my job.” To soften her words, she added, “And in return, I will not tell you how to do yours.”
He seemed so offended by the idea of her even suggesting what he do, that he appeared unable to come up with a snappy comeback. She slipped into the second cell alone. This prisoner had a broken finger that needed splinting.
Apparently she’d achieved a hostile but silent truce with her escort guard, for he merely opened doors for her now—still glaring at her, of course, lest she think she’d won. By the fifth prisoner or so, her nerves calmed down and she fell into a groove of treating minor injuries while the men babbled out their fears, mostly over dying at the hands of their Baraqi Army captors. She couldn’t blame them for the sentiment.
And then she stood in front of the sixth cell. Her escort unlocked the door and stepped aside while she entered. The padlock clicked shut behind her.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she squinted into the semidarkness. The small cell was just like all the others, a ten-foot-by-ten-foot cube carved out of stone. The single tiny window high on the back wall must open onto some sort of air shaft, for indirect light filtered through it. A bucket of drinking water stood in one corner, and another bucket in the opposite corner served as a restroom facility, from the smell of it. She made out the shape of a man lying on the hip-high stone ledge that passed for a bed. He looked asleep.
The torch in her hand guttered as a cool finger of air whisked down her spine. Premonition roared through her, nearly knocking her off her feet. This prisoner is different.
Chapter 2
He looked much the same as the others, dirty and exhausted, wearing the beige uniform of a soldier from the royal guard. As her eyes adjusted fully to the gloom, she saw his face was badly battered and swollen. Black eyes, a gashed and broken nose, a split lip and a bad cut on the jaw were all in need of attention. Honestly his face looked like hamburger. A swollen, painful hamburger.
She spoke softly in French so she wouldn’t startle him out of his sleep. “Bonjour, je suis avec InterAid. Je suis ici pour vous aider.” Hello, I’m with InterAid. I’m here to help you.
The man’s eyes flew open—as much as two puffy slits could open—staring at her, alert and wary. No panic hovered close to the surface in this guy’s steady gaze. If anything, fury swirled in them. Great. Another chauvinist who felt her breathing the same air as him was an affront to his manhood.
Still, the instinctive sense of pull in her gut toward this man was unmistakable.
Shock rendered Nick speechless. Merciful God. She was gaping at him as if she recognized him. She couldn’t. She mustn’t!
He was supposed to pass himself off as a common soldier. Nobody was supposed to find out who he was. Kareem had broken Nick’s nose and blackened his eyes himself and had assured him when he came to that he didn’t look one bit like a king.
“Êtes vous Américaine?” Are you American, he asked. Although, how could those big, round cornflower-blue eyes in a tiny patch of lightly tanned skin revealed by her veil be anything but American?
She nodded. “Oui.”
He switched into English, a language his guards were much less likely to know than French, and asked low and urgently, “How did InterAid get into Baraq?”
The woman shrugged. “That’s way above my pay grade to know. As far as I know, we were invited.”
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. Sharaf was up to no good letting these people in so soon after the coup. What was the bastard planning now?
“We’re here to render humanitarian aid and monitor the treatment of prisoners.”
Sharaf must be making a run at legitimizing his control of Baraq. Dammit. The country mustn’t fall into the general’s bloodthirsty hands. Chagrin at his helplessness to protect his people from the madman burned in his gut.
“Would you mind if I had a look at your nose? It could use some attention.”
Nick flinched as the aid worker reached for him. She still wore a strange expression as though she half recognized him. Frantic to get her to stop looking at him like that, he stilled himself and answered smoothly, “Be my guest.”
She stepped closer. The first thing he noticed was that she smelled like lavender. The scent reminded him of cottage gardens in the English countryside—enchanting and gentle. The second thing he noticed was the expression in her incredibly blue eyes. Complete disbelief about summed it up.
Either he looked a whole lot worse than he realized or she had a darn good idea of precisely who he was. Damn! He had to distract her. But how? His mind went completely blank. “You smell like lavender,” he announced for lack of anything else intelligent to say.
She laughed as she reached for his nose. “I don’t see how. I think the Army got this robe off some goat herder’s wife who’s never heard of bathing.”
Her fingers lightly probed the swelling, and his grin turned into a grimace as shards of glass-sharp pain shot through his face. He shifted carefully and made room for her on the ledge beside him. The woman sat, her black robe billowing against his hip in a seductive slide of smooth fabric. An urge to put his hands on her, to feel the curves beneath her flowing robes, made his palms itch. He fisted his hands at his sides. So not the time for that. Must be some sort of primitive survival reaction kicking in because, damn, she was attractive—and all he could see of her was her eyes.
Her touch was gentle on his skin. The peroxide she used to clean his cuts stung like crazy, but he managed not to wince too much. However, when she carefully probed his broken nose again, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.
She said cheerfully, “Underneath the swelling, your bones are actually aligned fairly well. You shouldn’t come out of this with a crooked nose.”
As if he had a prayer of living long enough for his nose to actually heal? Not bloody likely.
She asked, “Is all that blood on your shirt yours or someone else’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you’ll take off your shirt, I’ll find out for you,” she suggested.
He shrugged out of the filthy Army blouse, amused when she stared at his muscular chest. At least Kareem’s hasty beating to his face hadn’t cost him all his charms with the ladies.
“You’re covered in blood. I’ll have to wash it off to see if there are any wounds beneath it,” she mumbled. There was a noticeable hitch in her voice. As if she was nervous about touching him. The idea amused him. Women he barely knew draped themselves all over him constantly as though he were their personal play toy.
He scrutinized the young woman before him, for surely she was young to react the way she did to him. She groped in her medical bag and eventually emerged with a package of antiseptic towelettes she fumbled clumsily at opening.
He leaned back against the cold stone wall and raised his arms, resting his hands on the back of his neck. His posture, suggestive of reclining in bed, seemed to fluster her even more. For some perverse reason, he was enjoying discomfiting this poor girl.
Slowly she leaned toward him. Her chest rose and fell
