A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart
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Meredith Webber
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HarlequinChapter One
RAHMAN AL-TARAQ WAS BROODING. At least, that was what he assumed he was doing, but, never having been what he’d consider a moody man, it had taken a while to reach that conclusion.
If asked, he’d have described himself as a—well, driven was probably the only word—man. Driven to succeed, to prove himself, to be the best he could and garner admiration for his achievements rather than for having, purely by chance, been born into royalty.
Wealthy royalty!
It wasn’t that the servants at the palace where he’d grown up had bowed and scraped, but very early on he’d realised that every whim would be granted and treats of all kinds supplied, not because he’d done something to deserve them but because of who he was.
What other six-year-old boy would be given an elephant for his birthday, simply because he’d happened to mention in passing that the elephant he’d seen in a travelling show shouldn’t have to live with a chain around its foot?
That thought made him smile!
Imagine bringing Rajah here, to this tropical paradise in the South Pacific! He’d love the rainforest, but would decimate the villagers’ gardens in a week.
Maybe less.
Besides which he was getting too old to travel.
He sighed, a sure sign he was brooding, and as brooding was a totally pointless occupation and achieved precisely nothing, a man who was into achievement—or had been—should do something about it.
He stood up and paced the bure he’d had built for himself as part of his exclusive resort on Wildfire Island, his eyes barely registering the beauty of the natural stone, the polished, ecologically sourced timber, the intricately woven local mats. From outside it might look like a typical island home, but inside...
In truth, he might be driven to achieve recognition for his work, but he didn’t mind a few trappings of luxury.
Work!
There was that word again.
No matter how hard he tried to convince himself the work he was doing now was important and worthwhile, which it was, there was always a but.
His drive to be himself apart from his background had begun as a child sent to England at ten to a top boarding school. On arrival he’d introduced himself as Harry so his more exotic name didn’t mark him out.
And as Harry, he’d been driven to succeed, to be the best, and his rise through school and university had been marked with success. But he’d found his true passion to be for surgery—general at first then specialising in paediatric surgery, helping save the lives of the most vulnerable small humans.
But one could hardly operate on a newborn with a right hand that trembled, legacy of a touch-and-go brush with encephalitis. His initial reaction to the loss of the work he loved had been fury—fury with the weakness of his body in doing this to him.
Eventually he’d realised the pointlessness of his anger, so he’d sought and found a new focus—to provide facilities for scientists working on a variety of vaccines for the disease, as well as developing mosquito eradication programmes in the worst affected areas.
It was worthwhile work, and it had him roaming the world almost continually, checking up on the services he’d set up. Which left him tired. But it didn’t become the passion his surgical work had been, and he felt a lesser man because of it.
He sighed and went back to brooding, but on the woman this time—better, surely, than brooding on the past and the loss of the work he’d loved.
What was done was done!
The woman!
Sarah Watson...
He had met her before, he was certain of that.
But having come close to death from the encephalitis virus had obviously killed some brain cells and though his memory of her was vivid in his mind, he couldn’t place it in context anywhere.
He’d asked her at the cocktail party, caught up with her in the crush at the opening of the refurbished research station and resort, reminded her they’d met.
And she’d denied it—brushed away from him—telltale colour in her cheeks suggesting it was a lie.
But why?
And why in damnation did he care?
Worse, care enough to have returned to the island in order to see her again when he could have been in Africa, or, if he really needed a woman, in New York, where there were beautiful, fun, sophisticated women who wanted nothing more than a brief sexual relationship with no strings attached?
It was her hair!
How many women had hair the colour of rich, polished mahogany?
And the scent of it—tangy—like vinegar mixed with the rose perfume his mother always wore, and the rose-scented water that splashed in the fountains at home.
But vinegar?
Could he really have picked up vinegar in the scent—and been drawn to it?
Who was drawn to vinegar?
Whatever!
The fact remained he had to have brushed against her some time in the past, for the scent to have been so evocative as they’d passed in the crush of people at the cocktail party! He’d asked his friend Luke about the woman and had learnt nothing more than that she was the general surgeon who flew into the island for a week every six weeks, and that she was English.
Big help!
Although her being English did make it possible he’d met her before, as he’d been based in London all his working life.
It was now six weeks since the cocktail party to celebrate the opening of the luxury resort and the reopening of the research station funded by him in the same small piece of paradise.
Six weeks, and here he was back on Wildfire when he should be at another research facility he’d set up in West Africa, or in Malaysia, organising the mosquito eradication programme. Should have been anywhere but here.
Brooding!
Enough!
He picked up his phone and got through to the island’s small hospital.
‘Is Dr Watson there?’ he asked the woman who answered.
‘Finished for the day, probably down on Sunset Beach,’ was the succinct reply.
Sunset Beach—just around the corner, a short walk to the rock fall that separated his resort beach from the next small curve of sand. Walk around that and there was Sunset Beach.
He’d meet her there, as if by accident, and work out where they’d met—ask her again if necessary.
Action was better than brooding.
He dropped the phone and left the bure, not giving himself time to consider what he was doing in case he decided it wasn’t a good idea.
He’d see her, ask her again where they’d met, perhaps smell her hair...
Was he mad?
Wasn’t he in enough trouble with women at the moment, with his mother, three sisters, seven aunts, and Yasmina, the woman he was supposed to be marrying —for the good of the country, of course—insisting he come home and prepare to take over his role as ruler when his aging father died?
They all knew, as did his father, that his younger brother would be a far better ruler than he, and the very thought of returning home to the fussing of his horde of relatives made him feel distinctly claustrophobic.
While marriage to a stranger... That was something else.
He’s spent too long in the West but deep in his bones knew that some of the old ways were best.
Some!
He was at the rock fall now.
Stupid! He should have stopped to put something on his feet as the rocks were sharp in places. But the tide was going out, the water at the base not very deep.
He’d wade...
* * *
Sarah came out of the cool, translucent water, towelled dry, then slipped her arms into the long white shirt she wore as covering over her swimsuit. Even at sunset the tropical sun had enough heat in it to burn her fair skin.
Fair skin and red hair—a great combination given she was slowly finding peace and contentment on this tropical island. Slowly putting herself back together again; finding a way forward in a life that had been shattered four years ago, sending her to what seemed like the end of the earth—Australia—and then finding a job where she could move around—a week here, a week there—not settling long enough for anyone to dig into her past, bring back the memories...
A loud roar of what had to be pain startled her out of her reverie and she looked towards the rock fall at the other end of the beach where a man—the roarer, apparently—was hopping up and down in thigh-deep water.
Some kind of local ritual?
No, it was definitely pain she’d heard—and could still hear.
Pushing her feet into her sandals, she ran across the white coral sand to where the man was struggling to get out of the water, clutching one foot now, slowly becoming the man she’d seen briefly at the cocktail party—the man they’d all called Harry.
Sheikh Rahman al-Taraq, in fact, a man she’d once admired enormously for the expertise and innovations he’d brought to paediatric surgery. Admired enough to be flattered when he’d asked her to have a coffee with him afterwards, babbling on to him about her desire to specialise in the same surgery. So she had been late for David, who’d said he’d wait at work and drive her home rather than letting her take the tube—half an hour late—half an hour, which could have changed everything.
She closed her eyes against the memories—the crash, the fear, the blood...
It hadn’t been Harry’s fault, of course, but how could she remember that meeting without all the horror of it coming back—not when she was healing, not on the island that had brought peace to her soul.
But right now that man was in pain.
She reached him and slipped to the side of what was his obviously injured foot, taking his arm and hauling it around her shoulders to steady him.
‘What happened?’ she asked, once they were stabilised in the now knee-deep water.
‘Trod on something—agonising pain.’
The man’s face was a pale, grimacing mask.
‘Let’s get you back to civilisation where we can phone the hospital,’ she said, hoping she sounded more practical than she felt because the warmth of the man’s body was disturbing her.
In fact, the man was disturbing her, and, if truth be told, the memory of her chance meeting with him at the cocktail party had been niggling inside her for the past six weeks. Reminding her of things she didn’t want to remember...
But reminding her of other things, as well.
Not that he’d know that.
‘I’m Sarah. We met at the cocktail party.’
‘Harry!’
The name came out through gritted teeth but they were out of the water now and heading slowly, step hop, step hop, for the first of the bures in the resort.
‘Did you see what it was?’ Sarah asked, thinking of the many venomous inhabitants that lurked around coral reefs.
‘Trod on it!’
They’d reached the door.
‘That probably means a stonefish. They burrow down into the sand or camouflage themselves in rock pools so they’re undetectable from their surroundings. You should be wearing shoes. Is your hot-water system good? Water hot?’
The man she was helping—Harry—seemed to swell with the rage that echoed in his voice.
‘Need a shower, do you?’
Sarah decided that a man in pain was entitled to be a little tetchy so she ignored him, helping him to a chair and kneeling in front of him to examine his foot.
‘You’ve got two puncture wounds and they’re already swelling. I’ll get some hot water and then phone the hospital. Hot water, as hot as you can stand, should ease the pain.’
Sarah looked directly at him, probably for the first time since she’d arrived at the bottom of the rock fall. Even with gritted teeth and a fierce expression of pain on his face, he was good looking. Tall, dark, and handsome, like a prince in story books. The words formed in her head as she hurried to the small kitchen area of the bure in search of a bowl and hot water.
No bowls, but a large beaten copper vase. The stings were in the upper part of his foot—he could get that much of his foot into it.
Back at the chair, she knelt again, setting down the vase of hot water but keeping hold of the jug of cold water she’d brought with her.
‘Try that with the toe of your good foot,’ she said. ‘If it’s too hot I’ll add cold water but you need it as hot as you can manage.’
He dipped a toe in and withdrew it quickly, tried again after Sarah had added water, and actually sighed with relief as he submerged the wounds in the container and the pain eased off.
Looking up at her, he shook his head.
‘How did you know that?’
But she was on the phone to the hospital and someone had answered, so she could only shrug in reply to his question.
Quickly she explained the situation, turning back to Harry to ask, ‘Is the pain travelling up your leg?’
He nodded.
‘Like pins and needles that turn into cramp, although it’s easier now.’
Sarah relayed the description to Sam, who was on the hospital end of the phone.
‘We’ll pick up a few things and be right down,’ Sam said. ‘Put his foot in hot water.’
Sarah smiled to herself as she hung up, glad some tiny crevice of her brain had come up with the same information, although it had been at least ten years since she’d practised general medicine and, having been in England, had never encountered a stonefish sting before.
Grabbing the jug, she returned to the kitchen for more hot water, knowing that as the water cooled, the pain would return.
‘I did know you before the cocktail party,’ her patient said as she returned, his dark eyes on her face, unsettling her with the intensity of his focus. ‘I remember now. You were at the talk I gave at GOSH on the use of transoesophageal echocardiography for infants. We had a coffee together afterwards.’
His voice challenged her to deny it a second time!
Great Ormond Street Hospital—GOSH—of course she’d been there. How could she ever forget? She’d been so excited to be invited because back then she’d been considering paediatric surgery, and listening to the mesmeric speaker—this man—had crystallised her ambition.
But further memories of that fateful day brought such anguish she couldn’t stop herself hitting out at the man who’d provoked them.
‘The man I had coffee with was one of the foremost paediatric surgeons in the world, an innovator and inventor, always finding new ways to help the most vulnerable but important people in our society—children. I know you’ve been sick, but still there’s so much you could offer.’
She shouldn’t have let fly like that, and knew it, so guilt now mixed with the anguish churning inside her. The recipient of the tirade just sat there, eyes hooded and spots of colour on his cheeks as warning signs of anger.
‘The cart from the hospital is here, I’ll go,’ she said, her voice still taut—angry—hurt...
Ashamed?
Yes, very, but—
She thought she might have got away, but as she stalked out the door, jug of hot water still clenched in her hand, the man spoke.
‘Well, the woman I met was ambitious to do the same work!’
Sarah closed her eyes, feeling stupid, useless tears sliding down her cheeks, almost blinding her as she made her way back to the beach to collect her things.
She’d deserved that comment, lashing out at him the way she had, but his insistence she remember that day had brought back far too many memories—just when she was beginning to think she’d healed.
How could he have said that?
Something so personal, and obviously very hurtful.
Because her words had struck a nerve?
More like a knife in his chest, directly into the similar doubts he had about himself.
Doubts he refused to face...
Which was no excuse for him to hit back at her!
What was happening to him that he could say such a thing?
‘Done something stupid, have you?’
Sam Taylor, senior doctor at the hospital, charged into the bure.
It was impossible to brood with Sam around! He was a cheerful, capable man, who deftly delivered an analgesic to the wounded foot before suggesting Harry move to the hospital so the wound could be cleaned, while the antivenin and any further pain relief could be given intravenously.
He helped Harry out to the small electric cart that was the common transport on the island, and drove them up the hill from the resort to the neat little hospital.
Out of the hot water, the analgesic yet to work, the cramping, burning pain returned to both Harry’s foot and his lower leg. But his mind had other things to handle.
Despair that he’d flung those words at Sarah Watson returned. Ultra childish, that’s all it had been. Her words had stung, probably because there was an element of truth in them. In fact, they’d gone so deep he’d hit back automatically, and from the way her face had grown even paler, he’d hurt her badly.
She hadn’t deserved that, for all she’d earlier denied knowing him. She certainly hadn’t deserved it after getting him back to the bure and providing pain-relieving first aid. With agonising pain shooting up his leg, he’d not have made it alone.
‘You brooding over something or is it just the pain?’ Sam asked, as they pulled up at the small hospital.
‘I don’t brood!’ Harry snapped, then regretted it.
More to brood over!
‘I didn’t think so,’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘Come on, we’ll get you inside.’
Keanu Russell, the second permanent doctor at the hospital, had appeared and with Sam helped Harry through the small emergency room and into a well-equipped treatment alcove.
Harry checked out the paraphernalia by the bed.
‘All this for a sting? Or are the spines lodged in my foot? Is it one of the deadly marine creatures that seem to flourish in these parts?’
Sam smiled and shook his head.
‘You’re here because we have good monitoring equipment in here. We can hook you up to oxygen, use a pulse oximeter, and a self-inflating blood-pressure cuff. And with a few wires on your chest, the screen will tell us all we need to know. And no, it’s not deadly. Just painful.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Harry grumbled. ‘I see myself as a tough guy but it was all I could do to not whimper while Sarah was helping me to my bure.’
‘Going to keep him in?’ Keanu asked Sam, as the two men efficiently attached him to the monitoring equipment.
‘Nah, he’s strong, and he just told us he’s tough, so he’ll survive. We’ll drip the antivenin in, let him rest for a while, check everything’s working as it should be, then send him home. He might only be a surgeon but I reckon he knows enough general medicine to yell for us if he has any further problems.’
Harry had to smile at the laid-back, teasing attitude of these men who worked on the island. They did enormous good, providing medical assistance and support to the whole M’Langi group of islands. It was a complicated programme of clinic visits, preventative medicine, rescue work and emergency callouts, yet they made everything seem easy.
Maybe if he stayed here long enough, he might pick up some of the relaxed island vibe.
Impossible right now, though. The woman he’d just hurt was walking into the room, still in the long white shirt she wore over a black bathing suit, a black and white striped beach towel slung over her shoulder, and an obviously anxious expression on her face.
Anxious about his well-being?
Well, she was a doctor!
‘Is he okay?’ she asked Sam.
‘Ask him yourself,’ Sam retorted, and the sea-green eyes set in that pale creamy skin turned towards him, narrowing slightly.
‘Are you?’ she demanded.
‘Hey, be nice. He’s a patient,’ Sam reminded her.
‘Yours, not mine. I just happened to be there when he strolled through reef waters without anything on his feet.’
She didn’t actually add the idiot, but the words hung in a bubble in the air between them.
But even with her contempt there for all to see, she was beautiful. He knew it was probably her colouring that he found so fascinating: the vibrant hair, the pale skin, the flashing green eyes. Things he’d noticed way back when they’d first met.
But now he sensed something deeper in her that drew him inexorably to her.
Hidden pain?
He knew all about that.
Didn’t it stab him every day when he felt the tremor in his hand as he shaved?
So grow a beard, a mocking voice within suggested, and Harry closed his eyes, against the voice and the woman.
‘I just popped in to make sure he’d made it safely up here,’ the woman said. ‘So, see you two tomorrow.’
Sam stopped her retreat with a touch on her arm.
Harry suppressed a growl that rose in his throat. It had hardly been a lover’s touch and, anyway, what business of his was it who touched her?
‘Actually, Sarah,’ Sam was saying, ‘if you could spare a few minutes, I’d like you to stay around until the drip’s finished. We were actually at a staff meeting up at the house and your phone call switched through to there. Mina’s here for the other patients, but I think Harry should be watched.’
* * *
I have to watch him?
Sarah nodded in reply to Sam’s request, telling herself it didn’t mean watch watch, just to check on him now and then.
But watching him—he’d opened his eyes briefly as Sam spoke but they were closed again—actually looking at him might be a good idea. She could start by confirming her impressions of his physical appearance and maybe that would help sort out why the man made her so uneasy.
Why he stirred responses deep inside her that she hadn’t felt for four years...
For sure he was good looking. Olive-skinned, dark-haired, strong face, with a straight nose and solid chin. The lips softened it just a little, beautifully shaped—sensual—
Get with it, Sarah!
Stop this nonsense!
‘Are you looking at me?’
Surprisingly pale eyes—grey—opened, and black eyebrows rose.
‘Not looking, just watching—that’s what I was asked to do, remember.’
‘Not much difference, I’d have thought,’ the wretch said, with the merest hint of a smile sliding across those sens—
His lips!
She turned her attention to the monitor. The blood-pressure cuff was just inflating, so at least she had something to watch.
A little high, but the pain would only just be subsiding, so that was to be expected.
‘Tell me if you feel any reaction to the antivenin,’ she told him. ‘Nausea, faintness...’
He opened one eye and raised the eyebrow above it as if to say, is that all you’ve got?
She almost smiled then realised smiling at this man might be downright dangerous, so she walked out into the main room and found a magazine that was only four years old, grabbed a chair, and returned with it to the emergency cubicle to sit as far as possible from the man as she could get in the curtained alcove and still see the monitor.
He appeared to be asleep, and she tried hard to give her full attention to an article about the various cosmetic procedures currently in vogue in the US.
And failed.
The stonefish wound was in his right foot, so it had been his right arm she’d had around her shoulder as she’d taken some of his weight to get him back to the bure.
Had she felt a tremor in it?
Looking at him now, the arm in question was lying still on the bed. Or was it gripping the bed?
Parkinson’s patients she’d encountered in the past found tremors in their arms and hands worsened when they relaxed but lessened when they held something. Would that hold true for tremors induced by encephalitis or was a different part of the brain affected?
And just why was she interested?
She sighed and tried to tell herself it was because the surgery world had been shocked to learn the results of his brush with encephalitis. Shocked that such a talented and skilful man had been lost to surgery.
But she wasn’t here to wonder about his tremor. That was his business.
She was here to watch him, not worry about his past or the problems he faced now.
She turned her attention from the monitor to the man.
His eyes were open, studying her in turn, and although she’d have liked to turn away, she knew doing so would be an admission that he disturbed her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, those strange pale eyes holding hers. ‘I had no right to throw such a petty, personal, ridiculous remark at you. All my friends tell me I’m over-sensitive about the results of my illness, but that’s no excuse.’
Now she did look instead of watching, looked and saw the apology mirrored in his eyes.
She almost weakened because the man had been through hell.
And to a certain extent hadn’t she opted out as well, heading away from home as fast as she could, taking a job that meant she didn’t have to settle in one place, make friends, get hurt by loss again?
But she hadn’t been a genius at what she did and this man had. The world needed him and people like him.
Straightening her shoulders, she met his eyes and said, ‘Well, if you’re expecting an apology from me, forget it. I meant every word I said. You must have any number of minions who could run around checking on the facilities and programmes you’ve sent up. By doing it yourself, you’re wasting such skill and talent it’s almost criminal.’
And on that note she would have departed, except she was stuck there—watching him.
Watching him raise that mobile eyebrow once again.
‘Minions?’
The humour lurking in the word raised her anger.
‘You know exactly what I mean,’ she snapped, and he nodded.
Thinking she’d got the last word, she prepared to depart, or at least back as far away as possible from him.
‘But we had met before—you’ll admit that now!’ he said.
So much for having the last word! He’d not only sneaked that one in but he’d brought back the memories—of that wonderful day at GOSH and the horror of its aftermath.
Her heart was beating so fast it was a wonder the patient couldn’t hear it, and a sob of anguish wasn’t far away. The curtain sliding back saved her from total humiliation as she burst into tears in front of this man.
Caroline Lockhart, one of the permanent nurses at the hospital, appeared, flashing such a happy smile that Sarah couldn’t not smile back at her.
‘I’m to take over,’ Caroline said quietly. ‘Sam says thanks for the hand. We were discussing how best to spend a rather large donation we’ve just received—working out what’s needed most. Since you overwhelmed us with the equipment needed for endoscopies and keyhole surgery, the theatre’s pretty well sorted. But if you have any other ideas, let someone know.’
Sarah nodded and stood up, wanting to get as far away as possible. Caroline’s words had added a further layer to her pain. Getting compensation for the accident that had taken her husband and unborn child four years after the event had been traumatic to say the least—how could money possibly replace a husband and son?—so her immediate reaction had been to get rid of it as quickly as possible.
And because it was the leisurely pace and overwhelming beauty of this magic island where she’d finally begun to put the broken pieces of herself back together again, wasn’t it right she give something back?
She made her way out of the rear of the hospital, down to the little villa where she stayed when she was here, and tapped on the door of the villa next door to remind her anaesthetist they had an early start in the morning.
Ben was clad in board shorts, his hair ruffled and a vague expression on his face.
‘Did I catch you at a bad moment?’ she asked.
‘Halfway through dismembering a body,’ he replied, and Sarah grinned.
Ben was an excellent anaesthetist and didn’t mind the travel, but apparently he was an even better writer, his sixth murder mystery hitting top-seller lists. It was only a matter of time before he was making enough money from his writing to support himself and she’d have to find a new anaesthetist willing to travel to isolated places in outback Queensland, and to Wildfire in the M’Langi group of islands.
‘We’re doing that thyroidectomy tomorrow. You all set?’ she asked.
He raised his hand in a mocking salute.
‘Ready as ever, ma’am,’ he said, the words telling her he was still lost in his book—one of his characters talking.
But lost though he was at the moment, she knew he’d be fully focussed in the morning.
‘Our patient came in this afternoon, if you want to pop over the hospital tonight to talk to her. I’d say the op will take three to four hours, depending on any complications, and she’s had some complications with her heart so we’ll have to watch her.
Ben nodded.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll be right. I’ve already read up on her and checked with my old boss back in Sydney about the level of drug use. We’ll be fine.’
Ben was about to back away, obviously anxious to get back to what he considered his real work, when he paused, then reached out and touched her cheek.
‘Have you been crying?’ There was suspicion and a touch of anger in his voice, and in his eyes. ‘Did someone upset you?’
Sarah forced a smile onto her lips and fixed it there. She was only too aware of how protective Ben was of her, once taking on the boss of an outback hospital when he’d wanted her to work beyond regulation safe hours.
‘I’m fine,’ she told him, taking his hand from her cheek and giving his fingers a ‘thank you’ squeeze.
‘Well, I hope you are,’ he said, before disappearing back into his villa, from which Sarah could almost hear his computer calling to him.
But the little white lie had made her feel better, so instead of hiding away in her island home, she walked to the top of the cliffs above Sunset Beach to catch the last fiery blast of the sunset.
Except she’d missed it. The soft pinks and mauves and violets, however, were still stunningly beautiful and like a soothing balm to her aching heart.
