A Sheikh for Christmas (All I want for Christmas is... 1)

“Next we have the falafel balls.” Daveed put one on each of their plates. “These are made from ground chickpeas, onions, garlic, parsley and spices then rolled into a ball and deep fried. You can eat them inside pita bread too or just on their own.”

“Awesome.” She pointed to the bowl of hummus. “And that’s dip?”

“Yep. This is made with chickpeas also, mixed with spices and garlic, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Typically, in my homeland, people dip wedges of pita bread into it and eat it like salsa and chips.” To demonstrate, he took a wedge of bread and dipped it into the bowl then shoved it into his mouth. The vibrant flavors of the spices and beans filled his mouth and reminded him of home. She’d been right. He had missed this. Not that he’d tell her that though. “Now you try.”

“Okay.” She did the same as him, her eyes widening as she got her first taste of his homeland. “Wow! That’s incredible. I love it.”

“I’m glad.” He smiled as they started eating. After several bites, he got up and grabbed them each an ale from the fridge, opening them both before setting one in front of her. She’d given him a piece of his life back that he hadn’t even known he missed and he wanted to give her something in return. “You did very well today. With deciphering those notes. Thank you.”

Her blush returned and she avoided his gaze. “It wasn’t a big deal. I’m sure anybody could’ve done it.”

Curious, he didn’t let the matter drop, even though it was obvious that was what she wanted. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” she asked around a bite of shawarma.

“Brush off compliments about your intelligence.” He swallowed a bite of falafel and washed it down with a swig of ale before continuing. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it felt important for him to know more about her, about what had made her into the woman she was today. She truly had impressed him. From what she’d told him, her educational history wasn’t anything to write home about, yet she was smart and she was a fast learner—both important qualities in his line of work. “Tell me why you can’t accept nice things said about you.”

She gave another small shrug. “I don’t know.” She pushed a corner of pita bread around in the hummus on her plate and frowned. “I guess maybe it stems from when I was a kid and my mom told me that I didn’t have to be smart because I was pretty. That my looks would take me a lot farther than my brain ever would in life.” She gave a sad little laugh. “Of course, I idolized her back then, so I took her words to heart. It’s funny, in a twisted sort of way. Before we had that conversation, I always wanted to be a marine biologist.”

“Really?” he watched her over the rim of his bottle. “What made you choose that?”

“Too many Flipper reruns on cable, I think.” She laughed and the sound shimmered through the air around him like sunshine. “Anyway, once my mom told me that, I let my studies slide. After a while, I gave up on that dream altogether, figuring my grades wouldn’t be good enough anyway, so why even try? At that point my parents started talking about how they’d marry me off to a nice rich boy someday.” Melody took a long gulp of her ale then shook her head. “Heath came into the picture a few years later and the rest is history. You know, I think my parents were way more devastated by my running off to Tahiti than I was. After all, they always loved Heath more than they loved me.”

“Nonsense,” Daveed scoffed, his stomach full at last and the alcohol taking the edge off nicely. “You are their child, their flesh and blood. Of course they loved you more.”

She slid off her stool to help him clear the bar and put away their leftovers. “Maybe. Doesn’t really matter now anyway. What I’m most worried about is Heath hating me for what I did. I never meant to hurt him or embarrass him at all. That was never my intention. It was just that he was gone so much, being in the Navy and all.” She straightened from setting the bowl of hummus in the fridge and her arm brushed Daveed’s. Sparks ignited in his blood stream like a match to gasoline and he clenched his hands at his sides to keep from pulling her into his arms. It was the sad look on her face. He’d always been a sucker for women needing comfort. That had to be it. She continued talking, as if completely unaware of the sizzling chemistry between them. “Then when Heath kept re-enlisting, even when he didn’t have to, I figured he was doing it to get away from me. Not exactly a confidence booster. So, one night a girlfriend invited me to go with her to see one of Jefferson’s plays and later we went backstage to meet him, and well, you know the rest.”

“I’m sorry you were feeling unloved,” he said, his gruff words startling him as much as her, if her shocked expression was any indication. He’d not meant to say that out loud. Maybe the alcohol was hitting him harder than he’d thought tonight. Daveed cleared his throat and moved away from her, putting some distance between them. “And I’m sure having it all play out in the tabloids didn’t help either.”

* * *

“No,

it didn’t,” Melody said, rubbing her arms as she exhaled. “Didn’t help my public persona either. Now everyone sees me as nothing but a crazy ditz who runs off with virtual strangers in the middle of the night.”

“Nah,” Daveed said, frowning. “I’m sure they don’t think that.”

She gave him a flat look.

“Okay, fine. Maybe they do.”

“You did.”

At least he had the decency to cringe a bit at her candor. The fact he owned up to his biases about her only made her like him more for some insane reason. Daveed looked away and ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

He shrugged those broad shoulders of his beneath that soft flannel shirt and she dug her fingers into her biceps to keep from reaching out and sliding her hands beneath the material to feel every ripple and sinew of his body. Daveed cleared his throat and gave her a self-effacing smile. “I admit that when you first showed up, all I could think was here’s that flakey rich chick from the tabloids who dumped my best friend.”

“And now?” she asked, leaning against the counter across from him. “What do you think of me?”

“Well.” He gave her a slow head-to-toe appraisal that curled her toes against the hardwood floor. “Other than your lack of common sense and your appalling housekeeping and cooking skills, I’d say you’re all right.”

“Just all right?”

“Good. You’re good.” His slow smile caused a warm tingle in her core. “Better than good, actually. I mean you have helped me figure out those words from Aileen’s notes, which is the first clue that we’ve gotten in a while. And now I have an address to check out tomorrow.”

“You mean we have an address to check out. I know that building. It’s an office high-rise. My father’s law firm is in there, and there’s a couple of other global corporations with headquarters on a couple of the floors. One’s a financial firm, I think, and the other’s some energy technology development company.”

“I’m going alone.” He shook his head and straightened. “I might appreciate your ‘creative’ approach to life, but I don’t want you tagging along and getting in the way of my investigation.”