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his heels and headed for the stables. But inside he knew. He should be the one helping Kamilah. He should be with her in that room, going through Aisha’s things. Working through the past, putting it away properly. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t make himself go in there. He hadn’t so much as opened the door since he and Kamilah had returned to Shendi Palace. He’d had his staff move all of Aisha’s possessions in there after the funeral.
    At the time, he hadn’t been able to throw or give anything away. He loved his wife too much for that. At the time, he’d felt that getting rid of her things would be like trying to excise her memory.
    And now…well, now it was two years later. What good would it do either of them to dig into old memories now, to touch Aisha’s clothes, to feel the silk of them, to smell her lingering fragrance on them?
    His eyes burned.
    Holding on to memories was one thing. Physically digging up the past quite another. He’d said his goodbyes. He’d come to terms with the fact she was gone. He had no need to go digging into the past, and neither should his daughter. They had to look forward. Not back.
    This was all Sahar’s fault.
    David clenched his fists, gritted his jaw, strode angrily through the courtyard toward the stables. There was dust and sand everywhere, piled in miniature dunes and stuffed into every conceivable crevice. The whole bloody world had been turned on its head by the freak storm.
    And by what it had blown in.
    He shoved the stable door open, felt the soft and familiar give of pungent hay. It helped ease his mind. He made directly for Barakah’s stall.
    But even as he led his stallion out, deep down, David knew what was really irking him. It was the fact his little girl had responded to a total stranger. She had spoken words that had flowed so naturally from her mouth you’d think she’d never been mute. She had quite simply come alive. Because of a stranger washed up with the wind and rain.
    After all he had tried to do for Kamilah, after all this time, a mysterious woman had simply blown into their lives and made it happen in the blink of an eye. It should have been he who’d broken through his daughter’s shell. He needed that victory, dammit. He needed to know his daughter had forgiven him. Totally.
    The woman had deprived him of that.
    Resentment began to snake through him. But braided with the bitterness he felt toward Sahar was a thread of gratitude for her having cracked open Kamilah’s shell. And there was a third thread in that complicated braid. One he preferred not to think about. Because it forced him to face the fact that she had not only awakened his daughter, she had stirred something frightening and powerful in him. She’d made something come alive and burn, slow and deep inside his soul.
    Trouble was, he didn’t want to feel this way. He didn’t want to feel this insidious burning in his gut, this low, raw longing for a woman with no memory. A woman who was surely going to leave Shendi, abandon Kamilah as soon as she figured out who she was.
    David gritted his teeth.
    It was best she left, sooner rather than later. Before Kamilah got too attached, he wanted her gone from his island.
    David led Barakah into the storm-washed morning. In the distance the rising sun glimmered off the ocean surface, making it shine like hand-beaten copper. The color filled his mind. And as he mounted his stallion he could think only of how the color resembled Sahar’s long sun-kissed curls, the way the gold and copper shades contrasted with the startling green of her haunting eyes. And the way her skin had felt against his.
    He swore softly in Arabic. He needed her gone all right. He couldn’t begin to feel these things for a woman who had another life, perhaps even another man. He wouldn’t allow Kamilah to be hurt.
    With a spurt of anger, he kicked Barakah into action. He needed a tough workout. He needed to clear his head. And by the time he returned, he