CHAPTER 5
Nolan knocked lightly at Teren’s door. Night had fallen, the stars glimmering in the black vaulted skies above Kitra. He heard the yips of a pack of hyenas out beyond the walled village. That was one animal he’d hated on sight. Their bone-crushing jaws could destroy a person’s arm or leg in seconds. Plus, hyenas were aggressive predators, roaming the Sudanese desert in packs. With the corrals of sheep, goats, and cattle within Kitra’s walls, Nolan was sure the scent of those animals made the pack he’d just heard want to get inside Kitra and perform their murderous slaughter. A seven-foot wall would deter them from any such attempts.
The door opened, and Nolan had to put on his game face. Teren was dressed in a filmy, white silk long-sleeved blouse. The bell-shaped sleeves made her look romantic and wispy. She wore a pale pink, ballet-length skirt with a set of sturdy but feminine-looking leather sandals on her feet. He smiled when he saw that she had pink polish on her toenails. Out here in this dry, gritty land, the ability to indulge in the luxuries of femininity was a rare occurrence.
He liked seeing her recently washed hair twisted up on her head, a beautiful tortoiseshell clip holding it all in place. Her filigreed gold earrings appeared to be from Turkey and hung halfway to her shoulders, increasing her exotic look. Teren wore pink lipstick too, which showcased the shape of her sensual mouth. There was a shine to her sable hair, highlighting gold strands and darker, wine-colored ones. The multicolored effect increased beneath the porch light from where he stood.
“I woke up on my own. I thought I’d come over and get you,” he said.
“Thanks, I was just coming over to knock on your door. Good timing, Nolan.” She stepped out, closing the door. There were well-placed lights all around the village, making it easy to walk around at night. Looking him up and down, she added, “You look cleaned up and rested.”
Nolan noticed she didn’t lock the door but said nothing. Training could start tomorrow. “I brought my African clothing with me,” he said, and gestured to the ivory safari pants and jacket he wore. “My only concession to being an American is my red T-shirt.” He grinned.
“We sort of look color-coordinated, even without consulting one another,” Teren said, gesturing for him to walk with her. “Pink and red are brother and sister to one another on the color wheel.”
Nolan pushed his hands into his pockets, cutting his stride as she took him down a redbrick walk that cut across the courtyard of the admin building, past the water fountain. There was no way he could think of Teren as his sister. But he nodded and said, “I hope I’m dressed appropriately for a Sudanese meal?”
“Oh, no worries,” Teren assured him. “You’ve been in Sudan before and you know their customs, but here, within Kitra’s walls, it’s relaxed. It’s more of an independent tribal village than hostage to those strict Sharia-law demands you’ll find in big cities here. Usually, men eat together and women eat in another room with one another. Here, Farida and her husband, Ameer, have a huge, round wooden table where we’ll all sit together. Farida received her doctorate in business administration from Stanford University in California. When she can, she prefers the American style of sitting down to dinner rather than the Sudanese one.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” He cast her a slight, teasing smile. “A little bit of America in the heart of Sudan. Who knew?” Nolan picked up a faint fragrance on Teren’s skin as she walked close enough for him to detect it. It was spicy with a hint of cinnamon. Her hair gleamed beneath the lights, and he wondered if she’d put cinnamon oil in it. Out in this dry desert grassland, many women liked to put oil in their hair. She smelled good. Too good. Like the world’s tastiest dessert.
Nolan forced himself to keep gazing around, looking for any potential threat to Teren. He didn’t have a weapon on him yet—he’d receive one from Captain Taban at some point—but Nolan had the abilities and skills to protect Teren even without one.
“Farida’s been here at Kitra as long as I have,” she said. “We sort of grew up here together. She’s very Americanized, and I’m sure you’ll feel right at home.” She smiled fondly. “Farida’s a real rebel.”
“A bit like you?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. He saw her give him a wicked look.
“Touché. But I can reluctantly play the part of a subdued, well-trained female when I have to, believe me. Tomorrow you’ll see me in cargo pants, a tee, and sandals. I’ll probably remind you of a California surfer girl. I don’t put on Sudanese dress unless I’m forced to.”
“Like at the airport when you picked me up?” He saw her lips quirk.
“Yes, at times like that.”
“Thank you for your sacrifice.”
She grinned. “I’m glad you have a deadly sense of humor like me.”
“Oh?” Nolan inhaled the dry night air. The cattle lowed every now and then as the pack of hyenas moved closer, yipping sharply as they approached. It was the time of the new moon, and dusk was spreading across Sudan, the area slowly darkening.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Teren admitted, risking a look over at his deeply shadowed face. There was such quiet, lethal power around Nolan. She wondered if his last name, Steele, had prepared him for this kind of dangerous work. Teren thought of Damascus steel, a famously strong metal that had once been used to forge blades, and then made the connection to her bodyguard. “I mean,” she said, stumbling over her words, opening her hands, “I’m just a girl from rural Kentucky. I know nothing of black ops or bodyguards.”
“That’s all right. I’ll teach you. Just don’t lose that soft Kentucky drawl,” Nolan said, meeting her dark eyes. “It’s part of what makes you beautiful.”
His compliment was real, and Teren knew it. Even though Nolan appeared to be able to tease her, and did indeed have a good sense of humor, there was still a core of him that was deadly serious. She could sense it around him.
“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling a surge of heat throughout her body. Thank goodness it was the gray of dusk and he couldn’t see her blushing! “A lot of Sudanese ask me why I speak so funny,” she said, smiling fondly. “I guess they think my Southern drawl sounds really weird.”
“Doesn’t to me,” he offered. “It’s soft, like you.” And then Nolan wondered what the hell he’d just let fly out of his mouth. He had no business being personal with Teren, but damn, he couldn’t help himself. Everything about her was personal to him. Her profile as they’d stopped to watch the kids play on the playground was burned into his mind. Their shrieks of delight had turned her expression maternal; Nolan had actually felt an ache in his heart. Teren was a toucher and hugger, he was sure, and the children here probably adored her, but he’d soon find out.
“Oh,” she said wryly, as they passed near the bubbling water fountain and she waved to the children playing there. “There’s nothing soft about me.”
“The photo they showed me at the briefing at Artemis was one snapped of you in the shearing shed. I’ve sheared sheep, and it’s not an easy job to heft a wriggling, panicked hundred-pound sheep on its back and butt and then shear the wool off it. Takes a lot of brute strength.”
She gave him a measuring look. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“My job is to notice.”
Opening her slender hands, she said, “No one realizes how strong I really am. I work out at our gym. And I run five miles every other day at dawn.”
“Why do you work out so much?” Nolan saw her winged brows drift downward as she thought about a possible answer to him. Again, he could feel her retreating from him, just as she had when they discussed keeping the door unlocked and open between their apartments. There was a secret she carried, and when she compressed her lips, Nolan knew she wasn’t going to be fully honest with him.
“I love hard, physical work.” She tapped her temple. “I do so much heavy mental work as a computer tech that I have to balance it with an equal amount of physical exercise.” That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth. For whatever reason, Teren felt guilty about not being fully forthcoming with Nolan. He was a man who invited her trust. Nolan seemed to be sincere, and she felt he genuinely wanted her to get to know him.
Wyatt had warned her that Nolan would dig into her on all levels, because if an attack ever came, he had to know how she’d react and how he could best protect her in such a situation. She’d asked Wyatt to take out part of her past in her file, because she wanted no one to know about it. His mission team had done a thorough vetting and background search on her, including police reports and court information. She just couldn’t go there with a stranger. Wyatt agreed to remove it from the file he’d give Nolan, but he warned her that Nolan should be made aware of it once they had built adequate trust between one another. Teren pleaded with the head of Mission Planning to remove it and say nothing to anyone. He’d been as good as his word: he would remove the upsetting information from the file, and Nolan would be left in the dark, but that hadn’t sat well with Wyatt.
“How often do you go horseback riding?” Nolan asked, his gaze furtive as he probed the shadows around the fountain. Within the U-shape of the building was a huge, long rectangular courtyard. He saw at least twenty wooden picnic tables, barbecue grills nearby, and more trees to create cooling shade throughout the area.
“At least twice a week if I can. Maybe tomorrow I can take you over to the barn and show you our horses. We have six of them. Ayman and I go riding sometimes. He’s a true horseman, born in the saddle almost.”
“I’ll probably be with Ayman most of the morning,” Nolan told her as they rounded the end of the fountain. He saw the line of duplexes on the western side of the admin building.
“I’m sure. There are a lot of layers of security to this place. Wyatt said you’d be casing the joint.” She smiled faintly.
“I need to commit this whole place to memory.”
“Really? That seems impossible!”
“A security contractor has a different type of brain than most people,” he assured her. “We’re asked to memorize manuals a hundred pages long on some ops, so memorizing the layout of a place like this is easy in comparison. Memorization of the surroundings is imperative. That way, I can tell what is out of place and a potential threat to my detail.”
“Wow,” she murmured, staring over at his shadowed profile. “Really? A hundred-page manual?”
“Yep,” Nolan assured her, meeting her wide eyes. She was clearly impressed. Teren was going to be easy to talk with, to delve into, precisely because she had that catlike curiosity. Still, he reminded himself of the land mines around her, too. There was nothing in her file to indicate anything bad had happened to her, but damn it, her reactions told him differently. What was she hiding? Had she hidden it from Wyatt and the Mission Planning team at Artemis, too?
“You’re an enigma,” she said with a partial laugh, gesturing for him to turn down a narrower walkway that ran in front of the many duplexes.
“And you aren’t?”
She chortled and held up her hands. “Guilty on all accounts.”
“And Wyatt did warn you that you and I are going to have some serious sessions with one another?”
“Yes,” she said, barely holding back a smile. “He warned me you’d dig to China and back with me. All in the name of figuring out what I’d do in a crisis.”
“Right,” Nolan agreed. Teren stopped in front of a duplex with a brightly painted blue door.
“This is Farida and Ameer’s home. I know everyone is excited to meet you and get to know you.” She laid her hand on the sleeve of his ivory safari jacket, feeling the hard muscles tense beneath her fingertips. “You’re going to be the star tonight, Nolan.”
*
Teren enjoyed the cold hibiscus tea in a large glass, a sprig of fresh mint in it. Watching Ayman and Nolan together was like watching two old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And Nolan’s ability to greet the men in the customary Sudanese fashion went a long way with everyone. Men remained with men in another room while the women gathered in a nearby one.
Farida came over to her and whispered in her ear, “He is very good-looking, Teren!”
Teren nearly choked on her tea and turned, meeting Farida’s gold-brown eyes, which were dancing with merriment. When she could, the director preferred to wear pantsuits instead of a tob. Tonight, she wore a pale yellow linen pantsuit. She wouldn’t be able to get away with wearing it outside Kitra’s wall, but Farida had, long ago, been seduced by American clothing. “I didn’t know what to expect,” she admitted.
Farida sat down at the huge table that they had just laid out with salads, meat, and rice dishes. She held her hibiscus tea between her small hands. She was barely five feet two inches tall, but in Teren’s eyes, the woman was a dynamo of nonstop motion and passion for Kitra.
“Ayman had shown me a black-and-white photo of Nolan, but it sure didn’t do him justice,” she said, giving Teren a sly look that spoke volumes.
“Oh, no,” Teren said, holding up her hand. “There’s no way I’m getting into a relationship with him. My last one was a certifiable disaster, Farida.”
“Yes, but he was a Frenchman, Teren. They’re known to be so fussy.” She shrugged her shoulders dramatically. “This man, Nolan Steele? He’s very solid. Steady. And he listens closely to what we say and doesn’t interrupt.”
“Unlike Henri,” Teren glumly agreed. Two years ago she’d met the French importer-exporter in Khartoum by accident. She’d been so lonely for so long. When Teren looked back on that debacle, she knew she’d made a poor decision regarding the forty-year-old Frenchman, who had passionately courted her. And she had fallen for him. The sex was great, but Henri’s fussiness, as Farida called it, drove her crazy. She didn’t want a man who was a drama king, who nagged and pouted when he didn’t get his way. And it had brought too much of her dark past back to her. Teren had broken it off, much to Henri’s very vocal objections.
Hadii, Ayman’s wife, brought in mouloukhiya stew, thick with chicken and vegetables. She set it down and then joined them. After she poured herself more tea, she took some kissra bread and dipped it into the yogurt and tahini sauce. “Teren, I think you have been blessed.”
“Oh?” Teren met Hadii’s serious demeanor. She was the mother of two strapping sons who were now guards here at Kitra with their father, Ayman. Hadii was forty years old, and her dry sense of humor always made Teren laugh, even when she was having a frustrating day with her cranky computers.
“Well,” she said, draping her manicured red nails over Teren’s lower arm, “I think we women can agree that your new shadow is quite delicious-looking. Not that we should be talking about a strange man who is not one of our relatives, but really, he is to be savored.”
Farida leaned over and said in a dramatic whisper, “In America they’d call him a hunk, Hadii.” Then she added drolly, “Or maybe a stud?” and slanted a meaningful look in the direction of Teren, who sat between them.
Teren colored fiercely as a knowing look danced in Farida and Hadii’s brown eyes. “Oh, come on, ladies. I wouldn’t know!”
Hadii raised a thin black brow, giving Nolan a critical, assessing glance. All three men were in the living room, including Farida’s husband, Ameer, discussing something in low voices. Probably politics or soccer. “Well, if I’m any judge of a stallion, my dear Teren, he is certainly all of that.”
Pressing her hand against her mouth, Teren muffled her laughter. Farida and Hadii were like two doting older sisters who made it their objective to constantly try to marry her to a handsome young man. “You two are embarrassing me!” she whispered, giving each of them a baleful look.
“Pooh,” Farida said, lifting her fine, thin nose into the air. “You forget how beautiful you are, Teren. You are getting past the age to marry. You don’t want to be one of those old maids from America, now, do you?”
She shook her head, giving her dear friends a warm look. “I just haven’t met the right man, is all. I keep telling you two plotting and planning strategists that.”
“Well,” Hadii said in her own defense, “I had Ayman bring Captain Joseph Adler from the French Foreign Legion out here to introduce to you. He was a well-built man in every respect. Very nice, too.”
Groaning, Teren remembered meeting that German officer with the scar on his jaw. “I didn’t like him, Hadii. He was hard, and he’d lost his ability to trust someone emotionally. I don’t want a man who’s locked up. I want someone…well…like Ayman or Ameer. Your husbands are wonderful men, they’re great fathers to your children, and they love you fiercely. That’s the kind of man I’m wanting.”
“Tut-tut, child,” Hadii murmured knowingly, smiling. “If I’m any judge of character—and I believe I am, because look who I married—this young American stud, Nolan Steele, seems to fit all your requirements.”
Teren rolled her eyes, knowing that when Hadii and Farida picked on her, she had already lost the battle and the war.
Farida jumped in, her voice keyed with excitement as she whispered to them, “I see the way he looks at you, Teren, when you aren’t aware. I have eyes in my head.”
“So do I,” Hadii intoned, giving her a knowing nod.
“Well,” Teren said, “the food’s going to get cold if we don’t serve it soon. Shall we, ladies?”
Both women groaned and agreed, pushing away from the table and standing up.
“I’m seating Nolan next to you,” Farida said, not taking no for an answer as she stabbed her finger at the two chairs to her left.
“Let me help serve first,” Teren insisted. Farida was such a matchmaker, and Hadii was her right arm! As Hadii walked past Teren, she rubbed her hands together, glee in her sparkling eyes, a wicked look in her expression.
Teren knew she was in trouble now. These two had both just agreed that Nolan was the perfect mate for her. And they’d do everything in their considerable power to ensure she was going to be with him far more than she’d thought she would be.
As she followed them to the kitchen, the air pungent with fragrant spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, and mint, she smiled to herself. For sure, Nolan was a man’s man. As the women brought out the rest of the spicy food, at least fifteen white serving dishes bearing different fare, Farida called the three men to come join them. And like the traffic cop she was, she directed each man to a particular chair at the round table.
Teren loved the colors of the dishes, from the red tomato salad mixed with diced green onion and green chili peppers, slathered with a peanut butter sauce, to the mouthwatering mouloukhiya stew, to the Sudanese rice mixed with butter, coriander powder, and turmeric, which gave the grains a yellow color. The table looked like a palette filled with paint pots, each dish fragrant and begging to be sampled. She passed a huge platter of kissra bread made from rye and wheat flour. The round, baked bread, which reminded her of the flatbread found in the U.S., was a staple here in Sudan.
When Nolan came and stood behind her chair, Teren felt heat rush to her face again. No man had ever made her blush like he did. Farida and Hadii gave her great big smiles that translated to “I told you so,” because Nolan was acting like a gentleman. As Teren wrinkled her nose in response, both her friends tittered between themselves and sat down around the table with their husbands. Teren hoped they weren’t going to be suggestive or sly in their remarks as dinner progressed. That was all she needed! Here were two happily married women wanting to match her with the man they thought was perfect for her. What a night this was going to be!