Diana Palmer - Lord of the Desert

Her body tingled. “Pretending to be your lover,” Gretchen said breathlessly.

“Yes.”

She felt deliciously hot all over. The thought of his mouth on hers made her knees weak. He wanted pretense. She wanted him, and was only just realizing it. All sorts of shocking, exciting images formed in her mind. “I have no idea how someone in a harem behaves,” she said.

“Nor have I,” he said with a touch of amusement. “We will have to learn together.”

Some of the uncertainty left her expression.

“At least your virtue would be completely safe with me.” He hoped. He didn’t dare tell her what her touch did to him.

“How far would this pretense have to go, exactly?” she wondered aloud.

“It would have to be convincing,” he said.

She lowered her eyes demurely. “You’d kiss me and…so forth?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Yes. Especially and…so forth.”

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer…I love her stories.”

—Jayne Ann Krentz

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Jim, Rhonda, Nancy, Amanda and Christian

(and Hugo)

with eternal thanks!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Tourists milled around the food court in the busy Brussels airport where the two American women were trying to decide what to do next.

The slender blond woman in the tan pantsuit was almost choked with mirth as she gazed mischievously up at her dark-haired, pacing companion in a green silk jacket and slacks. “Isn’t it ironic that we could starve to death surrounded by food?” Gretchen Brannon asked gleefully.

“Oh, do stop,” Maggie Barton groaned, looming over her laughing, near-hysterical companion. “We won’t starve, Gretchen. We can get Belgian francs. There are money-changing booths everywhere!” She waved her arms around expressively at the nearby shops, almost colliding with a passing couple in the crowded food court.

Gretchen’s green eyes twinkled. “Really? Where, exactly?”

Maggie let out a sigh as she tried unsuccessfully to remember enough French to read a sign.

Gretchen watched her through swollen eyelids. Unlike efficient Maggie, who could sleep on the plane, she’d been awake for almost thirty-six straight hours. “Can’t you just see the headlines?” Gretchen persisted. “‘Naïve Texas tourists found dead beside five-star restaurant…’!” She started laughing again.

Maggie was not amused. “Just sit right there. Don’t move.”

Gretchen submerged a mad impulse to salute. Maggie, twenty-six and three years older than Gretchen, worked for an investment firm in Houston where she was a junior partner. She had a take-charge manner that was occasionally a blessing. No doubt she’d find a way to get native currency and return loaded with food and drink.

Maggie came back with the money and sorted through it, frowning as she tried to remember how the currency changer had explained the coins. “We still have plenty of time to get something to eat and then take a tour of the city before our flight leaves for Casablanca this afternoon.”

Gretchen blinked sleepily. “Great idea, about the tour. Can you get a strong tour guide? I think I’ll need to be carried…”

“Food. Coffee. Right now. Come on.”

Gretchen obligingly let her friend tug her to her feet. They were an odd couple, with Maggie so tall and brunette and voluptuous, and Gretchen slender, medium height, fair and with long platinum-blond hair. They pulled the carry-on bags with them, having had the good sense not to bring more than that, thereby escaping the eternal wait at baggage claim for bags that often didn’t even arrive with the passengers.

Maggie coughed helplessly. “Everybody smokes everywhere over here,” she muttered. “I don’t suppose there’s a no-smoking section?”

Gretchen grinned. “Sure there is. It’s where the smoke is being blown to.”

Maggie made a face. “How about the food bar over there?” she asked, indicating a structure near the window. “It’s almost deserted and nobody’s smoking.”

“I could eat dry bread crusts, myself,” Gretchen agreed. “And if we don’t have enough money, I’ll even volunteer to wash the dishes!”

They had a nice order of pasta with tomatoes and mushrooms and homemade bread, on real china, with real silverware, at a counter. By the time they finished their second cups of coffee, Gretchen felt renewed.

“Now all we have to do is find a tour going our way,” Maggie said brightly. “I’ll call a tour agency and see if we can get somebody to come and pick us up.”

Gretchen only sighed. She sat down and closed her eyes. It would be so lovely to have a bed and ten hours uninterrupted sleep. But they were still hours from their hotel in Tangiers, Morocco.

Fifteen frustrating minutes later, Maggie hung up the phone and mumbled some harsh words toward it as she nudged Gretchen, who was dozing.

“I can’t read the telephone directory, it’s all in French, I can’t figure out which coins to use because I don’t speak French, and I can’t get anybody who answers the phone to understand me because I don’t speak French!”

“Don’t look at me,” Gretchen said pleasantly. “I don’t speak any French, even menu-French. I have to get by on Spanish, and nobody here seems to understand it.”

“I speak Spanish, too, but we’re in the wrong country to use it. Well,” Maggie said irritably, “we’ll just go outside and hail a cab. That should be simple enough. Right?”

Gretchen didn’t say a word. She sighed and got to her feet, dragging her carry-on bag behind her like a reluctant puppy.

The Brussels airport was large and modern and friendly. After a nightmare of dead ends they found a nice cab, with a pleasant, friendly driver whose English was every bit as bad as Maggie’s French. Nevertheless, she and Gretchen managed to convey what they wanted to do and they saw some amazing sights. The tour was long and pleasant and educational. But eventually they had to go back to the airport or risk missing their connecting flight.

Buoyed up by coffee, food, and the sight-seeing tour, Gretchen was now wide-awake and eager for Morocco, land of camels and the Sahara desert, and the famous Berbers of the Rif mountains. She could hardly wait to see the ancient land in its desert setting.

Several hours and a fascinating snack meal of Middle-Eastern delicacies later, their plane set down in Casablanca, Morocco, where they had to find the concourse for their connecting flight up to Tangier. Among the interesting customs of the flight were the distribution of traditional Moroccan foods and free newspapers in an assortment of foreign languages to travelers, and the apparently routine custom of applauding the pilot when the plane had landed safely. Maggie and Gretchen joined in the general merriment and stepped out into another world, where men and women wore long, graceful robes, and women either wore head covers with veils or scarves tied tight around their heads. There were many children traveling with their parents.

Inside the Casablanca terminal, much smaller than they expected it to be, armed guards in camouflage gear shepherded passengers to the customs desk and from there into the various concourse rooms to await their flights. The washroom, though small and rustic, had an attendant who was an English-speaking treasure of information about the city and its people. They changed American currency for dirhams at the airport after they cleared customs and before they went through baggage control and the metal detector again before boarding their connecting flight.