Dana Marton - The Sheik's Safety

Dara wasn’t in the mood for any chauvinistic garbage. “Because women are weak?” she challenged him.

He looked at her for a long moment. “Women should be cherished.”

She stared back, unsure what to say to that.

Her father used to say women had to be toughened up to be fit for the military. He hadn’t meant it disparagingly. He merely saw the difference between the sexes as a weakness. He was forever frustrated by her mother’s inability to hold up under pressure, suck it up and stick it out.

She glanced at Saeed. Cherished. It fell so far outside the realm of her experience, she couldn’t even picture it. Was he for real?

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

This July, Intrigue brings you six sizzling summer reads. They’re the perfect beach accessory.

* We have three fantastic miniseries for you. Film at Eleven continues THE LANDRY BROTHERS by Kelsey Roberts. Gayle Wilson is back with the PHOENIX BROTHERHOOD in Take No Prisoners. And B.J. Daniels finishes up her MCCALLS’ MONTANA series with Shotgun Surrender.

* Susan Peterson brings you Hard Evidence, the final installment in our LIPSTICK LTD. promotion featuring stealthy sleuths. And, of course, we have a spine-tingling ECLIPSE title. This month’s is Patricia Rosemoor’s Ghost Horse.

* Don’t miss Dana Marton’s sexy stand-alone title, The Sheik’s Safety. When an American soldier is caught behind enemy lines, she’ll fake amnesia to guard her safety, but there’s no stopping the sheik determined on winning her heart.

Enjoy our stellar lineup this month and every month!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Gail Neeves, a wonderful writer and treasured friend.

With many thanks to Kim Nadelson and Allison Lyons,

the best editors a writer could wish for, and Jenel Looney

for sharing her expertise on Middle Eastern customs

and life, and Anita Staley for her friendship,

help and tireless support.

Dana Marton lives near Wilmington, Delaware. She has been an avid reader since childhood and has a master’s degree in writing popular fiction. When not writing, she can be found either in her large garden or her home library. For more information on the author and her other novels, please visit her Web site at www.danamarton.com.

She would love to hear from her readers via e-mail at DanaMarton@yahoo.com.

Dara Alexander—Third-generation military, Dara followed her father’s and grandfather’s footsteps to the air force before joining a top secret antiterrorist unit, the SDDU. But the desert operation she ends up in this time is more dangerous, with stakes much higher than ever before.

Sheik Saeed ibn Ahmad—Once he was in line for the throne. Now the past is haunting him as he survives one assassination attempt after the other.

Nasir ibn Ahmad—Saeed’s brother. He is not happy with Saeed’s desire to preserve peace at any cost. Trouble is brewing in the background. Is he the source of it?

King Majid—He came to the throne under suspicious circumstances and would do anything to retain power. But does he want it badly enough to kill his own cousin, Saeed?

Jumaa—The Prime Minister of the country is supposed to hold the real power in a constitutional monarchy. But does he? Is he the king’s puppet, or an insidious schemer with his own agenda?

SDDU—Special Designation Defense Unit. A top secret military team established to fight terrorism. Its existence is known only by a select few. Members are recruited from the best of the best, SEALs, FBI and CIA agents, elite military groups.

Colonel Wilson—He’s the leader of the SDDU, reporting straight to the Homeland Security Secretary.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

They flew below radar, although not as invisible as they would have liked to be.

Dara Alexander took in the starry sky from the cockpit of the MC-130. Not a cloud in sight to cover the moon, no such thing as a pitch-black night here. That was one of the drawbacks of desert missions, and an annoying inconvenience for anyone trying to sneak around.

But the full moon was the least of their worries. They needed only a matter of minutes—fly in low, pop up to safe height for jumping, drop the team, then the plane would go back to base to wait for the pickup signal. Once they were on the ground, being invisible was their specialty.

Dara scanned Beharrain’s alien landscape below them, the expanse of rocky plateau broken up by giant boulders every so often, some a couple of hundred feet high. She might as well have been looking at video transmitted back by the Mars Rover. Except that somewhere ahead, a convoy of arms smugglers was heading south, hoping to cross the border to Yemen.

Not today. She rolled her shoulders. Not if her team had anything to do with it.

The pilot looked up from his display—symbology overlaid with sensor video. “Five minutes to drop zone.”

“See you in a couple of days.” Dara stood and clapped the man on the shoulder to thank him for the ride up front, then smiled at the copilot who was checking the situation data on the instrument panel.

She didn’t exactly miss the air force—her current job in the Special Designation Defense Unit, or SDDU, had more than enough excitement—but there was something about sitting in a cockpit that came as close to feeling “home” as she’d ever gotten. She glanced at the navigators and the electronic warfare officer, all three men busy at their console on the aft portion of the flight deck, then she moved on to the back, to the temporary team to which she now belonged.

Joey Scallio flashed her a grin. “How ’bout a kiss for good luck?”

“In your dreams, Scallio.”

His grin widened. “Babe, in my dreams we do a hell of a lot more than that.”

She shook her head and bit back a smile as she walked on, stretching her legs.

Harrison, their team leader, gave her a thumbs-up and a smile as she walked by him, his perfect white teeth gleaming from his ebony face. He was talking to Miller. “It gets easier after…”

She didn’t catch the rest over the noise of the plane. Judging from the proud fatherly smile that spread on the younger man’s face, they were probably talking about his newborn son.

She was almost at her seat when the cockpit alarm went off. The shrill tone froze her limbs for a split second.

“Incoming. Surface-to-air missile. Brace for impact,” the warning instructed through her headset.

Dara grabbed for one of the belts secured to the wall, twisted it around her arm, and hung on for all she was worth as the plane lurched to the side, the pilot taking evasive action.

Too late.

The plane shook the next second when the SAM hit.

Her right shoulder felt as if it were being ripped out of the socket. More alarms came on, deafening her. She lost hold of the belt and slid across the floor toward the front of the plane. Damn. Fear and adrenaline raced through her veins. She grasped at anything that might hold her, hoping she’d manage before she slammed into the metal crates by the cockpit door and broke a leg. The cargo net. She reached for it and succeeded, coming to a halt at last.