The Sheikh's Secret Son (8 page)

She winced inwardly at her last statement, knowing she'd gone too far. Because she had already been planning to go to her mother's on Friday evening, the refrigerator was nearly empty. The only thing she could offer him besides ice water was a juice drink in a paper carton with the picture of a cartoon character on it.

“I would not wish to inconvenience you further,” Ben said, walking into the living room, looking toward the formal dining room that was visible to the left and rear of the house. “You have a lovely home, Eden. It is very much like you. Cool, well-ordered, and yet with whispers of whimsy. Quite wonderfully female.”

“Um…okay,” Eden said, wondering when she
had lost the ability to articulate anything other than a few stupidly betraying words at a time.

“However, if you do not mind, I would ask that I be allowed to turn on the television, which I do not see in this lovely room. I have this fascination with CNN, you understand. Besides,” he added, “the Yankees played a late game last night out in California, so I have not yet been able to locate the score.”

“The…the
Yankees?
You follow the Yankees?”

“Do not look so amazed, Eden,” he said, following her as she retraced her steps through the foyer, heading for the kitchen, and the family room that lay beyond it. “I developed a love of the game while at Yale. As a matter of fact, I still play second base in a small league I began in Kharmistan. Haskim is our right fielder, and we play against at least a dozen other teams in our league. I do not believe there is a schoolchild in Kharmistan who does not own a bat and a mitt—and a Mark McGwire baseball card. Do not look so shocked, Eden. Did you think our only form of recreation had something to do with racing camels across the desert?”

Eden stopped just inside the kitchen, leaned against the wall, covering her eyes with her hand, and began to laugh. That laughter started out small, but it grew quickly, until she knew she would have
fallen down if she hadn't been leaning against the wall.

She laughed until her shoulders shook. She laughed until tears streamed down her face. She laughed until she knew she was about to dissolve into tears if she didn't stop, immediately.

“I think I'm hysterical,” she admitted when she could finally get herself back under control. “I know Kharmistan is very westernized, if that is the proper term. I know you have modern cities, museums, theaters, universities. In my mind, I know this. And yet every time I think of Kharmistan, all I can think of are sand, tents, oil fields, and women wearing veils to go out on the street. I certainly don't think about baseball cards. What an idiot I am, Ben. I think I'm laughing because otherwise I'd just cry, I'm that ashamed of myself.”

“Kharmistan women have not worn the veil in two generations, Eden. And Lord help the man who would try to make them go back to the old ways. Or did I not make myself clear? Perhaps this will help. Haskim's sister, Fadilah, is our first-string catcher. She can throw out a man trying for second without coming up off her knees.”

That did it. Eden looked at Ben for long moments, then stumbled across the kitchen and fell into a chair. “As I said, I'm an idiot. You're not the stereotype, Ben,
I
am. Prejudging, typecasting, and
more than willing to believe that Kharmistan is still existing in another century. Backward. Undemocratic. A militaristic state. Except you're all busy collecting baseball cards and my research told me that the average income of your subjects would put them in our second-highest income tax bracket.”

“My people do not pay income tax, Eden,” Ben told her, walking past her and into the family room, picking up the remote control that sat on the arm of one of the couches and turning on the television. “There is no poverty, very little crime, and our largest problem right now is finding enough television satellite dishes to supply the needs of all of our people.”

“And your subjects look to you as the creator of all their good fortune, don't they? You're sitting pretty, as the saying goes.”

Ben was flipping through the channels with the expertise of a gifted channel surfer. “I only continue what my grandfather began, the reforms my father implemented. The world moves, as my father told me, and only a fool chooses to fall off rather than to move with it. I look forward to the day the Sheikh of Kharmistan is little more than a figurehead, much like the kings and queens of England, with our own form of parliament for the most part making and interpreting the laws of our land. Not that I am planning to abdicate, of course. But my sons will con
tinue the progress that has been made, leading our people into the future you and I and the entire world populace dream about now, as we enter the twenty-first century.”

“Your sons. Of course,” Eden said, her head spinning with all the contradictions that confused her even as Ben unwittingly enlightened her, told her what her son's future could be, would be, if she were to tell Ben of Sawyer's existence.

She stood very still for a few moments, trying to get over her embarrassment at having so lost her composure, trying to form the words she knew she must now say.

“Ben, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I've been insulting, perhaps even condescending—and I've betrayed myself as being shamefully ignorant in an area I should have familiarized myself with thoroughly before you even arrived in Texas. Mostly, I'm angry with myself for falling apart after Holden told me about young Taylor, about Matt. We've had a horrible year at the ranch, ever since little Bryan was kidnapped. I think everything is beginning to catch up with me, make me stupid. Clumsy.”

Ben clicked off the television and turned to look at her. He didn't approach her physically, but she could feel the pull of him, the strong physical attraction he must know she felt. “And my unexpected reappearance in your life, Eden? That has not
helped you, has it? You have been very kind, if reluctantly welcoming, and I believe you have begun to relax in my company, if only for short, quite enjoyable spaces of time. But I frighten you, for reasons I am aware of, for reasons I sense but cannot know.”

“No,” Eden protested weakly, backing up a step, even as he remained a good fifteen feet away from her. “I'm not afraid of you, Ben.”

“It is still the early days in our renewed association, Eden,” Ben said quietly. “You are confused, caught off your guard, as I was not, since I have been planning our meeting for six long months. You have your life here in Texas to consider, your large family and its considerable problems. I cannot blame you for anything you might say or do right now. And yet, Eden, I must tell you that I do not appreciate untruths, however kindly they may be intentioned. But I will give you time, Eden, if not space, in which to come to terms with both your anger over our wasted years and my hopes for our combined future.”

And then, not waiting for her answer, he turned back to the television and clicked it on, just as if he hadn't said anything more than to perhaps comment on the weather.

Arrogant man! Yet he'd reminded her so much of how Sawyer had looked, responded, last week at the
mall when he had told her he thanked her very much, but he was entirely too grown up to need her to accompany him to the bathroom.

Eden had felt herself being kindly, gently but firmly put in her place then, and she felt much the same way now. There was something about the tone of voice, the indulgent tilt of the head, the calm assurance, that had impressed her when her son had asserted himself, that impacted on her now when Ben forthrightly stated his concerns, his plans for their future.

Sawyer she could overrule, and had overruled that day at the mall as she took his hand and led him, protesting, to the ladies' room.

But his father?

Eden knew she could say no to a sheikh. She could say no to a president, a king. But say no to Ben—and really mean it?

Say no to this man who had haunted her dreams for nearly six years?

Say no to this man who had given her the great gift of her wonderful son even as she had thought she'd lost him, lost his love?

Say no to this man who had unexpectedly reappeared just when it seemed she needed his strength and comfort most, begging her indulgence, broadly hinting that he wanted her back in his life. For now. For forever.

Eden knew she wouldn't know where to begin to say no to this man.

“O-okay…well…” Eden stammered at last, staring at Ben's back as he surfed through the channels with typical male expertise, acting as if he had forgotten her presence. “I—I guess I'll run upstairs and throw some clothing into a suitcase. I won't need much more than a few things, as I keep my ranch clothes at my mom's anyway.”

He nodded without turning around. “Very good, Eden. There's no rush. Ah, word of our agreement this morning already has made the business news, I see. Nadim will be pleased.”

“Yeah, right. Good for Nadim,” Eden said, then all but ran out of the room, not wanting to leave Ben alone in her house any longer than necessary. She picked up a toy sheriff's badge that had somehow found its way into the bowl on the kitchen table, stuffed it into her pocket, and went upstairs to pack.

To pack, and to phone her mother, beg her to warn everyone that Ben was bringing her out to the ranch. Beg her mother to keep Sawyer hidden while Eden had Ben deliver her to her Uncle Ryan's house instead of her mother's. Beg her to please, please, for God's sake, please warn everyone to keep their mouths shut and all without telling them why!

If Ben had to be told about Sawyer, and Eden
knew in her heart that she couldn't keep the news from him much longer and still be able to live with herself, she would have to plan that conversation carefully. She would likewise have to prepare Sawyer, and plan his meeting with his father with the utmost care.

Ben hated “untruths.” Anything longer than another day of delay would make any confession too late, would brand her as someone who had not been prepared to tell the truth, someone who might have decided not to speak at all.

But the consequences to herself were not important, her own future was no longer important…and probably already beyond her control. She had to think of the boy, the man. First and foremost, she had to think of Sawyer, of Ben. She could not let father and son meet accidentally, without either of them being prepared, forewarned.

 

The drive to the Double Crown took forever…if forever lasted about an hour and was spent traveling over beautiful open country Eden had loved for all of her life.

Not that she had taken time to look at the scenery. Instead, she had filled Ben in on the news Holden had told her, as everyone at the ranch was bound to still be upset, and perhaps not as ready for company as Holden had thought they might be.

She lowered the window when they reached the new security station at the entrance to the long road leading onto the ranch, identified herself to the guard, then sat back as the limousine passed through the gates.

“That reminds me,” Ben said as he looked at the guard who was holding open the gate, “I never did order those hats, did I? Although I must say the guard looks much more complete in jeans and vest than Haskim would look in his
kibr
and a ten-gallon cowboy hat on his head.”

“That's true enough,” Eden said, knowing Ben was trying to lighten her mood, and more than happy to go along. “You might want to rethink that purchase, or buy some jeans and boots, and a few other
cowboy
accessories.”

Ben looked at her, one dark eyebrow raised expressively. “You think I am mocking this typical Western costume, Eden?”

“No, I think you're a man with deep pockets and a rather delicious sense of humor. Or am I wrong, and it wasn't you who said you'd decided to buy Nadim a Mexican sombrero—one of those made especially for tourists, a mile wide and covered in fancy designs and sequins?”

“The man could do with some loosening up, Eden,” Ben said, trying to be serious but then smiling as Eden shook her head at him.

“Ah, thank you, Ben,” she said for what seemed like the hundredth time in the hour since they'd left her house on Edgewood Drive. “You were right, much as I hate to admit it. I probably would have run off the road if I'd tried to drive out here by myself. As it is, my stomach is still full of butterflies. Thank you for the ride, and most definitely for the company. Although I still don't have the faintest idea what I'm going to say to Claudia. Or Matt, for that matter. Right now, I'm thinking about stringing him up from the strongest beam in the barn.”

“May I make a suggestion, Eden?”

She sighed. “Ben, at this point, knowing I have to go see Claudia, talk to her, I think I'd be crazy not to get all the advice I can find.”

“In that case, may I
advise
that you should meet with your cousin Matt first, before you see his wife, and then listen more than you speak. There may be some explanation for the test results.”

“Oh, really? Like what, Ben?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea, Eden. I simply do not wish to see you jump to any rash conclusions that might end with hurt feelings between you and your cousin.”

Eden stared out the window of the limousine, seeing her Uncle Ryan's home—the original ranch house—as they rounded a turn in the road. Its sand-colored adobe walls offered welcome, offered re
spite, reminded her of the simplicity of life long ago, when the original builders had first settled here.

What must this old house be thinking about the events of the past year? If the walls could talk, what would they say?

The original house had been added to over the years, growing along with the Fortune family, until it was a huge, impressive structure, but it still retained that simplicity of design, that promise of peace and safety. Eden had played in the massive inner courtyard as a child, played with her brothers and cousins, laughed with them, dreamed silly dreams with them.