grim humor steadied her, and she located a small slide-lock about six inches above the knob. Struggling against the stiff device while trying not the jolt the baby, she tugged on it.
The metal rasped, halted, then slid the rest of the way. Breathing hard, Holly grasped the knob.
Icy wind hit her in the face. Ben squirmed beneath the spread.
Trying to let in as little cold air as possible, she edged outside and closed the door. From beyond a small overhang, rain gusted into her face.
Holly could see nothing except sheets of water and the outline of black trees against a charcoal sky. It was as if she stood on an island surrounded by a raging sea.
A flare of lightning showed her a muddy, unpaved clearing overhung by low branches. A rutted path led away through the brush, with no lights or traffic noises to indicate how close a road might be.
Tightening the makeshift cloak, Holly stepped off the porch into the full force of the storm.
A RAW BLAST of air woke Sharif. He came awake instantly, his warrior’s training jolting him to full alert.
The door had opened. Someone had come in or gone out.
Cursing himself for falling asleep on watch, he ducked and dodged in case of attack. Nothing moved, other than a flicker of light from the TV screen. Except for him, the cabin was empty.
The woman had taken his child.
He had promised to deliver her safely to the authorities. She had agreed to tell them the truth. Now she had betrayed that agreement.
He knew better than to assume she was unarmed. Although there were no guns in the cabin, she might have found a knife in a drawer.
A pat of his robe confirmed that the phone was in place, so she hadn’t been able to call for help. She wouldn’t be able to travel fast on foot, either.
If she blundered into the woods, however, she might easily get lost. A few hours of exposure could prove fatal to the child.
Sharif did not wish to injure Holly. Despite his anger, he couldn’t entirely blame her for fleeing. But he must retrieve his son at any cost.
The overriding need to reclaim Ben drove him to action. He yanked open the door and leaped out, to give the woman no chance to react.
Another long step carried him beyond the porch to the dark cloth-covered shape struggling away from him. Their bodies collided, hard.
In the darkness, Sharif must have misjudged the distance, because he shot way over balance. Grabbing Holly, he managed to twist partway beneath her as they fell, to shield the baby from hitting the ground.
A gasp from the woman blended with the squalling of the bundle in her arms. The impact knocked the breath out of Sharif, but he had no time to waste.
Grasping the child, he rolled away through the mud. Raising himself on one knee, he kept the child tight against him and the woman in sight.
Rain poured over them. The sheikh ignored it as he watched for the flash of a blade.
Instead, he found himself staring into a pair of terrified eyes. From the looks of her, Holly was so frightened she couldn’t even scream.
“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded. “I agreed to take you back tomorrow.”
Finally, words choked out of her. “You killed her!”
“Who?” Had lingering traces of Zahad’s medicine given her a nightmare?
“My sister!”
“I’ve never even met her. I told you that.” He stood up, sheltering the baby beneath his robe. The boy was surprisingly wiggly, and he found it hard to support his head as Aunt Selima had taught. “Besides, for all we know, she is sitting in a bar somewhere, having a laugh at our expense.”
“No! How could you…?” As she scrambled to her feet, Holly still didn’t seem capable of finishing a sentence.
“You’re not making sense,” he told her. “I’ve been sitting in the cabin all night, not out marauding!”
“She’s dead.” The pain in her voice convinced him, finally, that she wasn’t referring to some dream. “It was on TV.”
Sharif had left the set on so he could keep track of what information the police were giving out. “They found your sister?”
Beneath the mud-streaked bedspread that half-covered her, Holly nodded. “In the desert. She’s been dead…a few weeks.”
Wind whipped the wet tendrils of her hair, giving her a half-drowned appearance. In a flare of lightning, he saw that she was shivering.
“You’ll make yourself sick,” Sharif said. “Let’s continue this conversation inside.”
“Let me go. Let us both go!”
“We don’t have a car,” he pointed out. “Even if I wanted to, I have no way of taking you anywhere on a night like this. And you certainly can’t walk out of a canyon in your condition.”
Without waiting for a response, he carried the baby up the steps. The woman followed as far as the porch, then stopped in the open doorway.
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