“You must have bought quite a few palm trees.”
The side of his mouth nearest her hitched slightly. A smile or a scowl, she couldn’t be sure. “And I’ll buy a few more if fate allows.”
The palm trees receded behind them as the landscape opened up to the kind of bare, brown nothingness she’d expected. Some places were meant to be bare and brown, yet she could rarely persuade her clients of that. They’d rather install thousands of sprinkler heads in a quixotic attempt to create paradise in a place that was never meant to be one.
Celia squinted. Had the sun created a mirage, or was she staring straight ahead at a range of mountains?
“The Fog Mountains.” His low voice interrupted her disbelief. Salim must have noticed her staring.
“Wow,” was all she could manage.
A band of clouds hung low over the tree-cloaked crags, green as Vermont, like something out of a fairy tale.
She gulped.
She’d been so wrapped up in her personal angst about coming here that she’d totally neglected to research the region. Better keep quiet about that, too.
Salim had always told her his country was full of surprises. Once upon a time she’d assumed they’d discover them together, but not like this.
How odd to be sitting inches away from him after everything that had happened. His solid, masculine presence next to her was only too familiar.
His unique scent, warm and spicy, drew her back into the past. He shared her bed for two whole years. They’d grown from childhood to adulthood together, sharing intimacies and joys and … incredible sex.
Her face heated at the memory. She’d fully expected to spend the rest of her life with him.
Then he’d ended it all in the most horrible way imaginable.
They climbed the lush green heights in silence and descended back to the rumpled beige floor of the desert. Relentless in its bleakness, it stretched to the heat-blurred horizon, broken only by the occasional isolated building.
As they drove, Celia found herself waiting for something marvelous to happen, like palm trees or mountains appearing out of the dusty haze.
Isn’t that why she’d come here? Hoping for a miracle of some sort?
Salim turned off the main road and headed west on a dirt track to … nowhere.
After some minutes he pulled over, next to a dilapidated metal shed whose roof had fallen in, and climbed out in silence.
Confusion clouded Celia’s mind as he opened her door and ushered her out onto the hot, sandy ground.
“This is the place?” Her incredulity showed in her voice.
Salim’s face darkened. “It was beautiful, once.”
Hard to believe. An abandoned jeep with no seats or wheels lay tilted on its side just to the left of them. Strange wheel-topped objects hunkered here and there amongst the rocky sand.
“Those are wellheads. All capped. There’s an old pipeline running to the coast. It can all be removed. The oil is exhausted.”
Salim strode amongst the detritus, his elegant dark suit an almost humorous contrast to the shabby surroundings.
“You’re planning to build a hotel here?” Was this some kind of elaborate joke?
Beads of sweat broke out along her upper lip and she tried to dab them away gracefully.
“Come this way.” The land gathered here and there into little rubble-strewn rises. She followed him behind one, and around the rise, signs of activity surprised her. Piles of dirt indicated a fresh excavation. She peered past a mound into a wide, shallow hole. The chiseled edges of dressed stone stood in sharp contrast to the rocky sand around them. “Stone blocks? Where did those come from?”
“There’s a complex of buildings under the sand here. Maybe even a whole city.”
Salim’s gruff voice couldn’t hide his enthusiasm.
“The famous lost city of the desert?” A rush of excitement danced over Celia’s skin. She glanced up and realized that similar excavations surrounded them. Low walls emerged from the dusty terrain, tracing the ancient contours of buildings.
Ancient roads revealed themselves in the sand around them, cobbles worn smooth by time and the passage of many feet.
“We’re on the frankincense trade route from the coast. There were caravan routes throughout the area, leading north into the Empty Quarter, to Saudi Arabia and beyond. Cities sprang up around oases where the merchants would stop to water their camels.”
“But there’s no water here.” She glanced around, searching for the clichéd shimmering lake surrounded by palm trees.
“There was once.” He kicked at a clod of rocky dirt with his black leather shoe. “It’s still here, buried under the ground. The remains of an aquifer.”
Celia stared at the arid soil. “There’s enough water left to irrigate?”
“More than enough.”
Something in his voice jerked her gaze to his. Was it her imagination or did triumph dance in his eyes? Anticipation, anyway.
It echoed like butterflies in her tummy.
“There’s enough water to supply the hotel and staff housing. The excavations stretch over a five-hundred-foot area. I plan to reconstruct some of the buildings so visitors can see how people lived and worked back then.”
“And perhaps you could leave some in a state of semi-excavation, so visitors could see how you found them. It’s startling to see such perfectly made blocks emerging out of the sand.”
He looked at her, thoughtful. “Yes. Let people see how the past lay hidden here for so many centuries.”
His vision for this desolate wasteland animated his features and made his eyes shine. He looked heart-achingly handsome, the sun burnishing his tanned features.
He peeled off his jacket and threw it down on a half-buried wall. Celia tore her gaze from the sight of his broad back straining against his thin white shirt.
Her faithless eyes tracked him as he strode, bold and athletic, across the rugged terrain. “Come here.”
Celia scrambled over the rocky ground in her one pair of “smart” shoes. She certainly wouldn’t be dressed like this if she’d known they were coming to the site.
“This is where the excavation started.” He pointed to a wide, shallow pit, where layers of dirt had been brushed away to reveal the remains of several wide walls. “I hired a student to collect data about our family history. He became fascinated with this land and told me satellite imagery suggested signs of an ancient crossroads here. I hired an archeological team to excavate, and his suspicion was proven correct.”
“What a find. Are you sure a hotel is the best use for the site? Perhaps archaeologists would like to study it in greater detail.”
Salim’s brow clouded. “I wish to bring this place back to life, not preserve it as a mummified corpse to be picked over by vultures.”
“Of course,” she stammered, chastened. She knew virtually nothing about his background. His home and family was a tacitly off-limits subject when they were in college.
She had found out why.
“I wish for people to travel here with a sense of purpose and anticipation. I want to share the history of our country and its people with anyone who cares to visit, not a few rarified academics.” His dark eyes shone. “I hope people will come from other countries to visit.”
He