Dana Marton - The Black Sheep Sheik

“What kind?”

“A hard accent. Not French, for sure. Russian, maybe.” She paused for a second. “His hand kept straying to his back. I was pretty sure he had a gun ready. He gave me the creeps. I hung up the phone. Later that night I brought you out here. I was going to call an ambulance if your condition took a turn for the worse, if your vitals became unstable. They never did.” Her voice was soft, but that tightness still lingered around her eyes.

Her attitude toward him seemed to be a mixture of concern and resentment. Yet, somehow he got the feeling that the resentment wasn’t about the imposition of her having to take care of him.

“You saved my life.” No question about that. The kingdom of Jamala and he, personally, owed her a great debt. She and her child would be taken care of and would never have to feel the sting of the father’s abandonment. “I owe you my gratitude.”

She shrugged that off. “You had the good sense to be in a light coma. Any worse and I wouldn’t have had a choice but to take you in for intensive care. And you get points for getting blown up with a doctor in hailing distance.”

He’d been in high spirits that night, just back from an evening in town with his friends. Their first day in the United States. And he couldn’t let it end without seeing Isabelle. “I was coming back to you. I should have come sooner.”

She busied herself with stirring the soup. “It doesn’t matter.”

But it did. Because if he had come back months ago, hadn’t let her slip away after their amazing weekend, then she wouldn’t have met another man, wouldn’t be carrying another man’s child now. Had he expected that after all this time she would wait for him? A part of him, deep down, obviously had.

Something sharp stabbed him in the middle of his chest.

He had meant to come back, had made plans. But matters of the state had interfered. He was a sheik; his time was not his own. Not even now.

“Have you heard anything about the royals at the Wind River Ranch and Resort?” He needed to call Stefan, Efraim and the others. They were probably searching for him. His disappearance must have messed up the negotiations between the United States and their Coalition of Island Nations, COIN.

She put the soup on the table, looking at home in the small kitchen. “All over the news, according to the nurses. They can’t even stop talking about it when I call into the hospital to check in on the patients I had to hand off because of the maternity leave. It’s been like the Wild West returned over at the resort with all those princes. Never a dull moment, apparently.”

His muscles clenched. “Has anyone been harmed?” Those four men were like brothers to him, even closer to his heart than his recently found half brother, Wade, who was yet another reason for his being in Wyoming. A quest that would now have to wait.

“Someone was shot, but not one of the royals.”

A confused second passed before he remembered that she didn’t know his true identity. Their two passionate days together had been pure fantasy, strangers acting out a scene from the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. And now…with danger all around and him as weak as he was…probably not the best time to tell her. He needed to regain his strength and orient himself much better before he trusted anyone.

“We eat, and then we leave,” was all he told her. He needed to know for certain who his friends were and who his enemies were.

The phone threat texted to Stefan and the letters to him had to be connected. He’d received those letters back in Jamala. And Stefan received the text message before they even landed here. His instincts said whomever was behind the threats was from the islands and was not an American.

The miserable old king of Saruk came to mind, head of a larger neighboring country that wanted all the undersea oil rights, among other things. Five years ago he would have been the first person Amir would have looked at. But Prince Darek was taking over more and more of his father’s duties, making most, if not all, of the important decisions, and Darek was a good man, a friend. Amir trusted him.

So where did the threat originate? He had opponents back at home, of course. The summit had opponents, too. He cracked his knuckles. Either way, his enemy was either here now or used American accomplices. Someone had put a bomb on that limousine.

“Food is ready.” Isabelle was putting plates on the table, a picture of domestic femininity even with that tension he didn’t understand still in her shoulders. “You stay put. I’ll bring you a tray.”

He pushed to his feet, succeeding this time. “I’ll never regain my strength if all I do is sit around.”

And he needed his strength back desperately. Whoever had sent those threatening notes had taken things to the next level with the bomb in the car. He’d made his first kill, even if the driver had been an unintended victim. But the attacker was clearly committed to his goal, set on his course. He wasn’t going to give up until he accomplished whatever he was after.

His friends and he were in danger. And Isabelle was in danger by simply being with him. That last bit bothered him the most. She had nothing to do with politics. Her only crime was saving him.

But he would protect her with his life, if needed. “We should hurry.”

He pushed forward, his progress embarrassingly slow, a contrast to his words. When he made it to the table, he sank onto the chair with relief. He watched with appreciation as she ladled rich vegetable soup onto his plate. The aroma filled the one-room cabin, instantly making the strange place seem more welcoming.

He had pictured their reunion a dozen times in the past few months, but never under these circumstances. She sat across the table from him, unable to pull up her chair all the way due to her swollen belly. Her skin glowed; her black hair was lustrous and shiny. Pregnancy became her. He couldn’t say he had contemplated pregnant women all that much in the past, but she was both desirable and fascinating.

“Since you’ve been here, taking care of me all this time, I’m guessing the father of the baby is no longer in the picture.”

He had mixed feelings about that. Outrage that the bastard had abandoned her, and relief that he didn’t have to see her with another man, the thought of which was enough to make him clench his teeth and fist his hands on the table. There was a part of him that had thought of her all these months as his.

Sheer idiocy. Of course others wanted her, courted her. The thought was like a thousand daggers cutting his skin.

She opened a bag of bread, pulled the butter away from him. Avoided his gaze. “You should eat light for the next couple of days. Your stomach hasn’t seen solid food in a while.”

“Do you not want to talk to me about the father? The shame is his for abandoning his responsibilities, not yours.” He shook his head. “American men these days, they grow up on television and video games, having too much, without a real man’s sense of what duty is.”

But he was here now. As soon as their stomachs were filled, he was going to take her to safety. He was going to protect her and her unborn baby.

“American men are fine.” She drew a slow breath, no longer bothering to disguise the anger and resentment in her tone. “You’re the father, okay?”

Somewhere in the city of Dumont, Wyoming, a telephone rang in a dark, abandoned warehouse, the sound bouncing off the empty walls and filling the space. Long seconds ticked by before anyone responded.

“I think we know where he is,” the caller said when the line was finally picked up.

“Do we have confirmation?”

“Not yet.”