The Cowboy & The Belly Dancer (Heartbeat) Read online

  The Cowboy & the Belly Dancer

  Charlotte Maclay

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Prologue

  Long ago in a small sheikhdom, so insignificant its name has been lost in antiquity, a time and place of black magic and unspeakable cruelties.

  The wizard Rasheyd sneered down his beaklike nose at Nesrin. “Your father has lost the wager, worthless woman. Unless you submit to me I shall condemn you for all eternity.”

  “Please, have mercy, effendi.” Fear constricted Nesrin’s throat so tightly her words came out as little more than a hoarse whisper. “You already have more than enough women in your harem. What use have you for one more insignificant female such as myself?” The mere thought of the wizard’s bony fingers touching Nesrin’s flesh, or doing even more intimate things to her, sent a roil of nausea through her midsection.

  “If you deny me that which is rightfully mine, you shall regret your decision.”

  The wizard, and all the stories she’d heard of his evil powers, terrified Nesrin. No one could counteract his curses, certainly not her father, who was a weak magician but much beloved in her eyes. And Nesrin had few spells within her limited abilities that offered any hope of escape.

  She eyed Rasheyd. Dressed in unforgiving black, his mustache curved above thin lips and a dark ring of kohl circled his eyes. A frightening sight. Even so, Nesrin sank to her knees, shaking her head as the silken veils of her skirt puddled around her on the marble floor and a shank of dark hair shifted across her shoulder. She drew a shaky breath. She would not willingly submit to such an evil man.

  She shivered in the wizard’s dimly lit conjuring room, a place buried so deeply beneath the sands of the Persian desert there was no hope of discovery or rescue. A pedestal made of four sun-bleached elephant tusks rested in the center of the stark space, each of the table’s legs inlaid with alternating rubies and emeralds that reflected the torchlight. On the pedestal sat a brass lamp smudged with soot. Hammered inscriptions covered the lamp in an ancient script.

  Panic pelted Nesrin like a desert sandstorm. If only her father had not lost such a desperate wager...

  “I will give you one last chance, daughter of a hairless cur.” Rasheyd’s powerful voice reverberated in the small room. “Will you submit to me?”

  She knew she was condemning herself to unutterable horrors. But her pride demanded that, above all else, she be true to herself. “Nay,” she whispered, “I shall not submit.”

  He began the curse slowly. She stared at the serpentine tattoo that circled the wizard’s thumb as each word etched itself into her brain with the same painful reality as acid on marble. No escape. And if she should by some miracle find release, and do the unthinkable act of submitting to another, Rasheyd would seek her out, and she would be condemned for all eternity with no further hope of redemption.

  To lie with a man other than Rasheyd was forbidden. Forever. Beyond the time of the moon and stars. And if she should disobey his dictate, no one would be able to save her from the power of his curse. Doomed forever to darkness.

  “So sayeth Rasheyd!”

  His words stopped. The sudden silence was deafening.

  A great pressure squeezed her from all directions, reshaping her insides and making her boneless. She felt herself being sucked into a narrow opening, halted only momentarily as one of her veils caught on a jagged edge and tore. Then she fell into darkness so bleak and deep, sight had no meaning.

  A single proud tear crept down her cheek.

  She had not submitted.

  Chapter One

  In the Colorado Rockies Parker Dunlap stood at the back of his pickup and levered the lid of the wooden crate with a crowbar. Shipped from an obscure country in the Middle East, the stencils on the box declared the contents belonged to Marge and Jack Johnson, his kid sister and her husband.

  The crate looked as if it had been nailed together by a drunken carpenter. Probably the same reckless driver who had left Marge’s two kids orphaned, Parker thought grimly, and him in a fix because he didn’t know squat about parenting.

  Though he’d certainly vowed to do his darnedest with nine-year-old Kevin and his six-year-old sister, Amy. Any other option—like their grandfather taking over parenting duties—was totally unacceptable.

  Using the crowbar, Parker applied additional pressure to the crate, and with a final groan of protest, the lid came loose.

  Gingerly exploring the crate’s contents, he found his brother-in-law’s agricultural textbooks used on his teaching assignment in that remote country, some hand-embroidered linens, a couple of brass candlesticks and a battered oil lamp that Marge had probably picked up cheap at some thieves’ market. He wasn’t sure who had packed the crates. Friends of the family, he supposed.

  Parker absently rubbed his callused thumb over the archaic inscriptions on the lamp, remembering how even as a kid Marge had loved to shop in every out-of-the-way place where their father, General Everett Dunlap, had been assigned. More than once, Parker had hauled her fanny back home when she’d ended up in a place where a young girl wouldn’t be safe.

  Ignoring a sheen of tears that blurred his vision, Parker stared off into the distance, past the weatherworn barns of his Colorado ranch and the restless mustangs in the corral, to the dramatically rising peaks of the Rockies. Even though he hadn’t seen his sister often, their paths taking them to opposite corners of the world, he was going to miss her terribly.

  From the barn came the laughter of children—kids who resembled Marge so much it made Parker ache for the one good memory from his otherwise loveless youth.

  He felt the weight of the brass lamp in his hands and laughed mirthlessly. Too bad it wasn’t a magic lamp that could bring Marge back to the living.

  “Abracadabra,” he said softly, then carelessly tossed the lamp back into the crate and turned to pry open the lid of the next box that was weighing down the back of his pickup.

  “May Allah be praised!”

  His head snapped up at the sound of a decidedly feminine voice.

  Oh, she was a woman, all right, standing smack in the middle of the crate he’d just opened, tugging on the end of a scarf or something that seemed to be caught. A damn near naked woman!

  “Who the hell—”

  The piece of diaphanous silk broke free. Unbalanced, she gave a little cry that sounded like the tinkle of fine crystal, then tumbled out of the crate right into Parker’s arms. He registered a whole raft of sensations at once. She couldn’t weigh as much as even a small bale of hay, was as sexy as any woman he’d ever seen, had wide, expressive brown eyes and her raven hair was as dark as the inside of a Colorado silver mine.

  All of that reminded Parker he hadn’t had a woman in a very long time. Suddenly he wanted to correct that oversight as quickly as possible, and his body responded instantly to the thought.

  Given the bizarre circumstances, however, restraint appeared to be the order of the day.

  She hugged him fiercely around his neck. “Thank you, master, O great one, redeemer and all-powerful wizard, for freeing me at last. May your descendants be many times blessed. I had all but given up hope.”

  He loosened her grip and settled her cautiously on her sandaled feet. She wobbled a little, steadying herself by
resting her small hands on his forearms. Her touch was as gentle as a summer breeze, as soft as a rose petal.

  “Lady, who are you?”

  “Nesrin.” She smiled up at him as if that should be enough of an explanation.

  It wasn’t. “Nesrin what?”

  “Just Nesrin. Though my beloved father, who was a great magician, sometimes called me Nessy.”

  “Right. So how did you get here?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “It seems the lamp in which I have been held captive for so long has traveled to this place. I am very grateful.”

  “The lamp?” He scowled. She couldn’t mean the scuzzy brass thing he’d been messing with. That was too ridiculous to even consider. “Come on, sweetheart. How did you manage to hide in that wooden crate all the way from the Middle East?” More likely, she’d hitched a ride in the back of the truck from the airport in Colorado Springs where he’d picked up the kids that morning.

  “If that is where you found the lamp, in that wooden box, then that is where I was.”

  “Halfway around the world in the baggage compartment of a jetliner? Where it’s freezing cold and there’s no oxygen?” he challenged.

  “That I would not know, master. I only know that once I was somewhere else, and now I am here.” She held out her arms in a graceful gesture as though to embrace the whole of the Rockies. “The wizard’s spell is finally broken,” she said with a sigh.

  Maybe if she’d been wearing a few more clothes, Parker would have been able to think straighter. The bits of colorful silk she wore were practically see-through, and her bare midriff revealed creamy-white flesh that cried out for a man’s touch.

  “A spell?” he asked incredulously. Her eyes were the darkest, most innocent shade of brown he’d ever seen this side of a doe caught unaware in the headlights of his truck. A female fully capable of casting a sexual spell over an unwary male, he quickly concluded.

  “Oh, yes, my father wagered that the wizard Rasheyd did not have the power to condemn anyone to the lamp.” She lifted her delicate shoulders in an easy shrug of acceptance. “Rasheyd is an evil man, and very powerful.”

  “Your father bet...” Parker shook his head. This was not a conversation he wanted to pursue. “Nesrin—or whatever your name is—I don’t believe in magic or spells, or any of that superstitious nonsense. If you stowed away in Marge’s stuff, I can understand that. A lot of people want to get to the States, legally or not.” Though he still couldn’t imagine how she had survived the trip.

  “What I tell you is true, master. I have lived in that lamp—”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re a genie?”

  Nesrin felt scalding heat stain her cheeks. A genie of the lowest rank, she hated to tell this great wizard with his flashing green eyes how poor her mystical skills were. If she had been gifted with decent powers, she would have cast herself out of the lamp centuries ago.

  “Yes, master,” she admitted softly.

  “Terrific. Does that mean I get three wishes?”

  “Regretfully, I am not that sort of a genie, master. I have only a few spells I can conjure.”

  The man who had rescued her folded his arms across his broad chest. Disbelief was written clearly in the ruggedly handsome lines of his face, and the way he narrowed his gaze. “Not that I doubt you for a minute, but how about casting some little spell to prove you’re telling me the truth.”

  She swallowed hard. “I may be a bit out of practice.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Anxiously she glanced around to see what spell she might attempt without creating too much havoc if she failed. They were standing next to what she took to be a modern vehicle in which several wooden crates rested. One was open to reveal the lamp lying on its side. A likely target she thought. If she could right it.

  Closing her eyes, she concentrated all of her powers on the brass lamp that had imprisoned her for so many years. She’d been so dreadfully lonely the mere thought of returning to such an existence sent a shiver of terror stroking down her spine. To have not looked on a human face in centuries, to have not seen a smile, or felt the touch of another person in all that time was cruelty beyond endurance. Only voices had reached her in the blackness, and her heart had reached back to those unseen people, but to no avail. She had learned their words but could not speak; she had cried for their sorrows and rejoiced in their triumphs, but had not been able to ease the cruel loneliness she endured.

  Mentally she speared the lamp full force with her powers, determined to demonstrate she was worthy to be her father’s daughter.

  Air hissed loudly from somewhere nearby.

  “What the heck?” the man complained.

  Nesrin opened her eyes. The black wheel at the rear of the vehicle was now oddly shaped. Quite flat on the bottom, she observed, doubting it would roll well even along the smoothest of roads.

  He kicked at the wheel. “A rock must have slammed against the tire and busted the stem when I was driving the kids back from the airport.”

  “I did not mean to hurt your wheel, master.”

  “Honey, just call me ‘Parker.’ And you didn’t do anything. It’s an old tire.”

  Nesrin did not think that was the case. As usual, her aim had been slightly off target. One would have hoped the centuries of disuse would have improved her powers, not left her with the same discouraging sense of failure. Little wonder her father had been willing to risk her future. Too many times she had embarrassed him.

  Too proud to admit failure, she raised her chin. “If you would like, I will try another incantation.”

  “No, that’s all right.” He lifted his broad-brimmed hat and ran his hand across hair the color of a sand dune at dawn, the soft strands cut short to lie softly in waves against his well-shaped head. “Seems to me the best thing I could do is to get you back to where you came from.”

  The blood drained from Nesrin’s face, pooling in her stomach and churning there like a caldron of brackish desert water. “You would send me back into the lamp?” she asked in dismay.

  His very appealing lips twitched at the corners. “I don’t think I’ve got that kind of power. But I’d guess the immigration people would like to have a chat with you.”

  She stared at him stupidly. “Immigration?”

  “Do you have a passport, Nesrin?”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I have only that which you can see.”

  He cleared his throat, his gaze skimming over her in a lazy, interested perusal. “All of which is very nice, I admit.”

  For the first time, Nesrin felt a frisson of awareness that had nothing to do with fear. The sensation started in her breasts, making them feel strangely fuller, then burrowed its way to a point much lower in her body. “Please, master...Parker,” she corrected. “Do not send me away. Do not send me to where Rasheyd can find me again.” For he would surely condemn her back into the lamp without so much as a second thought, so bitter had been the rivalry between the wizard and her father. Only this man named Parker seemed to have the power to match his deeds.

  Parker squared his Stetson on his head. He was tempted to keep this woman around any way he could. Nesrin had given his libido a good, hard wake-up call. But he knew about lust. A temporary urge better ignored. And he knew about women. His ex-wife had been quite a teacher. The lesson had cost him most of what he’d owned, including putting the ranch at risk, and half of his pride. Between Joyce, his truncated tour of duty in Special Forces, and years of stern discipline from his father, Parker had learned a lot. None of which he wanted to repeat. And all of which made it clear a guy with a soft heart was likely to finish last.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. I don’t need any more hired hands just now.”

  Her expression crumpled like a sand sculpture caught in the shifting tides. But before he had a chance to reconsider his decision, Amy’s high-pitched giggle echoed from the barn where both she and her brother had been getting the grand tour from Parker’s hired hands. A new lit
ter of kittens had been high on the to-see list.

  Nesrin turned and smiled broadly. “The children? They are here, too?”

  “You know the kids?”

  “Amy and Kevin? Oh, yes. I know them.”

  “And my sister...their parents?”

  Her eyes misted over. “I cried when I heard they had been killed. I wanted to help....” She shook her head, her dark hair shifting like a silken black waterfall over her delicate shoulder.

  “How did you know them?” Parker persisted.

  “For these last few years, I had thought of myself as a member of their household...your sister Marge, her husband Jack and the children. They were a very happy family. The most happy I have ever lived with. Their deaths were so sad.”

  The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to come together a bit more clearly for Parker. Among other delightful attributes, his sister had a way of picking up strays—human or otherwise.

  At that moment both kids came out of the horse barn, Amy running so fast she created her own tiny dust devil that twirled across the fenced corral, agitating the mustangs and causing the mares to nicker.

  “Rusty says I can pick the litter,” Amy cried. Her little legs did double time across the yard. She carried her ratty-looking doll by the hand.

  “That’s pick of the litter, and don’t bug Uncle Parker all the time,” Kevin complained. His tennis shoes scuffed up their own clouds of dust. He was the tough macho kind of kid with a stringy blond ponytail that needed to be whacked off and a shirttail that needed to be tucked in. “I told ya I’d asked for you, didn’t I?”

  From the rise of ground to the west of the barn, a stallion trumpeted his response to the mares’ calls.

  Parker whipped his head that direction. Bearing down on the outbuildings, and heading right for Amy, galloped the leader of the captured mustangs. The magnificent black beast had eluded the roundup and was now set on freeing his harem.

  “Watch out!” Parker shouted. Waving his hat to spook the stallion, Parker made directly for Amy. He scooped her up under his arm just as the horse veered away, his heaving breath hot on Parker’s collar.