The Sheik Who Loved Me (4 page)

“A tail?”

David nodded. “Yes.”

She studied his eyes, trying to read him, trying to guess his game, then she turned slowly to face Kamilah. “Should I have a tail, Kamilah? Please don’t tell me I should have a tail. Have I totally lost it?”

Watson chuckled heartily, cracking the tension. “Well if you had a tail it’s gone now, so yes, I’d say you lost it.” The doctor continued to chortle merrily at his own joke.

David didn’t find it at all amusing. He knew what this meant to Kamilah.

The woman sensed it, too. “But
you
seem to think I should have a tail, Kamilah?”

The little girl nodded, her face deadly serious.

“Hmm.” Then the woman smiled. A warm smile. Like sunshine. It reached right into her emerald eyes making them sparkle with the morning light. And it made a dimple deepen in her one cheek. David stared, struck once again by her unbalanced beauty, by how white her teeth were against her soft tan. She’d been exquisite in repose, but the animation in her smile brought her beauty to full life. And it was dazzling. But it wasn’t only her physical appearance that intrigued him. She possessed a latent confidence, and right now she was in control of this bizarre situation in spite of her loss of identity, in spite of the fact she was stark naked under that thin sheet, a fact he couldn’t seem to erase from his mind.

Bemused, he watched as she placed her hand gently over Kamilah’s. “You know, sometimes it happens when mermaids come on land,” she said softly. “Sometimes they lose their tails in exchange for something else…like legs.” She tipped her head conspiratorially closer to his daughter’s, and lowered her smoky voice to a whisper.

“And, Kamilah,” she said. “You do have to remember that sometimes things are not quite what meet the eye. You’ve always got to keep an open mind, because one can never be sure when it comes to the magic of fairy tales.” She smiled again. “But I think you know that, don’t you? I think you know all about fairy tales.”

No one spoke. Tiny dust motes danced, glistened in the shafts of yellow sunshine sneaking through the wooden slats that covered the window.

“What’s your name?” Kamilah’s little whisper sliced the silence. David released a whoosh of air he hadn’t realized was trapped in his lungs. His heart tripped back into a steady rhythm. His child was coping. She was going to be okay.

The woman studied his daughter carefully, looking deep into her eyes, as if seeing something there that he, a mere mortal, a mere father, didn’t have the power to see.

“Kamilah,” she said. “I don’t have a name. Not right now, anyway. I can’t remember it. I got a bad knock on the head, and I can’t seem to remember where I came from.”

Kamilah nodded solemnly, as if she understood completely, as if mermaids not only lost tails but that it was quite common for them to lose their minds when they got washed up out of the sea. Then his child turned suddenly and stared expectantly up at him.

David swallowed, taken aback by the spark of urgency in his child’s eyes. He wasn’t sure what she wanted. “What is it, Kamilah?” he asked.

His child waited, eyes eager.

“Kamilah?”

She said nothing.

Why wouldn’t she speak to
him?
Why did
he
have to try and second-guess everything? What did she want from him?

Watson nudged him. “She wants you to come up with a name, Rashid.”

“What?” His eyes flashed to the doctor.

“Give her a name,” urged Watson. “She wants you to give the mermaid a name.”

Kamilah nodded, her liquid eyes intent.

David felt suddenly cornered. He scrambled through his brain, trying to find some moniker for the mysterious woman. He couldn’t.

Kamilah waited. Everyone waited.

Why was this suddenly his responsibility? He swallowed, cleared his throat. “Sahar,” he said finally.

Everyone in the room looked at him. “Sahar,” he said again, as if the repetition would somehow make it more real. Still the silence hung heavy and awkward. It was as if he now needed to explain his choice.

But he couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. It was suddenly too personal, his choice too intimate. Because Sahar meant awakening. Dawn. A new beginning. And he’d chosen it because of what she’d brought to his daughter. This woman had made his precious little desert flower come alive again, long after she’d all but withered on the vine.

And she had hair like a Saharan sunrise.

The woman’s eyes studied him from across the room. Something strange and unreadable shifted in her features. “Thank you,” she said softly. “That’s a beautiful name.”

David shrugged. He felt awkward. This whole damn situation had knocked him off balance.

But he was rewarded with a brilliant smile from Kamilah as she nodded in happy agreement. David’s heart torqued in his chest at the rare sight of warmth and animation in his little girl’s face. He’d done something to make his baby happy. He’d taken another tiny step on the complex road he traveled with his daughter. And despite his portfolio of international achievements, nothing made him feel more proud, more worthy.

The woman, Sahar, turned to Kamilah. “Now, sweetheart, do you know where a mermaid could possibly find something to wear…and maybe a hairbrush?”

Kamilah hesitated. Then she spun on her heels and charged from the room, brushing David’s legs as she ran past him into the hallway.

It was in that very instant that David knew
exactly
where his daughter was going.

“No!” he yelled, spinning around. “Wait! Kamilah!”

Watson grabbed his arm, held him back. “Let her go, David. She needs to do this. She needs to move on. You both do.”

David clenched his jaw. His heart pounded in his chest. His hands felt clammy. He could feel the woman’s eyes appraising him. And he suddenly felt exposed. Humiliated by his own irrational outburst.

He jerked free of Watson’s hold, stormed from the room. Furious, he marched down the passage, his riding boots clacking loudly on the stone floors.

“Fayha’!” he barked. The sound of his voice bounced off the thick stone walls, resounded under the arches of his palace. “Fayha’! Where are you?”

His housekeeper came scuttling from the direction of the kitchen. “Sir?”

“Help Kamilah,” he ordered. “I’m going for a ride.”

“Where is she?”

“In—” he hesitated “—in the room. The room with her mother’s things.”

Fayha”s eyes widened.

“Just do it.” He swiveled on his heels and headed for the stables. But inside he knew.
He
should be the one helping Kamilah.
He
should be with her in that room, going through Aisha’s things. Working through the past, putting it away properly. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t make himself go in there. He hadn’t so much as opened the door since he and Kamilah had returned to Shendi Palace. He’d had his staff move all of Aisha’s possessions in there after the funeral.

At the time, he hadn’t been able to throw or give anything away. He loved his wife too much for that. At the time, he’d felt that getting rid of her things would be like trying to excise her memory.

And now…well, now it was two years later. What good would it do either of them to dig into old memories now, to touch Aisha’s clothes, to feel the silk of them, to smell her lingering fragrance on them?

His eyes burned.

Holding on to memories was one thing. Physically digging up the past quite another. He’d said his goodbyes. He’d come to terms with the fact she was gone. He had no need to go digging into the past, and neither should his daughter. They had to look forward. Not back.

This was all Sahar’s fault.

David clenched his fists, gritted his jaw, strode angrily through the courtyard toward the stables. There was dust and sand everywhere, piled in miniature dunes and stuffed into every conceivable crevice. The whole bloody world had been turned on its head by the freak storm.

And by what it had blown in.

He shoved the stable door open, felt the soft and familiar give of pungent hay. It helped ease his mind. He made directly for Barakah’s stall.

But even as he led his stallion out, deep down, David knew what was really irking him. It was the fact his little girl had responded to a total stranger. She had spoken words that had flowed so naturally from her mouth you’d think she’d never been mute. She had quite simply come alive. Because of a stranger washed up with the wind and rain.

After all he had tried to do for Kamilah, after all this time, a mysterious woman had simply blown into their lives and made it happen in the blink of an eye. It should have been
he
who’d broken through his daughter’s shell. He
needed
that victory, dammit. He
needed
to know his daughter had forgiven him. Totally.

The woman had deprived him of that.

Resentment began to snake through him. But braided with the bitterness he felt toward Sahar was a thread of gratitude for her having cracked open Kamilah’s shell. And there was a third thread in that complicated braid. One he preferred not to think about. Because it forced him to face the fact that she had not only awakened his daughter, she had stirred something frightening and powerful in
him.
She’d made something come alive and burn, slow and deep inside his soul.

Trouble was, he didn’t want to feel this way. He didn’t want to feel this insidious burning in his gut, this low, raw longing for a woman with no memory. A woman who was surely going to leave Shendi, abandon Kamilah as soon as she figured out who she was.

David gritted his teeth.

It was best she left, sooner rather than later. Before Kamilah got too attached, he wanted her gone from his island.

David led Barakah into the storm-washed morning. In the distance the rising sun glimmered off the ocean surface, making it shine like hand-beaten copper. The color filled his mind. And as he mounted his stallion he could think only of how the color resembled Sahar’s long sun-kissed curls, the way the gold and copper shades contrasted with the startling green of her haunting eyes. And the way her skin had felt against his.

He swore softly in Arabic. He needed her gone all right. He couldn’t begin to feel these things for a woman who had another life, perhaps even another man. He
wouldn’t
allow Kamilah to be hurt.

With a spurt of anger, he kicked Barakah into action. He needed a tough workout. He needed to clear his head. And by the time he returned, he expected his technician to have restored communication on the island.

Then he would set to work, find out who the devil this woman was and where she had come from.

Then he’d send her right back where she belonged.

Chapter 3

S
ahar listened as David Rashid’s angry footsteps faded to a distant echo. Confusion shrouded her brain. She lifted her hand to her forehead. Why in heavens did she know the meaning of the name he had just given her? Did she know Arabic? Or just the meanings behind Arabic names? And why did she feel honored, touched, by the name David had given her? Was it because of the raw look she’d glimpsed in his eyes as he’d spoken it? Or was she trying to read meaning where there was none?

Watson misread her confusion. “Your head hurting?”

“Uh…no. I…I’m just trying to remember.”

He smiled. “No need to try and rush the process. The body is a wonderful thing in the way it can heal—and protect itself—but you must give it time.”

Time. She didn’t have time. Why did she feel she was running out of time?

“I’ll come back once you’ve got some clothes on and had something to eat. We can do some more tests then, okay?”

She nodded, watched the doctor make for the door. “Dr. Watson,” she called out. He halted, turned around.

“About Kamilah…the mermaid thing?”

He hesitated. “The child hasn’t spoken a word in two years,” he said. “Not since the death of her mother.”

“What happened?”

“Aisha Rashid drowned in a boating accident not far off the coast of this island.” He smiled sadly. “David took a huge gamble coming back here. Returning to Shendi was a final bid to bring life back to his child. He’s done everything within his power to try to get Kamilah to speak again. Nothing worked until now—until you arrived.”

“Me?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Kamilah Rashid had not spoken in nearly two years—until she found you on the beach.”

“And she…she really thinks I’m a
mermaid?
”

“The fact that she thinks you’re a fantasy creature is key,” he said. “You’ve helped bridge the gap between her silent, private world and the real one.”

“So…so why is her father so angry?” The range of unguarded emotion she’d seen cross David Rashid’s face in the space of a few beats of a heart compelled her to ask.

A broad grin creased the doctor’s sun-browned face. “Ah, a couple of things have got his goat, I suspect. Rashid likes to be in control.
He
wanted to be the one to make his daughter well again. Now he’s faced with a mermaid who’s done the trick for him.” Dr. Watson chuckled. “You’ve wounded the man’s pride, but don’t worry. He’ll be fine once he’s licked his wounds. He always is. I’ll be back later.”

Sahar watched as the doctor closed the heavy door behind him. She was desperately grateful to have some time alone. She needed to think. She swung her feet carefully over the side of the bed and stood slowly, not wanting to repeat the fainting episode. The tiles were cool under her bare feet. She steadied herself against the bed, waiting for a momentary dizziness to pass. Then she wound the sheet neatly around her body and moved over to the long oval mirror nestled into a tall dark-wood closet at the far end of the room.

She hesitated, almost afraid to look. Then she sucked in air and stepped squarely in front of the mirror. She stared at the person reflected in the glass.

The eyes that stared back were her own. Logic told her that. She stepped closer, touched the reflection with her fingertips. There was something vaguely familiar about her image. It was as if she was looking at someone she’d crossed paths with once or twice before. But she couldn’t place where or when.

She studied the face. It was a face she was comfortable owning. It felt like her. But how? How did she know what it felt like to be her?

Was she a tourist? Somehow she didn’t feel like one.

Could she dive? She thought she probably could.

Slowly she unwound the sheet and studied the rest of her body. She had no jewelry. No necklace, rings, bracelets or earrings. No clues. Nothing at all to give her away.

That didn’t feel right. Something was missing. The sensation niggled away at the back of her brain. And with a start, she realized she was fingering her left hand, exactly where she’d wear a wedding ring…if she had one. She frowned. Why did she feel as if it was missing?

She ran her hand gently over the cuts and bruising down the left side of her torso.

Had she been on a boat when the storm hit? Were there others who hadn’t survived? Damn, damn, damn. For the life of her she couldn’t recall a single thing about how she got to this island of David Rashid’s. She scooped up the sheet in frustration, wound it tightly around her body and stomped over to the shutters. She flipped the catch and threw them open wide as if to cast clarity on her situation. But the harsh flare of yellow sunlight exploded against her eyes. She scrunched her face tight in painful reflex.

As the stab of pain slowly subsided, she became cognizant of the sun’s rays. With her eyes still closed, she lifted her face to meet the light. The warmth on her skin offered a basic animal comfort. She breathed in deeply, feeling tension slowly begin to dissipate as she allowed the warmth to soak through her.

It dawned on her then—she was like a primal creature. No clothes. No identity. No past. Only the present. Only the sensation of warmth on her face to give her a feeling of being alive, a feeling of belonging in the world. This sensation was the closest she could come to a sense of home, of who she was. Because beyond that, she’d been reduced to nothing.

She didn’t know if she had a family or if she had kids, though she guessed not—the idea seemed too foreign. Perhaps she had a lover, someone who right now was worried sick about her. Did she have a job? A house? An apartment? Did she have a cat or a dog?

Is this what it felt like to start from scratch? To have a blank slate and a chance to do things over? Because it sure as hell didn’t feel like fun. It felt formidable. And claustrophobic, as if she was hemmed in by an invisible fortress.

Panic started to grip again. She pressed the palm of her hand against her stomach, trying to force calm on herself. The doctor had said she might feel like this. He’d said she would also likely experience anger, denial. That was normal, he’d said. But what in hell was normal about this? What in hell was normal about a stranger giving you a new name? A name that means dawn, new beginnings.

The distant sound of hooves thudding on packed sand registered in her brain, yanking her mind back into the room. Her eyes flicked open. She shielded them against the harsh glare of the sun with her hands and searched for the source of the sound.

The sight that greeted her clean stole her breath. Through the arched window, the sea gleamed a brilliant turquoise in the distance. Waves rolled relentlessly toward the shore and broke in long ribbons onto a beach of pure white sand, spraying spumes of white spindrift into the wind.

The beach turned gradually into shades of cream, amber, orange and ochre as the land curved in sweeping, undulating hills toward her. Then the sand gave way to rich vegetation closer to the castle walls.

She blinked.
Castle?

She leaned out of the window. Yes, she was in some kind of Moorish-style castle. Walls, several stories high, ran off in either direction from her window. Arches were cut into them at regular intervals. At the end of the one wall, the building veered off into another wing and at the end of that she could make out a square tower with turrets along the top. In other parts, the roof was angled over the walls and covered with thick irregularly shaped tiles baked reddish-ochre by the sun.

The sound of the galloping hooves that had alerted her grew louder, echoing off the palace walls. She leaned even further out the window, searching for the rider. Then she saw him.

He came around the far wing of the castle and headed at breakneck pace across the sandy ridge on a huge and powerful white stallion. Her stomach muscles tightened automatically at the sight. David and the horse formed a dark and powerful silhouette against the glare of the sea. He rode with a fierce and reckless abandon. Bareback. Like a wild desert warrior born with the beast between his legs.

He and the creature on which he was mounted looked as untamed and dangerous as the Sahara itself.

How did she know that? Had she been to the Sahara? Her hands tensed on the thick stone windowsill.

As he reached the edge of the ridge, his horse reared up, hooves pawing the air. Her breath caught in her throat. But he moved naturally with the stallion, steadying him effortlessly. Then he reined in the horse and headed down the ridge. She could see the sheen of exertion glisten on the animal’s white flanks and the blue-black glint of the sun on David’s hair. Even from this distance she could see the powerful strength in the man’s coffee-skinned forearms.

He kicked his horse into a gallop and she could feel the rapid, rhythmic pounding of the hooves echo right through her chest as he disappeared down the far edge of the ridge and headed into the hills that sloped toward the sea.

She tried to lean even farther out the window in an effort to catch one last glimpse. But he was gone. And she felt a small and inexplicable slip in her gut.

She stepped back into the cool of the room, suddenly aware of her quickened pace of breathing, the heightened rate of her pulse. Who
was
this man? She forced her brain to think. He said he headed up a company, Rashid International. A sinister sensation crept up the back of her neck. Maybe she had a role to play, something to do with him and with his company. Something subversive. She could sense it in the murky shadows of her mind. Fear began to edge in.

She tried to swallow, to fight down the fright demons. She couldn’t allow fear to take over. She had no one in the world to turn to right now. She had to get a grip on herself. She had only herself.

The door banged open behind her.

Instantly she spun around.

But it was only Kamilah, a shy grin on her little face, her arms piled high with silky garments.

With shock, Sahar realized her hands were raised in front of her, her legs tensed for a kick, her whole body, every muscle, was primed to attack this child. Shaken by her instinctive aggression, she pressed her hands firmly down to her sides and forced a smile. “Kamilah, you startled me.”

Kamilah entered the room and began to lay her armload of garments out on the bed. Sahar forced herself to relax. She moved over to the bed and fingered the sheer, exotic textures. “These are beautiful, Kamilah, where did you get them?”

Kamilah looked down at her feet. “They’re my mother’s,” she said softly.

Sahar froze. “Oh, Kamilah, I couldn’t possibly wear your mother’s clothes.”

Kamilah’s big brown eyes lifted slowly up. Sahar could read the hurt in them. She crouched down to the child’s height. “Kamilah,” she said. “It’s not because I don’t like them. I think they’re the most beautiful dresses I’ve ever seen. But I’m not sure your father would be happy if he saw me wearing these clothes. And I really wouldn’t want to upset anybody.”

Kamilah’s bottom lip trembled slightly. Sahar was at a loss. The poor child seemed to desperately need this. She sighed. “Okay, how about I just try one dress on, then?”

Kamilah’s face lit up. She immediately reached for a silky green dress and held the garment out to her.

Sahar took it from the child. “You think it’ll fit me?”

Kamilah nodded.

Sahar held the fabric against her face and turned toward the mirror. Kamilah had made a fine choice. The jade-green silk picked up the dark flecks in her eyes. She moved closer to the mirror. But as she did, a bright-white light stabbed through her head. She gasped. Her hand shot to the neat line of stitches under her hairline. It was as if she’d seen something. As if dark glass had cracked and let in a painful bright shard of memory. A memory that had something to do with the color of this jade-green silk. Something more than just the color. But as sharp and fast as it had come, it was gone.

Sahar’s heart pounded. She carefully set the dress back onto the bed. She couldn’t possibly put it on. She had to find a way out of this without upsetting Kamilah.

But before she could speak, the unmistakable sound of galloping hooves once again thudded into her brain.
The Arabian horseman—David Rashid.

She spun around and peered out the window inexplicably hungry for another glimpse of the man on his stallion.

She saw him coming back up along the ridge at a hell-bent pace, spurts of red dust shooting up behind the stallion’s hooves, the horse’s mane and tail flying free with the wind of speed. Her breath caught once again at the primitive image of the powerful man astride his white horse.

“That’s my daddy,” said the small voice at her side.

Sahar released her breath in a whoosh. “Wow, he sure can ride. What a beautiful horse.”

“He’s got lots of horses. That’s Barakah, his stallion. He’s just broken him in.” Pride for her father had burst out in a spurt of words that left the little girl looking shell-shocked at the sound of her own voice.

Sahar chose not to comment, to go with the flow as if nothing was unusual. “You’re kidding? He’s totally in control. That stallion must be a devil to ride, but your dad makes it look like he was born on the horse.”

Kamilah shrugged.

“So,
was
he born on a horse?”

A smiled struggled across Kamilah’s lips. “Kind of.”

Sahar crouched down again. “How so?”

“My…my daddy, he used to ride with
his
daddy, Sheik Omar bin Zafir Rashid, when he was very little, in the desert. That’s where he learned how.”

“Sheik? Your grandfather’s a sheik?”

The little girl nodded.

“And does he live here, too?”

She shook her head. “He’s dead now. Like my mummy. He was the leader of a nomad tribe in the desert. Now daddy is the sheik.”

Curiosity quickened through Sahar. Somehow, instinctively she’d known David Rashid was connected with the Sahara. And the fact he was titled slotted into her brain like a missing puzzle piece. “So is
that
where your father is from? The Sahara desert?”