ARRIVING AT THE OASIS brought Fern Davenport back to life in a way she’d never experienced. The two-day camel trek through the dunes that she had anticipated with such excitement had been exactly what her employer and friend, Amineh, had warned it would be: a test of endurance.
But worth it. Exactly as promised.
After nothing but shades of blinding white and bleached yellow and dull red, the glimpse of greenery had Fern sitting taller, bringing her nose up the same way her camel did, searching for the scent of water. As they entered the farthest reach of the underground spring, where the palms were stunted and the grass sparse, she felt like a giant looking down on the tops of trees. The sun was already behind the canyon wall and blessedly cool air began to slither beneath the flapping edges of her abaya to caress her bare legs.
The tension of fearing for her survival began to ease. She wanted to release a laugh of relieved joy.
Outbursts of any kind weren’t her thing, though. She preferred to be as invisible as possible. Fern considered herself an observer of life, not so much a participant, but for the first time she experienced something like what a frisky lamb or a cocky adolescent must feel. It was a strange awareness of being alive. Her blood cells took on new energy and her pulse returned to vigorous beats. She wanted to throw off the weight of her clothes, expose her hot skin to the verdant air, kick up her heels and soak life through her pores. She wanted to be one with nature.
Awash in this state of renewal, she looked ahead to the clearing where the caravan would unload and saw him.
Just a man in a thobe and gutra. He could have been one of the camel keepers for all she knew, but a deep, feminine part of her recognized the kind of male that called to any woman. A leader. One whom other men looked to for direction and approval. Confident. A man of strength whose muscles strained the white tunic that draped his shoulders. He wore sandals and his feet were dusty, but he planted them firmly. With ownership.
She forced herself to lift her gaze to his face, barely able to withstand the impact of such handsomeness. How could a man be so beautiful yet so rugged? He was a product of the desert, she supposed, cheeks hollow and roughened by stubble, skin deeply tanned by the sun, mouth somber yet sculpted and...how did she even sense this? Sexual. A hawkish nose and brows as straight and firm as the horizon and then...
Green eyes. As startling and revitalizing as this oasis.
His sheer magnificence took her breath.
“Uncle!” the girls cried and the man’s severe expression flashed with a smile that made wistfulness bloom in Fern’s chest.
Men were such puzzling creatures to her, having mostly been passing ships in her life. She’d attended an all-girls school where even the principal was female. The library trustees, her mother’s doctor and the few teenaged boys she’d occasionally met through Miss Ivy’s club were the only males she really knew. She often found herself watching men like birders watched finches, studying their behavior and trying to make sense of them. She was always startled to discover they were quite human. The ones that were able to be tender with a child were especially fascinating to her. They made her wonder what it would be like to be close enough to truly understand one.
Not that she expected to get close to this one!
She had worked out that he was Zafir, Amineh’s brother. Amineh’s husband, Ra’id, hupped at his camel so it would drop to its knees. He dismounted and the men clasped hands and bent their heads together as they embraced with easy warmth.
Definitely not a camel keeper, Fern chided herself. Her students’ Uncle Zafir was formally known as Sheikh abu Tariq Zafir ibn Ahmad al-Rakin Iram. He was leader of Q’Amara, the country bordering Ra’id’s.
She must have sensed who he was and his stature impacted her, she reasoned. That’s why she was suffering this flare of heightened interest. The significance of arriving and meeting such an important man was turning her inside out in a way that was both familiar yet amplified. She was not only shy by nature, but also a redhead with the overactive blushing response that often came with it. She had flushed uncontrollably the first time Ra’id had spoken to her—she’d been so self-conscious under the attention of such a strong personality. A domineering, angry mother had made her sensitive to all authority figures. Anxious to please. It was completely understandable that she’d have an attack of nerves when faced with meeting another sheikh.
She’d never felt blistered from the inside like this, though. Never electrified yet stimulated. It was very disconcerting.
Other men came forward. These ones were camel keepers and camp attendants, but she was aware of only one man now. Not that he noticed her, which was a relief. And why would he? She was buried under a niqab and sunglasses, well-protected against the harsh glare of the sun and the bite of blowing sand. He was busy carrying on two separate conversations with his nieces as they occupied each of his arms.
The girls wriggled to the ground when a boy arrived, crying the name Fern had heard several times since this caravan into the desert had been proposed. “Tariq!”
Their cousin, ten years old, she’d been informed with great awe by her much younger students, wore a long tunic like his father’s and challenged the girls to race him up the path to the colorful tents being erected upstream, offering them a head start.
Ra’id helped his wife once her camel was down. Amineh threw off her niqab to hug her brother with all the affection she radiated when talking about him. They all spoke in Arabic, a beautiful language Fern wasn’t even close to mastering—
“Oh!” Fern cried as her camel pitched forward.
Remember to lean back, Amineh had cautioned her a million times, but Fern had been so caught up in watching Zafir smile at his sister she hadn’t noticed her camel was dropping to its knees. She scrambled to hang on, but was already sliding off by the time the animal hit the ground with a jarring thump.
Her dismount became the clumsiest in Arab history. She barely caught herself from crumpling into a heap. It was witnessed by everyone. So mortifying.
“Are you all right, Fern?” Amineh called. “You seemed to have the trick of it at the last stop. I should have asked Ra’id to help you.”
“I’m fine. Just distracted. It’s so pretty here,” she babbled, trying to cover up her interest in Zafir. A giant magnifying glass might as well be narrowing its beam on her, she was in such a searing, uncomfortable spotlight. She overheard Ra’id say something in Arabic that she did understand, calling her “The English teacher.”
“She is,” Amineh confirmed. “Come over and meet Fern. Oh, thank you, Nudara,” she added as her maid came forward with a canvas bag. Amineh peeled off her abaya and threw it into the bag then motioned for Fern to discard her dusty robe into it as well. “She’ll shake the sand out of them so they’re ready when the nomads arrive.”
Before taking this job, the closest Fern had come to having servants was watching the Downton Abbey collection on her laptop. All her life, her mother had been too tired from cleaning other people’s houses to do much of it at home, but she’d liked things shipshape. Fern had kept their small flat neat as a pin. In the final months, Fern had provided all-out hospice care, doing everything from bathing her mother to mounting the assistance bar next to the toilet. She still hadn’t adjusted to leaving tasks like laundry and cooking to others. It felt presumptuous, even though Nudara took no offense.
Maybe if Fern had been on Amineh’s level, making requests of servants wouldn’t have bothered her, but she was in that strange limbo between being a servant and being one of the family.
Honestly, she thought with a wry, inward sigh, when had she not been the odd duck set apart from the rest of the group?
This moment was no better. Despite only having adopted the head coverings since taking her position as English tutor to Bashira and Jumanah, Fern felt terribly bold as she removed her dark glasses, unpinned her veil and tugged away both scarf and under cap in one go. It was the hair. Her abundant corkscrews of carrot-orange made everyone in this country do a double take.
She kept her hair long because it was that or resemble a pot scrubber. It probably looked like it had been run through the food processor as it was. She’d been two days without more than a damp facecloth for a bath, but the enormous relief of cool air hitting her sweat-dampened scalp made her prickle with delight. Stripping her abaya, she revealed her sleeveless shirt with its forget-me-not print and lace collar then shook her cornflower-blue skirt from clinging to her legs, self-conscious that it only went to her shins.
“Is this too racy?” she asked Amineh in an undertone. “I didn’t know we’d be taking off our abayas in the open like this.”
“No, it’s fine here,” Amineh assured her absently as she stepped away to speak to a servant.
Fern looked to the sheikh for confirmation.
His aqua gaze was traveling over her like tropical seawater, leaving tickling trails down her limbs and making her toes curl in reaction.
Men never looked at her for longer than it took to ask the time or directions. People in general failed to notice her. She dressed conservatively and was fairly plain, didn’t wear makeup and spoke softly. Skinny, freckled ginger-haired girls were as common as milk in the village she’d grown up in near the Scottish border.
In this part of the world she stood out, though. Few of the servants back at Ra’id’s palace were white and no one was as white as she was. Not that she ran around showing off her arms and legs there. No, the wearing of coverings worked for her. She liked being invisible.
Fat chance right now, though. The sheikh seemed to see through the damp cotton adhered to her skin, cataloguing her every flaw and projecting what she sensed was disapproval. Her heart sank. She hated making missteps, hated being judged and hated it even more when not given a chance to prove herself first.
“Welcome to the oasis,” he said.
His husky baritone wafted over her like a hot breeze, spreading a ripple of disconcerting awareness through her. Similar to Amineh’s English, his accent held an intriguing mix of exotic Middle East and cool, upper-class Brit. Zafir was all man.
A widower, according to Amineh. His wife had died of cancer three years ago. It hit him hard. He doesn’t talk about her much. When he does, it’s always with great admiration, Amineh had said.
That meant she ought to be feeling sympathy toward him, Fern thought, but experienced a rush of defensive animosity. She didn’t like it. For the most part, she avoided conflict of any kind. If she was cornered, she was perfectly capable of lashing out with vicious sarcasm, but she hated being that person so she tried not to let it happen.
But he was looking at her as though he knew something about her. Like whatever assumption he reached made him cynical and dismayed.
His continued study made her hyperaware of herself. Reflexively, she started doing Miss Ivy’s bolstering exercises, reminding herself of all her good qualities. She was smart and kind, good at crafts if she had a pattern to follow...
Distantly, she realized this was a hugely protective reaction. He was a stranger and Miss Ivy always urged patience and not leaping to conclusions about what a new acquaintance might think.
But along with an irrational, panicked certainty that he had taken an instant dislike to her, she felt his rebuff in a way that was surprisingly devastating. She wasn’t a snob, not even an intellectual one, didn’t put on airs despite knowing the Dewey decimal system inside and out... Why on earth would she feel a near irresistible urge to tell him that? She wasn’t here to impress him and wouldn’t with statements like that.
But she was intimidated by the kind of man he was. So imperious. When had she ever come into the sphere of anyone like him? The natural instincts of the weak wanted someone this powerful to be on her side. She recognized that, but there was something else going on inside her, something she’d never really experienced before. She feared it might be attraction. Not a passing “oh, he’s nice-looking,” but something far more elemental. Please consider me.
That involuntary yearning was deeply confusing and beyond inappropriate.
A blush began to climb from her tight chest into her closing throat and across her face until her ears felt like they were on fire. She hated herself then. Hated her body and its over-the-top reaction. She was embarrassed by her own embarrassment and wanted to die.
* * *
Zafir watched a million freckles disappear in a bath of red and felt an unexpected urge to laugh.
Not nice, he realized, glancing away to hide the amusement brimming his eyes. He didn’t want to soften toward this English teacher, who was drowning in her own blush of sexual attraction. He was experienced enough to know that’s what was happening to her and man enough to like it.
But English.
Despite knowing how inappropriate she was for him, the prowling tomcat within him kept his tail standing at attention. His eyes traveled back to her of their own accord, counting the freckles that dotted her arms like cocoa sprinkled onto foamed milk. They were all over her, even the tops of her feet. The full effect naked would be an incredible sight.
One he would not make any attempts to see, he cautioned his libido, no matter how amenable she might seem.
He lifted his gaze from her disaster of a skirt, to shoulders covered in that Milky Way of freckles barely visible against the pink of her extensive blush, to liquid eyes locked on his face. He recognized the look, which was somewhere between nervous bunny and dazzled groupie.
Being a duke’s grandson had entitled him to more than an academic education. Alongside economics and diplomacy, he’d learned that Western women could be incredibly accommodating to a man’s basest needs. If he wanted her, he could have her.
That’s why he began fantasizing about setting his mouth against her shoulder, feeling the heat under her skin and tasting that smooth, pale flesh. That’s why his palm tingled to push into the folds of her skirt, to discover the shape of her backside and lock her hips into his own.
But tanned blondes were his preference. American or Scandinavian and only while traveling. He had enough power struggles with the conservatives in his country without having affairs inside his borders. He dismissed her with an arrogant blink, deliberately letting her see his rejection.
She swallowed, face blazing and lashes dropping. The corners of her lips pulled into the tortured bite of her teeth.
He had a near irresistible urge to cover her pursed doll’s mouth with his own, to lightly torture her until her lips were swollen and open. He could practically feel that wild hair tangled around his fingers as he held her under him, her clasp on him tight as he thrust deep and watched her eyes fog with ecstasy.
English, he reminded with a mild curse at his own weakness. Was it genetic that he could be blindsided by lust for one, so much so that he couldn’t smile, let alone speak?
He was only responding to her because he hadn’t been with any woman in over two months, he reasoned. It had nothing to do with a tainted streak in his makeup. He wasn’t like his father, who had fallen so hard for the wrong woman he’d gotten himself killed for it, leaving his bastard half-blood son to clean up the mess.
“Fern, this is my brother, Zafir. She may call you that while we’re here, yes?” Amineh turned back and clasped his arm, then leaned her weight on him in a familiar way that yanked him back into awareness. “Be nice to her. She’s shy.”
Fern. It was oddly suitable. His country favored names inspired by nature and something in her buttoned-down demeanor reminded him of those tightly curled fiddleheads he used to spy when tramping through his grandfather’s estate, searching for signs of spring and the end of the semester, when he could return to the warmth of home.
“Of course,” he managed to respond, fine with the level of stiffness in his tone. He was in the throes of a very wrong-time, wrong-place reaction. The feeling annoyed him enough to reflect in his voice. Still, he heard himself say, “If I may call you Fern.” He would regardless, but he willed permission from her all the same. Cooperation.
Capitulation.
Damn. He really shouldn’t want her so badly that he was already finding ways to stake a claim. Like it was a given that he would have her. This was lust. Garden-variety. He was on vacation, relaxed. Horny. Of course he responded to an available woman. That’s all this was and he could resist it.
Her lashes quivered and she nodded shakily, fingers playing together restlessly.
Her discomfiture left him grimly pleased. He was vital and sexual and alpha. Asserting himself was second nature, but there was more at play here. Amineh might see only a blush, but Fern’s reaction was carnal and that held a special allure for him.
“We’re very informal here,” Amineh chattered on. “We’ll cover up again when the Bedouins come through, but for now the oasis is ours. That’s why I love it. Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this.” She squeezed his arm again, then gave him a frown. “But you look grumpy. Why? We’re going to have fun. Act like kids again. Come on, Fern. Let’s walk up to the camp and get settled.”
Fern began to gather her bags onto her shoulder.
Zafir bit back an urging for her to leave them for the servants, but she was Ra’id’s employee, he reminded himself. Not an ambassador’s daughter. She knew her place better than he did.
She packed like an ambassador’s daughter, he noted with a grimace, as he watched her try to heft a third bag onto her shoulder.
He moved to take it.
“I can come back for it,” she insisted, but he brushed past her attempts to keep it and reached to remove one of the others already bending her slender spine. His thumb grazed skin like duck down, punching a shot of hot need into his gut.
What the hell? From barely touching her?
The hair on his scalp stood on end with both alarm and excitement.
She dipped her head, making it impossible for him to decipher whether she had reacted as intensely. But if he wasn’t mistaken, her nipples were standing up in sharp points. It couldn’t be from a chill in this heat.
Which should not make his belly tighten with anticipation, but it did.
Amineh was halfway up the path with Ra’id, leaving him to accompany Fern. He forced himself to find a neutral topic of conversation.
“The oasis is roughly seventeen square kilometers. My father designated this as a nature reserve when we were children. We have one tribe allowed to camp here without a permit as they follow bird migrations. We anticipate they’ll come through while we’re here, but otherwise access is strictly limited.”
“I read about it before we came.” Her quick statement seemed to say “thanks, but I know all I need to.” She hurried along.
Let it go, he told himself. Let her go. If she had received the message that he wasn’t welcome to a come-on, that was a good thing.
But his longer legs easily kept up to the scurrying pace that kept the color high in her cheeks. And he couldn’t take his eyes off the way her remarkable hair bounced and her small, firm breasts barely moved.
And all the while, she looked straight ahead as though trying to ignore him.
“How long have you been teaching the girls?” he asked.
“Three months.” She flashed a look up at him that was vaguely defensive. “I feel a bit of a fraud, to be honest. Amineh, I mean, umm, Bashira...”
“It’s fine,” he said. “As she said, we’re casual here. No need to use her title.”
“Right. Thank you. What I was going to say is that her English is perfect and the girls are already switching back and forth very easily. Aside from correcting their grammar and spelling, I’m not sure they really need me. It’s just such a remarkable opportunity to experience another culture and...” She cleared her throat and her gaze flickered over him like a searchlight picking out the best parts. “The girls are lovely,” she murmured faintly. “I feel very fortunate to be here. Well, there. And here.”
Another blush. She was really in the throes of sexual interest. How utterly captivating. The hormones that told a man to pursue a woman seared his veins like adrenaline.
“I’m sure she’s delighted to have you in the household,” he said, his voice as tight as his skin, brain somehow maintaining a grasp on the conversation. “My sister and I prefer our father’s world, but we often feel homesick for England.” He closed his mouth, not sure why he had said it like that. It wasn’t real homesickness, just that all his life he’d wished he could live in both places at the same time.
Which felt like a traitorous admission, as though he wasn’t wholly committed to the country he ruled, but he was. Willing to make deep sacrifices for it even. He frowned.
Beside him, Fern halted abruptly and cast a jerky glance up and down the beach. It was a scene of controlled chaos: tents going up, pillows spilling from baskets and silk rugs unrolled. “I, um, don’t know where I’m going. Do I sleep with the children?”
“No, they have their own tent.” He pointed to where his son was hanging the partition between his side and the girls’ in the undersized tent they used.
The servants were settling near the water pump at the far end of the beach, where the cooking fire would be laid. A large tent was going up not far from the children’s, for Amineh and Ra’id. His own tent was already standing at the end of a small bench of sand facing the water. Security would place their small tents at strategic places at the perimeter of the oasis.
Deductive reasoning allowed him to single out the only unclaimed lodging. Halfway between the two ends of the camp, tucked beneath an overhang of palms where a small footprint of sand pushed into the tall grass, sat a bundled tent.
Apparently Fern was expected to know how to erect the tent herself.
“That one,” he said, as he grazed light fingers on her upper arm to catch her attention then pointed.
Yes, he was that weak. Unable to resist touching her.
Her breath caught and he experienced a surprisingly strong pulse of satisfaction that she responded so sharply to his barely there caress.
This was going to be a difficult two weeks.
* * *
Fern wished Zafir would take a hike so she could figure out what was going on.
Obviously she found him attractive. Who wouldn’t? He was gorgeous. And he’d noticed, obviously, because she was useless at disguising her thoughts and feelings. That’s why she preferred to hide behind books and library desks and had taken a job a million miles from home so she’d only have two students and hardly see any men at all.
Men made her nervous. Not outright afraid. They’d have to notice her for her to feel threatened, but she’d learned the hardest way possible not to beg for approval. As much as she might have a curiosity about dating and mating, she was highly reluctant to put her hard-won confidence on the line. It had been far easier over the years to stay home and not rile her mother by going out with men. Instead, she had excelled at her studies and worked hard to help pay rent and, yes, had even taken a martyr’s pride in being the dutiful daughter. She’d told herself she was too busy for romance, but really, she’d been too cowardly.
Or perhaps, hadn’t met a man exciting enough to provoke her past her reservations. The fact that something had been awakened in her today, made her want to be noticed and appreciated and found worthy, made her anxious. Emotionally vulnerable.
And disturbingly aware of herself physically. She’d never responded to a man in such an animal way. Her knowledge about sex was mostly gleaned from the deliciously graphic passages in romance novels. They always gave her a nice flush of pleasure, but thinking about doing those sorts of things in real life, wondering what Zafir liked to do to women and what it might feel like to have his hands and mouth on her naked body, made sharp sensations pierce her nipples and between her thighs. Heat that was both embarrassment and excitement throbbed painfully in her, making her feel all the more defenseless and exposed.
It was so unnerving.
This was why her mother had always said sex was dangerous. Fern had wondered why so many people did it if it was so bad, but until today she’d never had a man touch her. Not really. Not so she felt it like a lightning bolt into her belly. That was why people did it. The sensations were compelling enough to overcome logic and common sense.
She desperately wanted to move away from him and take time to examine exactly what was happening to her, label it, then put it in storage forever. Especially because some primal part of her felt like he... But no. She was making it up. Fretting because that’s what she did best. She was misinterpreting basic courtesy as...
She didn’t even know the words for what she thought she sensed, only that she felt like she was trapped in a tiger’s cage and he was pacing around her, curious enough to sniff, but not genuinely hungry. Bored maybe. Looking for something to play with.
He walked across to drop her bags by a red bundle.
Oh, dear. Was that her tent? Well, she wasn’t above reading directions. She tried to retrieve the card from its plastic pocket.
“I’ll do it,” he said, looking disgruntled as he picked up the bundle, opened the drawstring and shook the contents onto the sand. He discarded the nylon outer bag.
“I’m sure I can work it out.” She picked up the empty bag and turned it over to see the card was covered in foreign cursive.
“Do you read Arabic?” he asked dryly, then handed her a corner of the tent and backed away to shake out the large square.
“Not yet,” she answered, moving to extend the other corner. As she did, she picked up the bag of pegs so they wouldn’t be caught underneath. “Is there really no English? Because this doesn’t look like traditional Bedouin accommodation.”
“No, these modern designs are too lightweight and practical to ignore for the sake of custom.” He snagged the small mallet she drew from the bag of pegs. “Even the nomads have moved to lighter fabrics than woven camel hair, but you’ll see more authentic tents when they come through.” He held out his hand for a peg.
“I can manage. I’ll ask one of the other men if I can’t. I don’t want to inconvenience you.” There. She had an assertive side. It was very polite and obliging, but it got the job done when she needed it.
He flicked his sharp gaze around the camp as though looking for one of these men she might enlist when really, she’d probably ask Amineh’s maid for help before she’d find the courage to approach a stranger and beg a favor.
When his gaze came back to hers, he seemed disapproving and vaguely challenging. “I’ll do it,” he stated.
She locked her teeth, having learned long ago to pick her battles.
At least she was able to hurry the process. She willed her fingers to be nimble as she followed him down the side and across the back of the tent, struggling all the loops onto the pegs as he hammered them into the sand. The feeling of having her every action scrutinized was her own baggage, she reminded herself as she moved toward the front. He wasn’t watching her. He was having some kind of manly back-to-nature moment, indulging his instinct to prove his superiority over nature.
Nevertheless, as she straightened from making the last attachment, the tension was killing her. She glanced at him and his green eyes were waiting, snagging her like a hook, with a pierce and a tug.
She caught her breath, limbs paralyzed with shock.
He calmly continued what he was doing. and lengthened a pole in increments with a smooth stroke of his hand and a light twist of his wrist, eyes staying on her like they’d been there a while.
He lifted the opening of the tent and slid the pole inside.
It was...
She blushed. God help her, she blushed hard.
A noise escaped him. Might have been a snort of amusement or a tsk of impatience. She wasn’t sure because he bent to take up another shortened pole and began to extend it. When his gaze came back to hers, his was fierce and almost scolding.
His rebuke burned. She knew her reaction was obvious. Her ability to demure was nil. Worse, she knew she didn’t inspire male desire. She wasn’t particularly curvy on her chest or bottom. She wouldn’t know how to apply eye shadow if she’d ever had the spare notes to buy it. Between the braces to fix terribly crooked teeth, the secondhand clothes, the extra studies to win a scholarship and then maintaining her position at the library while she earned her degree, she’d been the most easily overlooked nerd her entire life.
Maybe he was one of those jocks who occasionally noticed she was an easy mark and was having his fun teasing her. Maybe he was silently taunting her, sending a pithy “as if.”
She usually walked away when feeling picked on, but despite the seventeen square kilometers around her, she didn’t have anywhere to go. The only place she could hide from Zafir was her own quarters, so she ducked into them. She bendt under the light weight of the silky red fabric to pick up the pole from the ground and worked her way to the center, where a grommet awaited on the roof and the floor.
Of course it wasn’t as easy as it looked. She got the top one hooked in, but even though the tent wasn’t heavy, the tension in the fabric was resistant to her attempts to align the bottom of the pole into the floor.
“You spaced the pegs too far away,” she told him, hearing her mother’s voice and cringing.
“I’ve pitched more tents than you have, Fern,” he drawled and she narrowed her eyes at him even though they couldn’t see each other.
Another pole made a zipping noise as he slid it into the pocket that would form one of the corners. “Let me finish this part then I’ll help you.”
Oh, great. I’ll just stand here looking stupid then.
The tent shifted on her hair, making it crackle with static. She debated crawling out, but couldn’t make herself go out there and face him.
Another zip, zip, zip and he had the back and walls stabilized.
Leave when he comes in, she thought, but he lifted the front of the tent and took up all the space, bringing the middle of the tent pole so it slid through her light grip and the roof climbed as he neared her. Then he was standing before her, the narrow pole between them, his tanned face tinged by the translucent red of the fabric, his gaze fixed on hers.
He slid his hands over her limp ones and guided the bottom end of the pole into place.
She tried to look away, but he was tall and very close. He smelled good. Earthy and sweaty, but not overpowering. Masculine and intriguing. Aside from her mother’s specialist, she’d never met a man with such an air of command and that physician had been white-haired and potbellied. Zafir was in his prime, not just healthy, but radiating supremacy.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was behaving like some kind of rock-band superfan, speechless in the presence of a man with star quality, unable to move, but he was so incredible. She found herself staring into his eyes for too long. She knew it was too long, but she couldn’t look away from those crystal blue-green depths. They quested, delving into hers, demanding something she didn’t even understand.
Say something, she thought, and let her tongue wet her lips.
His gaze lowered to her mouth.
Her breath evaporated.
She found her own gaze dropping to his mouth, wondering how it would feel to have those smooth lips rubbing against hers. Her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird, her pulse pounding in her ears.
He lifted his hand to hover hotly next to her cheek, scorching her. His brows jerked in some type of struggle. Was he going to kiss her?
It was remarkable yet terrifying. Did she really want to do this? It was so wrong, but he was right there.
“Miss Davenport, are you in there?” Bashira called from outside.
Fern’s heart went into free fall. Her conscience gave her a hard shake and she jerked back, shocked.
“I am,” she stammered, discovering her hand was still trapped under Zafir’s on the pole.
His grip tightened briefly before he released her with a flare of his fingers. He lifted away his touch as though she’d burned him. A muscle ticked in his cheek. He looked very displeased. Accusatory, but also confused.
She surreptitiously touched her mouth, and avoided looking at him as she edged around him to open the flap of the tent.
The rush of fresh air, dry and hot as it was, made her realize how stifling it had been inside, where things had been sultry and musky. Her heart was still pounding hard and loud. It took everything she had to muster a smile for the children as they approached.
“Mama said these are for you.” Bashira struggled with Jumanah to drag a basket across the sand toward her. Tariq followed, staggering under the weight of a bedroll on his shoulder.
“Have you met my son?” Zafir asked as he emerged beside her. He didn’t stand so close as to be improper, but the air crackled with energy that bounced back and forth between them.
Fern stepped forward to escape the field of it. “Not yet.”
What had just happened in there? Was he messing with her? She hadn’t known what to expect from Amineh’s brother, but cruelty wasn’t on the list. The thought that he would toy with her for his own amusement was not only painful, but also opened the gap of deep vulnerability in her even wider. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him here.
He moved forward to take the bedroll off his son, introduced the boy then disappeared inside the tent to lay it out.
Far too intimate a thing to do. How was she supposed to sleep on something he had touched?
“Your cousins speak very highly of you, Tariq,” she said shakily. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you.”
The boy regarded her with a very serious expression. Not his father’s eyes, thank goodness. His were like black coffee, but they held the same intelligence and confidence.
“They speak well of you, too, but may I say with all proper respect that I no longer have need of a nanny. I have a guard.” He quarter turned to indicate a man observing from a position near the children’s tent. “To protect me from outside threats. I am allowed to make my own mistakes and learn from them.”
Pleasantly diverted by that statement, Fern nodded. “I can see you’re mature enough to do so. But I’m not a nanny. I tutor the girls in English.”
“I’m on vacation,” Tariq stated promptly. “My English is excellent.”
Abundant self-assurance was obviously a genetic trait. Her lips were still fiery and buzzing from having Zafir stare at them. Now they twitched with amusement.
“I hope you’ll join us for our field lessons anyway,” Fern said. “I’m excited to explore the oasis. I brought a microscope, some tracking books and sketching supplies. Perhaps you could teach me some things about your country and its wildlife.”
“Oh, yes, I could do that,” he stated with generosity. “My father is also very knowledgeable,” he said as Zafir emerged again to stand at her side. “He finds an animal even when it’s trying to hide.”
Fern outright refused to look at Zafir with that remark hovering like a balloon ready to burst. She was not interested in being laughed at even more.
“That would be a treat,” she murmured, throat tightening with indignation. “But he’s already gone out of his way on my behalf. I don’t want to impose.”
“You would do it for my cousins, wouldn’t you, Baba?” Tariq said, neck craned to look up at his father.
“Of course,” Zafir promised with a hand clasping warmly to Tariq’s shoulder. “That’s why we are here. To spend time with our family. You’ll show our guest where to find everything? I can’t put off confirming that everyone has arrived safely as scheduled.” Turning to her, Zafir explained, “Rescues are difficult and time sensitive, so we have very low criteria for setting them off. Any delay of a message will do it. Excuse me.”
As if nothing had happened between them, he nodded and walked away.
Of course, nothing had happened, she reminded herself. Maybe she’d imagined that whole thing.
Except her cheek still burned where he’d almost touched her.
She forced her gaze not to linger on his back, but she couldn’t help wondering what that back would look like naked. Tanned and strong. When had she ever, ever fantasized about running light fingers down a man’s spine? Or sprawling naked upon one?
This place was supernatural, casting a spell of some kind over her.
Distressed, she forced her attention to the children. They showed her where to find boiled water for drinking and pointed out the latrine and gave her a short broom to use to sweep out scorpions—really?—if they wandered into her tent. Then they left her to unpack as they scampered off in search of wild dates.
Fern entered the privacy of her tent and let out a long, anxious breath. Amineh had talked about the oasis like it was a place of freedom, but Fern had a sense of being kidnapped—into luxury, sure. The tent was bigger than the tiny bedroom she’d grown up in. The bedding and pillows the children had brought her were silky and colorful, while the pallet Zafir had unrolled was wide enough for two.
Stop it.
How had she even wound up here at the end of the earth? She’d grown up expecting she would take a position in a village day school, perhaps going home to a tidy flat where she’d have a cat named Fabio. Her only aspiration had been to provide the same ray of hope Miss Ivy had instilled in her—to help withdrawn, unhappy students discover their own hidden potential.
Hers had apparently been the ability to become an international teacher.
She hadn’t even considered an overseas position while her mother had been alive, but after her mother had passed away, Fern had needed a fresh start. On a whim, she’d applied to a placement agency and expected to wind up in a missionary school, but had found herself in the running for this job.
It still felt like a miracle that she’d won it, but her quiet nature seemed to fit with a culture that valued modesty. She and Amineh had got on immediately, which surprised Fern. At first she had thought it was only because Amineh appreciated Fern’s genuine affection for the girls and her earnest desire to act in their best interests. Now she knew Amineh better, she recognized a like soul in the sense that they’d both struggled to find their place in the jungle of female cliques during their school years.
Amineh and Zafir, Fern had learned, were the product of a rather notorious affair between an Arab sheikh and an English duke’s daughter. They’d ping-ponged back and forth between their parents, not quite fitting fully into either culture. Amineh had found stability by marrying her brother’s best friend, Ra’id, and living permanently in his country.
Zafir still fought for the right to rule their father’s homeland, Q’Amara. He’d married the daughter of a sheikh, trying to ease resistance at having a man with such heavy Western influences governing their country.
Somehow she couldn’t picture him wearing the same sad frown Amineh wore when she talked about their difficult early years. He seemed too fiercely proud to allow prejudice to reach his heart. It was hard to imagine a man that dynamic and confident struggling with anything.
Peeking out of her tent, she saw him down at the water, shin-deep in the spring where the children had told her bathing was allowed. He stood with his sharp profile angled upward to the top of the worn canyon on the far side of the water. Then he crouched, not taking any heed that his robe was soaked through. He scooped his hands into the water and splashed his face, then lifted his gutra to wet the back of his neck.
She swallowed, going weak as she watched him. He was so comfortable in his skin, so self-assured and compelling.
It dawned on her that this was a crush. She was suffering a full-blown case of unfounded infatuation, behaving exactly like her adolescent schoolmates used to. She stood here spying on a boy, acting geeky and awkward and keyed up, entertaining uncharacteristic fantasies of kissing the back of his neck. How puerile. If only his wife was alive to deter her.
Look away, she told herself, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Why did he have to be out there acting all brooding and sexy anyway?
He stood and turned to stare directly at her tent. His shoulders were set at what seemed a tense angle, his demeanor projecting dissatisfaction.
She couldn’t tell if he saw her, but she retreated to the back wall.
This was going to be an interminable two weeks.