'Forgive me.' But Khal wasn't interested in her compassion now, and shook her off.
'We just have to hope we get lucky and the storm veers away,' he told her grimly.
Subject closed. How she wished she could find something to say to touch the pain inside him and ease it somehow.
And the storm didn't veer away. Instead the sand and dust continued to pour into their ruined sanctuary. 'Here,' Khal said, ripping the bandana from his neck. 'Cover your pony's eyes.' Tearing off his shirt, he wrapped it around his stallion's head. Then, dragging Beth to him, he kept his arm over her head as she buried her face in his chest.
'You saved my life,' she whispered unheard against Khal's hard, unyielding flesh. She couldn't believe he'd done this for her; she couldn't believe they had survived. All she wanted to do now was thank him, heal him, save him … 'Khal, speak to me,' she begged him when the noise of the storm had abated a little.
'About what?' But, when he saw she knew and understood, and that it was no use hiding the facts from her any longer, he grated out, 'I lost her here in the desert.'
'Who did you lose?' Beth probed gently.
'My sister, Ghayda. I lost her to the quicksand. I couldn't save her … '
'Oh, Khal, I'm so sorry … 'It explained so much about him. And it also told Beth that, though she loved Khal as much as she did, it wasn't enough, and that she must help him lose this heavy burden of guilt or he would never be capable of feeling again. Forgetting how he'd shrugged her off, she put her arms around him and held him, not in lust but with love and compassion, as the wind roared around them.
They seemed to stand there for hours until Khal informed her that, as he'd hoped, the storm had swung away. So it had, Beth realised with surprise as Khal eased free of her embrace. She had been so swept up in a different storm, a storm of their own making, that she hadn't even noticed. But now she felt like celebrating, because, for all the tons of sand that had poured in through the gaps in the stonework, half-burying them, they were alive, they had made it through together!
Beth's first thought was for Hana. 'Will they know what's happened to us at the palace?'
'You can ring them.' Khal pulled out a phone and handed it to her. 'When you're finished, I must speak to my aide-de-camp.'
Beth stared at the small mobile-phone. It seemed impossible there could still be communication with the outside world after all that had happened.
'Is Hana all right?' Khal asked the moment Beth ended the call.
'She's fine, sleeping soundly.'
It was so strange to have someone who cared as much about Hana as she did, Beth thought, as Khal delivered his information in brisk, no-nonsense Arabic. Right now she was proud to call him the father of her child. And then, perhaps because all her emotions had been stretched and tested to the limit, the most inappropriate emotion of all surfaced.
'What?' Khal said, frowning at her as he stowed the phone in his breeches.
'Do I look like you?' Beth had to press her lips down very hard to stop herself giggling, because her tall, dark, handsome sheikh had been transformed by the dust of the desert into a snowman. His thick, wavy black hair was fully coated, and his face was white too.
Khal retaliated with a scorching survey of his own. 'I don't know about me, but you could do with a wash,' he said dryly.
'Some hope of that!'
'You'd be surprised,' he said, with a slight tug of his lips that made her heart turn over.
'I certainly would,' she agreed, determined to appear cool.
'Come with me if you don't believe me.'
As Beth stared at Khal's outstretched hand, her humour gave way to emotion. 'You saved my life,' she whispered again huskily.
'And you've got guts.' His eyes shot fire into her heart, and then he laughed. 'And you look like a chimney sweep.'
And you look gorgeous even now, Beth thought. 'You don't think I'm going to go anywhere with you, do you?' she teased him. 'You could be anyone under that desert-sand face mask.'
'Could we market them at the stores, do you think?' he said, pretending to think about it. 'It's the best exfoliation I've ever had.'
Did he have to thumb the stubble on his jaw like that? 'A speciality line, maybe?' Beth suggested, enjoying the joke
'That's something we can talk about later.'
'Later?' She loved the sound of that word.
'But right now,' he said, reaching for her hand, 'It's bath time … '
'You were serious!' Beth exclaimed in astonishment as she stared at the small lagoon.
'You've never heard of an oasis in the desert?'
'Of course I have.' But this was beautiful, and she'd always thought the pictures she'd seen before must have been doctored to make things look more appealing. She couldn't imagine such lushness existed in the midst of such sun-parched nothingness. But the best thing of all was that she hadn't seen Khal so relaxed for a long time. 'Snatching your life from the jaws of death' syndrome, perhaps. But didn't both of them have every right to feel on top of the world? 'Engines?' Beth frowned, unwilling to believe anyone or anything would dare trespass upon their solitude.
'Helicopters,' Khal confirmed. 'Now they know where I am, there will be guards, guns … But don't worry-all my personal staff are trained to use the utmost discretion,' he added, seeing Beth's concern.
'And that's just another price you have to pay?'
He shrugged. 'I owe it to my people to stay alive.'
The dangers were all around him. It made her want to affirm the difference between living and life with him with everything she'd got.
He took pleasure in her wonder at their surroundings, and at the same time he was filled with an enormous sense of relief and happiness. The fact that they were alive, the fact that they were together, was all that mattered to him. The past and their disagreements seemed insignificant in the light of what they'd just been through. Going through it together and coming out safely the other side had to mean something. And it did. He hadn't realised just how much Beth Tracey Torrance meant to him until losing her had become a real possibility.
'This is the Pearl Oasis of Q'Adar,' he murmured, hardly liking to intrude on her rapt contemplation of the scene. With her chin raised, and her face in profile with the breeze fluffing out her hair, she looked so beautiful.
'The Pearl Oasis of Q'Adar,' she repeated, turning slowly to face him.
'Named for the lady Moon, who chooses to bathe here more frequently than in any other pool in the whole of Arabia.'
'And I don't blame her!' Beth told him, with her eyes full of light. 'It's so beautiful … '
He followed her gaze, to watch the crescent lantern glowing in the sky with its sprinkling of stars in attendance, and thought Beth twice as lovely. Below the moon the jagged peaks of the mountains cut sharply into the velvet sky, and lower still the oasis rippled lazily, so that the long streaks of milky moonlight reflected in its waters appeared to dance. Easing his neck, he exhaled with contentment. Standing here with Beth made him feel reborn. She made him see how beautiful this land, his kingdom, was, and how full of possibility it could be. He could forget the battles and think of a peaceful future with Beth at his side.
Beth stood in silence, drinking it in in case she never came here again. It was beyond beauty, beyond her experience, and reinforced what she already knew: that the majesty of nature far outweighed that of man. Time passed in solemn step between them, as they stood without word or explanation, and Beth felt they were growing closer all the time, floating in another world-the world of their thoughts, where possibilities were endless if you only had the courage to reach out and make them fact. She could have stayed happily all night, dreaming, but once again reality intruded and she became aware of scratchy sand in all manner of tender places. 'Do you think my clothes will dry if I take them off and rinse them?' she said, turning to Khal.
'By morning they should.'
'But doesn't it get cold in the desert at night?' Beth said, frowning.
'Not necessarily … '
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KHAL built a big, warm fire and they set up camp around it. Their next job was to bathe the horses' eyes and make them comfortable, which Khal suggested they could do in the oasis.