The Sheikh Who Stole Her: Sheikh Seduction / The Untamed Sheikh / Desert King, Doctor Daddy

They were at the cave’s entrance, blinded by the sunlight, barely able to see the beat-up Jeep that pulled up to the level area on the hillside before them. It came to a halt between the two trucks, which had their engines idling.

A man in full tribal wear, including a soiled headdress, got out. A moment passed before she recognized him.

“Husam.” The name slipped from her mouth, and a cold shiver ran down her spine as the smugglers nodded to him respectfully.

Although he was too far away to have heard her, the man’s eyes zeroed in on her in the next second.

His face twisted into a frightful smile as he strode toward them. “You are alive,” he said to her with a wide smile. “I had to come and see.”

Tariq spoke rapidly and forcefully in Arabic, lurching forward, but the man behind him held him back. Husam sneered at him and pointed at her, switching to Arabic. One of the older men with the bandits came over, listened to Husam for a while. Tariq was still speaking, as well. She couldn’t understand a word, but from the tone of his voice it sounded like he was alternately threatening and protesting.

The bandit leader shrugged and pulled a curved knife from the sheath on his belt. She shrunk back as he aimed it at her, but he ended up slicing the ropes that tied her to Tariq, instead of slicing into her, as she’d half expected.

Then Husam grabbed her arm, and the gleam in his beady dark eyes left little doubt about his intentions toward her. “I never wanted to do you harm. I meant to save your life. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were a gift.” The look he gave her made it clear that he expected her gratitude.

“Let me go!” She struggled against him.

He seemed confused. “I’m offering you life.” The smile was fading from his face at her resistance.

“You knew that the cars would be attacked.”

“I knew our people would be in the same place that afternoon. I joined you to make sure you were spared.” He sounded angry now at her lack of gratitude.

“Let me go.”

“You will appreciate the honor of being chosen by me. You will respect me,” he warned.

She tried to elbow him in his chest, but underestimated the strength of his grip. He slowed his stride enough to backhand her, hard, across the face. She tasted blood and heard Tariq roar behind her.

Then so many things happened at once that she couldn’t untangle the sequence of events, not even later, when she had time to think about it.

There came a number of shouts, then a sickening thud, and Husam let go, falling face-first into the sand next to her, a dagger protruding from his back. Where had Tariq gotten that? At the same time, gunfire sounded, bullets slamming into the ground all around them. She sprinted forward on reflex, threw herself onto her stomach and slid under the Jeep for cover.

As soon as she was out of sight, she was out of mind, as well. Nobody came after her. Obviously, nobody considered her a threat. She watched with horror as the bandits focused on Tariq, who had drawn back into the cover of the cave, having somehow laid his hands on an AK-47.

The bandit leader and the young guy who’d brought them from the cave lay crumpled on the sand, and more bandits were falling by the second, Tariq’s aim proving to be exceedingly accurate.

The rest of the bandits were lying flat on their stomachs among the rocks, some backing away toward the trucks. Then one appeared in the back of one of the vehicles, with a sinister looking weapon on his shoulder.

A handheld rocket launcher. She hadn’t watched all those action flicks on late-night TV for nothing. The man aimed it straight at the cave’s opening.

She rolled to the other side of the Jeep and came up to a crouch, slid behind the steering wheel. Nobody heard the motor rev over the din of gunfire. She floored the gas pedal and went after her target, who didn’t notice her until too late.

He had time only for a horrified look as he turned the weapon on her. He couldn’t fire, however. The next second the force of the collision knocked him clear off the truck bed.

Sara was stunned for a moment or two, having hit her head pretty hard on the steering wheel. Her vision clouded. She rubbed her eyes, the back of her hand coming away bloody. She reached up and touched her fingers to a gash in her forehead, brushed off shards of glass from the broken windshield. Then spotted the guy’s rifle on the hood, which was crumpled under the truck’s tailgate.

She stretched forward and grabbed the weapon just as the man finally picked himself up from the ground—looking as stunned as she felt—and lunged for her. She pulled the trigger without thinking, feeling more surprise than anything when red bloomed on his camouflage shirt, and he crumpled to the ground, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a shout that got forever stuck in his throat.

She didn’t have time to think about him.

She whipped back to the battle behind her and squeezed the trigger again. Moving the rifle back and forth in a sweeping motion, she pointed in the general direction of the bandits, her index finger frozen to the trigger until the last bullet was spent from the curved magazine, and for seconds after that.

When Tariq came up to her, with his arm bleeding again, but no sign of new injury, he had to pry the gun from her hands.

“Easy now. It’s okay. It’s over. You saved us.” He drew her into his arms and held her as sobs broke free from someplace deep inside and shook her body.

She was a strong woman who prided herself on never falling apart, no matter the circumstances. Well, now she was falling apart spectacularly, and she didn’t care. The events of the past few days, especially the past few minutes, had taxed her beyond bearing. If Tariq hadn’t been holding her up, she would have fallen.

But he was holding her, his strong arms around her, his lips on her hair, murmuring gentle words of encouragement.

She was sobbing.

“It’s okay. It’s over. I’m going to get you some water. Why don’t you sit?” He was gentle and attentive, looking at her with concern.

“I thought we would die.” Her voice sounded strangely weak. “But I—” She couldn’t finish.

“I remember something my father told me after a battle when I was a child, although I didn’t understand it then. He said for a warrior with a heart, the worst isn’t the threat of dying, it’s the taking of another life, no matter how unworthy the person is of living.” Tariq rested his forehead against hers. “You are a warrior with a heart.”

He overestimated her. She was no warrior, no lioness. She pulled away and sat on a rock ledge, watched him walk away after a moment. She’d managed to regain some measure of self-control by the time he returned, his bloody, shredded clothes replaced by a clean set of traditional pants and robe.

“We’d better get out of here.” He handed her a heavy canteen, then bent to brush shards of glass from her hair while she drank.

“Somebody will come looking for Husam and the trucks sooner or later.”

She handed back the canteen as she stood. They were in this together; she couldn’t expect him to lead her around like some invalid. She drew a deep breath, filling her lungs. “What do you want me to do?”

“You could go back to the cave and rest while I pack for the road.”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t think so, but I had to try.” He gave her a half smile. “Okay. You can gather supplies if you’re up to it. Food, water, blankets, weapons. See if you can find that satellite phone they took from you.”

She nodded and set off, her gait unstable at first before she found sure footing. As she walked around the carnage, she did her best not to look at the dead. Tariq was trying to back the Jeep away from the truck, but the motor wouldn’t turn over.

“Can you fix it?” she shouted, before her attention was drawn to the rocks and the remains of a phone that had been reduced to slivers of black plastic. It had either met with a stray bullet or a hard-heeled boot during the fight. She lifted it and dangled some wires for Tariq to see. “I don’t suppose this can be fixed.”

He shook his head. “The engine looks busted, too.”

“The trucks?” She nodded toward them.

“Probably equipped with locators. Their cargo would be worth over a million dollars on the open market. Whoever owns them isn’t going to let them run around the desert without being able to keep track of his goods.”

An otherworldly laugh sounded from somewhere below them on the hillside. She started before she recognized it. “The hyena.” It had followed her all this way. A shiver ran down her spine. “Are we stuck here?”

But Tariq nodded toward the camel, which was tied to a rock in the shade. The guard she had enticed outside with some odd sounds, so that she could sneak in, must have found it and led it there. She hadn’t even noticed it until now.

“When you’re done gathering supplies, why don’t you give it some water to drink?” Tariq said. He grabbed the bandit closest to him and dragged the body into the cave, then the next, and the next. When he was done, he came for the camel and led it a good distance away. “Hold it here.”