Her body was now and would always be Cade's. So was her heart. But that was her secret, and for now she must bury it in the innermost keep of her soul.

She rose and dressed quickly in slacks and a long-sleeved blouse-and she really must, she told herself, buy some blue jeans, which seemed to be all people in Texas ever wore. After a brief stop in the bathroom, she went looking for her husband. He wasn't in the house, and for the tiniest moment she felt twinges of unreasoning panic-ridiculous, of course, did she think he would leave her here? But then through the living room window she caught a glimpse of him, on the front porch. Before going to join him, she paused and with her forehead pressed against the door, said a prayer. Please, God, let my face be serene. Please… let it not show him how hard my heart is beating.

He was leaning against a post and looking out over the railing, smoking one of his thin, brown cigars and holding a heavy crockery mug with symbols on it that Cade had told her were brands for cattle. Though he did not look much like a cowboy this morning, wearing blue jeans, yes, but with a white short-sleeved polo shirt and sunglasses. He looked fresh and clean as rain, lean and relaxed…and utterly unapproachable.

He turned when she came onto the porch. His face was composed as he lifted his mug to her and said, "Good morning."

"Good morning," she said back to him. She wished she could see his eyes. She wished he would smile at her, just once with that lifting, unfettered joy she'd seen that morning in the palace courtyard. Just once. Then I would know, she thought.

"Want some coffee? There's still plenty…"

She glanced over her shoulder toward the house, then shrugged and said, "Yes, thank you. I will get some in a minute." She hesitated, then asked, "Have you been up long?" Making it light, casual, not presuming too much.

He took a sip of coffee, then the cheroot. "Awhile," he said, blowing away the smoke. Then, softly, "How 'bout you? Sleep well?"

Her heart gave a bump, and to keep it from her voice, she took a deep breath. "Yes, I did, thank you. Very well." We are like two strangers, she thought bleakly. How she wished she could go to him and slip her arms around his waist with the perfect faith that should be natural between husband and wife, lay her face against his chest and tell him joyfully and without reservation what was in her heart, that this morning was beautiful beyond words because he was in it.

Instead, she walked to the railing a little distance from him, and, leaning on her hands, looked out upon a morning that was fast becoming less beautiful. "It smells fresh, after the rain," she said, filling her lungs with air that felt heavy and smells that were alien. "Will it be a nice day, do you think?"

"Hard to say." Cade shifted restlessly and tossed away his cheroot. "This is thunderstorm weather. You never know where they'll pop up."

"Will we ride again today?"

Cade threw her a look of surprise. After last night, how could she even suggest such a thing? Either she wasn't thinking clearly, or he'd done a better job of taking care of her than he'd thought. He smiled crookedly. Memories made his voice husky. "I don't think so. My backside's still a little bit sore. Besides-" he drank coffee and tossed away the dregs "-I think we'd better tidy up the place and then head on back."

"So soon?" She looked at him and then quickly away, but not before he saw the look of disappointment that flashed across that all-revealing face of hers.

"I think we better. If we wait till this afternoon we're liable to run into thunderstorms, and I don't know about you, but I wouldn't care to fly through something like what we had yesterday." His voice was rough with gravel, and he kept his face turned away from her so she wouldn't see the tension in it. Even with sunglasses on he didn't trust his own eyes.

And hell, why was it he couldn't just tell her how he felt, which was that he'd love nothing better than to stay here indefinitely with her in this old broken-down ranch house, live like a couple of bohemians, stay naked most of the time and make love whenever either of them felt like it? He didn't know why, except that even thinking about saying such a thing to her made him feel too vulnerable. He wasn't ready, yet, to hang his heart out in the open like that. Maybe he never would be.

"Besides," he said, more abruptly than he meant to, "I have a whole hell of a lot of work to do to get ready for the week. Got a schedule coming up that won't quit." He lifted his coffee mug, saw it was empty and grimaced at it instead. Dammit, he'd done it on purpose, too, that was the hell of it. Scheduled himself to the brink of oblivion just to give himself an excuse not to go home to his wife. Well, hell. How was he supposed to know things were going to change on him so fast, and that he'd be wanting to spend time with her? "I doubt I'm gonna be home much," he said bitterly, "at least for the rest of the week."

"Of course…I understand," she murmured. "Then…I will go and get ready. Let me know when you would like to leave." And she turned and walked into the house, tall, elegant and regal. Even with her hair a tumbled reminder of a night of passion and unrestrained sex, she was every inch a princess.

As Cade watched her walk away from him he tried to think of her that way, naked and moist, panting in his arms. But though he could call the memories to his mind, he couldn't quite seem to make them touch his senses, not in the gut-wrenching, groin-tightening way they had come to him first thing this morning. Already, it seemed, his mind was protecting him, drawing an insulating veil around the night just passed.

In a little while, if he was lucky, maybe last night would begin to seem like those days and nights in Tamir…like something that had happened to someone else, long ago, in a fairy tale.

Chapter 13

On Friday, Cade phoned to say that he would be home early, perhaps even in time to have dinner with his wife.

When Leila heard this she felt first a great surge of joy. That was followed almost immediately by an equally powerful wave of anger. She had been experiencing this same roller coaster of emotions all week long, while her husband had been hundreds of miles away in a place called Odessa. She was, in fact, a cauldron of emotions, bewildering emotions. Loneliness and longing, frustration and fury were only the few she could name.

Over and over she thought, How could he do this to me? How can he be so cruel? To have opened the doors of Paradise to her, to have shown her such happiness, all that her heart had ever desired-and in the next moment to have snatched it away from her, slammed the door shut and trapped her once more in her lonely cage.

Yes…that was what it felt like. She was locked up in a cage. No! A coop, she thought, remembering what Cade had told her that night on the terrace. For the truth was she felt more "cooped up" here in Texas, with all its wide open spaces, than she ever had in the royal palace in Tamir.

Tamir. When she thought of the palace, with its clean white lines, with its gardens and courtyards and clifftop terraces overlooking the sea, and of her sisters, her mother, Salma and Nargis…and Papa, with his great comforting girth and snowy white beard, and eyes that always held a sparkle of affection for her…she was almost overcome with homesickness. And that was followed inevitably by anger.

I will not take this treatment much longer, she told herself, fortifying her faltering reserves of self-confidence with something she had always had in great abundance. Pride. After all, she reminded herself, I am a princess!

But then she remembered the feeling of power that had come to her there on the ranch, in the cactus patch and in Cade's arms. And an even more exhilarating, ennobling thought came to her: I am a woman. I deserve better. I deserve to be loved.

And she would tell Cade that, she had decided. This evening, after they had shared the dinner Betsy had prepared.

But for some reason, to Leila's dismay, Betsy decided on this particular Friday that she must leave work early. She had things to do, she and Rueben, and they must make a trip into town. Leila was not to worry, dinner was all prepared, all she would need to do was heat it up in the microwave. Betsy showed Leila the platter of beef kabobs-cubes of marinated beef skewered on sticks with chunks of onion and peppers and tomatoes, already grilled and arranged on a bed of fluffy rice that had been seasoned with broth and sweet red peppers. It was one of Cade's favorite dishes, Betsy said, guaranteed to put him in a good mood for the evening. And she had given Leila a wink. Then she had caught her up in a hug and had whispered, "Don't give up on him, honey. You just need to be patient."

Patient? Well, it was true that patience had never been one of Leila's greatest virtues. And as the time approached for Cade to arrive, she became more and more impatient and nervous. She paced in the kitchen, looking again and again at the digital clock on the stove. Was it time yet? Should she take out the food now? She had never prepared and served a meal for her husband before. Many times she went over the checklist in her mind-she had already arranged the dishes and silverware on the table in the dining room, just the way Betsy had taught her, and had even cut some roses from the bushes in the yard and arranged them in a crystal vase. There was iced tea chilling in a glass pitcher in the refrigerator, and Cade's favorite bourbon on a silver tray on the sideboard.

Everything was ready. But where was Cade?