Heather Graham (8 page)

Alex ducked her head beneath the water to wet her hair. When she recalled the man who had so crudely abducted her, she felt strange little shivers of déjà vu, as if she had seen him before. There had been something about his eyes, the piercing, coal-black stare …

It was as if the answer to a riddle was evading her.

No, she thought, working the shampoo from the vial through her hair. She knew no Bedouins in this tiny country. Until recently the United Arab Emirates had been nothing but interesting reading to her when its strange conflicts of past poverty and modern wealth were mentioned in the financial pages.

There was something familiar about the man because he was an Arab and she had been in Egypt for the past two and a half weeks. The Arabs tended to have beautiful, mesmerizing eyes.

Oh Lord, Alex thought, I’m sitting here worrying about a man’s eyes when I’m in more trouble than I’ve ever been in during my entire life.

Was the man Sheriff? If so, why wouldn’t he talk to her? What did he want from her? He probably just wants to find out who I am and why I am trespassing on his lands, she reasoned. I’ll explain the entire situation, and if he is Sheriff, I will have reached him; and if he isn’t Sheriff, then surely he can tell me
how
to reach him.

Logical, Alex, beautifully logical. What if he’s just a backward tribesman, determined to grant you a permanent place in his harem? Eight years of education just to become an ornament.

The idea made her feel as cold as ice despite the heat of the water, which still steamed. Alex felt suddenly as if she were drowning, and she clenched her teeth, swallowed and took several deep, long breaths to fight away the panic.

A softly spoken word alerted her to the Arab woman’s presence nearby. Alex opened her eyes to see that a large linen towel was being offered her. She accepted the towel, and as the girl turned away again, she rose and wrapped herself within its massive folds. She squeezed the water from her hair as best she could and fluffed it vigorously with the towel.

Her thoughts returned uncomfortably to the expert Bedouin horseman who had, in Kelly’s ridiculously prophetic words, swept her away. Why would a man have a woman bathed in fragrance if he didn’t want … She shivered and forced her mind from panic. No, no, no … there had to be a way out. She had to find Jim. Someone would help her.

Rajman! Where was Rajman? What had happened to him when he had been escorted away?

For a moment she was tempted to bolt out of the tent clad only in the towel and race straight back into the desert. Only the sharp mental reminder that the bowing brutes outside the tent flap would merely catch her and physically restrain her kept her from behaving so foolishly.

Night would come. If she was quiet, if she watched, she would find a way to escape. Her sense of direction wasn’t that hot in Chicago; in the desert it would definitely be worse. But they had come from the northeast. The Persian Gulf was to the northeast, and even here the sun rose in the east and set in the west. If she could just get hold of a horse—a horse, please, God, not one of those stupid, traitorous camels.

The Arab woman was speaking softly again. Alex glanced her way to see that she was sweeping her arm in the direction of the bed, with its billowing silk canopy. Upon the spread was a peculiar assortment of clothing. The girl nodded with a warm smile beneath her gauze veil, as if she was pleased she had made Alex understand. She swept her arm again in the direction of the Persian rug and the brewing coffee, mimed that Alex should eat and started bowing out of the tent.

A second later Alex was left alone—within the tent. Outside, she knew, the guard dogs remained.

Not wanting to be caught in the towel should she receive another visitor, Alex hurried to the bed. The outfit assembled for her was not that of a belly dancer—but it was not much better. At any other time in her life she would have marveled at the beauty of the color and texture of the cloth. In her present situation a touch of the soft, sheer silk, patterned in trousers and midriff blouse, made shivers start attacking her spine with debilitating frequency.

A swatch of her still-damp hair suddenly fell in front of her eyes, and she was tempted to pull it out. She had been warned about her hair. But she had dutifully kept it covered! No one seeing her monotonous trek across the desert could have observed anything out of the ordinary. The insolent Bedouin horseman had, in fact, come after her from the front, as if he had known someone would be coming. Impossible. She had arrived only this morning. She had taken the most direct route possible.

Oh, God! What did any of it matter? She was a prisoner, bathed and perfumed as carefully as a farmer fed a steer for the marketplace. Marketplace. Oh, Lord. The Koran recognized slavery. She knew that much about the Islam religion. It was something one might chuckle about in the civilized safety of a Chicago apartment. A man could have four wives, and he could own slaves. They were to be fairly treated, and they were allowed to buy their freedom!

Was she going to be put up for some kind of auction? She was shaking profusely. Stay calm, Alex, stay calm, she warned herself. But it was almost impossible to stay calm under the circumstances. She was a mature, self-respecting, confident Ph.D. She had spent years of her life studying, and learning to hold her own inoffensively and excel graciously in a man’s world. And she was being reduced to this!

No, no! Someone would find her. She couldn’t simply disappear into the desert. There had to be some kind of local law. The official in Abu Dhabi knew she was out in the desert. Yet he had been the one to warn her.

Alex picked up the silks from the bed in a sudden fury and sent them flying across the sand floor and throw rugs. Such garments might be appropriate for certain Arabian women, but she was an American! She would wear her own khaki cotton outfit. If she didn’t continue to take herself seriously and maintain an outraged dignity, she would be playing right into his hands.

She stalked back toward the bathtub, where she had disrobed so hastily, only to discover her own clothing gone. A wave of frustrated fury swept over her and she kicked the huge metal tub—only to stub her toes. Swearing out loud, she hobbled back to the bed and started picking up the silks that were strewn at its base.

She was so engrossed that she didn’t notice the tent flap open; neither did she hear the quiet entrance of the black-robed Bedouin with the fire-dark eyes. Nor did she notice the smile of pure, patronizing amusement that filtered across his handsome features.

She allowed the towel to fall in a rumpled heap to the floor and, still muttering curses beneath her breath with a vengeance, started to adjust the silks.

He hadn’t been able to help smiling when he heard her curses. She was in the exact predicament in which she deserved to be, or at least she thought she was. But his smile also held a twinge of begrudging admiration. Despite everything, she was still fighting, still determined. He felt a small shade of remorse for what he had done as he watched her chin rise slightly as her lips trembled, but he quickly squashed his remorse. She was actually damned lucky that she had received only one hell of a scare and was not going to receive worse.

His smile faded suddenly as his eyes traveled over her body as she stood.

She had a gorgeous back, absolutely gorgeous. Her skin was a beautiful shade between ivory and rose, flushed as it was from the bath. Her shoulders were slender but very straight; the blades, rippling beneath her flesh, enticed a man’s hands to touch. Her spine was indented in intriguing shadow, her waist tucked in neatly and trimly at the end of a long, graceful and shapely torso. She had little dimples—further shadow allure—just above the spot where her buttocks swelled to full, firm crests, neither too little nor too much, padded just perfectly to give shape without bulk. Her legs were long and lithe and sleek—again, perfect. Not heavy but not thin, shapely and nicely, lightly sinewed.

She dipped and bent, swearing softly still, to step into the trousers, and he was afforded a partial glance at her breasts. They were like the rest of her—full, high and firm and tipped by peaks a deep and provocative shade of rose. He saw that the shadows and angles of her collarbones were as elegant as the shape of her back; they were fine and delicate and delineated. His smile slipped back into existence as he watched her dust off the soles of her feet before stepping into the pants. Her nose wrinkled slightly as she did so. In the middle of the desert, cursing her little heart away at the fates, she was meticulously finicky.

She straightened, and his view of her superbly shaped back—which narrowed to a hand span at the waist and flared prettily again at the hips—was obscured as the silk bodice slipped over her shoulders. It didn’t matter. The silk didn’t conceal as much as it enhanced. And besides, the vision he had just witnessed was indelibly ingrained upon his mind as surely as if he had been branded for life.

His smile suddenly became dry and rueful. For a moment he had wished he were a wild Bedouin sheikh, answerable to no laws but his own and those of Allah. Something of the ages had coiled within him, a savage, primitive, male and undeniable desire simply to ravish and possess, and in possessing, gaining and taking and holding all that was simply beautiful and desirable.

No head games, no pretense, no lies, no illusion or disillusion. Simple possession, simple giving, simple taking.

His smile again faded. He wasn’t a desert sheikh. He was bound by the morals of his world. And she wasn’t simply a woman. She was the witch who had a soaring temper and determination of her own; she was the sophisticated upstart who had invaded his privacy, who had viciously threatened him, who had insolently declared she would do exactly what she wanted to do.

And she also belonged to Jim Crosby. He could only assume she was his mistress, and he had to afford Crosby a certain envy. Crosby was a striking man himself; it was logical that he should attract a bright and beautiful woman. Well, for such beauty one man naturally envied another. As for her temper, Crosby was welcome to it. He would warrant that had she been abducted by a true roving sheikh, that gentleman of the desert would see to it that she spent her time in the harem with her mouth taped shut!

Alex glanced indignantly at her silk costuming. She was covered from head to toe, but somehow she would have felt more dressed in a string bikini. This was a far cry from the robes and galabias she had seen worn by the fellahin or peasant women along the banks of the Nile. But, she thought with a hint of woeful comfort, at least she was not going to be attacked in the bathtub. Her attire might be almost decadent, but decadent was better than none at all.

It was a prickling along her spine and a subtle new scent upon the heavy air that alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone. And she knew instantly, without conscious thought, that the intruder was not the Arab girl. The scent on the air was that of sandalwood and musk, and it was uniquely, ruggedly, hypnotically—male.

Alex spun quickly to find her coal-eyed captor standing perfectly still just inside the flap of the tent. He watched her with cool assessment—and no apology whatsoever.

She was definitely discomfited (wishing one could hide in a large paper bag was definitely “discomfited”) and unnerved. Caught totally off guard, she wondered how long he had been standing there. Feeling terribly self-conscious, she was tempted to drop to her knees to wrap her arms around herself.

She stood as still as he, willing herself not to jerk or tremble or react. Mentally and then physically she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, hoping the haughty, determined actions would allow her to speak with a haughty and determined voice.

“Who are you? I demand to know who you are!”

Her dignity disappeared when she stamped her foot after her last command, and she could feel the hysteria building inside her. It was almost impossible for her to curb the feelings. She was in a tent in an oasis God-knew-where, perfumed and bathed and dressed in an absurd costume, and facing the crazy Bedouin with the smoldering laser eyes who had brought her to her present condition.

“Who are you?” she shrieked. Why didn’t he answer her? Even if he didn’t understand English, he had to understand that she was furiously upset. And why was it that as soon as she needed it, she went blank on the sketchy knowledge of Arabic that she did have? Only one phrase would come to her mind—
Aenae imbasett giddaen
, which meant, “I’ve enjoyed myself tremendously.” And she surely didn’t want to say something like that.

While she stood in furious frustration, fists clenched at her sides, she tried desperately to recall a few more words in Arabic. Feeling tense and wounded didn’t help a bit; it created an entire mental block. And then, while she still struggled, he casually started walking forward and spoke. “I might ask you the same question.”

Dan wondered dryly if he had managed something vaguely similar to an Arabic accent. He doubted it. But then Ali Sheriff didn’t speak English with an Arabic accent. If Ali’s speech was accented at all, it was with a slight British twist, since he had spent a year in prep school in London before entering Yale.

“You speak English.”

It was an exhalation of breath; it was an accusation. Dan lowered his lashes and kneeled before the still boiling coffee so she wouldn’t see the grin that refused to be suppressed. His Arabic accent might not be the best, but apparently she didn’t know it.

“Yes,” he said dryly, “I speak English.”

She should have stayed calm, but she didn’t. The hysteria rising within her bubbled over with a new vengeance. She was scared half out of her wits, and being so terrified made her defensive, which made her bluster. “Then if you understand me, you’d better understand just what can happen to you for what you’ve done to me! I am an American, and what you’re guilty of is kidnapping. Kidnapping is a federal offense. They can execute people for doing things like this—”

She broke off just as his eyes rose to meet hers.

Am I crazy? she wondered with horror. I’m threatening him while he still holds all the cards. And it was very evident that he knew he did. His stare was sharp and piercing and cold, and hinted of an anger barely tempered by disdainful amusement.