The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum

‘Lose too much?’ she queried.

‘Traditional skills and values,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean camel milking, or even spinning thread from the wool of goats, but what we call our intangible cultural heritage. The patterns the women wove into the rugs told the history of our tribe, told it in pictures they understood, and using these rugs, which they spread on the floor in summer and hung on the inside walls of their tents in winter, they taught the children. Now the children learn in school, learn skills and information they will need to equip them for the modern world. But how do we keep our tribal history alive?’

‘You’ve spoken before about keeping tradition alive,’ Liz remembered, ‘and while I can’t help you with any ideas about the cultural side, I do wonder, if these people live as they’ve always lived, will they use a hospital to have their babies, and would they be able to adapt to the situation if the baby needs special care?’

Her companion sighed deeply.

‘I’m not really expecting them to use an obstetrician and have their babies in a hospital. Not immediately anyway, but once a baby is born, that life is precious and if it needs help, I am certain they will seek it.’

He paused and she wondered just how much pain this discussion might be causing him—how much it might remind him of his wife.

‘We have always had midwives, for want of a better word: women within the tribe who were taught by their elders to help other women through their pregnancy and childbirth. Now young local women are training not only as modern midwives but as obstetricians, and although they can’t be everywhere, they can work with the older women, explaining new ideas and methods. Maybe through them we can introduce the idea of special care for fragile infants so, should the situation arise, the women will more readily accept the unit.’

‘Or perhaps, with a translator—even with you if you had the time—I could visit some of these outlying areas, take a crib, show them what we can do, and how we can help the babies, explain that the family can be involved as well.’

To Liz’s surprise, the man laughed, a real, wholehearted laugh that changed his face completely.

‘Not families, I implore you,’ he said at last, still smiling. ‘You will get aunts, cousins, sisters, grandmothers—forty or fifty people all wanting to sit with the baby.’

‘That many?’ Liz teased, smiling back at him, and something in the air stilled, tension joining them together in an invisible bond, eyes holding eyes, a moment out of time, broken only when Saif said, in a long-suffering voice, ‘If we could please get back to the menu!’

The menu proved delicious. Slices of melon and fresh, sweet strawberries with a slightly tart mint syrup poured over them. Delicate slivers of duck breast followed, the slices arranged on overlapping circles of potato, crispy on top and soft underneath, while fresh white asparagus with a simple butter sauce completed the main meal.

Offered a range of sweets, Liz declined, settling instead for a platter of fruit and hard cheese, finding, to her delight, that the dates accompanying it were so delicious she had to comment on them.

‘They are from Najme,’ Khalifa explained. ‘We have the best dates in the world.’

Liz, replete and happy, forgot about the moment of tension earlier and had to tease again.

‘You’d know that, of course, from the World Date Olympics, would you? Do they judge on colour and size as well as taste?’

Khalifa studied her for a moment. Where was the stressed, anxious, and obviously sad woman he’d first met at the hospital? Was this light-hearted, teasing Liz Jones the real Liz Jones?

He had no idea, although the thought that she might have relaxed because she’d escaped from the father of her child did sneak into his mind.

‘We just know ours are the best,’ he said firmly, ‘and while we don’t have a date Olympics you’ll be arriving just in time for the judging of the falcons—a kind of falcon Olympics.’

Interest sparked in her eyes and she studied him in turn—checking to see if he was joking?

‘Falcons?’ she repeated.

‘Our hunting birds,’ he explained. ‘It’s one custom we are determined not to let die. The birds are part of our heritage and at Najme you will see them at their best, for everyone wants to have the best bird.’

‘Falcons,’ she whispered, smiling, not at him, he thought, but to herself. ‘Now I really know I’m heading for another world. Thank you,’ she said, ‘not just for giving me this opportunity but for so much else.’

She pushed aside the little table and undid her seat belt.

‘And now,’ she said, ‘if it’s all right with you, I might check out that bedroom.’

Saif must have been watching from behind the front curtain, for he appeared immediately, taking Liz’s arm and leading her into the cabin.

And, no, he, Khalifa bin Saif Al Zahn, was not jealous of Saif walking so close to her.

Why should he be?

The woman was nothing more than another employee, if a somewhat intriguing one.

But as he remembered a moment earlier when they’d both smiled and something in the atmosphere around them had shifted, he knew that wasn’t entirely true.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE was sleeping soundly when he knocked quietly and entered the cabin some hours later. Her lustrous hair was loose, spread across the pillow, a rich, red-brown—more red, he felt, but a deep, almost magenta red.

Beautiful against the white of the pillow and the rich cream of her skin, her hair was shiny, silky—his fingers tingled with a desire to feel the texture.

He moved into the cabin, slightly embarrassed at having to invade her privacy, and more than a little embarrassed by his thoughts. But the pilot had warned they were approaching turbulence, and Khalifa didn’t want her thrown out of the bed. It was fitted with what in a chair would be called seat belts, simple bands that stretched across the bed to restrain a sleeping passenger.

Could he strap her in without disturbing her?

Was it even right to be doing this?

He wondered if he should wake her and let her do it herself, but she seemed so deeply asleep, and the little lines of worry he’d sometimes noticed on her face were smoothed away, the creamy skin mesmerising against the dark, rich swathe of hair.

No, he certainly shouldn’t be looking at her as he strapped her in! He found the far side restraint and drew it across the bed and over her body, curled on its side, the bulge of her pregnancy resting on the mattress, one leg drawn up to balance her weight.

He picked up the other end of the strap, and clicked the belt shut, then tightened it, just slightly, so it would hold her firmly if the plane dropped suddenly, but not put pressure on her belly.

Even under the sheet he could make out the shape of her, but his eyes were drawn to her face, vulnerable somehow without the dark-framed glasses, an attractive face, full of strength and determination, though he’d seen it soften when she’d spoken of the baby, Alexandra.

But not when she mentioned her own pregnancy.

He had to leave.

Heaven forbid she woke and found him staring at her.

Yet his feet seemed rooted to the floor, his eyes feasting on the woman, not lasciviously at all, just puzzled that she remained such a mystery to him.

Puzzled that he was puzzled, for of course she was a mystery to him—he barely knew her.

And probably never would.

Looking at her isn’t going to help you, he told himself, and after checking the cabin was free of loose objects that could fly about in turbulence, he did leave the room, but reluctantly.

Returning to his seat, he began to wonder if he’d made a big mistake, taking this woman to his homeland.

But why?

Having been educated in the West, he accepted equality in all things between men and women. A different equality existed in his own land, but never, in the history of the tribe, had women been seen as inferior for they were the carriers of history, the heart of the family, the heart of the tribe, so it wasn’t the fact that she was a woman …