The Book of the Seven Delights by Betina Krahn

and lacerating shoe leather.
    She was in Morocco and headed for Marrakech… so far, so good. But she was also afoot in a difficult country with a wanted man being pursued by a small army… not so good. She glanced over her shoulder at the horse and the man on it. He was arrogant and annoying and probably even more dangerous than he looked. But right now she didn't have an alternative to traveling with him; she had to get to Marrakech in order to begin her search.
    "So, do you know where we're headed?" She finally broke the silence, thinking that she would trade her virtue for a cool drink of water just then.
    Dehydration Madness… Tropical Medicine… the 610's. '
    He surveyed the countryside and pointed toward a spot in the distance where the mountains on the left and the plains on the right seemed to meet.
    "We have to avoid the main road. A day's ride straight south is a small village. There will be food and water and perhaps another horse."
    "A day's ridel How long will it take walking ? I'm dying of thirst."
    He reached behind him and then held out a military style canteen to her. She looked up briefly as she accepted it. When she turned away, the image of him, Sahara-hot and Barbary-fierce, was burned into her mind.
    "Do you know this country well?" she said, taking a long second drink before replacing the stopper and handing it back to him.

    "You could spend a lifetime in Morocco and still not know the place."
    "How long have you been in Morocco?"
    "You should know. I arrived on the same ship you did."
    "But you were here before, in the French Foreign Legion. For how long?"
    "A full enlistment. Five bloody long years."
    "If you served a full enlistment, why do they call you a deserter?"
    "Someone must have decided that I hadn't quite finished putting in time." He looked around before letting his gaze return to her. "For every day you spend in a guardhouse cell, they tack two onto your obligation."
    "And I take it, you spent a good bit of time in a military jail."
    "My share."
    "For what?"
    "Drinking and fighting, striking an NCO, striking an officer. The usual."
    "That's usual?"
    "For a Legionnaire."
    "That's… depraved."
    He sobered.
    "No. Feeding men so poorly that they get sores on their bodies and paying them so badly they have to sell their clothes to get a drink of whiskey— that's depraved. Forcing underfed men to 'march or die'
    thirty miles a day under a boiling Sahara sun… that's depraved . Drinking when liquor's available and battling bare-knuckled for some respect from your comrades… that's just surviving as best you can."
    She was silent for a moment, studying his defense of his fellow soldiers.
    "They said you fled during battle, deserted comrades under fire."
    "They lied."
    "Why would they do that if you've done nothing wrong?"
    "Good question." He turned to scan the sunbaked red terrain around them and when his gaze came back to her, he swung down from the horse and leaned close to her with a probing look that turned into a sardonic half smile as he handed her the reins and took back his hat.
    "Maybe they can't do without me."

    Wretched man, she thought. He clearly enjoyed being a puzzle. She sat studying him for a moment after she climbed aboard the horse, trying to put the pieces of him together.
    An Englishman. Well-educated. Well-spoken, if occasionally profane. Not without a few civilized and possibly even chivalrous impulses. He served five years in the French Foreign Legion… fled to England… then returned to Morocco, where he had become a wanted man. It didn't make sense that he would voluntarily come back to a place where he was wanted and hunted. The longer she thought about it, the deeper her itch to know the truth became.
    "You must have been safe in England," she said, riding after him. "Why did you come back here, knowing it would put you in danger?"
    His answer accompanied a slight straightening of his spine, suggesting that the question had stirred a greater reaction than he