“You mean you’ll turn yourself in?”
“As soon as I find a lawyer, yes.” He studied her. “Will you promise to explain that you entered my car of your own free will?”
She nodded. “Of course. It’s the truth.”
“I will present the contract and show that I have only taken my own son,” he said. “It is a gamble, but I doubt they will press charges. It would be the fastest way to resolve this situation. And for us to get away from whoever is trying to kill me.”
“Then what happens to Ben?” Tears threatened again, because she knew the answer.
“You must admit that he will be better off with me than with your sister,” said the sheikh. “Also, in compensation for spoiling your wedding, I will pay for a private detective to search for her.”
For a crazy moment, Holly contemplated offering to go to Alqedar and take care of Ben. Just to keep him close, this child of her heart. To give him a mother, after all.
But what place could she have in a land so unfamiliar she doubted she could find it on a map?
Doubts tore at her. What if Sharif was tricking her in some way? The contract might have been altered. Maybe nothing was as it seemed to be.
She’d never had to deal with such a situation before. If Trevor were here…but, of course, he wasn’t.
She needed this man’s trust. And her deepest instincts told her that he would never, under any circumstances, harm Ben.
“All right,” she said slowly, still not certain she was making the right decision. “If everything is as you present it, I agree not to fight for custody.”
Outside, the rain settled into a steady, lulling pattern. The long day, the full meal and the lingering effects of medication must be taking their toll, because Holly found herself fighting a yawn.
“You need sleep.” Taking her hand, the sheikh pulled her gently to her feet.
At the bed, Holly curled beside Ben. She was only vaguely aware of Sharif tucking the covers around them.
SHE AWOKE to semidarkness and the scents of wood-smoke and baby powder. Rain pattered on the roof while, across the room, the TV glimmered, its sound turned low.
A flash of lightning showed Sharif dozing at the dining table, his head cradled on his arms. Sleep appeared to have caught him unexpectedly.
Beside Holly, the baby murmured and nestled closer. Slowly she began sinking back into slumber.
A quickening in the TV announcer’s tone barely penetrated her consciousness until she picked out the words “body” and “woman.” The fears of the past few months returned in a flash.
Sliding from the bed, Holly hurried to the set. Cool air nipped her shoulders above the crumpled wedding gown, and the wooden floor chilled her stockinged feet.
“The victim, believed to be in her mid-twenties, was found by off-road bikers in the desert,” said the announcer. “Police haven’t released her identity.”
On the screen, paramedics loaded a blanket-covered body into an ambulance. When they tilted the stretcher, the blanket fell back to reveal a bare arm.
The camera zoomed in on a small tattoo, a botanical cluster of four-petaled blooms.
Holly recognized them at once. They were jasmine flowers.
Chapter Four
Jazz had come home late one day from high school, proudly displaying the tattoo to which her boyfriend had treated her. It was her namesake, a little bunch of jasmine flowers.
“…appears to have been dead for several weeks,” said the announcer.
Several weeks. Holly’s head buzzed. If she could believe Griff, Jazz had been alive a month ago and had planned to pick up Ben in a few days.
She must have been killed in the interim. All this time that Holly had been searching, and jumping with fear at every ring of the phone or doorbell, her sister had been lying dead in the desert.
Who had done this? Had Jazz taken up with the wrong set of friends? Had Griff gotten greedy?
There was one other possibility she had to face. That Jazz had purposely sent her son to Holly because she was going to meet the one man who could take him from her.
Sheikh Sharif Al-Khalil.
Holly’s throat tightened until she could barely breathe. Could Sharif have done such a thing?
At the table, still in his robe, he lay sleeping harmlessly. Yet she could see the powerful thrust of his shoulders, and the strength in his arms. This was not a man to be trifled with.
She didn’t want to believe that the man who had gazed at Ben with such adoration, and treated her with such kindness this evening, might have killed Jazz. He’d spoken so rationally about hiring a lawyer and going to the police tomorrow, that she wanted to believe him.
But a calm facade could hide a lethal temper. Maybe, if crossed, he exploded into an uncontrollable fury.
In Holly’s mind burned an image of Jazz’s inert body, lying on a stretcher amid the glare of police lights. She’d been cast aside in the desert as if she were nothing. Only one little tattoo announced to the world that this was an individual, a person with friends and dreams of her own.
Through Holly’s grief, one point stood out: Her life might be in the same danger as her sister’s. Danger rose like woodsmoke, filling the cabin and obscuring every thought except that of flight.
When thunder rumbled, she caught her breath. Would it wake Sharif?
At the table, he muttered softly and shifted position, then stilled. His silence felt like a reprieve.
Gently, she lifted the baby. Since she had no coat, she made a cloak of the bedspread and draped it over them both.
She hated to take the baby into the rain, but she couldn’t leave him. If Sharif had a violent temper, he might unleash it on anyone at hand.
To reach the cabin door meant crossing the room. At the moment, it looked as wide as a football field.
Adrenaline and fear powered Holly out of the alcove. One noiseless step followed another.
A board creaked beneath her satin wedding pumps. Holly froze.
The man didn’t stir. She moved forward, acutely aware of the weight of the baby in one arm and the swish of fabric audible above the rain. Outside, the wind rose, and a branch scraped the window so loud that it sounded, to her ears, like a bomb blast.
The door. She turned the knob and pulled. It held stubbornly in place.
There had to be a bolt. She just hoped it didn’t require a key to open from the inside.
With Ben resting
