Free Her Desert Knight by Jennifer Lewis Page A

prefer. I’ll have you back by four.”
    “My youngest brother was home when I arrived today. He noticed my jeans were wet. I can’t take any more chances.” She’d been cursing herself ever since. She was listening at the door in a panic when her father came home, wondering if Khalid would say something and expose her to inquisition-style questioning. She had no business whatsoever disappearing for another tryst with Quasar.
    “Are you trying to tell me that you’ll never see me again?”
    Her heart seized. Is that what she meant? It seemed too awful to imagine.
    “Because if that’s what you think, you’re dead wrong. I haven’t achieved the success I’ve found in business by giving up easily.”
    She wanted to laugh. She found his persistence sexy and appealing. But then there was the other side of the story. “You freely admitted that you quickly grow bored and move on. I can’t afford a casual affair. My emotions are too fragile and if that wasn’t enough, my reputation is in tatters already and I can’t risk it getting any worse.”
    “Your reputation will be as safe as the sultan’s treasure. Besides, you might find the place interesting. It’s an old farmhouse. I have no idea how old but possibly a thousand years or more. There are twelve frankincense trees on the property. It’s a window into an earlier time.”
    She hesitated. History was an intoxicating drug to her. A thousand-year-old farmhouse
and
Quasar? Hard to resist. “That does sound rather intriguing.”
    “Ten o’clock, then. At your house?”
    “No! The neighbors might see.” She wanted to go, though. How could she resist? “I’ll be at the market again.” The neighbors might see her there but somehow it seemed less likely. Her temperature rose at the prospect of meeting Quasar again. It was embarrassing how her resolve flew right out the window at the mere sound of his voice.
    Much as it had when she’d first fallen for Gordon, against the protests of her girlfriends that he was too old for her, and too possessive. She’d been so sure of her heart. Only to watch it be trampled and left bloodless and empty.
    Quasar had already hung up. Probably he was on to his next activity of the evening, barely thinking about her at all. And she faced another sleepless night of fitful dreams mixed with colorful fears and scary anticipation.
    * * *
    As usual the drive sped by. Quasar was so easy to talk to. He knew so many things and had been to so many places but never made her feel inadequate by comparison.
    “We’ll have to go to Angkor Wat together. Some of the temples seem to grow organically out of the jungle, like they really are holy and mystical creations.” He talked with such conviction she could almost see them heading for the airport, ready to explore the ancient ruins of Cambodia, or Peru, or someplace she’d never even heard of.
    They drove into the green-cloaked mountains, along a winding road that seemed to go on forever. High, heavy vegetation on both sides hid the outside world and made her feel as if they were driving in an alternate universe, where the dry deserts and bustle of Salalah didn’t even exist.
    The road finally petered out and they drove across an expanse of grass toward a building unlike any she’d seen in Oman. “Are we really in Oman?”
    He laughed. “I’m pretty sure of it.”
    “But your house has a pitched roof. It looks like something you’d see in New Jersey!”
    “It’s much rainier here than the rest of the country. That’s why it’s green. I suppose the old farmers figured they needed a pitched roof to keep the rain out of their houses.”
    The stone walls had been left unplastered and had an intriguingly ancient appearance. The house was on a sloped hillside, and the frankincense trees formed an orderly rectangle on the higher side of the slope. She could easily picture sheep grazing under their scraggly branches, on the rich grassy hillside that looked like it belonged in Ireland,