that anyway.”
She wasn’t going to deny it. Iris was a terrible liar, but admitting she was sleeping with the man who’d broken her heart once wasn’t going to make her look all that smart to her colleague.
“Give it a rest, cupcake. It’s all there in his eyes.”
“What’s in his eyes?” she couldn’t help asking, though she knew she shouldn’t.
The look on Russell’s face said he knew he’d gotten her. “At the palace, and since, he’s watched you with this really intense yearning.” He frowned, sadness entering his gaze. “It’s an expression I understand too well not to recognize.”
Iris reached out and squeezed his arm in silent comfort. Russell’s ex-girlfriend had really done a number on him. And knowing how deeply Asad’s defection had affected her, Iris wasn’t about to dismiss Russell’s love affair gone wrong as a youthful mistake he would get over easily.
“He’s not looking at you like that now, though,” Russell claimed, his voice cheerful, the look of sadness gone.
She waited several seconds for her nosy colleague to explain, but he just went back to work. Finally, in exasperation, she asked, “How does he look at me, then?”
“Like you’re his and anyone thinking to challenge that claim had better protect his balls.”
She burst out laughing, but the man who wore T-shirts with humorous sayings only another geologist would really appreciate—today’s said Don’t Take Me For Granite, Just Because I’m Gneiss—looked as serious as bedrock. “I think you better watch out for your heart, Iris.”
That was one warning she didn’t need. She already knew how hazardous Asad was to her heart.
“What’s so funny?” Nawar asked, skipping up to join them, her father only a few steps behind.
Iris had worried that having them along would make doing her job difficult, but Asad was good with his daughter and this mountainous desert was his homeland. They’d kept busy with an impromptu lesson on geography targeted at the four-year-old’s level. Iris had no idea how much the child would remember, but something told her it would be more than she might expect.
“Russell made me laugh,” Iris said with a smile for the little girl.
Asad’s brows rose, his expression this side of dangerous. “Oh?”
“Told you,” Russell mouthed, his head facing Iris and away from Asad.
Iris shook her head.
“He did not make you laugh?” Asad asked.
Iris rolled her eyes. “Does it matter? How are you two doing? Bored?”
“Not in the least, but I believe it is time to take a break for eating and then Nawar will have her nap.”
“Where?” Surely the SUV would be too warm for the little girl to sleep in.
Though it was not as hot here as the desert at the base of the mountains, it was still sunny enough to heat the interior to uncomfortable levels.
“There.” He indicated the other side of the SUV.
And Iris noticed that while she had been working, he’d erected a small single-room goat-hair tent with an awning that created a second area in front open to any light breezes. It said something about how caught up in her work she got that she hadn’t even noticed him putting the tent up. Iris had no doubt the portable Bedouin home would be perfectly comfortable for Nawar’s nap.
“You’re a good dad.”
He shrugged. “I did not want you to feel rushed to return to the encampment.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” His eyes watched her lips.
She swayed forward, but caught herself before kissing him in front of his daughter and Russell. What was she thinking?
Thankfully Nawar caught their attention then, trying to drag the oversize basket of food prepared for them from the tent by herself.
They chatted while they ate and then Asad put his yawning daughter down for her nap. Afterward, he made himself comfortable under the awning with his laptop, the sheikh of the Sha’b Al’najid working on very modern business in an equally old setting.
Russell caught Iris watching Asad and shook his head.
“What?”
“You’ve got it bad … you do know that?”
“I had it bad, six years ago.”
“But not now? Wake up and smell the cordite, Iris. The man is so far under your skin, he’s got a direct path to your heart.” Russell set the core sampler in the ground.
“No,” she said more loudly than she intended. “I’m not going to love him again.”
“You’re trying to say you ever stopped?”
She glared at Russell, who blithely ignored her while he drew a clean sample of topsoil. “Enough of the personal observations. We’ve got plenty to do here without you turning into Dr. Phil on me.”
“Hey, I resent that.” He flicked her a grin over his shoulder. “I’ve got all my hair.”
“You’ve got a big mouth is what you’ve got.”
He stopped what he was doing and really looked at her, his expression back to the unfamiliar seriousness. “I’m your friend, Iris. I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Your truth isn’t necessarily my truth.”
“Oh, very Zen of you.” He was back to being a smart aleck.
“Stop, or I’m going to tell Genevieve you want grasshoppers in your dinner.”
“That lady sure does like you. It’s almost as if she’s looking forward to you joining the family,” he said meaningfully.
“Russell,” she practically yelled. One thing Iris could not afford was to allow Russell to plant ideas in her head that would only get her heart shattered a second time around.
“Fine, fine … I’ll stop.”
Despite their late start, Iris and Russell gathered a good day’s worth of samples, measurement and observations. Preliminary indications made her think that mining might very well be in Kadar’s future.
But Iris didn’t say anything of that nature to Asad or his family over dinner when they asked how her first day on the job had gone. Russell was dining with another family, getting the opportunity to experience more elements of the Bedouin culture.
Iris did not complain about not being afforded the same opportunity. There was nowhere she’d rather be and that was her personal cross to bear. Certainly, she didn’t need Russell’s observations on the matter.
Iris snuggled against Asad, their early-morning lovemaking having left her feeling drowsy and relaxed. “Are you coming with us again today?”
“But of course. I told you I would be your guide and protector while you are here.”
“How can you afford the time?” Challenging enough to be a business mogul, or a sheikh, but to be both?
She doubted many men could handle the pressure.
“I will bring my computer and do work as I did yesterday.”
“You spent a good portion of yesterday keeping Nawar occupied.”
“She is my joy.”
“She is incredibly sweet, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“What question is that, az—Iris?”
She noticed him stumbling over the old endearment