The Weeping Desert (22 page)

She became aware that she was wet, and that warm water was lapping around her, washing over her legs rhythmically and gently. It was soothing and held no menace. She wished she could reach the water to rinse the sand out of her mouth, but the effort seemed too much.

The sun was rising in the sky and its warmth lulled her into sleep, an uneasy sleep in which she longed for unknown things to happen. There was a constricting band across her diaphragm which prevented movement, and each time she stirred a stabbing pain froze her into stillness.

She did not know how long she lay there, sun and sea warming and wetting her. A tiny crab scuttled away beneath her hand. A pair of sooty terns pattered curiously around her still figure, weaving a trail of arrowed footprints. Overhead the lush foliage of the leaning palms swept the sands with long green fingers. The scent of wild vanilla mingled with a confusion of oleander, hibiscus, frangipani.

Someone was turning her onto her side and she moaned because it hurt. She felt faintly annoyed, because the person ought to know that it hurt her to move. Her feeble resistance went unnoticed. She resented this interference. She only wanted to be allowed to sleep. The breeze murmuring through the leaves was her lullaby.

Her parched lips were being parted and a damp piece of fabric was probing gently, wiping out the grains of sand which clung to the inside of her mouth. She moved her tongue.

“In a minute,” said a voice, understanding. “Let’s get the sand out first, then you can have a drink.”

She trusted the voice. She lay still, letting the exploration go on, and with returning consciousness came other points of discomfort. Her eyelids and nostrils were encrusted with sand and she wanted to tell the damp fabric that it had more work to do.

She was becoming aware of an ache in her shoulders, up the back of her neck and spreading into her head. Her head felt as if it was swollen, as if the pressure would make her brain spill out of her ears.

She moaned again, wanting the promised water, but waiting with a new patience that came from the simple relief of knowing that someone was there.

Something light and damp was put over her shoulders and head, shutting off the now burning sun. A small round disc lay against her cheek. A button, she thought, with absolute clarity.

“We can’t have you getting sunstroke on top of this lot,” said the voice. “Won’t be long now, it’s nearly all gone.”

An arm was behind her head, lifting her only slightly, but the pain seared across her chest. She cried out, but at the same instant water dribbled into her mouth and she swallowed it greedily, choking on the uneven flow, the drink momentarily washing away the agony of the forward lift.

“Steady now, slowly does it.”

But she did not hear. The water dribbled down her chin and she lost consciousness again.

Much later, she emerged from the darkness and this time she opened her eyes. They opened freely, and for a while she lay staring at the patch of light from the window. It was still daylight but she had a feeling that evening was coming and the heat was sliding away.

She was lying on a narrow bed in a corner of a strange room, covered with a rough cotton sheet. The sand had gone and she was dry, but her neck was stiff and the pounding pain continued in her head.

She moved tentatively and found to her surprise that a wide bandage had been wrapped around her diaphragm and secured with two safety pins. Curiously, the support it gave was not unpleasant. Her middle area felt sore, and she automatically began to breathe with a shallow intake to ease the discomfort.

She grew more aware of the room. It was built of wood and furnished very simply with a chest of drawers, a table, some wooden chairs, a row of books on a crude shelf, and by the window someone had stuck a handful of wild flowers in a pot. A little green lizard ran across the ceiling. Where was she? Suppose she was alone? What had happened to her?

Dimly she thought she must have been in some accident, or had been ill, for she was very weak. She fought through the wool that clouded her mind, but nothing came. She could remember nothing, nothing at all. But the thought of water tormented her. Suddenly she was terribly frightened, and weak tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

Somewhere a door opened and a man came into the room. Vaguely she saw him through her mist of tears. He was a lean giant towering over the bed, dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark eyes beneath unruly brows. He dragged a chair over beside the bed and set a tin mug down on it. Gently he put an arm under her head and lifted her.

“Open your mouth,” he said with some authority. He put two pills on her tongue. “Now swallow these pills.”

She would have swallowed anything for the sake of the water. It was cool, fresh and sparkling, and she drank and drank. He let her drink it all to the last drop. She had never felt so thirsty.

“More,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “You’re English. That’s going to make life a lot easier. Still thirsty, are you? I’ll be back in a moment with something much nicer.”

English. She turned the word over in her mind. She was English.

What happens in Nassau, stays in Nassau. Not.

Remember the Night

© 2012 Sally Falcon

When Joanna Trent abandoned her practical life to indulge in a vacation fling, she never expected that the handsome stranger she left behind in the Bahamas would turn out to be a new and important business client, Nathan Hartford.

Now, Joanna must try to separate business from pleasure, even as Nathan persists in rekindling their affair. But there are consequences to rash actions, and Joanna needs to decide what she is going to do about them before she plunges even deeper with the darkly handsome Nathan.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Remember the Night

“Oh, sweet heaven, it can’t be him.” Joanna Trent squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. He was still there. Ruthlessly she closed the back of her throat, trapping the hysterical scream that was forming before it could escape.
This can’t be happening to me, not today.
Forgetting the petite silver-blond at her side—and everyone else in the crowded ballroom—Joanna watched with horrified fascination as the dark-haired man walked away from the door to join a cluster of people nearby.

“Jo, what is it? Do you feel all right?” Diane Barringer looked at her friend and business partner in confusion. A strangling noise sounded directly in her ear, and it came from Joanna, who suddenly seemed frozen in place, her green eyes fixed on a point across the room. There was a look of abject fear on her usually poised face. “What did Dr. Jessop say about your check-up today?”

“The man in the brown suit standing next to Evan Hartford, who is he?” Joanna asked abruptly. She forced the words between clenched teeth, so they came out in a whispered hiss instead of her usual husky tone. There wasn’t time to worry about her health right now.

Diane turned her head, then gave a short laugh. It was easy to locate the commanding gray-haired figure of the president of Hartford Consolidated—and host of the reception that Trent-Barringer had organized. A tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties stood next to him. “Relax, it’s his nephew. I met him while you were out with the flu, just before you went to Nassau.”

Nassau. The word sent a shiver of emotion skating up Joanna’s spine. Ruthlessly suppressing the bone-melting image it brought to mind, she grasped her friend’s arm, unconsciously exerting pressure with her tapered fingernails. “His name, what’s his name?”

“Hey, take it easy. That’s Nathan Hartford. Don’t worry though, he’s harmless. Tanned, gorgeous, and with the sexiest mustache I’ve ever seen, but harmless to our public relations business,” Diane replied with another slight laugh, but she gave Joanna a curious look when she made another strange noise.

“That’s what you think,” Joanna replied, taking pride in her normal sounding voice. She’d managed to keep the scream at bay, but she wasn’t sure for how long. “Diane, I’ll be right back. I’m going to the ladies.”

She turned and walked briskly away before Diane could ask any awkward questions, or her nervous stomach could embarrass her in front of a room full of strangers. As she skirted the side of the ballroom, she kept a wary eye on both the Hartford men. Nathan hadn’t seen her, yet. She had to do some fast thinking before he did. He was smiling that heart stopping, slanted grin; she wondered what would happen to that grin if she told him about the phone call this afternoon.

Would he be as devastated as she had been? No, that was undoubtedly wishful thinking. She was nothing more than a pleasant holiday diversion to him, not someone who had haunted his dreams for the past two months. It was possible that he didn’t remember her at all.

Potent danger.
Joanna recalled the words that blazed across her mind the moment she’d first
laid eyes on Nathan two months ago. She’d been napping on the float in the middle of the cove and opened her eyes to discover—

Shaking her head, she dismissed the tantalizing memory of his smoky gray eyes watching her with amused speculation.

She slapped her hand harder than necessary against the swinging door of the restroom. The lounge area was deserted. Her nausea had passed for now, and she sank gratefully onto the nearest mauve brocade vanity bench. Burying her face in her hands, she muttered dark invectives at herself, Nathan, the entire world. The day began a slow descent toward disaster with an innocent phone call, and now was close to rock bottom at Nathan’s sudden appearance.

How many times have I wondered about his last name in the past two months?
She answered the question with another groan. Looking into the wall length mirror, she knew her carefully arranged French plait should be stark white instead of brunette with reddish-blond highlights. Shock was supposed to do that. She’d classify the whole day as a shocker of the horror variety,
Friday the Thirteenth
,
parts one through one hundred and ninety-nine.

“
You
decided after twenty-nine and a half years that you were tired of being too practical, too level-headed, and too responsible.
You
had to be carefree and spontaneous, didn’t you?” She challenged her oval faced reflection, noting the paleness of her skin. It wasn’t just the loss of her holiday tan. “
You
had to prove
that
by having a whirlwind, no-holds-barred holiday affair with a man whose last name you didn’t even know. The same man who just walked in the ballroom, and judging from his last name, is one of the new owners of the company that’s your biggest client.”

The Weeping Desert

Alexandra Thomas

When a hidden beauty meets a bold Englishman, they break all the rules for love.

A man in the royal harem!

Khadija could not believe her eyes. The daughter of a powerful sheikh, she has never been allowed to mingle with foreigners, and certainly never alone. She knows she should summon the guards, but Khadija longs for freedom, and this handsome Englishman might just be her ticket out.

Meets a caged bird longing for freedom.

John Cameron is entranced with this wild desert beauty, and she seems fascinated with him. After a whirlwind secret affair, he is ready to take her home to his small English town. But are they ready for someone like Khadija? And when a jilted lover from her past tracks them down, Khadija and John must decide how far they are willing to go to stay together.

This Retro Romance reprint was originally published in 1981 by Hamlyn Publishing.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

The Weeping Desert

Copyright © 2013 by Alexandra Thomas

ISBN: 978-1-61921-033-2

Edited by Heather Osborn

Cover by Valerie Tibbs

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Original Publication by Hamlyn Publishing: 1981

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: January 2013

www.samhainpublishing.com