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“I live the war.”
She didn’t know what that meant. It was such a vague, cryptic thing to say. Part of her wanted to know what he meant and another part of her didn’t. He was frightening, too frightening, his body a canvas of cuts and wounds, his strength formidable, his courage incomparable. She’d never met anyone who could do what he could do. She’d never thought it possible that a man could do what Tair did.
But there was a dark side, too. He wasn’t a good man, couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be called thoughtful, kind, or compassionate. “How do you live war?”
“You attack. Steal. Injure. Kill.”
“I see.” And she did, too well. She could picture him doing all of the above, and remorselessly, as well. “You’ve killed in self-defense?”
“If you want to call it that.”
Again she hesitated. “And if I don’t?”
“It’s what it is.”
He met her questioning look with a slow, mocking smile. “Revenge,” he added quietly. “A settling of scores.”
“Revenge for what?”
“Taking what was mine.”
“Yours as in money…land…?”
“As in women and children.”
Tally swallowed, put down her bread and dusted her fingers off. “You’ve been married?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t know what to say next. For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to ask about his wife. She knew men in Baraka and Ouaha often had several wives but Tally didn’t want to imagine Tair with wives, couldn’t stand to think he had another woman somewhere, one that belonged to him legally, morally.
She shifted uncomfortably, appetite gone. Happiness fading.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, watching her.
Tally shook her head. It would be too ridiculous to tell him.
“Did I ever tell you that my father kidnapped my mother?” Tair asked conversationally, before taking another bite.
She looked up, brows pulling. “No.”
“Mmmm.” He swallowed, took a drink from his cup. “You asked me before why my English was so good and it’s because my mother was English. She was a schoolteacher. She was teaching for the International School in Atiq when my father saw her, kidnapped her, took her to his kasbah and made her his.”
“Did your mother hate your father for what he did?”
Tair’s mouth quirked. “No. She loved him. They were still quite together when my father died.” He turned his cup on the table, ran his finger over the glazed pottery. “My mother never returned to Britain. She stayed here in Ouaha and then only recently has moved to Baraka. She has a home in Atiq.” He half smiled. “She’s in her sixties and she’s teaching again.”
“Your mother has gone back to work?” Tally was torn between admiration and concern.
“She wanted to. She loved teaching and she missed my father and my brothers. Atiq’s a better place for her now.” He broke off another hunk of bread. “You’ll have to meet her. She’s almost as feisty as you.”
Tally heard the warmth in his voice and looking up, her eyes met his. The expression in his eyes was nearly as warm as his voice.
Her heart beat double-time. Butterflies filled her middle. She remembered the kiss from earlier. Remembered the feel of his mouth and his hands on her skin.
Still half smiling, Tair asked, “Your father didn’t kidnap your mother?”
Tally’s mind flashed to the cramped trailer, and the trailer park, she’d grown up in and cringed inwardly. He might as well have, she thought, thinking about her father who couldn’t ever keep a job thanks to his drinking and her mother who juggled several but never particularly well. Her past seemed to be a horrible lesson in mediocrity. Everything she’d learned had been, don’t do this if you want to succeed. “No. No kidnapping involved.”
She felt his dark gaze move leisurely across her features, studying, analyzing.
“There’s that expression again,” he said. “You get that look every time you talk about your family. It’s so hard, so judgmental. I thought perhaps the first time it was my imagination but you do it every time you speak of them. That look of disappointment. Disapproval.”
She felt the muscles pull in her jaw, the jaw itself flexing and he was right. There was no point in contradicting him. “My life hasn’t been like yours,” she finally said when the silence dragged too long. Tair wasn’t very good at filling silences and while she wasn’t particularly fond of chatter, she’d rather talk than sit awkwardly silent with Tair watching her.
