Desert Hearts: Sheikh Without a Heart / Heart of the Desert / The Sheikh's Destiny

The door. The front door. Maybe the Sheikh had only slammed it shut to fool her. Maybe he was still here. And even if he’d left, so what?

He had that damned key.

She flew through the tiny apartment, breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the living room was empty, secured the lock, grabbed a wooden chair from beside a rickety table and jammed it under the knob.

Let him try and get past that.

A sheikh. A prince. An egotistical anachronism who thought the world had stood still for the last few hundred years and that he could do anything he wanted.

Anything.

Like take her baby.

“Wrong,” Rachel said aloud as she went back to Ethan. “Wrong, wrong, wrong. Dead wrong.”

The baby was hers.

Nobody was going to take him from her.

By now, Ethan was awake and fretful. He’d been out of sorts lately; there was a tiny pale spot visible in his pink gums where he was cutting his very first tooth.

Ordinarily she’d have taken him in her arms, settled into the old rocker she’d bought at a Goodwill thrift shop and talked to him—he liked being talked to—but time was a priority now.

“Hey, little man,” she cooed as she leaned over the crib, “guess what we’re going to do?”

The look he gave her—mouth down-curved, eyes scrunched—said that he didn’t much care. Rachel plucked a soft plastic teething ring from the foot of the crib and held it out. The baby’s plump fingers closed around the ring and brought it to his mouth.

Good.

She’d bought a few minutes of peace. That was all she needed.

Her suitcase was in the rear of the closet. She took the case out, tossed it on the bed and unzipped it.

Okay.

She packed another pair of jeans. A handful of Ts. Bras. Panties. Socks. A sweater. A zippered hoodie. It all went into the suitcase.

“Ta-da,” she told Ethan, still chomping on the brightly colored teething ring. “See how quick that was? Now it’s your turn. Any thoughts about what you feel like wearing for our trip? You mean I didn’t tell you the surprise? We’re going traveling. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

The baby made a rude sound.

“Okay. Maybe not.” Rachel pulled open the drawers that held Ethan’s clothes. Sleepers. Onesies. Socks. Tiny shirts and sweaters, a pair of grown-up-looking overalls she hadn’t been able to resist. “I admit I used to hate it when Mama told me we were going on a trip. She’d take us out of school, Suki and me, just when we’d finally settled in.” What else? Diapers, of course. A couple of crib blankets. “Well, I’ll never do that to you, little guy. I promise.” What was she forgetting? Ah. Formula. Bottles. Little jars of strained fruits and veggies. A quick detour to the kitchen, then back to the bedroom. “I’ll find us a place where we can settle down and have a garden and maybe even a kitten.”

Rachel paused.

Was that even anywhere near true?

Her mother had run from bill collectors and scandal, but somehow or other those things had always managed to find her anyway.

This was different.

She was running from a prince with the resources of the world at his fingertips.

Rachel shuddered. She wasn’t going to think about that now.

Other things were more vital.

Should she head for the airport and blow a stack of cash on a plane ticket, or head for the bus terminal and the first bus out of town?

No contest.

The airport.

She could get away faster and farther, and speed and distance were of paramount importance.

She’d put half her money on a ticket to wherever, half in reserve for when she and Ethan got there. She had a credit card, too. It was pristine; she’d kept it for emergencies and if this wasn’t an emergency, what was?

She’d go as far from Vegas and Rami’s brother as that combination of cash and credit would take her. San Francisco, maybe. Or Biloxi, where there were riverboat casinos.

Then she’d get a room, a cheap one, and give herself a couple of days to figure out her next step.

“Ffft,” Ethan said.

It made her laugh. Her baby could always do that; he was the one bit of joy she could count on.

“Well, maybe,” she said, “but at least it’s a plan.”

Not much of a plan, but it was a start.

Suki had always teased her about what she’d called “Rachel’s obsession with planning” but without some kind of blueprint you could end up like Mama or Suki or half the women in this town.

And that—being kept, living on a man’s largesse, being a … a possession—was never, ever going to happen to her.

As for leaving Las Vegas …

She was ready. More than ready.

Vegas had never been more than a stop on the road to something better. She’d only come here after Suki had called, babbling with excitement as she told her that two of the casinos were hiring new dealers.

“It’s a great job,” Suki had said. “They’ll train you and then you can make a lot of money.”

Maybe once. Not anymore. The economy was in the toilet. The need for new dealers had gone with it. Rachel had ended up waiting tables, then working the room at the casino—and wondering how she could have been so stupid as to have listened to her sister.

For one thing, if anybody had been hiring dealers why hadn’t Suki applied?

For another, Suki hadn’t bothered mentioning that she was living week-to-week in a furnished room.

The real reason she’d wanted Rachel to come west was because she’d known Rachel would be resourceful, find a job and an apartment, and she could move in.