Read Online A Christmas Bride by Susan Mallery - Free Book Online Page A

oddly difficult to look into As’ad’s nearly black eyes and equally hard to look away. “Pepper—she’s the youngest—came running into my classroom to say there was a bad man who wanted to take her away. I found the chieftain holding Dana and Nadine in the hallway.” Indignation gave her strength. “He was really holding them. One by each arm. When he saw Pepper, he handed Dana off to one of his henchmen and grabbed her. She’s barely eight years old. The girls were crying and struggling. Then he started dragging them away. He said something about taking them to his village.”
    The rest of it was a blur. Kayleen drew in a breath. “I started yelling, too. Then I sort of got between the chieftain and the stairway. I might have attacked him.” Shame filled her. To act in such a way went against everything she believed. How many times had she been told she must accept life as it was and attempt change through prayer and conversation and demonstrating a better way herself?
    Kayleen desperately wanted to believe that, but sometimes a quick kick in the shin worked, too.
    One corner of As’ad’s mouth twitched. “You hit Tahir?”
    “I kicked him.”
    “What happened then?”
    “His men came after me and grabbed me. Which I didn’t like, but it was okay because the girls were released. They were screaming and I was screaming and the other teachers came into the hall. It was a mess.”
    She squared her shoulders, knowing she had to make As’ad understand why that man couldn’t take the girls away.
    “You can’t let him do this,” she said. “It’s wrong on every level. They’ve lost both their parents. They need each other. They need me.”
    “You’re just their teacher.”
    “In name, but we’re close. I live here, too. I read to them every night, I talk to them.” They were like her family, which made them matter more than anything. “They’re so young. Dana, the oldest, is only eleven. She’s bright and funny and she wants to be a doctor. Nadine is nine. She’s a gifted dancer. She’s athletic and caring. Little Pepper can barely remember her mother. She needs her sisters around her. They need to be together.”
    “They would be in the same village,” As’ad said.
    “But not the same house.” She had to make him understand. “Tahir talks about how people in the village are willing to take in the girls. As if they would be a hardship. Isn’t it better to leave them here where they have friends and are loved? Where they can grow up with a connection to each other and their past? Do you know what he would do to them?”
    “Nothing,” As’ad said flatly, in a voice that warned her not to insult his people. “He has given them his honor. They would be protected. Anyone who attacked them would pay with his life.”
    Okay, that made her feel better, but it wasn’t enough. “What about the fact that they won’t be educated? They won’t have a chance. Their mother was American.”
    “Their father was born here, in El Deharia. He, too, was an orphan and Tahir’s village raised him. They honor his memory by taking in his three daughters.”
    “To be servants.”
    As’ad hesitated. “It is their likely fate.”
    “Then he can’t have them.”
    “The decision is not yours to make.”
    “Then you make it,” she told him, wanting to give him a quick kick to the shins, as well. She loved El Deharia. The beautiful country took her breath away every time she went into the desert. She loved the people, the kindness, the impossible blue of the skies. But there was still an expectation that men knew better. “Do you have children, Prince As’ad?”
    “No.”
    “Sisters?”
    “Five brothers.”
    “If you had a sister, would you want her to be taken away and made a servant? Would you have wanted one of your brothers ripped from his family?”
    “These are not your siblings,” he told her.
    “I know. They’re more like my children. They’ve only been here a few months. Their mother