A Thorned Rose in the Sand Read online

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2018 Lea Bronsen

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-675-0

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Jessica Ruth

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To the man of my life. You not only initiated my love of the enduro motorsport and made sure I was able to enjoy off-road adventures ever since, you also made me become the woman I am today.

  A big thank you to Elyzabeth M. Valey for beta-reading. You’re fantastic, sister!

  The main character’s name Ragab is the one of an Egyptian orphan I sponsored through a SOS Children’s Villages program in the 90s, until he reached adulthood. He will always be in my heart.

  The idea for this story came after I watched a video of French “globe cooker” Fred Chesneau visiting nomads in the Moroccan desert. They generously shared their food, home, and wisdom with a stranger, and I thought it would be cool to write about a female rally driver having the same experience. Also, in our times of global fear and discrimination, I seized the chance to compose a little romance set in the Arab world in the hopes it could help remind of this ancient civilization’s rich and diversified culture, traditions, and humanity.

  I hope you enjoy the read!

  A THORNED ROSE IN THE SAND

  Lea Bronsen

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  Stevie glared at her KTM off-road beast half buried in the sand and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Aaaargh!”

  The punishing Sahara sun had sweat run in rivers inside her rally jacket and pants. Sand and dirt covered the only exposed parts of her body—her nose and cheeks—and clustered her nostrils. Having piloted the 450cc trail bike at full speed over rough terrain for hours made her ache all over, and her hands sizzled from holding the vibrating handlebars. Her lips were cracked, her eyes stung, she had trouble breathing in the hot air, and her ears sounded like bugs were trapped inside her helmet…but she was ready for more punishment. One last section of a few hundred kilometers remained, and she completed the race.

  If only she hadn’t gotten off the track for a few seconds there—a couple meters to the right, for God’s sake—while reading a navigation note, she wouldn’t have landed in this patch of soft sand and gotten stuck, nearly breaking a rib from the abrupt stop. And the more throttle she gave, the deeper the rear wheel dug itself in. Soon, the carburetor would fill with sand. Then shit would get realer than real.

  Dammit, she couldn’t believe her bad luck.

  She’d been warned anything could happen during the grueling seven-day OiLibya Rally of Morocco early in October. Participants encountered everything from crashes and falls to punctured tires, broken rig parts, fuel and oil leakages, overheated engines, and of course medical issues. And few of them completed at all, due to the difficulty of the rally across dunes, slippery mud, camel grass, rocks, dried-out riverbeds, wind-swept sand...

  But to Stevie, the more than two-thousand-six-hundred-kilometer-long race from Fez in the north via Merzouga in the southeast was only a preparation for the real challenge: the infamous Dakar Rally in South America. Besides, she’d always believed she was special, clever, that nothing could happen to her. Why wouldn’t she? Having grown up with four big brothers all infatuated with the enduro sport, she’d learned to drive before she could walk, trained on the finest Californian desert tracks, and competed in several races across the U.S. She knew bikes from A to Z, whether it was their mechanical specifications or how to bring out the best in them, how to push them to their limits.

  She pushed herself to her limits, too, playing such a daring game with death. But she did so consciously and with the necessary tools to survive: toughness, physical strength, perseverance, impulsiveness, and an ability to focus one hundred and ten percent in the moment, when having mere micro-seconds to make decisions. More importantly, she had self-confidence, a crucial quality for any girl competing with the tough guys.

  Well, none of that helped much now, did it?

  Wrong. She never gave up.

  She switched the humming motor off and got down on her knees to dig the wheel free. Her brothers had told her if a bike got stuck, she should push it over onto its side, drag it sideways away from the hole, then lift it back upright, but this monster weighed one hundred forty-five kilos—not counting the fuel and luggage—and she simply didn’t have physical strength to do it. Thus, the digging. Thank fuck for her solid leather gloves, at least! Due to the permanent lack of clouds over the desert, the sand temperature was way too high to shovel with her bare hands.

  The sudden silence felt eerily strange. Head buzzing, she glanced at the wavy scenery of red rock and dunes surrounding her. A beautiful, exotic countryside, but also hostile and life-threatening. She must make it to the last rally stop, the city of Erfoud, before the end of the day. In sharp contrast to daytime, nights were cold, and she didn’t want to spend one alone in the gigantic Sahara.

  She got back to work, and after shoveling sand for a few minutes, it was clear she had to get rid of her helmet and jacket if she didn’t want to drown in sweat. She stripped down to a singlet—black like her other clothes, since it was said this color absorbed heat best. Her pale, freckled skin looked flush from the hard work, wet and sticky, and dirtier than if she’d had a mud bath. And boy, did she stink after seven days in the saddle and bad sanitary conditions. Perspiration oozed from her and evaporated in the intense heat.

  A few kilos lighter, she made progress digging the rear wheel out of the sand hole, but the merciless sun burned her arms and shoulders as if she’d put them in an oven.

  An engine roared behind her. Seconds later, a competitor appeared at full speed before slowing down as he passed her. He turned a gloved hand up in question, sunglasses hiding his eyes.

  She shook her head and gesticulated for him to continue. She didn’t need any help, and certainly not from a guy. Her father had told her being a woman didn’t mean she had to rely on a man in life, and her brothers had taught her everything she needed to compete autonomously in a rally. Besides, having experienced sexual harassment in college, she didn’t care much for men in general. It had been proven time and again they wanted only one thing, and she’d sworn to the gods, capturing her heart (and body) wouldn’t be easy!

  As the rider revved up and disappeared in a cloud of red dust, she went back to pushing away sand until a big enough hole had been dug around the rear wheel. Time to try motor traction.

  Heart hammering in her chest, she scrambled up and started the engine. It farted to life, then hummed, its roar stable. Good. Holding both handlebars, she kicked in the first gear and rocked the bike back and forth, giving it a bite with the clutch at each forward movement.

  The wheel spun in the loose sand.

  “Pleeaase!” she begged. “Come on!”

  Again, she rocked the bike and gave some clutch, but the goddamn enduro tire only dug deeper into the hole, furiously spraying sand backward. What the hell was she doing wrong?

  “Nooo,” she cried, her voice adopting a plaintive tone. She set the gear to neutral, released everything, and closed her stinging eyes. Sweat ran down her temples, throat, and between her tits.

  Breathe.

&n
bsp; Focus.

  She couldn’t give up now. It had been a long, exhausting ride on rough terrain, yes; she was combusting in the desert heat, yes; the bike was fucking stuck, yes! but that was momentary. She would never accept defeat. Never!

  Tears of blinding anger and frustration rushed to her eyes and rolled down her scorched cheeks.

  No, no tears.

  She growled and wiped them with the back of her arm. She’d decided to complete the race, and once her mind was set on something, she’d be damned if she let anything stop her.

  She killed the engine, sank back in the sand, and repeated the procedure. This time, it had to work.

  In order to give the tire a firmer surface to climb up on, why not try laying something flat in front of it? Her rally jacket, maybe? No doubt the protruding tire knobs would tear up the Kevlar material, but she’d sacrifice anything to get her bike out of this hellhole and reach Erfoud before sunset.

  Chapter Two

  At first, when Ragab discovered the redheaded girl digging her motorcycle out of the sand, he wanted to steer his dromedary away and pretend he hadn’t seen her. She may have been too busy to notice, but as she leaned forward, hard at work around the back wheel, her breasts practically slid out of her top. How typical of westerners to bare their bodies like that, without respect for their surroundings. Indecent.

  His sentiments didn’t have anything to do with religion, as some would be quick to point out, learning he was an Arab. He wasn’t religious. It had to do with perfectly normal, universal conduct: You didn’t flash your intimates outside of the bedroom.

  Even though, he had to admit, the sight of these round and full pale-skinned breasts made a certain organ in his groin stir.

  Anyway, this girl shouted and cursed like a drunkard, and he disliked such rude behavior intensely after spending a few years in London studying medicine and seeing the worst of what the modern world had to offer. He’d seen good things, of course, but too much of the bad kind to be disgusted and never want to live there. Greed. Materialism. Egotism. Leaving the elderly and the disabled to die alone in institutions.

  After fulfilling his studies, he’d returned to his family in the quiet Moroccan desert and devoted his life to providing medical assistance to the nomads, and herding goats, sheep, and camels. Animals were good-hearted and much less complicated than humans, and he found great solace in spending his days outdoors, in the magnitude and magnificence of the land known among the Arabs as “the place where the sun sets.”

  Life wasn’t perfect—at twenty-eight, he should get a wife and produce children, as his mother kept reminding him, since their tribe needed members to ensure its continuity. He had yet to meet a woman with whom he wanted to share his days and nights. In the meantime, he dreamed of one. She didn’t have a face, but her voluptuous body called to his, and he often awoke in the dark, sweating, rigid, on the verge of staining his pants.

  Speaking of woman, the red fury at the foot of the dune he stood on paused and slumped forward, her long braid hanging over a sunburned shoulder.

  During the time he’d observed her—ten or fifteen minutes—two motorcycle drivers had stopped and offered their assistance, but she’d refused. Incredible! On one hand, he was tempted to admire her persistence and will strength, but she looked defeated, and he was more inclined to worry she may be too proud—and tired—to reason. And miscalculating a situation in the desert could be fatal.

  He glanced to the southwest, where the sun lowered over the horizon, casting a gold-orange light over the vast land. The temperature would fall soon, and the girl shouldn’t spend the night out here alone. If she was unable to take care of herself, it was his duty as a fellow human to do it for her.

  He steered his dromedary down the side of the dune.

  She spun and looked up at him, dark green eyes shining with such aggressive rage, he almost turned on his heels and left her to her destiny.

  His conscience forbade him to. She was covered top to toe with dust that had stuck to sweat. Tears had run down her cheeks, leaving streaks in the dirt, and she trembled. He didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or emotion, but something was wrong with her.

  Ignoring her glare, he got off his dromedary, grabbed a roll of rope hanging from the saddle, and walked over to her motorcycle. She didn’t utter a word, and so, he didn’t find it necessary to say anything either. He tied the end of the rope to the front forks and went back to his dromedary to guide it toward harder ground.

  The girl scrambled up and turned the motor on, instantly filling the space with a loud grumble. That was what he disliked about westerners, too: the noise, the pollution, the waste they left behind. As if the Earth belonged to them!

  Having made sure his dromedary and the motorcycle were aligned and the rope stretched, he gave his strong companion a slap on the butt. The dromedary jerked forward and pulled while the girl gave gas and released the clutch—and out of the hole jumped the motorcycle with a growl, so suddenly she lost her balance and let go of the handles. But right before it tipped over to a side, she climbed up and forced it upright. Impressive. She had the agility and grace of a horse rider.

  Ragab made the dromedary continue to pull until the motorcycle reached the hard track. Then he went back to untie the rope.

  Motor idling, she sat panting, gloved hands in her lap, her emeralds shiny. He avoided looking at her, because although she was dirtier and looking more haggard than any woman he’d ever seen, the way her lips parted to breathe and the way her black, sweat-soaked top molded to her heaving chest—to the two full, round mounds of her chest—made him uncomfortable.

  He should be man enough to disregard these details and focus on rolling the rope, but he had never been with a woman, and it was obvious from the stirring in his pants, his body had certain needs to sate.

  Through the humming of the motor, she said something he didn’t hear.

  He looked up with a frown.

  “Choukran,” she said louder, giving him a level gaze. Thank you.

  So, she did have some manners. Although, he wasn’t sure she really meant to thank him. The intensity in her eyes and the slightly arrogant pout of her lips said she’d rather be somewhere else and not have to thank anyone.

  So proud.

  Well, now that he’d helped her out of the sand hole, he couldn’t wait to make distance between them, return home where people had more decency and humility, and forget about her. It wasn’t only because of her temper, which smelled of trouble. The physical attraction tugging at him every time he looked at her was the absolute last thing he needed.

  As he busied himself attaching the roll of rope to the saddle, she cleared her throat.

  He turned and sent her a sharp look. What?

  She lifted her brows. “I don’t know if you speak English, but is there any place here where I can sleep? I’m never gonna make it to Erfoud today.”

  Chapter Three

  Someone tapped on Stevie’s shoulder. “Wake up,” a male voice said.

  God, not again.

  Memories assaulted her. Firstly, from the slowest bike ride ever, following a trotting camel to her savior’s home in a deserted area named Tisserdmine. When they’d arrived, darkness invaded the site and oil lamps lit a group of low Bedouin tents. A woman had offered her a spot to sleep on and brought her a bowl of food. Exhausted by the day’s ordeals, and not wanting to disturb the family, Stevie had kept to herself and soon fallen asleep on the carpeted floor.

  “What is it?” She opened her eyes and squinted in the early morning light, pissed because it had to be the hundredth time something or someone awoke her. It had been a horrible night. A boy had moaned the whole time, the lamenting sound infiltrating Stevie’s dreams and tearing her out of them. And the temperature had lowered to a point where her rally jacket and pants hadn’t been enough to keep her warm. Every time she’d woken, she’d shivered from cold and found it nearly impossible to find sleep again.

  “My parents don’t dare to
ask,” the voice said, with a hint of British accent.

  Stevie focused and turned to the man kneeling at her side. Ah, the nomad who’d pulled her out of the sand hole. So, he spoke English? Yesterday, he hadn’t deigned to say a single word to her. Such an arrogant man, with only his exotic eyes visible in the blue turban he’d tied around his head. He’d saved her ass, yes, but also given her the clear impression he wished he hadn’t.

  Now, his eyes were wider, showing the white in them, and he stared at her with intent. “Please,” he said, tone urgent. “I suspect my brother has appendicitis. I’m a doctor, so in theory, I could operate on him, but this isn’t the best of environments for a surgery, and I don’t have any antibiotics.”

  Surgery? Antibiotics? To think she’d almost cursed the kid for keeping her awake! Alarm rushed through her, the irritation vanishing. She tried to sit up, but her frozen body refused to respond—every single muscle ached as if filled with acid. “Aww, fuck!” she exclaimed, wincing.

  The nomad frowned, apparently disliking her curse, but extended a hand. “You worked hard yesterday.”

  “Yeah.” She accepted his help. His hand was warm, large, and calloused. One of a manual worker, not a doctor.

  He pulled her up to a sitting position.

  Her entire body screamed in pain. “Jaysus!” she complained, releasing his hand and stretching her hurting limbs. The smell of old sweat emanated from inside her jacket. After a week in the desert, she was in desperate need of a shower.

  She glanced around. One of the tent walls had been opened, inviting soft morning light and a little heat in. A couple of adults and two skinny-looking girls sat in the shade of the opposite wall, with a young boy curled in the woman’s lap. All eyes were on Stevie.