The Sheikh Who Stole Her: Sheikh Seduction / The Untamed Sheikh / Desert King, Doctor Daddy. Dana Marton
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she couldn’t expect him to lead her around like some invalid. She drew a deep breath, filling her lungs. “What do you want me to do?”
“You could go back to the cave and rest while I pack for the road.”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think so, but I had to try.” He gave her a half smile. “Okay. You can gather supplies if you’re up to it. Food, water, blankets, weapons. See if you can find that satellite phone they took from you.”
She nodded and set off, her gait unstable at first before she found sure footing. As she walked around the carnage, she did her best not to look at the dead. Tariq was trying to back the Jeep away from the truck, but the motor wouldn’t turn over.
“Can you fix it?” she shouted, before her attention was drawn to the rocks and the remains of a phone that had been reduced to slivers of black plastic. It had either met with a stray bullet or a hard-heeled boot during the fight. She lifted it and dangled some wires for Tariq to see. “I don’t suppose this can be fixed.”
He shook his head. “The engine looks busted, too.”
“The trucks?” She nodded toward them.
“Probably equipped with locators. Their cargo would be worth over a million dollars on the open market. Whoever owns them isn’t going to let them run around the desert without being able to keep track of his goods.”
An otherworldly laugh sounded from somewhere below them on the hillside. She started before she recognized it. “The hyena.” It had followed her all this way. A shiver ran down her spine. “Are we stuck here?”
But Tariq nodded toward the camel, which was tied to a rock in the shade. The guard she had enticed outside with some odd sounds, so that she could sneak in, must have found it and led it there. She hadn’t even noticed it until now.
“When you’re done gathering supplies, why don’t you give it some water to drink?” Tariq said. He grabbed the bandit closest to him and dragged the body into the cave, then the next, and the next. When he was done, he came for the camel and led it a good distance away. “Hold it here.”
He walked back to the Jeep and came up with the rocket launcher, aiming toward the cave. The explosion blocked up the entrance, sealing in the dead.
Then he dropped that weapon and picked up an AK-47, heading down the hillside. “Stay here.”
Soon, he was out of view of the ledge she was standing on. She heard the sound of a single shot, and a few minutes later Tariq reappeared. “If anything happens to me, I didn’t want the hyena bothering you again.”
He seemed winded. Odd for Tariq. She searched his face and noticed that he was paler than usual. Just how badly injured was he?
“Would you hold this?” She handed him the camel’s reins, making sure to put them in his right hand. Not giving him a chance to protest, she reached for his other sleeve and ripped it to his shoulder, then gasped at the sight.
The bullet hole was infected, the welts an angry red, nearly black. He had to have a fever. She placed her hand against his forehead, and his fiery skin confirmed her suspicions. Sleeping against him, she had thought he’d felt hot because he’d been so close to the fire. But he was in much worse shape than he let show, probably walking by sheer will alone.
“How about your leg?” The thought of the merciless torture she had caught glimpses of when she’d found him sickened her.
“It’s fine.” He tried to hold his shirtsleeve together over his arm as he scowled at her.
“I should take a look.”
“What’s the point? There’s nothing we can do about it right now.”
They had a brief staring contest. Then he pulled up his loose pant leg. “We don’t have time to argue about this.”
She took in the half-dozen raw wounds on his tanned skin, the muscles in his thigh tightening as he bent to examine the damage. She could have wept for him. He had to be in pain, but nothing save the tight set of his lips showed it.
“Your brother will find us,” she said, because they both needed hope, and she could offer no other encouragement. Tariq needed medical help.
“When did you talk to him last?”
“When I reached the cave. I described the hills to him.”
“There are many hills here and hundreds of caves. They might have been setting a trap for him. I overheard them discussing him when I was going for the trucks yesterday.”
“But I’d just talked to him.”
Tariq glanced at the rocket launcher, and she knew what he was thinking. One of those could easily take a chopper out of the sky.
It would have been nice to catch a break somewhere. Just a single one. And who knew … She refused to give up hope. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t going to act as if they had nobody to count on but themselves.
She reached for the saddlebag on the camel and pulled out two headdresses. She wet one from the flask and wrapped it around Tariq’s head, hoping to control his fever somewhat. The other she ripped into pieces, then wrapped around his wounds, once she’d washed them clean. Not nearly enough. He needed disinfectant, antibiotics and several stitches.
Frustration clamped her jaw tight as she stood and took the reins from him. She tugged on them, hard, until the camel knelt in the sand. Then she climbed up, making sure she would be in back, in case Tariq needed an arm around his waist to keep him from falling off.
He headed for the trucks first, however, and did something around the gas tanks. Soon both vehicles were engulfed in flames, along with their sinister cargo.
“We’d better go,” he said as he hurried back. “Before they explode.”
His robe fluttered behind him. In his traditional desert clothing, he looked a lot more like the sheiks of old than ever before.
“Where are we going?” she asked, when he slid into the saddle in front of her and took the reins.
“We are going to try and find the nomadic families of my tribe,” he said, his voice not revealing weakness. But she caught a shiver that ran through him. “You are about to meet the Bedu.”
They were several hundred feet away when the fire reached the gas tanks and twin explosions shook the air. If Karim was anywhere near, he would hear that, would see the smoke, which might act as a guide.
Of course, the same was true for their enemies.
She looked out at the endless hills to her left and the equally barren desert to her right. What were the chances that they would run across a small, wandering group of camel herders before their enemies found them, or before their water ran out? Or before Tariq fell unconscious from blood poisoning?
Chapter Eight
Tariq clung to life by sheer will alone, his head buzzing, his arm feeling as if it were on fire. His vision was dark and fuzzy, his ears popping.
“You okay?” he asked Sara, as he had done intermittently.
“Fine.” She humored him. She probably knew there was nothing he could do if she weren’t.
He wasn’t going to find the Bedu. All he knew was the general direction of the places they camped. There weren’t many areas where there was still enough grass to support the herds. He had pointed the camel that way and left the rest to Allah and luck, although it looked like both had deserted him.
“We’ll stop soon.” He hoped. The grazing grounds couldn’t be too far off now.
If he couldn’t get her to camp, at least he had to get Sara to a place where his tribe might find her, to one of the watering holes they regularly visited. Only one goal remained in his fevered mind—to save her.