youngest. I’m serious, Cade. If the sheik catches you laying so much as a finger on that girl, all bets are off. He watches her like a hawk.”
“Evidently not today,” he murmured out the side of his mouth as the princess approached them, stepping gracefully up the slight incline into the shade of the ancient olive trees.
Holding out her hand to Elena and, for the moment, ignoring Cade completely, she cried out in obvious delight, “Elena—hello!” And then, her expressive face scrunching with chagrin, “You saw what happened?” She had a charming accent, more pronounced than Hassan’s—the result, Cade surmised, of having had much less contact with westerners. The quality of her voice was low and musical but with a huskiness that caressed his auditory nerves like coarse-textured fur.
“Oh, I did,” Elena said with a moan of feminine commiseration. “I’m so sorry. It was such a beautiful hat.”
The princess pursed her lips in a brief but charming pout, then smiled and gave a little shrug. C’est la vie.
She turned to Cade, finally, her eyes emerging from under thick sooty lashes like mischievous children peeking out from behind a curtain. “Hello. I am Leila Kamal.” The way she held her hand out made him wonder if she expected him to kiss it.
Which was probably why, out of pure contrariness, he did nothing of the sort, but instead took her hand in a good old Texas American-style handshake. A moment later he wondered if that had been a mistake as well. Her hand was smaller and at the same time firmer than he’d expected. It left an impression on his senses of both strength and vulnerability, and he found himself holding on to it for a lot longer than was probably sane, while his mind filled with images and urges that had nothing whatsoever to do with sanity.
“This is Cade,” said Elena. “Cade Gallagher—my friend and, uh, guardian.”
“Of course.” Lashes lifted; eyes gazed at him, somehow both dark and bright, mysterious as moonlit pools. He had a sudden sensation of leaning slightly off balance, as if his internal gyrocompass had been knocked out of kilter. “And also your brother—but not really.” The dimples flashed. “For that I am glad, because if you were truly Elena’s brother, and she is now my sister, then you would be my brother, as well.” Her laugh was low, a delightful ripple, like water tumbling over pebbles. “And I most certainly do not need any more brothers. Two is quite enough!”
Cade found himself floundering in unfamiliar territory, at least when dealing with a beautiful woman. Not that he considered himself suave—far from it—but he’d never found himself utterly at a loss for words before, either. At least, not since about seventh grade. He was muttering something unintelligible when a discreet cough from Elena reminded him that he was still holding the princess’s hand. He released it…laughed…and felt as awkward and abashed as the twelve-year-old Cade he painfully remembered.
“Are you enjoying the game, Mr. Gallagher? Exciting, is it not? Especially since Tamir is winning.” Her eyes held a gleeful sparkle.
He wondered suddenly if the reason he felt so young was simply because she was, and the thought helped restore him to sanity. That, and a calming sip of his cheroot. “I am, very much,” he drawled, gazing over her head to where the action was taking place now, at the far end of the field. “Especially the horses. That gray stallion of Rashid’s—”
“Oh, but they are all Rashid’s ponies. He raises them, you know, on one of the other islands. Siraj—it is just south of Tamir. Perhaps you would like—”
“Cade raises horses, too,” Elena interrupted. “Arabians.” “Really? But that is wonderful!” In her eagerness and enthusiasm she seemed almost weightless, like a bird, he thought—a blackbird one sudden motion away from taking flight. “How I wish that I could see your horses, Mr. Gallagher.”
“Maybe someday you will,” Cade murmured, and felt a strange little shiver go through him—some sort of primitive warning. He coughed, glanced at Elena and gruffly added, “When you come to Texas to visit your brother.”
And he watched the light go out of the girl’s eyes as if someone had thrown a switch, shutting off all circuits. Her lashes came down and her smile faded. Her body grew still.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Perhaps…” She turned away, one hand going to her forehead. “Oh—I see the play has been stopped. Someone has fallen off. I think now it is safe to get my hat. Please, excuse me—”
Maybe it was because she’d looked so sad—Cade had no other rational explanation for doing what he did. He shot out a hand and caught her by the arm. The feel of her flesh beneath the silk fabric of her blouse sent impulses tingling along the nerves in his fingers as he gruffly said, “Here—I’ll get it.”
With that, he strode past her down the slope, stepped over the low barrier and scooped what was left of the hat out of the trampled grass. Grimly ignoring the smattering of applause from nearby spectators, he whacked the hat once against his thigh, then retraced his steps to where Elena and the princess were waiting for him under the trees.
“There you go,” he said as he handed the hat over to its owner. “For what it’s worth. Looks in pretty bad shape.”
“It is only a hat,” Leila said, smiling but without a trace of the sparkle that had lit her eyes before. Cade was conscious of a vague disappointment. It was like watching the sun set without colors. “It is not important. But it was very kind of you to retrieve it for me. Thank you.
“Well—” She looked quickly, almost guiltily, around. “I must go now. Someone will be looking for me. Elena, I am so glad to have had a chance to see and talk to you. And Mr. Gallagher, it was very nice meeting you. Thank you…goodbye….” Cade watched her disappear into the crowd like a doe in dense forest.
“Cade,” Elena said in a warning tone, “I mean it—she’s absolutely off-limits.” He pulled his gaze back to her, covering the effort it cost him with a snort and a wry smile. “Hey, she’s too young for me. Besides,” he added after a moment’s contemplation of the end of his cigar, “she’s not really my type.”
Elena gave a derisive hoot—not very ladylike, but pure Texas. “Oh, yeah, I know all about your ‘type.’ Whatever happened to that Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, by the way?”
“She was a nice girl,” Cade said with a small, reminiscent smile. “We…wanted different things, is all. She was thinkin’ in terms of wedding bells and baby carriages, while I—”
“I know what you were thinkin’ about,” Elena said dryly. “The same thing you’re thinking right now, which is absolutely out of the question. You promise me, Cade—”
Laughing, he held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hey—you’ve got nothing to worry about. Like I said earlier, and like I told your friend Kitty last night—where is she, by the way? Haven’t seen her around this morning.” He looked around furtively, half expecting to see a fuzzy brown head bobbing through the crowd, to hear that gawdawful, “Yoo-hoo!”
Elena grinned. “I think maybe she overdid a bit on the rich food last night. She was planning on taking it easy this morning, getting all rested up for this evening’s festivities.”
Cade made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh.
Leila ran across the courtyard, the patterned tiles smooth and warm under her bare feet. She had
