Sign, SEAL, Deliver by Rogenna Brewer

Author:Rogenna Brewer [Brewer, Rogenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2001-01-18T22:00:00+00:00

WITH THE BASIN of water Asad had provided, she attempted to make herself presentable. But only made matters worse. She’d have to get used to wearing her debris-matted hair in dreadlocks. It be came mud-caked around her freshly washed face. And hopelessly beyond combing.

She angled Asad’s shaving mirror to get a better look at herself. A stranger stared back. Not a single recognizable feature in her drawn face. Who was she?

A fighter pilot? Sara? Michelle?

Someone’s fiancée?

Sun-damaged skin flaked on her nose. But aside from multiplying freckles, her sunburn had already begun to fade. Also fading were bruises and telltale abrasions, reminding her, along with the gash on her forehead, she didn’t want to go back to wherever the hell she’d come from. Clearly she’d taken a beating from more than just the elements.

She shivered. Was this person or persons likely to come after her again? Scrubbing her body with what remained of the now-filthy bathwater, her limbs went from being dirt-covered to streaked with mud. And kept getting worse. Until she finally gave up. To top it off she had nothing to wear other than the dirty, bloodstained clothes.

Arduously she put the jumper back on. Hesitating a moment more before adding the vest and handgun. Next she slipped her feet into sandals more than a size too big. As an afterthought she hung the dog tags around her neck.

All in all she sure didn’t look like something stepping off the pages of the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

When she dared poke her head out of the tent, Asad had the audacity to laugh at her. As did other members of the tribe, including several children who got a real kick out of tugging on her outfit and scurrying away.

“They have never seen such clothes on a woman,” Asad explained.

Indeed, the women around camp wore decorative black garments, real gold jewelry proudly displayed on their necks and wrists. Their heads and faces were protected by a plain black scarf called a bourque. One of the elderly women offered her a scarf, which she gladly accepted.

When she added it to her ensemble, more peals of laughter followed. She joined in the merriment and didn’t mind that the joke was on her. It just felt good to laugh again. To be near children. She didn’t think she’d been this content in a very long time.

However, with the bourque in place, she could no longer ignore her itching scalp. “I need delousing,” she whined to her host.

“Come, I will take you to the wells. My men are filling the water tankers, but they won’t be back this way again for several days.”

He led the way along the outskirts of the encampment to one of several dune buggies parked beside a herd of ninety or more camels and maybe thirty or so tethered Arabian horses.

“Buckle up,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat.

She ducked under the roll bar on the passenger side. “I didn’t know itinerant tribes rode around in dune buggies.”

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he teased.

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