Must Have Been The Moonlight

M
ajor Michael Fallon squatted on his heels, his face dark with a beard, and squinted against the harsh glare of the Western Sahara. He looked for the object that had caught his eye when he’d crested the last dune—a dark flutter of silk on sunlight. Finding it now amid the loose clutter on sand—a wisp of cloth snagged on rock—he brought the veil to his nose. English roses and something else uniquely feminine touched his senses. Turning the cloth over in his hands, Michael turned his attention to a steel-dust Arabian trailing its reins some distance away. Where was the second rider he had been following?

Bending over the field glasses beside him, he adjusted the leather hood over the lenses to prevent the fading sunlight from reflecting off the glass. An ancient watchtower and stone wall, relegated back to the desert some centuries before, made a somber landmark against the indigo sky as nightfall lowered its sleepy eye over the terrain. He knew
that good rifle scope would pick him off at this range if he stepped into the open.

He swore softly as he looked back at his white camel, couched in the sand like some bored Sheba oblivious to the growing chill. He pulled out a tin of peppermints, slid one beneath his tongue, and again brought the veil to his nose before shoving it into his shirt.

Holding the carbine in one hand, his burnoose slapping at his boots, he remained on the backside of the dune and trailed the Arabian on foot through the growing darkness to the outer perimeter of the watchtower. Three days without sleep—or perhaps it was the beating three Kharga slavers had given him last month—made him feel every muscle in his legs as he kept low to the ground.

The horse ambled up a path—and stopped.

Michael dropped to his haunches, his fist tightening around his rifle. He carried a brace of pistols across his chest and a knife in his other hand. Such ancient watchtowers had been built around springs. He didn’t see any livestock, but guessed they were corralled behind the tower against the rocks. One small heel print crossed the worn path almost at his feet. Shifting his weight, he raised his eyes to the rocks a heartbeat before he heard the click of a pistol behind him.

And froze.

“The only reason you’re still alive,” said a decidedly feminine voice, “is because my rifle is out of bullets.”

Michael rose to his feet and turned slowly. His tagilmust hung loose and draped his shoulder. Each hand gripped a weapon. Their eyes met, and for a breathless heartbeat they faced each other. He wasn’t sure how many people were present in the camp. Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t a blue-eyed houri in the Sahara Desert holding a lethal-looking revolver on him.

Wearing a dark robe, half draped in moonlight, her body was detailed against the flimsy cloth as she stood between two boulders. Her cheeks were pale, and a wisp of dark hair had fallen from the wild braid down her back.

His gaze glinting with hard humor, Michael respected grit as much as he did the seven-inch barrel aimed at his chest. “It is fortunate for me that your rifle had no bullets,
amîri
,” he said impassively, raising his arms in a gesture of submission.

His movement revealed to her the baggy white
sirwal
beneath his robes, trousers tucked in soft leather knee-high boots.

Her light-colored gaze held his. Those striking eyes had kept him from possibly killing her. That and the fact that she’d spoken in English—and he’d answered in kind.

He didn’t hear movement behind him, only felt the stars explode in his head. Then he was falling, and his face hit the sand.

Brianna Donally could barely breathe as she held the field glasses to her eyes and scanned the desert, the sick feeling in her gut increasing with every moment. The white camel she’d been watching earlier had not moved from its solemn place in the sand. She would have to go out there. Yet, she knew there was someone else in the darkness. Somehow, despite all of her efforts, they’d been tracked. First by the pair this morning. Then by the man on the white camel.

She knew that one man lay on the desert floor because she’d put him there earlier that morning, and the man on the white camel lay behind her.

Her sister-in-law slumped against the stone wall, her breath coming in quick heaves. They’d both been running.

“Do you think that I killed him, Brea?” Lady Alexandra removed the wide-brimmed beater hat from her head and dropped it onto the sand. A visible bruise marred her cheek. “We can’t just leave him to…to the scavengers. Like the other one.”

They had escaped two assassins. Closing her eyes, Brianna lowered her forehead against the stone wall. It was cold against her cheek. How long would it be before those who
had pillaged the caravan sent more people to hunt down the two Inglizi missies who had escaped the massacre? She would not allow Lady Alexandra’s compassion to intrude on her conscience. Nor was she going to expend her energies to bury murderers. Some things were better left alone.

Unlike Brianna, her sister-in-law wore a long-sleeve cotton shirtwaist and collared jacket over a divided skirt, the blouse and jacket torn and spattered with blood. How much came from the wound on her mouth or shoulder, or from the soldier who’d been beside her when he was shot, Brianna didn’t know.

“If that man wished to be buried in accordance to his custom, then he should not have attacked us, my lady.”

Blinking to clear her vision, Brianna forced herself to refocus. The moon was a scimitar in the sky, lying over the desert terrain like a half-lit lantern. Nothing moved in the pale stillness, the stark beauty made more terrifying by the absolute silence. They were vulnerable if they stepped out onto open ground. Surely, they would be just as dead if they did not.

“Lord, Brea,” Lady Alex whispered in the heavy stillness that surrounded them. “I think I’m going to be sick again.” She leaned her forehead against her knees.

Brianna wrapped her sister-in-law tightly in her arms. “Me, too, my lady. But we have to remain strong.”

A gust of wind blew sand in her face. She’d never been anyone’s caretaker. It frightened her to think that the intrepid Lady Alexandra might need her when they’d both been strong for so long. That she might somehow fail this moment.

That she already had.

If Alex collapsed, that would leave only her to see them through.

They’d added two pistols to their arsenal and a very ugly knife—what kind of man carried a lethal weapon of that size?—that she had no idea how to use. Their rifle broke when Alex had hit the man, and she could barely lift the rifle
he’d carried, which made it practically useless to her in defending off an attack from any distance.

If only one could eat gunpowder, she thought, they’d have a feast.

She knew she should retrieve the camel, but was afraid to go out there—aye, frightened. Brianna Donally, legion activist for all manner of political anarchy, was afraid of the night.

How infinitesimal her problems in England had been, compared to now. How trivial, when everything in her life had come down to murdering another human being for survival.

Starvation was a very real possibility. They had no food. She didn’t know how to hunt in the desert. And the only water they’d found in days sat on a patch of land that wasn’t safe from intruders.

Brianna laid her palm across Lady Alex’s brow. “At least you do not have a fever.” She gave her sister-in-law the waterskin and helped her sip.

“Lord, I feel like I’m chewing sand.” Her eyes were in the shadow of her tangled hair. “I probably just killed a man. I should be thinking what it’s going to be like seeing him in hell.”

Brianna stood. “Then we’ll see him together, my lady. Along with all the other murderers who raided our caravan.” She hadn’t meant her voice to be so sharp. “You did what you had to do tonight because I didn’t pull the trigger.”

“Brea—”

“We can’t stay here. I know there are more men out there.”

Brianna took one of the heavy pistols and walked behind the tower to check on the camel and the Arabian that had followed them into camp. It was different shooting a rifle at two hundred yards in self-defense than it was standing ten feet away from a man. He should have been ugly for the kind of killer he was. Instead, his gaze had touched her with some
thing akin to incredulity, something that went beyond the handsome darkness of his face—and she’d hesitated. Fringed in the darkest of lashes, his eyes had been almost silver in the twilight, his rich baritone voice cultured and his words spoken soundly in English. If not for Alex, the tall Bedouin would probably have slain her with that hideous knife he’d carried.

She almost started to cry. She’d been holding it in for days.

Her camel stirred at her approach. “How are you doing, beautiful?” Brianna whispered, rubbing her palm over its long brown nose. The beast growled and protested, but Brianna didn’t care. The camel was a notorious windbag. “At least we’ll no longer have to ride double. We have a horse now.”

She could not have imagined that she and Alex would have made it this far if not for the stout beast. For three days they’d survived the insufferable heat. They’d found a pothole of an oasis among the scattered rocks where some long ago tribe had built a watchtower. Perhaps to guard their goats, though Brianna could only imagine what sustained the lot. A dozen date palms and spiny thornbushes struggled for life, like the rest of the oasis inhabitants.

They had to leave. Yet, Brianna knew very well that when they did, she and Alex would probably die. She had no idea how to find her brother’s camp.

Christopher would know by now that something was wrong.

Brianna looked over her shoulder. She should go back and make sure that the Bedouin was dead.

It had been at least fifteen minutes. He was tied. She’d wrapped the ropes around his arms and ankles herself. They could perhaps stay one day more to sleep and search for food.

If he were only dead.

Opening her fingers, Brianna stared down at the gun in her hand. His gun. The smooth ivory hilt, made for a man’s
bigger palm, did not fit hers. She thought of Captain Pritchards and all the others who had perished. The dark-eyed youth whom she had befriended. He had been the nephew of one of the caravan’s guides. And all the soldiers who had gone down in the volley of rifle fire. Those images had burned into her head, and she closed her eyes to dispel them.

“Where is my strength?” she whispered, her gaze falling on her heavy box camera, still attached to the back of the three-pronged saddle. She’d come to this country with dreams of making something more of herself. “Where is some sign that after all of this, we’re not going to die out here? I’ll settle for a lightning bolt, Lord.”

Brianna shifted as she tightened the last strap on the saddle. A large lizard shot out of the rocks near her feet. Startled, she watched it waddle, tail flagging in the air, toward the rocks on the other side of the narrow pool of water.

Brianna grabbed her gun and gave chase. This was better than a lightning bolt!

Taking a shortcut to the rock wall, she sloshed through a leg of the freshwater pond, seeking the crevices in the rock wall where the lizard was attempting to flee. If she couldn’t catch it with her hands, she’d use her bloody gun. Three lizards scampered out and scattered. Brianna grabbed the tail of the bigger one, more by luck than skill, and wrestled to keep hold of the squirming creature. She lost her gun. Tumbling into the waterhole, she held onto her prize with both her hands. Triumph yielded to an excited cry.

The lizard had stopped writhing. Staring at it, wondering what to do next, she sat in water up to her waist, her hair tangled in her face, and for a moment did not register the man standing at the edge of the pool.

His dark-booted foot was propped on a rock, a rope dangling from fingers. His baggy trousers were tucked in soft leather knee-high boots. Heart pounding, she raised her gaze higher, past his thighs. His long hooded robe was all that moved on his body as she met the soft glitter of his silver eyes.

Good God! It was he!

A hint of white flashed in the shadows. “Get up,
amîri
,” he said in a perfectly affected British accent. “Before I drag you out of there.”

She looked at the lizard in her hands, barely aware that a part of her decried letting it go. But she did.

Brianna dove backward in the water. Her hand wrapped around the pistol an instant before splashing heralded her capture. The man’s hand ruthlessly gripped her wrist. She cried out but he dunked her head. Hand over her mouth, he lifted her bodily out of the water, while she kicked and clawed at the arm that tightened around her waist. Her hair tangled around him like a net. He slipped on the muddy incline then fell. He would have landed heavily on her had he not caught himself.

Her palm still gripping the pistol, she spat obscenities in Arabic. She called him a
hâwi
, snake charmer, and a barracuda.

“Indeed.” His laugh was unpleasant. “You have no idea.”

In one furious movement he flipped the little wildcat on her back and slid her beneath him, dragging her robe up to her hips. His thighs imprisoned her naked flanks; his hands held both of hers above her head.

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