HER way through the desert trek. Now and then Khalil talked to her, and she knew it for what it was—distraction. However much he didn’t want her there, when it mattered he was kind.
When they reached the camp location he turned and looked at her. “Take a few minutes to collect yourself before you get out, but don’t take too long—the sun is reaching its zenith and the heat will rise very quickly now that the air-conditioning isn’t running.” Nevermind the now somewhat larger hole in the back window …
She nodded, finally letting herself look out the dusty windows at the little tent village. “Khalil?”
Saying his name stopped him from climbing down, though the door was open. He closed it enough to dampen their voices and kept his low. “Don’t call me Khalil. I’m Zain while we’re here. The people know me by one name—having you use another will confuse things.”
“Right.” She nodded, still not thinking all that clearly. “Zain? There’s a man running toward the truck.”
That effectively took his attention from her. Zain-not-Khalil climbed down immediately and closed the door. Through the broken window she could hear them speaking, but that didn’t mean she understood the words. What she did pick up on was the urgency in the man’s voice. She leaned over to get a better view of him gesturing quickly toward one of the nearby tents.
“Adalyn, I need your help.” Zain still sounded as authoritarian as Khalil had, but it made her move despite the earlier order to stay until she’d collected herself.
Adalyn climbed out and rounded the truck, meeting him at the back. “What’s wrong?”
“His son is sick, and they’ve not been able to even keep water in him for two days.”
Adalyn looked at the man and then at Khalil, nodding. “What do you want me to do?”
He’d already pulled open the back doors of the truck and climbed in. “I want you to assist me. My medics aren’t here yet, they went back to get your bag. So you’re my nurse for now.” In the back, he dug into a couple of different trunks and one cooler, pulling out supplies and stuffing them into an actual old-time doctor’s bag.
“Nurse. Okay.” She nodded, even if she wasn’t sure what he wanted. “My clinical skills are rusty. I haven’t actually treated injuries and illness since residency.” Wait, what had he said? “Did you say that they went to get my bag?”
“Yes.” He answered her question first, then added, “If you can follow instructions, you’ll be fine.”
“I can follow instructions.” That probably wasn’t the correct word for it, considering he was more giving orders than helpful instructions. But she could follow orders, too, when it suited her to do so.
“Get the doors. Then catch up.” He jumped down, ushering the worried father with him off in the direction of the nearby camp.
Adalyn climbed into the truck, closed the trunks and flipped latches, then jumped down and did the same with the double doors at the back. Without the prospect of the vehicle moving, it lost its ability to scare her. Just having the chance to move and focus on something aside from imminent death let her compose herself. By the time she rounded the truck Khalil had reached a tent and she barely caught sight of him ducking to enter through the flap. Five more seconds and she might not have even known which tent he’d gone to.
As she hurried across the sandy expanse, the sun heated her dark hair to temperatures it never saw outside styling appliances. The long, thick, chestnut fall of hair carried that heat down her back so that by the time she reached the tent and called a greeting, she wished she’d pulled it up. Or cut it. Or maybe that she’d just let him head off into the desert on his own, rather than fighting to come with him. The man hadn’t been wrong in warning her that she wasn’t built for this kind of adventure. New Orleans heat was a different creature entirely.
“Zain?” She said his fake name, not knowing what the protocol was to enter someone’s tent. You couldn’t exactly knock or ring the bell.
“Come.” He had that autocratic edge to his voice again.
She pulled open the flap and stepped inside. It smelled like a sick ward, but it was somewhat cooler than the air outside, something she was thankful for.
In the center of the tent a woman covered in layers of undoubtedly uncomfortable cloth held a small child in her lap. From the sweat matting his short hair and the color of his face, Adalyn could tell his fever had reached worrisome levels. Without asking any other questions, she stepped over and knelt with Khalil.
“Rotavirus,” he said. “I need to set up an IV and get some fluids into him.”
Khalil hadn’t had much time to diagnose or examine before she’d gotten there, and that meant no time to sort out his supplies. When she opened the satchel and pulled out a bag of saline, she looked at him. “You expected rotavirus?”
“They had an outbreak of it a few weeks ago, and that’s actually the vaccines I’d intended to give.”
Rotavirus … What did she remember about this? Not usually deadly, but it could be. Poor drinking water and sanitation usually caused outbreaks.
“Are any other children ill?” While she quietly asked for updates—just making sure that her rusty information wasn’t going to cause tetanus—she fished out other supplies. The IV kit. Alcohol preps. Tourniquet.
“Not right now. But we’re not going to be able to give the vaccine to him for a couple of days, just to make sure.” The more he talked, the longer he was within the small tent, the more like a regular man he seemed … and less like an angry dictator. “They should be healthy before it’s given.”
Though he looked somewhat severe still, tension no longer stood out in cords down his neck. No matter what kind of edge he had in his voice when he spoke to her, when he spoke to these people … his people … Khalil’s voice became much gentler. She didn’t even need to understand the words to know what he was doing. Comforting. Reassuring. Explaining treatment. The things a good doctor did. Was this the man that Jamison called his best friend?
Adalyn waited for a lull in the conversation to ask, “How can we keep the other children from getting it?”
“My medics have a new purification system they’ll set up when they get here. And we’ll see what we can do for other interventions.” He looked at her, his honey-brown eyes taking on the quality of examination, and before he even said anything she knew what he was looking at. Inside the tent, sheltered from the sun, her skin still burned. She was going pink. Her sunburn had already started. And she’d probably have freckles before they got back to the palace.
“I didn’t swim in sunblock before I left this morning, which I should have done. I will remedy that when they get here with my bag.” It still shocked her that he’d given in on that. She kind of wished she’d been nicer to him in the truck, and she hadn’t thanked him yet … “I misunderstood. When you said ‘Fine,’ I thought you just meant you weren’t going to quarrel with me, but you meant the bag, right?”
He nodded and tied the band around the unconscious boy’s arm, then began prodding for a vein.
“Thank you … Doctor.” She’d almost called him Khalil, it had been on the tip of her tongue. She should probably stop thinking of him as Khalil if she wanted to maintain his cover. Which she did. He’d done something kind for her in getting her bag, maybe she could turn this situation around and still get him to let her help him. Maybe tomorrow after he’d had a night of sleep he’d be more reasonable about it. Maybe she could win him over, get his cooperation … and shorten the length of time she’d need to stay there, away from home.
Despite feeling and feeling for a vein, he still hadn’t picked up the needle or alcohol prep.
“It’s hard to find a vein when they’re very dehydrated,” Adalyn said. This was actually something she was good at.
“I know.”