Sheikh, Children's Doctor...Husband

The young woman nodded but she was obviously too engrossed in what she was hearing from the television to be taking much notice of Alex.

‘Many people have been injured,’ Hafa explained. ‘There is a school that has collapsed with children inside. The town is in the mountains and landslides have closed the roads in and out, so it will be hard to get help and supplies to it.’

She paused as a new figure appeared on the screen, a familiar figure.

‘It is His Highness, His new Highness,’ she pointed out, her relief so evident Alex had to wonder at the man’s power. ‘He has left his brother’s funeral. He says he will go there now. If the helicopter cannot land, he has been lowered from one before. He will assess the situation and arrange to bring in whatever is needed. He can also give immediate medical help.’

‘Where will he go from?’ Alex asked, as new excitement stirred inside her. This was what she’d been trained for, but it was some time since she’d done this kind of work, the need to earn as much as possible to repay Rob’s debts taking precedence over all else.

‘He will fly from here—his own helicopter is here at the palace. It is used for rescues as well as his private business so it has medical equipment on board. Sometimes it takes people to hospital if there is an emergency. It brought the other Highness, Prince Bahir, to the hospital after the accident.’

Alex had heard enough. What she had to do was find Azzam and offer her services—explain her training and expertise, not to mention her experience.

But finding Azzam might not be the best way to attack this situation. Better by far to find the helicopter and get aboard. Samarah was in good hands with Maya. The hospital would already be on full alert. Arrangements would be under way for other medical staff to get to the stricken area, but she knew from experience that such arrangements took time, while the sooner trained people were in place, the more chance there was of saving the injured.

She wrapped a scarf around her head—downdraughts from helicopters caused havoc with even braided long hair. The helicopter, if it was used for rescues, would have emergency equipment on board, but she grabbed a small plastic pack out of her hand luggage. In it she had waterless hand cleaner, a small toothbrush and toothpaste, a spare pair of undies and a tiny manicure set—experience in emergencies had taught her to be prepared. The pack fitted easily into the wide pockets of her loose trousers. Then she ran out the door, calling to Hafa to show her the way.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU are doing what?’

Azzam stared in disbelief when he saw Alex already strapped into the back of the helicopter, adjusting a helmet over her pale hair.

‘Coming with you to the earthquake region,’ she answered calmly, adding, too quickly for him to argue, ‘and before you get uptight about it, it’s what I’m trained to do. As well as clinic work, I’m an ER doctor, mostly doing night shifts these days, but I’m a specialist major emergency doctor with experience of triage in cyclones, fire and floods. I also know how long it takes to get hospital personnel mobilised, and right now, for the people in that village, two doctors are better than one, so let’s go.’

Was she for real?

Surely she wouldn’t be lying about experience like that, and if she wasn’t lying, she’d certainly be useful.

‘Maya is with your mother, so she is in good hands.’

She sounded genuine, and he knew from his mother that she appeared to genuinely care, but he must have still looked doubtful for she hurried on.

‘I’ve been lowered from helicopters. I’ve done rescues off ships. I am trained.’

‘Cutting my legs out from under me—isn’t that the expression?’ he responded.

She smiled and he realised it was only the second time he’d seen a proper smile from her, but this one, in daylight rather than the dim light of the rose garden, was something special. Her generous lips curved in what seemed like genuine delight, while silver flashes danced in her eyes.

Disturbed in ways he didn’t want to think about, he turned away from her, gave a curt order to his pilot, nodded to the navigator, who would act as winchman if necessary, and climbed into the front seat. He hoped there’d be a patch of flat land where the helicopter could land, but if there wasn’t they’d have to be lowered on a cable.

‘You say you’ve been winched down on a cable?’ he asked, speaking through the microphone in his helmet as the engines were roaring with the power needed for liftoff.

‘Onto the deck of a ship pitching in sixty-knot winds,’ she told him, and he felt an urge to grind his teeth.

‘Wonder-woman, in fact?’ he growled instead.

She glanced his way and shrugged.

‘No, but I believe if you’re going to do something you should do it well.’

He believed the same thing himself, so it couldn’t be that causing his aggravation. Was it nothing more than the presence of the woman in the helicopter?

Impossible question to answer, so he turned to practical matters, taking care to keep any hint of sarcasm out of his voice as he said, ‘Well, you’ve probably had experience of this before, but unless the chopper lands a fair distance away, dust from the rotors can cause more problems for people who have been injured, or buried beneath the rubble. Dropping in a short distance away is usually safer and if we can establish a drop zone, medical supplies and water can be lowered into the same place as well.’

Azzam realised he’d mostly done training runs and learnt from books and lectures the latest ways to handle mass disasters. He’d even written the hospital’s policy papers for the management of such things. But he’d never really expected it to happen—not in his own country.

Driven by his need to see for himself, and his fear for the people of the northern village, he’d left the funeral feast and rushed straight back to his rooms, issuing orders through the phone to the hospital as he went, speaking to the police department and army officers as he changed into tough outdoor wear, making sure the emergency response teams he had set up, but never yet used, were all springing into action.

‘I don’t know how long the flight will take, but you should try to snatch some sleep.’ Her voice broke into his thoughts as he went over the arrangements he’d already put in place.

‘Sleep?’

He heard the word echo back in his helmet and realised he’d spoken a bit abruptly.

‘I’ve found these emergency situations are a bit like being back in our intern years, and the rule is the same—snatch what sleep you can when you can.’

He realised she was right. There was nothing else to do until they were on the ground, where, together, they would assess the situation and call in whatever help was needed.

He wanted to tell her she was right and that he was grateful to her for being there, grateful that he’d have someone with whom to discuss the situation and work out best options, but it had been a long time since he’d shared any feelings with a stranger—and a female stranger at that.

Yet—

‘I will sleep.’

At least he’d acknowledged her presence, Alex thought as she looked around the interior of the helicopter. She sat in one of two seats fitted against the fuselage, a door beside her and another one opposite it. In the seat behind the pilot, directly opposite her, was another man, who apparently didn’t speak English for he hadn’t been involved in the conversation Alex had had with the pilot when she’d persuaded him to allow her to join the flight.

Alex assumed this second man would play multiple roles—second pilot, navigator, and winchman.

She hoped he was good at his job!

Secured to the walls were familiar-looking equipment backpacks. Some would hold emergency medical supplies, one a special defibrillator and vital-signs monitor. Next to them were two collapsible stretchers, also in backpacks, and she could see where these, once opened out, could be secured to the floor of the aircraft.

‘I understood this was your personal chopper, so why the emergency equipment?’ she said, forgetting she’d told her companion to sleep.

‘It is the prince’s aircraft, he flies it himself at times,’ the pilot replied, ‘but he believes it should have more use than a convenience to get him to and from work in the city, so he had it specially fitted out.’

Knowing how much money was needed to keep the emergency helicopter services afloat at home, Alex could only marvel that one person could have a private aircraft like this at his disposal. Her wages would be chicken feed to him, although even thinking about her request for wages made her stomach squirm.

Forget it! she told herself, and she did, turning instead to peer out the window, seeing for the first time what a desert looked like.

It was like flying over the sea at sunset, something she’d been lucky enough to do, seeing the ocean turned to red-gold, the row upon row of waves like the dunes beneath them now. But shadows were already touching the eastward sides of the dunes and the blackness of those shadows made the colours more vivid.

Up ahead she could see mountains rising from the sands—red mountains with deeper shadows below them, what appeared to be a road or track of some kind disappearing between two ranges.

Used to flying over coastal scenes and greenery and water, the endless red conjured up the magic-carpet image yet again, the patterns of the windswept sand and shadows like the patterns in the carpets back at the palace or whatever it was to which she’d been taken.

‘Ayee!’