The Sheikh's Secret Son (10 page)

“I'm never afraid,” a small voice answered him. “And if I want to go home, I know how. I came out to see my mom, who's still up at the main house, even though she knows it's bedtime and she has to tuck me in. So,” the small voice continued, with just the hint of apprehension finally coloring the quite grown-up confidence he had been articulating, “you can go away now.”

“But
I
am afraid,” Ben answered, taking a few more careful steps toward the small, dark outline visible between the twisting branches of brush. “I am afraid that I have lost my way, and I would only hope that you might help me find the home of Mr. Ryan Fortune, who I am to see tonight. Can you help me, as it would seem you know your way around this great ranch?”

“Uncle Ryan?” The voice had regained its strength. “You're here to see Uncle Ryan? Then why are you going the wrong way? The ranch house is behind you. That's a limousine, isn't it? I've never been in one of those. My friend, Randy, he comes to play school in one every day. Mom says his parents spoil him, but I think it would be neat to ride in a limousine. Do you like it?”

“I like it very much,” Ben answered, taking two more steps and then stopping in the middle of the road, where the headlights could show his form, a bit of his expression. If he did not look like a bad
man, perhaps the boy would begin to trust him. “Would you like to sit up front with my driver, and tell him how to find the ranch house? He will even let you wear his cap, if you want.”

“Mom says I'm not supposed to get in strange cars, or talk to strange people. That's dangerous. So you hafta go away now, okay?”

Ben sighed, running a hand through his hair. The boy was right. He should not talk to strangers, accept rides in strange cars. The mother had taught the child well, even if she did not seem able to keep him where he was put. “Haskim,” he said so that the servant rushed up to him, bowed. “Get back in your car and return to the ranch house. Bring Mr. Holden Fortune to me. Do you know Mr. Holden Fortune, young man?” he asked, calling to the child.

“Uncle Holden?”

“Ah. Did you hear that, Haskim? It is now doubly definite. We have discovered a Fortune child wandering the ranch in the darkness. Well, with all that is transpiring here today, it is no surprise a small child was allowed to misplace himself, is it? Go on, Haskim, ask Mr. Fortune if he will be kind enough to come retrieve his nephew while the boy and I broaden our acquaintance.”

“But, Your Highness. For you to stand out here, unprotected—”

“Haskim, I am not going to leave this child. You
know, there's something to be said about absolute rule and a healthy fear of incurring the wrath of one's prince. Would you care to have me consider that, Haskim?”

Ben smiled as the servant bowed three times, then quickly sprinted back to the car. A moment later the car was backing into the field alongside the roadway, then returning to the ranch house.

“Are you a king?”

Ben turned back to look where the boy had been, still straining to see him through the darkness. He saw that the boy had stepped slightly away from the brush, so that he could see that the child was indeed a young boy, and with the posture of a strong young warrior, perhaps a bit of a prince himself.

“A king? Perhaps. In my country, I am the sheikh. Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir of Kharmistan, if you want to hear the whole of it. But I would be best pleased if you were to call me Ben. Will you do that? And I might then call you…?”

The shadowy figure took another step forward, moved into the light of the headlamps on the limousine. “Sawyer,” he said, holding his chin high, his dark eyes staring straight into Ben's. “You can call me Sawyer.”

All Ben could do was stare. To look at this young boy. This Sawyer Fortune.

This boy who looked at him with his own eyes.

“Who is your mother, Sawyer?” he heard himself ask, knowing his voice was little more than a rough rasp, that he was probably frightening the boy. “That is…” he amended, trying to gather his shattered thoughts, trying to slow his heartbeat that pounded as if he had just run a long race, only to fall into the dust a foot before the finish line. “Perhaps I know her? I have met a few of your family members, you see, so I am curious. Is your mother's name Eden?”

“You look funny,” Sawyer said, backing up a few steps. “Sort of mad, and maybe a little bit sick. Are you sick? And why do you sound so funny? Like you're trying not to shout at me?”

Ben turned his head, wiped a hand across his mouth, turned to face the boy once more. He could not be right. He had to control himself. Eden would not do such a thing to him. She would not have hidden his son from him. She was not a mean person, a spiteful person. There had to be some mistake.

“I am sorry, Sawyer. I did not mean to frighten you. I—I was only surprised to see that you are such an intelligent-looking young man, and yet you have allowed yourself to be lost in the dark, just like a baby.”

“I'm not lost, and I'm
not
a baby!” Sawyer exclaimed, stamping his foot in the dirt. “And I don't like you.”

Ben let out his breath in a small rush, knowing he had at least diverted Sawyer from thinking he might be ill, or worse. Even if he did feel sick at heart, devastated by a knowledge that he was a fool, had always been a fool, and that Eden must hate him with all of her being.

Hate him, and fear him. Fear him very much.

He became aware of the sound of vehicles all but skidding to a stop on the roadway, the sound of car doors slamming shut, the voice of Holden Fortune calling to his young nephew as he ran along the roadway, past the limousine, to stop just beside Ben.

“Ben?” Holden asked, looking at him. Ben refused to turn, to take his fevered gaze away from Sawyer, to look at his new friend and see the truth in his eyes. “Oh, brother. You know, don't you? Yes, of course you do. He's the spitting image of you, which I might have realized sooner, if I'd had any reason to suspect…if Eden had confided in any of us before tonight. Are…are you all right?”

“I believe a house as large as your uncle's contains sufficient guest rooms for Haskim and myself,” he heard himself say. “Have two such rooms prepared by tomorrow morning, and expect my arrival no later than ten o'clock. I, in turn, will expect Eden to be waiting for me, prepared to answer any questions I might have. Is that clear?”

“Now, look, Ben…” Holden began as Sawyer
ran up to his uncle, flung his arms around Holden's knees. “Oh, hell, I'm not even going to try to lie to you now. What would be the point? It would take a blind man to not notice the resemblance, and an idiot not to be able to count on his fingers and figure out the rest of it. I'll have Eden waiting for you at her mother's house tomorrow morning, although Sawyer won't be there. You can understand why not, Ben, I'm sure. Someone at the front gate will direct your driver, all right?”

“Thank you,” Ben said stiffly, still staring at the spot where he had first seen Sawyer, holding on to the moment he had realized that he had a son. He had a son! “And now, if you will excuse me, the hour grows late and I have much to do.”

“There's an explanation, you know. A perfectly reasonable explanation—
Mr. Ramsey,
” Holden called after him as Ben turned and his long strides took him back to the open door of the limousine. “Don't forget that!”

“Your Highness?” Haskim did not look at Ben as he held open the door to the limousine. He was far too occupied with gawking at Sawyer Fortune, who was now skipping alongside his uncle, heading back to the Jeep he'd driven in, having chosen to follow Haskim's car. “That boy, Your Highness. Did you see him?”

“Yes, Haskim, I have seen him,” Ben said,
climbing into the limousine, collapsing against the soft leather cushions. “You have seen him. But Nadim has not. No others have seen him. To Nadim, to everyone else, the child does not exist. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Your Highness,” Haskim said, bowing. “I serve my prince. I live to serve any royal prince of Kharmistan with the blood of your father and his father in his veins.”

“Thank you, Haskim,” Ben said, lowering his head into his hands as the door closed and the driver pulled forward once more.

Ben sat quietly for a long time, trying to control his thoughts, trying to reconcile his nearly overwhelming anger with his own bone-deep guilt.

Then he touched the button that raised the glass between driver and passenger, and pulled his cell phone and small electronic notebook from his jacket pocket. He had a lot of calls to make, a raft of different orders to set into motion before he returned to the Double Crown the next morning.

The first call to an agency in New York would have a discreet watch put on the Double Crown ranch within the hour, so that no one could come or go—whether by car or by plane or even by helicopter—without the knowledge of Barakah Karif Ramir, Sheikh of Kharmistan.

Especially one lying, deceitful young woman, or one very small, infinitely precious boy.

 

There were three voice mail messages from Eden waiting for Ben by the time he returned to the Palace Lights hotel in San Antonio. Stripping off his shirt, he tossed it to the floor, vowing never to wear it, or his blue slacks, ever again. He pushed the button and the first of those messages played over the speakerphone.

“Ben? Oh, God, Ben! I know you're not there yet. You just left, and Holden told me how upset you looked. And I don't blame you, Ben. I can't blame you. But you have to believe me—it wasn't supposed to happen this way. I was going to tell you. Tomorrow. I was still trying to find the words, the moment. You can understand that, can't you? Call me. Please call me!”

He glared at the phone, shook his head, waited for the second message.

“Ben? I suppose you're not back yet. If you are, please call me. I want to apologize again. Apologize forever, if that's what it takes. But I couldn't tell you, not yet. All I could think about was Sawyer.
He
had to be told, before I could say anything to you. I have to prepare him, break the news to him slowly…. Oh, Ben! Call me, call me as soon as you get in!”

“Prepare him? Break the news to him slowly?” Ben glared at the telephone as he took off his shoes, stripped out of his slacks and underwear. “Yes, I can see the wisdom in that. But did you think about my reaction, Eden? Or did my feelings not hold any concern for you?”

The last message was short, and Eden's voice was stronger now, more in control. “You and I will meet at my mother's tomorrow at ten. Sawyer will be with Holden, who has agreed to take care of him until you and I can come to some sort of agreement. If you don't agree with this, if you make any attempt to see Sawyer outside my presence, I will make sure you never see him again. Do you understand that, Ben? I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. But I will not allow anything, or anyone, to hurt my son. Not even his father. Now, good night!”

Not even his father?
Never
his father! Ben would allow his eyes to be plucked out before he could think to hurt his own son. Did Eden not understand that? Had she forgotten so much? Did she know him so little?

Ben carefully erased the messages, grateful that Nadim was still out, still enjoying his dinner with the members of the American triad, basking in his success. If Nadim had been here in the suite, if he had picked up the phone when Eden called…

No. Ben would not think about that. It was
enough that he knew Nadim could not know about Sawyer's existence. Not until Ben had taken steps to protect the child, insure his future, present him to the people of Kharmistan as his son and heir.

Kharmistan was a nation at peace, a nation that had been at peace for long decades. A nation that harbored no real rebels, no prospect of revolution. But it was also the same nation that was the home of Yusuf Nadim, cousin to the sheikh, father-in-law and powerful chief advisor to the sheikh, a man who had thought to see his own grandson on the throne of Kharmistan.

Nadim would not be happy to learn of Sawyer's existence. He might even try to rally some sort of support behind the notion that his prince was immoral, unfit to rule, having fathered an illegitimate child he was now thrusting at the heads of his people, proclaiming him heir.

No. Nadim could not know. Not yet. Not until Ben found a way to explain Sawyer to his people, explain Eden to his people. Because he would give up the throne before he would give up his son. And he would marry Eden Fortune, make her his wife in the eyes of his God and his people, take her to Kharmistan as his father had taken his mother there thirty years ago.

He would marry Eden. For the boy. And because he loved her, had always loved her, would always
love her. Even now, when he was so angry with her that he had to leave the Double Crown Ranch tonight without confronting her.

And if she would not have him? If she refused to take Sawyer to Kharmistan, have the three of them start a new life there together? What then?

Ben went into the luxurious bathroom, turned on the shower with its half dozen shower heads, and stood there as cold water stung him, sobered him after an hour of anger and hope and fear that had threatened to unman him. He had to be clearheaded. He had more calls to make, plans to make, a life to begin.

But what then?
his mind continued to nudge at him. What would he do if Eden was determined to keep him from his son? What would he do? What
could
he do that would not end up destroying them all?

E
den scrubbed her face, splashing cold water on her eyes as she did her best to repair the ravages of nearly a full night of weeping. Grieving.

She had lost Ben. Not that she'd ever had him. Not that she'd know what to do with him if he still wanted her. Which he couldn't. Not because she hadn't told him about Sawyer five years ago. But because she hadn't told him in the two days he'd been back in her life.

But that wasn't the worst. She had gotten over Ben once, or so she knew she had to tell herself, convince herself. She could get over him again.

What she could not get over, could not banish from her heart, mind, or future, was the fact that Sawyer's father had a right to meet him. Be with him. Have a hand in raising him.

It was impossible!

Sawyer's home was here, in Texas. With his cousins and aunts and uncles. His grandmother. With his mother.

She'd already heard some of Ben's feelings about
family, opinions he'd delivered to her quite casually, but opinions Eden was sure Ben believed in from the bottom of his heart.

His son. His heir. The next Sheikh of Kharmistan. To Ben, Sawyer's future must be cast in stone, pre-ordained, predestined. A straight path that led from Texas to Kharmistan, and ended there.

But Sawyer's life was here. Her life was here, her family, her career, her future. Kharmistan might be a nice place to visit, to hear Ben talk about his modern, liberal country, but she wouldn't want to live there.

She wouldn't want Sawyer to live there. She would not
allow
Sawyer to live there!

The part of the night Eden hadn't spent pacing and crying, she'd spent on the Internet, looking up everything she could about Kharmistan; its history, geography, customs. Its rulers.

There was no question Kharmistan was a beautiful country. The sweep of desert, the beauty of oases, the absolute splendor of seaport cities. Universities. Theaters. A landscape that offered beauty in every direction.

All it needed was a little less sand, a lack of oil and gas, and the addition of a world-famous casino, and Kharmistan had all the fairy-tale charm of Monaco.

Eden had reread her woefully insufficient notes
on Ben, her notes on Yusuf Nadim. She'd read them with new eyes, new insight, finding words between the lines that told her that Ben might say his country was peaceful, but the presence of the ambitious Nadim took a lot of the milk and honey out of Ben's assertions.

The man was ambitious. Cassius was ambitious. Brutus was ambitious.

And her son, by damn, was not going to be entered into any equation that had anything to do with Yusuf Nadim's ambition.

“You're going to get frostbite if you don't stop trying to drown yourself with cold water,” Mary Ellen Fortune said, leaning her shoulder against the doorjamb as she looked into the bathroom. “It's eight o'clock, Eden, and Sawyer is downstairs, having his breakfast. I thought you were going to talk to him before the sheikh arrives.”

Eden grabbed a hand towel and pressed it against her face, appalled to learn that she still had more tears to cry, and that they were threatening to fall once more, for her mother to see.

She put down the towel and turned to look at her mother. “How is he this morning? Is he excited about Holden's idea of taking he and Hercules out for a ride, checking fences?”

“Do you mean, was I surprised to see him up and
dressed at six o'clock, looking out the front window for his Uncle Holden?”

Eden managed a weak smile as she walked past her mother, back into the bedroom that had been hers as a child, that was still decorated in pinks and whites, with her collection of dolphin figurines lining the windowsill.

“How did you keep him out of here, Mom? It sounds like Sawyer thinks this is like Christmas morning. This year he was bouncing on my bed at four in the morning, begging to go downstairs and see what Santa had brought him.”

Mary Ellen sat on the edge of the four-poster bed, shrugged her shoulders. “You know Sawyer, Eden. He's always had this sixth sense about you, zeroing in on your moods in a way I wish your father might have tried to zero in on mine, God rest his soul. He even warned me not to wake you, as ‘Mommy had a bad night, Grandma, and we shouldn't bother her.'”

Mary Ellen shook her head, shrugged once more. “From the moment he was born, Eden, I told you there was something very
different
about that boy. There are times I think he can look straight into my soul. Lucinda says the same thing. She told me once that she believes Sawyer has the soul of either a shaman or a great chief. Odd, isn't it?”

“Sawyer is his father's son,” Eden admitted,
stepping into faded jeans, pulling on a red and white plaid shirt she'd owned since college. She wasn't going to try to impress Ben this morning, be at all attractive to him. “I just didn't know it, that's all. Didn't know that my sturdy little man was a prince. God,” she said, collapsing onto the side of the bed, beside her mother. “Guess that answers the question about heredity versus environment, doesn't it?”

“Not really, darling,” her mother said, patting her shoulder. “I've always considered you to be our own special princess. And I haven't yet met the Fortune who isn't at least moderately arrogant.”

Eden put her arms around her mother, kissed her cheek. “What would I do without you, Mom?” she asked, then got to her feet, took a deep breath, and looked toward the door to the hall. “I guess this is it, isn't it? Time that I sat Sawyer down and told him about Ben, about his father?”

“I don't see how you can put it off, Eden. Not if you don't want somebody else to do the telling for you. Although I would advise putting on some shoes before you go downstairs.”

Eden looked down at her sock-covered feet, then laughed. The laugh was a little hollow, definitely self-mocking, but it proved to her that life does go on, no matter what. That, even when the worst was happening, life still had to be lived.

 

“Hi, buddy,” Eden said as she stepped out onto the front porch, to see Sawyer swinging around one of the posts as he kept an eye out for his Uncle Holden. “I don't think he's coming until about nine-thirty, you know.”

“I know, Mom,” Sawyer said, grinning at her. “I was just closing my eyes and trying to tell Hercules that I'd be seeing him soon. Aunt Lucinda says animals and people can communicate, if they love and respect each other. Hercules loves me, I'm sure of it. I'll bet he's up at the stables now, whinnying and pawing and waiting for Joey to come saddle him. Especially since I promised him a carrot.”

“A carrot, huh? And would that be Hercules or Joey who gets it?” Eden asked, ruffling the thick black hair on her son's head before leaning down to accept his kiss on her cheek.

He took the hand she offered, and the two of them walked down the wooden steps to the front yard, beginning a walk that took them around the back of the house, and to the huge wooden jungle gym and swing set that had entertained Mary Ellen Fortune's children before there was ever any thought of grandchildren.

Were there jungle gyms in Kharmistan?

“Are you happier this morning, Mom?” Sawyer asked as they each sat on their favorite swing, pushing their toes into the soft dirt, setting the swings
into a slow, soothing motion. “You didn't look real happy last night, when you grabbed me away from Uncle Holden and brought me back here. I am sorry I went outside without asking Grandma, but I thought you should know that it was time to say good-night to me. You always say good-night to me.”

Eden smiled at him as best she could. Typical male! It was amazing. The child was five, and yet he could turn his own transgression into her fault without a blink of an eye. “And I've accepted your apology, Sawyer. All five of them, as a matter of fact. But you must understand how worried I was when Grandma called up at the main house and told us you were missing.”

Who would watch over his nights at the palace? Would he always be surrounded by guards like Haskim? Would they wear swords, carry weapons under their robes? Would those weapons ever be necessary?

Sawyer ground the tip of his boot into the dirt. “It was dumb, and I shouldn't have done it. I don't need you to tuck me in. I don't even need a night-light anymore. Not much, anyway.”

Were there night-lights in the palace?

Eden blinked back tears, averting her head as she felt Sawyer withdrawing from her. Not her baby anymore. Not totally dependent on her, at least not
in his own mind. Were all five-year-old's like this? Or only Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir's son?

Sawyer had been almost exclusively surrounded by adults since his birth. He'd become verbal quite early, mimicking his elders both in speech and manner. Mary Ellen swore he had the vocabulary of a child twice his age.

Besides being much too grown up, too solemn.

That was why Eden had enrolled Sawyer in play school when he was only three, to expose him to other children his age. And it had worked. Well, it had worked a little. According to Mrs. Apple, at the last parent-teacher's conference, Sawyer was still the acknowledged leader of every group, the child all the others looked up to, followed.

“A natural born leader, Ms. Fortune,” Mrs. Apple had said. “After twenty-five years of this, I can pretty much tell what their grown-up pecking order will be, just from watching the children interact with each other. Sawyer is and will be a leader, not a follower. He's polite, well-mannered, much more mature than other boys his age. If only we could find a way to make him…well, shall we say a little less
autocratic?
”

Heredity and environment. That hadn't been a purely joking remark Eden had made to her mother. But, she still wondered, was her very mature little
boy ready for Kharmistan? Was Kharmistan ready for him?

“Sawyer?” she began, taking hold of the chain of his swing, gently pulling the swing to a stop so that she could look at him. So that he could see that she wanted to talk to him. Talk to him seriously. “I have something important to tell you.”

He hung his head. “I know, Mom. Put toothpaste on the toothbrush, right? I was going to, honest. But then I thought I heard Uncle Holden, and I—”

“Not that, Sawyer,” Eden interrupted, her smile a little more watery than she wanted it to be. How she loved, adored this child! “Although we will discuss the matter of toothpaste later.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Sawyer said, rolling his eyes and grimacing comically. “We always do.”

Eden took a deep breath and attempted to begin again. “Do you remember Uncle Logan's wedding, Sawyer? Do you remember asking me why Amanda Sue could have a daddy and you couldn't?”

“That was mean,” Sawyer said, nodding. “I made you cry, didn't I, Mom? Uncle Logan said I made you cry. But if Amanda Sue could find her dad, and she's only a baby, why can't I find mine?”

Childish logic. It must all appear so simple to Sawyer, and yet so difficult. He wanted his daddy, and he should be able to find his daddy. Or his daddy should be able to find him.

“Sawyer…honey…life is…
complicated
sometimes,” Eden began yet again, then winced as she realized she was talking to her son as if he were at least twelve, or perhaps twenty. “Let's walk,” she said, taking his hand, setting off in the direction of the open range, bright blue wildflowers waving in the breeze ahead of them.

“You do have a daddy, Sawyer,” she said at last, stopping in the deep, fragrant grass, kneeling in front of her son, her hands on his shoulders. “I—I just didn't know where he was, so that I could tell him that he's your daddy.”

“Where did you look? Maybe you didn't look in the right places.”

Eden felt the blood draining out of her face. She hadn't looked anywhere. She had considered herself deserted, and taken charge of her life, done what had to be done, and refused to look back, refused to think about Ben Ramsey except very late at night, when she stood in the hallway and looked in at her sleeping son, wondering where his father slept that night.

But she couldn't tell Sawyer that. She simply couldn't.

The boy couldn't understand the anger she'd felt, the heartbreak, the betrayal. And she would not allow her son to despise his father, which is what he would do if she told him how Ben had left her,
almost without a word. How Ben had not bothered to come looking for her after she left Paris, had not come to America, to Harvard, where she was back at her classes, studying and coping with morning sickness.

“Mom? Are you all right? You look funny. Sort of like that guy last night, the one with the funny name. His face got all funny, too. And all we did was talk.”

This was her opportunity, and she had to take it before it slipped through her fingers. “Sawyer, that man last night. He…he's your father. I didn't find him, and he didn't find us. We just sort of stumbled into each other, three days ago, in San Antonio. But he's so very, very happy to have seen you, to know that he has a son.”

“He didn't know about me?” Sawyer's posture was ramrod straight as he stiffened under Eden's hands. “
You
know, Mom. Why didn't you tell him? Because you didn't know where he was? Why didn't you tell me? You knew where I was, Mommy. I was here, with you. We could have gone and looked for him together.”

Damn Ben Ramsey! Damn Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir! Damn him for lying to her about himself, even as he took her into his arms, into his bed, told her he loved her, wanted to spend his life with her.

Damn his lies, his duplicity, his supposed chiv
alry, his arrogance and pride that kept him from following after her when he thought she'd told him to stay away. Would a man truly in love simply obey the scribbled brush-off of a note left with some hotel concierge?

She wasn't the only guilty party here, dammit! It wasn't as if she'd gone to ground, hidden herself away. And it wasn't as if she would have had any success locating Ben Ramsey, even if she had gone looking for him.