For a moment Kady was sure he was going to kiss her, but instead, he turned away, leaving Kady feeling relieved but also annoyed. But then, what did she expect? He was engaged to be married to someone else.
Involuntarily, she thought, Just like you were engaged to Gregory even though you didn’t love him.
“So tell me all about Leonie,” she said as she walked back to the fire.
He didn’t respond to her request. “Sit down here. I want to look at your feet.”
She didn’t bother asking how he knew there was something wrong with her feet; he seemed to know many things about her. Sitting on a rock that had obviously been meant to be used as a chair, she started to untie her laces, but Tarik brushed her hands away. In seconds he had her foot bare, the wet sock peeled away.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous a blister like this is?” he asked with anger. “Look at this! You have two blisters on this foot and how many on the other foot?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he pulled her other wet shoe off, then gave her a look of reprimand at the three blisters on that foot. One of them had burst, and blood had made her sock stick to her skin. Gently, he peeled the sock away.
After retrieving medical supplies from his pack, he began to doctor her feet, putting salve on them to prevent infection.
“You take care of everyone, but no one takes care of you, do they?” he asked, her small foot held securely in his big warm hands.
Kady didn’t like to admit it, but there was something about the intimacy of the tender care he was giving her feet that made her feel closer to him than she’d ever felt to any other man. She’d been to bed with Gregory, but she’d never known him. She’d spent time with Cole, but she’d never felt a part of him, at least not as she was beginning to feel a part of this man. Maybe it should have been disconcerting to find that Tarik had known about her all his life, but then she had also known about him too, hadn’t she?
“What did you play when you were here? Were you alone?” she asked.
“Always,” he answered as he began to wrap gauze about her foot.
“Did you play that you were a cowboy? Or did you want to be a space ranger?”
“Neither,” he said as he took her other foot in his hand and began to warm it between his palms. “I played Arabian Nights.” With a smile he looked back up at her. “When I was a kid, I was obsessed with all things Arabian. Al el Din, not as we westerners call him, Aladdin, fascinated me. There was a year of my life when I played that I was a Berber prince and ran around in a wool cloak, half of it drawn across my face. Like a veil, I guess, to protect me from the desert sands.”
Looking up at her, his eyes twinkled. “I had to give it up when my face broke out in a rash from the wool.”
As Kady looked at him, she was not smiling. “What did you mean when you said, ‘This time you can reach me’?”
“I don’t remember. When was that? There, is that better?” he asked, referring to her foot. “I think you should stay off your feet tonight. No more climbing for you. Tomorrow I may have to carry you down the mountain.”
“You’ll do no such thing. And what did you mean?”
“About what?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Oh. About your reaching me? I have no idea. I don’t remember saying it.”
She could tell by his eyes that he was telling the truth. No one could fake such a blank look. “Did you think of me when you were wearing your black wool?” she blurted, her face earnest.
“How did you know it was black?”
Kady didn’t respond, just waited for his answer.
As he began to take food from the pack, he seemed to think about her question. “I guess I always thought of you,” he said softly. “You were part of my childhood.”
“Did you imagine riding a white horse across the desert and asking me to ride away with you?” she asked softly.
“Exactly,” he said with a dazzling smile. “Now what shall we eat for dinner? I have dehydrated beef Stroganoff and dehydrated chicken à la king and dehydrated—”
“This is a joke, isn’t it? You expect me to eat reconstituted . . . ” She couldn’t say the words of the foods, as though to even say them would make her ill.
“Got any other suggestions?”
“Give me that pack and let me see what’s in there,” she said, and with a smile, he motioned her to have a look inside the pack.
Thirty minutes later Kady had cooked a seasoned rice casserole, covered with cheese, and for dessert she had made a bread pudding with trail mix and powdered milk.