The Sheikh's Disobedient Bride

CHAPTER THREE

TALLY wasn’t alone long. Almost immediately her captor returned with her camera and bag. He dropped them on to the bed next to her and she grabbed them, held the camera and case to her as though they were her last lifeline to the outer world.

“Why?” she stammered, looking up at him.

He shrugged. “You said the camera wouldn’t work without the memory card.”

For a moment she didn’t see where he was going with this, and then she understood. Even as she searched her camera bag she knew all the memory cards were gone. He’d kept them. Her pleasure in having the camera returned dimmed. “I shouldn’t have given you it back,” she said bitterly. “I should have protected my pictures.”

“It didn’t matter if you gave it back to me or not. The card you took from the camera was blank. It was a new memory card. I switched the cards before I left the camera out.”

Tally shoved a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. She was so hot she wanted to scream. Throw things. Pick a fight. “You didn’t. You’re bluffing.”

“Bluffing?” His gaze locked with hers. “Is that what I think you just said.”

Her heart pounding, she held his gaze, showing him once and for all she wouldn’t be intimidated. “Yes. That’s what I said. Bluffing.”

“I don’t bluff, and what I did was test you.” His dark eyes burned. “You failed.”

“I’m not surprised,” she flashed. “And just a little FYI, it’s hard to feel sympathy for you, or your causes, when you so blatantly disregard other people’s needs and feelings.”

“You have no idea who or what you’re dealing with, do you?”

She did, actually. He was a bandit and a kidnapper and it wouldn’t be wise to push him too far but she was so angry now she wasn’t thinking straight. “You don’t test people.”

“Of course you do. It’s smart. It’s strategy. One must know others strengths and weaknesses.”

“And you think you know mine?”

“I know you’re not to be trusted.” His lips compressed, and he looked hard, knowing, controlled. “But then, few people can be.”

She looked away, eyes burning and for some reason this last trickery hurt more than anything. He’d manipulated her all along. Played her. But it wasn’t just what he’d done, it was his attitude that hurt. “You have a terrible way of looking at life.”

“It’s practical. It keeps me, and my people, alive.”

A voice spoke from outside and then the tent flap was pushed aside and the elderly man from last night appeared with a large breakfast tray heaped with fresh and dried fruits, a mound of round, flat flour-dusted breads, and steaming cups of mint tea. The man disappeared as soon as he placed the tray on the carpet in front of the bed.

Her captor motioned to the carpet. “You’ll join me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question or invitation but an order.

“I’m not hungry.” She was still seething over the loss of all her photos. So much work. It was a loss of devastating proportions.

“You need to eat,” he answered with a snap of his fingers. He jabbed downward to the ground, pointing at the carpet.

“I’ve never met a ruder Berber man,” she muttered under her breath but she knew he heard—and understood—from the look he gave her.

He took one of the small flat breads. “There are worse.”

She watched him eat, eyes burning, head throbbing. She did need to eat, as well as drink, but she was afraid of getting sick, and at the moment her nervous system felt as though it were in overdrive. “What do I have to do to get my pictures back?”

“I don’t wish to discuss this topic anymore.”

“It’s important—”

“Not anymore. You’re not taking pictures here.”

“So what will I do while I’m here?”

He looked at her for a long, tense moment, his expression blank, dark eyes guarded, shadowed. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

His broad shoulders shifted carelessly. “I’m not going to make you do anything. I’m perfectly content now that I have your film to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“The truth. It will emerge. It always does.”

“Maybe, but it could take a long time.”

“Indeed. And if that is the case, you’ll get to enjoy desert life for an indefinite period of time.”

“Indefinite.”

“Unless you care to tell me the truth now, Woman?”

“I’ve told you the truth and my name isn’t Woman, it’s Tally.”

“I’ve never heard the name Tally before. That’s not a name.” A glint of light touched his dark eyes, something secret and perverse and then the corner of his mouth nearly lifted, the closest thing she’d seen to a smile yet. “I shall call you Woman.”

She didn’t know if it was his words, his tone or that perverse light in his eyes but it annoyed her almost beyond reason. “I won’t answer to it.”

“You will.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.” And more fire flashed in his eyes. “Even if it takes days. Weeks.” He hesitated, and his dark gaze slid over her, the first openly assessing look he’d given her, one that examined, weighed, understood. “Years.”

Heat stormed her cheeks. The same heat that flooded her veins. “Not years.”

“You will answer to me one day, Woman. You might not like the idea, but it’s true. The sooner you accept it, the sooner life will become easier for you.”

She wanted to throw something at him, anything. The cups of tea. The tray. A pillow. He was so damn smug. So horribly arrogant. “I take it then I call you Man?”

His faint smile faded. “You are very impertinent for a woman.” Silent, he regarded her. “You may call me Tair,” he said after a moment.

“Why do you get a name and I get Woman?”

“Because I brought you here, which makes you my responsibility, and therefore my woman.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to me and that’s all that matters since this is my tribe and you are mine.”

“Will you please stop calling me your woman? I’m not your woman. I’m no one’s woman, and I wasn’t spying on you or whatever you think I was doing in El Saroush’s medina,” she said, referring to the border town’s old square where he’d kidnapped her. “Why would I spy on you? I don’t even know who you are, and what point would there be spying on a group of bedraggled men riding through town on horseback? I may be an American,” and she drawled the word for his benefit, “but I do have standards.”

He nearly hissed. “Bedraggled men?”

She crossed her arms, chin titled rebelliously. “Even your horses are bedraggled.”

“They’re not,” he contradicted, incensed. “Our horses are some of the finest Arabians in North Africa. We breed them ourselves.”

“They’re dirty. You’re all dirty—”

“You should see yourself.”

“I’d bathe if you let me! I’d love some clean clothes, too, but somehow I don’t think you kidnapped a change of clothes for me.”

“I’ll get a knife,” he muttered, “get rid of your damn tongue now.”

She should be afraid, she should, but somehow she wasn’t. He might be huge, and fierce and intimidating but he didn’t seem cruel, or like a man who impulsively cut out tongues. “The point is that I didn’t even notice you in town. I was interested only in the children playing. And all I want to do is be allowed to continue on to Casablanca.”

“Why Casablanca?”

“It’s the next stop on my itinerary.”

His expression turned speculative. “You’ve friends there?”

“No. I’m on my own.”

“Casablanca’s a rebel stronghold.”

Tally sighed. “You’re rather obsessive about this whole terrorist thing, aren’t you?”

He studied her for a long moment before leaning forward to take her face in his hand. He lifted her chin this way and then that. “You are what, thirty years old? Older?”

She tried to pull away but couldn’t. Her pulse jumped, skin burning. She didn’t like him touching her. He made her feel odd, prickly things. Things she had no business feeling. “I just turned thirty,” she answered faintly.

“You wear no ring,” he said, still examining her face. “Did your husband die?”

“I’ve never been married.”

“Never?”

“I don’t want a husband.”

He let her go then and his dense black lashes dropped, concealing his expression. He was silent, assessing her, and the situation. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”

His tone had changed and she didn’t know if it was shock, or respect but either way it irritated her. Her life, her past, her relationships, and most of all, her sexuality were her business and no one else’s. Least of all a barbaric desert tribesman. “I’m thirty, not thirteen. Of course I’ve had relationships—and experience—but I choose to remain single. I prefer being single. This way I can travel. Explore. Do what I want to do.”

Tair continued to study her as though she were alien and fascinating in a strange sort of way.

Tally wasn’t sure she liked the look on his face. His expression made her nervous. Made her feel painfully vulnerable.

“Your parents—they’re still alive?” he asked.

She nodded, neck stiff, body rigid. She really didn’t know where he was going with this and didn’t want to find out.

“They don’t worry about you?” he persisted.

“No.” She caught his eye, flushed. “Maybe a little. But they’re used to my lifestyle now. They know this is who I am, what I do. Besides, they have other kids who supply them with grandchildren and the like.”

Tair refilled his cup of tea from the small glazed pot. “I shall find you a husband.”

“What?”

He nodded matter of factly before sipping his tea. “You need a husband. It is the way it should be. I shall find you one. You will be glad.”

“No.” Her head spun, little spots danced before her eyes. He wrong, absolutely wrong and she couldn’t even get the protest out. Instead she sucked in one desperate breath after another.

“Women are like fruit,” he said picking up a date, gently squeezing it. “Women need husbands and children or they dry up.”

Dry up? He didn’t just say that. He didn’t say that while squeezing a little date, did he? My God. This was a nightmare. This was worse than anything she could have ever imagined, and she’d imagined some pretty awful endings. Kidnapped, her photos stripped from her and now what? Married to a desert barbarian? “Let me go home. Please correct this before it turns out badly.”

“I will make sure you have the right husband. Do not worry.” His lips curved and she saw teeth, straight white teeth and thought this must be his idea of a smile. “Now eat. Berber men like women with meat on their bones. Curves. Not stringy like you.”

Tally went hot and cold. She felt wild, panicked. She couldn’t be here, couldn’t stay here. This was all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Tair sighed, frowned. “You must at least drink the tea. You’re dehydrated. I can see it in your eyes and skin.”

Tally wasn’t a crier but she was close to tears now. How was she going to do this? Would she escape?

“You don’t like tea?” he persisted, the strain on his patience showing. “Would you prefer water?”

“Is it bottled water?”

His black brows tugged together. “It’s well water.”

“But not processed?” She’d only just gotten off of weeks of wretched antibiotics, antibiotics that were proved to be just as hard on her stomach as the parasite and food poisoning. Just remembering the forty-eight hours in the Atiq hospital made her stomach cramp. “You see I can’t drink water that isn’t purified. I’ve had problems—”

“You are without a doubt the most delicate, finicky female I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not finicky and not overly delicate—”

“Asthma, heat stroke, stomach ailments, dehydration—”

“I didn’t ask to be kidnapped! This was your idea not mine. If you don’t like that I’m so delicate, next time do more research before you kidnap a woman!”

He shook his head, expression grim. “You are not going to make it easy for me to find you a husband. Men do not like mulish wives.”

Mulish. Mulish, was she? Tally nearly laughed. That was rich, coming from him. “You know, you have a very good vocabulary for a desert bandit.”

“I like to read between making raids on towns.” He snapped his fingers. “Now drink. None of my men will marry a woman if she’s nearly dead.”

“I don’t want your men.”

“How you love to argue.”

“I have my own opinions and point of view, and contrary to what you might think, I’m not normally difficult. You just happen to bring out the worst in me.” She glared at him. “Until yesterday, I hadn’t had an asthma attack in years. The attack was thanks to you nearly suffocating me in that horrible bag of yours. I can’t believe you did that. It was terrible. Awful. I couldn’t breathe.”

“So I noticed.” His brow lowered, his expression dark. “But you were quiet at least.”

She covered her face with her hands, breathing in carefully, deliberately, doing her best to block out the smell of the mint tea, the peculiar sandalwood scent and smoke of Tair’s skin, and the intense heat already shimmering all around them. She couldn’t do another day in the desert. Not like this. Not with this man.

She was near tears and cracking. “Can you please go? Can you please just leave me alone?”

He didn’t answer. He was so quiet that after a minute Tally was certain he’d gone but when she lifted her head she saw him there, still seated across from her. He didn’t look the least bit sympathetic, either. If anything, his jaw jutted harder, his mouth pursed in a now familiar look of judgment and condescension.

“Drink your tea,” he said wearily. “This is the desert, and the heat is quite deceptive. You need to stay hydrated or you won’t live long enough to take another picture, much less visit Casablanca.” His dark eyes gleamed as he pushed a cup toward her face. “Which is overrated, if you ask me.”

Her eyebrows arched. Was that a joke? Was that flat tone and deadpan expression his idea of a joke? “I don’t trust the water,” she retorted, pushing the cup away. “And yes, I am thirsty, and I will drink. But it must be bottled water.”

“Bottled water?”

She ignored his incredulous tone. He didn’t understand the difficulties she’d had these past four weeks. She’d never had a cast iron stomach but it’d become particularly finicky lately ever since she picked up parasites from local water just outside Atiq. The parasites had her practically sleeping in the bathroom and she had no interest repeating that experience again. “Yes, bottled water. You sell it in the stores.”

A small muscle popped in his jaw as he gave her a ferocious look, one that revealed the depth of his irritation and aggravation. “And you see stores near by?”

“No, but there were stores back in El Saroush.”

“Are you suggesting I send someone back for bottled water?”

“I’m suggesting you send someone back with me.”

He sighed heavily and pressed two fingers to his temple. “You have the most tedious refrain.”

Her lips compressed. He might not realize it, but she was just as irritated and frustrated as he was. “I’ve only just begun.”

“I should just cut out your tongue.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that,” she flashed. “My new husband might not like it.”

“That’s true,” he answered. “He might miss it, and it could lower your bride price. So, keep your tongue and drink your tea. Or I shall pour it down your throat.”

The cup was pushed toward her face again and this time Tally took it. “If I drink the tea, you’ll leave?”

His dark gaze met hers and held. The corner of his mouth lifted, a faint wry acknowledgment of the battle between them. “Yes.”

And yet still she hesitated. “And if I die out here of dysentery, will you at least promise me a Christian burial?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I can’t promise that, but I will take your ashes to Casablanca.”

Tally wasn’t sure if she should be reassured or troubled by his faint smile. He wasn’t a particularly smiley-kind of guy. “Fine, I’ll drink it. But then you go.” Quickly she downed the now lukewarm tea, scrunching her nose and mouth at the bitter taste but at the same time grateful for the liquid. Her throat had been parched and one cup wasn’t going to be enough, but it was a start. “There. Done.”

He rose, but didn’t leave immediately. Instead he stood above her, gazing down at her. “By the way, we may be bedraggled barbarians and bandits, but all our water is boiled. Any water we cook with or drink is always boiled. You might get parasites in town, but you won’t get any parasites from me.”

And smiling—smiling!—Tair walked out. As he left the tent, Tally grabbed a pillow, pressed it to her face and screamed in vexation.

He couldn’t keep her here! He couldn’t. And he couldn’t be serious about finding a husband for her. My God. That was just the worst.

She gripped the pillow hard. But what if he never returned her to town? What if he just kept her here? What if he were serious about marrying her off?

She shuddered, appalled.

Her lack of communication with her world back in the States made her situation doubly frightening.

The fact was, there was no one who’d even think to worry if she disappeared from the face of the earth.

Raised in a tiny town at the base of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, Tally had lived at home far longer than she’d ever meant to stay but once she’d left North Bend, she’d gone far away.

Her mother sometimes joked that the only time she heard from Tally was the annual Christmas cards Tally sent documenting her travels. One Christmas card was a misty hand-tinted shot of ancient Machu Picchu high in the mountains of Peru. Another year it was the sun rising in Antarctica. Last year’s card was a child born with AIDS in sub-Sahara Africa.

Once Paolo was the one who would have cared. It was Paolo who taught her to rock climb and sail, Paolo who’d taught her to face her fears and not be afraid. But Paolo wasn’t around anymore and since losing him all those years ago Tally had never tried to replace him.

Love hadn’t ever come easily for Tally and one broken heart was more than enough. And not that she would have married Paolo, but if she’d wanted a husband—and that was a huge if—it would have been him. And only him. But with him gone, marriage was out of the question.

Tossing aside the pillow, Tally forced herself to eat even as she struggled to remember who she last spoke with, whom she’d written, and the last e-mails she’d sent from the Internet café in Atiq a month ago.

Did anyone even know she was still in Northern Africa? Her editor might, but they hadn’t communicated in weeks.

No, keeping in touch wasn’t her forte. While she loved taking pictures, she didn’t like writing and most of her e-mails were brief one-liners. In Israel, went diving in the Red Sea. Or, Arrived in Pakistan, took a bus through Harappa, have never been so hot in my entire life.

Tally now stared glumly at the breakfast tray. She was going to pay for her laissez-faire attitude, wasn’t she?

The older man was outside her tent again, calling to her, saying something she didn’t understand as he spoke with an accent or in a dialect she’d never heard before. But before she could answer, he’d entered the tent, carrying a relatively large copper tub. He placed the tub on the carpet, indicated that he’d go and return and when he returned he had help. Three men carried pitchers of water.

A bath.

So something she’d said to Tair had sunk in. Thrilled, Tally watched as the elderly man filled the tub with the pitchers of steaming water and left behind a soft soap and towel. The bath wasn’t particularly deep, and not exactly hot, but it was warm water and she had a bar of soap, a soap that reminded her of olive oil and citrus. She washed her hair, soaped up and down and by the time she rinsed off, the water was cold but she felt marvelous. Marvelous until she realized she had nothing but her dirty clothes to put back on.

Regretfully Tally dressed in her clothes, combed her fingers through her hair, pulling the wet strands back from her face and then looked around the tent. She was sick of the tent. She’d been here for not even a day and she already hated it.

So enough of the tent. She was heading out to explore the camp.

From the moment she pushed the goatskin flap up and exited her tent, stepping into the startling bright sunlight, Tally became aware of the eyes of the men in camp on her. It was obvious they didn’t approve of her wandering around but no one made a move toward her. No one spoke to her and no one detained her. They pretty much let her do as she pleased.

The camp was actually bigger than it first appeared. There were over a dozen tents, and several large open ones with scattered rugs and pillows and Tally guessed these were the places the men gathered to eat and socialize.

A mangy three-legged dog hopped around after her and Tally considered discouraging the dog but then decided she liked the company. And it was her first friend.

Crouching down, Tally scratched under the dog’s chin and then behind one ear. “If I had my camera working, I’d take a picture of you.” The dog wagged its tail that looked half gnawed. “Poor dog. You look just as bad as this camp does.”

And the camp did look bad. She’d never seen anything like this place. It was poor. Stark. Depressing. And once again she thought she’d give anything to have one of the memory cards back because she’d love to photograph the camp. The stained tents with the backdrop of sand dunes and kneeling camels would make amazing pictures.

Suddenly she heard a now familiar voice—the old Berber man—and he was running toward her with long cotton fabric draped over his arm.

Tally didn’t know what he was saying but once he unfurled one of the strips of fabric and she saw it was a robe she knew he wanted her to cover up.

“No, thank you,” she said, shaking her hands and head. “I’m fine.”

But he insisted and the more he insisted the more adamant Tally was that she wouldn’t wear the black robe and head covering. “No,” she said more firmly, even as she began to wonder just where Tair was. She’d walked the circumference of the camp twice without spotting him once.

“Tair,” she said to the old man. “Where is he?”

The old man stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then he lifted the robe, shook it. She knew what he wanted but he didn’t understand what she did.

“Tair,” Tally repeated and this time she stood on her toes, lifted her hand high above her head to indicate Tair’s immense height. “Tair.”

The elderly man only looked more puzzled and Tally wanted to pull her hair out in mad chunks. This was a nightmare. A nightmare. She couldn’t stay here, couldn’t be left here, couldn’t. Wouldn’t.