Blogging with Lucy Monroe

The Sheikh's Bartered Bride by Lucy Monroe
By Lucy Monroe

Harlequin Showcase - March 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-373-68822-7
Originally Harlequin Presents - February 2005
ISBN 0-373-12447-3
© 2005 Lucy Monroe

Read this excerpt from chapter 1

"Miss Benning."

She wasn’t Miss Benning. She was Catherine Marie, captive of The Hawk, a sheikh who still lived by the code of the desert, where only the strongest survived.

He was coming now. She could hear his deep, masculine voice as he spoke in a tongue she did not understand to someone outside her tent. She struggled against the cords that bound her hands, but it was useless. The silk scarves were soft, but strong and she could not get her hands free.

If she did, what would she do? Run?

Where?

She was in the middle of the desert. The sun beat against the tent, heating up the cavernous interior. She wouldn’t last a day in the vast wasteland on her own.

Then he was there, standing in the entrance to the room in which she was held. His features were cast in shadow. All she could see was his big body encased in the white pants and tunic typical of his people. A black robe, his abayah, fell from his massive shoulders to midcalf and his head was covered with the red and white smagh that denoted his position as sheikh. The headband holding it in place was made of twisted black leather.

He was less than fifteen feet away, but still his face was hidden from her by the shadows. Only the strong line of his jaw denoting his arrogance was discernable.

"Miss Benning!"

Catherine Marie Benning’s head snapped up from where it had been resting against her fist and her eyes slowly focused on her surroundings. Tent walls hung with silks faded, to be replaced by cool gray cement, relieved only by the posters advertising the upcoming book drive and literacy event. They were the walls of the break room in the Whitehaven Public Library, much closer to a cold and wet Seattle, Washington than the blistering hot deserts of the Sahara.

Fluorescent light cast a harsh glow over the pointed features of the woman standing in front of her.

"Yes, Mrs. Camden?"

Straightening her double-knit polyester blazer, almost identical in color to the library’s walls, Catherine’s superior sniffed. "Your head was off in the clouds again, Miss Benning."

The disapproval in the older woman’s voice grated against Catherine’s usually limitless patience. Perhaps if the man in her fantasies would ever show his face, she wouldn’t be feeling so frustrated, but he did not. This time had been no different. The Hawk was as elusive to her imagination as he was in it.

"I’m still on break," she reminded the older woman.

"Yes, well, we all do what we must."

Recognizing the beginnings of a familiar lecture, Catherine stifled a sigh at the knowledge her lunch break was to be cut short. Again.

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