Her Royal Bed Read online

  Eyes narrowed, Bobby stared at Sakir. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I shake the hand of the man who stole my father’s land and helped put him in the ground.”

  Three

  It had been close to eight years since his father’s death, yet the anger that now burned in Bobby’s blood was stronger and more dangerous than ever.

  His fierce gaze never left Sakir Al-Nayhal as they seemed to circle each other, challenging each other, without moving a muscle. The party went on around them. Guests ate and drank, women flirted with men and the host and hostess gave their tenth tour of the night.

  Beside Bobby, Jane tugged at his hand and asked, her voice threaded with concern, “What in the world is going on?”

  Gesturing to Sakir, Bobby muttered a terse, “This man, this friend of yours, is a thief and a liar.”

  “What?” said Jane in shocked tones. “What are you talking about?”

  “A rich and powerful thief, but a thief nonetheless.”

  “Careful, Callahan,” Sakir warned, his mouth grim with dislike.

  “Sakir?” Al-Nayhal’s wife spoke, her tone even, but concerned. “Maybe we should discuss this at another time? This doesn’t seem like the place to—”

  “Discuss what?” Jane demanded, this time looking at Sakir.

  “He is angry because his father lost his family’s land,” Sakir explained to Jane.

  “He didn’t lose anything,” Bobby growled with deep menace, not caring who overheard him. “You set out to destroy him, and you did.”

  “Destroy him?” Sakir repeated, sniffing as if that were the silliest idea in the world.

  “How many times did you approach my father about buying his property, Al-Nayhal?”

  “I will not go over this again—”

  “What was it? Five, six times?”

  “Sakir, what is he saying?” Jane demanded, alarm threading her tone now.

  Sakir sighed with annoyance. “When I came to Texas I wanted to acquire several acres of land. The oil industry here was on the decline. Callahan’s land was on the auction block, and in dire need of environmental changes I might add, so I acquired it.”

  Bobby snorted bitterly. “You’re getting so good at spouting off that story, somebody’ll think you actually believe it.” His voice dropped, and through gritted teeth he uttered, “Bottom line is, my father wouldn’t sell you his land, so you went about getting it any way you could.”

  “Rita’s right,” Jane said as people began to stare. “Maybe we should take this conversation inside.”

  “Or better yet, let us postpone the discussion altogether,” Sakir suggested tightly. “It grows tiresome.”

  Bobby finally turned to look at Jane, who appeared pinched and uneasy. “How do you know this guy?” he asked her, not caring that she’d stepped back a few inches.

  She didn’t answer him at first, looked from him to Sakir, then back again.

  “She is my sister,” Sakir supplied for her.

  “What?” A slow, sinking feeling pushed into Bobby’s gut.

  Sakir raised his already tipped chin. “She is Al-Nayhal.”

  “I told you that I had family here,” Jane said slowly, her green gaze—so like her brother’s—filled with worry.

  But Bobby was in no mood to offer her any comfort. “You also said that your name was Hefner.”

  “It is. Sakir’s my half-brother. I didn’t know he existed until just a few months ago.”

  Bobby sniffed derisively. “I’m sorry for you.”

  Sakir spoke in a quiet, though ultra-threatening, tone. “Again, I caution you to be careful, Mr. Callahan.”

  “Or what?” Bobby spat. “You’ll try and take the measly twenty-five acres of my father’s land you left behind? Not going to happen. I’ve paid you every last cent for the place, including interest.”

  Sakir acknowledged this with a nod. “So you have.” He placed a hand protectively around his wife’s shoulders. “Understand, Mr. Callahan, that, like you, I feel impassioned over the well-being of my family.”

  Dark, blood-red heat tumbled through Bobby’s chest and gut. He looked at Jane, at the beautiful, seductive woman who had captured his mind and body, had made him feel alive for the first time in a month, with new eyes. Was it possible that this whole thing had been nothing more than a game to her? Did she know about his history with the Al-Nayhals?

  Bitterness flooded him. He had to remember that this woman belonged to a family who apparently thought it was nothing to use and hurt others—all in the name of acquisition.

  “Jane is part of my family,” Sakir continued ominously, in the same tone he’d used eight years previous to tell Bobby he’d never sell the Callahan’s land back to a Callahan. “And I ask you not to forget that.”

  “Believe me, I won’t,” Bobby said without emotion before he turned and walked away.

  When Jane sat down next to Rita at a nearby table a moment later, she felt as though she’d just been tossed into an emotional whirlpool. Bobby had stalked off in one direction and, when she’d tried to speak to Sakir to ask him a few questions, he’d taken off in the other direction, leaving Jane with bits and pieces of a cruel, wicked, time-worn story. The man she was desperately interested in getting to know on one side and her newly found brother on the other.

  The dry heat from the barbecues moved over and through her, making her feel breathless and very weary. What in the world did she do now? Try to find out both sides of this tale? Or give up on a potential relationship, give up on something that seemed real—give up on a chance for something of her own? Because this thing between her and Bobby was tainted with her new life, a life she hadn’t even come to grips with, much less embraced.

  A deep longing for the familiar moved over her in smooth, uncomplicated waves. She knew it was a childish thought, but she missed her mother, missed how the woman had held her and kissed her hair when she felt unsure of the world.

  “I’m so sorry about all of this, Jane.” Beside her, Rita inched closer, her forced smile uneasy.

  “What just happened?” Jane asked.

  “That was pretty much business as usual for Sakir.” Rita grimaced. “I only know Bobby by reputation, but that was a very different view of the charming cowboy I’ve heard the women around town go on about.”

  Very different from the man Jane had made love to ten days ago and flirted with tonight. “Do you know what really happened to his father’s land?”

  “Sakir’s only talked about it once. Supposedly, Bobby’s father made some foolish deal with a shady oil-drilling company. They never paid, and much of the land was ruined because of their bad drilling practices. Soon after, the property was seized by the bank and put on the auction block. Sakir was just getting started here. He wanted to buy some property for grazing land for cattle. There was nothing spiteful in the purchase, I don’t think.”

  Mixed emotions flooded Jane as she listened to her sister-in-law. Bobby’s loss and Sakir’s gain. Nothing seemed right, but she wasn’t certain of what was wrong or who was in the wrong. “Bobby accused Sakir of putting his father in the ground. What did that mean?”

  Rita looked pained. “Bobby’s father passed away just a few months after the land was sold.”

  “Oh, God.” Jane could hardly make sense of all of this. Losing your land, then your father. Caring for your sister alone. Wasn’t he entitled to some anger and hostility?

  But was that anger misplaced?

  She didn’t know.

  “Bobby also spoke about twenty-five acres?” Jane prompted.

  Rita nodded. “Sakir did let Bobby buy back a few acres, along with the old house he’d grown up in.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And why not let him buy back the whole thing if he could?” Jane asked, as much to herself as to Rita.

  Rita shook her head, played with a silver fork. “I honestly don’t know. Sakir won’t go into that, and I didn’t want to push him. It’s a sor
e subject.”

  “For them both.” The heat from the barbecues was almost irritatingly suffocating now. “Why won’t Sakir talk about this with me?”

  “Sakir doesn’t like his honor questioned.”

  Jane released a breath. Sakir was just like his eldest brother, Zayad, the Sultan of Emand. Business was done in a strict fashion, no games. But they were both very honorable, very good, kind men. She couldn’t imagine Sakir doing something underhanded.

  “By the way,” Rita said with quiet familiarity. “How do you know Bobby Callahan? You didn’t just meet tonight, did you? You seemed…close.”

  Her sister-in-law’s words ripped at her heart. They had been, in a crazy, short time, oddly connected. By a mutual desire, a steady interest and a similar pain. “We met at the Turnbolts’ charity function.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  A soft, knowing smile touched Rita’s lips.

  Jane laughed half heartedly, shook her head. “You’re very good at this.”

  Leaning in, Rita whispered, “I have a sister. Ava can never keep a secret from me, either.”

  Jane looked out over the crowd, tried to spot Bobby Callahan, but he was nowhere to be found. Odds were good that he’d already taken off. When Jane found Rita’s gaze once again, she studied the woman. “How good is our friendship?”

  A warm smile touched Rita’s mouth. “Well, I’d say we’re sisters now.”

  Jane nodded, then lowered her voice and said, “Bobby and I were together at the Turnbolts’ charity do.”

  “Together?” Rita repeated.

  Jane raised her brows suggestively.

  “Oh,” Rita said, surprised.

  “It was one night, amazing, wonderful…” She put her head in her hands and groaned.

  “I understand,” Rita said comfortingly.

  “Sakir can’t know this,” Jane said gravely.

  “Sakir doesn’t need to know this,” Rita assured her. “It’s your business, your relationship.”

  Jane looked up and heaved a sigh, tracing the edges of the white china plate before her. “Well, I think any chance of a relationship was just—”

  “Tossed out the window?” Rita supplied.

  Feeling overwhelmingly grievous, Jane shook her head. “Try catapulted.”

  He could go to hell for thoughts like this.

  But as Bobby Callahan rode like the devil over his land, he felt defiantly resolute.

  Finally, he would have his revenge on Sakir Al-Nayhal. Finally, he would honor the memory of his father.

  On Josiah Callahan’s deathbed, he’d asked just two things of his son, to take care of his sister, Kimmy, and to pay back the man who had stolen so much from them. There was nothing Bobby wouldn’t do for his father, for the man who had felt honored to be the parent of a handicapped daughter, the man who had considered his life to be the easiest and most rewarding a man could have.

  The part of Bobby that felt angry at his dad for giving up and leaving him and Kimmy alone, would forever be buried in his heart.

  He hauled back the reins in his fist, brought his horse to a stop just inches from the property line he’d spent years memorizing. The line that separated his land from the land Sakir Al-Nayhal had stolen. For the first three years after his father’s death, Bobby had sat on this imaginary line, his butt in the dirt, his heart and soul wrecked. He’d imagined all sorts of ways to get his revenge. He’d fantasized about getting even with Sakir Al-Nayhal. Making him pay, making him realize what pain really was.

  The woman who’d called herself Jane Hefner entered his mind with a quick shot of desire. Bobby wasn’t altogether sure if she’d lied to him or not, if she’d known who he was all along and had been playing him—after all, he wouldn’t put anything past that family.

  But he almost didn’t care.

  Jane Hefner Al-Nayhal was going to be the answer to his eight-year quest. She liked him, he knew it, and he was going to make her fall in love with him, desperately in love with him, then toss her back into the arms of her brother, rejected and shattered. Then her brother would see what it was like to watch someone he loved fall apart.

  Sakir Al-Nayhal had destroyed Bobby’s family.

  Now Bobby was going to destroy Al-Nayhal’s.

  Four

  Jane hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol the night before. She hadn’t danced into the wee hours with her heels in one hand and the palm of a gorgeous man in the other. And yet, she felt as though she was suffering the worst hangover of her life.

  Was it possible to get drunk on confusion and disappointment?

  Jane rolled to her back and faced the morning sun that slammed into her bedroom with ferocious intensity. Much like a spotlight, she mused glumly. She had come to Texas in hopes of redefining her future, but eleven days ago a major roadblock had been thrust out in front of her in the glorious shape of a six-foot-three cowboy. The truth of it was, she was still intrigued by him, attracted to him. She still liked him—a lot—despite the feud between him and her brother. But if she pursued her desires, regardless of what she’d heard and seen last night, would both Bobby and her brother reject her?

  She closed her eyes and sighed. At this point, she realized dolefully, she couldn’t decide whose rejection would pain her the most.

  A soft knock at the door interrupted her thoughts, and she unfolded the covers and pushed her tired self out of bed as she called, “Come in.”

  Sakir and Rita’s housekeeper, a very serious-looking woman in her mid-fifties entered the room, too perfectly starched and coifed for 8:00 a.m. She inclined her head. “Good morning, Miss Al-Nayhal.”

  Jane smiled at the older woman as she reached for her robe. “Good morning, Marian. Would you please call me Jane?”

  “His Highness wouldn’t like that.”

  Jane pulled the belt of her white robe with a little too much force. “We don’t have to tell him.”

  The woman frowned deeply, and ignored Jane’s comment. “You have a phone call, Miss.”

  Jane glanced over her shoulder, her gaze settling on the nightstand where she expected to see a telephone. But oddly, there wasn’t one. She hadn’t noticed this before, and thought it strange in an enormous house like this that guest rooms weren’t equipped with phones.

  Seeming to read her thoughts, Marian simply said, “Mrs. Al-Nayhal hasn’t had time to install telephones in every room.”

  “Of course not,” said Jane, feeling sheepish, her toes sinking into the thick cream carpeting. “With the new baby and all.”

  Marian neither agreed nor disagreed with this. Instead she thrust the cordless phone at Jane, who took it from her with another quick, “Thank you.”

  After a pert nod, the older woman turned on her perfectly polished black shoes and left the room.

  Wondering if whoever was calling her still remained on the line after all of that nonsense, Jane cradled the phone to her ear and said hopefully, “Hello?”

  “Well, that was one helluva party last night, wasn’t it?”

  Her heart dropped into her stomach, and she actually felt herself beam with pleasure and relief. The rough timbre of his voice, edged with that slow charm made her smile, made her recall their first night together. She was surprised by the intense reaction, albeit a little worried about this undeniable need she had to hear his voice again.

  “One helluva party?” she repeated with a trace of sarcasm. “I suppose. If you like a little conflict with your barbecue.”

  His chuckle lacked real mirth. “Yeah, well, we took things too far.”

  “You and Sakir, you mean?”

  He paused, then sighed. “It’s all water under the bridge now.”

  “Is it?” she asked in a small voice. The way Bobby had glared at Sakir last night suggested the opposite.

  “It has to be. We both have to get over all this past BS.” She could practically hear him shrug. “Well, I do anyway.”

  Not that she didn’t want him to feel this magnan
imous spirit, but she couldn’t help wondering how, after such a display of hatred last night, he could make such a turnaround. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “This feud is getting in the way of something real important.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Me asking you out.”

  Jane grinned gleefully, and snuggled her ear closer into the phone. This was an answer she liked. “Would it appear too desperate to say that I’m really glad you called?”

  He laughed, and the sound was genuine this time, not forced. “No, darlin’. Sounds honest.”

  “Honest is good.” The simple phrase was a mantra for Jane, had been ever since she could remember. Even as a child, her mother had always led her to believe that honesty was the only way to live her life. Painful or painfree. Ironic as her mother was holding onto a very deep secret regarding Jane’s father during that time.

  “Pick you up in an hour?”

  Bobby’s query shot her back into reality, and she muttered swiftly, “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said I’ll come by, pick you up in an hour,” he repeated.

  She glanced at the clock, then down at her robe. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

  “All right,” he acquiesced with a trace of mock annoyance. “Two hours.”

  “So bossy,” she chided playfully. “And would you like to tell me what to wear, as well, Mr. Callahan?”

  His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Damn right I would, but with the suggestion I’d make you might just get arrested the minute you step out your front door.”

  She laughed. “Casual elegant, it is then.”

  “Fine,” he muttered dolefully.

  “Are we really going to do this, Bobby? Are we really going to date after…well, after last week?”

  “You bet. And we’re going to do it the right way.”

  “The right way?”

  “Hand-holding, then maybe a kiss or two…we’re going slowly this time.”

  Little shots of thrill twirled in her belly, and she leaned closer to the phone, her lips brushing over the receiver, her mind conjuring images of that sweet, soft kiss. “Like courting?”