Lord of the Desert. Diana Palmer

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      Maggie only smiled.

      “You’re very quiet,” Gretchen said suddenly, curious about her friend’s unfamiliar silences. Maggie was usually the talkative one of the two.

      Maggie shrugged, cupping her coffee cup in both hands. “I was thinking about…home.”

      “Shame on you. This is a vacation and we’ve just got here. You can’t possibly be homesick yet.”

      Maggie smiled wanly. “I’m not homesick. Not really. I just wish things had worked out a little better.”

      “With Cord,” Gretchen said knowingly.

      Maggie shrugged. “It wouldn’t have worked out. He’ll never get over Pat’s death and he won’t give up his freelance demolitions work. He likes it too much.”

      “People do change as they get older,” Gretchen said.

      “He won’t.” There was finality and misery in the statement. “I’ve spent enough of my life hoping he’d wake up and love me. He isn’t going to. I have to learn to live without him now.”

      “He might miss you and rush over on the first jet to bring you back home.”

      “That isn’t likely.”

      “Neither was my getting to go to Morocco,” Gretchen replied mischievously. She finished her beautifully cooked scrambled eggs.

      Maggie forced a smile. “Oh well. The sheikh is relatively young and charming and a bachelor. Who knows what might happen?”

      “Who knows.” Gretchen was sorry that Maggie had decided on such a drastic action. She was going to miss her terribly. Callie Kirby, her coworker at the law office in Jacobsville, was wonderful company, but Maggie had been her best friend since childhood. It had been bad enough when Maggie moved to Houston. It was a worse wrench to have her move out of the country.

      “You can come and visit me,” Maggie said. “I’ll be allowed to have company. We might catch you a prince yet.”

      “I don’t want a prince,” Gretchen said with a chuckle. “I’d settle for a nice cowboy with his own horse, and a kind heart.”

      “Kind hearts are pretty rare,” Maggie pointed out. “But maybe you’ll find him one day. I hope so.”

      “You could come back with me,” Gretchen said somberly. “It isn’t too late to change your mind. What if Cord suddenly wakes up and realizes he’s crazy about you, and you’re two thousand miles away?”

      “As you said, he knows how to get on an airplane,” Maggie replied firmly. “Now let’s talk about something cheerful.”

      Gretchen didn’t say another word. But she hoped most sincerely that Maggie knew what she was doing. It was one thing to be a tourist, quite another to be dependent in a foreign country. The job sounded almost too good to be true. And wasn’t Qawi a very male-dominated society where women had separate quarters and separate lives from men? It did seem odd that the sheikh would want not only a female public relations officer, but one from a foreign country known for liberated women. Perhaps there was a subtle revolution in progress in Qawi. Gretchen hoped so. She didn’t want her best friend in danger. But, she cheered herself, they still had a week in Tangier to enjoy. It was going to be a perfect trip. She just knew it.

      Chapter Two

      But all Maggie’s plans for her vacation and her new job went up in smoke the next morning as she accepted an unexpected long-distance call from Jacobsville, Texas. “I hate to have to tell you this,” Eb Scott, a friend of hers told her quietly. “Cord’s been hurt. He was doing a job in Florida a week ago, putting a small explosive device in a barrel for remote detonation and it went off in his face.”

      Every drop of blood drained out of Maggie’s face. She gripped the telephone receiver like a lifeline. “Is he…dead?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

      An eternity of seconds later he said, “No. But he wishes he was. He’s blind, Maggie.”

      She closed her eyes, trying to see that proud, independent man walking with a cane or a guide dog, trying to pick up the pieces of his life alone. “Where is he?” she asked.

      “Gretchen’s brother, Marc, was in Miami when it happened. He picked up Cord and brought him home when he was released from the hospital. Cord’s at his ranch outside Houston.” There was another hesitation. “I didn’t know until Marc phoned me on his way back to Miami.”

      “Is Cord alone?”

      “All alone,” Eb said irritably. “He wouldn’t come down here and stay with Sally and me in Jacobsville, or even with Cy Parks. He doesn’t have any family of his own, does he?”

      “Only me,” Maggie said with a hollow laugh, “if I qualify as family.” She hesitated, thinking fast. “I suppose he’d kick me out if I came home to stay with him.”

      “Actually,” Eb said slowly, choosing his words, “Marc said he was calling for you when they took him to the hospital.”

      Her heart jumped. That was a first. She couldn’t remember a time in their lives when Cord had needed her. He had wanted her, but only once, and he hadn’t even been sober…

      “I phoned Cord as soon as Marc said he’d taken him home. Cord told me he didn’t think you’d want to look after him, but that I could call you if I wanted to,” Eb added dryly. “So I’m calling you.”

      “What incredible timing,” Maggie said, her nerves raw. “I’m on my way to a new job and I have a week’s vacation left…” She glanced at Gretchen, who was eavesdropping unashamedly, and grimaced. “I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll fly out this afternoon if I can get a flight to Brussels and then a nonstop flight home.”

      “I knew you would,” Eb said gently. “I’ll let Cord know.”

      “Thanks, Eb,” she said sincerely.

      “My pleasure. Have a safe trip. And Marc said to tell Gretchen to be careful about going anywhere alone while she’s over there.”

      “I’ll tell her. Cord…the blindness…is it going to be permanent?” she asked.

      “They aren’t sure yet.”

      She thanked him and hung up. “Cord’s been hurt,” she said without preamble, “and I have to go home, today. I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch…”

      Knowing how Maggie felt about Cord, Gretchen would have allowed herself to be carried off by bandits rather than express any fear at being alone in a foreign country. “Don’t you worry about me. I can take care of myself,” Gretchen said with more confidence than she felt after Maggie explained what was going on. “But what about your job, Maggie?”

      Maggie stared at her friend and her mind went into overdrive. A plan was forming…

      “You can do it.”

      Gretchen gaped at her. “What?”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ