Maybe some things could be scarier in the daylight.
Shakir scooped her up next to his side and ran toward a cleft in the rocks. As they came closer, she managed a better look at the indentation in the rocks. The space seemed tiny. But never hesitating for a second, he pushed her into the small crevice.
“Cover!” He jammed in close behind her, blocking her body with his own.
Nikki had enough room and time left to raise her hands and cover her face with the wet cloth. In the next instant, a deafening roar overtook them.
The sounds of angry sands, fiercely pounding against solid stone, assaulted her eardrums. Winds roared in her ears even under the protective head scarf she still wore. Biting the inside of her cheek, she waited.
Those initial dire seconds of the storm soon turned to long desperate minutes of panic, and finally dragged on interminably for what seemed like hours. Between bouts of panic, boredom and spurts of claustrophobia, she had time to think. Time enough for the stillness of a memory.
A memory from long ago. One sunny summer day when the sky over the English countryside was not blurred with sand, but was so clear and blue it could bring one to tears. That afternoon had been meant for young lovers. It was one of those days meant to fool them into believing that true love would last forever.
But even then, as lost as she’d been in her dreams of lust and in an intense pair of chocolate eyes, in the back of her mind she must have known that love was not the road to happiness. Not for her.
Still, for those few precious months with Shakir, she had let herself believe in the dream.
She’d wanted desperately for Shakir to make things different for them. In her naïveté, he had been everything she’d thought she needed. Everything she had ever wanted. Tall, broad and so good-looking that other girls swooned over him, he was a dashing prince of the desert. An intelligent, modern-day sheik who would carry her off to a fantasy life in some faraway romantic land.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t taken long for her to awaken from the dream. Her eyes had been opened when her parents began demanding that she come home and take up her royal life. The life she had been raised to obediently follow.
Nikki did her duty, stepped up and complied with her parents’ bidding. She sent Shakir away. But secretly, as she had spoken those hateful words of goodbye, she’d hoped against hope that he would not leave willingly. She wanted him to take a stand and make his own demands.
Wishing for him to love her enough to fight for her, Nikki had held her breath. She waited for Shakir to plead his case and offer to steal off with her and hide from her responsibilities.
But he never did. Shakir never demanded anything. He simply hadn’t loved her enough to fight. He’d heard her out, then turned silently and walked out of her life for good.
What had become of him since? she wondered. It was a question that had haunted her for many years. Perhaps once the storm was over, she would finally get the answers to her burning questions. But she would have to be smart when she asked those questions. Smarter than she had ever been in her past.
With disappointment after disappointment, she’d grown much wiser over the years. And she knew how to be careful. Particularly careful with what she said.
Shakir felt Nicole’s legs giving way just as the last of the sandstorm’s winds rolled off into the distance like the waning echo of a ringing bell. His own limbs were stiff from standing, but he eased back and let her limp body slide into his arms.
“We were lucky,” he said as he lifted her and carried her out of their narrow rock shelter. “The storm was a small one.”
Still holding the by-now dry T-shirt, her hands dropped to her chest and she blinked her eyes against the bright sun. “You call that small?” Choking on her words, she tried to swallow past the build up of dust in her throat. “How long were we standing there?”
“A few hours.” He understood how she felt. His throat was parched and gritty, too, and tiny grains of sand layered every bodily crevice.
He helped Nicole ease herself onto a nearby flat-surfaced rock. Then he pulled off his goggles and earpieces and looked around the small area surrounding the water hole.
Checking his watch, he discovered the sand had blasted the clear face and he could no longer make out the time. “Sandstorms can sometimes last for days.”
“Days? I wouldn’t have been able to stand for that long.”
He would’ve seen to it that Nicole stood for however long the storm took. Even if the winds carried on for a week. He had sworn to let nothing happen to her. Nothing.
The sun shone from directly overhead, making Shakir give thanks to the desert mother that it was spring season and not the dead of summer. Still, during the hottest part of the day, extreme heat could rise to uncomfortable levels even in the spring months.
Within a minute or two of scouting the area, he found what he’d been seeking. A makeshift shelter from the sun formed underneath a natural rock ledge. As was the case at many desert water holes, long ago desert travelers had constructed a shelter to provide shade for daylight resting periods. Generations of travelers had used the shelter ever since.
Shakir hadn’t bothered to look for the shelf to use as their shelter from the sandstorm. More of a cave-like structure, the shelter was too low to the ground to provide enough protection from blowing sands. He had learned in his boyhood that standing on higher ground made far more sense as defense against the winds. But used as a cool place to rest until dusk, this shallow cave would do fine.
Hanging tenuously on to the rough surfaces of the rock she’d been using, Nicole rose to her feet. Her knees wobbled for a moment, but eventually she managed to stand.
Once she was on her feet, deep ragged coughs began racking her body. He scolded himself for neglecting to see to her needs. What kind of a proficient desert rescuer was he? He handed over the canteen and helped her take a few swallows.
“Keep the canteen with you and take small swallows periodically over the next few hours while we are at rest. Don’t gulp the water. Your body cannot absorb it yet.”
She nodded that she understood. Shakir noticed then that his dehydrated body had also begun rebelling against the growing heat of midday. Shoving aside the piles of new sand, he removed the rock covering from the water well. After reopening the well, he moved as quickly as possible, refilling a collapsible bladder from his pack with the precious liquid.
Now they needed shelter. “Come on. It’s time.” He reached out, ready to take her by the hand.
Staring up at him, her eyes took on that distrustful expression once again. “Time for what? How did you find me in the dark anyway?”
Shakir grew irritated with her questions. He was the one who knew how to survive the desert. Knew it far too well, in fact. But as long as they were to remain in Zabbarán, for her own safety, she needed to defer to his judgment and experience.
After taking a deep, calming breath, he finally remembered that Nicole was a fragile creature. High-strung and spoiled. The princess was probably experiencing a form of PTSD due to her capture and imprisonment. He’d learned all about the psychology of victims during his training in modern warfare for the British. It would serve him well to keep that training in mind and try to put aside his ancient warrior training at the hands of his mother’s father.
Nicole was a woman with no experience at hard living. As a princess royal she was more accustomed to servants and satin sheets, and he needed to cut her some slack.
“I found you by using the infrared goggles,” he explained. “Spotted your footsteps in the sand as you walked away from the chopper. You made no attempt to hide your trail. Within a half mile I knew where you must be heading. Water is too precious in this country. You