Heart of the Desert by Carol Marinelli

Author:Carol Marinelli [Marinelli, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Adult
ISBN: 9780263220414
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE FROWNED at her carefully planned desert wardrobe when she climbed into his Jeep.

Cool capri pants, a T-shirt and flat pumps were clearly not what he had been expecting her to change into.

‘See if your sister has robes.’

‘I’m not wearing them!’ Georgie said. ‘Anyway, on the tour guidelines it said—’

‘That was for a play date. This is the real thing,’ Ibrahim interrupted. ‘You’ll get burnt.’

‘I’ve got sunblock on.’

‘Don’t come crying to me then at 3 a.m.,’ Ibrahim said, and then he changed his mind, gave her a flash of that dangerous smile. ‘Well, you are welcome to—just don’t expect sympathy.’ And Georgie swallowed, because they were flirting and a day in the desert, a whole day alone with him, was something she hadn’t dared dream of and certainly not with him looking like that.

He was dressed for the desert and it was an Ibrahim she had not once glimpsed or envisaged. The sight made her toes curl in her unsuitable pumps, for if her mind could have conjured it up, this was how she’d have envisioned him. A man of the desert in white robes, his feet encased in leather straps and a black and white kafeya that hid his hair from sight and allowed more focus on his face.

‘What?’ Ibrahim asked, as he often did to silence.

‘Bring it back,’ Georgie said, and they were definitely flirting because he smiled as he registered what she meant.

‘Consider it packed.’

They drove for miles, until the road ran out. Then Ibrahim hurtled the Jeep over the dunes, accelerating and braking, riding the dunes like a surfer on a wave. He had been wrong to fear it, Ibrahim decided, because all it was was fairy-tales and sand.

He parked near a vast canyon, with a few clusters of shrubs and not much else.

‘Is this it?’ Georgie asked, curious at her own disappointment.

‘This is it,’ Ibrahim said. ‘You take the rug and I’ll bring the food over.’

‘Where?’

‘To the picnic table,’ he teased.

‘Ha, ha,’ she said as she stepped out. She knew she was being a bit precious, or just plain shallow—she didn’t want belly dancers or for Ibrahim to produce a hookah. She’d just dreamt of it so, built it up to something majestic in her mind, and all there was … was nothing. She felt the blistering heat on her head and she scanned the horizon, trying to get her bearings, to see the city and the palace behind, or the blue of the ocean that circled the island, but there was nothing but endless sand.

‘What direction is the palace?’

‘That way,’ Ibrahim said, spreading a blanket at the side of the Jeep for shade. She sat down and accepted some iced mint and lemon tea, but her eyes could not accept the nothingness.

‘You want camels?’ He grinned.

‘I guess,’ she admitted. ‘And I’d love to see the desert people.’

‘We might come across some. But most are deeper in the desert.’

‘What is this illness that the Bedouins are suffering from?’ Georgie asked.

‘A virus,’ Ibrahim explained. ‘It is not serious with treatment, and most have been vaccinated.

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