Desert Sheikh vs American Princess (33 page)

"What is it with you people and kidnappings?" asked Noelle.

Thale spoke up. "May I point out that I have never felt the need to abduct anyone?"

"Kidnapping her sounds like an excellent way to ruin more bed linens," said Walid. "Miss Oldrich, might we speak in private while we are waiting for Kitoko to return?"

She nodded, her stomach clenching inside her.

"Can I watch?" Thale asked eagerly.

"Thalatha, please remain here." Even though Ithnan's request had the word "please" in it, it wasn't a request.

She and Walid stepped out of the room, onto the circular stairs that led up the tower. As soon as they were out of view of others, Walid took her hand.

He took her hand.

Trills of excitement traveled up her arm, straight to her core. Holding hands with Walid was thrilling and calming at the same time. The sizzle of the contact and his warm strength made her heart race and her soul relax.

When she figured they were out of hearing range, she spoke. They probably only had a few minutes before Kitoko came back with the not-sledgehammer. "I'm sorry, Walid. I made the assumption that you would want me to come back and find the Palm. You didn't have to send your fiancée away, though."

He stopped on the stairs and turned to her. With him on a lower step, she could look straight into those devastating amber-touched eyes. Her future hung on what he did now, what he said. She would be okay, no matter what. She would find some way to get out from her father's control; she would use her pirate princess skills to make a life for herself. But without him, the one person who had seen what she had the potential to become, something would be missing.

"Yes, I did. And you know I did." Walid took a deep breath. Her heart started to pound even harder. "Noelle--"

"Walid, Noelle, get up here," Gwen's unmistakable voice called. "Turns out some tiles were loose. There's a box."

A box. The Palm. But Gwen's timing couldn't be worse. Just when Walid was about to... about to... about to what? It looked like he was about to say something great, but maybe not.

"I guess we should go."

Walid nodded. Then did something she'd never seen him do. He ran his fingers through his hair. From her controlled, restrained guy (okay, maybe not
hers
), the gesture betrayed a frazzled, worn-out energy. A man on the edge.

Well, she wasn't going to let him fall off that edge. Maybe he'd kidnapped her, but in a strange way, he'd also set her free. When she'd arrived here, she'd felt useless. Now, because he'd challenged her, she knew she could handle whatever came at her.

She wasn't going to leave Askar without setting him free, too.

"Come on," she pressed.

"I will, but first..." His gaze bored into hers with unbearable intensity. "This."

A tug on her hand and she was overbalanced. She fell into arms waiting to catch her.

The kiss was all heat and desire, wanting and frenzy. All the fear of loss and relief that the loss didn't happen poured through both of them.

Their frustrated hands grasped at skin covered by layers of clothes. They pressed into each other as if pressing could make the separation between their bodies go away.

The kiss might have gone on forever, if Gwen hadn't called Walid's name again.

They drew away from each other reluctantly, both of them knowing that even though things between them hadn't been said, the words weren't necessary for now.

Walid drew a worshipful hand down her silken cheek. "Let us go save the kingdom, my pirate princess."

*****

He held the box that contained the Palm of Askar in his hands.

His mismanagement had nearly cost Askar so much. His pride had kept him from solving the problem by going to his brother.

Now, the tenacity of a beautiful pirate princess had blessed him by putting a legendary jewel into his grasp.

He would still abdicate to his brother and make whatever life that Noelle would make with him, but he could leave behind him the legacy that Askar deserved.

A legacy he could be proud of.

The girl in blue leather, Faridah, had handed him the rough wooden box, lifting it out of the hole in the floor. It was the width and length of a tablet computer, and as deep as a champagne glass. Dust had obscured the rough palm tree design scratched into the wood. Something inside the box rattled when it was passed to him.

"Open it, Walid," prodded Gwen, one hand balanced on her belly.

Noelle had taken up an unobtrusive spot in the group, near Suzette.

"Noelle." He offered her the box. She had made this happen. She should open it.

She shook her head. "No. It's yours. It's from your family. It's your country. It's your history. I don't even belong here."

"You belong here." At his side, and nowhere else. He would spend the rest of his life convincing her of that.

But what Gwen had said about him representing Askar had begun to sink into his consciousness. The Palm was Askar's history. For the time being, until Ithnan could ascend the throne, Walid was Askar's ruler. The ruler should be the one to reclaim Askar's heritage.

And yet...

He stepped to Noelle and placed her hand on the box lid. "We will open it together."

She nodded, and together, they lifted the lid. Together, they looked into the box.

Silence fell for a long beat.

"What? What is it? Is it the Palm?" Gwen asked.

"Perhaps we should go," suggested Thale, for once judging the emotional temperature of the room correctly.

Walid pulled the box from her hand, keeping his gaze on her and passing the box to whoever happened to be to his left. Whoever that was.

"Rocks," he heard Ithnan say. "The box contains three rocks. If the Palm was ever in this container, then it was stolen long ago."

Noelle dropped her chin to her chest. She had been so hopeful. Now, facing one more defeat, she should be crushed.

"It does not matter, Noelle. We have much to discuss. A future to plan."

"Nope," she said. "Nope, I'm not going anywhere. X marks the spot. X always marks the spot. I wanted to save you."

"And you have," he assured her.

"No, I--"

He could not let her go on. He took her smaller hand in his. "Perhaps not in the way you imagined, but you have. As for a treasure, we will simply have to make one together, you and I."

She let out a long breath. "That sounds kind of nice."

"I will keep you from giving up on challenges too soon," he pledged. "If you, and your pirate princess--"

"Really? Wait, wait. You're serious about the pirate princess thing?" Gwen scowled. "And you nearly married someone else? What is wrong with you?"

Oddly, it was Thale who stepped up. "There are many things wrong with Walid. But perhaps we should let him finish, Your Royal Majesty of the enormous belly."

"Oh," she said. "Right. Sorry. Hormones again."

"And if you, and your pirate princess," he continued, "will help me to jump out windows."

Noelle aimed a melting smile at him. "I think we can manage that. But you may have to begin with swabbing the deck."

Walid crushed her against his body as if he never wanted to let her go. Because he had no intention of doing so. Then he kissed her as if his family and several servants were not watching each move they made.

"So long as I am eventually promoted to first mate," he said, after a while. After a long while.

She gave him a saucy shrug. "I think that can be arranged, but the other pirates will say that it's only because the captain is in love with you."

"Then we will make them walk the plank," he told her.

Gwen groaned.

"Gwendolyn, are you well?" asked her husband. "Is it time?"

"No." She swatted him. "It was the joke. Terrible."

"Please excuse me, I may have taken the pirate analogy too far," Walid apologized.

His brother, obviously not harmed by Gwendolyn's blow, clapped a hand on his shoulder. "My brother, it is good to see you, for once, go overboard."

"Ithnan, I love you, but that was truly awful. Ten lashes for you, you scurvy swab." Gwendolyn rolled her eyes. "Noelle, you're going to learn that there are some things you have to just tell these guys to do. For example, Walid, that was a really dumb pirate reference, but more importantly, it wasn't what you were supposed to say to her right after she told you she loved you."

His sister-in-law had a point.

He looked down into the expectant eyes of the woman he wanted to be his. Forever. "Then allow me to rewind. I believe I am in love with the captain as well. And we will find a way to steer the ship so that it does not run aground. Do not give up hope, love."

Noelle rose to her tiptoes and kissed him. "I won't. But I was so sure the Palm was here. This just feels right. It should be here. X marks the spot. And more than that, you were drawn here before I even came. I think that just like your great grandfather, you wanted to be close to the Palm, to protect it, even though you didn't know you were."

"I have no such secret powers, Noelle." And yet, as soon as the words escaped him, he found himself remembering the discomfiting sensation he had felt each time Noelle had left him. He still had no explanation for the internal force that had informed him she had gone, and that had driven him in pursuit.

Had he not always been drawn to this tower room? Was the feeling similar?

"What are you thinking, Noelle?" Gwendolyn asked.

His love's face went serious, her brows downturned, lips he wished to kiss flattened. She broke from his embrace and began to pace in the room. Two kings, one queen, and a prince got out of her way. "I'm missing something. But the key to this all is that phrase on the map. It has to be. 'Who knows me will interpret this map well.'"

"Noelle, I have been honest with you from the first," he reminded her. "Many have sought the Palm and not found it. This map does not reveal the location of the jewel. It was intended to deceive."

Noelle reacted instantly, freezing in her steps.

"That's right," she said. "You've always been honest with me, haven't you?"

Gwendolyn snorted and treated her husband to a dark sideways glance. There was a story there she wanted to hear--but not now.

"I have," Walid confirmed.

"The map wasn't made by someone honest." Noelle cringed. "Oh, I'm such an idiot. I was concentrating so hard on the similarities between you and Sheikh Osman, I forgot the differences. You aren't tricky. He was tricky. Your brothers inherited that quality, and you didn't."

"I assure you," Thalatha put in, "I am exactly as you see me."

Gwendolyn snorted again. "You might be the trickiest of the lot. Go on, Noelle. What does that mean?"

"It means--"

Noelle didn't finish the sentence. Instead, she fell to all fours and stuck her arm into the diamond-shaped hole in the floor.

His breath caught. An unexplained wave of anticipation rolled over him.

"There's..." she said, straining. "Something..."

She dropped to her stomach, reaching as deep as she was able into the hole. Within a second, she gasped his name.

He kneeled down at her shoulder. Excitement lit her beautiful face. Despite the dusty smudge on her chin and hair that looked as if it had been compressed to her head, she had never been more attractive to him.

She stood, holding something behind her. When he made to rise from his knee, she put one hand to his shoulder.

She brought out what she had been holding behind her back. It was gray with a thick coating of dust. Where the dust had worn off, the amber color of old gold shone. One side of the open circle was dented inward slightly, yet the distinct shape was unmistakable.

A crown. A crown that had been lost for half a century.

"Your Royal Majesty Sheikh Walid al Kalam, by the power invested in me by no one in particular, I formally reconfirm you as the grand high poobah of the Kingdom of Askar." Noelle put both hands to the crown and made to place it on his head.

He could not allow it. As much as he wished to give her the triumph she deserved, he would not be the King of Askar for much longer. "Noelle--"

"Long live the king."

He looked to the male voice that had spoken.

Ithnan. The brother who had been his best friend when they were children. The brother who had been his worst enemy as adults.

The brother who was, with those words, handing him back his kingdom.

Ithnan stepped forward. "Zallaq owes much to you for keeping the peace when we--when I--might have opted for war, brother. We could not imagine a better ruler for Askar."

Walid's heart thudded, nearly to the point of pain. His voice seemed to fail him, and all he could manage was a whispered thanks.

"Wait a second." Noelle, oblivious to the true meaning of his exchange with his brother, paused to wipe the dirt off the apex of the crown.