Page 33 of Her Tempting Protector

8

The cloth that she had tucked up around the windows in the backseat helped to keep the sun off Shada and Adam as they drove at a snail’s pace down some non-existent road. Carys knelt over the front seat and wrung out the damp cloth, and wiped it down the woman’s brow, face, neck and arms.

“No,” she protested groggily.

“He can’t see,” Carys reassured her, referring to Cullen.

Adam was pressed in beside Shada and the bench seat and giving a weak cry. He needed to be fed. She checked the saline drip into Shada’s arm, it was still flowing.

They’d been on the road for four hours, and Carys needed to check Shada’s dressing. What’s more, the last time she tried to feed Adam, he just spit up the formula. The constant motion was making him carsick. Why couldn’t he be one of those babies who were comforted by being driven around?

“Carys, sit forward and put on your seatbelt,” Cullen said sharply.

The truck lurched and Adam sank down lower between his mother and the back of the seat. Carys had to almost stand up on the seat to pull him up.

“Carys, goddammit, sit your ass down.”

She ignored him, then picked up the now squalling child and maneuvered him securely into her arms so she could twist her way back down into the front seat. As soon as she was pointed forward, she saw what Cullen had so upset. They were coming up on two Jeeps—one of them had men with rifles in their laps. They blocked their progress.

Cullen stopped the truck.

“The two with guns are wearing Rapid Support Forces uniforms,” Cullen said quietly in English. Bad news is, we don’t know if they’re rebels or are with the new government. Let me do the talking.”

Carys had already checked her French braid—it was so tight that it was giving her a headache, which meant it wasn’t going to show underneath the dark hijab. She brought the scarf down lower over her brow, and the lower part of the robe up higher so that it covered her mouth and nose. Holding Adam should make her blend in as a pious Muslim Sudanese woman. But how in the heck Cullen was going to spin the fact that he was driving her around, she had no idea. She just prayed God that he was a smooth talker.

“Carys, in case the shit hits the fan, here are the keys to the car and a gun.” He shoved both at her. She let them drop beside her on the seat. “Now it could be I need you to act as my backup.”

“Your backup? What does that mean?” she asked.

“You’ll know.”

He got out of the truck and went to the first man holding the rifle. He must have recognized the highest-ranking soldier. She heard him say, “Peace be upon you,” in Arabic. But then Adam started whimpering and she couldn’t hear them.

When the man that Cullen was talking to started screaming, Carys could hear quite clearly. He was accusing Cullen of being a spy. Cullen held up his hands, but not in surrender, she could see it was more in a soothing manner. She rocked Adam more, wishing she could hear what Cullen was saying.

When she could finally get the poor little boy to take a little bit of the bottle, she started to hear talk of money. How come she wasn’t surprised? She had hundreds of piasters and Sudanese pounds tucked away in hidden compartments, and on her person, but it always came down to U.S. dollars. She saw Cullen pull out two bills. He was smart, it wasn’t as if he took out a wallet and drew out money, or pulled bills off a wad of cash, he just had two rumpled bills from a pocket of his thobe.

Even from her seat, she could see the avarice in the man’s eye. He was definitely considering trying to extract more money from Cullen.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Cullen said in a calm tone. Once again Carys was impressed with how well he spoke Arabic.

“I have the gun,” the man said. “What are you going to do about it?”

That was her sign. She picked up the gun and put her hand outside the window and trained it on the scene in front of her. There wasn’t a chance in the world that she would make the shot, but they wouldn’t know it.

“Look over at the truck, you’re not the only one with a gun.” She would bet anything that Cullen was grinning. All the African men’s eyes swung to her.

Please, Adam, don’t fuss. Don’t fuss.

“Look, I really don’t want any trouble,” she heard Cullen say. “Let me go back to my truck, I have just a little bit of American money, not much, but a little, that I can give you. But I need more water. Is it a deal?”

Her heart was in her mouth as she waited for their response. Finally, the man motioned with his rifle. Cullen turned and sprinted to the driver’s seat. He opened the car door and she saw him duck down, push the thobe out of the way, then fumble underneath his bulletproof vest. He pulled out a bunch of raggedy bills.

She cocked her eyebrow in question. “Later, Carys.” He threw all but one of the bills on the car seat and ran back to the men.

“Found it.”

The man who didn’t have a rifle and wasn’t wearing a red beret pulled out a half-full plastic jug of water. He thrust it forward.