Captured By A Sheikh

“Yes, ma’am.” With a sigh, Trevor executed a mock bow in Alice’s direction, and withdrew.

“How’s our darling?” Alice asked, placing her bouquet on the conference table.

“He said he’s nervous.”

“I don’t mean Trevor! I mean the baby!” Alice clucked at Ben, who cooed back at her. “My goodness, I feel as if you’re my little grandbaby! I wish my son would get married, but it’s beginning to look less and less like he ever will. This may be the only grandchild I ever have, and I don’t want to lose him just because you’re getting married!”

“Don’t worry, Alice. You’re as close to Ben as any grandmother could be.” Holly meant every word.

The short salon owner, who at fifty fought a never-ending battle against gray hair and a thickening waist-line, had adored Ben from the first moment she saw him.

When Holly’s finances were strained by the search for her sister, the salon owner had even offered to let the two move into her small house. Thanks to Trevor, however, that wouldn’t be necessary.

“You know I like Jazz,” said Alice, who had put up patiently with the aspiring singer’s occasional absences from her manicure duties. “But if she doesn’t care enough about this baby to come and get him, she’s an idiot.”

“If only she’d told me who the father is!” Holly said. “Maybe he knows where she went.”

“Yes, well, it’s your wedding day, Holly Jeannette Rivers-almost-Samuelson, so let’s forget Jazz, for once.” Lifting a circlet of flowers, Alice placed it expertly atop Holly’s thick hair. A gauzy veil turned the world blurry until the salon owner tipped it upward. “It’s hinged, thank goodness. So you don’t have to stumble around until your final march.”

“You make that sound like the march of doom!” Yielding her nephew to Alice, Holly picked up her bouquet. The tightly bound flowers had a light, refreshing smell.

“Oh, I like Trevor,” said her friend. “I just think he’s too old for you. And too much like a familiar pair of shoes. Where’s your romantic spirit? Don’t you want to meet someone exciting?”

“Apparently my sister met someone exciting, and a lot of good it did her!” Holly rejoined. “Oh, Alice, I miss her so much. What if something bad’s happened to her? She’s so talented, so intense—”

“And so unreliable,” her employer pointed out as she retrieved a bottle of formula from the diaper bag. “Any day now, she’ll breeze back as if she’d never been away.”

“I hope so.”

The older woman settled onto a chair and positioned the baby for feeding. “Why don’t you get a breath of fresh air? Just make sure Trevor isn’t lurking around stealing glances at his bride.”

“I think that’s romantic,” Holly returned. “He loves me, Alice. He may be an old friend, but he’s got all the qualities of an ideal husband.”

“Rich, handsome and boring.” Her friend sniffed.

Suddenly Holly did need a breath of fresh air. Anyway, it was obvious her friend wanted to be alone with the baby.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and went out through a short hallway into the courtyard. It separated the Sunday school building, which housed her dressing room, from the Spanish-style stucco chapel.

The air was January-crisp, with thin sunshine straggling through the clouds. Last night’s drizzle had darkened the high stucco wall that blocked her view of the street.

In back, an alley separated the chapel courtyard from a vacant lot filled with wildflowers. In the courtyard, the flowers were more refined: rose-colored camellias, pale pink azaleas and white calla lilies. Still, the predominant fragrance was wet earth.

As usual when she was alone, Holly’s thoughts returned to her sister. People said the two of them looked alike, but she knew better. Jazz was more dramatic in every way: two inches taller, with brighter red hair, darker brown eyes and a more vivacious manner.

Abruptly, she realized she was being watched. Startled, she stared at the man standing across the alley. Where had he come from? The fact that she hadn’t seen or heard him approach gave her a creepy sensation.

He stood motionless, regarding her the way a cat watches its prey. Tall and dark, with a short beard and mustache, he had a muscular build beneath his sweatshirt and jeans. He wore a California Angels baseball cap, turned backward.

The most striking thing about the man was the intensity of the eyes. They burned at her from his chiseled face, disturbing her with their open expression of dislike.

Annoyed, Holly reached up and lowered her veil. Not a twitch of the stranger’s lips betrayed a reaction.

She hurried inside, but an impression of alert tension stayed with her. And of fierce eyes that seemed oddly familiar.

“YOU ARE certain it is she?” asked Zahad. To Sharif, the turtleneck sweater and cap gave his cousin a collegiate air.

“She covered her face when she saw me, but yes,” the sheikh replied. “I am certain.” The resemblance to the photograph of H. J. Rivers was unmistakable.

The two men sat in the front seat of a rented sedan, next to a small shopping center on the far side of the vacant lot. Through binoculars, they had been watching the churchyard for more than an hour.

Although, following Zahad’s advice, the sheikh was dressed in casual American fashion, something about him had distressed Holly Rivers. He should not have stared so hard, he supposed, but he had wanted to see her face clearly.

How innocent she looked, and how lovely, her youth and vivid coloring flattered by the ivory gown. He knew her true nature, however. She had stolen his money, and now she was trying to steal his child.

“They are all snakes,” he muttered. “Her, and those people at the clinic.”

Beside him, Zahad nodded. “I am sorry I steered you to that place. It received many recommendations on the Internet, so I trusted Mrs. Wheaton, but she has deceived us. I am only glad we had not yet paid her the full amount.”

A month ago, the clinic owner had stopped returning Zahad’s phone calls. When he finally reached her, she had nervously declared that there were some unforeseen complications but that they could be handled. Any precipitous action might create legal problems, she had said.

With his usual thoroughness, the aide had checked recent legal records concerning H. J. Rivers. That was how he’d learned that Holly Jeannette Rivers had taken out a marriage license with Trevor Samuelson, an attorney.

Amy Haroun, who had grown up as more of a sister to Sharif than a cousin, had surmised that Holly Rivers must have decided to keep the baby. A poor manicurist couldn’t afford a legal battle, but marriage to an attorney would guarantee her an inside track. No doubt the older man had been bedazzled by this manipulative young woman.

Zahad had flown to America at once. Sharif, who’d arrived yesterday, didn’t know the full extent of his aide’s preparations, but there was a safe house, and this car had been rented through a business subsidiary. Zahad had also stashed a backup vehicle somewhere.

They had brought no weapons, at the sheikh’s orders. He didn’t want to risk being arrested with a gun.

The plan was to snatch his son and fly him back to Alqedar, using any of several sets of tickets purchased from different airlines. Then let Holly Jeannette Rivers twist and scheme as she might. American custody orders were not recognized in his country.

It had not been easy to catch Ms. Rivers alone with the baby, however. That short woman, who must be her older sister, seemed to be with her whenever the fiancé was absent.

But they had to make their move soon. The Rivers woman had seen him. Even if she didn’t already suspect Sharif’s identity, any further sightings of him would raise the alarm.

Adrenaline surged through him. Despite the gravity of the situation, this was the moment when he felt most alive: on the verge of action.

“Let us take our positions,” said Zahad.

The sheikh nodded. His palms itched and sheer energy pumped through his arteries. To strike at last, after so much delay, would be a pleasure.

INSIDE HER dressing room, Holly found the baby watching wide-eyed as Alice mopped a white milky stain from the shoulder of her blue dress. “The receiving blanket slipped while I was burping him. What a mess!”

“I’ll take him.” After pushing up her veil, Holly reached for the warm bundle. “You go put some soap and water on it.”

“How could I be so clumsy?” fussed her friend as she hurried away.

In Holly’s arms, Ben yawned, ready for a nap. She decided to go in search of Marta Vasquez, the salon’s other manicurist, who had volunteered to hold the baby during the ceremony.