A Wife for the Surgeon Sheikh
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Meredith Webber
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15
CHAPTER ONE
LAUREN SUPPOSED SHE had known there’d be an executive director of finance and logistics—after all, someone would have to look after the money side of the hospital—but in the nearly two years she’d worked here she’d never heard of Mr Marshall, to whose office she had been summoned at the end of her shift.
Was there something wrong with her superannuation? No, she was sure chief executives had more important things to do than worry about very minor employees’ superannuation.
So, what could he possibly want?
Unanswerable questions kept worry at bay as the elevator rose to the rarefied air of the sixth floor, but walking down the corridor in search of Room 279 she found panic building...
A beautifully dressed secretary—or perhaps a personal assistant—looked her up and down, and offered a disdainful eyebrow lift at the sight of her dishevelled end-of-shift clothes, which were probably bloodstained somewhere an apron didn’t cover, before ushering her through a door into the inner sanctum.
‘Sister Macpherson,’ the woman announced, and Lauren stepped forward, wondering which of the two men was Mr Marshall. Surely not the one in the grey silk suit that hung on him with such precision he could have been a model in a very expensive tailor’s shop.
A very good-looking model, from what she could see, as he stood with the light behind him. Although his shoulders were probably wider than the norm so the suit had, undoubtedly, been tailor-made.
But Silk Suit remained by the window, studying her, she was sure, from beneath heavy eyelids.
Hawk’s eyes...
Hooded...
Scanning for prey?
She felt a shiver of apprehension, and a slight stirring of something she couldn’t quite place, and definitely didn’t want to think about...
‘I’m Ted Marshall,’ the other man said, interrupting her fantasy and stepping forward. He held out his hand towards Lauren and positively radiated goodwill. ‘Please, come in and sit down. Sheikh Madani has something he wishes to discuss with you, and as he’s come a long way to see our new children’s wing, the very least I can do is offer him the hospitality of my room.’
Twit!
But the name he’d mentioned—it couldn’t be... It was impossible.
Though of course it had to be, and as a feeling of inevitability all but swamped her, Lauren told herself she was not afraid.
Well, not much...
Practically falling over himself to please Silk Suit, Ted Marshall waved the other visitor forward, though Lauren hadn’t sat down, flight-or-fight instinct telling her she’d be better off on her feet.
‘Sheikh Madani, this is Sister Macpherson. Now, I’ll leave the two of you to discuss your business.’
Leave her here with Madani?
No way!
She knew the name Madani only too well. Knew it and hated it with a passion. Hadn’t it been a Madani who had stolen her sister?
‘You can’t do that!’ she said to the departing Mr Marshall. ‘You can’t get me up here and leave me in a room with a total stranger because he praised your new hospital! That’s irresponsible and unethical and probably illegal!’
She knew her cheeks were probably scarlet and her hair was probably standing on end, and forget being afraid—terror had prompted her outburst. Not for herself, but for Nim.
Silk Suit watched from the window, his eyes, lids lifted now, focussed in her direction.
And if that was a smirk twitching at his lips, she’d kill him.
Or get Joe to kill him.
‘You need fear no danger from me,’ the man said, his voice as smooth as the sleek clothes he wore, the accompanying smile as friendly as a shark’s.
‘There, you see,’ Ted Marshall said, edging closer to the door. ‘The sheikh has business with the hospital then mentioned wanting to see you. Apparently, there’s a family matter he wishes to discuss with you, and I’m sure it would be to your advantage to listen to him.’
And on that note he scuttled out of the door.
Lauren remained where she was, paralysed by the knowledge that this man might well have been behind the murder of her sister and parents.
And if not him, surely one of his relations...
But there was no way she could reveal the panic in her heart or the clutch of icy fingers gripping her stomach.
She took a deep breath, and aimed for being cool.
‘You have business with me?’
Cool and polite.
‘I think you know I do.’
His deep, treacly voice rasped against her skin and sent shivers down her spine, but Lily had been taken in by a treacly voice and silk suits—by money, and jewellery, and private planes that swept her from one holiday playground to the next.
Beautiful, vibrant, fun-loving Lily...
And look how that had ended.
‘Oh?’ Lauren managed, dragging herself out of the past, and ignoring the catch in her own breathing as he moved closer.
‘The boy! You have the boy!’
It wasn’t a question, but how much did he actually know?
Not where she lived or he’d have come to the house—possibly even kidnapped Nim—though that would have happened over Joe’s dead body.
‘What boy?’ she asked, stalling.
He waved away her pretence, eyes like obsidian boring into hers.
‘He needs to be taken home.’ His voice was glacial now. ‘He needs to know the country he will one day rule.’
‘And just who are you to be making these demands?’
The man drew himself up to an impressive height and seemed to summon a sense of power from the ether.
‘I am Abdul-Malik Madani, I am called Malik, and my name means Protector of the King.’
Refusing to be intimidated, Lauren straightened, and although five feet five wasn’t a very impressive height, she made the most of it with a tilt of her chin and a glare in her eyes.
‘Well, if Nim’s father was the former heir, then you didn’t do too good a job of it!’
She heard his reaction—a quick snatch of breath—and saw it in the stricken look on his face, the sudden bowing of his head to hide his emotion.
She watched his chest expand as he breathed deeply, and knew the depth of his pain when he spoke again, voice strained with grief.
‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I could not save my brother, but it is his son that I must protect now—protect at all costs, even with my life.’
That was a bit melodramatic, but hadn’t all her admittedly brief contact with the Madanis been overly melodramatic?
She closed her eyes, remembering, shuddering, aware of this man’s presence in every cell of her being, trying to focus on what he was saying.
He was either a consummate actor or genuine, but did she really want to find out which?
She moved towards the door, intending to keep walking until she was well away from this man. Somewhere quiet where she could think quietly and halt the panic.
But in two strides he had overtaken her so he now stood directly in front of her—less than a foot away—towering over her with some kind of inner presence that made her feel more queasy than afraid.
Strange, unsettled butterflies rioted in her stomach, zapping their disquiet along her nerves. Up close, the man’s face was beautiful—not in a pretty-boy way but with hard carved features: a thin straight nose separating those deep-set eyes; high ridges of cheekbones; and lips full enough for his mouth to scream sensual but not too full—not fleshy, just there, unsmiling...
‘The child’s name is Nimr!’
The words were like a slap.
So much for her thinking she’d scored a point on him earlier.
‘We call him Nim,’ she retorted. ‘Easier than trying to roll that unfamiliar “r” at the end. But, yes, it’s spelled Nimr on official documents.’
‘And yet you asked what boy?’
Sarcasm iced the words and Lauren felt them cut into her skin—saying Nim’s name had brought back the fear. Just because this man said he’d give his life for Nim, what proof was that?
For all Lauren knew, he could have been behind his brother’s death.
As soon as she thought it, she knew she shouldn’t have gone there—memories threatened to swamp her again and right now she needed to be strong.
As for his assumption that Nim would want to be King of the godforsaken country this man was talking about—well, that was for the future, and for Nim himself to decide!
‘Nim was left in my care and that’s where he stays,’ Lauren said, not adding Lily’s almost hysterical warning of deadly danger. Of people—Tariq’s family members even—trying to track her down to kill her and her son. And Lauren, for her sins, had dismissed it all, sure Lily had been exaggerating—blaming her state on a hormone-fuelled fantasy.
That was until the accident, and then when Nim had been taken...
Don’t go there, she told her frantic thoughts.
‘And now I need to leave,’ she said, taking a side step, hoping to get behind him to the door—
Which proved hopeless.
She tried a glare, one that usually sent overexcited adolescents straight back to their beds, but felt it bounce off him.
‘Perhaps we should begin again, discuss this in more congenial surroundings. As Mr Marshall said, I had some business with the hospital, and thought you might feel more at ease meeting me here with other people’s knowledge of the meeting. But there are other places...’
He touched her, oh, so lightly on the shoulder as he spoke, and fire spread through her body, confirming the danger she’d felt in this man from the beginning.
Was this how Lily had felt when she’d first met Tariq?
‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she told him, forcing her voice to stay firm. ‘Nim is my child, properly adopted. He stays here!’
‘With security lights all around your house, and alarms hard-wired back to the police station, and a guard to follow him wherever he goes?’
Panic swelled in Lauren.
He did know where she lived! And how they lived! The only thing he didn’t know was her constant fear...
But there was no way this man was going to get her child!
‘He’s not a guard, he’s a nanny,’ she snapped. ‘Most working mothers have them!’
‘Six-two male? SAS-trained? Do most Australian working mothers have such a nanny?’
She stepped back, aware of giving ground, but she couldn’t yell at him successfully when she was so close. Something about the man flustered her and she was pretty sure it wasn’t fear...
She took another deep breath.
‘I lost my entire family in that accident—everyone but Nim—and no one can tell me how or why it happened, or, worse, who the target was. I don’t know whether it was my sister and our parents, or your brother.’
‘There was a doubt about the intended victim?’ he demanded, his voice sharp with tension as he broke into her explanation.
Closing her eyes briefly to regain a little composure, Lauren explained.
‘My father had many business interests in the west, from mining to pastoral holdings and beyond. The police thought...’
She couldn’t go on, remembering the horror of those days when grief had been overwhelming her and policemen had been constantly asking questions—
‘Tell me.’
His voice was gentle now, not a plea exactly but with enough emotion in it that she understood he needed to know.
‘It was only when Nim was snatched they turned their attention to your brother.’
‘Someone took the child?’
His eyes blazed with anger now, but the memories were pressing down on her and she had to get the story told before she broke down from the remembered terror.
‘A police family liaison officer was staying with me. The detectives were there one morning with so many questions, their voices unsettled Nim. He was only tiny. So I took him out for a walk in his pram, and someone hit me on the head and ran off with him.’
She tried to quell the memories of her pain and fear. She had thought that not only had she lost her parents and Lily but the baby as well—the baby she’d promised Lily she’d protect.
Had he read it in her eyes that he steered her back into a chair.
‘Sit, take deep breaths! They found the child?’
He asked the question in the same calm voice he’d used to make her sit.
She nodded.
‘At the airport, dressed all in pink, travelling on a passport as Lucy someone, two parents travelling with her. It was luck, nothing more, that they found Nim—another twenty minutes and they’d have boarded, the plane doors would have shut.’
‘And the couple?
Lauren looked up at the man hovering impatiently in front of her.
‘They admitted to being paid to kidnap the child and take him to the United States, where he could be sold to adoptive parents in some quasi-criminal deal. But they denied all knowledge of the accident. Further police investigations couldn’t prove they’d been involved.’
She read confusion in his eyes and understood it, for those few months of her life still seemed unreal to her.
But this man needed answers, so she picked up where she’d left off earlier.
‘So, yes, I have security to protect my child, but none of it intrudes on his having a normal childhood. That is one thing I work very hard to ensure.’
Lauren paused, needing to catch her breath, needing to see his face—his expression—as she finalised this business.
‘So, really, there’s nothing else to discuss. I’m guessing you spent a considerable amount of money to track me down, but Nim is mine now—a little Australian boy with a future here, not in his father’s country. So I’ll be getting home to my son.’
‘Son? You have adopted him?’
She’d been expecting more objections to her leaving, not this shocked disbelief.
‘Lily left him with me that night, telling me to take great care of him—telling me again of threats. To do that when she was...’ Lauren made a huge effort to pull herself together ‘...gone, he had to be legally mine, so of course I’ve adopted him.’
She looked directly into his eyes this time—into darkness that held no light or shadows, and about as much humanity and understanding as a statue’s blank gaze.
Malik was only too aware he’d made a mess of this. First the fawning executive, setting up the meeting with this woman as if he was conferring a great honour on her.
And then underestimating the stubborn female who’d had the guts to adopt his nephew. There might not be much of her, and most of what he could see was tired and grubby, but despite the dark shadows beneath her large grey eyes, and the fear, which had been an almost palpable thing in the room, she’d stood up to him.
Though with what she’d been through he could understand that fear...
Coming here, he’d thought she’d be willing to hand the boy over to him—perhaps with due recompense—but every word he’d heard held the cadences of her love for Nimr.
Had he been judging her by her sister, that he’d thought this way? One look at her had dispelled any physical resemblance, and he doubted Lily would have stood up to him the way Lauren had, or taken the extreme measures he now knew of, to keep his nephew safe.
No, Lily had been beautiful, captivating, and could charm birds from a tree, but how much more attractive was the courage and quiet determination of this sister?
Something he hadn’t felt for a long time stirred inside him, something he’d have to think about later, because his business was far from finished.
As far as she was concerned, Nimr was her child and she’d probably have killed him if he’d mentioned recompense.
He looked down at her, close now as she tried once more to get out the door, and he was almost sure he detected a tremble in her body, and definitely saw fear behind the defiance in her eyes.
He touched her gently on the shoulder—felt the tremors running through her and the coldness of her skin and knew he hadn’t imagined the fear, knew he’d caused it, and that wounded him.
‘I’m sorry. This has come as a surprise for you, but I have had top private investigators looking for Nimr for two years now and to suddenly have him so close—well, I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought meeting you publicly through the hospital might be easier for you, but all I’ve done is barge into your life and upset you.’
She’d stepped away from his hand.
‘I have to go,’ she said, slipping behind him as he moved forward, escaping this time, though not for long.
He caught up with her by the time they’d reached the elevator.
‘We need to talk!’ he said, probably too loudly from the stares he got as they entered the already packed space.
She was pressed against him so he couldn’t see her face, but the shake of her head, dark curls moving beneath his chin—brushing his skin—gave him his answer.
Soft dark curls from what he could see, giving off a hint of something he recognised but couldn’t name.
Rosewater?
Back home, it was used in many local dishes—but in hair?
He breathed in the scent again as the elevator reached the ground floor—whatever it was that had stirred inside him earlier stirring again—and they led the exodus out into the corridor.
Expecting her to make a dash for some bolthole he’d never find in the big hospital, he caught her arm.
She spun towards him.
‘I’ll call Security,’ she warned, but his mind was still on rosewater.
‘Is it rosewater I can smell?’
The words were out before he considered how inappropriate they were.
‘Rosewater?’ she demanded, outrage warming her cheeks to a rosy pink. Grey eyes spitting fire, all fear gone. She probably had some kind of emergency call button somewhere on her person—
‘I could smell rosewater,’ he said, aware of how lame it sounded. ‘The women use it in cooking at home.’
‘The women, huh?’ she said, but a lot of her tension was gone, and he kind of thought her soft pink lips might be trying hard not to smile.
Pleased they’d seemed to reach some kind of armistice, he raised both hands in surrender.
‘I will not get into an argument with you about women’s rights! I’m a believer in them myself. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I’m so anxious to take Nimr home. My country needs to be dragged into the twenty-first century, and as his regent I could at least begin the task.’
She studied him for a moment, not bothering to hide the suspicion that had flared in her wide eyes.
‘And you can’t do that without him there—a boy of four? Surely, if you’re related and next in line after him, you can get started without his presence.’
Malik sighed. He’d had a long journey, spent far too long convincing the finance man to arrange his meeting with this woman, thinking it was better to do it with an authority figure to introduce them—as it would have been at home. And now she was demanding answers to questions that could take hours to explain.
‘I’ve got to get home,’ she said, halting any further conversation. ‘Joe goes to swimming training and I have to be there for Nim.’
‘Nimr,’ Malik corrected automatically, giving the ‘r’ on the end of his nephew’s name the slight roll it required.
‘Whatever!’ his companion snapped. ‘But we’ll never get through any conversation if you’re going to correct his name every time I say it! And you know nothing about Australian kids if you imagine he could get through childhood with a rolled “r” on the end of his name without incessant teasing, so here he’s Nim!’
And she stalked away, her anger back, and clearly seen in the straight shoulders and swift strides that somehow drew his attention to strong, shapely legs and a trim figure.
Kept his attention for an instant too long...
He sighed again.
He had more important matters at hand than a woman with grey eyes and a trim figure. Although Tariq had always been the practised negotiator—when he’d bothered—he, Malik, had stepped in often enough to be a competent one. But he’d blown it this time. He could understand her fighting him if she’d grown fond of the boy—that would be understandable—but part of her resistance had definitely been fear.
At least he knew where she lived.
In fear?
Rattled by the encounter, Lauren made her way out of the hospital by the nearest exit, finding herself in the wrong car park, so by the time she’d found her small vehicle she was shaking with the tension the stranger’s appearance had generated.
Tension and fear—and something else, something she really didn’t want to acknowledge.
She unlocked the door and slumped gratefully into the driving seat, opening windows and starting the air-conditioning as the vehicle, after standing in the summer sun all day, was like an inferno. Even the steering wheel was too hot to touch, so the idea of resting her forearms on it and having a wee cry had to be denied.
Not that she’d let that man make her cry! She’d shed enough tears four years ago—enough to last a lifetime. Although admittedly there’d been more, when Nim had been a baby and, teething or not well, impossible to settle, she’d felt totally alone.
Then Aunt Jane had sold her parents’ house for her, found the duplex for them on the other side of the country, set up the security, and made it safe enough for her to finally give Nim a home.
It was time to get home to her son. She couldn’t let Joe down. Without Joe she’d be lost, she and Nim.
And no matter what that man said, Nim was hers and hers he was going to stay. He could grow up as an ordinary Australian boy and need never know much at all about that strange place thousands of miles away where his birth mother had lost her bearings.
Oh, Lily.
With a huff of impatience at the sudden sense of loss inside her, she drove out of the parking area and headed for home, her mind back on practical matters.
Did she have to stop at the shops for fruit for Nim’s lunchbox tomorrow or had Joe called in on his way back from kindy?
He probably had and she couldn’t think of anything else they needed.
Except perhaps a magic carpet to whisk Sheikh whoever he was back to where he’d come from. But magic carpets were fairly rare in Abbotsfield, for all it was a thriving regional city.
Regional city?
How had the man found her here, thousands of miles from where she’d grown up in Perth? All the police reports on the so-called accident had put the family’s place of residence as Perth. And after that she’d disappeared. The family’s assets had been frozen so she’d borrowed enough from Aunt Jane to buy the campervan, and she and tiny baby Nim had lived like gypsies, moving constantly, she doing anything to keep him safe.
Lauren’s mind was lost in the past and, driving on autopilot, it was only as she was using the remote to open the outer gate that she saw the sleek black luxury vehicle parked outside.
The fear she’d felt earlier turned to terror and she dropped the remote as if it would burn her fingers. She parked behind the ominous car, only too aware of who would be inside it.
Or inside her house?
Dear heaven, surely not!
She shot from her car, and strode towards the limo, hauling open the driver’s door so suddenly a slim man in a blue suit and matching cap almost fell out, his cap coming askew on his head.
‘Who are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded, hoping Joe was inside with one finger poised above the alarm.
‘He’s my driver. He owns the hire car.’
Sheikh whatever was emerging from the back seat on the passenger side. ‘I had no time to waste finding my way around your city, small though it might be.’
‘Oh, and I suppose your city is ginormous!’ Lauren shot at him, and immediately regretted it as this wasn’t the argument she should be having.
Especially as the wretched man had the nerve to smile.
Well, she supposed it was a smile—he’d definitely moved his lips and revealed a dazzling array of perfectly aligned white teeth, but it was a crocodile that came to mind rather than rapprochement.
‘Would you feel easier discussing the situation here?” he continued, as smooth as custard.
‘There is no situation to discuss,’ she said, hoping she sounded a lot more determined than she felt. Seeing the man who might just be a murderer standing outside her home had brought back all her fear, yet in some offbeat section of her brain she was simply seeing the man.
Bizarre, to say the least.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t see dozens of men every day, but this was definitely not that kind of seeing.
He’d taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves a little to reveal smooth olive skin that gleamed in the sunlight, while his shirt clung to a body she guessed had been shaped through exercise—not too much, just enough to give definition to hard pecs and wide shoulders beneath the snowy-white material.
She wouldn’t look at his neck, rising from the now tieless shirt—well, only to see it as a strong column...
Ye gods! What was the matter with her? She was standing in the street mooning over a man who was undoubtedly her enemy?
‘I don’t want you in my house,’ she finally said, meaning, I don’t want you anywhere near me, not now, not ever, but especially not now when I’m so damned confused I can’t think straight.
Fortunately, Joe appeared in the doorway at that moment, preceded by Ghost, Joe’s pale German shepherd, and with Nim no doubt right behind, probably peering through Joe’s legs, for all he was supposed to stay inside when people came.
‘The gentleman’s just leaving,’ Lauren said, speaking to Joe but with her eyes on the Sheikh.
‘We need to talk,’ he said to her. ‘It’s imperative. I will not invade the sanctity of your home—’ was there a ‘not right now’ hovering behind the words? ‘—but I shall call for you at seven.’
‘Get into a car with a stranger? I think not! If we do need to talk, then we can talk at your hotel. Where are you staying?’
‘The Regal.’
Lauren nodded.
‘I’ll meet you there at eight,’ she said, hoping she’d spoken loftily enough for him to assume she dined at The Regal regularly, and at the same time wondering desperately what she might have in her wardrobe that she could wear to such a place. And whether Joe would be back from training, or, if not, there was always Aunt Jane who’d stand in...
The Sheikh nodded graciously, before pointing a finger at the gathering in the doorway.
‘Security’s a little lax. I could have shot the dog, then the nanny, and grabbed the boy.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ Lauren whispered, then slid limply to the ground, a black cloud closing over her as the events of the afternoon finally caught up with her.
Joe darted forward but Malik was there first, lifting Lauren into his arms and marching towards the front door, telling the dog to sit in such a firm voice it dropped to his haunches.
‘Get a cool, wet cloth,’ he said to the so-called nanny. ‘It’s just a faint. I can feel her coming round already, so I’d better put her down because if she realises it’s me holding her she’s likely to hit me.’
‘You can put her on the couch,’ a small boy said, his eyes wide with unshed tears as he saw his mother in such a helpless state.
‘She’ll be better soon,’ Malik assured the boy who was, without doubt, Nimr, for he was the dead spit of Tariq at that age.
Tariq, the brother Malik had worshipped all his young life and followed around like a puppy.
‘Here!’
The nanny had returned, and the hoarseness in his voice made Malik turn to look at him—to see a face distorted by the scars of operations that had somehow put it back together.
‘I am Malik,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘That’s Joe,’ Nimr said, looking up from where he was wiping his mother’s face with the damp hand towel. ‘Joe looks after us.’
‘I noticed that,’ Malik told the boy, although his eyes were on the mother now—Lauren—dark lashes fluttering against her cheeks as she slowly became aware of her surroundings. Something that wasn’t entirely guilt fluttered inside him, moved by her paleness—her vulnerability...
Her eyes opened, deep grey pools of fear and confusion—and he had caused the fear, first by arriving as he had and then with his foolish words about their protection.
Although that part was deadly serious. If there really was a threat against his nephew, he’d be better off back in Madan.
He should take the boy home, no matter what.
She sat up so suddenly he was knocked from where he crouched by the couch, landing awkwardly on his butt.
At least it gave Nimr a laugh.
‘You’re in my house!’
Outrage vied with disbelief as Lauren took in this man’s presence. He was so close she could hardly not notice that his eyes were not the black she’d thought them but a surprising warm toffee colour, and right now were looking intently at her.
‘You have to go,’ she said, unable to tell if her hyper-awareness of him—the unsettled feeling in her chest—was to do with the shock she’d had or the man himself.
Whatever it was, she wanted it gone too.
He hesitated, aware of the nanny standing behind him, ready to break him in two if he so much as touched the recovering woman.
He moved back a little, and said gently, ‘I’m sorry, but we do have to talk, and I think the sooner the better.’
Lauren forced her fuzzy brain to sort out the words, and one thing became perfectly clear. This man was not leaving until he’d said what he’d come to say.
And considering that, wouldn’t it be better to listen to him here and now—well, not right now as she had to get Nim’s dinner, her own dinner, too, given that lunch had been a snatched apple and cup of coffee and her stomach was making her aware that she was famished.
She heaved herself upright on the sofa, Nim slipping up to sit beside her and take her hand.
‘I’m all right,’ she assured him. ‘I just forgot to have my lunch and that’s what made me faint like that.’
Lying to her son? She knew full well it was the man’s suggestion that it would have been easy to abduct Nim that had made her mind shut down.
Which left her with the man—the Madani man!
He was standing back—against a window once again—and, much as she hated having him in her house, she knew she wouldn’t be rid of him until she’d listened to what he’d come to say.
‘I have to give Nim his dinner and I usually eat with him so you might as well stay and eat with us. That way we can talk when Nim’s gone to bed. I’ll just have a quick wash—Nim, you need to wash your hands for dinner so you come with me.’
‘You get off to training,’ she added to Joe, who was standing, watching them all. ‘I’m fine now and I’ll have an early night.’
She was leaving the room when she remembered the big black car parked outside her yard, and added to Malik, ‘You’d better get your driver and bring him in for dinner too.’
‘The driver?’
He sounded so incredulous, Lauren almost laughed.
‘Drivers do eat, you know,’ she said. ‘And there’s plenty so it’s hardly fair to leave him sitting out there.’
Well, she hoped there was plenty...
‘Please go out and invite him in.’
Wondering if this was a quirk of democracy in this country or because the woman didn’t want to be alone with him, Malik went, returning with the driver, who’d protested he was quite okay and happy to wait without food.
But already aware that he was dealing with a stubborn woman, Malik had insisted.
He found the woman in question bent double over a large chest freezer, pulling out various plastic-wrapped containers and muttering to herself.
‘We’re having shepherd’s pie,’ Nimr announced. ‘It’s my turn to choose and it’s my favourite.’
Malik looked at the boy he knew yet didn’t know and felt pain stab into his heart.
‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘Do you make it out of shepherds?’
The boy laughed.
‘No, silly! Mum makes it with meat, and puts potato on the top, and it’s yummy and you don’t have to cut it up so it’s easy to eat.’
Malik smiled at the boy, feeling a weird kind of pleasure that the child had offered him this small confidence.
‘Ha, knew I had one!’
The triumphant cry from the freezer had them moving into the kitchen where their pink-cheeked hostess, apparently fully recovered from her faint, had emerged from the freezer in triumph.
Seeing the two men, the driver trying to hide behind the door, her cheeks went a deeper pink.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I tend to cook a lot on my days off, and I always make different sizes of each dish for when Joe’s here—’
‘And when Joe and Aunt Jane both come,’ Nim finished for her, turning to the visitors to hold up four fingers. ‘That’s four, you see, and tonight it’s four too.’
Perhaps embarrassed by her son’s delight in the visitors, his mother had stripped layers of plastic from the frozen dish and set it going in the microwave. And with her back resolutely turned to the two men, she was peeling carrots and cutting chunks of broccoli off a large green head.
Wishing it was my head, no doubt, Malik thought, as she slashed the knife down.
Her shoulders rose as he watched and he knew she was taking a deep breath.
After which, she turned towards her visitors and said quietly, ‘It will be half an hour. Would you like to wait in the living room? Perhaps you’d like a glass of cold water?’
‘Thank you,’ Malik said, then aware of the driver lurking behind him, remembered his manners.
‘This is my driver, Peter—’
‘Cross,’ their hostess finished for him, stepping forward and, to Malik’s surprise, giving the man a hug.
‘Oh, sorry, Peter, I hadn’t realised it was you I made fall out of the car. How’s Susie?’
The man held up crossed fingers.
‘So far, so good, Lauren. You know how it goes.’
‘I do indeed,’ Lauren told him. ‘Now, a glass of water, each of you?’
‘That’d be lovely,’ Peter said, and well aware that he’d lost what little conversational control he might have had, Malik agreed, following the other man back into the living room.
It was Nimr who brought the water, two tall glasses balanced on a round tray.
Malik took his, thanked the boy, and wondered what on earth one said to start a conversation with a four-year-old.
Not that he needed to worry, for the boy sat down on the sofa next to the driver and, easily adopting the role of host, turned to Malik to explain.
‘Susie’s my best friend at kindy. She’s been sick. She wears cute hats because she’s got no hair. No one minds she’s got no hair anyway, and when she first had no hair we all shaved our heads, even the girls, to show it was okay, but she wears the hats because she likes them.’
Malik turned to Peter, who was smiling at the boy.
‘Leukaemia?’ he asked quietly.
A nod in reply, and, although knowing many of the childhood variants of leukaemia had a high rate of recovery, Malik didn’t want to probe too deeply.
Particularly as the earlier conversation and the man’s crossed fingers now made sense. Susie must be in remission at the moment, and Malik knew only too well the tightrope parents walked at such times.
‘And we have rabbits at kindy too,’ Nimr announced. ‘Sometimes in the holidays some of the kids get to take them home but Mum says we can’t because she has to work and Joe can’t be expected to look after a rabbit and me.’
Malik hid a smile. The boy was obviously repeating his mother’s words, but his aggrieved tone left his listeners in no doubt about his opinion of this edict.
‘Do you have rabbits?’ he asked.
Malik shook his head.
‘No rabbits, but we do have many interesting animals where I live, and many dogs that are tall and run very fast and are called saluki hounds.’
Nimr seemed to ponder this information for a moment, then said knowledgably, ‘Hound is another name for a dog. I like dogs, but—’
Malik was pretty sure he was about to hear Mum’s opinion of keeping a dog when they were called into the kitchen for dinner. Considering it was little over an hour since she’d fainted in the gateway, Sister Lauren Macpherson had done a sterling job.
The small wooden table had a blue bowl of flowers in the middle of it and four places neatly set, with water glasses in front of each place.
Nimr had gone in front of them and lifted a tall, plastic jug of water from the refrigerator.
‘See how strong I am,’ he said, holding it a little higher.
‘But not quite strong enough to pour,’ his mother said, as she saved the tilting jug and filled the water glasses.
‘Maybe when I’m five,’ Nimr said, climbing onto what must be his accustomed chair.
He was a confident young man, Malik realised, and polite as well. His work as a paediatrician had brought him into contact with countless children, and he’d learned to appreciate the ones with good manners and the quiet confidence he sensed in the boy.
And something very likeable.
He tried to think back to when he and Tariq had been children, but suspected that Tariq had probably not been likeable even then.
Lovable, yes!
He, Malik, had adored him, as had their mother, but he’d been a tease, daring his brother to do things that they’d known were wrong, laughing when Malik had refused.
Was it that challenge to try everything—good or bad—that had led him to drugs, or simply the jet-setting lifestyle he’d led from his late teens, money giving him the freedom their restricted upbringing had denied them?
