Read Online Sheikh's Castaway by Alexandra Sellers - Free Book Online Page B

gaze.
    â€œLook on the bright side—they may have time to regrow before you have to face your admiring public again,” he said.
    Gritting her teeth, Noor picked up the scissors again and one by one cut the rest of her nails short.
    â€œI hope you aren’t making a mistake. Nails like that might have come in handy. Who knows how many fish we may need to scale, for example?”
    Noor gave him back look for look. “No worries. I’m sure your ceremonial sword will do the job. It’ll be a comfort to you to know all that family history is useful for something.”
    And so the battle lines were drawn.

Seven
    N oor cast a half-despairing look around as they approached land. The faint shape she had seen earlier had proved to be a small, isolated island, probably somewhere on the outer fringes of the Gulf Island group.
    The clouds had given way to blazing sunshine, which quickly turned the life raft into a sauna. But the sun’s heat was fading now as it neared the horizon, and Noor was wondering whether it was safe to emerge.
    Bari was sitting out on the edge of the raft using one of the paddles as a makeshift rudder, keeping the raft on a heading towards the island. He was also trailing a fishing line.
    He had stripped off the purple silk jacket and was wearing it on his head, the sleeves twisted into rope and tied around his forehead, to form a makeshift keffiyeh. Anyone else, Noor reflected bitterly, would have looked like a complete idiot. Bari looked like a genie in a fairytale, skin bronzed, chest and arm muscles rippling, white silk shalwar enfolding his legs, bare feet. He seemed perfectly at home.
    Noor, on the other hand, had been forced by the fierce sun to stay inside the stifling confines of the raft through the worst heat of the day, painstakingly cutting a sarong and a scarf from the wet skirt of her wedding dress with scissors that weren’t up to the job. Without such protection she couldn’t hope to face the sun. Her predicament hadn’t been helped by Bari’s insistence that they had had plenty of water to get them through the first twenty-four hours.
    They were communicating in monosyllables.
    The island itself was a relatively attractive prospect, with a small curving bay protected by a rocky outcrop at one end, and clustered palm trees that promised water. But Noor had stopped hoping some time ago that it might also hold the Gulf Eden Resort.
    Deciding that the sun had lost its danger, she carefully slipped up through the canopy entrance with the wet scarf in her hand, and as she did so, she was struck by a sudden, unconnected thought.
    â€œWait a minute!” she exclaimed, breaking the hostile silence unthinkingly. “Isn’t a radio beacon part of the emergency equipment of this raft? An EPIRB?”
    Bari looked at her.
    She urged excitedly, “I’m sure my friends all have it as part of their yacht emergency kit.”
    â€œIt isn’t a part of the standard raft emergency kit. There was one aboard the plane….” He pressed his lips together in mute resignation.
    Noor moaned her despair. “Oh, God, you forgot it?”
    As if to comfort her, Bari said, “We have flares. When it is dark we will set one off.”
    â€œWhy don’t we do it now? Flares are visible in daylight, aren’t they?”
    â€œIs it worth wasting a flare merely to ease the present tedium?”
    Noor wasn’t used to the feeling that someone was secretly laughing at her, and she didn’t like it. She held up the damp silk, and felt cooler just watching it flap in the breeze.
    â€œIt would be nice to see some action around here, and you don’t seem to be having much luck with the fish,” she said waspishly. “Why do you talk of wasting them? How many are there?”
    â€œTwo.”
    â€œIs that all? What if no one sees them? Oh, my God, and it’s such a small island, too! Don’t you think it might be better to