The Desert Princes. Jackie Braun

experience prior to A’Qaban was nil. And as for love—how could Raffa make light of love? He was discussing it as casually as he might have discussed any other statistic with her.

      ‘I know you rather well from your personnel file,’ he continued, as if all this was for real. ‘And I know you even better from our close association over the past few days.’

      You could say that, Casey silently conceded.

      ‘You’ve been put to quite a few tests,’ he reminded her.

      ‘That’s as may be—but I don’t know you.’

      ‘What does your heart tell you, Casey?’

      Her heart? No way. Her heart had never been her best advisor.

      ‘How did you feel when you discovered you couldn’t fly home?’

      Relieved. ‘Anxious.’ She’d go with that. Anxiety was her safest option.

      She should have known Raffa would challenge her right away.

      ‘Anxious? That doesn’t sound like you, Casey. When something goes wrong you find a solution. You don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, or…anxious.’ He mocked the offending word.

      ‘I’m anxious now because you won’t let me go.’ She stared pointedly at his hard-muscled arms, currently lodged either side of her face, while his fists rested against the tree trunk.

      ‘I don’t think you are,’ he argued softly. ‘I think you rather like it…’

      ‘No, I don’t…’ She did. She adored having him look at her this way. All she wanted was for Raffa to want her as much as she wanted him.

      ‘How did you feel when I brought you here?’

      Elated. ‘I was really glad the children could have their art equipment right away.’

      ‘Now at last I believe you,’ he said, pulling back. ‘Was that a sigh of disappointment?’ he added.

      She couldn’t afford to be so careless about her feelings when Raffa was around. ‘It was a sigh of relief,’ she informed him briskly, brushing her arms to remove the imaginary hand-prints he had left. The truth was he hadn’t even touched her, but had held her in front of him by sheer force of will. And because she had wanted to be there, Casey admitted silently. She had been waiting…okay, hoping, for a deservedly punishing kiss—one she could really have a go at him about.

      ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ he called after her as she started to walk away.

      ‘Have I?’ She kept on walking.

      ‘You’ve got a riding lesson booked. Or…you could sit in the helicopter and wait for me to get back?’

      Balling her hands into fists, she rounded on him. ‘You—’

      ‘Arrogant brute? Just a suggestion,’ he said dryly. ‘Why don’t you let me help you mount up?’

      ‘Because I’m quite capable of lengthening the stirrups myself.’

      ‘So you are coming with me…’

      A little quiver of anticipation ran through her. ‘Better I know what you’re doing.’ Maybe. But she couldn’t see what he was thinking now Raffa had started winding his howlis round his head. With the western jeans, boots and snug-fitting top, the black cloth over his face gave him the appearance of a brigand on the loose, and it was a struggle to ignore his particular brand of confidence as she heaved her way determinedly into the saddle.

      She wouldn’t have known which way they were going even with a compass and a map. The desert all looked the same to her. But Raffa didn’t hesitate once. He led the way on Raad, keeping to the shadows beneath the dunes, and less than an hour had passed before he steered her into a place of extreme shade and surprising cool, between two towering walls of rock. The horses’ hooves clattered eerily in the silence, and Casey was glad when a stream of brilliant sunlight finally illuminated an opening at the other end.

      She gasped when they emerged onto an elevated plateau. They were in the foothills of the mountains somewhere, looking out over the best view she’d seen so far. The sun was at its highest point, and the splash of gold, umber and bleached white rock against the cloudless cobalt sky was quite extraordinary.

      ‘You like it?” Raffa said, turning in the saddle.

      ‘The colours are amazing.’

      ‘That’s one of the reasons I brought you here,’ Raffa explained as Casey drew her pony to a halt alongside his stallion. ‘There are no shades of grey in the desert. The coloursare absolute.’

      As would be any conversation they shared from this point on, Casey suspected.

      They sat for a moment, enjoying the tranquillity and the beauty in front of them, with only the sound of bits being champed and bridles creaking—until, turning Raad’s head, Raffa encouraged the stallion down the steep rocky incline. Casey’s mount followed behind, and both horses picked their way carefully, keen to make the descent. They could smell water, Casey conjectured as their ears pricked up. She could hear water running too. It was somewhere nearby, as yet unseen.

      ‘It’s an underground stream,’ Raffa shouted back when she asked him about it. ‘Water is more valuable than oil in the desert, and A’Qaban is rich in both those commodities.’

      Another bonus for her scheme, Casey concluded. There could be nothing worse in her eyes than developing tourism at the expense of a country’s natural resources.

      ‘There’s plenty of water in the desert if you know where to look,’ Raffa said, hearing her gasp of surprise.

      ‘So this is another palace?’ she exclaimed, seeing the tented pavilions arranged on a sheltered sandy base in the encircling rock-walled arena.

      ‘I thought this might give you some ideas for your tourist village,’ Raffa said, turning in the saddle.

      ‘One or two,’ she admitted, as some women dressed in flowing jewel-coloured robes came out to greet them. ‘What are they saying?’ she asked, turning to Raffa for translation when the smiling women spoke to her in A’Qabani.

      He looked at her. ‘They want to make you welcome,’ he said. ‘Is there something wrong with that?’

      ‘No…’ Casey said, shaking her head as she started to smile. ‘Nothing at all.’

      Raffa went out riding while Casey gave herself up to a warm, frothy bath, scented with something fabulous, and a massage with oils that smelled even better. When she saw the robe the women had brought for her to wear she had to hide a smile. Did it follow her around, or was this sky-blue robe with its delicate silver cross-stitch embroidery traditional Bedouin wear?

      The beautiful robe could only be worn in the boudoir, Casey concluded as the women left her. It was hardly serviceable wear. And she was hardly your typical boudoir wench. The fabric was the finest cloth imaginable: a cobweb, just the suggestion of a whisper against her warm, naked skin, and as such the utmost in self-indulgence.

      The women had left her with a platter of fresh fruit and a bowl in which to rinse her hands when she had finished eating it. And she could do all that without once moving from the soft bank of cushions on which they had insisted she must recline. She could get used to this.

      She had a perfect view of the desert, and it wasn’t long before an image undulated in the sultry air. At first she thought she might be imagining it, but reluctantly the shimmering heat yielded up an indistinct form that became a man on a black stallion…and not just any man.

      She was shivering with desire even as waves of heat washed over her. Raffa appearing like a mirage out of the vastness of the desert was a warning to her that she could never harness the desert’s unforgiving harshness without his advice. She had to stay in A’Qaban. There was no chance she could do her job from the safety