It was market day and the medina was already crowded, shoppers out early to beat the scorching heat.
There’d been no danger. No warning of anything bad to come.
With her camera poised, she’d watched a group of children dart between stalls as veiled women shopped and elderly men smoked. She’d smiled at the antics of the boys, who were tormenting the giggling girls, and she’d just focused her lens when shouts and gunfire filled the square.
Tally wasn’t a war correspondent, had never worked for any of the big papers that splashed war all over the front pages, but she’d been in dangerous situations more than once. She knew to duck and cover, and she did the moment she heard the gunfire. Duck and cover was something all children learned on the West Coast in America, earthquakes a distinct possibility for anyone living on one of the myriad of fault lines.
As she lay next to the well, she’d tried to avoid the bright red liquid running between cobblestones and that’s when the desert bandit seized her.
If she hadn’t looked, maybe the bandit wouldn’t have noticed her…
If she hadn’t moved maybe she’d be safe in town instead of being dragged into the middle of the desert.
Inside the stifling black fabric Tally struggled to breathe. She was beginning to panic despite her efforts to remain calm. Her heart already beat faster. Air came in shallow gasps.
She could feel it coming on. Her asthma. She was going to have an asthma attack.
Tally coughed, and coughed again.
The dust choked her. She couldn’t see, could barely breathe, her throat squeezing closed in protest at the thick clouds of dust and swirling sand kicked up by the wind and the horse’s pounding hooves.
Eyes wet with tears, Tally opened her mouth wider, gasping for breath after breath. She was panicking, knew she was panicking and panicking never helped, certainly not her asthma but it was all beyond her, the heat, the jostle of the saddle, the wind, the dust.
Reaching up, out, her hand flailed for contact, grappling with air before landing against the bandit’s side. He was warm, hard, too hard, but he was the only one who could help her now. She clung convulsively to the fabric of his robe, tugged on it, hand twisting as frantically as her lungs squeezed.
One, two, she tugged violently on the fabric, her hand twisting in, out, pulling down, against the body, anything to express her panic, her desperation.
Can’t breathe…
Can’t breathe…
Can’t…
Tair felt the hand grappling with his shirt, felt the wild frantic motion and then felt her go slack, hand falling away limply.
He whistled to his men even as he reined his horse, drawing to a dramatic pawing stop.
Tair threw the fabric covering off the foreign woman captured in the town square.
She was limp and nearly blue.
He lifted her up in one arm, turned her cheek toward him, listened for air and heard nothing.
Had he killed her?
Tipping her head back, he covered her mouth with his own, pinched her nose closed, blowing air into her lungs, forcing warm air where there had been none.
His men circled him on their horses forming a protective barrier, although they should be safe here. This was his land. His people. His home. But things happened. They knew. He knew.
He felt their silence now, the stillness, the awareness. They wouldn’t judge him, they wouldn’t dream of it. He was their lord, their leader, but no one wanted a death on his hands. Especially not a foreign woman.
Much less a young foreign woman.
Not when Ouaha still fought for full independence. Not when politics and power hung in delicate balance.
He covered her mouth again, forcing air through her once more, narrowed gaze fixed on her chest, watching her small rib cage rise. Come on, he silently willed, come on, Woman, breathe.
Breathe.
And he forced another breath into her, and another silent command. You will breathe. You will live.
You will.
She sputtered. Coughed. Her lashes fluttered, lifted, eyes opening.
Grimly Tair stared down into her face, the pallor giving way to the slightest hint of pink.
Alhumdulillah, he silently muttered. Thanks be to God. He might not be a good man, or a nice man, but he didn’t enjoy killing women.
Her eyes were the palest brown-green, not one color or the other and although her expression was cloudy, unfocused, the color itself was remarkable, the color of a forest glen at dawn, the forest he once knew as a boy when visiting his mother’s people in England.
Her brows suddenly pulled, her entire face tightening, constricting. She wheezed. And wheezed again, lips pursing, eyes fixed on him, widening, eyes filled with alarm.
Her hand lifted, touched her mouth, fingers curving as if to make a shape. Again she put her hand to her mouth, fingers squeezing. “Haler.”
He shook his head, impatient, not understanding, seeing the pink in her skin fade, the pallor return. She wasn’t getting air. She wasn’t breathing again.
Her eyes, wide, frightened, held his and her fear cut him. She was hurt and in pain and he was doing this to her.
“What do you need?” he demanded, switching to English even as he lightly slapped her cheek, trying to get her to focus, communicate. What was wrong? Why couldn’t she breathe?
Her fingers merely curled, reminding him of the letter C from the Western alphabet as she gasped, and he blocked out her frantic gasps of air studying her fingers instead. And then suddenly he knew. Asthma.
“You have asthma,” he said. He was gratified to see her nod. “Where is your inhaler?”
“Cam-ra.”
He lifted a hand, gestured, signaling he wanted it. The bag was handed over immediately.
Tair unzipped the top, rifled through, found the inhaler in a small interior side pocket and shook it before putting it to her mouth. Her hand reached up, released the aerosol, letting it flood her lungs.
Still holding her in the crook of his arm he watched her take another hit, saw her chest rise and fall more slowly, naturally, saw that she was breathing more deeply and he felt a measure of relief. She lived. He hadn’t killed her. Good.
Hard to explain a dead Western woman to the authorities.
Minutes later she stirred again.
Tally didn’t know at exactly what moment she realized she was lying in the barbarian’s arms, her legs over his, her body in his lap, but once she knew where she was, and how he held her, she jerked upright.
She wrenched free, attempted to jump from the horse but instead fell to the ground, tumbling in a heap at everyone’s feet.
She groaned inwardly, thinking she was getting too old for dramatic leaps and falls. Tally rose, straightening her white cotton shirt and brushing her khaki trousers smooth. “Who are you?” she demanded.
The man on the horse adjusted his headcovering, shifting the dark fabric to conceal all of his face but his eyes and bridge of nose. Face covered, he just looked at her, as did the others, and there were about a half dozen of them altogether.
“What do you want with me?” she persisted.
“We will talk later.”
“I want to talk now.”
He shrugged. “You can talk but I will not answer.”
Tally inhaled, felt the hot still air slide into her lungs. She couldn’t believe this