One More Night with Her Desert Prince... Page 5

  ‘Phew! I don’t think I’ve ever been any place so hot!’

  Khalid shrugged aside the thought when he heard Jess’s comment. He summoned a smile, keeping his gaze on her rather than allowing it to wander in the direction it wanted to go. He had to remember that Sam was just another member of the team and treat her as such.

  ‘This is the hottest part of the day and normally we would avoid travelling at this time. However, I wanted to get set up so we don’t waste time later on. I sent a couple of men out to spread the word that the clinic will be open this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, right. I see. Good thinking, boss.’

  Jess grinned at him and Khalid smiled back, appreciating the fact that she didn’t stand on ceremony around him. He hated it when that happened, when people couldn’t see beyond his position. Sam had been exactly the same. She hadn’t fawned over him either. She had treated him simply as a colleague. And a man.

  The thought was too near the knuckle. Khalid blanked it out as he pointed out which tents the women would use. There were four women in the team and four men, which had made it easier when it had come to their accommodation. Although he prided himself on having a more worldly view, he had no intention of alienating his fellow countrymen by ignoring the proprieties. Men and women would be strictly segregated when it came to their washing and sleeping facilities.

  Khalid turned to Peter while the women went off to explore their tent. ‘I’m not sure how many people will turn up this afternoon. We could get a couple of dozen or we could get no one at all.’

  ‘It’s always the same,’ Peter replied easily, mopping the sweat from his brow with a crumpled handkerchief. ‘It can take several days before people drum up enough confidence to visit the clinic, I find.’

  ‘Really?’ Khalid sighed. ‘It could take longer than I thought it would, then. There are so many people who need treating and I was hoping to get started as soon possible. We’re only here for a matter of weeks and I hate to think that we’re wasting valuable time.’

  ‘You have to be patient,’ Peter advised him. ‘Once a few folk have received treatment, more will follow. It’s a sort of snowball effect and gathers its own momentum.’

  ‘I’m not sure about snowballs in the desert,’ Khalid said wryly, glancing at the sky. ‘I rather think they’d melt before they gathered any momentum.’

  Peter laughed as he wandered off to fetch his bag. The trucks were being unloaded now so Khalid went over to supervise as the crates containing their equipment were lifted out. There was a separate tent for the clinic, another for the operating theatre and a third that would house the more fragile pieces of equipment like the ECG machine and ultrasound scanner. These would run off solar-powered generators donated by his brother.

  Khalid made sure everything was put in the right place then he and Han, the Thai male nurse, set about unpacking. It was a long and tedious job but it gave him something to do, took his mind off Sam and all the other issues. He sighed as he stowed a box of dressings on a shelf. Everything came back to Sam, didn’t it? Every thought he had started or ended with her and it had to stop. Sam was here to do a job. If he said it often enough then maybe he would believe it...

  And maybe he wouldn’t.

  * * *

  Sam finished unpacking and stowed her bag under the bed. Although the facilities were nowhere near as luxurious as those at the summer palace, she was surprised by how comfortable their accommodation was. She, Jess, Anna, the paediatrician, and Aminah, their nurse-cum-interpreter, who had arrived that morning, each had their own little cubicle containing a bed plus a locker for their clothes. There was even a bathroom leading off from one end of the tent, which sported a toilet cubicle plus a shower and a washbasin. They had everything they needed and she found herself thinking how much planning must have gone into it. Obviously, Khalid had thought long and hard about this venture.

  She sighed when once again she found herself thinking about him. It was only natural, of course, but she knew how quickly one thought could lead to another and wished she could stop. Maybe it would help if she kept busy, she decided. If her mind was fully occupied then no more stray thoughts could slip in.

  ‘I’m going to see if I can help unpack the equipment,’ she told the others.

  ‘I’d offer to come with you only I’m bushed,’ Anna said, fanning herself with a magazine. She was older than the rest of them, possibly in her late forties, with bright red hair and dozens of freckles on her face. Now she grimaced. ‘It’s so hot I think I’m going to melt.’

  Sam laughed. ‘We probably all will. Why don’t you try out the shower? It might cool you down.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  Anna headed for the bathroom while Sam left. She could see some men unloading one of the trucks and made her way over to them. They were taking the crates into a tent at the far end of the camp, so she followed them. There was a double entry, two openings joined by a short tunnel, which could be zipped shut at each end. Both openings were wide open and she stepped inside, pausing in amazement as she took in the sight that greeted her. That couldn’t be an ultrasound scanner, not here in the middle of the desert!

  ‘Sam?’

  She spun round so fast that she overbalanced and gasped when she felt herself pitch sideways. Khalid’s hands shot out, gripping her forearms as he set her back on her feet. Sam felt a rush of heat flow through her, starting at the point where his fingers were clamped around her arms, and shuddered. Looking up, she stared into his face, wishing with all her heart that she didn’t react this way whenever he touched her. It had been the same that morning when they had ridden into the desert and she hated it, hated the fact that she was so vulnerable. She didn’t want to feel anything for him, but it seemed she was powerless to control her emotions where he was concerned.

  ‘Sam.’

  He said her name again yet it sounded very different this time and she had to force down the lump that came to her throat. To imagine that Khalid had regrets was more than she could bear. She needed him to be sure, to be certain that rejecting her had been the right thing to do. If she allowed herself to believe that he wished he hadn’t done it, she would never be able to cope.

  ‘Thanks. It wouldn’t have been the best start if I’d ended up flat on my face.’

  She gave a little laugh as she stepped back and Khalid didn’t try to stop her. Relief washed over. Maybe he did have some regrets but deep down she knew that he would do the same thing again.

  ‘Were you looking for me?’ he asked, his voice devoid of emotion, and she breathed a little easier.

  ‘Not really.’ She glanced at the packing cases and shrugged. ‘I just wondered if I could help. Obviously there’s a lot to do if we hope to be ready in time for this afternoon’s clinic.’

  ‘It’s kind of you but you must be tired after your late night,’ he said courteously. ‘It might be better if you tried to rest before clinic starts.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Sam’s spine stiffened. Maybe he was only trying to be considerate but she resented the fact that he thought she needed his advice. ‘As I explained this morning, I’m used to functioning on very little sleep.’

  ‘Indeed you did. I apologise.’

  On the surface his tone hadn’t altered and yet all of a sudden Sam felt her mind wing its way back to those moments when they had watched the sun rise. Seeing Khalid then had been a revelation. Even though she had always been aware of his heritage, she had never really thought about how different his life must be from hers. It hadn’t seemed important but now she could see that it had been a key factor behind his rejection of her.

  As a child, Sam had grown used to being the outsider. Parents had discouraged their children from making friends with her because she’d been the ‘wrong sort’. Even at high school, she had never really fitted in. The boys had heard the rumours about her mother and had p
ursued her in the hope that she would be the same, while the girls had been openly hostile, disliking her for her looks and her intelligence as much as for her family’s reputation.

  University had been her salvation. Nobody had known about her background there and for the first time in her life Sam had been able to be herself. She had made friends and had gained confidence because of it. When the truth had surfaced during her final year of rotations, there had been some who had shunned her. However, most people had been prepared to accept her for who she was and not for what her family had done. She had thought that her background had no longer mattered but she’d been mistaken. It had mattered to Khalid.

  Sadness ran through as she realised that she no longer felt angry about what he had done. She should never have got involved with him in the first place and certainly never allowed their relationship to reach the stage where they had been on the point of making love. Although she’d had boyfriends before Khalid, her mother’s behaviour had made her wary of having a physical relationship with them.

  She hadn’t slept with anyone until her engagement, in fact, and only then because Adam had expected it when they were to be married. It had been a bitter disappointment for them both. Although Sam had tried to respond, she’d been unmoved by Adam’s lovemaking and had felt relieved when it was over. If she was honest, she had never wanted any man that way...

  Except Khalid.

  She took a deep breath. She must never forget that in Khalid’s eyes she was tainted goods. Maybe he had wanted to sleep with her, but he had realised at the very last moment that it would be a mistake. And in all honesty, she couldn’t blame him. Khalid could have his pick of women, women who were far more suited to his lifestyle. What would he want with someone like her?

  Maybe she had achieved a lot but she could never completely leave her past behind. Although her mother had died some years ago, she kept in touch with her brother and visited him whenever she could. Michael still had a couple of months of his sentence left to serve and she was hoping that with the right support he would make something of his life. She didn’t intend to turn her back on him just because it wasn’t convenient to have an ex-jailbird for a brother and anyone she met would need to understand that.

  She sighed. The likelihood of her meeting a man she would fall in love with was so remote that it wasn’t worth considering. There was only one man who had fulfilled that criterion and she wasn’t venturing down that path again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BY THREE O’CLOCK everything was ready. Khalid looked around, delighted that they had achieved so much in such a short time. The clinic looked very professional with its neat little examination cubicles and shelves bearing their equipment. Once again he had taken care to observe the proprieties. The tent was divided into two sections, one for the men and one for the women. Granted, people would need to queue up together while they waited to be seen but that was acceptable. Even among the desert people changes were occurring and it was no longer considered necessary to strictly segregate the sexes.

  ‘It’s looking good, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ Khalid agreed, as Tom Kennedy, their anaesthetist, came to join him. ‘How about Theatre? Are you happy with it?’

  ‘It’s better than I dared hope,’ Tom enthused. ‘The lighting is ace and as for those extractor fans to remove any dust...well, they’re brilliant!’

  ‘You can thank my brother for them. He found a supplier and told them what we needed. They weren’t sure if they could deliver them on time but Shahzad managed to persuade them.’

  Tom grinned. ‘One of the perks of having royal blood, I imagine. People are more disposed to bend over backwards and do what you want.’

  Khalid sighed as Tom wandered off. There were advantages to being his father’s son but there were drawbacks too. He had learned at an early age that he could never accept people at face value and that he always needed to be wary of their reasons for making friends with him. Far too many had tried to use him to their advantage. It had made him cautious about making friends. There were very few folk he trusted completely, people like Peter and Tom....

  And Sam.

  He frowned as he glanced over to where she was organising her desk. He had trusted Sam from the moment they had met. He had never felt wary about her motives for befriending him, never doubted her integrity, not even when his father’s security team had handed him a detailed report about her background.

  Checking up on the people he met was the norm for someone in his position. However, the account of her mother’s numerous affairs and her brother’s imprisonment for fraud hadn’t fazed him. Sam possessed an innate honesty that had made him feel comfortable from the outset and he had known that he could trust her. It made him feel even worse about the way he had treated her. Even though he had done what he had for her benefit, he knew that he had hurt her in the cruellest way possible.

  * * *

  ‘Can you ask her if I can examine her breasts?’ Sam said quietly, and then waited while Aminah translated her request. The nurse not only spoke English but a number of dialects particular to the desert tribes. Now she looked up and nodded.

  ‘Yes, it is fine, Doctor. Please continue.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sam smiled reassuringly at the girl. Noor was just sixteen years of age and had recently given birth to her first child. She looked little more than a child herself with her long dark hair hanging in a thick plait to her waist. She had come to the clinic with her mother and her aunts, complaining of sore breasts, and Sam was keen to ensure that she received appropriate treatment.

  Once Noor had removed her dress, Sam examined her, nodding when she discovered what she had expected to find. The girl was suffering from mastitis—inflammation of the breast tissue. Bacteria had entered her breasts while she had been feeding her baby, probably because her nipples were cracked. It was fairly common during the first month of breastfeeding but none the less painful because of that.

  Sam explained that she would give Noor antibiotics to clear up the infection plus analgesics for the pain. Expressing milk would help to relieve the engorgement and make her more comfortable too. It all took time as everything needed to be translated but in the end they got there. Noor looked much happier when she left, clutching the tablets Sam had prescribed for her. Although Sam had asked her to come back so she could check on her progress, she wasn’t anticipating any problems.

  The time flew past and before she knew it, night was falling. Sam sighed as she flexed her shoulders after her last patient left. She had treated over a dozen women, which was pretty good considering this had been their first session. She looked up and smiled when Peter came over to her.

  ‘We didn’t do too badly, did we? How many folk did you see?’

  ‘Six,’ Peter informed her, sitting down on the edge of the desk. He frowned. ‘Looks as though TB’s going to be our biggest problem. Four of the men I saw were exhibiting classic symptoms of it.’

  ‘It’s difficult to treat unless you can keep on top of it,’ Sam observed. ‘The problem is that we’re only going to be here for a limited time and it will take longer than that to clear it up.’

  ‘I know,’ Peter agreed worriedly. ‘That’s something I need to discuss with Khalid. I’d hate to think that we make a start on sorting people out and leave them in the lurch.’

  ‘Difficult,’ Sam said sympathetically.

  She looked round when she heard footsteps and felt her heart jolt when she saw Khalid approaching them. All of a sudden she couldn’t face the thought of having to speak to him. Her first clinic had gone extremely well and she wanted to focus on that, focus on the job she had come to do, rather than think about the emotional turmoil she experienced whenever he was near. She hastily gathered together her notes and stood up.

  ‘I’d better get these filed and then I think I’ll treat
myself to a shower before dinner.’

  ‘Oh, right. Good idea,’ Peter agreed, looking faintly startled by the speed of her departure.

  Sam made her way to the tiny office that had been set up in one corner of the tent and filed her notes. Khalid and Peter were deep in conversation when she left and she doubted if either noticed her departure. She sighed as she made her way to the women’s tent. That was what she wanted, surely, that Khalid should treat her as just another member of the team, and it was ridiculous to feel ever so slightly miffed that he hadn’t tried to speak to her. She showered and changed into clean jeans and a fresh T-shirt then made her way to the canteen. Jess and Anna were already there and they waved when she went in.

  ‘Come and have a drink,’ Jess instructed. ‘There’s no alcohol in it but it’s delicious all the same. I could definitely get hooked on it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Sam accepted a glass of straw-coloured liquid and sipped it tentatively. Her brows rose. ‘It is good. What is it?’

  ‘No idea,’ Anna informed her cheerily. ‘It’s hitting the spot, though, and that’s good enough for me.’

  They all laughed and that seemed to set the tone for the evening. Whether by accident or design, it ended up with the women sitting together and the men sitting at the other side of the tent. The food was excellent, some sort of vegetable stew served with rice, followed by fresh figs and yoghurt. Cups of thick aromatic coffee rounded off the meal and Sam sighed appreciatively.

  ‘That was delicious. I don’t know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn’t anywhere near as good as that.’

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

  The sound of Khalid’s voice brought her head up and she felt the colour rush to her cheeks when she discovered he was standing by her chair. He smiled around the table, his gaze lingering no longer on her than it did on the others and yet Sam knew that he was as aware of her as she was of him. All of a sudden the air seemed to be charged with tension, filled with a host of feelings she couldn’t even begin to decipher, and her breath caught. She could lie to herself and claim that she was over him but what was the point? She wasn’t over him. Maybe she never would get over him either.