The Sheikh's Bartered Bride

Her thoughts whirled in confusion as the helicopter flew away from the oasis that supported the capital city of Jawhar and toward the region of Kadar.

She looked out the window, straining to see the ft glimpse of the mountains bordering Hakim's home.

The helicopter was hovering above an oasis surround by tents when Hakim leaned next to Catherine ar spoke into her ear so she could hear him. "Put yon sweater on."

The desert's evening air was chilly,- particularly s far above the ground, so she acquiesced without argument. Besides, even furious with him, her body responded to his nearness in a disastrous way. She didn't want to encourage more of it by arguing and keeping him close to her. She could smell his unique scent, the one her body identified with her lover, her mate an longing that should be as decimated as her heart, but wasn't, went through her.

Using the excuse of pulling her sweater into place, she maneuvered further away from him.

Once the long cardigan was on, he eyed her critically and then leaned forward again until his mouth practically touched her ear. "Can you close the front?"

She shivered as his breath intimately caressed their side of her ear. He had no right to do this to her. H knew how easily she responded to him. Was he tormenting her on purpose? She shrugged him away wit her shoulder.

"It's meant to be worn open." She had raised her voice to a near shout in order to be heard without having to move into his close proximity again. If her traitorous lips got anywhere near his ear, there was no telling what they would do.

The helicopter started to descend.

He said something she couldn't hear. She shook her head to let him know she hadn't gotten it.

He waited to speak again until they were landed and he'd pulled her from the helicopter to stand on the pebbled sand a hundred feet from the oasis and encampment. "It would be better if you could close it. My grandfather is very traditional."

His grandfather? Her attention skittered to the tents within her line of vision. Some were as small as a potting shed and others as large as a cottage with several rooms. They were all cast in a pink glow from the setting sun. One of those dwellings belonged to his grandfather.

"I thought we were going to your palace."

She was in no mood to make nice with more of his family.

"I changed my mind."

"Then change it again. I don't want to meet any more of your relatives."

"That is unfortunate because you are about to." Who was this man?

He was not the man who had agreed to wait so she could have the wedding of her dreams, nor was he the man who had been so patient with her shyness, who had tempered his passion with gentleness the first time they made love… and every time since.

This man was a stranger.

"I don't know you at all," she whispered.

His body jerked and his eyes narrowed. "I am the man you married."

But you are not the man t believed you to be. The man I met in Seattle would not have kidnapped me against my will and dropped me in the middle of the desert."

"And yet I am that man. I have been forced to measures I would not have otherwise taken by your irrational behavior."

"That's not true." How dare he say she was not rational?

"Enough of this? You see no perspective but your own. We will talk when you have calmed down."

Judging by the tight reign he had on himself, Hakim had some cooling down to do.

"At least tell me why we're here instead of your palace." They had not planned to come to the Bedouin encampment for another two days.

Her sense of being married to a stranger increased as the shadows cast by the setting sun gave him a hawklike appearance.

He raised his hand and with a flick of his wrist, the helicopter lifted into the air again. His expression was bleak. "There are no phones here."

Her gaze moved from his face to follow the disappearing helicopter. "And no source of transportation?"

But she knew the answer to the question before she asked it. He wasn't taking any chances on her running away.

"Not unless you know how to ride a camel."

She looked away from the sky and back at her husband, expecting dark humor or triumph to be glinting in his eyes after that comment. Neither mood was ir. evidence in the predator sharp lines of his face.

She licked lips that felt dry. "You know I can't."

"Yes."

"So, in addition to kidnapping me, you intend to make me your prisoner?"

"If that is necessary, yes."

She frowned. "I'd say it is already a fact."

"Only if you choose to see it that way."

"What other way is there to see it?" she asked belligerently.

"You are my wife. You are here to meet my family. It is something we planned days ago. There is nothing sinister in that," said the man who had just sent the only form of escape available to her flying off into the rapidly darkening sky.