Page 1 of Sheikh's Unexpected Triplet Babies

Chapter One

Bedelia adjusted her headscarf for what felt like the millionth time, aware that she was drawing curious looks as she did so. It was bad enough that the only headscarf she could find to buy was a floral monstrosity that was really only ever seen on the heads of grandmotherly ladies carrying their wares on their back, but it seemed to add insult to injury that she couldn't even wear it right. When she felt that it was close enough to snug, she lowered her hand and looked around, finally able to pay attention to the thing she had come for.

The people of Masir had been interested in the arrival of a foreign woman in their midst for at least a little while. But then there was a commotion from the end of the track, and she was promptly forgotten as the crowd burst into excited cheers. Even if she was there only as an observer and researcher, Bedelia couldn't help but get caught up in the excitement, craning her head from her place on the straw bale bleachers to see the horses brought out.

Bedelia had been raised in farm country out in Iowa in the US, so horses weren't new to her. Even if they didn't pull plows anymore, she had friends and acquaintances who did trail rides or worked at stables. However, the Quarter Horses of her childhood had nothing to do with the lean and gleaming horses that she saw now.

Led by their proud grooms, the line of horses were trotted out onto the track in front of the audience, and to her each one seemed more beautiful than the next. They were as lean as whippets, and their coats had a mirror-bright sheen that barely seemed believable. They were the horses that were owned and prized by the nomadic nations that had come to settle the United Arab Emirates, and even here in the obscure corner of the emirate known as Muneazil, they still received their due.

She snapped pictures as quickly as she could, desperate to catch the beauty of the animals on display, their smooth gaits, their narrow and noble heads, the way they seemed like stars brought to earth and given the forms of horses.

Of course, just when she was getting into the picture-taking process, her phone rang. For a moment, she thought of ignoring it, but then with a sigh, she brought the phone to her ear.

"Lindow. For the love of all that is holy, tell me that you are at the horse show right now. Don't tell me that you got delayed or in an accident, because so help me God, I will fire your ass so fast..."

"Don't worry, Mr. Miller, I promise, I am at Masir and working hard. I promise that you will have the pictures you want in just twelve hours."

"Damn right I will. Make sure you keep your word, Lindow, I have a very poor tolerance for liars."

"I know you do, Mr. Miller," she said soothingly, and after a few more similarly threatening phrases from him, her boss hung up.

Bedelia sighed. Some days, she wanted nothing more than to tell her boss to research his own novel. If he had the money to pay her to roam the world, surely he had the money to see it himself. But then she supposed that would bite into his self-pity time as an unappreciated genius.

Still, if she hadn't fallen into the gig as Jacob Miller's personal assistant/wandering pair of eyes, she would likely still be scraping a living together in New Hampshire, and that was no one's idea of an exciting time.

She forced her attention back to the track where riders were beginning to mount up. On a word, the horses broke into a trot, then a canter, and then they were brought up to a full gallop, their bodies as streamlined as a ray of sunlight, dashing along the track with a grace like flight. She barely remembered to get video of the performance before it was over. Somehow, seeing them made her heart take flight, and she knew there was something magical about it, something splendid and wonderful.

The horse fair at Masir had been operating for more than three hundred years, and this was always the start of it. The horses that were for sale, the stars of the show, would be displayed like this before the rest of the fair took place.

She stiffened when a shout went up, and she saw a commotion go up from the horses, now being slowed again to a halt. While the main body of the small herd scattered away, two horses--one a midnight black and the other a bright gold--screamed challenges at one another, their proud heads snaking back and lunging forward again as their riders tried to fight them.

From the babble of Arabic around her, Bedelia heard quick speculation that these were both young stallions, full of fury and pride. They snaked and bit at one another, and Bedelia covered her mouth when one rider slid off his mount to the ground below. There were hands to pull him away before he was trampled, but the other one clung on until a particularly powerful lunge flung him off.

Bedelia felt frozen and helpless as people tried to grab at the rampaging giants, and buckets of water and shouting did nothing to make them lose their deadly focus on one another. The black latched his teeth into the shoulder of the gold, and she felt faint when she saw blood drawn.

It was all chaos and fear and shouting, but then a man stepped out onto the track. For some reason, Bedelia found her eyes drawn to him even before he did anything. He was a tall man, lean, and like the other men, he wore the black trousers and close-fitting, dark tunic that was the general garb of the region’s horsemen. However, there was something about him that made him stand out to Bedelia, that made a strange shiver run through her body.

When he moved, he was at least as fast as the horses themselves. Darting between the two horses, he handily caught the reins of the black. At first, to Bedelia it seemed as if he had somehow forced the enormous horse to turn with the strength of his body alone, but then after a moment, she realized he had simply redirected the horse's force. A slight change in the lunging horse's trajectory turned it away from its adversary, and while it was still blinking in surprise, the man took a firmer grip on its bridle and whipped out a dark scarf. It was the work of a moment for him to blindfold the horse, which calmed almost immediately, while a half-dozen men calmed down the gold.

Bedelia couldn't help herself. She leaped to her feet and brought her hands together in excited applause. The rest of the crowd followed suit, and soon cheering had taken the place of the horrified shouts when the horses had started to fight.

The man who had calmed the black horse looked up once others had the giant in hand, and even from where she stood, she could see the look of surprise on the man's face. He was handsome, as handsome as a movie star, but what captured her attention were his eyes. In a region where most people had eyes as dark as night, his were an extraordinary copper, a bright color that glinted in the sun.

Dragon eyes, Bedelia thought with a shiver, and perhaps there was something of the legendary beast in the man who now faced the crowd.

With a slight smile on his face, he gave a quick bow before disappearing back into the crowd of trainers, riders and owners. Bedelia wondered if he was one of them, but something made her doubt it. There had been something, something indefinable, that had set him apart, that had made him stand taller than those around him.

She shook it off. Whoever he was, it wasn't important. She was here with a job to do, and she had to do it.

***

THE FIRST HINT Jahin had gotten that something was wrong was a startled shout. He had been standing next to the track, watching for the horses he had picked out earlier for their paces, temperament and natures, when the roan with white socks that he’d had his eye on reared away from the herd, trying to get away from the center of the commotion.

Out of the chaos of shouts and screaming horses, he saw two giants emerge in battle, the black and the gold, and for a moment, he was simply struck by their power and beauty. Then one rider lost his seat, falling back to the track. The track was soft enough, but the horse hooves certainly weren't, and Jahin joined another pair of men who dragged the hapless rider off to one side.

Letting others make sure that the rider was all right, Jahin returned to the horses. God, they were both gorgeous, and though the gold had caught his eye earlier, he remembered passing up the black. He had thought the black lacked passion and a certain ferocity he looked for in his own horses, but now apparently he was being proved wrong.

Without pause, he inserted himself into the fray and thanked all the stars in heaven when he managed to grab the black's bridle on the first lunge. The horse turned with surprising ease, and then he was able to calm it further by covering its eyes.

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