Тесса Рэдли – The Sheikh Who Stole Her: Sheikh Seduction / The Untamed Sheikh / Desert King, Doctor Daddy (страница 8)
He didn’t want to think that Omar had been right when he’d opposed the new projects. Tariq had put it down to the old man’s age. But perhaps Omar knew the country better and was more realistic.
A pang of guilt pricked Tariq at how much he owed Omar. And now he had let his mentor down by losing his eldest son.
“Did you have a bad builder? You’d think people who worked for a sheik would pay attention. Why were the permits revoked?” Sara tilted her head, exposing her graceful, slim neck, an expanse of creamy skin.
“Politics. Who knows?”
Her blue eyes hardened. She probably knew something about corporate maneuvering.
Tariq could go back at any time to the life and the company he had left behind in Sacramento. He’d been a valued executive there. Their doors would always be open to him, they had said. Staying there would have been easier. Certainly safer. But his fate, his destiny awaited in the desert he barely knew, and with the people who treated him as a foreigner. People whom, nevertheless, he loved. He cared little about the danger to his life, only to the degree that it would affect those who worked for him, and depended on him for their own safety.
His men had been killed today, Husam taken. The bandits had meant to take Sara, too. That had to be a coincidence. They’d seen her and wanted her; what man wouldn’t? He couldn’t fathom her being in any way connected to them. But he couldn’t let any option go unexamined.
“Is this your first trip to the Middle East?” He watched her closely as he unscrewed the caps.
“And likely the last,” she said. “No offense.”
He could detect no telltale sign of deceit in her gestures or her voice. She had clear, honest eyes. If someone wanted her kidnapped, it would have been so much easier to do from her hotel, at night when she was alone, rather than when she was with a convoy that included armed guards. And who would have known about them going by car instead of taking the chopper, anyhow?
He thought of something else. When he did make his call, he was definitely going to ask for the helicopter to be looked at for signs of tampering. Until he knew more about that, he would focus on their only clue so far: Husam.
Now that he thought of it … “Wouldn’t it have been easier to kidnap Husam when he was on his way home from work, alone in his car?”
Sara drew up her eyebrows as she considered. “Anything had to be easier than an armed convoy,” she said after a moment. “So what are we missing?”
He shook his head. Damned if he knew.
“Husam called someone before we left. He joined the convoy unexpectedly. Maybe he knew the bandits. Maybe he went with them willingly.”
“Why? And why kill everyone?”
“They wanted to take me,” she said with a pensive expression.
“I have no trouble believing that he found you attractive, but kidnapping you? He could have just asked you to dinner.” Tariq had considered that himself, after he’d gotten off the elevator and she’d gone up to the helipad.
He hadn’t worked closely with Husam, but from all signs, the man seemed a competent businessman, hardly given to such outrageous crimes as kidnapping a woman. He was Omar’s son. Was it possible for the fruit to fall that far from the palm?
“Okay. Fine. I’m just trying to consider all the possibilities.” She straightened her spine and glared at him.
He admired her strength. Shortly after the attack, she’d been out there in the burning sun, helping him dig the grave.
He held her gaze. “A weaker person would still be curled up somewhere in shock.”
Her expression softened marginally at his compliment. “I want to make sure we do whatever it takes to get out of the desert. They are not going to get me,” she said.
“No, indeed.” He would see to that.
She gave him a tremulous smile that made something clench in his chest.
“I’m glad we have these.” He filled the last few bottles. “If we left the water in the pot, it would evaporate in the heat, and get dirty in the meantime.” Intermittent gusts of wind swirled sand in from outside. “Be careful if you go out. I saw some tire tracks.”
“You think the bandits visit this place? Why isn’t there any security here?” she asked with some alarm, moving to help when the last bottle wobbled and nearly tipped.
“There’s not much of value that’s movable.” The heavy machinery had returned to Tihrin when it had become obvious that the obstacle his enemies had put in his path wasn’t one that could be speedily removed. “The site is on tribal land, anyway.” No one from the tribe would damage the property. The people were loyal to their sheik.
For the most. Tariq thought of the possibility of Husam’s betrayal. He didn’t want to believe that one of Omar’s sons could be like that, but now that Sara had planted the thought in his head, he had a hard time dismissing it. Maybe he’d been too focused on fighting with his enemies in the government, and had overlooked the dogs that slinked around his own backyard, waiting to bite when his back was turned.
Leaving her to screw on the caps, he strode to the window to look out at the endless desert, which, instead of sheltering him, as it had done for countless generations of his ancestors, had haunted him throughout his life.
“No time to set up the satellite before the storm.” Locating the two-hundred-pound piece of equipment then dragging it back onto the roof would take considerable effort. He glanced at Sara and found her squaring her slim shoulders.
“I still think you should call Sheik Abdullah as soon as we can. He should be able to protect us.” She seemed confident of that, coming back to it once again.
Everyone always thought that the sheik could do everything. But he hadn’t been able to protect his family, he hadn’t been able to protect his people, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to protect her.
And that he regretted profoundly.
“I
“What sheik?” She stared at him dumbfounded. He didn’t look like a sheik. The first time she’d seen him—that morning in his Western-cut suit, with his unaccented English—she’d thought he might be American.
“Tariq Abdullah.”
Sheik Abdullah! Oh, God. “But—If you’re the sheik, why didn’t they take
He shrugged. “They had no way of knowing I would be coming along. Could be they didn’t recognize me in the heat of the battle. They had a goal and they were focused on that.” He glanced toward the main entrance. “I’m going to make sure you get on a flight out of here as soon as possible.”
Outside, the wind was swirling the sand.
“The bandits took my passport,” she said, dazed. In novels, sheiks usually carried the soon-to-be-ravished heroines to their royal tent. Here she was, at a grim construction site, sitting on a blanket made in China.
“Then you will be taken to the U.S. embassy. They’ll handle everything.” He looked out over the desert where the wind was picking up.
Jeff was gone. She was alive only because of Tariq.
“Thank you for saving my life,” she said. “Sheik.”
He turned back to her, crooked his head and actually smiled. Not the full-blown thing—heaven knew they had little to smile about—but a self-deprecating stretch of masculine lips over gleaming white teeth. Her breath got stuck under her breastbone.
“I think, all things considered, calling me Tariq would be fine. I hope I haven’t hurt you much while trying to help.”
“Good choice, considering the alternative.” She could barely feel the bump at the back of her head. She didn’t want to think about what would have become of her by now if the bandits had taken her.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“At first I wasn’t sure I could trust you.”
“Understandable.”
He was nothing like she had expected. She’d been resigned to not meeting Sheik Abdullah at all. He was famous for being reclusive, an astute businessman who managed his tribe’s assets with little personal publicity. Supposedly, a person could be in a business relationship with one of his companies for years and never once see him.
As a man, Tariq went beyond a woman’s wildest fantasies. He was perhaps the most physically appealing male she had ever met, although he was not handsome in a conventional way. She found the energy that radiated from him mesmerizing. His movements betrayed strength and confidence. But the whole sheik business … She had a hard time picturing that. Where were his camels and his flowing robes, his tents and his Bedouin tribesmen?
“Why didn’t we go to your tribe’s camp instead of here?” She would have felt safer with people around them, especially the sheik’s desert warriors.