, starting over again.

Her keys …

Adalyn patted the many pockets on her pants, unsnapped a thigh pocket and fished out the set, then snatched the little laser she played with her neighbor’s cat with.

“What are you doing?”

“This will help.” She pressed the button to turn on the cheap little laser pointer and pressed it to the boy’s arm where he was palpating for a vein. Through the thin layer of baby fat the light illuminated the dark pathways that were blood vessels. “That help?”

“What the …?” He blinked and let her track the light over the boy’s skin. There were special infrared lights he’d heard of for illuminating veins, but he’d never seen such a cheap-looking gadget do it. “Is that infrared?”

“Wee sight illuminators are best, and I have one for Mrs. Stiverson’s sticks, but I didn’t bring it with me. I’ve used this in a pinch before, though. I probably should have left my keys at the p—” She stopped herself before palace came out of her mouth. “At home.” A slightly flummoxed shake of her head and she moved past it. “But I’m kind of afraid something will happen and I’ll be separated from something important if I don’t have it with me at all times.”

If he kicked her out of the country, she meant. Khalil could read between those lines easily enough.

The thought had occurred to him.

Rather than comment, he reached for another alcohol prep, swabbed the skin and then lifted her hand to swab the tip of the light and the area she’d pressed against the small boy’s arm. When he was certain that it was all disinfected and the skin illuminated, he felt right over one of the larger, dark vessels. “It’s not all that deep,” he murmured, getting a nod from her.

“And there’s a small amount of thickness on the edges, probably the walls of the vessel, but if you aim for the center you’ll be fine.”

After a few more words of reassurance for the mother, he asked the boy’s name and gave instructions on holding him snugly in case he woke up and began to struggle.

“His name is Nadim, and he’s three,” Khalil said in quiet English, since Adalyn had wanted to know. “If he wakes up, drop the light and hold his legs. She’ll have his top half, but if he has use of his legs he’ll be able to put up more of a fight.”

“Of course.” She kept the light against the boy’s skin, but with her other hand reached down and wrapped her fingers around the tiny ankle closest to Khalil.

So, she could follow orders.

Carefully, he threaded the line into the boy’s vein and when rewarded with a blood return attached a saline flush to double-check. Sometime in all this she’d dropped the light and had taken over holding the line so it didn’t slip out.

When he’d confirmed that the vein was indeed intact still, he taped down the cannula and she hooked the tubing up to the bag and stood, letting gravity feed the fluid down to the end before he attached it to the needle.

“How are we going to hang it?” she asked.

“We’ll have a stand when the medics get here.”

“I made them late.”

“No. Well, yes, but you’re earning your keep.” Her little cheap key chain light had saved him a lot of headache. Khalil might not want her there to help him, but he could appreciate the help she provided for the people in his care. “I might not have hit that vein without your trick, and most assuredly would not have on the first try. Where’d you learn that?”

“It’s something I always check on pretty much every light I get my hands on.” She smiled at him, her first honest, unguarded smile. Her cheeks bunched, bringing the pink closer to her green eyes so that they seemed all the greener, and gave that suggestion again of innocence. Beneath her aggravation at him there was a sweetness about her.

“My dad and I used to put flashlights to our cheeks, noses, whatever … then turn off the lights and make faces at one another with glowing cheeks and black hollow-looking eyes. Got me in the habit of checking different lights against my skin.”

He spoke again with the mother, giving her instructions and explaining what he was going to do. When he stopped speaking and looked at her again, Adalyn continued her story. “I had to give a presentation in college and got my own pointer because I wanted to be the best. I was nervous talking in front of everyone, but I managed to get through the whole thing by distracting myself by pressing it against my arm or hand and watching the veins get illuminated. Coping mechanism that turned into a trick that helped me in residency. I was all about tricks that might make me better able to do the job. I’m not a natural, like Jamison.”

“That why you went into sleep medicine?”

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