Expecting the Sheikh's Baby. KRISTI GOLD

Karen alone with the sheikh who now stood at the door looking calm and composed, and subtly sinful in his casual tan polo shirt and black slacks.

      “Come in,” he said with a sweeping gesture.

      Karen passed by Ash while maintaining enough distance between them to prevent inadvertently touching him. The pleasant scent emanating from him teased her senses, a one-of-a-kind fragrance that smelled a lot like incense, exotic but not overbearing. It reminded her of the patchouli oil Sunrise Bowers, Silver Valley’s lone hippie and video store manager, had bathed in. It had that certain kind of distinctiveness, and Karen imagined it bore some equally unique name. Arabian Nights, Desert Sunset, Sex in the Sand.

      Good grief.

      To avoid looking at Ash, Karen turned her attention to the suite’s opulent living area. A row of French doors opening onto a verandah revealed the downtown Boston skyline and the still overcast skies.

      To her right, she noted a cherry wood dining table littered with lunch remains, to her left a sitting area with tan leather-covered sofas and chairs surrounding a small redbrick fireplace. And straight ahead, an open door revealed a king-size bed covered in a gold brocade spread. Quite different from the particle-board furniture, thin bath towels and faulty A/C she’d encountered in the motels where she had stayed on previous trips. Very nice decor indeed. Especially the bedroom and she definitely needed to stop looking at that.

      The front door closed behind Karen, startling her. She spun around and blurted, “Nice place. Do you come here often?”

      What was she thinking? She sounded like some barfly executing a bad pick-up line, not a smart, sophisticated woman bent on a mission. But Ash had a knack for making her totally tongue-tied and thought-challenged.

      Ash took a couple of steps toward her. “I reside here at the moment.”

      “Where do you normally live?”

      “Wherever my business happens to take me. I have no permanent residence.”

      As if he were some sort of superpowered pulley, Karen moved toward him. She took her purse from her shoulder and hugged it again, as if it provided her some protection from his magnetism. “Really? That seems odd, not having a place to call home.”

      “I’m hoping to settle in Boston.”

      He shortened the space between them with another stride, bringing them almost as close as they’d been the previous day behind Baronessa’s counter. Karen had no real desire to move back though she probably should.

      “Why are you here, Karen?”

      “I want to ask you a few questions.”

      Ash gestured toward the sofa. “Would you like to be seated first?”