The Sheik Retold(76)

The little oasis that I'd hailed so joyfully had become utterly repugnant, and I was suddenly impatient to get away from it. After offering my horse another bucket of water and refilling my army-issued canteen, I remounted.

I rode for what seemed endless hours with no sense of direction. The sun was high in the sky, its heat brutally intense, with no shade in sight. I sipped the last of my water and thought of the tiny oasis I had so foolishly abandoned. Why had I not waited there just a few hours? My head throbbed unbearably, and my ears buzzed. It was so terribly, terribly hot, yet I had ceased even to perspire. Nausea set in, but I had eaten almost nothing due to the heat.

My eyes burned. A wave of terrible loneliness came over me, a feeling of desolation, and a strange, incomprehensible yearning. I wanted desperately to cry, but I had no tears. I had reached the point of utter despair when The Dancer's nostrils flared and his ears pricked. I strained into the bleak distance with a desperate fixedness that made my eyeballs ache but saw nothing. Unable even to remain upright any longer, I fell forward onto my horse's neck and clung there.

"Please, Dancer," I whispered through sun-burned and parched lips, "please take us home."

The sun was fading and dusk setting in when I looked up again and discerned palm trees. I breathed a tremendous sigh of relief, praised my horse, and then I remembered nothing more.

***

I awoke slowly, shaking off my drowsiness by degrees. Night had fallen. My desperate weariness lingered but was mixed with a vague feeling of comfort and security. I was wrapped warmly in my cloak, yet I was still moving with my head resting against a firm surface. I became gradually aware of strong arms surrounding me and the regular and steady thrum of a beating heart beneath my cheek, the soothing rush of the wind against my face, and the swift, easy gallop of a horse. I knew before I even opened my eyes that it was his arms around me and his breast my head rested on. With awareness came unspeakable elation. I was deliriously and insanely happy. Pure chance had thrown me back into my sheik's power.

The night was suddenly brilliant. The stars blazed against the inky blackness of the sky, and the light of the moon was startlingly clear and white. The men rode in unusual silence with only the discordant chorus of a pack of jackals breaking the perfect stillness.

I shifted my head to see his face showing clearly in the bright moonlight, and my breath quickened. He was peering intently ahead, his eyes flashing in the cold light, his brows drawn together, and his firm chin jutting more doggedly than usual. He glanced down and looked straight into my eyes. He didn't speak but drew me closer into the curve of his arm.

It was very late when we reached the camp. Lights flashed up in the big tent and on all sides. We were suddenly surrounded by a crowd of excited tribesmen and servants. I was transferred to another's arms and looked up to find Yusef smiling down at me. He carried me inside the familiar tent, laid me on the black divan, and then vanished again into the throng of men and horses.

I closed my eyes, filled with the most wonderful and perfect peace. I was home again. We were oil and water, but it seemed that fate had determined my sheik and I belonged together.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Once I returned to my senses, I found myself in the familiar tent that I had grown to think of as home, but as my gaze roved over the furnishings and accoutrements, they seemed somehow different and disorienting to me. As I had flit in and out of consciousness, for what could have been days or only hours, I was subliminally aware of his continued presence—Ahmed the Protector ever hovering in the background. Now he stood in the entryway but not with the welcoming smile I'd hoped for. On the contrary, his expression was hard. Even grim.

"I gave you your freedom, ma belle, and not two weeks later you are returned? Where is that incompetent son of an English jackal that I delivered you to? He was to have taken you away from this place." He once more spoke in French. I also noticed the return of beard growth. This was the Ahmed I knew…the enemy I had grown to love.

"Jim? We parted ways in Algiers. He washed his hands of me once he learned I planned to return to you."

"At the head of a regiment, my dove?" His gaze narrowed in accusation. "You would repay my largesse with such treachery?"

"You don't understand!" I cried. "I wasn't with the Legion by choice. The governor-general forced me. He thought I would lead them to you and identify you, but they have a kinsman of Ibraheim Omair as their guide. They intend to kill you, Ahmed. I escaped as soon as I could to warn you of their coming."

He glowered at me. "Is that why you were riding alone, you little fool?"

"Yes. I thought I could find you."

"But you did not."

"No," I whispered. "I did not. I can't understand. I was certain I plotted the right course, but I could not find the camp."

"The Dancer did," he said. "But it was the old place. I have moved the camp."

"You moved?"

"Of course, my dove." He smirked. "I knew of their coming long before they left Algiers."

"But how could you know?"

"There is little I do not know," he said. "I have many friends. Many spies."

"Then you must also be aware that they outnumber you five to one. What will you do? How will you fight them?" I asked with mounting angst.