Chapter 17—Sheiks VIII by CJ
Rafee wanted to lash out at someone upon hearing Joseph’s words. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists and was positive that if Agent Marcus Snow was anywhere nearby, he’d pummel the man.
How dare he move in on Shawna! How dare he claim Rafee’s family as his own! How dare he…
“Now wait just a minute there, Rafee,” Joseph suddenly warned, his voice firm, causing Rafee to halt his out of control emotions. “They thought you were dead. Gone. Never coming back. Don’t you dare blame Shawna or Marcus for moving on. Don’t you dare.”
Rafee focused on Joseph’s face, so set and resolute. And the man was making a point. Had news of his being alive reached them, none of this would have happened. Shawna never would have turned to another man had she thought there was hope of him living. But he had allowed her, allowed his family, allowed the world to think he was dead and therefore, he had a lot to fix and make right. A lot.
He nodded slowly and Joseph clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. I understand how you feel…but you have to always remember the circumstances. And if it makes you feel any better…Shawna cares for Marcus but she sure as hell doesn’t love him the way she loved you. She could never love any man the way she loved you.”
And he could never love any woman—ever—if he didn’t have Shawna. She was the only woman he had ever truly loved and the only woman he wanted to love. He had to get her back, had to make things right, and he realized at that moment that he’d do anything to accomplish that.
Then Joseph smiled at him and added, “And it’s not all bad news, Rafee. Shawna gave birth to your son while you were away. Alexi Rafee. He’s just a few weeks old, I’m told. And Kess is doing fine.”
Rafee turned around and looked for a chair. He found one not too far away and plopped himself in the hideous crushed velvet piece that somehow matched the intricate carvings and marble of the hall. His head fell into his hands and he tried to hold it together. Emotions like never before were threatening to spill over, much like Razi’s had not more than a half hour earlier, and Rafee would be damned if he’d let anything loose now. Not now. Not until he saw Shawna and his kids. Then he could fall apart.
“A son?” he finally managed to ask. “A son…I never dreamed…”
He took in a deep breath, felt Joseph smack him on the back again in an awkward attempt at comforting and finally reigned in all his emotions. He was cool now, he was planning. He had a lot to do, a lot to make up for, but he was already thinking about how to get it all done.
“You have a lot to lose, Rafee, don’t screw it up with that temper of yours,” Joseph warned gently.
“I won’t. I will handle it with calm and cool. And I won’t even blame Marcus for any of this. After all…I can’t. I can only blame myself,” he said, resolute and standing. “Now…I have to say my good-byes to a few people and then I will be off to Kumar.”
Rafee began walking toward Razi and Emir when Joseph called out, “Hey, don’t forget to go outside and see Nik, Zak and Dev. They all came to fight once you died.”
Rafee halted and turned back to his brother-in-law. He smiled with pride knowing that the other men in his family had taken up the fight in his absence. They were true Armanjanis indeed!
**
When Nik saw his brother, tall, strong and very much alive, he wanted to fall on his knees and praise every supernatural entity he could think of, simply because Samad’s words had been true. Rafee was not dead! Rafee had come back to them, just like their mother had claimed all along.
Leave it to Kamilla to know such a thing as Rafee living. She’d be ecstatic, she’d be overjoyed…she’d be impossible to live with now!
But all that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that Nik had his beloved brother back.
Rafee was walking next to another man and flanked by Joseph. Nik trotted his way, unable and unwilling to remain still. They embraced for a long while, crushing each other with brotherly hugs. Zak and Devesh did the same. And when they had all had a chance to touch Rafee to ensure they were not dreaming, they all hugged him yet again.
“You’re alive!” Nik exclaimed. “I know I shouldn’t be surprised given your abilities, but I am. Rafee, it’s been so long. How did you stay away from us for so long?”
Rafee lifted one of those indifferent shoulders of his and replied, “Just fate, luck and a lot of help from some wonderful people. In fact…we’ll have a few additions to our family. Abra and Kadeem. They’ve been…left with no one. I promised to care for them.”
Nik was nodding. Yes, anything. Anything at all. The war was over, his brother was alive…anything!
Then Rafee pulled another man forward. Young, handsome, confidant, proud. Rafee had his hand on the young man’s shoulder and announced, “Nikash, this is Emir Sabet. He’ll take you to Abra and Kadeem. If you could arrange for their transport to Kumar, I’ll meet up with you all there. I have to catch Shawna and Marcus.”
The name immediately clicked in Nik’s mind and he narrowed his eyes on the young man who had taken Jenny and felt the urge to lash out. But he was a diplomatic man and he made sure to keep his hands at his sides and his voice as cool as possible as he asked, “Is this the man who has my Jenny?”
Rafee appeared perfectly relaxed with the idea of Jenny having been taken by this former Johar soldier and that struck Nik as odd. But when Rafee explained, “Yes, Emir has Jenny hiding in safety. In fact, he helped her escape from Jabbar and has been instrumental in assisting me and the other rebel groups. Go easy on him, would you?”
Nik took a moment to register all that Rafee had said, looked Emir over again and asked, “Jenny was in Jabbar’s clutches? When?”
“Several months ago. Around the time Rafee supposedly died. Jabbar never hurt her. He was using her as a pawn to force me to do his bidding,” the young man explained without even flinching, without even looking apologetic for having taken Jenny from her family in the first place. In fact, Nik thought the young man spoke and carried himself like a man much older. There was a maturity, a wisdom about the boy…something that said he had grown up quickly and cared for himself and others for a long while. That, Nik could respect. Emir taking Jenny, however, Nik could never forgive.
“And it never occurred to you that had you not stolen her away from her family in the first place, she never would have fallen into Jabbar’s clutches?” Nik questioned between clenched teeth and Rafee stepped forward as if intending to place himself between Emir and Nik. Emir never wavered, never budged an inch backward.
“I never stole Jenny. She came willingly with me,” Emir replied.
“Willingly? Why on earth would she have done that?” Nik asked, almost sounding cruel in his contempt.
But Emir remained cool and calm under the verbal assault and looked Nik in the eye and answered resolutely, “Because she loves me and I her. And one day we will marry.”
**
“Did you hear him, Samad? Did you? He plans to marry Jenny? Just what kind of insanity is that?” Nik raged as he followed behind the military Jeep Emir was driving.
Never would Samad have imagined that Nik would be out of his head. But then again, Jenny was like his daughter and fatherly instincts were difficult to suppress obviously.
“I think this war has made everyone a bit insane,” Samad answered as he hung on for dear life in the passenger seat. He was riding with Nik as a favor for Rafee who had quickly commandeered a Jeep from the Johar military to race across the desert toward Kumar. He was on a mission to find his wife and therefore, it was Samad’s job to baby-sit the Crown Prince. Not that Nik or Samad had ever gotten along well. In fact, Nik still professed to this day that Samad was not to be trusted. Yet all of that seemed to be forgotten as Nik’s fear and anger was directed at another target.
“Perhaps it has, but still…Jenny is just seventeen. She’s a child,” Nik argued.
“Not in most cultures,” Samad pointed out. “Not in Emir’s culture. Besides, she’s nearly eighteen.”
“Just because Johar lives in the third world does not mean my family must as well. Jenny will finish college, she will marry someone respectable when she is of age!”
Samad chuckled for a long moment and when Nik glared at him with fury, he said, “Why don’t we just start calling you Laxman now?”
Nik sighed loudly, drove for a while in silence and then admitted, “Perhaps I do sound a bit overbearing. Perhaps…” He shook his head. “I do not want to control her life.”
“Now you’re seeing some reason,” Samad drawled.
“But you have to admit, Samad, Jenny’s young.”
“She is.”
“And I should not give my approval for her to marry,” Nik added.
Samad smiled with irony. “In
“I know, I know…”
“But I agree with you. Jenny should not enter into such a binding legal agreement now. She has not experienced enough of life. Although…I’d say this war made us all age some.”
It was Nik’s turn to smile with irony. “I never thought you and I would agree on so much.”
“Don’t let that get out within the family, they’ll laugh at us both,” Samad teased.
The light moment didn’t last long, for Nik again worried over Jenny.
“This Sabet…he is too old for Jenny,” Nik declared.
“He’s but twenty-five. He’s a kid in a lot of ways. But he’s a good kid. Knows how to blow things up too.” Samad laughed when Nik rolled his eyes.
“He took her.”
“I think she went willingly. Wait until you see them together. Disgustingly sweet…”
“About as disgusting as watching you fawn all over a Shakir princess,” Nik retorted back.
“Touché. But trust that Jenny has enough sense to know to wait. She may be in love, but she’s not crazy. And neither is Emir. If he says he wants to marry her, I don’t think he means right now.”
They drove in silence and the desert valley began to transition into small villages. The smell of sand and salt entered the air along with a hint of humidity from the nearby sea. Samad drank it in, reveling in the fact that the fighting had ended and his family was being reunited. It was a good day, a good day indeed.
“I’m afraid I’ll lose her,” Nik then suddenly confessed and when Samad snapped his eyes to his cousin, the man was only looking straight ahead, his mouth set in a firm, hard line.
“She’ll never turn you away, Nikash,” Samad insisted.
Nik’s profile appeared so pained for a moment, and then suddenly he blurted out a secret that Samad never imaged Nik would reveal to him. No, it was the type of secret a man like Nikash would only reveal to Rafee or their father Aarif.
“I have no real claim to her now, Samad. Not now that I know who her real father is.”
**
The sea breeze felt so wonderful in her hair and the sun warmed her face. Jenny stood on the shore, her headscarf off and blowing in the air above her raised arms. For the first time in months, her skin could feel the sun, her hair the wind.
The war was over. News was erupting in the small fishing village and people were celebrating. King Jabbar was dead, his brother Abdul-Razzaq, was to replace him and the northern villages were ecstatic. Jenny was ecstatic because for once she could go outside without a disguise, without covering up who she was.
She stood on that shore for hours, relishing the feel of nature. Her name was called and for a moment she thought it was merely someone from the house summoning her back. But when she turned, she saw Emir jogging toward her.
His handsome face was smiling, his body moving in such fluid athleticism that she could watch him all day and never tire.
When he reached her he lifted her off the ground, hugged her to him and kissed her face. She returned the kisses and when he set her down, she looped her headscarf around his neck and used it as leverage to yank him down to her where their lips met in a heated exchange.
Emir touched her hair as it blew around them, he smoothed it away and then touched his forehead to hers. He drank in her face as if wanting to remember it forever and then, letting out a deep breath, took her hands in his and stepped back.
“Jenny, we must talk of our future,” Emir said seriously and Jenny frowned at him.
“No, Emir, not now. No serious talk now. Let’s just walk down the beach until the sun sets and then kiss on the sand until you start begging me to be your wife again,” she said, smiling as she was half teasing him now.
He smiled, but it vanished quickly.
“We cannot. Your family is here. They want to collect you. Its time for you to leave now, to go back to
“Can you come too?” she inquired.
“Not now. Now, our new king needs me. He has asked to me assist him. I cannot leave Johar in such a state as this. It would not be ethical,” Emir answered.
A younger Jenny would have whined and cried that it wasn’t fair. But the Jenny that had grown up so much in the past few years, the Jenny who had aged considerably since this war began, nodded her head stoically and replied, “I understand.”
Emir kissed her again, then pointed toward two figures yards away standing on the hard-packed dirt beyond the soft sands.
“Nikash has come to see you. He is most concerned about you,” Emir said and upon hearing Nik’s name, Jenny clasped Emir’s hand in hers and began pulling him in that direction.
When they were but a few yards away, Jenny let go of Emir and raced toward Nik. She leapt into his arms. He spun her, hugging her, and telling her how worried he’d been. It felt like home again to be with Nik and upon seeing him, she longed for the sight of her sister and little Nico. Yes, Emir was right, it was time for Jenny to return to
“I’m taking you home, Jenny,” Nik announced. “Home to Villa Serena and I don’t want any arguments about it.”
“Of course not,” she agreed readily and Nik frowned at her.
“I thought you’d protest,” he said.
“I could,” she teased. Then she reached back and took Emir’s hand. “Nik, I love Emir. I want to be with him. But right now there’s too much going on. We will see one another, though. You need to know that.”
She watched Nik’s eyes narrow and when she thought he was going to protest, she moved closer to Emir, tugged on the chain around his neck and revealed the family crest.
“You can’t argue this now, Nik,” Jenny warned gently. “Not now.”
Nik’s eyes studied the family crest for a long while and he finally sighed with resignation. Everyone in the Armanjani family knew that bestowing the family crest upon someone was serious business. It wasn’t done frivolously and it automatically placed its wearer under the protection of the Armanjani circle. Jenny had claimed Emir and Nik would just have to live with it.
“Fine, Jenny. But I want a promise from you both,” Nik said firmly, looking from one to the other. “I want you to promise that you’ll no longer take off unannounced like you did when the war started. I want you to promise that you’ll give yourselves time to grow up first. Especially you, Jenny. Go back to
Jenny smiled widely for that was just what she had been planning on doing.
“Of course, Nik. Why would I do anything else?”
**
He had driven like a madman through the desert, positive he’d catch Shawna and Marcus before he hit the Kumarian border. But he saw no signs of them.
When he entered Kumar and Kumar City, he immediately checked with all hospitals and medical facilities. Still, there was no sign of Shawna and Marcus. Where had they gone and were they okay?
Finally, exhausted and beginning to feel slightly frantic, Rafee made his way back to the palace. His home, like much of Kumar City, had been mostly repaired and workmen were still hammering away on a section of the east wing when he walked into the main hall unannounced. Servants dropped their cleaning tools, security men gasped and his father lowered himself to his knees to bow before his missing son.
Rushing to Aarif’s side, Rafee pulled him to his feet, felt the elder man shaking and tugged him into his embrace.
“Rafee, my son,” Aarif said, his voice but a whisper. “But…you were dead. They said…”
“It’s a long story, father. I’m sorry everyone thought I was dead. I’ll explain it all later. But first…have you seen Shawna?”
His father chuckled and grasped Rafee’s face. He touched the long scar that followed his hairline and then curved gracefully along his cheekbone--Rafee’s reminder of his death and his reminder of life.
“My son, you have lost your wife? How?” Aarif asked with a humorous smile.
“I don’t know, father. I just don’t know.”
“She has not been here. In fact, I have not seen her nor heard from her since the war started.”
Then Aarif groaned, found a couch and sat himself down. He placed a hand over his face and appeared to grimace. Rafee rushed to his side and asked, “Father, are you ill?”
“No, my son,” Aarif answered in a tired voice, his hand reaching out and squeezing Rafee’s shoulder with surprising strength. “I just realized how impossible your mother will be to live with now once it is revealed that she was right. She insisted you had never died. We will never hear the end of this now.”
**
They spent a day on the navy ship, then were flown by helicopter to a military base in
The few brief days they had been away had felt like a lifetime. Holding Kess and Alexi in her arms again, however, felt like heaven. She promised them then she’d never leave them again. No more wars for mommy, she insisted. No more wars.
The lake house was just as they’d left it and Marcus’s CIA friend who had stayed around to watch over things left. They were alone again and back to their comfortable, cozy life.
Yet something didn’t feel right. The vivid dreams at night about Rafee never went away in those few days after the war ended. The nagging in the back of her mind that something about that phone call she’d received just wasn’t right never disappeared. If it hadn’t been Joseph and it hadn’t been Samad, then who?
She hadn’t been in Johar long enough to ask everyone she was close to who had been involved in the war, so in reality, it could have been so many other people. It didn’t mean anything strange or unnatural. There was a logical explanation for it all.
The days were cold now as December was approaching but it didn’t stop Shawna and Marcus from going about their domestic routine. They’d bundle up the kids and go for short walks. Shawna was still drained, still having headaches from the concussion and the baby was much too small to remain out in the cold for long. But for those two days after they’d returned, Shawna reveled in the feel of normalcy that she and Marcus were acquiring.
Suddenly, it was feeling normal to do this. It was becoming “their routine” and Shawna could picture it being a part of their lives for years to come.
“This is good,” she told Marcus as they headed down the trail by the lake and neared the cabin. “This is much better than fighting in a desert.”
“See, I told you all along,” he teased her and leaned over and placed a kiss on her cold nose. “Feeling better?”
“Getting there.”
“Emotionally?”
“I’m really getting there. Johar was a needed experience for me.”
“Good. And I’ve decided I’m ready to retire. Notice I haven’t even answered my phone in days?”
Shawna took his hand as Kess trotted along in front of them, her puffy pink jacket almost bigger than her. Alexi was bundled in a sling hanging in front of Shawna and slept soundly.
“I noticed. I enjoy the quiet.”
They walked hand in hand and mounted the steps to the cabin when Marcus suddenly halted. She frowned down at him, but his head was turned away from her, his eyes surveying the woods that surrounded them.
“What is it?” she inquired.
“Nothing. I suppose I’m just paranoid,” Marcus said, but his tone was suddenly hard and Shawna could tell he sensed something that didn’t feel right.
“Why don’t you take the kids inside for their naps?” he suggested, helping Kess up the steps and handing her little hand off to Shawna. “I’ll just be a second.”
“Okay,” Shawna agreed, though she’d rather pry further. But Marcus seemed determined and she didn’t sense anything distressing nearby. They’d laugh about it later, declaring that they still weren’t over the months of living with worry, looking over their shoulder for Jabbar’s henchmen. That was all it was. Shawna was convinced.
**
After months in the desert, the mountain air was cold. Rafee blew on his hands and rubbed them together. Despite his jeans, boots, scarf and heavy leather jacket, he still shivered. He’d never been affected much by the cold before. Then again, he’d never had to contemplate having to win his wife back either, so it was more than likely that daunting prospect and not the weather that made him shiver.
It had taken a few days to track Marcus and Shawna down. After not finding them in Kumar, Rafee had called Joseph. Joseph had worked on the CIA men and finally got one to hand over the information about where Marcus might possibly be. Agent Dutton Banks had not wanted to be labeled a traitor for giving away the location of Marcus’s little lake cabin, but after hearing that Rafee was alive and looking for his family, the man had decided it was only right.
Rafee wasn’t sure if any of Marcus’s CIA buddies had called to warn him or not. But from where Rafee stood, leaning against the cold metal of his rented Range Rover and watching Marcus, Shawna and the kids complete a short walk, he was pretty sure he didn’t see any wariness in their movements.
His first instinct was to run through the woods and grab up his family. Now that he was so close, he wanted to reconnect with them, to shout out that he was alive. Little Kess was tottering along the dirt path in the distance and she was so beautiful Rafee couldn’t halt the smile. She’d grown, grown too much, and the baby was hidden under the blankets and pack Shawna carried him in. And Shawna, dear precious Shawna, was smiling up at another man with such endearment that Rafee wondered for a moment if he could win her back. Perhaps she loved Marcus more than she had loved Rafee?
No, that couldn’t be right. Joseph had confessed otherwise and Joseph knew his sister. He understood her heart and mind almost as much as Rafee did.
They were almost all in the house when Marcus halted on the steps. Rafee knew then that the CIA man was aware of his presence. Marcus was good, too good to miss that small-hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck-feeling that a man got when something wasn’t right. And Marcus obviously had that feeling now.
Rafee remained by his car, Shawna and the kids went into the cabin, and from a distance he watched Marcus’s approach. It was stealth but the man didn’t appear to be armed. At least not openly. And after all the times Rafee could have died or had already died, he didn’t fear other men. Not now. Armed or not, Marcus would be no match. But Rafee had a feeling that once the man saw him, once the man realized the situation, he’d do what was right. And knocking off a Kumarian prince in the middle of the woods was not Marcus’s style.
A twig snapped and Marcus appeared from behind a tree. The man stopped dead in his tracks. If he had been planning any sort of assault, as soon as his eyes landed on Rafee, he was rendered immobile and unable to do anything. And for a long, long time, they both merely stood and stared at one another.
Finally, Marcus spoke. “Rafee?”
“In the flesh,” Rafee drawled.
“But…you were dead. We were told…you died.”
How many times had Rafee heard these exact words in the past week? Too many. So far, his family had been handling his resurrection well. Marcus was now paling and it was obvious he was not going to be as joyful as his family had been.
The man then suddenly covered his face and sank to the ground. “No, no, this can’t be,” he said over and over again. “It can’t be.”
When he lifted his head to look upon Rafee again, there was obvious disappointment on his face when he realized Rafee had not disappeared.
“It can’t be, you died,” Marcus said again.
“I did,” Rafee acknowledged. “When Joseph and your men left, I was dead.”
“But…how…how did you live?”
“I was badly injured. Horribly, in fact. The leader of a rebel group found me and they fixed me up. I remained hidden in their camp for months, fighting the war with them, never telling the world I was alive.”
“Why?” Marcus inquired.
“To ensure Shawna and Kess’s safety.”
Again, it sounded so simple, so logical in his own head, but when Marcus narrowed his eyes and glared at Rafee, he realized that to Marcus and Shawna, this explanation was anything but simple or logical.
“You bastard. You unbelievable bastard!” Marcus cried out and jumped to his feet. But he never came near Rafee and Rafee never adjusted his casual stance in response to Marcus’s aggressive movement.
“You allowed your wife and daughter to think you were dead? How could you? How? Do you know what Shawna went through? Do you? God, she died with you. I swear, I thought she’d lock herself up in her room and just wither away. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep for weeks. She was angry, she was in denial, she wept…she went through every horrible emotion you could imagine. And now, you just show up looking smug, saying that you died for them? How on earth could you do that, Rafee?”
Rafee could not miss the emotion in Marcus’s eyes. The man truly cared for Shawna and the children. He truly loved them. And now, Rafee was going to ask the man to simply hand them back over and forget he ever loved them. It was a horrible dilemma, yet in this instance, Rafee had to be selfish. He had to have his family back…if they would have him.
“I appreciate your anxiety, Agent Snow. And I completely understand how you feel. I was without my family for nearly a year. I agonized everyday over what I was doing, but in my heart, I knew it was the only way. I had you to ensure their safety, sure, but several times Jabbar had almost gotten to them. How could I be certain it wouldn’t happen here?” Rafee held out his hands, extending to the woods and lake. “It was unlikely, of course, but it wasn’t impossible. And just what would become of me if anything would have happened to Shawna or the kids? It was a no-win sacrifice, but in the end, Shawna and Kess were never harmed.”
“And Alexi,” Marcus added.
Rafee smiled. “Yes, my son. I am eager to meet him.”
Marcus again closed his eyes and let out a low oath. His hand clutched at the trunk of a tree in an attempt to steady himself, but still, he wavered, nearly tumbling over. It was then that Rafee truly realized just what Shawna and the kids meant to Marcus.
“I know you love Shawna and the kids,” Rafee then said and Marcus’s eyes snapped open. “I am not blind to it. And I am not angry about it. How could I blame you for falling in love with them? They are incredible.”
“They are.”
“And you helped Shawna move on with her life. Of course, I would rather you hadn’t brought her to Johar…”
“She needed the closure. It was the only way she could get over you. And she was getting over you. Now, you’re back. I fear what this will do to her.”
“It’ll be a rough ride. I am not going to delude myself into thinking all will be forgiven once I walk through that door, Marcus. I know she’ll hate me for a time. I know she’ll punish me. But it won’t matter…not to me. As long as I have my family back, I’ll be happy. And one day, Shawna and I will be right again. It’s just the way things work with us. We always end up right in the end.”
“So…I should just go in there, announce you’re alive and leave? Is that what you want?” Marcus then asked, his voice harsh, his anger evident upon the handsome features of his face.
“I would never push you out. I would never tell you to just leave,” Rafee countered. “I would want you to do what you think is best for Shawna and the kids.”
“What I think is best? Of course, having their father and mother reunited is best, Rafee. So why would I push myself on your family? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. You know that. You know something about me, don’t you? You know I have some sense of honor and dignity.”
Marcus’s voice was acidic. His anger was growing. Then he suddenly drew his mouth into a tight line, cursed again in all his American slang, and declared, “Shawna will never love me the way she loves you. I know that. I’m not stupid. Sure, she would have been happy with me, but it would never have been the same for her. After all, how could I compete with a man who can literally resurrect himself from the dead? I can’t. And as much as I love them…” His voice cracked but he continued. “As much as I want to spend the rest of my life with them, I just can’t imagine that Shawna would ever choose me over you. And thinking…hoping…that any other outcome could be conceived, is just plain crazy.”
“So what do you want to do, Marcus?” Rafee asked softly, knowing the man was cracking inside, knowing the man was feeling the same pain Rafee had felt for all those months in the desert when he’d been separated from Shawna.
“I want to go in there and tell her good-bye, Rafee,” Marcus declared and his lip quivered slightly. “Hell…” He shook his head, closed his eyes and then seemed to reclaim his calm. “I want to tell Shawna and the kids good-bye properly. And then…then I’ll tell her you’re alive.”
“Fine,” Rafee agreed. “But I won’t give you all day, Marcus. I want to see them and see them soon.”
“Just give me a half-hour. Okay? Can you give me that?”
“I can give you that. But not a minute more.”
**
The damn blasted man had returned from the dead! Go figure!
Marcus trudged through the woods on wobbly legs, wondering how on earth Rafee could still be alive when so many had insisted they’d seen him die. Marcus didn’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but when it came to Prince Rafee Armanjani…well, the man just wasn’t normal.
Marcus had known that there was something very special about Rafee the day he’d first met him in Kumar. Even then, the man’s eyes had glowed with a strange power. His skills on the battlefield had been so impressive even Marcus had balked. And his ability to strike fear into the hearts of men with a simple look…certainly the man was not mortal. He couldn’t be. Shawna had married a god.
Shawna. Just thinking about her tore him up. He loved her, insanely, and he had known for a while now that things would never last. In the back of his mind, ever since they’d received that strange phone call from the desert, he’d known he’d lose her and the kids. But he wouldn’t argue with Rafee and he wouldn’t ask Shawna to choose. It just wasn’t right.
He’d known all along that Shawna had always loved Rafee more. And that was putting it mildly. He knew he’d never be able to compete with Rafee in any department as far as Shawna was concerned. Still, she had loved him. Marcus knew she’d loved him. It just hadn’t been the same as the love she’d harbored, still harbored, for Rafee.
And as he walked to the cabin, Marcus began to feel a weight lift off his shoulders. Kess and Shawna would be so relieved to know Rafee had returned. It was best for them and as much as it hurt Marcus, it was the way things had to be.
Shawna was in the kitchen when he returned and she looked at him with a furrowed brow and asked, “What was it?”
“Ghosts,” Marcus said, hoping he sounded light.
“Haunted woods, huh?” Shawna teased back. “Hey, want a sandwich? I’m starved.”
“Uh…not right now. I’ll be back in a sec.” He hung his jacket up on the coat rack by the door, then hurried to his room. There, he composed a letter, looked in on the kids sleeping in Shawna’s room and said a quiet good-bye. Then he checked his watch. He only had fifteen minutes left and Rafee would knock on the front door. Fifteen minutes.
**
Marcus was acting slightly strange, but Shawna didn’t query much over it. When he finally returned from his chore in his room, Shawna was just finishing up half of her sandwich. But the slightly disappointed look on Marcus’s face caused her to put her food down and stand from the table.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” she inquired.
Marcus smiled at her, but it seemed slightly forced. Then he tugged her into his arms and held her for a long moment.
“What was that for?” Shawna inquired.
“That was because you are insanely beautiful, courageous and strong,” he teased lightly. Then he nudged her chin up with his hand and kissed her.
It was a long, sensuous kiss. A kiss that told her he desired her. And between the war, the baby and her injuries, there had been little time for passion between them. But perhaps this would be the type of romance where they’d wait until they wed. It sounded insanely romantic to Shawna and if they married in the next few weeks, she was positive she could hold out.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Shawna began once Marcus’s lips left hers and trailed down her neck.
“That’s dangerous,” he taunted.
She giggled. “Seriously, though.”
At his words, he pulled back and looked down at her.
“What?” he asked.
“I was thinking we could plan a wedding soon. Something small. Real small.” She held out her left hand and there was his engagement ring. Marcus furrowed his brow, paled slightly and for a moment, Shawna thought he’d pass out. Then again, he’d been a bachelor for so long, contemplating marriage must still be daunting.
“And,” she added, “let’s wait until we’re married to make love. I just like the whole idea of that.”
Marcus squeezed his eyes shut and then pulled her against him. His embrace was crushing and Shawna had to wonder why his emotions were so raw all of a sudden.
“You know I love you, Shawna, don’t you?” he asked her, his voice strained. Oh God, was he going to tell her now that he didn’t want to marry her? Was he going to dump her because he was just now realizing what a pain in the ass she could be?
“I know,” she said hesitantly.
“And you know I adore those kids like they were mine?” he continued.
“I know, Marcus. I know.” She pulled away from him and declared, “I love you. After all you have done for me, I love you.”
She watched as Marcus visibly swallowed, then he breathed deeply and asked, “And what if Rafee hadn’t dumped me on you? What if we hadn’t been locked away in this cabin and Rafee hadn’t died? Would you love me then?”
Shawna took a long moment to answer. Something was very, very wrong with Marcus all of a sudden and a strange feeling hit the pit of her stomach.
“Marcus, what’s wrong?” Shawna asked. “What aren’t you telling me?” Perhaps Marcus had met someone while he was outside, one of the Armanjanis. She strode to the window and looked around. Grey clouds were moving in, turning the lake an inky black, but no one was outside. Still, a heavy feeling tugged at her gut.
She looked back over her shoulder at Marcus and he appeared absolutely tortured. Never had she seen his face so white, his eyes glassy, his fists clenched in tension.
She turned her head and glanced back out the window and there, standing on the gravel drive to the cabin was Rafee.
Shawna jumped away from the window as if something had just bit her. She let a gasp fly, felt her head swirl with blackness and before she could lose her balance and hit the floor, Marcus was there to catch her.
“He’s alive, Shawna,” Marcus said in a whisper. “All this time…he’s been alive.”
“No,” Shawna returned, shaking her head. “No, he’s dead. You and Joseph…everyone said he had died.”
Marcus pulled her into his embrace and held her for a long while. He held her until a knock sounded off the front door and Shawna felt that heavy feeling in her stomach again. She didn’t want Marcus to open that front door because then the entire life she had just rebuilt would come crashing down and she’d have to deal with the loss and frustration and anger again she had felt when Rafee had died.
Besides, how could she be certain the Rafee she had seen outside wasn’t just some figment of her imagination? After all, she had been hit pretty hard in the head just recently. Perhaps she was seeing things? Maybe they should call Doc Miller and have him check her out again?
But if that were the case, why would Marcus be looking so incredibly pale and why would he be declaring that Rafee was indeed alive?
“Do you want me to answer the door or are you going to do it, babe?” Marcus asked.
“No, don’t let him in,” Shawna insisted.
“Shawna,” Marcus gently chastised, “it’s Rafee. Your husband.”
“No, my husband died. This is somebody’s sick joke.”
“It’s no joke. It’s a miracle.”
With that, Marcus strode to the door and pulled it open. Standing there on the other side was a ghost. A damned ghost of Rafee!
“Shawna,” Rafee said with a gentle smile as he stepped across the threshold. He didn’t move toward her, he didn’t insist she come to him. He merely stood there next to Marcus, staring at her with his gold eyes and looking very real, not at all supernatural.
She stood behind an arm chair, grasping its back as if it would shield her from this news she had been bombarded with while she studied her resurrected husband. He was a good twenty pounds thinner, but still tall and intimidating. And upon his face, his handsome, gorgeous face, was a long scar that attested to the injuries he must have suffered in the war. But he was indeed her husband. He was indeed Rafee.
Marcus shut the door behind Rafee and the soft whoosh of the movement was enough to distract Shawna from the sight of her husband. She looked at Marcus, pleading with him to help her. But when he turned away from the door, smiled at her his boyish crooked smile and announced, “I’ll give you both some privacy,” and walked past her with a reassuring touch to her shoulder, she knew she was on her own.
“Shawna, at least scream or yell. Do something,” Rafee then stated. “I don’t think I can handle this silence much longer.”
Stuttering, Shawna blurted out, “You’re alive. How?”
“Luck,” he declared. “It’s too long of a story to get into now, darling. Tell me, how have you been?”
“Uh…certainly not entirely fine,” she said, blinking and forcing herself out of the strange haze she’d been in upon seeing Rafee again. “Rafee, at least tell me you had amnesia or something. Tell me you were taken prisoner and couldn’t contact us. Please, tell me at least part of the story.”
Rafee unzipped his jacket and pulled off his navy blue scarf. He hung everything up on the coat rack and those simple movements looked strained to Shawna. Rafee was avoiding her request and that saddened her immensely.
Finally, he faced her and answered, “I knew who I was and I was never anybody’s prisoner, Shawna. I fought in the desert with the rebels. I never let anyone know I was alive. Only Samad and Isis knew because they were there.”
Shawna felt her eyes grow large at his confession. She felt the anger engulf her and without thinking, she blurted out, “You were alive this entire time, Samad knew, and yet you allowed me to think you were dead…allowed your daughter to think you were never coming back? How could you, Rafee? How could you!”
She closed the distance between them and swung at him. He easily caught her fist, she’d telegraphed her intentions way too early. Yanking back from him, she glared at him, then swung with her left open hand and connected with his check. Never before had she hit her husband—aside from sparing sessions—and never had she hit him out of anger. The slap echoed through the tiny cabin and Shawna felt justified. Then she saw the hurt and pain enter Rafee’s face and she felt guilty.
“Oh God,” she cried softly and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh God…” She shook her head, sank to her knees and, hugging her stomach because she suddenly felt ill, doubled over and sobbed on the floor.
Rafee was next to her in an instant. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. She recognized his scent immediately. She felt his heartbeat in his chest and realized he was no apparition. He was a living, breathing, hurting man. Hurting just like she was.
“Shawna,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not enough, but I’m sorry. I did it for you. Because I love you. Because I love Kess. And I’m so very, very sorry.”
Shawna said nothing, but she didn’t pull away either. She was in Rafee’s arms again, a place she never thought she’d be, and as angry as she was, she wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth. All the emotions, all the…the mess…could be worked out later.
Rafee gathered her close and lifted her in his arms. He carried her to the couch and sat down with her on his lap. He kissed her forehead, roamed his hands down her back, kissed her cheek. And when she lifted her tear stained face to his and opened her eyes, she saw the evidence of tears in his own eyes. Oh, it was subtle all right. After all, the great and mighty warrior never cried. But this time, he was certainly a bit weepy looking.
“I love you too, Rafee. I never stopped,” Shawna confessed.
She leaned forward and met his lips. His kiss was passionate, it was fiery…it was everything she remembered it to be. And though Marcus had kissed her just minutes before, it didn’t even compare to this.
“And I never stopped thinking of you, of Kess,” Rafee murmured against her lips. “Never, Shawna. Everything I did in that war was for you. And when I saw you in Johar at the palace…that grenade…”
“You were there?” she inquired.
He nodded. “I told you to take cover.”
She smiled, but still, she felt the pain. They would have a bit of a distance to travel for all to be forgiven, but she had Rafee back and that was bigger than any other emotion she had felt when he was gone.
“And Samad never told me you were alive. Jerk,” she grumbled.
“At my request. I wanted to tell you myself. And I searched and searched in Johar and Kumar for you and Snow once Jabbar was dead.”
“We went north and caught a naval ship. Marcus was worried about my head.”
“I worry about your head,” Rafee teased and Shawna rolled her eyes because five minutes back and he was already taunting her again.
“I’m not entirely over all of this, you know,” Shawna said, sobering after the short light mood.
“I know.”
“I’m going to be angry, I’m going to be sad. I’m warning you.”
“I understand.”
“And Marcus…he and I…”
“I know,” Rafee said simply and Shawna knew then that she didn’t have to explain any further about Marcus. Rafee knew they had been in love, he knew they had been close. And from the look in his eyes, he wasn’t the slightest bit angry.
Then Rafee surprised her by asking instead of insisting, “You want me back?”
Shawna looked at him and smiled. She touched his face, traced the scar on his face that she would have to get used to seeing and declared, “I want you back. I will always want you back.”
**
The war between Johar and Kumar was over. Abdul-Razzaq was crowned king and a peace agreement was settled between the two nations. Both sides had suffered casualties, the Armanjani family had suffered casualties, but still, Sheika Kamilla was relieved and she was overjoyed despite what they had all endured.
Rafee was alive! Her brave, beautiful son was alive and she had known it all along. A mother always knew such things in her heart and despite how her family had thought her insane, despite how they had coddled her at times, she felt vindicated knowing that all along she had been right.
Her family wasn’t entirely fixed. Aria, her youngest, was heartbroken. Marriages had been strained by the distance and time of war. But in the end, the Armanjanis would endure…as they always had for centuries.
The End
“Sheiks of Kumar IX—Family Reunion” Coming Soon…