Sheikh Seduction

“Oh, God.” The words tore from her throat, followed by a horrified groan.

Faint clanging drew her attention, and she swung toward the sound, but it stopped almost as soon as it began. She pushed herself to standing and sneaked a peek over the car’s roof. The military trucks were nowhere to be seen. A man was working on the other Hummer, his upper body half-under the hood.

She recognized his powerful physique and the determination in his focused movements. Tariq.

She wasn’t alone. Thank God, she wasn’t alone.

“Excuse me,” she called out, her voice so raw she didn’t think he would hear her.

But he turned and glanced at her. “You’re awake. Good.” He scrutinized her with narrowed eyes.

She moved forward. Maybe all hope wasn’t lost yet. She stumbled to the closest man and sank onto her knees in front of him, turned his head, blanched at the fixed, empty stare, the dark lashes clumped with blood. The driver of the other Hummer. She recognized him before her gaze fell to his ring finger, which had been hacked off.

Tariq’s voice was tight as he spoke. “They’re all dead. I already checked.”

She drew her hands back. The sun was cooking her, the sand burning everywhere she touched it. A wave of dizziness assailed her. She was going to be sick, or faint or have a nervous breakdown. Surely all of those responses would have been appropriate under the circumstances.

“Have you called for help?” she asked weakly. Maybe he had walked around and found a spot where his phone worked.

“There’s no signal this far out. And they took the satellite phones from the cars. Took everything that could be sold at the nearest market. Get out of the sun.”

She stumbled back to the car to see if she could find some water, glanced through the window and gagged at the sight. One of the armed guards sprawled across the backseat, bathed in blood. Lots of it. She pushed away and lurched toward Tariq, fixing her eyes on the sand at her feet, not wanting to see any more dead.

He glanced at her when she stopped next to him. “You should drink.”

She couldn’t form the words to respond. Hardship on a business trip before had meant that the projector didn’t work. What had happened here was beyond all comprehension. She couldn’t begin to process and make sense of it.

She ran a hand over her body, scarcely able to believe that she had survived whole. Her brown skirt was speckled with dark stains, her top had been torn. She had bought the suit specifically for this trip because the skirt was longer than usual, the outfit suitably modest. She reached to her blouse, and found it stiff with dried blood. Not her blood; nothing hurt when she moved.

A faint sound in the distance startled her, and she launched herself against Tariq’s solid chest, thinking another attack imminent. Then she realized it was only the wind. She stepped back, embarrassed, away from the steadying hand he held out.

“Do you think they’ll return?” Her voice was shaky from nerves.

The look he gave her was an understanding one. “I don’t see why they would, but we better get out of here, anyway.” He walked around and pulled out a bottle of Evian from the back. He even twisted off the cap for her, before coming back and handing it over. “We’re lucky this rolled under the driver’s seat.”

“Thank you.” She drank sparingly, then tried to give the bottle back, but he wouldn’t take it.

Instead, he reached out and cradled her cheek in his hand, lifted her chin and rubbed something from her jaw with his thumb. Dry blood, most likely. The moment dragged out, and she stood still, surprised by the gesture, even a little breathless.

“You’ll be fine. Go sit behind the car, in the shade,” he said gruffly when he finally spoke.

His simple touch of comfort helped to ease her shock and fear. After a moment he let his hand drop, but she was reluctant to move away. She felt better near him, as if his strength somehow extended beyond his body.

He said nothing, but went back to work on the engine, wiggling a wire with one long finger until he got it into the position he’d been apparently aiming for. “This should work.” He went around, reached through the driver’s side window and turned the key. The motor came to life.

The sweetest sound she had ever heard. Her eyes nearly teared up with relief.

He shut it off almost immediately.

“You should sit and rest.” He pointed to the small patch of shade the car provided.

She looked at him, then to the car, noticing that he had already cleared out the back—no bodies there. Nor anything else. Their briefcases were missing. Hers had held her laptop, cell phone, all her money, her passport and her plane tickets. She sank to the sand. It was marginally cooler in the shade.

Tariq walked back to the front and slammed the hood, which had to be hot enough to fry eggs and sausage.

“Why did they do this to us?” she asked.

He gave her question some thought, although she was sure he must have considered it himself while he’d worked on the motor. “Could be we were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Who were they?” She tried to rub dried blood off her hands.

He shrugged, the movement filled with tension. “Gun trade has been a profitable business in this part of the desert for the last couple of decades. Sex trade’s fading, but as long as there’s still some money in it, it won’t be completely abandoned. Drugs are always a possibility.”

Outrage unfurled inside Sara and nudged her out of her shell-shocked state. If they knew this, how could MMPOIL have brought them here? “So this happens all the time?”

“Not in the last four years, since the country stabilized,” he said darkly.

All she could think of was that they should have waited for the chopper to be fixed. She tried to make sense of the events of the past hour as Tariq took off two shot-up tires and replaced one with the spare, the other with an unharmed one from the other Hummer, refusing her offer of help. Then he got a short-handled shovel from the back and began digging in the sand a few yards from the vehicle.

She watched the shimmering horizon, petrified that the attackers would return. Only when the sound of digging stopped did she look back at Tariq. He seemed to be swaying. The heat of the sun was powerful.

“Are you okay?” She got up and walked to him, holding out the half-empty water bottle.

Instead of responding, he went back to digging again.

“I can help,” she said.

“Go back to the car.”

The arm of his dark blue shirt was soaking wet, she realized for the first time. Blood trickled down the back of his hand onto the shovel. And she remembered now that he’d been shot when he’d come to save her. How could she have forgotten that? She could barely think with all this death and destruction around them.

“You’re bleeding.” She handed him the water, trying to examine his arm.

“It’s fine,” he said through gritted teeth, but stopped for a second to take a few measured gulps.

“I’ll dig. You could bring over the bodies.” Now that the grave was taking shape, she’d finally figured out what he was trying to do.

She reached for the shovel, and at first he pulled away. But then he let her have it with a faint nod of appreciation, and started across the sand.

She could have been digging in talcum powder, she soon discovered. The sand flowed where it pleased, slowing her progress. She tried not to look at the dead as Tariq dragged them over one by one, but saw enough to register that they were all men who’d come with them. Her breath left her, her chest tightening painfully when she saw Jeff.

Jeff was dead. Jaw clenched tight, Sara kept digging.

It had been years since they’d been lovers, and God knew, they hadn’t been the best of friends lately. But they had history. She had been ready to have him out of her life for good, but not this way. She’d been hoping to scrape together enough money to buy him out. She felt the first tear roll down her face, quickly followed by an army of others that evaporated in the heat before they could reach her chin.

Tariq was by her side, taking the shovel from her. “Go back to the shade.”

Seven bodies lay in a neat row. She knelt next to Jeff and untucked her shirt to wipe his face with the clean part, straightened his tie and jacket, smoothed down his blondish hair.