Lord of the Desert

“A modest American.”

“Most of us are modest,” she told him, grinning. “Well, a few of us are rude and conceited, but you mustn’t judge a whole country by a handful of people. And Texans are usually very modest, considering that our state is better than all the others!”

He chuckled. “You are from Texas?”

“Oh, yes,” she told him. “I’m a certified cowgirl,” she added dryly. “If you don’t believe it, I’ll rope a cow for you anytime you like.”

He chuckled again at her enthusiasm. He couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone like her except for once, a few years ago. He pursed his chiseled lips and studied her again, closely. “I understand that Qawi is smaller than even one of your states.”

She looked around her with eyes that seemed to find everything interesting. “Yes, but America is pretty much the same wherever you go,” she pointed out. “Here, the music is different, the food is different, the clothes are different, and there’s so much history that I could spend the rest of my life learning it.”

“You like history?”

“I love it,” she said. “I wish I could have gone to college and studied it, but my mother had cancer and I couldn’t leave her alone very much. I had to while I worked, of course, but I couldn’t take classes, too. There was no time. And no money. She died four months ago and I still miss her.” She smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble on like that.”

“I enjoyed it,” he replied, and seemed to mean it. “Mademoiselle Barton!” the concierge called to her.

It took several seconds for her to realize that the concierge had mistaken her for Maggie. Which was just as well, she supposed. She excused herself, went around the tall man with the briefcase in one hand, and went to the desk.

“Mustapha has already left to take a party of our guests to the Grotto of Hercules,” he said apologetically. “But if you still wish to go, our car is at your disposal, and we can ask one of the other guides to accompany you.”

“I don’t know…” Gretchen said hesitantly. She didn’t think she was going to enjoy the trip all alone.

“Excuse me,” the tall man interjected, joining her at the counter. “I had planned to go see the Grotto myself. Perhaps I could intrude on the young lady’s company…?”

She looked up at him with pure relief. “Oh, that would be lovely…I mean, if you’d like to go?”

“I would.” He glanced at the concierge and spoke rapidly and in a language Gretchen couldn’t begin to understand. Comments passed back and forth and the concierge chuckled to himself. Gretchen was wondering if her impulsive acceptance was going to get her into trouble. She knew nothing whatsoever about the stranger…

“The gentleman is quite trustworthy, mademoiselle,” the concierge said to her when he noticed her worried look. “I can assure you that you will come to no harm in his company. Shall I ask, uh, Bojo—another guide—to bring the car to the front door now?”

Gretchen glanced at her companion, who nodded.

“Yes, then.” She hesitated. “But your briefcase…”

He handed it to the concierge with another brief spate of comment in that same musical but puzzling language and turned to Gretchen with a smile. “Shall we go?”

The hotel’s stately Mercedes, with a tall, intelligent Berber at the wheel, easily identified by the way he wore his mustache and beard, slid easily into the flow of traffic. Their guide, like the taxi driver at their arrival in Tangier, had the window down and spoke volubly to other drivers and pedestrians with long, sweeping waves of his arm as he passed them. The stranger told her that he’d instructed Bojo to take them first to the Caves of Hercules, which she’d wanted to see earlier, and then on to Asilah.

“Bojo was born in Tangier. He knows half the population and is related to the other half,” the tall man said, lazing back against his seat with crossed arms to observe her.

“Like back home in Jacobsville,” she said, understanding. “Small towns are nice. Everybody knows everyone else. I don’t think I’d be happy in a big city, where I wouldn’t know anybody at all.”

“Yet you left your small town to take a position in a foreign—very foreign—country,” he said, and it was a question as much as a statement of fact.

She smiled absently as she looked past the driver’s head to the narrow city streets ahead, lined with palm trees and pedestrians in brightly colored clothing. “With my mother dead, and no close relatives, I seemed to be looking at a dead end of a future back home.”

“You are not married, then?”

“Me? Oh, no, I’ve never been married,” she said absently. “I had a boyfriend.” She grimaced. “He thought I’d inherit a lot of property and money when my mother died, but the property was mortgaged to the hilt and there was only enough insurance for a simple funeral. He just vanished after the funeral. He’s dating a banker’s daughter now.”

Her companion’s face hardened visibly. He was studying her intently, but she didn’t notice. “I see.”

She shrugged. “He was nice to me, and at least I had someone for a little while, when Mama was the worst.” She sighed as her eyes followed the coastline. “Before, I never got to date much. She’d been sick for a long time, you see, and there was only me to take care of her. My brother helped as much as he could, of course, but he works for the government and he travels most of the time.”

“And there was no one else who could have helped you? A close friend, perhaps?”

She shook her head. “Just my friend Maggie, but she lived in Houston. Lives in Houston,” she faltered. “I lived on our little family ranch with Mama that my brother managed to save. We have a foreman who lives there now and works for shares.”

“This friend,” he persisted in a deceptively lazy tone. “Did she come abroad with you?”

“Yes, but she had to go home unexpectedly.” She frowned, wondering if she should be so forthcoming with a total stranger.

“And left you all alone and at the mercy of strangers?” he taunted in a soft, teasing tone.

She glanced at him with a suddenly impish smile. “Are you going to offer me candy and ask me to go home with you?” she asked.

He chuckled softly. “I abhor sweets, as it happens,” he said, crossing his long legs in their elegant slacks. “And you seem a bit too astute to be picked up in such a manner.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she murmured. “I’m partial to chocolates. I could be a real pushover to anybody with a pocketful of Godiva soft centers.”

“A fact I shall have to have to keep in mind, mademoiselle…Barton,” he said, so suavely that she missed the faint hesitation in his voice.

She searched his dark eyes, not liking to start off their friendship with a lie. “Mademoiselle Brannon,” she corrected. “Gretchen Brannon.”

He took the hand she offered and lifted it to his mouth. She grinned. “Mademoiselle Brannon,” he corrected. “Enchanté.” His eyes narrowed. “I understood the concierge to call you Mademoiselle Barton.”

She grimaced. “That’s Maggie Barton, my friend and my roommate. Her foster brother was terribly injured in an accident and she flew home this morning.” She bit her lower lip. “I probably shouldn’t ramble on about it, but she wants me to do something that isn’t quite ethical and my conscience is killing me.”

He leaned back, his eyes calm and faintly amused. “Please,” he invited with a gesture of one lean hand. “Often it helps to speak of problems to an uninterested but objective stranger.” When she hesitated, he chuckled. “We are strangers, n’est pas?”

“Yes. And I don’t guess you know anybody in Qawi?”

He lifted his eyebrows expressively.

She shrugged. “Well, Maggie got a job working for the sheikh there and since she can’t take it now, she wanted me to take her place without telling anyone who I was.”

His eyes were twinkling. “You disapprove?”

“She wasn’t really thinking straight, or she wouldn’t have suggested it. I don’t like telling lies,” she said flatly. “And I’m not any good at them, either. Besides, I don’t think I can pass for an executive-type businesswoman who’s also a widow. I’m not sophisticated and I don’t know how to plan parties or welcome visiting dignitaries. All I know how to do is legal work. I worked for a firm of attorneys in Jacobsville.”

He listened attentively, his eyes narrow with speculation and a half smile on his wide, thin mouth. “Amazing,” he murmured.

She looked up at him with wide gray eyes. “What is?”

“Never mind.” He searched her eyes. “So you think the job is beyond your capabilities?”

“Certainly it is,” she said. “I’m going to finish my vacation here and then fly to Amsterdam and go home,” she added, making her decision as she spoke.