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  If she couldn’t, she was dead anyway and Tom had died in vain.

  Talib closed the door to the cockpit and strapped himself into the window seat in front of Shara. Hearing the engines start up, she turned to the window for a last glimpse of the outback she had come to love. “Goodbye, my darling,” she whispered, her vision blurring.

  She must have conjured the vision out of her own desperate need, because through the veil of tears, she thought she saw a Jeep racing toward the plane. She blinked hard. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that Blake and Tom were in the front seat, with Judy in the back, leaning between them as if urging Blake to drive faster.

  Shara closed her eyes. She refused to let Jamal have the last laugh by giving in to hallucinations. Tom was dead. She was returning to Q’aresh to marry Jamal. Time she faced reality.

  She opened her eyes expecting to see nothing but empty bush. The Jeep was still there and gaining on the plane. Her heart almost exploded with joy. It was Tom in the front seat. They were close enough for her to see the bandage on his wrist. Jamal hadn’t killed him after all. Bad enough that he’d been injured, but he was alive. Merciful stars, he was alive.

  They were trying to stop the plane from moving, she saw as Tom’s gesture made Blake swerve to put the Jeep across their path. Frantically she looked around for something she could do to help. There wasn’t much. But waiting for rescue didn’t appeal. So she used the only weapon at her disposal.

  Chapter 19

  She began to scream.

  Talib came out of his seat in an instant. He hadn’t seen the Jeep racing toward the plane, and was focused on calming his princess, as she’d intended. When she wouldn’t be calmed, he opened the cockpit door and spoke urgently to Jamal, who looked back in alarm.

  Her throat felt raw. Surreptitiously she undid her seat belt but kept it tucked under her so it still appeared to be fastened. As Jamal came back into the cabin, she subsided into desperate sobbing.

  “Stop this display, it won’t change your fate,” he ordered.

  He turned to the guard. “Fetch me the medical kit.”

  This was where her plan became risky. The kit contained sedatives intended for fearful flyers. Her plan didn’t include letting Jamal administer one to her, so she made a show of pulling herself together. “I’ll be calm,” she promised, flinching as she saw Talib approach with the kit in his hand.

  “I want no more of these outbursts. Prepare a sedative for Her Highness,” Jamal ordered.

  Like all the key royal attendants, the man was trained in first-aid procedures. He did as bidden. She knew him well enough to regret what she had to do next, but couldn’t let the feeling stop her. Waiting until he was within touching distance, she leaped up and twisted his arm so the syringe plunged into his own body. With a startled look, he pulled the needle out and looked at it, then started to slump. Jamal caught him, and while he was lowering the man into a seat, Shara acted.

  Diving for the main cabin door, she wrestled with the opening mechanism. Although she had seen the operation performed dozens of times, she had never needed to do it herself, and her movements were clumsy.

  Jamal had divested himself of his burden and sprang forward to stop her. “You should have made it easy on yourself and let Talib sedate you,” he said, fastening his arm around her chest from behind.

  She held on to the door mechanism with everything in her. One more clamp and she would have it open, or she would die trying. “You’d have to sedate me for the rest of my life to make me stay with you.”

  “It can be arranged.”

  Hooking his arm around her throat, he started to drag her backward. With her oxygen supply curtailed, she began to see stars. She released her hold on the clamp and dug her fingers into his arm, trying to get air.

  Her knees jellied and she felt herself pulled toward a seat. With his free hand, Jamal was groping in the open medical kit for another syringe of sedative. Realizing the danger, she clawed at his face with her fingernails. They weren’t as long as they would have been in Q’aresh, but they did the job. He yelled in fury as she drew blood.

  His hold slackened long enough for her to gulp air, then tightened again as he got his legs back under him. The pressure on her windpipe increased and blackness fringed her vision. “I should kill you now and take your body back to your father. You’d be a lot less trouble.”

  “Go—to—hell.”

  The words used the last of her air and her knees buckled, despair filling her. Jamal was going to win, and her country would pay the price. Whether she lived or died, he would use her as a stepping stone to the throne. She would never see Tom again.

  “No.”

  Desperation lent her the strength to jab a stiffened elbow backward, seeking a vulnerable target. She only succeeded in ramming her elbow low into Jamal’s stomach. He swore but didn’t let go.

  A few inches lower and she’d have threatened his chance of providing heirs to his usurped throne, she thought in agonized frustration. She heard hammering on the door of the plane and voices yelling.

  “Give up or you’ll force me to really hurt you,” Jamal said into her ear. He sounded sadistically pleased at the prospect. In horror she realized he was aroused by the fight with her. He was turned on by her resistance, and his power over her.

  Well, to the devil with that.

  With the last of her strength she dragged Jamal with her toward the medical kit, her fingers closing around cool metal. With no time to aim, she lifted the object over her head and pressed the trigger.

  Jamal screamed and the weight on her windpipe eased abruptly. She sucked in air and spun around. He was staggering and clutching his eyes. Her aim had been better than she knew. The anesthetic spray had caught him in the face. Roaring, he blundered to the back of the cabin.

  Air rushed over her and daylight blinded her momentarily as the cabin door was wrenched open and Tom vaulted through the opening. “Are you all right?”

  Joy at seeing him again, alive, shrilled through her. “I’m okay. We’re not moving.”

  “Blake and Judy stopped the plane while I played super-hero and climbed aboard. Where’s Jamal?”

  She jerked her head at the man who was frantically scrubbing his eyes, and handed Tom the spray can. “I hit him in the face with this.”

  Tom looked at the sleeping attendant then at the can, before dropping it onto a seat. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Not quite busy enough. Both of you sit down.”

  Red-eyed but otherwise unhurt, Jamal loomed over them. In his hand was a gun leveled at them. Shara cursed herself for not checking that he was genuinely disabled.

  Tom stepped in front of her. “It’s over, Jamal. I’m taking Shara with me.”

  Jamal shook his head. “In a few minutes we’ll be airborne. There’s nothing you can do to stop me now.”

  Tom glanced out the window. “Then what do you call that?”

  It was the oldest trick in the book, but amazingly, Jamal fell for it. He looked.

  The split second was all Tom needed to launch himself in a flat dive that carried both of them to the back of the compartment. The gun skidded under a seat. She heard a grunt of pain but couldn’t tell who’d made it. Please, not Tom.

  The aisle was too narrow for her to intervene. The gun was somewhere under the seats. If she could get to it, she could end this.

  With his upbringing, Tom knew how to handle himself, but he was hardly in fighting trim with one wrist bandaged. The punch he threw at Jamal’s jaw snapped the other man’s head back, but at the cost of a burst of agony Tom felt all the way to his shoulder.

  When Jamal came up, there was murder in his eyes and an evil-looking stiletto in his hand. He waved the blade in front of Tom’s face, almost laughing as Tom was forced back down the aisle toward where Shara was groping under the seats.

  Tom knew what she was looking for. He’d been keeping an eye out for the gun himself, without success. Letting Jamal get anywhere nea
r Shara wasn’t on his agenda. He launched a flying kick that knocked the blade out of his adversary’s hand. It clattered somewhere between the seats. Tom feinted with his damaged hand, saw Jamal’s gaze follow the move, and used a foot to hook the other man’s legs out from under him.

  As soon as Jamal hit the deck, Tom leaped on him, landing a blow to his kidneys and another to the side of his head. It should have put most men down for the count, but Jamal had the strength of desperation. Taking Tom with him, he rolled until they were both hard up against a pair of seats. Then Tom saw the glint of metal and knew they’d seen the gun at the same time.

  Shara dived for it at the same moment. Everything in him made him want to order her to stay back, but he didn’t want to distract her. She held the gun steady while Tom yanked Jamal to his feet.

  “Shoe’s on the other foot now,” he snapped. “Let’s see how you like facing your own death.”

  Staring sullenly at the gun in Shara’s hands, Jamal came to his feet and placed his hands on the tops of the seats on either side of him. With great care, Shara lowered the weapon so it was aimed at Jamal’s groin.

  The man’s breath hissed. “You would not.”

  “It would ensure you never terrorize an innocent woman again.”

  Sweat beaded Jamal’s forehead. “I can make you both wealthy beyond your dreams.”

  She tossed her head. “How? I have enough wealth for Tom and me. You’ll never get your hands on it now.”

  “Give me the gun, Shara,” Tom said quietly. The glazed look in her eyes had him worried. She was entitled to want revenge, but he didn’t want her doing anything she’d regret for the rest of her days.

  Slowly she passed the weapon to Tom and he leveled it at Jamal. Seeing the other man reduced to a puddle of terror in front of him, Tom understood her need for revenge. This was the man who had tried to hurt the woman Tom loved. Castration by bullet was no more than he deserved, more satisfying even than killing him. This way, he’d have a lifetime to repent the day he’d crossed Tom’s path and put Shara’s life in jeopardy.

  Tom tightened his grip on the weapon. Adrenaline poured through him. He felt powerful, the gun in his hand an instrument of justice. All he had to do was pull the trigger and the world would be a better place.

  Would it?

  Had his father felt this sense of power as he approached Tom’s mother with a knife in his hand? Tom’s father had been equally convinced of the rightness of his cause. He’d truly believed she was seeing another man, and that her infidelity gave him the right to be her judge and executioner. He hadn’t hesitated, stabbing her over and over until she stopped screaming. Stopped everything.

  Tom’s father had been drunk. What was Tom’s excuse?

  He wanted to protect the woman he loved. But could he do it from a prison cell? Could he even look her in the eye after taking the law into his own hands? He remembered the judge’s words before sentencing his father—no one has the right to kill, no matter what the provocation. Tom couldn’t even claim self-defense because Jamal was unarmed, carefully not making any threatening moves. If he did, there might be some justification for pulling the trigger.

  Tom knew he would still hesitate. At long, long last he had his answer. When faced with the opportunity to kill, the provocation even, he wouldn’t do it because it wasn’t in him to do.

  Jamal watched him intently, unaware of the great gift he’d just given Tom. “You’re too much of a coward to shoot me,” he said.

  Read like a book, Tom nodded. He knew that pulling the trigger would have been the more cowardly act. What Jamal thought no longer mattered. “I don’t intend to shoot you, not because you don’t deserve it, but because you aren’t worth the bullet. I’ll let the Q’aresh authorities take care of you. Move toward the door,” Tom ordered.

  Jamal started to obey then seemed to stumble into one of the seats. As he righted himself, he came up with the spray can of anesthetic clutched in his hand. In a lightning move, he threw the can so it struck Tom’s injured wrist, sending the gun flying.

  With a howl of pain, Tom clutched his bandaged wrist. Before he could recover, Jamal knocked Shara aside and slammed into the cockpit, pulling the door shut behind him. She threw herself at the door. It was locked.

  She ran to Tom. “He’s barricaded himself in the cockpit.”

  Tom straightened, still nursing his injured wrist. Fresh blood bloomed on the bandage but he shrugged her off. “They’re getting ready for takeoff.”

  Through the open door she saw the ground start to roll past.

  “Come on.” He hooked his arm around her waist and steered her to the entry.

  Had he lost his mind? Surely he didn’t intend for them to jump? They’d be killed. Then she saw Blake racing to bring the Jeep alongside. Terror threatened to pin her feet to the floor. She knew what Tom expected of her and she feared she couldn’t do it.

  Tom’s hold tightened. He pressed his mouth to hers in a quick, hot kiss. “For luck,” he said. “As soon as they’re alongside, you go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The wind whipped her hair into a satin banner. Her heart rate jumped as fear lodged in her throat, and her chest tightened with terror. Tom thought she could do this, she told herself, clinging to her love for him as a lifeline.

  The Jeep was almost alongside. Judy had pressed herself against the far side of the back seat to give Shara as much room as possible. Taking a deep breath, she released Tom’s hand and jumped.

  The landing drove all the breath out of her, and she would have bruises on bruises where she collided with the back of the seat, but unbelievably, she’d made it.

  Exhilaration poured through her. She had never felt more alive. Judy was tugging at her to get her attention. “I’m climbing into the front. When I do, scrunch as far to this side as you can. They’re going faster. Tom will land a lot harder than you did.”

  Like a stunt actor straddling a pair of runaway horses, Judy balanced between the seats before dropping into the front passenger seat beside Blake. Immediately Shara backed against the far door, clearing as much space as she could. The plane had gathered speed since her jump. Tom was already injured. Could he make it?

  He had to, she wouldn’t let herself believe anything else.

  A split second later he slammed into her, driving all the air out of her body. Blake didn’t stop. Gravel spat from the tires as he spun the Jeep around and into the cover of the bush edging the airstrip.

  Did Blake expect Jamal to shoot at them from the plane? As the engine roar grew louder, Shara shuddered, unconsciously braced for the sound of gunfire. Why hadn’t Tom killed Jamal when he’d had the chance? She’d seen him warring with himself, readied herself for the explosion and the blood. No one would have blamed Tom for pulling the trigger.

  Except Tom himself.

  She looked over her shoulder, seeing the plane’s nose come up as the jet climbed skyward, taking Jamal out of their lives, she hoped for good. Her breath rushed out in a huge sigh of relief. Tom had wanted to shoot Jamal but he’d stopped himself, and she thought she knew why. He hadn’t wanted closeness because he feared becoming a murderer like his father. Now he knew it wasn’t going to happen, what did it mean for them?

  She had her answer when his arms came around her, tightening as his gaze followed hers to where the plane was becoming a dot in the clear blue sky. “I was a heartbeat away from killing him.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I couldn’t take a life, not even one as deserving as his.”

  “Don’t you see, Tom? You’re not a killer. It isn’t in you. You proved that today.”

  His eyes shone with moisture before he blinked hard and he squeezed her hand. “For a princess, you’re pretty smart, you know that?”

  “Not smart enough to think of grabbing my bag before we jumped out of the plane,” she said soberly.

&n
bsp; He hunted around near his feet and came up grinning. “You mean this? I thought you might need your papers or whatever else you have in here, so I grabbed it before I jumped.”

  She fastened a hand either side of his face and planted a kiss on his half-open mouth. Heat ran riot through her as she lifted her head. “My papers can be replaced, but not the tape recorder I had running while Jamal boasted about killing my family and usurping the throne. Once my father hears that, Jamal is finished.”

  “As I said, a smart woman.”

  The careful way he held his bandaged hand against his chest wasn’t lost on her. “You’re in pain. You must have struck your wrist when you landed.”

  “Jamal lobbing the spray can at me didn’t do it much good.”

  She felt his suffering inside herself, and tapped Blake on the shoulder. “Tom’s hurt. We have to get him to a doctor.”

  Blake and Judy had been scrupulously keeping their eyes front, giving Tom and Shara what privacy they could. Now Judy looked back. “Do you need a doctor?” she asked.

  Tom favored Shara with a long look. “What I need, a doctor can’t give me. The bleeding’s stopped for now. I’ll live.” He flexed his fingers by way of demonstration.

  Blake spoke over his shoulder. “Then you don’t mind if we take a detour to the cave?”

  “Feeling nostalgic?” Tom asked.

  “I’d like to check out Shara’s cave paintings,” Blake said.

  “Horvath and his men might still be there,” Shara said. “He wasn’t very happy when Jamal told him he was leaving with me. Horvath seemed to think they were partners.”

  In the mirror she saw Blake’s mouth tighten. “All the more reason to find out what he’s up to.”

  Chapter 20

  Bruised, battered and tired though she was, Shara had never felt so happy. She hardly noticed the jolting of the Jeep as Blake drove back across the corrugated landscape to the hideout cave. At last she had the means to end Jamal’s plotting. She could now prove his evil plan to her father. She wouldn’t be forced to marry him—she was free.