The Cowboy & The Belly Dancer (Heartbeat) Read online

  Turning, he saw the horse racing toward Nesrin. She made no effort to escape, rooted to the spot by terror, he imagined.

  Fear rocketed through him. She was going to be trampled.

  “Get in the truck,” he yelled. “Just leap into the back.”

  To his dismay, she still didn’t give ground, her attention riveted on the horse that was bearing down on her. She was the most courageous woman he’d ever seen. Or a damn fool!

  “Get out of the way!” he ordered again, knowing full well it was already too late.

  “Uncle Parker...” Amy cried, burying her face in his chest.

  In a circus move, Nesrin ducked at the very last instant, grabbed a handful of mane and pulled herself up onto the stallion’s back. She laid her head on the animal’s neck. The horse bucked and trumpeted again, then sped off toward the hills, Nesrin’s silk skirt blowing in the breeze like a colorful banner.

  “Holy—” Parker had never seen such a stunt. Or known anyone to do something so stupid. Nesrin was going to get herself killed.

  He lowered Amy to the ground.

  “Rusty, you take care of the kids. Pete, Buck,” he called to the hired hands standing around looking as dumbfounded as he was, “get some horses saddled. We’re going to have to go after that crazy female.” They’d probably find her with more broken bones than good sense.

  “Don’t look like that’ll be necessary, boss,” Rusty drawled, scratching at the back of his nearly bald head. “That there little lady’s bringing ol’ Lucifer back on her own.”

  Incredibly, Nesrin had turned the horse and was trotting back toward the barn, her arms still wrapped around the animal’s neck. From where Parker stood, it looked as if she were whispering in the horse’s ear.

  “Get the corral gate open,” Parker told one of his men. “Looks to me like Nesrin’s a better hand than you three are when it comes to catching mustangs.”

  Pete grinned back at him, showing a wide gap between his front teeth. “She’s that ‘n’ more,” he agreed.

  Lucifer got skittery as he approached the corral gate, but Nesrin’s soft words and the lure of his mares did the trick. She hustled him inside, slid off the horse and scurried out the gate as the hired hands swung it closed behind her. She beamed up at Parker.

  “Where’d you learn to ride like that?” he asked in admiration.

  “It is nothing, master. Besides being a magician, my father raised the finest horses in all of Persia. He taught me to ride before I could walk.”

  Persia? he thought in a quick double take. That hadn’t been the country’s name in years. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “Oh, no, the horse would not have harmed me. I only needed to tell him how brave and courageous he was to try to rescue his mares.”

  Tell him in what language? Parker wondered. She’d been something else on that horse—a mythical enchantress who could tame the wildest beast. His blood was still pumping adrenalin and he wanted to yank her into his arms and—

  “You may have just saved my bacon,” he said instead of acting on his impulse.

  Her eyes widened. “You would turn that magnificent animal into bacon?”

  “No, no. I meant the stallion’s probably worth half again as much as all the mares combined. And right now I could use the extra cash.”

  A relieved “oh” escaped her lips.

  “Wow!” Kevin interjected, gazing up at Nesrin with awestruck admiration. “I never saw anybody ride a horse like that.”

  “Kevin,” she whispered on a soft sigh Parker wished had been meant for him. Slowly she brushed her fingertips to the side of the boy’s face. “Yes, so handsome, as your mother often said. And smart like your father, with your computers and your books. Is that not so?”

  The boy blushed and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled.

  “And you, my sweet little Amy.” Smiling, Nesrin knelt before the child who had joined her brother. “As pretty as a picture, they said, and it is so. And look, you brought your dolly with you to this new place.”

  Amy nodded. “She ‘n’ me have been visitin’ the kitties.”

  “And did she like them?”

  “Uh-huh. She’s gonna help me pick one for my very own. When they don’t need their mommy anymore.”

  Parker lifted his hat and swiped his palm across his sweat-dampened hair. What was going on? he wondered. Nesrin didn’t even seem winded by her wild ride and was now far more interested in meeting the kids. Children she was already supposed to know, if she’d been a part of Marge’s household for years.

  Nothing had seemed quite right since Nesrin had appeared out of the shipping crate. Parker felt very much out of sync and unsettled. That wasn’t like him at all. He was the kind of guy who was used to being in control...everything by the book. That’s what his father had insisted upon, and a lifetime of military schools had reinforced that same lesson many times over.

  Somehow he had the uncomfortable feeling Nesrin’s arrival had changed the rules.

  “Uncle Parker, I’m hungry,” Amy pleaded. “Can we eat dinner now?”

  “Told ya you shoulda eaten on the plane,” Kevin said.

  Amy stuck out her tongue and made a gagging sound. “That stuff was barfy.”

  “Was not!”

  “That’s enough, kids!” Parker ordered. He checked the lengthening rays of the sun, deciding the kids’ schedules were probably so mixed up they had no idea what meal was actually due. After all, they’d been more than twenty-four hours en route from the Middle East.

  That didn’t change the fact he felt ill equipped to accept the role of both mother and father for two youngsters he hardly knew. He hadn’t experienced much in the way of love as a child. It seemed unlikely he’d have enough left over to share with his niece and nephew.

  At the same time, he knew the last thing Marge would have wanted was to have their father—the General—raise her kids for her.

  Parker slanted a glance at Nesrin. There was magic in her uncertain smile, a plea no man could refuse. Perhaps she was a genie capable of casting a spell—on him.

  He didn’t need another hired hand, he realized, good rider or not. What he needed was...

  But he couldn’t ask for that. The fact was, with the added responsibility of the kids, he had a more important priority and figured he ought to be damn grateful Nesrin had almost literally fallen into his lap.

  “Do you know how to cook?” he inquired instead.

  She beamed him a smile that would have melted a winter snowpack.

  “Oh, yes. My mother taught me a long time ago. I can make sarma and shish kebab. Boiled sheep brains are my specialty, though. They’re quite delicious mixed with dried dates.”

  “Gross,” Kevin announced.

  Parker mentally echoed the same sentiment, swallowing hard. “I’m sure they’re wonderful.” And he supposed he’d eaten worse, but he couldn’t remember when. “How ‘bout we forget immigration for the moment.” He had a few high-level connections in the government. Maybe he could work out a green card for Nesrin, just to keep things legal.

  “Come on, kids,” he said as he slid his hand to the center of Nesrin’s back—mostly to give himself an excuse to touch her, as though he needed to confirm she was real. He headed her toward the house. “I’ll show you the kitchen and you can whip up whatever you’d like for supper. If you don’t mind being a combination nanny, chief cook and bottle washer,” he belatedly said, “maybe we can work out a deal.”

  “Yes, please. I would be happy to serve you in any way you wish.”

  That opened a whole range of possibilities that tweaked Parker’s imagination, most of which he didn’t dare consider in any specific detail, and certainly not in front of the kids. “Great.” His throat closed around the word. “And maybe you can find some clothes in Marge’s stuff that would be a little more, ah, suitable for you to wear around the ranch.”

  Her smooth forehead drew into a frown, and she looked down at her silken sk
irt as though puzzled by his request. “As you wish, master.”

  “Parker,” he corrected as he escorted her up the steps to the wide porch that spread across the width of the old ranch house.

  “Parker,” she echoed in a voice so soft and sweet it reminded him of a summer creek rippling over a bed of granite rocks.

  * * *

  OH, CAMEL DROPPINGS! Nesrin silently complained. Never in her long life had she ever imagined a house like this. The cooking area Parker had led her to was as strange and unfamiliar as the men’s side of a mosque. How would she ever prepare a meal for him in such a wondrous place filled with dozens of cupboards and shiny metal devices? She was used to an open fire, a few sticks of wood and some dung for fuel. Here, simply finding a flame seemed impossible.

  She wanted to please this man named Parker. He was truly an impressive wizard, to have helped her escape from the lamp, and she would not want to anger him so that he would send her back into the dreadful darkness.

  He was mightily handsome, too, she conceded, this first human she had seen in many years. His eyes were the color of a lush green oasis on a sunlit day, she recalled. Across the hard angles and planes of his face, the sun had cast fascinating shadows. And his strength... He had held her in his arms, against the rock hardness of his chest as effortlessly as a strong man lifts a child. In contrast, she’d felt an excitement that hadn’t seemed at all childish.

  No, she definitely did not want to displease this brave man who had risked his life to save sweet Amy when she had been threatened by the magnificent stallion.

  If only she weren’t quite so inept at casting spells.

  She called the children to her. “Kevin. Amy. You must help me, for I fear I do not know how to prepare a meal to please your Uncle Parker.”

  “I want peanut butter,” Amy whined.

  “Come on, sis. You can’t have peanut butter for dinner.”

  The child puffed out her lower lip. “Why not? Uncle Parker always sent us big boxes full at Christmas. He must like it, too.”

  “That’s ‘cause Mom couldn’t buy any stuff like that in the village market.”

  Nesrin slanted Kevin a glance. “Is it true? Your uncle sent you this thing called peanut butter?”

  “Yeah. I suppose.”

  “And how do you fix it?”

  “It’s easy. You just make a sandwich.”

  Something easy. That’s what Nesrin needed for now. Later she would learn to prepare other meals that would please Parker as much.

  “Would you show me, Kevin?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “It’s cool.”

  Actually, Nesrin had felt strangely warm and flushed ever since Parker had held her in his arms, not cool. And the ride on Lucifer had not chilled her flesh in the least. But she did not believe it necessary to point out that incongruity to Kevin while the boy was helping her fix dinner.

  Kevin’s demonstration of sandwich-making was quite brief. He rather quickly lost interest in the task and both children wandered off to explore the rest of the house.

  Nesrin hooked the back of her wrist on her hip. It was such a simple job to make this meal, she was sure she could conjure up just the right number of sandwiches for their supper without any trouble at all. She did have a sample, she rationalized. All she need do is make that one little sandwich multiply for four. A decided time-saver, she thought.

  Closing her eyes, she concentrated as hard as she could—without using so much of her power as to damage the house, she hastily reminded herself. She took a deep breath and began a very simple incantation in her head.

  When she looked, she groaned aloud. Her cursed powers had misbehaved again!

  Chapter Two

  “Hey, look, Uncle Parker,” Kevin exclaimed as he shoved in through the swinging door into the kitchen, Amy tagging along right behind him. “Nesrin’s made enough sandwiches for an army.”

  Parker followed the kids inside and came to a quick halt. Peanut butter sandwiches? Dozens of them piled in a two foot-high stack on a huge serving plate in the middle of the maple table?

  He shook his head in disbelief. There were enough for several armies, he agreed.

  His gaze slid around the empty counters, and he noted the absence of anything cooking on the stove. “That’s it for dinner?” he asked. Not that he thought any of them would leave the table hungry. He simply hadn’t been aware there were that many loaves of bread available in all of Colorado.

  “Kevin said we should wait until you arrived before we poured the milk,” Nesrin explained, anxiously twisting a bit of silk through her fingers. “That way it will stay cold in your magical white box until you are ready to eat.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” he conceded, eyeing the refrigerator. He’d never heard it described as magical. But then, he’d never known a woman who thought she’d been released from a lamp...or one who put together a hundred peanut butter sandwiches for a dinner for four. Quirky but cute.

  A smile twitched at the corners of his lips. “Well, come on, guys. Chow time.” He twirled a chair around and straddled it backward.

  The kids scurried to take their places at the table, Kevin imitating Parker’s action with the chair. When Nesrin finished pouring the milk, Parker nodded for her to join them. He figured peanut butter sandwiches beat boiled brains, even mixed with dates, any day of the week.

  From lowered lids, Nesrin observed Parker as he selected a sandwich from the enormous pile she had conjured with her faulty spell. He was watching her, too, in a way that made her feel acutely female, although his expression gave away nothing of his thoughts. An intensely private man, she concluded, one who rarely found reason to smile.

  From the crinkles at the corners of his eyes she knew he’d spent years squinting into the sun. His face and neck were burnished to a golden brown, his muscular forearms roughened by a light covering of hair. His blue work shirt tugged at his broad shoulders. She’d noted earlier the way his trousers hugged narrow hips above long, powerful legs.

  A man to be reckoned with in any century, she mused. But one she must be wary of. At some deep, intuitive level she knew Parker Dunlap was the kind of man to whom she might submit with the least little encouragement. Such a foolish act would surely bring down Rasheyd’s curse on her head once again, and she could not possibly endure a return to the darkness of the lamp. This time with no hope for escape. Forever.

  “Hey, Uncle Parker, can I start learning to ride tomorrow?” Kevin asked.

  “I don’t see why not. If you’re willing to do chores around the place as part of the deal, I’ll ask Rusty to pick out a gentle mount for you. But you can’t go riding off by yourself. Okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Kevin agreed with a lack of enthusiasm.

  “Me, too,” Amy demanded.

  Parker frowned. Every time he looked at Amy, a band of love and regret tightened around his chest. She was the image of Marge, and her presence made Parker’s protective instinct raise its head in a way he hadn’t experienced in a good many years. Or with anyone except his sister, for that matter. “I don’t know. You’re still a little young....”

  Amy’s chin puckered.

  “Perhaps she could ride with me,” Nesrin offered, sensing both sibling rivalry and a tired child’s tantrum in the making if Amy didn’t get her way.

  “Not on Lucifer,” Parker warned.

  “Of course not. I will be most careful with Amy. Your friend Rusty will choose a suitable horse for us, I am sure.”

  Realizing his gruff response had very nearly generated a fountain of tears on Amy’s part, Parker added, “Maybe after I get the mustangs sold, and if there’s any money left over, we could find you a pony to ride. That’d be more your size.”

  “Really, Uncle Parker?” Amy beamed him a smile. “I’m gonna get my very own horse?”

  “A pony...in a few weeks. If I can find a good one for you.”

  To Nesrin’s great relief, Parker seemed to have avoided a minor crisis with Amy. She thoug
ht he was a good man but very stern with the children. She would have to help him gentle his ways.

  “Kevin found some bees,” Amy announced, her mouth full of peanut butter. “He almost got stung.”

  “Tattler!” Kevin accused.

  Parker raised his eyebrows. “What bees?”

  “Aw, just some ol’ bees around the back of the barn.” The boy shrugged. “They didn’t get me, or anything.”

  Parker thought he knew what the boy was talking about and didn’t like the idea of Kevin fooling around the nest. “Those are mud wasps, son, and I don’t want you to mess with them. I’ll get Rusty and the boys to knock down the nest first thing in the morning.”

  “I’m sure Kevin would not do anything foolish,” Nesrin said, giving the boy a fleeting smile of encouragement.

  Parker wasn’t so sure. He’d been about nine the year he shot a homemade arrow right through the open window of a laundry truck. It had been a wonder the darn thing had flown at all, much less straight, but that hadn’t lessened the driver’s anger. Or his father’s fury.

  He figured he’d better keep a close eye on Kevin.

  As Parker took a second sandwich from the stack, he wondered how a delicate woman like Nesrin, almost fragile looking, could bring such change to the kitchen. The stainless appliances no longer seemed harsh in the bright light, but somehow softer; the stark white of the walls now reflected the warm pastels of her skirt. Nesrin was a provocation that was both soothing and disturbing at the same time. It made him think about things he’d missed—family, a loving woman, assorted other fantasies that were only a figment of a songwriter’s imagination.

  In an objective sense, he supposed she wasn’t beautiful. Vibrant came to mind—a small, sexy package filled with dynamite.

  Her mouth was mobile, smiling easily as she carried on a running conversation with Amy about her doll and Kevin on the subject of horses. Her nose and cheekbones were classic, like an artist might sculpt—or a man would want to rain kisses on. In spite of her small size, her legs were strong, like a dancer’s, and he could easily imagine them wrapped powerfully around his waist.