Secrets of the Oasis

‘You came on the horse,’ she said stupidly, her arm tightening fractionally around his neck.

She felt Salman’s chest move. ‘Don’t remind me.’

With infinite gentleness and awesome strength he placed her in the saddle, and then with seemingly effortless grace he smoothly vaulted on himself, behind her. The horse was skittish, and pranced, but Salman took the reins and brought him back under control swiftly. Jamilah was too stunned by this side of Salman she’d never seen before to say a word, but clearly he was an innately talented horseman.

The revelation almost, but not quite, distracted her from the sensation of Salman’s rock-hard chest behind her, his powerful thighs cupping hers, and his arms encasing her within their embrace. She felt safe, protected and cosseted, and yet again she was proving to herself that she’d learnt nothing.

They encountered the search party along with the local doctor not far from the village, and Salman directed the doctor and the girl who’d tended Jamilah that first night to follow them, thanking everyone else for coming to their aide, and telling them they could now relax. He sent one of the boys to tell the chopper pilot to get ready for take-off.

Jamilah’s heart turned over as she heard how innately regal Salman sounded. He seemed to be morphing in front of her eyes into the man he was always born to be. Within minutes Jamilah was being tended to by the shy girl and the local doctor, whom she would have trusted any day over the hospital in Merkazad. He pronounced to Salman that she should have X-rays just in case, but that he didn’t think her injuries were more than a sprain and a bump.

With her jeans cut to above the knee on her injured leg, her ankle bandaged and a plaster on her head, Salman carried Jamilah out to the Jeep which was waiting. Despite everything that had happened, as they took off in the helicopter a short while later she felt an awful welling of emotion at leaving the little oasis, her eyes smarting with tears. She turned her face from Salman, terrified he might see her emotion.

Salman was grimmer than he’d ever been in his life. Jamilah had nearly killed herself in her attempt to get away from him, and he’d just found out that he’d been a father for the shortest amount of time—and the knowledge wasn’t sending the sickening rejection to his gut that he might have expected. On the contrary, he felt a sense of loss. He glanced at the woman to his left. She was looking away from him, with her body angled away as far as possible.

He sighed. If there had been a moment in the past few weeks when Jamilah might not have hated him quite as intensely as she had since Paris, he’d well and truly quashed it.

‘Salman, go away. You don’t need to be here.’

He was implacable. ‘Well, tough. I’m not going anywhere. And I do need to be here—you could have concussion.’

Jamilah sighed and wished her pulse would calm down. ‘One of the girls can watch me.’

‘I’m watching you. If it hadn’t been for me you never would have gone off on that hare-brained horse.’

Jamilah sighed again, recognising Salman’s immovability. He was sitting on a chair by her bed, arms on his knees, hands linked, watching her intently. She lay back and closed her eyes, hoping that if she feigned sleep he might leave. But knowing he wouldn’t.

They’d gone straight to the hospital in Merkazad that afternoon, where Jamilah had been probed and X-rayed to within an inch of her life, all while Salman had issued autocratic orders and insisted on lifting Jamilah from place to place as if she were a complete invalid.

And now she was ensconced in the royal suite at the castle, having been bathed as well as she could be with her ankle bandaged, and fed a delicious dinner. All under Salman’s watchful supervision. Only the shocked look from Lina, Iseult’s personal maid, had stopped Salman from coming into the bathroom while she’d been washed.

For a long moment nothing was said, and tension escalated in Jamilah’s body. When Salman spoke it was almost a relief—until she registered what he’d said.

‘There’s a good reason why I didn’t think your baby was mine.’

Jamilah replied testily, ‘Yes, because you arrogantly believe yourself to be infallible, and couldn’t conceive for a second that something so human could happen to you.’

Jamilah heard him emit a short, curt laugh, but it came from the end of the bed where he now stood. Her eyes flicked open and her heart spasmed when she saw the pained look on his face.

‘You’re not far wrong in your analysis…but there was a bit more to it than that.’

Jamilah frowned, fingers unconsciously plucking at the ornately decorated coverlet on the bed. ‘What do you mean?’

Salman ran a hand through his hair. ‘The fact is that I made sure never to be susceptible to such a human failing. I made a decision a long time ago never to have children.’ He sighed heavily. ‘To that end I had a vasectomy when I was twenty-two. I spoke with the doctor who performed the operation today, while you were having your X-rays, and he informed me that there was every possibility it could have failed—and I wouldn’t know as I’ve never been for follow-up checks.’ He quirked a smile, but it was hard. ‘Thanks to that arrogance you mentioned. I’ll have to have tests to make sure, but after what you’ve told me, I think I know what they’ll find…’

Shock coursed through Jamilah. No wonder he’d not believed it could have been his baby. This turned everything she’d thought she knew on its head, and threw up a whole slew of other implications that she didn’t want to think about now.

She watched as he came back around the bed and sat down again heavily in the chair. An air of defeat clung to him, and he looked tired. A million miles from the cool arrogance he portrayed so well. ‘Why did you do that?’

He looked down for a long moment before looking up, and the darkness in her eyes nearly made her want to say, Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. But she didn’t. She was too weak—she wanted to know.

‘Because,’ he began, ‘I never wanted any child of mine to go through what I’d gone through, and I believed that somehow the horrors I’d witnessed might be passed down, like some form of osmosis, in my DNA. I feared that I might not be able to protect my own child from evil, as my own father had failed to protect me.’

For a long moment neither one said anything, and then Jamilah said quietly, ‘You must know now that that won’t happen.’

The bleakness in his eyes reached out to envelop her. ‘That’s just it. I don’t know. How can I know? How can anyone know? And I’m not prepared to risk such a thing. Not for anyone.’

Pain lanced Jamilah inside—so acute she almost called out. Because right now she harboured a secret. She held within her the living proof that Salman’s seed lived and was healthy. She’d found out in the hospital earlier, when the nurse had done a routine pregnancy test as a precaution before the X-rays.