Free The Sheikh & the Princess Bride by Susan Mallery

drinks, she glanced around at the beauty and quiet of the desert.
    “Did you run off here when you got in trouble as a kid?” she asked.
    “Sometimes. My father learned fairly quickly that I could be kept in line with the threat of losing access to my planes.”
    “I know what you mean. In my house, getting grounded was meant literally.”
    He chuckled. “I doubt you received many lectures on your duties to the people and how when you got in trouble you were letting down a thousand years of tradition.”
    “Okay, I was spared that.” She looked at him. “Did the king really bring up a thousand years of tradition in his lectures?”
    “It was a particular favorite.” Jefri shrugged. “According to him, I deeply disappointed all of our ancestors on a regular basis.”
    She couldn’t imagine having that much history in one family. She got excited when she was able to stay in one place more than eight weeks.
    “But you recovered to transgress another day,” she said.
    “Sometimes I did not wait that long.” He smiled. “I liked to explore and I rarely followed the rules.”
    “Something tells me you still don’t.”
    Instead of answering, he reached for her hand and took it in his. “Tell me what it was like when you were growing up. There was no king to make pronouncements.”
    “Maybe not, but my dad was used to being in charge. With three boys to deal with, he had to be firm.”
    Jefri rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand and made her skin tingle.
    “What about with you?”
    “Until my mom died, she took care of disciplining me. I spent most of my time with her and we always got along. She used to say how as there were only two of us, we had to band together.”
    She felt his gaze on her face. “You must have found her death very difficult.”
    “I did. I was just about to enter the whole teenaged thing, when a girl really needs her mom. She had cancer, so there was some warning, but only a few weeks.
    By the time she realized she was sick, it was already too late. My folks had first started dating in high school and my mom once admitted they’d both been each other’s first time. So when she got sick, my dad really freaked out.”
    She stared out at the horizon. “My dad traveled a lot and I thought that meant he didn’t care so much about her, but I was wrong. I remember a couple of days after she’d been diagnosed and they’d told us, I went into their bedroom to talk to her. He was there, holding her. Crying. I’d never seen my dad cry. I didn’t want to spy, but I couldn’t seem to walk away. He begged her not to die. He told her he couldn’t make it without her. I could feel their love for each other. I vowed then I would find someone to love me that much.”
    “Have you?” he asked.
    She raised her eyebrows. “We wouldn’t be sitting here holding hands if I had.”
    “An excellent point.”
    Funny how she’d begun to believe she wouldn’t find anyone to love her that much because no one seemed to be interested in her. Knowing that her brothers were scaring off potential boyfriends made her feel a little better. Although did she want someone who didn’t want her enough to go up against her brothers?
    Too confusing, she told herself, and not something to be resolved today.
    “So when your mother died, you went on the road with your father?” Jefri asked.
    She nodded. “He’d started taking the boys with him during the summer. Now, with no one left at home, we all went. Dad hired a tutor so we could keep up with school. I turned thirteen in South America and sixteen in the Middle East. Most girls get a sweet sixteen party—I soloed on a jet.”
    “Would you rather have had the party?”
    She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Are you crazy? I’d begged my dad to let me fly jets for two years before he let me. He said I couldn’t handle the technical information, so I studied physics and aerodynamics until he was forced to change his mind.”
    Jefri watched