‘IT’S Althorp’s,’ Emily called as soon as they were close enough to work out where the noise and smoke were coming from. ‘The boatyard,’ she clarified when she remembered that Zayed might not know the names of the various businesses along Harbour Road.
The mental image of the business, mainly constructed of time-weathered timber and probably containing dozens of drums of flammable paints and chemicals needed for the building and refurbishing of boats of all sorts, was enough to make her shudder.
There could be any number of boats in there too, from simple wooden dinghies to cruisers worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Any fire would spread frighteningly fast with so much combustible material around.
She was beginning to pant by now but even though she was running on the road in unsuitable footwear after a night of no sleep and too much emotion, the adrenaline surging through her system lent wings to her feet.
There had been several more explosions since that first one and as she got closer she could see that the flames were already leaping above roof height and scattering burning embers in all directions.
But her first thought wasn’t about the destruction of property, no matter how historic it was to Penhally. She was far more concerned about the possibility that some of the boat-builders might already have started work, and if there were people trapped in that inferno…
Zayed was already silently cursing the fact that that his injuries were slowing him down.
There had been a time when Emily would never have been able to outrun him, but today he had to bear the frustration of watching her gradually pulling away from him as she sprinted towards the heavy smoke that had started billowing out across the road towards the harbour.
And then he was there, right in front of the gaping wooden doors to the yard when the wind momentarily lifted the thick smoke, and it was like looking into the mouth of hell.
Instantly, Zayed was catapulted right back to the explosion that had killed Leika and Kashif and had come close to ending his own life.
For several interminable seconds he was paralysed with remembered terror as he relived the realisation that he couldn’t even stretch his hand out far enough to touch them.
Then there was another explosion, louder than all the rest, and the shock wave sent Emily reeling back into him, sending both of them to the ground.
Immediately he was helping her to her feet but when he tried to push her behind him to protect her from the flying debris, she grabbed his arm and pointed at the dark outline of a figure trying to make his way into the yard.
‘Dammit, no!’ she screamed over the roar of the flames that were consuming everything in their path as she leapt forward to grab hold of the figure. ‘It’s only a bloody boat!’
He reached for the man’s other arm before it could land the blow that would force Emily to let go, and suddenly they were both struggling to hang on, fighting to hold onto the smouldering clothing and the powerfully built person inside it to prevent him trying to enter the death trap that the yard had become.
Zayed twisted one of the man’s arms up behind his back to help Emily to restrain him from his intention of trying to save his precious boat from the flames.
What he knew he would rather be doing than keeping the ungrateful individual from risking his life was grabbing Emily into his arms and taking her as far away from danger as possible.
‘Let me go!’ the man roared, his eyes wild as he saw the flames spreading with nightmare speed. ‘I’m going to lose everything.’
‘A boat can be replaced with money,’ Zayed shouted right in the man’s face, automatically noting that several blisters had formed down one cheek. ‘People cannot!’
‘It’s not just a boat,’ the man argued, fighting like a demon, and for a brief second Zayed wondered if it was worth risking permanent damage to his back to restrain a man intent on such lunacy. ‘That’s my whole life going up in there,’ he continued. ‘The yard, the sail loft, other people’s boats…’
With the sound of the fire engines arriving, all the fight suddenly went out of him and he allowed Zayed and Emily to direct him to the paramedic already parked a safe distance away on the other side of Penhally Bay Surgery next door.
‘Are you all right?’ Zayed demanded, as he and Emily were bustled aside to leave the firemen space to get their equipment functioning as quickly as possible.
It was obvious that there wasn’t going to be much of Althorp’s left to save, even once the powerful hoses started pouring thousands of gallons of water onto the inferno. The blaze had become so fierce so quickly that very little in there had stood a chance, not the buildings or the craft, large or small.
‘I’m all right,’ Emily reassured him, her eyes fixed in awful fascination on the destruction taking place right in front of them.
They were standing by the far corner of the surgery now, but the heat was still reaching them. Even so, Zayed was confident that the granite that formed the surgery’s stone walls was solid enough to be unaffected. The paintwork on the side closest to the fire was another matter. That would probably already be showing evidence of scorching and blistering.
Nick Tremayne was standing just a few feet away, his face creased by a deeply concerned frown. He was probably noting just how much work would need to be done before the winter came, but, considering the ferocity of the fire and its proximity to the surgery, they’d got off very lightly.
The woman who came to join him in his vigil was another matter entirely. With tears streaming down her face, it was clear that she was distraught by the destruction of the yard.
‘That’s Kate Althorp,’ Emily told him quietly. ‘Her husband was a partner in the business before he died in the big storm a few years ago.’
‘Oh, Nick, look at it.’ Kate was sobbing, oblivious to their attention, and they saw the older man put a consoling arm around her shoulders. ‘This was Jem’s inheritance, and there’s nothing left of it.’
‘Shh! Kate, everything will be all right,’ Nick said soothingly, as Zayed took a look around to see that the emergency services were now fully in charge of the scene. ‘Either the business can be rebuilt with the insurance money or…perhaps you and John would be interested in selling the site to the practice—for parking, initially, but with the new estates going up around Penhally, we’ll obviously be needing to expand in the future, take on more staff, perhaps put in a full-time physio. That way, you won’t have to worry about money for…for Jem’s schooling or…’
His voice and the concern in it faded into the distance as Zayed led Emily away, only realising as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders that both of them were shaking in the aftermath of the event.
‘Are you sure you are all right?’ he demanded, suddenly realising just how much this woman’s safety meant to him. ‘You were not hurt when that man—’
‘Poor John,’ Emily said softly. ‘The boatyard has been in his family for years and years.’
‘But everyone is out of danger, and the fire will soon be under control, yes?’
Emily was quiet for a moment before she replied, then stopped almost in the middle of the pavement in front of Beabea’s cottage to gaze up at him. ‘Oh, I hope everyone is all right, Zayed.’ She paused for a moment and he could tell from the little frown pulling her brows together that she was trying to decide whether to continue. Or was it a question she wanted to ask?
‘Did it bring everything back?’ she demanded softly, concern clear in those beautiful green eyes. ‘The explosions? It must have been…’
‘Yes,’ he admitted, remembering his utter paralysis for just those few seconds. ‘For a moment it was almost like being back there, at the hospital in Xandar, and I was sure I would not be able to move to help anyone.’
‘But you could and you did, because this time you weren’t one of the injured ones,’ she declared firmly, obviously determined to stress the fact that had finally been driven home to him in that moment.
‘I know this now,’ he admitted, with a new sense of peace spreading through him. ‘But I will probably always feel sad that I was not able to do anything for Leika and Kashif, even if I could not have saved their lives.’
‘Well, you helped me stop John Althorp from risking his,’ she pointed out as she sorted through her key ring for the front door key. ‘I couldn’t have held him much longer on my own, not when he was so determined to go back into the yard.’
She paused when the door swung open, looking back over her shoulder to ask, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? It’s mostly going to be a long and boring job and I’m probably going to weep buckets when I come across all the little mementos Beabea kept.’
Zayed stared at this special woman who had come into his life and was suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge that she was the one person with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his days.
He desperately wanted the chance to spend every one of those days doing his best to make her happy, even if he couldn’t give her the children she deserved. Perhaps she could learn to be content with a constant stream of other people’s children to care for.
‘Emily, will you marry me?’ he asked with his heart in his mouth.
‘Wha—what did you say?’ she stammered, her eyes wide and a dark forest green as she gazed up at him, clearly every bit as shocked as he was to hear the words he’d just said.
‘I said, “Emily, will you marry me?”’ he repeated firmly, as a feeling of excitement flooded through him at the knowledge that everything in his life was going to be different from this day on. It was almost a feeling of dizziness mixed with the sensation that that he might float right up off the granite front doorstep at any second, a feeling that, for the first time in his life, the world held endless possibilities.
‘Why?’ she asked faintly. ‘Why do you want to marry me? Is it just because I said I wouldn’t live with you? Because if it is…’
‘No, Emily!’ He felt a smile spreading over his face. ‘I respect you for that, but it is not why I am asking you to marry me. I am discovering that, for me, there is really only one reason to propose to a woman and that is because I have fallen in love with her and can not imagine my life without her.’
He was glad to see that the shock was lessening a little but her eyes were still wide with disbelief when he took her in his arms for the second time that day. But this time it wasn’t to comfort her as she mourned her grandmother but to kiss the mouth that had been fascinating him for weeks.
Zayed’s mouth was everything she had dreamed it would be and more, and she couldn’t help the whimper that escaped when he took it away far too soon.
She needed that close connection to him, now more than ever. When that explosion had knocked them off their feet, she’d suddenly realised just how vulnerable the two of them were, standing in front of that raging inferno, and that Zayed might not be lucky a second time. The thought that she might lose him before she’d ever told him that she loved him had squeezed a tight fist around her heart and stopped the breath in her throat.
In that moment she had recognised the essential truth that, even if he wasn’t ready to commit to marriage, she would rather be with him than without him. Even as they were walking back to the cottage, she’d been trying to find the words to tell him that, if he still wanted her to, she was ready to accept his invitation to move in with him.
Except she hadn’t needed to compromise her principles, because that same explosion had apparently been an epiphany for Zayed, too, and there in the hallway of her grandmother’s cottage, after a sleepless night and smelling of smoke, he’d asked her to marry him.
Suddenly she found herself chuckling at the incongruousness of the setting.
‘You think it is funny that I ask you to marry me?’ Zayed demanded, trying to sound outraged, but her response to his kiss must already have told him what her answer would be.
‘I think it’s wonderful that you’ve asked me,’ she reassured him. ‘I was only laughing because Penhally is surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the world and you chose the hallway of my grandmother’s cottage to propose.’
‘So, what would you prefer?’ he challenged. ‘For me to take you out for a perfect meal first? Or perhaps I should put you in the car and take you further along the coast to find some sand dunes, then put up a Cornish version of a Bedouin tent so that I can ask you properly?’
Emily was laughing out loud now, the happiness bubbling out of her, but Zayed hadn’t finished.
‘How about if I promise to take you out into the desert when we go to visit Xandar and propose to you properly?’ he suggested, his eyes very dark and solemn, and her laughter quickly died away.
‘You’re serious?’ she demanded, knowing just what a huge step this was for him. ‘You’re really going back to visit Xandar?’
‘Initially, it would be a visit, but only if you will be coming with me,’ he said firmly. ‘Then, when I have put the evidence in front of those who will deal with the one who I believe was ultimately responsible for the death of my wife and son, perhaps we can start to make plans for a new hospital unit for the little ones…but only if you decide you would like to live in Xandar.’
‘Ah, Zayed,’ she breathed, loving him all the more for the way he was going to face his demons, but before she could accept his proposal he was speaking again.
‘Do not give me an answer now,’ he said, with a fierce light of excitement filling his dark eyes with sparks of golden fire. ‘Wait until we are in Xandar. You will come with me to my country?’
‘Of course I’ll come with you,’ she agreed, loving this new facet to his character. She didn’t need elaborate, romantic scene-setting to tell him that she loved him and wanted to accept his proposal. Neither did she need to see Xandar to know that if she was with him she would love it, too, especially if they were going to be working on those plans together.
His eyes lit up and he tugged her back into his arms. ‘Ah, we have so much to do today, Emily,’ he said, full of bubbling enthusiasm. ‘We must decide what to do about the things of your grandmother, make arrangements for someone to take our places in the unit, and then contact my friends in Xandar to prepare them for our visit. But first I need one more kiss before we start to work.’
‘Where are we going?’ Emily demanded as her horse followed Zayed’s out into the apparently endless sand dunes.
‘Not much further,’ he promised, his accent more pronounced than ever since they’d arrived in his homeland.
‘You said that five minutes ago,’ she reminded him, but she didn’t really mind how long the journey took. This was like something out of a fantasy. Just two weeks ago they’d been in Penhally, feeling the heat of the fire as Althorp’s yard had burnt to the ground. Today she was swathed in fine white cotton to ward off the heat of the burning desert sun in Xandar.
And then they rounded the curve of a dune and she knew exactly where he’d brought her and why.
‘A Bedouin tent?’ she asked with a tremulous smile as he lifted her off the pretty little mare.
‘The Xandar equivalent,’ he admitted, as he held out a hand to help her dismount and invite her into the shady interior. ‘If you would like to make yourself comfortable, I will bring you something to eat and drink.’
In a move that had quickly become automatic, Emily stepped out of her shoes by the doorway and trod across a thick, smooth richly patterned carpet that could only be made of silk.
The cushions piled around the low table were covered in silk, too, and in every opulent lustrous shade imaginable.
‘Do I sit on them or lie down?’ she murmured uncertainly to herself.
‘Whichever you prefer,’ he said softly from right behind her as he relieved her of the voluminous robe that had protected her from the heat. Underneath she wore a simple garment, a gift from Zayed in the finest silk, that drifted and clung to her body with the slightest breeze.
When she’d donned it, she’d been almost embarrassed by how much it revealed, but here, alone with Zayed and seeing the gleam it brought to his eyes, it seemed to bring out the sensual side to her nature.
‘Would you like something to eat…some fruit, perhaps? Or can I get you a drink?’
Either would have been lovely, but in spite of the fact that he’d obviously enjoyed himself creating the romantic fantasy he’d described on the day of the fire in Penhally, she could tell that he had something else on his mind.
For just a second she allowed insecurity to persuade her that he was regretting bringing her to Xandar, but she knew that wasn’t true.
In fact, just today he’d been overjoyed to tell her that the uncle who had been so hungry for power that he had tried to engineer the death of Zayed’s entire family had finally been arrested and imprisoned, and was awaiting trial.
‘Zayed, what’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Is there a problem with setting up the replacement unit at the hospital?’
His immediate smile was reassurance enough.
‘Not at all,’ he declared confidently. ‘Everything is going to plan without a hitch since the Hananis and their influential family got together with some of the other parents to tell everyone about what we’ve done for their children.’
He sank slightly gingerly onto the pile of cushions beside her and she wondered if she ought to suggest massaging his back to relieve the stiffness. It would probably take a while before his body became accustomed to riding again, but she had every confidence that he would eventually regain most of his mobility.
‘Emily, even the most hard line of the traditionalists were won over by all those successful operations, and especially by all the good things the families had to say about my new colleague, despite the fact that she is a woman. They have made it a source of national pride that as soon as the unit is completed, these operations will all be able to take place in Xandar from now on.’
My new colleague. There was something almost possessive about the way he’d said those words that had sent a shiver of joy through her, but she couldn’t ignore the shadow she’d seen in his eyes. ‘So what is the problem?’ she pressed, knowing that neither of them would be able to relax and enjoy this romantic idyll until they’d discussed whatever it was.
‘While you were getting ready to ride with me, I caught an item on the international news,’ he said reluctantly.
‘And?’ she prompted with a slight frown, wondering what sort of news would put that concerned expression in those gold-shot dark eyes.
‘It seems that when we left Cornwall, the beautiful weather did not last. There were pictures showing that there has been a flash flood in Penhally.’
‘A flood? In Penhally, itself? Was anybody hurt?’ The images of all the people she knew in the town, friends and neighbours right from the first day she’d come to live with her grandmother, flickered before her eyes. ‘How much damage was done?’
‘I did not hear anything about any injuries, but I did see…’ He hesitated briefly before continuing. ‘I am sorry, Emily, but I recognised it from the pictures taken from the helicopters. The house of your grandmother was one of those that were flooded.’
‘Oh, no!’ Emily felt the hot press of tears burning her eyes at the thought that a lifetime’s memories had probably been washed away in a matter of seconds.
None of her belongings would have been damaged because they’d all been removed and put in temporary storage before she and Zayed had left for Xandar. But the house itself, with its solid stone walls and Delabole slate roof and the ancient floorboards polished over the decades to a lustrous dark honey colour, to say nothing of all the memories attached to every nook and cranny…all that could have been destroyed in the blink of an eye.
And then there would be the aftermath.
She’d seen enough of what had happened after the Boscastle and Crackington Haven floods at first hand to know that by the time the flood damage had been cleared and the repairs had been completed, it would seem like a completely different cottage.
For a moment it felt as if a hand squeezed tightly around her heart when she realised that, with her job at St Piran’s ably filled by one of Zayed’s colleagues, there would now be nothing left to go back to in Penhally.
But, then, why would she want to go back there when everything she wanted was here in Xandar?
‘Zayed, it’s all right,’ she reassured him, reaching up a hand to cup his cheek. ‘It’s always sad when something is destroyed, but it’s only a house several thousand miles away. And as you said when the boatyard went up in flames, it can be replaced with money if I ever wanted to go back to Penhally. It’s people that are important, people that are irreplaceable.’
‘You are certainly irreplaceable,’ he said seriously as he knelt beside her, and she suddenly realised that the moment she’d been waiting for had come. ‘You have become the other half of my soul, Emily Livingston, and now that I have brought you out into the desert in the country of my birth, it is time for you to give me your answer. Will you marry me so that my soul can be whole again?’
‘Oh, Zayed, yes! Of course I’ll marry you,’ she said as she held her arms out towards him. ‘You’re the other half of my soul, too, and I’ll need you for the rest of my life.’
‘Ah, Emily, my Emily,’ he murmured as he took her in his arms and their lips met for the first time since he’d kissed her in the hallway of Beabea’s cottage.
Their kisses quickly became heated after their self-imposed abstinence and Emily had no objection when Zayed began to explore the willing body beneath the garment he’d given her. How could she when she was equally eager to explore the smooth skin and taut muscles of the body she hadn’t touched since that night on the beach in Penhally?
Suddenly Zayed rolled away from her, putting far too many brightly coloured cushions between them as he gazed at her in a strange mixture of disbelief and hope.
‘What’s the matter, Zayed? Did I do something wrong?’ She felt the heat of a blush sweep up her throat and into her face. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had very much experience at this sort of thing, so you’ll have to tell me what you—’
‘Ah, Emily, my Emily, I love your innocence. It will almost be a shame to destroy it, but…’ He rolled back towards her again and took her hand in his.
‘Since we have been kissing and I have been exploring your body, I have made the discovery that my surgeon did not know everything,’ he said with a gleam in his eyes. ‘He did not know that when my Emily accepted my proposal and kissed me, she would revive the part of me that the doctors could not.’
Emily’s blush grew fiercer still when she followed his downward glance and realised what he was talking about, but she quickly decided that this was no time for maidenly modesty.
‘Hmm. This could be a problem,’ she said seriously, and had to stifle a laugh when Zayed’s face fell.
‘A problem?’ he echoed uncertainly.
‘Well, we aren’t married yet, so Beabea wouldn’t approve if we were to…take advantage of the situation. But…’ She deliberately drew the word out, loving the fact that this powerful man was completely in her thrall for the moment.
‘But?’ he prompted, completely unable to hide his eagerness.
‘But just in case there’s the slightest chance that your doctors were right and this may never happen again,’ she suggested, ‘perhaps…’
‘Perhaps?’ he pressed impatiently and she marvelled at his control. She was also looking forward to the moment when that control broke.
This, she realised with a burgeoning sense of her own power as a woman, this could be the most wonderful game between them, and it was one that could have as many variations as there were hours to their lives.
‘Perhaps we ought to take advantage of it while we can?’ she hinted, and finally lost control of the happy smile she’d been hiding.
‘Ah-h! I was not expecting this to happen, so I have brought nothing with me to protect you,’ he groaned, holding back when all she was longing for was to finally learn what it was to be completely possessed by the man she loved. It was something that she’d believed his injuries had robbed them of and she thought she’d schooled herself to accept that this would never happen, but she’d never thought that they would be this fortunate.
‘I don’t need to be protected,’ she told him eagerly, as a quick mental calculation of dates sent an arrow of excitement through her.
She’d been teasing him, but they both knew that there was very little likelihood that his prowess would only have returned for this one occasion. Still, could they really be so lucky as to conceive a child in the first time they came together?
‘I would never need to be protected from you,’ she whispered as she raised her arms to allow him to slide her silky covering away, feeling powerful and womanly when she saw the gleam in his eyes as they travelled over her nakedness for the first time. ‘I just need to know that I have your love as you have mine.’
‘Ah, my Emily, you have it,’ he said. ‘You have my love, my heart, my soul and my body…for ever!’ And he made them one.