Desert Kings: Veronica: Stranded with the Sheikh (BWWM)

Chapter 6

Bright spears of light pounding against Zadir’s eyelids announced that morning had come once again to the Rub’ Al Khali. He reached out for the lovely woman who’d slept in his arms, but she was gone.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Ronnie?”

“I’m in the cockpit.” Her voice stirred excitement in him. Last night had been incredible. Maybe the dangerous situation they were stuck in had unleashed some primordial energy but he’d made love to her as if their lives depended up on it and the climax had left him too exhausted and drained to even worry about their dilemma.

He sat up and pulled clean underwear and pants from his luggage. Today he was going to get them both out of here. He took a judicious gulp of water from his water bottle and headed for the cockpit.

She sat in the pilot’s chair, looking ridiculously poised and elegant in a crisp, white, fitted dress that set off her gorgeous dark complexion. She turned to him, eyes glowing with excitement. “I found a distress-call button. Or a pull, more accurately. Look.” She pointed to a small orange handle far up on the right among the rows and knobs and dials. “I tugged on it right away. I’ve been doing it every few minutes since.”

“Damn, how did I miss that?”

“We were focused on the radio. I think it will send a signal up to a satellite and let them know we’re in trouble. It may even give them our coordinates. You made me think of it last night when you mentioned that there might be another way to send a distress signal.”

“You’re as brilliant as you are gorgeous.” He kissed her cheek and watched a smile spread across her sensual mouth. “Hopefully now all we have to do is sit here until help shows up. Unless…”

“Unless what?” She turned to him, her face so happy and excited that he didn’t want to share his fears.

He shoved a hand through his hair. “Unless it also summons the person who’s trying to get rid of me.”

He watched her smile fade and she bit her lip with small white teeth. “I didn’t think of that. I suppose they thought we’d die in the crash. Now that I sent the signal more than twelve hours later, they’ll know that at least one of us survived.”

He nodded. “And they may well be the first to get here.”

“What can we do?”

“We need to hope that someone legitimate also hears the signal and gets here first. Let’s try again to raise someone on the radio.”

He donned the headphones and turned the radio dial, past the endless recitation of prayers that had brought them no help. A loud burst of static made him start, and a voice in Arabic barked a question: “Is there anyone there?”

It was loud enough to be heard in the cabin, because Ronnie gripped his arm. “What is he saying?”

Foreboding unfurled in his belly. “He’s asking if there’s anyone here. You do the talking. Pretend I died in the crash, then if it’s the would-be killers they might leave us alone.”

She donned the headset, pressed the Mic button, and started to speak into the mike. “I don’t speak Arabic. I’ve been in a plane crash. I’m all alone in the desert. Please send help immediately.”

He watched as a roar of static tightened her muscles. Then he could hear enough to make out a different voice in heavily accented English. “You are alone?”

“Yes, I need help.”

The line went dead.

“Can you hear me? I need help?” She looked at Zadir. Then turned off the microphone. “What if they’re legit? Do I need to tell them where we are?”

“They can probably tell our coordinates from the distress signal the plane sent out.

“Hello? Are you there?” There was no response. She turned to him, frowning. “This isn’t good. Why would they disappear like that?”

“Because they got the information they needed.”

“That I’m alone, so they can leave me to die out here?” She held the mike close to her mouth. “Hello, are you sending help?” She shrugged, and even though she’d turned the mic off, she whispered, “I want it to sound legitimate, like I’m waiting for them.”

No answer.

“It probably is the bad guys, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “But the signal would have gone out to anyone who was listening, so hopefully the Saudi authorities got it, too. I’m assuming we’re in Saudi Arabia, because most of the Empty Quarter is within Saudi borders. They may be trying to contact us on another frequency. I’m sure there’s an official frequency for this kind of thing but I don’t know what it is so we’ll have to hope we stumble across it.”

“Let’s keep scrolling. If they could hear you, someone else will be able to hear us, too.”

Veronica’s tight body was a real temptation but he managed to keep his hands off it while he scrolled up and down the range of frequencies. She was all business today, no flirtation or mention of last night’s wonderful lovemaking. He resolved to stay focus on the task at hand.

They’d turned the volume up so loud, using the headset as a crude speakerphone, that even a burst of static fired his adrenaline. Every time they heard the familiar drone of a voice, or even some promising silence, they repeated “Mayday,” and waited with their hearts pounding.

But no one answered.

“It’s getting hot in here.” Heat pressed against the slanted cockpit windows and poured in through the missing one.

“Soon it’ll be hotter in here than outside. We’d better go see if we can reconstruct our circle in case anyone is looking for us. The plane is probably covered in sand.”

He followed Veronica out of the cockpit, trying not to let the lilt of her slim hips hypnotize him as she swayed across the tilted plane. He probably shouldn’t be thinking about her gorgeous body at a time when they needed to work fast to save their own lives, but it was hard not too.

It took some effort to get the plane door open, as sand had piled against it during the night. Naturally all their hard work of yesterday had been obliterated. “You go rest and drink some water. I’ll drag a circle in the sand.” He wanted to be a hero, to save both of then and whisk her off into an air-conditioned sunset. Every hour they spent out here brought them closer to the end of their water. Even if they paced themselves their supply would last a day or two more, at most.

She jumped down to the sand. “There’s no way I could sit idle right now. Two of us will get it done faster.”

A sense of urgency fired adrenaline through Zadir’s muscles. He was sure that he was the reason they’d been stranded here and left for dead, and he had no intention of letting his enemy win.