Captured By A Sheikh

“My great-aunt provided these supplies.” He set the bag beside Holly on the bed. “She and my cousin Amy will care for the child when I get home.”

“You’re not married?” In the filtered light, the woman could have passed for a teenager.

“My wife died many years ago.” To cut off further questions, he presented her with a can of formula. “Is it necessary to heat it?”

“Not really,” Holly said. “Do you have a clean bottle?”

“I would scarcely bring a dirty one!” He handed it to her. “How long will that last?”

“There’s enough for two feedings, so maybe half a day. Is this all you’ve got?”

“There are two more cans.” Obviously, it would not be enough. “Zahad will get more.”

After filling the bottle, the woman settled the baby at the same angle Selima had demonstrated. Sharif wondered whether women did these things by instinct, but he knew better than to ask an American woman.

“You have a phone?” she said.

Sharif patted his robe.

“I wondered if I could call my fiancé,” she said. “Trevor must be going crazy.”

Trevor. Ah, yes, the athletic blond man in his forties who had crossed the courtyard that afternoon. Sharif no longer believed Holly had manipulated her groom, yet she didn’t speak of him as if she were in love. Her reasons for marrying were, however, none of his business.

“I am sorry to put you both to this inconvenience,” he said. “However, the police will be monitoring his telephone and might be able to locate us.”

“Even through a cell phone?”

“It is possible,” he said. “The technology is developing rapidly.”

From the TV, the word “kidnapping” drew his attention. A picture came on screen, a blurry angled shot taken from overhead. It showed Sharif, Zahad and Holly getting into the car.

“A security camera in a strip mall captured this scene earlier today in Harbor View, where a bride and her nephew were abducted minutes before her wedding,” said a woman announcer’s voice.

“The victim has been identified as Holly Jeannette Rivers, a hairstylist from Harbor View. Her sister, Hannah Jasmine Rivers, vanished three months ago. Hannah Rivers is the mother of the kidnapped baby.”

A security camera! Sharif cursed under his breath. Neither he nor Zahad had considered that possibility in such a small row of stores.

The picture changed to computer-enhanced closeups of Sharif’s and Zahad’s faces, side by side, like a wanted poster. He realized the camera must have taken numerous shots during their hour-long surveillance.

“Police say the men in the photograph have been tentatively identified as Sheikh Sharif Al-Khalil and his aide, Zahad Adran, from the small Arabian nation of Alqedar.”

How? he wondered, and then realized the camera must also have captured the license plate on the rental car, which could be traced to a subsidiary of the Bahrim Corporation. With that information and those pictures, it wouldn’t take long to make an ID.

“A spokesman for the State Department told our station that the sheikh is not in the country on official business and has no diplomatic immunity,” the announcer said. “It is unclear what connection he has with the Rivers family.”

Sharif had known he ran a security risk four years ago when he relinquished his powerful post in the central government to devote himself to the well-being of his province, but he had never anticipated such a situation as this.

Alqedar’s president, Sheikh Abdul Dourad, was an old friend. In his fifties, the president had fought for freedom alongside Sharif and Zahad. However, even he could not retroactively grant diplomatic immunity.

On TV, the anchorwoman sat at her desk beside a blond man in a business suit. “We have with us Trevor Samuelson, the fiancé of kidnap victim Holly Rivers.” She turned to him. “Mr. Samuelson is an attorney in Harbor View and would like to say a few words to the abductors.”

“Just don’t hurt Holly or Ben.” The man stared into the camera. “Whatever your quarrel is, if you want money or whatever, we can work this out.”

His expression was earnest but restrained. Like a soldier stoically facing battle, Sharif thought.

“Thank you, Mr. Samuelson. Now for a look at how long this rain is going to last and how much accumulation we can expect…”

Holly wore a guarded expression as she fed the baby. During Trevor’s appeal, she’d showed no sign of longing for her betrothed. What was she thinking?

And why did she keep sneaking sideways glances at Sharif? Did she too feel this urge to touch?

Her tenderness toward his son formed a bond between them. A man and woman who shared a baby usually also shared the intimacy of their bodies. But she was not the mother, the sheikh reminded himself. And she was not, and never could be, his woman.

The mobile phone rang. After muting the TV, he answered it.

Zahad spoke in Baharalik, an ancient language that survived only in Bahrim. “Did you see the newscast? Yes? I am angry with myself. I should have spotted the camera.”

“We may still be able to resolve this matter,” Sharif said. “Since the mother is missing, I doubt we face a custody battle.”

“Only charges of kidnapping!”

Holding the baby against a cloth laid over her shoulder, Holly was rubbing his back with circular motions. She appeared to pay him no notice.

Into the phone, he said, “I hope to persuade the woman to drop charges. She has accepted that I am the child’s father, and she did leap into the car of her own free will.”

“I doubt she or the authorities will see it that way,” grumbled his cousin. “I do not think it wise to trust her.”

Zahad was a genius at intrigues, but sometimes, Sharif had learned, the shortest distance between two points really was a straight line. “Nevertheless, we need to get my son home quickly. If I can persuade her to plead our cause, it might help.”

“She will lie to you,” warned his aide.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “I will have to use my judgment.”

“I would rather you used your wits,” Zahad said. “Although, I admit, you have reason to doubt my advice, now that we have been shot at and photographed all in one day.”

“I do not doubt you,” Sharif said. “You are my other self.”

“As you are mine. I will call as soon as I learn anything from my sources in Alqedar. So far, they have uncovered no rumors of a plot.”

The sheikh rang off with a silent prayer of thanks for his faithful relative. Although they had attended different universities while exiled during their country’s dictatorship, they had trained together at a military camp, and they had both shed blood in the war of liberation. There was no one he trusted more than Zahad.

Perhaps the man was right about Holly. Perhaps she would lie in order to liberate herself, then betray him. But he had to try to win her over, for his son’s sake.

HOLLY WISHED she were an expert at languages. If only she knew what the men had been saying!

At least, according to the newscast, Sharif had told the truth about his identity. He really was a sheikh, and he’d given her his true name.

Did that mean he was being honest about Jazz? That he hadn’t harmed her, and that her sister really had become a surrogate to raise money for a demo recording?