The Sheik Who Loved Me Page 9

  He wondered, though—would she be this free once her past came to reclaim her? Would she lose that unabashed magic when she found her place in the pecking order of the civilized world again, when she discarded Doc Watson’s old garb and once again donned the lush silks and tailored linens he had no doubt she was accustomed to wearing?

  He chewed on his cheek, wondering what she’d look like in silks and gold. Would the clothes and adornment change how he viewed her? Maybe if she dressed in the couture to which she was accustomed she might actually remember more about her past, about herself.

  Again Kamilah chuckled. Sahar laughed heartily in response, the sound of it rich, enticing.

  He could feel it inside him.

  His smile deepened. And on impulse, he swiveled, reached over his desk, picked up the phone and punched in a number he hadn’t called in a very, very long time. It was the number of a high-end boutique in Cairo. And as he waited for the sales clerk to pick up, he felt just a little playful. The sensation caught him off guard—and it felt good.

  Sahar and Kamilah took refuge from the midday heat in the shadows of one of the palace courtyards. They sat on an intricately carved marble bench, sipping the iced mint tea Fayha’ had brought them. While they sipped they listened to the soft tinkle of water spouting from the mouths of ornate stone lions that reared up around the fountain in the center of the enclosed garden. The air was heavy with sensual warmth and the heady scent of flowers.

  The palatial surroundings seemed surreal to Sahar. She felt like Alice, slipping through the looking glass of her old world into the alternate reality of a Middle-Eastern fantasy. She was sure that any minute she’d wake with only a massive bump on the head to show for it all. She wiggled her toes in the jasmine-scented air, not sure if she actually wanted to wake up. Because this dream came complete with a dark and dangerously seductive Arabian prince. The memory of their morning ride began to stir her blood once again. She couldn’t believe how she’d let herself go.

  She laughed at herself. What a twit. Of course she’d slipped into the moment, because that’s all she could do. She only had the present. No past. And therefore no future to contemplate—at least not until she had an identity. She’d be crazy to let herself go like that again. Besides, she still had the lurking sensation of danger when she looked into his face. But that only intensified his mystique. And despite the fact he set warning bells clanging in her brain, she knew if David Rashid so much as looked at her with those smoldering eyes again…she laughed nervously.

  “What are you laughing at?” Kamilah asked.

  Sahar glanced down at the little girl sitting companionably at her side. An old leather-bound book rested on her lap.

  “I’m laughing because I’m a silly fool in a crazy dream,” she said. “And if I don’t laugh about it, I’ll cry.” Sahar nodded toward the book in Kamilah’s lap. “What book is that you’re reading?”

  Kamilah lifted it, pushed it reverently into Sahar’s hands. Sahar read the title and smiled softly. She fingered the embossed lettering. It was an old copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid.

  Kamilah’s liquid brown eyes watched her intently, waiting for reaction. “It’s my favorite,” she prompted.

  “It is?” She was amazed at how Kamilah had opened up after their game of tag. It had broken down yet another barrier, and the child was almost talking with ease.

  “It was my mother’s. She used to read it to me a lot. Do you know the story?”

  Sahar thought about it. “Yes, I do, actually. If I remember correctly, it’s about a little mermaid princess, the daughter of the sea king. She was the youngest of five sisters and the prettiest of them all.”

  “Six,” Kamilah corrected. “There are six sisters.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, the youngest of the six mermaids, then. And she was not only the most beautiful, she also had the loveliest voice on earth. She fell in love with a human prince and she desperately wanted a chance to be on land with him. But,” said Sahar, “before she could get legs and go on land she had to sacrifice her voice to a wicked old sorceress. And then, because she didn’t have her voice, she had to try and make the prince love her without using words.”

  “So you do remember that.” There was a strange mixture of curiosity and accusation in the little girl’s statement.

  “Kamilah, I know it’s strange. I find it very difficult to understand myself. But I do remember a lot of things, just not who I am, or how I came to learn the things that I do know. I haven’t the slightest idea when I read Andersen’s Little Mermaid. I just know that once upon a time I did. Maybe my mother read it to me.”

  The dark eyes studied her with brooding intensity.

  “Why is that story your favorite, Kamilah?”

  The little girl fiddled with her fingers in her lap. “’Cause my mummy liked it and she used to read it to me.”

  Sadness clogged Sahar’s throat. She stroked Kamilah’s silky hair. “I guess you are like the Little Mermaid, too, huh? Because you also lost your voice.” Sahar smiled tenderly.

  “I guess.” Kamilah sat silent a while. Then her eyes flashed up to Sahar’s. “Do you think the ending in the book is happy?”

  David made his way along the corridor. He needed to find Fayha’ and inform her that Tariq would be dining with them tonight. He stepped out to cross the courtyard when he heard Kamilah’s and Sahar’s voices. Instinctively he froze in the shadow of a mosaic column.

  They were just feet from him, sitting on a marble bench facing the fountain. Kamilah’s little face was turned up to Sahar’s. Sahar’s wild hair cascaded down her back, the sun bouncing off glinting gold highlights among the auburn. They looked like a painting, a Madonna and child. He was held transfixed.

  Then he heard his daughter’s clear little voice over the sound of the tinkling fountain. She was asking Sahar if she thought the ending of a book was a happy one.

  “Hmm, that’s an interesting question,” he heard Sahar say. “I guess it depends on how you look at it. What do you think?”

  Kamilah pulled her legs up onto the bench, wrapped her arms around her knees. “The Little Mermaid didn’t get to marry the prince.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Because the prince got confused,” said Kamilah. “He mistook the Little Mermaid for someone else, and he fell in love with that person instead. I don’t think that part is happy.”

  David leaned closer, greedy for the sound of his daughter’s little voice, the sound of the words she’d had locked up inside all this time. For almost two years he hadn’t had a window into his daughter’s soul. And now here she was, opening up to Sahar. And he was getting a glimpse. But at the same time, a perverse jealousy twined itself around his heart. He wanted it to be him on that bench with Kamilah. It should be him.

  “But even though the mermaid lost the prince, she did get her own reward,” offered Sahar. “She sacrificed herself for her love, and for that she got a chance to have an immortal soul, which mermaids don’t ordinarily have.”

  “I know,” said Kamilah, her voice suddenly incredibly sad. “But I think she should have gotten the prince.”

  David’s fists balled. An ache swelled in his chest. He wanted to step out into the bright sun, claim his place alongside his child. But he couldn’t move. He was afraid he’d break the magic, stop the talking. He watched Sahar take his daughter’s hand. “Kamilah,” she said gently, “when the Little Mermaid threw herself into the sea, she started an incredible journey on her way to getting an immortal soul. She became like a piece of sea foam and she could float around the world bringing happiness to good children.”

  Kamilah’s head drooped a little. “I know,” she said resignedly. “When the Little Mermaid visited the good children, she was invisible. They never knew she was there, watching over them.” Her eyes flashed suddenly up to Sahar’s. “But I knew that if the child was very, very, good, she would get to see the mermaid one day. That’s why I went down to the beach every da
y to wait. I thought maybe my mummy would send one to me. To be my friend…and to be daddy’s friend.”

  The words grabbed David by the throat. He couldn’t breathe. Is this why his daughter had insisted on going to the beach every day since they’d arrived back on Shendi? He hadn’t had a clue. How could he not have known this? How could he not have been there in a more profound way for his child?

  “So you waited at beach where you found me?” asked Sahar. David could hear the tenderness in her voice.

  “Yes,” said Kamilah. “I waited at Half-Moon Bay because it looks just like the beach in the book where the Little Mermaid used to watch the prince.”

  David watched in dumbstruck awe as Sahar tilted Kamilah’s chin and looked down into the child’s eyes. “Kamilah, you do understand that I am not really a mermaid, don’t you?”

  He stilled, waited for his daughter’s response, petrified.

  Kamilah silently studied Sahar, head to toe. Then she pursed her lips. “What are you then? You haven’t got any clothes and you haven’t got a house and you haven’t got a memory. You gotta be a mermaid. I want you to be a mermaid.” Her voice quavered. “’Cause if you’re not…you will go away. I don’t want you to go away.”

  Every muscle in his body strapped tight. This was enough! He had to stop this. Here in front of his eyes was the perfect example of why he couldn’t let this continue. Because it was going to kill his daughter when Sahar left. They would all be back at square one. He had to step in, tell Sahar to back off.

  She could stay on his island but she was to stay away from his daughter.

  Sahar put her arm around his daughter’s slight shoulders and hugged her close. “Oh, honey, right now I also wish I could be your mermaid. But you know what, whatever I am, whoever I am, something in the stars allowed you and me to meet. Something made me wash up on that shore while you were waiting. And for whatever reason that happened, we can give this story of ours its own happy ending, okay?”

  Kamilah looked up at her.

  “Is that a deal, Kamilah?”

  David tensed.

  “Yes,” his daughter said. “I like happy endings.”

  “We all do, Kamilah. We all do.”

  David was furious. Sahar had no right making promises she couldn’t keep. Happy endings were for fairy tales. This was reality. Reality had no promises of ever after or happiness. His nails dug into his palms, and he took a step forward. Then he went rigid as he heard her next words.

  “Would it help you to talk about what happened to your mother in that accident, Kamilah?”

  David’s stomach churned violently. What in hell did she think she was doing?

  Kamilah looked up at Sahar. “Do you want to hear it?”

  “Sometimes it’s good to talk about difficult things,” she told his child. “Because then you can share the unhappiness with someone else and it can make things easier to bear. And sometimes it helps to get it off your chest because if you hold it inside too long, it can really hurt and make you feel sick in many different ways.”

  His little girl nodded with a wisdom beyond her years. When she spoke her voice was crystal clear and it ripped out his soul. “We were in daddy’s boat, at the reef. We had gone diving—”

  No!

  He could not listen. Would not.

  He did not want to hear the accusation come from Kamilah’s own lips. For two years he’d lived with it in her eyes. He could not hear the words. Not now. Not ever. Damn this interfering woman to hell! He spun on his heels and stormed off in search of Fayha’. He’d get Sahar later, give her a piece of his mind. She’d gone way too far.

  Sahar felt the muscles in her chest tense. She wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing, but she sensed deep in her gut that this was what the child needed. To talk. To put into words what she’d bottled up inside for two years.

  “Mummy stayed up on the boat with me while daddy went under the water,” Kamilah said. “And when daddy was deep under looking at the fish, there was a bang and a funny smell and then the boat caught fire. My mummy rushed for the extinguisher, but the end of the boat exploded. The explosion hurt mummy and the boat tipped up on the one end and we started to go under really fast. We both fell into the water and mummy was bleeding.” She shuddered. “A lot.”

  Sahar’s jaw clenched. She could almost see it. She could feel it. As if she’d been there.

  “I was far away from mummy,” said Kamilah. “She was way off to the other side of the burning boat and the waves were coming in between us. Daddy came up when he heard the explosion. He came up in the middle of us. I could see mummy going under the waves but she yelled for him to save me—” Kamilah choked “—to save me first.” Tears streamed down her face.

  A shiver chased down Sahar’s spine. The blood drained from her head. She hugged the child tight. She could literally feel the water sucking at her, see the little girl going under behind the huge swells, taste the burning salt in her own throat, the claws of terror. Her body went cold. It was as if she was there. As if she was remembering. Something from long, long ago. But she couldn’t pull it from the void.

  “Daddy got me and he swam and put me on the beach. He went back for mummy.” Another shudder racked her little body. “He was too late. She’d gone under already. He really tried. He tried so hard. I could see him. He went under and under and under and he was coughing and he was crying and screaming at the sky, and I was so scared and sore from the cuts and the bleeding and the fire.” Another sob choked her little body. “Daddy tried so hard…but…the…the mermaids took her.”

  Sahar felt tears streaming down her own cheeks. She held Kamilah very tight. She stroked Kamilah’s hair. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. It’s good to talk about it. It’s good to get it out. Because then you can deal with it. Your mummy did such a wonderfully brave thing. You must be very proud of your mummy and your daddy. Very proud.”

  Kamilah sniffed and rubbed her nose. “I am proud of them.”

  And as she spoke, Sahar’s heart cracked. This family had been through an awful tragedy and it had barely begun to heal. She kissed Kamilah softly on the top of her head. And once again she vowed not to let this child down. Or her father. She would do what it took to help the two of them. Because somehow, buried deep in her memory, she sensed she knew just how this kind of tragedy could tear a family apart. And how, without help, the wound might never mend. And it would continue to destroy.

  But she had to promise herself another thing. She had to resist the powerful physical attraction of David Rashid. Because until she knew who she was, who might be waiting for her, she could not possibly begin to think of a relationship at that level.

  Chapter 7

  David worked until the sun was in its zenith and the air thick and shimmering with heat. He knew Kamilah would be resting at this hour, along with most of his staff. It was the right time to confront Sahar.

  He was clear about what he intended to tell her. Quit with the mermaid fantasy stuff and stay away from his daughter. She could be gone within days. He expected her to keep to herself until then. If she was going to be on his island, she’d best know her boundaries. And his.

  David searched his palace, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. His frustration mounted along with the heat. Anyone in their right mind was under shadow, grasping for respite from the oppressive noon heat of early summer.

  Even the birds had gone quiet.

  But Sahar was not resting in her room. She wasn’t in any of the courtyards. She wasn’t in the massive pool, cooling off under the fountains that splashed into it.

  The last place David looked was the kitchen. There he found Farouk, the only member of his staff not taking a siesta. Farouk didn’t have a problem with the heat. He was busy cleaning the kitchen countertops.

  “Have you seen Sahar?” David asked him.

  The man’s toffee-colored skin gleamed with perspiration. He wore the traditional head cloth of the Azar nomads. Farouk wiped his brow with the loos
e edge of the cloth. “You mean the woman from the sea?”

  Irritation spiked. “Yes, where is she?”

  Farouk tipped his head toward the wide, arched doorway that led outside. “She’s in the kitchen garden.”

  “In this heat?”

  “She asked if she could help.” Farouk shrugged. “I told her it would be better when the shadows grow long. The sun is very hot today. But she said she needed to do something useful. She said she was tired of just sitting around, so I gave her a job.”

  A hesitancy sneaked in under David’s resolve as he made his way to the door.

  “Sahar. It’s a good name,” Farouk called after him. “Shendi has come alive since she arrived.”

  David didn’t answer. He stepped out into the herb and vegetable garden that lay off the kitchen and a wave of heat slammed into him, knocking the breath right out of his lungs.

  The garden was enclosed by tall stone walls and crisscrossed with paved pathways. It was a marvel in this climate and made possible only because of the sweet water pumped from the deep wells on Shendi. Creeping thyme filled the cracks between the paving stones. Vegetables burgeoned from beds and were identified by seed packets propped up on sticks. Little stone benches rested against the walls under trees heavy with ripe fruit.

  She was at the far end of the garden, bent over, jabbing a trowel into the moist earth, her back to him. An oversize straw hat, battered and crumpled, shaded her head. Watson’s hat. She’d tried to tame her wild curls into a thick braid that hung down the center of her back, but soft spirals of fine hair floated free in the rising heat currents. The sun caught the amber and gold fire in the strands.

  David walked quietly up to where she was hunched over, angrily thrusting her trowel into the ground, forcing it to yield up monstrous carrots. As she uprooted them, she tossed them with a clunk into a large blue enamel bowl at her side.

  She’d changed out of the dusty muslin clothes but another oversize shirt covered her lean frame, also one of Watson’s. Pale-blue cotton. It all but covered the khaki shorts she wore. Watson’s shorts, bunched in at the waist and wide and baggy over her smooth thighs.