The Sheik Who Loved Me (22 page)

Then something caught David’s attention. He halted his camel, squinted at the northern horizon. A faint plume of orange dust rose in the air and feathered into the blue sky.

Jayde’s heart clenched. “What is it?”

“Trucks! Move!” He whacked Jayde’s exhausted camel on the rump, kicked his own into a gallop. They began to race across the dunes.

But the dust plume across the ridge grew at an alarming rate and began to close in on them, circling around to the west cutting off their access to Al Abèche.

And for the first time, Jayde felt defeated. She was exhausted. She’d lost blood. She was in pain. Her thirst was excruciating. Then she looked down at the little child that clung to the saddle in front of her. She couldn’t let her down. She had to make good on her promise. A happy ending. She gritted her teeth, tightened her grip on Kamilah and focused on speed.

But their pursuers were closing in. They could see the black line of vehicles clearly now like huge ants crawling across the sand ridge. Jeeps and a truck.

They could never outrun them. They were being cut off from their only hope of survival. If they were forced back into the desert, they would be dead by tomorrow.

The caravan of vehicles crossed around the ridge and started coming at them from the south.

They were done for.

David halted his camel. Jayde halted hers. They were both breathless. David stared at Jayde. And she knew what he was thinking. They had both known it could come to this.

But as she opened her mouth to speak she heard a chopping sound in the shimmering white-hot sky, growing louder and louder. Helicopters. She squinted into the sky.

Two black choppers materialized like prehistoric beasts over the shimmering heat of the desert. Goose bumps ran over Jayde’s skin. The three of them stared in stunned silence as the copters bore down over their heads…and straight onto the convoy ahead of them.

Flashes of light and sound streaked from the machines, and instantly the jeep convoy erupted in explosion. Flames and waves of sound roared over the dunes. Black smoke spiraled into the sky. Fire crackled from the burning out hulls of vehicles in the distance.

Jayde stared at David, dumbfounded. “What was that?”

David smiled wryly. “Force du Sable. Sauvage’s men. The best damn private army in the world.” He blew out a huge breath and grinned. His eyes were alive with light. “Ladies, I think we made it.”

“I think we did,” she whispered.

“Yaaah!” he cried, whacking her camel on the rump. And they galloped over the last stretch of sand into Al Abèche.

A week later Dr. Watson gave Kamilah a clean bill of health. According to him, she’d fared exceptionally well. He credited this to the fact Jayde and David had arrived as a team to rescue her, restoring her faith in the world.

David stroked his daughter’s silken hair. Her eyes smiled up at him. Warmth spurted through his chest. “You sure you don’t want another bedtime story.”

“Daddy,” she said. “You’ve read nearly
all
my stories. I have to get new ones now.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “I’m making up for lost time, sweetness.” He tickled her in the ribs. “Just one more? Huh? Huh?”

She squealed and giggled as he tickled her.

“
The Little Mermaid,
maybe? How ’bout I read you that one.”

She stilled, her eyes suddenly dark and serious. “Nope. I don’t need that one anymore.”

He sat up in surprise. “You don’t?”

“Uh-uh. I don’t like the ending of it anymore.” She grinned. “I can make my own happy endings now.”

Emotion pricked hot behind his eyes. “Yes, sweetness, that you can.” He kissed her and closed the shutters. “Good night, baby.”

“’Night, Daddy.” And again his heart squeezed at the sound of his child’s happy little voice. He made his way out of her room.

“Daddy?” she said as he was about to close the door.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“Will she stay?”

He was silent for a while. “I sure hope so. I’ll let you know in the morning.”

David made his way out onto the terrace. The moon was rising and the swells were slow and languid out over the ocean. Jayde stood at the end of the terrace, the hem of her white dress ruffling in the breeze around her calves, the tendrils of her hair blowing with the warm wind. He slipped his arm around her waist, and together they stared out over a horizon as clear and vast as the future that lay before them.

“Jayde,” he said. And inside he quaked. Because he was terrified of what she might say when he asked her.

“What is it, David?” Her eyes were so big and so green. He wanted to wake up to those eyes every morning for the rest of his life. He wanted to drown in them forever. “Jayde, if I asked you to stay, would you?”

Her eyes searched his in silence.

His heart balled into a knot. He wanted this above anything else in the world. He wanted her at his side forever. He wanted them to be a family.

She sucked in her breath.

He braced, waiting for her words.

“David,” she said, “out in the desert, I said some things. And you said it was the jinns talking…”

His stomach bottomed out.

She lifted her face to his. “It wasn’t. It was
me.
It was me talking from my heart, me stripped of every damn defence I’d ever built up around myself. In those dunes I pleaded with you to never leave me. I also told you I intended to stick around.” She smiled. Her eyes shimmered. “I meant it, David. All of it…if you’ll have me, that is.”

Tears filled his eyes. He grasped her face with both hands and kissed her hard. Then he stopped, backed off. “What about MI-6?”

A wicked twinkle lit her eyes. Her hair billowed softly out behind her in the jasmine-scented breeze. “I have a new job.”

“What?”

“I work for Sauvage now,”

“I don’t understand.”

“He wants me for the North African intelligence and research team he’s putting together. It’s part of a new service he will be offering his clients. The mercenary business is shifting more and more into this field. He says I can do the bulk of my work out here, as long as I make myself available for client briefings and meetings in London and at the Force du Sable base on Sao Diogo.”

His face was priceless. She’d rendered him speechless. She loved him right now more than anything in this world. This powerful man who’d become her one weakness was the very person who had made her whole again. He’d put the feeling back into her soul. He’d given her life. Real life. In all its messy guts and glory.

“How long have you and Sauvage been in cahoots?”

She chuckled. “A lady has to have some secrets, no?”

He took her face in his hands. “Damn, I love you, woman. You truly
were
a gift from the sea,” he said. “Marry me, Jayde.
Be
my happy-ever-after.”

Her heart clenched. “You mean Kamilah gets her fairy-tale ending?”

“We all do. She gets her voice back…I get the mermaid.”

“And I get the prince.” Tears pooled in her eyes. She kissed him. “Yes, David. Yes, I will marry you.”

And for the first time in Jayde Ashton’s life, she believed fairy tales really could come true.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7118-4

THE SHEIK WHO LOVED ME

Copyright © 2005 by Loreth Beswetherick

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