“I know her only from a photograph. It was arranged through a clinic. She did not tell you?” He put one hand beneath the baby’s backside and tried to raise his bottom while sliding the diaper beneath it.
Free-spirited Jazz would never have agreed to bear this child for pay! “I don’t believe you. Why would my sister want to be a surrogate mother?”
“I was told she wanted money to make a demonstration recording.” He broke off as Ben kicked lustily, flinging one of his booties into a corner and dislodging the diaper from the man’s grip.
“You’re doing that wrong!”
“Evidently.” Keeping one hand on the baby, the man leaned back and squinted at the child. “It appears to be a problem of structural engineering.”
“You’re an engineer?” Holly needed to make sense of this situation, and to learn anything she could.
“I am many things,” the man replied enigmatically. “But I am not an abuser of women. I will release you from your bonds if you will care for my son. As you have pointed out, I don’t seem to be doing very well at it.”
His accent sounded Middle Eastern. “Where are you from?”
“Your sister told you nothing of me?” Wrapping the fussing baby in the blanket, he carried him, along with the diaper, to Holly.
“Nothing at all. And believe me, I tried to find out who the father was.” She started to reach for Ben, and stopped with a gasp.
The man set the baby on the center of the bed. “My cousin Zahad must have tied the rope too tightly. He was in a hurry.”
At close range, she could see small cuts on the man’s neck from where shards of glass had hit him. Other than that, his skin had a smooth olive cast, with some roughness where he’d recently shaved.
The man smelled of shampoo, and his thick hair, what she could see of it, was damp, so he must have showered since they arrived. Yet there was an under-current of wild musk about him that no soap could wash away.
From inside the robe flashed a knife. Holly scarcely had time to register the danger before the man sliced the cord between her wrists, then the one at her ankles. The knife disappeared into the folds of cloth.
Prickles of agonizing sensation shot through her hands and feet. “Your cousin—that would be the driver? Is he here?”
“He thought it best to stay in a different place.” The bed dipped as the man sat beside her. With a shiver, Holly saw the smoldering fire in his gaze as he watched her. “Although this canyon is remote, if he and I were seen together, it might draw suspicion.”
“You mean from the police?” Although her captor spoke calmly, she reminded herself that law-abiding men didn’t go around snatching brides and babies.
“Yes. Among others.” Before she could query further, the man said, “I don’t think it is good for the boy to lie here in only his little shirt. Do you know how to put on a diaper?”
“I should hope so.” She flexed her stinging limbs. “But it might take me a minute to get full sensation back in my hands. Thanks to your overeager cousin.”
“He takes pride in his thoroughness,” the man said.
“He should take a little more pride in showing consideration for others!” she flared.
Her captor smiled. Pure white teeth gleamed against his tanned skin. “You sound like my cousin Amy. She finds fault with Zahad also.”
The prickly sensations eased. Skillfully, Holly caught the baby’s ankles in her left hand, hoisted up his bottom and slid the diaper into place. Ben chuckled and reached for her.
“Amazing,” said the man in the sheikh’s robe. “You do that with such ease. And he is clearly attached to you.”
“He knows I love him.” Holly cradled the baby in her arms.
The man watched them, his expression unreadable. “I, too, love him.”
“How can you, when you don’t even know him?”
“And you think you do?” The man unfolded himself from the bed and began to pace, his restless energy filling the room. “What do you know of this boy’s history? Of his heritage or his future? To you, he is a tiny baby, but someday he will be a great man!”
“He’ll be whatever he wants to be. You can’t force a child to meet someone else’s expectations.” Holly held Ben close. There no longer seemed to be any point in safeguarding her wedding dress, which was thoroughly rumpled and flecked with blood from Sharif’s injuries.
“Your sister understood my son’s importance, according to the clinic’s director,” said her companion.
“The clinic,” she repeated. “This is so unlike Jazz.”
“Jazz?”
“My sister. It’s short for Hannah Jasmine,” she said. “We’ve called her that since she was a kid. She hated going to the doctor. And she wasn’t even close to what you might call maternal.”
Outside, something thwacked against a window. Holly’s heart skittered into her throat.
Moving quickly and silently, her captor switched off the lamp. As its circular glow faded, scarlet fire-light crept eerily across the walls.
“Lie down!” the man whispered as he edged toward the window.
Holly obeyed, shielding Ben with her body. Had the people who’d fired at their car found the cabin as well? Or could it be the police?
The scraping noise returned, following by a pattering on the roof. Her captor lifted a slat of blinds and peered into the night.
Finally, he turned the lamp back on. “It was a branch in the wind. The rain has started, as you can hear. It should be quite a storm.”
Holly swallowed her disappointment. She had hoped it was the police coming to rescue her and Ben. But at least it wasn’t armed assailants, either.
“Who shot at us earlier?” she asked. “And who are you? I don’t even know your name.”
The man drew himself up proudly. Somehow his confident air made his robe and headdress appear less outlandish. In fact, Holly could have sworn they suited him better than the jeans and sweatshirt he’d worn that afternoon.
“I am Sheikh Sharif Al-Khalil of Alqedar.” He delivered this bizarre information without a trace of self-consciousness. “That is a small nation in south-central Arabia, in case you do not know. Although my son has been born in America, I have every right to take him home.”
The words “sheikh” and “Arabia” seemed like phrases from a fairy tale. “Who are you really?”
An eyebrow lifted, and then he laughed. “You do not believe me? I’m not surprised. But it is true.”
She tried a different tack. “Ben was born here. That makes him a U.S. citizen. You can’t just whisk him off, not if his mother opposes it.”
The man shrugged. “It seems that his mother has found better ways to occupy her time.”
“I’m his next closest relative!”
“And you would have married yourself a lawyer to defend your so-called rights,” he observed with a trace of sarcasm. “How very American of you.”
Although the implication infuriated Holly, she wouldn’t stoop to debate it. “What’s between Trevor and me is none of your business. And even if you are a sheikh and Ben really is your son, nothing gives you the right to hold me prisoner!”
“You chose to jump in the car with us. That was your decision.” The man regarded her with what might have been sympathy, or