Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) Read online

  A moment later, the noise booted up to a pounding roar and the helicopter thundered over their heads, en route for the island.

  “Is he going to land on the beach?” Aly cried.

  Arif looked amused. “Where else? Do you expect him to land on deck?”

  “But he’ll blow away the marks.”

  She watched in horror as the helicopter’s approach whipped up a storm of white sand. Farhad was going down the ladder to the dinghy, and Aly leapt for her backpack. “Wait,” she cried. “I’m going with you.”

  Arif put out a hand to stop her, but she warded him off, dashed down the ladder after a bemused Farhad, and leapt into the dinghy as he cast off. Arif followed her, leaping aboard just in time.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “I told you, you would be ferried to the island once the helicopter was gone. You can’t walk the beach till it leaves, you must know that.”

  “When he takes off again, he’s going to blow up the sand even more. I want to get a look at the beach before he wipes away every trace of any nests.”

  “It’s too dangerous. You can’t get onto the beach until he has lifted off again. He will not even shut down his rotors.”

  “Then how are you going to get the papers? Is he just going to toss them into the sand?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Farhad will go in.”

  “If Farhad can go, I can go.”

  “Farhad has experience of dealing with helicopters in such situations. Do you?”

  “If he can go, I can go,” she cried again.

  The chopper was down and waiting, its rotors still turning, whipping up a small sandstorm. “Oh, my God,” she moaned. “If there are any hatchlings, they’ll be blown to kingdom come.” Farhad grabbed up a large black plastic envelope and leapt out into three feet of water, but when Aly got up, she felt Arif’s hand close on her arm.

  “No,” he said. “It is too dangerous. You must wait till it leaves.”

  She twisted her arm, but his grip held. “Let me go! I just want to look. Just a quick look.”

  “I am sorry for what has happened, but it cannot be cured by letting you go into danger.”

  Giving a resigned sigh, Aly dropped the backpack and made to sit again. His hand relaxed, and with a sudden dive she was in the water, beyond his reach. A few seconds later she was on the beach, not far from where the helicopter was still blasting the sand. It stung her skin and settled in her hair.

  Arif could not follow her immediately without risking the loss of the dinghy, and she didn’t waste time looking over her shoulder to watch him trying to beach or anchor it. Farhad was bent over, running underneath the blades towards where the pilot was holding out a package. Shaking the salty sting out of her eyes, Aly bent double herself, and ran along the white sand at the water’s edge, looking for those telltale depressions that would mark a turtle’s movements, through the spatter marks that the helicopter’s rotors had produced. The light was good now, the sun not quite up.

  But she saw nothing. When she had gone beyond the spatter marks, she turned right and ran up the beach to the high tide mark, then turned again to double back behind the chopper.

  The pilot would not, could not take off again while she was so near. As long as she kept low she was safe. The sand was whipping her painfully now, the noise deafening as she got closer to the machine again. She’d seldom heard such a painful volume of sound. But she wasn’t turning back now. Aly plugged her ears, squinted against the blast of sand, and kept running.

  And there. There it was. It was all she could do not to leap up and punch the air, which might have lost her her hand, if not her head. Instead she fell to her knees, groped for the nearest sun-dried palm frond, and poked it roughly into the mound of sand to mark the spot. Not good enough. She crawled over to a large stone, worn round and smooth by an infinity spent being driven in and out of the sea, dragged it back and set the stone, too, over the nest.

  “You are a fool,” Arif shouted in her ear as he arrived behind her. “Is one nest worth risking your life for?”

  “Not a risk if we keep our heads down. Let’s go,” she cried, before getting up into her crouch again to continue her run. He followed on her heels.

  She found only the one nest, and when they were beyond the spatter marks in the other direction they straightened up and turned to head down to the water’s edge again. Farhad was in the dinghy now, dragging up the anchor that Arif had hastily tossed over. Flinging herself into the water, Aly swam over and clung to the side. Arif followed, the pilot waved, and the chopper lifted into the air again.

  Her foot tingled with heat in the cool water, and then Arif’s linked hands lifted her, and a moment later Aly was over the side and dragging herself aboard. With a great spray of water, Arif landed beside her. No one spoke until the helicopter was a distant roar that seemed like silence.

  “Right,” said Aly then and, dripping with water, was up and rooting in her backpack as Farhad pulled the anchor aboard. She tossed the walkie-talkie down on the seat. “If you’ll ask Farhad to take me back in, I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  Arif gazed at her with an unreadable look, but whatever he had it in mind to say, he bit it back and instead spoke an order. Five seconds later they were in shallow water again, where Farhad idled the engine. Aly sat on the cool rounded rubber and slipped into thigh deep water. “Will you pass me my backpack, please?”

  With a splash Arif was in the water beside her, reaching up to take her backpack from Farhad’s hands.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  …

  Aly stared at him. Water dripped into her eyes and she impatiently swiped it away. “But you said you wouldn’t walk with me today.”

  “That was when I thought you were an intelligent woman who could be counted on not to walk deliberately into danger,” Arif said. Never in his life had he met so difficult, irritating and unpredictable a woman. “Since you are not, obviously you must have protection.”

  “Danger,” she snorted. “What kind of danger do you foresee me getting into on a deserted beach?”

  Her dismay was clear, and again he wondered what she could possibly have to hide. Or was she worried about his motives? Was it being alone with him that concerned her?

  “None from me, if that is what you fear,” he said flatly. “I have never coerced a woman in my life.”

  She actually jumped. “What?” So it was not that that she feared. The tension in his gut let go.

  “Then why do you resist having company as you work? I thought your objection was only to the time we wasted double-walking the beach, but we will not have to do that today.”

  “I don’t understand what danger you think I might run into on my own, here of all places.” She waved an arm at the turquoise sea, the white sand, the forest rising behind.

  “There are serpents even in Eden,” Arif said. “And what about the risk that you might miss a nest? Surely two pairs of eyes are better than one?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed unhappily. This was a mystery he had to unravel somehow. “Shall we get going, then?”

  …

  Solomon’s Foot offered rich pickings, relatively speaking.

  “Are you pleased with the result?” Arif asked as Farhad, in the dinghy, approached where they stood on the beach. They had made almost a full circuit of the island.

  “Yeah, pretty much. On an island this size, three nests on one day is good,” Aly said, without enthusiasm. In fact, it was a great result, except for one thing: she hadn’t been able to false mark even one nest.

  It was crucially important to false mark the nests on the less inhabited islands. On the islands where there was a lot of beach traffic, it was more important to let people, especially tourists, know exactly where the nests were, so that they did not inadvertently damage them. On tourist beaches, she would be putting a small cage up over each nest to discourage dune buggies and bikes.

  Sabotage would be much easier on the uninhabite
d beaches, where it was less likely that someone would be walking the beach and get too curious for a saboteur’s comfort.

  She hadn’t even been able to ask the islanders to keep an eye out for sabotage because Arif would have had to interpret for her.

  A small group of islanders had come down to the beach early to invite them to visit the village and eat lunch with them. When Aly refused, on the grounds that they would be finished and gone well before lunch, the islanders had found them again later in the morning, and brought with them a small gas canister, a pot, coffee and cups, and insisted on their stopping for a coffee, which was brewed up right there on the beach. Even Aly couldn’t refuse such determined hospitality.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t stop for lunch with them. They were lovely people,” Aly said now, as they waded out to the dinghy and clambered aboard.

  “If there is anything the inhabitants of Solomon’s Foot understand, it is work,” Arif said easily. “Next time our timing may be better.”

  As it was, they would save time by lunching aboard Janahine while en route to the next island on the list. “I’m itchy with salt,” Aly said, as they approached the yacht. Arif leaned out to grasp the sea ladder and pull them close as Farhad idled the motor. “My clothes are stiff with it.” In this heat, of course, her clothes had dried on her body within a few minutes of her climbing out of the sea. But a long morning’s trek in sun-dried, salt-caked shorts and t-shirt didn’t count among life’s pleasures. “I can’t wait to get into the shower.”

  “Next time, perhaps, we can spend a few minutes preparing for the morning’s work, instead of leaping into the task so precipitately,” Arif observed, holding the dinghy against the swell as she shouldered her backpack and leapt out. He must be uncomfortable, too, but on him it looked so good. His t-shirt was hugging every hard muscle of chest and stomach, his shorts had dried snugly against his groin, and the sight sent a shaft of desire right through her.

  “Next time maybe you won’t try to interfere in my work.” She looked down at him from a position of safety halfway up the ladder. Sunglasses hid his eyes above the devil’s beard. An aura of sex and power smoked off him, and her body was puffing into flame all over. “I do know what I’m doing.”

  He followed her up. For a moment he was threateningly close, and she didn’t know if she was nervous because he seemed so dark and dangerous, or because of a sudden, crazy conviction that if she stepped close he would burn in the same flame that was scorching her.

  “You do not know what you are doing when it comes to helicopters,” he reminded her, as she came to and dashed up the remaining steps to the safety of distance and the deck. “If it had been a less experienced pilot, you might have been killed.”

  Distance, and yet…some part of her seemed to be still attached. A tendril of connection between her heart and his, her body and his, like a new green shoot—she could almost see it in the air between them. A deep hunger of soul and body dragged her towards him like a magnetic field.

  And she had to break it. “Ah well, what do they say?” she responded, with a shrug. “She died happy, doing what she loved.”

  He knelt to tie the dinghy with expert ease, then straightened, the impatient blue gaze pinning her. “When God gives you a good brain, you are expected to put it to the maximum use, not the minimum.” He led the way down the hatch and she followed as weakly as an iron filing.

  “Ah, you have a direct line? So many do.” If she made him really irritated with her, she would surely be in less danger from her own weakness.

  “No direct line is needed for this wisdom. Your own Book tells you what happens to those who squander their talents.”

  Each in front of the door to their own cabin, they paused. Too close again. Her spine was pulsing like an electric cable channeling maximum voltage, and her brain was alive with sparks.

  “Another of my talents, you might say, is my dedication to my work,” Aly said, lifting her head to look into his face. She would taste salt on his lips if he bent his head. “In the moment I had for weighing up which talent to use, I chose the one that would contribute to a greater good, rather than ensure my own survival. Do you have an argument with that?”

  It was a mistake to challenge him like this. Beyond foolish to want a reaction from him. But she did. Her blood pounded up under her skin in anticipation.

  “You are a dedicated expert on a species threatened with extinction. One unmarked nest was not worth the price of your life and you know it,” Arif said. “Now, I want a shower before we continue this foolish discussion, if we must.” And he opened the door behind him and disappeared inside.

  …

  Arif stood in the shower, scrubbing the baked-on salt from his hair and skin, trying to wash the tension out of his arms and abdomen. No woman had ever challenged him the way the little scientist did, and never before had he had to fight down the urge to wrap his arms around any woman, pull her snug against his body, and shut her up with a kiss.

  He was getting his wires crossed.

  Her astonished rejection of the idea that she might need his protection, her total disregard for his decisions and commands and her own safety still infuriated him, but slowly his gut unwound. No doubt this was one of the benefits of the month as an ordinary citizen—a Cup Companion had power, and too many people in the world responded to power with subservience. It was salutary to get back in touch with reality once a year. And even though Aly knew exactly who he was, she had, it seemed, been born outside the mental loop of such power structures.

  He wondered what had given her the ability to be so unmoved by authority. And only now did he really get just how obsequious most Western women were in his presence, especially beautiful women. If her disdain for his authority rubbed him up the wrong way, whose fault was that? Everywhere he went, his word was law.

  Except with Aly Percy. He should be grateful to her.

  There was one place, of course, where she would not be so dismissive. If there was one power that women could not be disdainful of, could not ignore, it was the power of sexual pleasure. He didn’t believe she was less susceptible than other women. She had simply never been fully awakened to its power.

  Rubbing his scalp with his towel, Arif paused by the porthole and gazed out at the island. He frowned absently. Why had Farhad not raised the anchor and started the engine? He smiled ruefully. He would have the scientist on his case if they didn’t shift soon.

  Or perhaps not. With an oath, Arif bent forward to stare more closely out at the island. At the tiny, black-clad figure running wildly down the beach.

  Towards where they had found the second nest, it seemed. As he watched, amazed, she bent down, straightened, whirled, took a few steps, bent again and worked at something for a few moments. Then she turned towards the sea, ran full tilt into the waves, and struck out for the yacht in a fast, urgent crawl.

  Chapter Ten

  Arif was waiting at the top of the ladder, large and threatening, as she hoisted herself out of the sea. Aly’s heart sank, but her mouth smiled broadly.

  “Sorry, are you waiting lunch for me?” she caroled, snatching up the towel she’d left on the rail and wrapping herself in it. “I just couldn’t resist a proper swim in this beautiful bay before we left.”

  “So I see,” Arif said. “I am glad we didn’t sail away without you.”

  “Oh, Farhad saw me go, I made sure of that,” she said, over her shoulder, running away from him towards the hatch. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Her heart was in her mouth. She’d been hoping to get there and back while Arif was still changing, but the swim had been a longer distance than she’d realized, and she was tired after the morning walking in the sun. Still—she’d done it. Both nests on this beach were now false marked—and although the two meters had been a rough measure, she was happy. Unless he’d watched her the whole way through binoculars, or had eagle eyes, Arif wouldn’t have been able to see exactly what she was doing. She could come up with some expl
anation if he asked.

  Aly showered quickly, listening to the welcome sound of the anchor being raised. She hadn’t delayed their schedule by many minutes, and the benefits outweighed any time factor.

  Another clean pair of shorts. She would have to do a laundry tonight.

  “I saw a washing machine in the galley,” she said, as she joined Arif at the table on deck. The yacht was underway, and Jamila was there, waiting to serve lunch. Aly exchanged a nod of greeting with her, but the Arabic for the situation was beyond her. “Would you ask Jamila if I could use it tonight?”

  Arif frowned, turned and spoke to Jamila, who replied energetically.

  “Give your clothes to Jamila. She will wash them for you.”

  Part of her wanted to resist this arrogant command, but the part that needed clean clothes won. “Shokran jazilan,” Aly said, and Jamila replied with a volley of exclamations.

  “She is here to look after you,” Arif translated briefly. “Whatever you need, you are to tell her.”

  “I am perfectly capable of doing my own laundry,” Aly said, when Jamila had served lunch and gone. “There was no need to trouble her, you know.”

  “You have better things to do with your time. Don’t you? It is Jamila’s job to look after my guests. What is your problem with that?”

  She was just exhausted and unnerved enough by the morning’s exertions to let her guard down. “It’s all too easy to think that there’s something that puts you above the common herd. Whether it’s wealth or birth or…” She waved a hand. “That you deserve to live in luxury and have other people do your dirty work. Not because you were born lucky, but because you are somehow better than other people. It’s a corrupting idea and I don’t want it corrupting me.”

  He gazed at her with those sapphire eyes for a moment.

  “You are touchy on the subject of wealth and position,” he observed dispassionately.

  “And you, naturally, are protective of the idea of inherited wealth,” she replied.

  “And why do you think that is?”