One Desert Night - By Maggie Cox Page 0,2
names here have a ring of mystery and magic,’ she added shyly.
‘Come,’ he invited, his blood heating even more at the idea of having her to himself for a while. ‘Let us walk together in the grounds. It would be a shame to waste such a glorious full moon on an empty garden with no one there to witness it, don’t you think?’
‘Won’t you be missed if you don’t go back inside soon?’
‘If my hosts are troubled by my unexplained absence they will be too polite to say so. Besides, I do not have to give an account of my actions to anyone save Allah.’
The woman in front of him fell silent at that. Zahir glanced down at her small slender feet, with toenails painted the same captivating shade as her dress, and a frisson of disturbing awareness rippled though him.
‘You will need your shoes if we are to walk together.’
‘They’re over by the bench.’
Moving back towards the stone seat, with its shield of glossy green leaves and intoxicating white-flowered jasmine, Gina collected her flat tan sandals and slipped them on. When she glanced up again at Zahir, a tendril of golden hair fell forward onto her brow. She brushed it away and smiled. A woman’s smile had never had the effect of rendering him speechless before, but it did now. Clearing his throat, he didn’t even think twice about extending his hand to take hers. When she wordlessly and trustingly placed her palm inside his Zahir lost all track of space and time, and the grief and turmoil he had been so racked with since his mother had died melted into the ether…
Studying the strong-boned face, with fathomless dark brown eyes and long glossily black hair that was parallel with his shoulderblades, Gina knew she was captivated. With his full-length dark robe—the jalabiya, as it was called—and his lean waist encircled by a light brown wide leather belt, he might have been an imposing inhabitant of a bygone court of a wealthy Caliph…a highly trained soldier or a bodyguard, perhaps? He was built as if he could take care of himself and many others besides.
It might be an entirely dangerous action, putting her trust in a man she had only just met, but since such an overwhelming compulsion had never seized her before, Gina could only believe it was meant to be. Kismet as they often called it in this part of the world. Right then she needed the reassurance of a strong, understanding figure. Something told her that Zahir was a man who did understand feelings…the thought was quite intoxicating.
As she walked the meandering paved paths enclosed by a high stone wall that made the building very close to a fortress, with the shining moon benevolently following their progress, she wondered even more how she would endure the stultifying pattern of her day-to-day life when she got home.
When her mother recovered she had no doubt that its pattern would resume—just as though a false note had inadvertently been played, been quickly righted and then forgotten. But Gina couldn’t forget or deny her growing yearning to connect with something deeper and more real in her life. She might have fooled herself for a long time that diligent study and adding more and more academic credits to her name, her perusal of dusty old tomes and cataloguing times long past was enough to engage her, to help her feel fulfilled, but since she had come to Kabuyadir she had started to question whether that was the right path for her.
Oh, she still loved her work, but travelling to the other side of the world, discovering a sensual paradise of sights, sounds and scents she had never experienced beyond the descriptive pages of a history book, had forged in her a restlessness and a desire that would never again be subdued.
Her parents—both professors in their chosen fields—had found academic study more than enough to fulfill them and to cement their relationship. Their marriage had come about through mutual interest and professional admiration, but they hardly ever expressed more profound feelings and emotions towards each other. They had raised Gina responsibly, protected her from harm and danger and done all the right things. It had been a given that she be steered towards a career in academia. Rarely had they told her that they loved her…
Now her mother was ill, and she knew in her bones that her father’s way of dealing with it would be to retreat even more into the