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The thought aggravated him. Most women he’d had aboard his plane had been only too keen to talk to him.
But, then, most women he’d had aboard his plane had been diversions—pleasant playmates—not work colleagues, and pregnant work colleagues at that.
And, come to think of it, the days of pleasant playmates were long gone, too.
Though surely the woman had some conversation.
‘The baby in the unit, Alexandra,’ he began, deciding he’d start one himself. ‘Was anything sorted out for her?’
As the delightful smile flashed across Liz Jones’s face he regretted his impulse, because having had it directed at him once, he immediately wanted to see her smile again, to keep her smiling.
‘Alexandra’s grandmother turned up. It was like a miracle. The woman was from Melbourne and her daughter had taken off around Australia, backpacking with a group of friends. Her mother, Rose her name is, suspected there was something wrong with her daughter, who’d been moody and unhappy even while she was planning her trip. It was only when Rose saw something on the television about Alexandra that she began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.’
Khalifa tried to picture the scenario. In his family, many of the women still lived together, three generations, sometime more, and other women in the family visited every day for breakfast or coffee. His grandmother would have picked up a pregnancy in an instant.
‘Was this daughter living with her mother?’ he asked, intrigued now. ‘Or seeing her regularly? Would the mother not have noticed her pregnancy?’
He won another smile, only a small one but still it felt like a victory.
‘Her daughter had always been big, and had put on more weight, but she hadn’t been obviously pregnant before she’d left on the trip. She’d kept in contact with her mother, so Rose knew she’d been with her friends in Brisbane at the time Alexandra was found, but left almost immediately afterwards. By the time Rose saw the appeal for information, the daughter was in Central Australia somewhere, and, from photos sent on the mobile phone, considerably thinner.’
‘And this Rose contacted you?’
‘She phoned the hospital while the programme was still running on her television. She’d tried to phone her daughter but couldn’t get through, but Rose turned out to be a determined woman and no grandchild of hers was going to be brought up in care. She offered to have a DNA test the next day and get the lab to send the results straight to the hospital, but even before she knew for certain, she was on a plane to Brisbane.’
‘And she is the grandmother?’
Was he really so interested in one tiny baby, Liz wondered, or was he talking to divert her as the plane was rising smoothly into the sky? She had no idea, but Rose and Alexandra’s story was a good one, so she continued to explain.
‘She not only is, but she’s a force to be reckoned with. She slashed her way through all the red tape, parried any objections and took her grandchild back to Melbourne yesterday. She says it’s up to her daughter to decide what they tell Alexandra—she’s keeping her name, too—but Rose is more than happy to bring the infant up as her own.’
‘So, a happy ending all round,’ Khalifa said with a broad smile, and Liz forgot about toes curling because this smile was enough to make her entire body spark and fizz in a most unseemly manner.
She’d heard about physical attraction but had obviously never experienced it, because this was something entirely new, and entirely ridiculous because she was going to be working with this man and couldn’t go around all sparky and fizzy every time he smiled.
Although perhaps he wouldn’t smile too often!
‘It was a happy ending,’ she said, ‘and a great relief as far as I am concerned as I’d have hated to go away leaving Alexandra in limbo.’ She hesitated, then the words she knew she shouldn’t say came out anyway. ‘It’s not a very comfortable place, limbo!’
She turned her attention back to the papers in on lap, although she knew their contents by heart. She hadn’t needed to check out neonatal units on the internet, as she’d always kept up with latest developments, but she didn’t want to get anything wrong or miss out on something that might work in Al Tinine.
Al Tinine … If Najme meant star, did Tinine also have a meaning? She pulled out the little table Saif had shown her and set down her file on the new unit, digging into her bag for the brochures on the country, certain there’d be an explanation somewhere.
She could ask.
But asking meant starting another conversation and having a conversation meant looking at him, and while she was looking at him he might smile and …
Klutz!
As far as she could remember, she’d never been a mental klutz, confining her clumsiness to the physical, but now her mind was running wild and bumping into things and losing the plot completely.
Could she put it down to a slight release from the grief and tension of the last few months?
She had no idea but hopefully it would sort itself out before too long and return to the focussed, professional brain she would need to do her job.
And to work out what was going to happen to the poor baby!
Surreptitiously, hiding her hand under the papers still resting on what was left of her lap, she gave it a pat, mentally reassuring it that things would sort themselves out, though what things, and quite how, she had no idea. Oliver was, after all, the father of the baby, and should he want it, and be fit enough to care for it, then all would be well, but there were too many uncertainties to even consider the poor thing’s future at the moment so, to distract herself from the depression she was teetering towards, she forgot about not talking to Khalifa.
‘The name, Tinine, does it, too, mean something?’
Of course he had to smile!
And now she was reasonably close to him, she could see a twinkle in the depths of his dark eyes.
A very beguiling twinkle.
Fizz, spark, spark, fizz—surely pregnant women shouldn’t feel this level of physical attraction!
‘You will have to wait and see,’ he replied, and the promise in his voice made her physical reactions worse—far worse—though all the man was discussing was the name of his country, not some riotous sexual encounter in the back cabin of the plane.
Was it a double bed?
Queen size?
King?
Her wayward mind was throwing up the questions and it took all her determination and discipline to pull it back into line.
Forget about the destination, concentrate on the unit. She pulled out the figures, playing with what she already knew. Najme had a population of approximately fifty thousand people and a high birth rate of twenty per thousand. Khalifa had already explained that about a third of the population were expats, doctors, teachers, scientists and labourers, all brought in from other places to help in the modernisation of the country.
Fiddling with the figures, knowing full well that they told her only three basic beds would be required, she began to wonder just why her new boss was planning a larger facility.
‘Are you expecting the population to grow fairly swiftly, or more people to move into the city? Or is there some other reason you want the larger unit?’
The question had come out before she realised Khalifa was speaking to Saif.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted. I was thinking out loud.’
No smile this time, which was just as well—and the little twinge of disappointment was stupidity.
‘I’m discussing our menu for the flight and you’re thinking work,’ Khalifa said, enough amusement in his voice to start the fizzing. ‘Do you never relax?’
‘It’s Tuesday, that’s a workday for me. And, yes, I can relax, but I did want to check over these figures again.’
He almost smiled.
‘The surrounding area supports probably as many people again, although the majority of them are living as they’ve always lived. Traditions dating back thousands of years are hard to change, and I am afraid if I rush things, we will lose too much.’
‘Lose too much?’ she queried.
‘Traditional skills and values,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean camel milking, or even spinning thread from the wool of goats, but what we call our intangible cultural heritage. The patterns the women wove into the rugs told the history of our tribe, told it in pictures they understood, and using these rugs, which they spread on the floor in summer and hung on the inside walls of their tents in winter, they taught the children. Now the children learn in school, learn skills and information they will need to equip them for the modern world. But how do we keep our tribal history alive?’
‘You’ve spoken before about keeping tradition alive,’ Liz remembered, ‘and while I can’t help you with any ideas about the cultural side, I do wonder, if these people live as they’ve always lived, will they use a hospital to have their babies, and would they be able to adapt to the situation if the baby needs special care?’
Her companion sighed deeply.
‘I’m not really expecting them to use an obstetrician and have their babies in a hospital. Not immediately anyway, but once a baby is born, that life is precious and if it needs help, I am certain they will seek it.’
He paused and she wondered just how much pain this discussion might be causing him—how much it might remind him of his wife.
‘We have always had midwives, for want of a better word: women within the tribe who were taught by their elders to help other women through their pregnancy and childbirth. Now young local women are training not only as modern midwives but as obstetricians, and although they can’t be everywhere, they can work with the older women, explaining new ideas and methods. Maybe through them we can introduce the idea of special care for fragile infants so, should the situation arise, the women will more readily accept the unit.’
‘Or perhaps, with a translator—even with you if you had the time—I could visit some of these outlying areas, take a crib, show them what we can do, and how we can help the babies, explain that the family can be involved as well.’
To Liz’s surprise, the man laughed, a real, wholehearted laugh that changed his face completely.
‘Not families, I implore you,’ he said at last, still smiling. ‘You will get aunts, cousins, sisters, grandmothers—forty or fifty people all wanting to sit with the baby.’
‘That many?’ Liz teased, smiling back at him, and something in the air stilled, tension joining them together in an invisible bond, eyes holding eyes, a moment out of time, broken only when Saif said, in a long-suffering voice, ‘If we could please get back to the menu!’
The menu proved delicious. Slices of melon and fresh, sweet strawberries with a slightly tart mint syrup poured over them. Delicate slivers of duck breast followed, the slices arranged on overlapping circles of potato, crispy on top and soft underneath, while fresh white asparagus with a simple butter sauce completed the main meal.
Offered a range of sweets, Liz declined, settling instead for a platter of fruit and hard cheese, finding, to her delight, that the dates accompanying it were so delicious she had to comment on them.
‘They are from Najme,’ Khalifa explained. ‘We have the best dates in the world.’
Liz, replete and happy, forgot about the moment of tension earlier and had to tease again.
‘You’d know that, of course, from the World Date Olympics, would you? Do they judge on colour and size as well as taste?’
Khalifa studied her for a moment. Where was the stressed, anxious, and obviously sad woman he’d first met at the hospital? Was this light-hearted, teasing Liz Jones the real Liz Jones?
He had no idea, although the thought that she might have relaxed because she’d escaped from the father of her child did sneak into his mind.
‘We just know ours are the best,’ he said firmly, ‘and while we don’t have a date Olympics you’ll be arriving just in time for the judging of the falcons—a kind of falcon Olympics.’
Interest sparked in her eyes and she studied him in turn—checking to see if he was joking?
‘Falcons?’ she repeated.
‘Our hunting birds,’ he explained. ‘It’s one custom we are determined not to let die. The birds are part of our heritage and at Najme you will see them at their best, for everyone wants to have the best bird.’
‘Falcons,’ she whispered, smiling, not at him, he thought, but to herself. ‘Now I really know I’m heading for another world. Thank you,’ she said, ‘not just for giving me this opportunity but for so much else.’
She pushed aside the little table and undid her seat belt.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘if it’s all right with you, I might check out that bedroom.’
Saif must have been watching from behind the front curtain, for he appeared immediately, taking Liz’s arm and leading her into the cabin.
And, no, he, Khalifa bin Saif Al Zahn, was not jealous of Saif walking so close to her.
Why should he be?
The woman was nothing more than another employee, if a somewhat intriguing one.
But as he remembered a moment earlier when they’d both smiled and something in the atmosphere around them had shifted, he knew that wasn’t entirely true.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was sleeping soundly when he knocked quietly and entered the cabin some hours later. Her lustrous hair was loose, spread across the pillow, a rich, red-brown—more red, he felt, but a deep, almost magenta red.
Beautiful against the white of the pillow and the rich cream of her skin, her hair was shiny, silky—his fingers tingled with a desire to feel the texture.
He moved into the cabin, slightly embarrassed at having to invade her privacy, and more than a little embarrassed by his thoughts. But the pilot had warned they were approaching turbulence, and Khalifa didn’t want her thrown out of the bed. It was fitted with what in a chair would be called seat belts, simple bands that stretched across the bed to restrain a sleeping passenger.
Could he strap her in without disturbing her?
Was it even right to be doing this?
He wondered if he should wake her and let her do it herself, but she seemed so deeply asleep, and the little lines of worry he’d sometimes noticed on her face were smoothed away, the creamy skin mesmerising against the dark, rich swathe of hair.
No, he certainly shouldn’t be looking at her as he strapped her in! He found the far side restraint and drew it across the bed and over her body, curled on its side, the bulge of her pregnancy resting on the mattress, one leg drawn up to balance her weight.
He picked up the other end of the strap, and clicked the belt shut, then tightened it, just slightly, so it would hold her firmly if the plane dropped suddenly, but not put pressure on her belly.
Even under the sheet he could make out the shape of her, but his eyes were drawn to her face, vulnerable somehow without the dark-framed glasses, an attractive face, full of strength and determination, though he’d seen it soften when she’d spoken of the baby, Alexandra.
But not when she mentioned her own pregnancy.
He had to leave.
Heaven forbid she woke and found him staring at her.
Yet his feet seemed rooted to the floor, his eyes feasting on the woman, not lasciviously at all, just puzzled that she remained such a mystery to him.
Puzzled that he was puzzled, for of course she was a mystery to him—he barely knew her.
And probably never would.
Looking at her isn’t going to help you, he told himself, and after checking the cabin was free of loose objects that could fly about in turbulence, he did leave the room, but reluctantly.
Returning to his seat, he began to wonder if he’d made a big mistake, taking this woman to his homeland.
But why?
Having been educated in the West, he accepted equality in all things between men and women. A different equality existed in his own land, but never, in the history of the tribe, had women been seen as inferior for they were the carriers of history, the heart of the family, the heart of the tribe, so it wasn’t the fact that she was a woman …
