Captured By A Sheikh

“The boy?” he demanded. “Is he hurt?”

“He is fine,” his cousin said.

“Someone’s shooting at us?” Judging by the pitch of her voice, Holly Rivers teetered on the edge of hysteria.

He doubted the police would be so reckless, with a woman and child in the car. “Perhaps this is how your groom thinks to reclaim you.”

“Trevor wouldn’t do that!”

“I agree, it is not him.” Zahad sped through traffic. “The attorney drives a new Cadillac. We are being chased by an old sedan with dark windows.”

“It seems my enemies have tracked us,” Sharif muttered.

“What enemies?” Holly was shaking. “Who are you guys, anyway?”

It was an odd question for a woman who had agreed of her own free will to bear his child. “We will discuss that later,” said Sharif. “By then, I think the answer will come to you.”

A series of furious zigzags climaxed in a swift ascent and rapid acceleration. They had entered the freeway.

Zahad checked his rearview mirror. “Our pursuers are dropping back. There is a highway patrol car… They have turned back.”

Cautiously, Sharif helped Holly sit up. “How is the baby now?”

“Sleeping,” said his cousin.

A moment later, he discovered that he should not have taken his attention from the woman. The combination of a shattered window and an approaching highway patrol car proved irresistible.

“Help!” she screamed, leaning out. “I’ve been kidnapped!”

The wind tore away her words. From his pocket, Sharif pulled a dampened cloth that Zahad had provided for such an emergency.

Clamping it over the woman’s face, he hauled her back into the car. She struggled briefly, then sagged.

When he was certain she slept, Sharif removed the cloth. Although his cousin had promised the dose was not harmful, he was relieved to hear her steady if shallow breathing. A check of the patrol car showed that it had surged ahead in the fast lane, paying them no attention.

“I will pull over at the next exit,” Zahad said. “We must leave her.”

“Lying by the road, unconscious?” The sheikh shook his head. “Not unless we can find a hospital.”

“So you will walk in there and say, ‘Excuse me, please take this woman, goodbye?”’ His cousin grimaced in the rearview mirror. “We have problems, my friend, and we do not need to add to them.”

“We have no problems that will not be solved by flying home,” Sharif said.

His cousin passed a slow-moving panel truck. “Think, my friend. Maimun’s surviving zealots are not stupid. They found us near the church. That means perhaps they can find us again.”

Reluctantly, Sharif conceded the point. “They must have learned of Ms. Rivers’s marriage, as we did. So they know about her, and therefore about my son.”

“Someone has been tracking our comings and goings,” his aide said. “Possibly an employee of the airlines or the airport in Alqedar. They must have tracked me on my last visit here.”

“Then they also know of our return reservations.” Sharif shook his head, impatient with these obstacles. “So we simply take a circuitous route. Fly from Los Angeles to, say, London. Then to Riyadh…”

Zahad grimaced. “I advise that we do our homework first. We have no idea how many of them there are, or how well-placed. We need more information before we dare to appear in public.”

Sharif started to argue. But he knew his cousin was right. They were stuck here, at least for a while.

Another thought hit him. “Then we must keep Ms. Rivers in our custody until we leave. Otherwise, she would give the police too much information.”

“Unfortunately, you are right.” Zahad punched the radio controls. “Let us see if we have yet made the news reports.”

As they listened to sports headlines, Holly snuggled against Sharif’s shoulder. The scent of flowers clung to her, along with a trace of baby powder. She seemed less a woman than a nymph, dozing in a cloud of red hair.

A newscaster’s voice broke through the sheikh’s thoughts. “Police in Harbor View say a bride has been kidnapped moments before her wedding. This happened less than fifteen minutes ago outside the First Community Harbor View Church.”

“They are quick with their news,” Zahad observed.

“The police no doubt want the public to watch for us,” Sharif said.

“The woman, whose identity is being withheld, has collar-length auburn hair and is wearing an ivory wedding gown,” said the announcer. “A witness reported seeing her forced into a tan car driven by two men with dark hair and short beards. We’ll keep you posted as this story develops.”

When a commercial came on, Zahad smacked the steering wheel. “What witness? I saw no one! Americans are too nosy.”

“We made a spectacle of ourselves, as I recall,” the sheikh said. “Well, we will need to change our appearance as soon as we reach the safe house.”

“That is so.” Zahad drove for a time in silence.

Sharif wondered if, once Holly awoke, he could persuade her to admit that he was entitled to his son. Perhaps, in exchange for her immediate release, she would help them settle the matter with the police.

Then he could focus on the would-be assassins. And on forgetting a clear-eyed woman with fiery hair and flower-scented skin.

On the radio, the announcer returned. “Here’s an update on that kidnapping of a bride in Harbor View. Apparently her three-month-old nephew was also abducted. Police are already investigating the earlier disappearance of the child’s mother.”

A cold chill swept over Sharif. Holly Jeannette Rivers wasn’t the mother of his child. He had taken the wrong woman.

HOLLY’S HEAD felt as if someone had stuffed it with wool, and her wrists chafed. Through the thin mattress, springs and crossbars dug into her back.

She struggled to connect the scattered images in her brain. Alice and the flowers. Trevor, giving her that familiar lopsided grin. The church courtyard, with clouds gathering overhead.

A man stood in the alley, his hands thrust in pockets set into the front of his sweatshirt. Despite his jeans and baseball cap, his beard and his intensity made him seem foreign.

And then—a madly swerving car. And the man, holding her.

The hardness of his body had imprinted itself on her memory. In his grip, she’d felt a reluctant stirring of something she didn’t want to name. Something she’d never felt for Trevor.

Then had come the shock of being yanked onto the seat. Had she hit her head? Had she been shot? Anguished, she tried to force herself awake, but her eyelids stuck.

She felt the bite of winter air, tinged with waves of warmth and laced with the aroma of burning wood. Not far off, a low voice murmured in a language she didn’t understand.

Then something erased all other perceptions. It was the sound of Ben gurgling and cooing.