Lord of the Desert

“You’d never really had any attention from a man,” Maggie pointed out. “It was inevitable that you’d go mad over the first man who treated you like a woman.”

Gretchen grimaced. “And all he wanted was the insurance money. He didn’t have any idea that the ranch was mortgaged to the hilt, and that there wasn’t going to be any money. We’d have lost the ranch if my big brother Marc hadn’t had a savings account big enough to pay off the part in arrears.”

“How sad that Daryl got out of town before your brother got to him,” Maggie said coldly.

“Marc scares most people when he’s in a temper,” Gretchen reminisced with a smile. “He was something of a local legend even before he left the Texas Rangers to join the FBI.”

“Marc loves you. So do I.” Maggie patted her hand and smiled. “I was like you, in a rut. I decided that I needed a leap of faith, a great adventure to pull me out of my complacency. So I’m going to Qawi to be personal assistant to the ruling sheikh of the whole country,” she added. “How’s that for a leap of faith?”

Gretchen chuckled. “About as big a one as you’ll ever make, probably. I hope you know what you’re doing,” she added. “I’ve heard some scary things about Middle-Eastern countries and beheadings.”

“Not in Qawi,” Maggie said easily. “It’s very progressive in culture, with an equal mixture of religions which makes it unique in the Persian Gulf. And all that oil money is going to make it cosmopolitan very quickly. The sheikh is very forward-thinking.”

“And single, you said?” she teased.

Maggie frowned. “Yes. You remember his country was invaded about two years ago, and there was a big scandal about it. I watched several news broadcasts that told about it. There were some rumors about him, too, of an unsavory nature, but his government explained them.”

Gretchen sipped coffee. “Maybe he’ll be gorgeous and sexy and look like Rudolph Valentino. Did you ever see that silent movie, ‘The Sheikh’?” she continued dreamily. “Just imagine having a fantasy like that actually come to life, Maggie. Being abducted by a handsome sheikh on a white stallion and having him fall madly in love with you! I get goose bumps just thinking about it.” She frowned. “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a modern woman. Probably I should be dreaming about throwing a handsome sheikh onto my horse and riding away with him as my captive.” A long sigh left her lips. “Oh, well, it’s only a daydream after all. Reality is never that adventurous, not for me. You’re more the type for gorgeous, sexy men.”

Maggie laughed hollowly. “I don’t have much luck with gorgeous, sexy men,” she said.

Gretchen knew she was thinking about her foster brother, Cord Romero. “Well, don’t look at me,” she mused, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “I only attract gigolos.”

“Daryl wasn’t a gigolo, he was a garden slug. You should only date men who belong to your own species,” she said haughtily.

Gretchen burst out laughing. “Oh, you make me feel so independent and brave,” she said, and meant it. “I’m really glad you asked me to come with you on this vacation and paid more than your part so I could afford it,” she added gratefully. “Even if I do have to fly back alone. I’m going to miss you,” she said quietly. “We won’t get to go shopping together or even talk on the phone at holidays.”

Maggie nodded solemnly. She was flying from here to Qawi. Her role as personal assistant to the ruling sheikh would be to assume responsibility for public relations, court functions, and organization of the household duties. It would be a challenge, and she might be homesick for Texas. But she’d told Gretchen once that anything was better than the hell of being around Cord Romero, who had made it obvious that she was never going to be part of his life.

Both had been orphans, adopted by a Houston society matron. They weren’t related, but Cord treated Maggie like a relative. He’d married a few years back and his wife, Patricia, had committed suicide after he was almost fatally wounded and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give up his career as a government agent. Soon after her death, he left the field of law enforcement and went to work as a professional mercenary soldier, specializing in bomb disposal.

It was what he did now, and Maggie had managed to keep her distance from him quite comfortably until the sudden death of their adoptive mother. Maggie had married a few weeks later, but her elderly husband had been an invalid and died only six months after their marriage. She and Cord had avoided each other ever since. Gretchen wondered what had happened, but Maggie never spoke of it.

When Cord unexpectedly returned to Houston and moved in the same circles Maggie did, in between foreign assignments, she applied and got a job in another country. One which, ironically, Cord had casually told her about. He’d come back from a job in Qawi just recently, helping disarm old land mines from a guerilla invasion. When Maggie had looked into the job, she’d found that it paid handsomely—much more handsomely than her own position as a financial advisor. She was determined to make a clean break from Cord this time.

On the way, she decided to have a vacation. She’d invited her friend Gretchen along, mainly because Gretchen had been so very despondent after the death of her mother and the tragic betrayal of her one serious boyfriend. So far the trip had been wonderful. But soon, Maggie would fly on to Qawi and Gretchen would have to board a plane alone for Amsterdam, from which she’d fly back to Texas.

It would be lonely for Gretchen, but she’d get a glimpse of the world. She needed that. She’d nursed her mother through cancer twice in the past six years. Gretchen was twenty-three and she was as naïve as a teenager in a convent school. She hadn’t had the opportunity to date much, with her mother so ill—and so possessive of her only child. Gretchen’s father had died when she was ten and her brother Marc was eighteen, and that had made their lives much harder. Marc lived with Gretchen and the foreman and his family on their ranch in Jacobsville, Texas, when he could get home. Marc worked for the FBI, and spent much of his life out of town on job assignments. His job hadn’t allowed him to help Gretchen with nursing their mother, although he certainly helped support them.

“Morocco,” Gretchen said aloud and smiled at Maggie. “I never dreamed I’d ever get to go someplace so exotic.”

Maggie only smiled.

“You’re very quiet,” Gretchen said suddenly, curious about her friend’s unfamiliar silences. Maggie was usually the talkative one of the two.

Maggie shrugged, cupping her coffee cup in both hands. “I was thinking about…home.”

“Shame on you. This is a vacation and we’ve just got here. You can’t possibly be homesick yet.”

Maggie smiled wanly. “I’m not homesick. Not really. I just wish things had worked out a little better.”

“With Cord,” Gretchen said knowingly.

Maggie shrugged. “It wouldn’t have worked out. He’ll never get over Pat’s death and he won’t give up his freelance demolitions work. He likes it too much.”

“People do change as they get older,” Gretchen said.

“He won’t.” There was finality and misery in the statement. “I’ve spent enough of my life hoping he’d wake up and love me. He isn’t going to. I have to learn to live without him now.”

“He might miss you and rush over on the first jet to bring you back home.”

“That isn’t likely.”

“Neither was my getting to go to Morocco,” Gretchen replied mischievously. She finished her beautifully cooked scrambled eggs.

Maggie forced a smile. “Oh well. The sheikh is relatively young and charming and a bachelor. Who knows what might happen?”

“Who knows.” Gretchen was sorry that Maggie had decided on such a drastic action. She was going to miss her terribly. Callie Kirby, her coworker at the law office in Jacobsville, was wonderful company, but Maggie had been her best friend since childhood. It had been bad enough when Maggie moved to Houston. It was a worse wrench to have her move out of the country.

“You can come and visit me,” Maggie said. “I’ll be allowed to have company. We might catch you a prince yet.”

“I don’t want a prince,” Gretchen said with a chuckle. “I’d settle for a nice cowboy with his own horse, and a kind heart.”

“Kind hearts are pretty rare,” Maggie pointed out. “But maybe you’ll find him one day. I hope so.”

“You could come back with me,” Gretchen said somberly. “It isn’t too late to change your mind. What if Cord suddenly wakes up and realizes he’s crazy about you, and you’re two thousand miles away?”

“As you said, he knows how to get on an airplane,” Maggie replied firmly. “Now let’s talk about something cheerful.”

Gretchen didn’t say another word. But she hoped most sincerely that Maggie knew what she was doing. It was one thing to be a tourist, quite another to be dependent in a foreign country. The job sounded almost too good to be true. And wasn’t Qawi a very male-dominated society where women had separate quarters and separate lives from men? It did seem odd that the sheikh would want not only a female public relations officer, but one from a foreign country known for liberated women. Perhaps there was a subtle revolution in progress in Qawi. Gretchen hoped so. She didn’t want her best friend in danger. But, she cheered herself, they still had a week in Tangier to enjoy. It was going to be a perfect trip. She just knew it.

Chapter Two

But all Maggie’s plans for her vacation and her new job went up in smoke the next morning as she accepted an unexpected long-distance call from Jacobsville, Texas. “I hate to have to tell you this,” Eb Scott, a friend of hers told her quietly. “Cord’s been hurt. He was doing a job in Florida a week ago, putting a small explosive device in a barrel for remote detonation and it went off in his face.”

Every drop of blood drained out of Maggie’s face. She gripped the telephone receiver like a lifeline. “Is he…dead?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

An eternity of seconds later he said, “No. But he wishes he was. He’s blind, Maggie.”

She closed her eyes, trying to see that proud, independent man walking with a cane or a guide dog, trying to pick up the pieces of his life alone. “Where is he?” she asked.

“Gretchen’s brother, Marc, was in Miami when it happened. He picked up Cord and brought him home when he was released from the hospital. Cord’s at his ranch outside Houston.” There was another hesitation. “I didn’t know until Marc phoned me on his way back to Miami.”

“Is Cord alone?”

“All alone,” Eb said irritably. “He wouldn’t come down here and stay with Sally and me in Jacobsville, or even with Cy Parks. He doesn’t have any family of his own, does he?”

“Only me,” Maggie said with a hollow laugh, “if I qualify as family.” She hesitated, thinking fast. “I suppose he’d kick me out if I came home to stay with him.”