No local would harm her. But this man clearly didn’t belong. Who knew how he’d react to finding a lone female?
But as she knotted the towel and watched his slow progress she realised something was wrong. Instincts honed by years of helping her father tend to the sick overrode her wariness. The stranger was no threat. He looked as if he could barely stay upright.
Moments later she was racing up the other side of the wadi towards him.
Her steps slowed as she neared and took in the full impact of his appearance.
Her breath hissed in her throat. Disbelief filled her. She blinked, but the image was clear and unmistakable.
A tall man, dark-haired, wearing a tuxedo and black leather shoes, was slipping down the dune towards her. His dress shirt was ripped open and filthy, revealing bronzed skin and the top of a broad chest. A dark ribbon, the end of a bow tie, fluttered against his collarbone.
His face was long and lean and so caked in sand she could barely make out his features. Yet the solid shape of his jaw and the high angle of his cheeks hinted at a devastating masculine beauty. His temple was a mass of dried blood that made her suck in a dismayed breath.
But it was his eyes that held her still as he slithered down the slope. Piercing blue, they mesmerised her. Such an unexpected colour here in a desert kingdom.
Even as he staggered towards her his tall frame looked improbably elegant and absurdly raffish. As if he’d drunk too much at a society party and wandered unsteadily off.
Then she registered the way he cradled his arms across his torso and fear escalated. Chest wounds? She could deal with cuts and abrasions. She was her father’s daughter after all. But they were days away from medical help and her skills only went so far.
Clumsily Annalisa raced up the dune, hauling the flapping towel tighter. Her heart thudded painfully as she fought to suppress panic.
She’d almost reached him when he stumbled and dropped to his knees, swaying woozily.
He stretched out his arms and looked up from under a tangle of matted dark hair.
‘Here, sweetheart.’ His voice was a hoarse whisper, thick and slurred, as if his tongue didn’t work properly. She leaned closer to hear. ‘Take care of it.’
His arms dropped and something, a small scruffy animal, rolled out as the stranger pitched to one side, seemingly lifeless, at her feet.
CHAPTER TWO
ANNALISA sat back on her heels and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear with shaky fingers. She trembled all over, her arms weak as jelly from exertion. Her pulse was still racing from shock and the fear she mightn’t be able to save him.
After a quick check she’d decided to risk moving the stranger to her campsite. His temperature was dangerously high and a night on the exposed dune could prove fatal.
But she hadn’t reckoned on the logistics of transporting a man well over six feet and at least a head taller than her.
It had taken an hour of strained exertion and all her ingenuity to get him down, dragging him on a makeshift stretcher. Most frightening of all he’d been a dead weight, not stirring.
‘Don’t you die on me now,’ she threatened as she checked his weak pulse and began cleaning the wound on his temple.
Head wounds bled prolifically. It probably wasn’t as bad as it looked, she told herself. Yet she found herself muttering a mix of prayer and exhortation in mingled Arabic, Danish and English, just as her dad had used to when faced with a hopeless case.
The familiar words calmed her, made her feel slightly more in control, though she knew that was an illusion. It would be a miracle if her patient pulled through.
‘It’s okay.’ A slurred voice broke across her thoughts. ‘I know I won’t survive.’ His eyes remained closed, but Annalisa watched his bloodied, cracked lips move and knew she hadn’t imagined his voice.
Hope surged, and a spark of anger born of fear.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Of course you’ll live.’ He’d echoed her fears so precisely she lashed out, heart pounding in denial.
After a moment his lips moved again, this time in a twitch that might have signified amusement.
‘If you say so.’ Now his voice was weaker, a thready whisper. ‘But don’t fret if you’re wrong.’ He drew a shaky breath that rattled in his lungs. ‘I won’t mind at all.’
The words trailed off and he lay so still in the lamplight Annalisa couldn’t make out his breathing. Frantically she fumbled for his pulse. Relief pounded through her when she felt it.
She told herself it was better he’d slipped into unconsciousness again. He wouldn’t feel pain as she tended his wounds.
It was only later, as she placed a damp cloth on his forehead, trying to lower his temperature, that she realised the man had spoken to her in perfect English.