Desert Hearts. Sandra Marton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ crap, how can you wear somebody’s old stuff?” she’d demanded. “And you’re wasting your money, buying me school stuff. I’m not going to go no more.”

      When the first snow fell they got a card from Mama. She was in Hollywood. She knew someone who knew someone who was making a movie. She was going to get a part in it.

       And then I’ll send for my girls!

      More exclamation marks. More lies. They’d never heard from her again.

      Or maybe they had. There was no way to know because by January Idaho was nothing but a memory.

      Suki had taken off. No goodbyes, no explanations. Just a note.

      See you, it said.

      Just like Mama, except Mama had left those twenties. Suki had emptied the sugar bowl of the fifty bucks Rachel had kept in it.

      Rachel moved to Bismarck, North Dakota. Took a job as a waitress. Moved to Minneapolis. Took another job wait-ressing. A couple more stops and she’d ended up in a Little Rock, Arkansas, diner.

      Bad food, grungy customers, lousy tips.

      “There’s got to be somewhere better than this,” she’d muttered one night, after a guy walked out without paying his bill, much less leaving a tip.

      “Dallas is lots better,” the other girl working the night shift had said.

      Right, Rachel thought now, swallowing a bitter laugh. And after Dallas came Albuquerque, and after that Phoenix.

      Rachel had seen more than her share of the West.

      Then Suki had called. Told her about Las Vegas.

      In some ways Vegas had been an improvement. When customers were happy because they’d won at the slots they left decent tips. And once she’d swallowed her pride and taken the job she had now the tips had got even better.

      She’d started taking classes at the university, planned a better life for herself, and then for herself and Ethan …

      What time was it, anyway?

      She wasn’t sure what time they’d left Las Vegas. Ten, eleven o’clock—something around there. They were moving fast but there was no feeling of motion, no sense that they were miles above the earth, going from one time zone to another.

      Could that be disorienting? Could it explain …

      No. There’d been no plane, no soaring through the sky that first time the Sheikh had kissed her.

      Nothing but the man himself. The taste of him. The feel of him. The heat and hardness of his body.

      It didn’t make sense. She wasn’t like that. She wasn’t into what Suki called “hooking up.”

      It drove Suki crazy

      “My sister, the saint,” she’d sneered when Rachel had caught her drinking Southern Comfort after she knew she was pregnant. “Such a good girl. Always flosses. Always eats her veggies. Never gets laid.”

      Rachel had snatched the bottle from Suki’s hand and dumped the whiskey into the sink.

      “A little screwing would make you more human,” Suki had yelled after her.

      No, Rachel had thought, it wouldn’t. It would just mark her as her mother’s daughter.

      Sex had been her mother’s addiction. Her sister’s.

      Not hers.

      Sex was a trap. It robbed you of common sense, and for what? A few minutes of pleasure, or so she’d heard women say. She had no idea if that was true or not. She’d tried being with a man once or twice and all she’d ended up feeling was even more alone.

      She didn’t need men, didn’t need sex, didn’t need anything or anyone. Well, except for Ethan. Other than the baby, she was content to be alone.

      She was a cool-headed woman who thought things through. A pragmatist. A survivor.

      And that was why she’d defeat the Sheikh at this game.

      She was not handing control of her life to him.

      She was not giving up her baby.

      Rachel rose to her feet.

      Half a dozen steps took her to the alcove where Ethan slept in his carrier. The flight attendant was sleeping, too; she sensed Rachel’s presence and jerked awake.

      “What can I get you, miss?” she said quickly. “Something to eat, perhaps? There are sandwiches, fruit, coffee—”

      “Nothing, thank you. I just wanted to see how my baby’s doing.”

      “Oh. He’s fine. I changed him a while ago, fed him—”

      “Yes. That’s great. I’m just going to take him back to my seat with me.”

      Rachel picked up the carrier, took it down the aisle. It was impossible not to see Karim but her gaze swept over him without their eyes making contact.

      He didn’t even know she was there.

      He was talking on his cell phone. She heard a couple of words. “Suite.” “Accommodations for an infant.” Nothing more than that.

      She sat down, put Ethan’s carrier on the seat next to hers, took a soft throw blanket from another seat and draped it over her lap.

      She was cold. And, yes, she was hungry. But she didn’t want the Sheikh’s food.

      What she wanted was to know his next move.

      A stop at a law office or a laboratory, at this hour of the night?

      She didn’t think so.

      She thought about what she’d heard him say. “Suite.” “Accommodations for an infant.”

      He was making hotel arrangements.

      A suite for Ethan and her. A gilded cage where he could keep them prisoner while he arranged for that damned DNA test.

      Until this minute she hadn’t had time to think about the test. Or tests. What would testing involve?

      Some of Rami’s DNA, obviously. Easy enough to come by a strand of hair, she supposed, for a brother.

      What if he wanted a DNA sample from her? She couldn’t imagine why he would. He’d never questioned whether or not she was Ethan’s mother, but what if he did? She knew little about DNA tests, only what she’d picked up from television and movies. Was her DNA the same as Suki’s? Was it at least similar enough to establish the baby as hers?

      What if it wasn’t?

      Bad enough that the test would confirm Rami as his father, but if it didn’t confirm her as his mother—

      She СКАЧАТЬ