Thankfully Nawar caught their attention then, trying to drag the oversize basket of food prepared for them from the tent by herself.
They chatted while they ate and then Asad put his yawning daughter down for her nap. Afterward, he made himself comfortable under the awning with his laptop, the sheikh of the Sha’b Al’najid working on very modern business in an equally old setting.
Russell caught Iris watching Asad and shook his head.
“What?”
“You’ve got it bad…you do know that?”
“I had it bad, six years ago.”
“But not now? Wake up and smell the cordite, Iris. The man is so far under your skin, he’s got a direct path to your heart.” Russell set the core sampler in the ground.
“No,” she said more loudly than she intended. “I’m not going to love him again.”
“You’re trying to say you ever stopped?”
She glared at Russell, who blithely ignored her while he drew a clean sample of topsoil. “Enough of the personal observations. We’ve got plenty to do here without you turning into Dr. Phil on me.”
“Hey, I resent that.” He flicked her a grin over his shoulder. “I’ve got all my hair.”
“You’ve got a big mouth is what you’ve got.”
He stopped what he was doing and really looked at her, his expression back to the unfamiliar seriousness. “I’m your friend, Iris. I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Your truth isn’t necessarily my truth.”
“Oh, very Zen of you.” He was back to being a smart aleck.
“Stop, or I’m going to tell Genevieve you want grasshoppers in your dinner.”
“That lady sure does like you. It’s almost as if she’s looking forward to you joining the family,” he said meaningfully.
“Russell,” she practically yelled. One thing Iris could not afford was to allow Russell to plant ideas in her head that would only get her heart shattered a second time around.
“Fine, fine…I’ll stop.”
Despite their late start, Iris and Russell gathered a good day’s worth of samples, measurement and observations. Preliminary indications made her think that mining might very well be in Kadar’s future.
But Iris didn’t say anything of that nature to Asad or his family over dinner when they asked how her first day on the job had gone. Russell was dining with another family, getting the opportunity to experience more elements of the Bedouin culture.
Iris did not complain about not being afforded the same opportunity. There was nowhere she’d rather be and that was her personal cross to bear. Certainly, she didn’t need Russell’s observations on the matter.
*
Iris snuggled against Asad, their early-morning lovemaking having left her feeling drowsy and relaxed. “Are you coming with us again today?”
“But of course. I told you I would be your guide and protector while you are here.”
“How can you afford the time?” Challenging enough to be a business mogul, or a sheikh, but to be both?
She doubted many men could handle the pressure.
“I will bring my computer and do work as I did yesterday.”
“You spent a good portion of yesterday keeping Nawar occupied.”
“She is my joy.”
“She is incredibly sweet, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“What question is that, az—Iris?”
She noticed him stumbling over the old endearment again, but pretended not to. “How you can have the time to babysit Russell and me like this? You can send someone else if you really feel we need looking after. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Excuse me, but it does.”
“Come on, Asad. You’ve got what you want. You don’t need to keep playing nursemaid.”
“And what is it you believe I want?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes, though he wouldn’t see it with her head pillowed on his shoulder. Like he thought she wouldn’t know. “Me. Here.”
“I do want that, but there is more I desire, as well.”
“What?”
“Your safety, for one.”
“Seriously?” She sat up and stared down at Asad. “You don’t really think Russell and I are at any risk in the field. Kadar is not exactly a hotbed of crime. And the desert even less so.”
“Not all who come to these mountains are as honorable as the Sha’b Al’najid.”
“And Russell and I aren’t exactly doing our survey in the path of most travelers.” They were in foothills of the desert mountains, hours from the nearest village, twice as far from anything resembling a town or city.
“Who do you think knows of the two Western geologists doing their survey here in Kadar?”
“The sheikh and your family. I doubt even the whole camp knows why Russell and I are here.” They just weren’t that interesting.
Asad got up from the bed and drew on his thobe. “You would be wrong. Every member of my people knows of your purpose and the way you spend your days. Be assured many others do, as well. Gossip travels among the Bedouin like the sand in a storm in the desert.”
“So?”
“All who have heard this juicy tidbit of news are not so scrupulous as you would like to believe. The least dangerous are those that might merely covet your equipment for the money it could bring them.” He tossed her a hooded robe that swallowed her up when she put it on.
Meant to hit him midcalf, it brushed the carpet on her.
“Who is the most dangerous?” she asked, finding it difficult to keep her amusement at his paranoid worries hidden.
“Slavers.”
“Oh, please.” Now he was really reaching.
“Modern slavery is a nine-billion-dollar-a-year industry and a worldwide problem.”
“But the crime rate in Kadar is almost nonexistent.”
“There are always exceptions.” He frowned. “You will not be one of them.”
“If you’re so worried about it, then I’m surprised you’re willing to bring Nawar.”
He slid traditional leather slip
pers onto his feet. “You do not imagine that we travel into the mountains alone.”
“We did yesterday.”
“Did we?”
“Yes?”
“No. My guards are well trained and maintain their distance to give us the illusion of privacy.”
“You’re not joking.”
“Why would I make light of something so important?”
Why indeed, but the idea of having men lurking in the shadows and watching her was kind of creepy. “So you’re saying we’ve got a troupe of Ninjas hiding in plain sight protecting us?”
“Not Ninja, warriors of the Sha’b Al’najid.”
“You still have warriors in your tribe?” she asked with keen interest, her discomfort pushed aside in favor of feeding her curiosity.
“Every man is trained in the ways of stealth, fighting and the scimitar. It is tradition among my people. There is an elite force, my family’s bodyguards, that are trained in the ways of modern warfare, as well.”
“Your tribe is a lot wealthier than anyone would guess, aren’t they?”
“My family is.”
“But your family accepts responsibility for the Sha’b Al’najid.”
“Yes.”
“Amazing.”
“It is what it is.”
“Badra was such an idiot.”
“You think so?” Asad stopped in front of Iris, looking down at her with surprising intensity.
“I do.” Iris reached up and traced his lips, smiling when he nipped at her fingertip. “She had you and all of this and still, she wanted something else.”
He leaned down and kissed her, not passionately, but not chastely, either. It was intimate and gentle and quick…and it felt really nice. “I am flattered you feel that way.”
Iris wished she could share his equanimity about it. She was beginning to have some serious reservations about her current course of action. Yes, her heart was healing bit by bit, but was it just going to shatter again into a million pieces when she left Kadar?
She’d thought she could keep love out of the equation, but a mere two nights in his bed and Iris was already grasping for a lifeline while she felt herself drowning in dormant emotions.
“It would be a lot easier for me if you could simply act like the selfish user I convinced myself you were after you dumped me,” she complained with more honesty than she probably should have offered.