The Sheik Who Loved Me by Loreth Anne White Page A

going on here.”
    David detected the subtle shift in Watson’s tone. “What do you mean?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but a part of me gets a sense someone over here in Khartoum might be hiding something.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as who she is.”
    “Why on earth would you think that?”
    “You know me, Rashid, I’m the born conspiracy theorist. It’s nothing I can put my finger on. Just a feeling.”
    David frowned. Watson might be a conspiracy theorist at heart but his instincts were solid as rock. Still, David couldn’t begin to imagine why someone would try to hide Sahar’s identity. “I think the African sun is getting to you, Doc,” he joked. “Let’s wait a couple of days to see what comes up, now that the word is out about her. When are you heading into Azar?”
    “I’ve got the supplies I need. I’ll be up at the new mine in about two days to set up the clinic. And, Rashid—”
    “Yeah?”
    The doctor paused. “Watch your back.”
    David laughed dryly. “Why? The mermaid’s going to stick a knife in it?”
    Watson was silent.
    The image of Sahar fighting with her stick on the beach filtered into David’s mind, but he shook it off. “Seriously, Watson, even if someone is hiding something, what can the woman do?” Apart from unhinge me physically and mentally.
    “I’m just saying be careful, that’s all.”
    David hung up and stared at the computer screen. He couldn’t afford to think about Sahar now. Not in any way. He had work to do. He brutally shoved his thoughts aside and turned his attention to his work.
    He leaned forward, his interest finally back where it belonged. But laughter drifted through his open windows, shattered his thoughts.
    He cursed softly, lifted his head.
    The melodious sound floated up to him on the warm breeze. A woman laughing with a child. The muscles around his heart tightened reflexively.
    He got up, moved to the window, rested his hand on the cool sill. Sahar and Kamilah were chasing each other on the grass below the patio. A smile snared the corners of his mouth. They were playing tag, he realized. Intrigued, he leaned farther out the window and once again watched Sahar move. There was nothing self-conscious about the way she was charging about after his little girl. She was utterly free, unfettered of any inhibitions. His smile broadened. It was probably because she didn’t know anyone was watching. And once again he was a voyeur. He wanted to keep it that way. He leaned back into the shadow lest she see him. He didn’t want them to stop. Not yet.
    Kamilah shrieked with utter childish delight, and he felt a heavy burden lift from his heart. His eyes moistened. This is what he should have been doing with Kamilah these past two years. Playing. He should have been tumbling on the lawn with his daughter, allowing her to be a child instead of bouncing her from specialist to specialist in an effort to solve her problems. Maybe the answer had been in his own hands all along.
    Sahar tagged Kamilah and the two of them rolled like puppies in the grass. The sound of his daughter’s infectious chuckle gripped him by the throat. It burbled from deep in her stomach, erupting like a bubbling brook.
    It was a sound he hadn’t heard in almost two years. Laughter hadn’t rung through the halls of the Rashid household in all that time, and his heart lifted in sheer empathetic joy at the sound of it.
    He forgot his need for hiding. He leaned forward, pushed the window open wider, hungry for more. He chuckled softly to himself. Sahar was still in the doctor’s muslin clothes, still covered in dust from their ride. She was running barefoot, Watson’s oversize thongs discarded on the grass. Her hair was a glorious wild tangle, her eyes alive with laughter, her cheeks flushed with exhilaration.
    She was like something from another world. Her dusty attire reminded him of a desert traveler, at ease with few possessions, content in the arms of