The Baby Swap That Bound Them, page 9
Strangely, there were points where his tension ebbed and a surge of endorphins dulled the ache in his calves and arms from holding on to the raft’s supports.
It happened first when Yusra called to him and pointed out a pair of white-breasted birds midflight. They flew past them ahead, giving him a hopeful sign that the endpoint wasn’t too far off.
The second time he looked back at her, she wasn’t paying him any attention. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth and she was struggling to help steer them away from a tricky rock that even the guide had missed. She pushed hard, but it wasn’t enough, and her side of the raft tipped up as it climbed the rock.
The other six guests in the raft and the guide all noticed.
Everyone scrambled to right them.
All except Bashir.
He watched Yusra’s water shoes slide out of the raft’s foot cups and her hands tighten on her paddle to no avail. Her body jerked in the opposite direction of where the raft had climbed on the rocks, and she flailed an arm to right her balance.
Bashir sprang into action. He seized her arm and yanked her toward him, hard. She slammed into his chest, her forehead bumping his chin and his beard softening the impact of that blow. But she was safe. Jolted and possibly bruised, but no victim to the thrashing waters ferrying their raft farther downriver. The frenzy of the moment itself was packed into a handful of seconds, though it might as well have been hours for the burn consuming his lungs and the prickling fire scorching his muscles.
Bashir drew her onto his lap more, sitting back as comfortably as they could as the raft jostled free of the rock it had climbed and they crashed back into the river safely. And once again, they were moving along, the guests cheering around them for having overcome that challenge together. It didn’t matter to him that he hadn’t been of any help to them. Yusra had needed someone. And he’d been there for her. Prevented her from getting hurt...and him from having to deal with her injury or loss.
The thought of her in pain wrenched his heart.
Bashir clutched her closer since he couldn’t palm his chest and ease the ache any other way.
He peeled her back from him once his heart rate steadied and she wasn’t trembling. Wide eyes beheld him, her mouth parted slightly, and her chest rising and falling with her quickened breaths. He bet she had questions. And since he didn’t have answers, at least any answers he felt comfortable sharing right then, Bashir welcomed any distractions.
“Is everyone all right?” The guide called, seeming to notice they weren’t manning their areas of the raft.
Perfect, he thought.
Grasping their cue, Bashir released his gentle hold on her arms.
But it was Yusra who moved away first, her hands back on her paddle, and her eyes still searching his face, seeking an explanation he couldn’t give her that moment.
And that he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to give her.
* * *
As a reward for completing their white water rafting experience, their guide urged them to take an hour to relax in the shallower pools where they ended their expedition of the famed Nile.
Bashir was just glad it was over. He’d have remained on the shore and observed everyone else happily, but Yusra walked up the rocky riverbed and onto the sticky shoreside with an outstretched hand for him. Like the other travelers with them, she’d been swimming in the river, calling out to him to join her. She finally tired of waiting and came to fetch him.
“Come on. You can’t stand there and watch the whole time.”
He could, but he didn’t say that to her. It wouldn’t do him any good. Bashir might not have known her long, but he was quickly learning to accept her tenacity.
Compelled by the eager glint in her eyes as well, he took her smaller hand in his and marveled at the strength with which she pulled him along. Almost as if she was afraid he’d change his mind on her at the last moment and not wanting to take that chance she was instead risking ripping his arm out of its socket. She stopped tugging him along when the river waters hit her waist.
Waist-deep for her wasn’t the same for him. He had more than a foot on her, so he was spared the difficulty of a wade. The warm water pooled around his upper thighs, his board shorts and black leggings soaked along with his rash vest, but that had happened long before they’d stopped as a group to soak in the calm parts of the Nile.
Like he had, Yusra had come prepared in bathing attire. She had on a long-sleeved swim top over a bodysuit and ankle-length swim leggings. Her pullover hijab had been a good choice, never having slipped off during their rocky ride downriver. And when it was all put together, she looked good.
Maybe a bit too good, he thought with a quickly drying mouth.
The modesty of her waterproof wear still conspired to undo him whenever his prying eyes tracked over her shapely curves and the generous swells of her breasts. He’d felt all of her when she had been pressed into him, shielded from the angry rapids of the river, but not protected from him. His hands flexed involuntarily at the memory of holding her enticingly soft warmth. If they’d been alone on the raft, things might have turned out differently. He could see himself crumbling to the temptation his wife embodied and stealing a kiss.
They’d been married for over a week, and they hadn’t even kissed yet.
If they’d been a normal loved-up couple, he’d be worried. But his concern was unfounded. They hadn’t married for love, or for kisses or any kind of intimacy for that matter. So he shouldn’t be keeping score of how long he’d gone without testing his theory that her mouth was as soft and sweet as it appeared.
“I forget how tall you are sometimes,” she said and, taking his wrist, pulled him along farther into the still river waters. “There. Much better.” She beamed up at him once he was submerged at the waist, and with the water up to her chest now. “Let’s swim together. You know how to swim, right? I can teach you. When I lived in Somalia, my home was next to Liido Beach. I used to swim there with my brothers and sister all the time.”
“That’s not it. I know how to swim.” He stroked his beard and shifted his weight from foot to foot, the soles of his water shoes keeping him upright. “I’m not fond of water.” Again, a flurry of questions brightened the dark, mesmerizing pools of her eyes. This time he had to give her something. When he’d held her on the raft and hesitated to let her go, he didn’t know how to explain his actions. But this, this he could. It wouldn’t be easy though, and it’d require trust in her. Trust not to belittle his feelings primarily.
Clearing his throat, he said, “When I immigrated to Greece, I journeyed over land...and by sea.”
“You did tahriib.” The word was spoken quietly, her tone tortured...for him?
Tahriib was the practice of bribed smugglers persuading unknowing migrants on a dangerous journey to Europe. For some, it delivered the intended result of reaching a promised land where opportunities for jobs and good money abounded, but for others, it ended in injury and at its worst even death.
He had been luckier than those who had lost their lives or found nothing but more pain in a new and strange land.
But if he stopped to think of them, he’d never get this story out fully. “During the journey itself, we stopped several times. The last leg was a long trip over the Aegean Sea from a coastal city in Turkey. It had been dark and stormy. We couldn’t see anything as we were buffeted by high winds and tall waves.” Bashir swallowed down the bile that rose with the memories. “Our raft’s engine was torn off by the winds or waters—we didn’t know, but we lost it, and we were left floating, helpless. Then the boat capsized.”
Drowning had become no longer a terrifying possibility, but a reality.
“At that point in life, I couldn’t swim. I’d never learned how to, and never imagined I’d require it. But once I fell in the sea, I lost consciousness quickly and blessedly. I wouldn’t have wanted to remember the harrowing journey my body made from sea to land.” Later, he’d been informed by a coast guard who had been on the rescue that there had been a dozen drowned souls scattered on the shore beside Bashir. He shuddered even now at the thought of being surrounded by death. Just like he’d been with his family. But he wasn’t finished telling Yusra all of it. “Those of us who survived were cared for and then sent to await our fates in a refugee camp.”
After that, he’d taught himself to swim the first chance he got.
“Learning to swim kept me occupied that first summer in the camp,” he explained.
“Bashir, that’s awful.” She slid her hand in his, small, soft fingers squeezing support into him. “We don’t have to swim. Let’s skip rocks on the river’s surface instead. Or we could take pictures of the birds if the rocks aren’t a good idea.” She pointed to the white-breasted birds that they’d seen earlier. The ones who’d outraced them to this tranquil location. A flock of them herded on the opposite shore. Against the backdrop of the dark green forest, the birds were like flecks of white flicked onto an opaque canvas.
Rocks. Birds. It was all the same to him though. An excuse to avoid a thing he didn’t like—a thing he even feared, rightfully so. But he’d been scared to tell her what had been on his mind, and his trust in her hadn’t steered him badly. Now his intuition promised that he wouldn’t be wrong to trust her with this too.
“No, let’s swim,” Bashir said.
Her radiant smile was certainly worth braving a dip in the river.
* * *
“Were you waiting long?”
Yusra startled at the sound of Bashir’s voice in the enclosed space.
She looked over her shoulder at the opening to the pop-up bubble tent. Golden fairy lights lined the tent’s sturdy fiberglass frame and the transparent fabric shielding them from mosquitoes. He sealed the tent closed after him before one of the little bloodthirsty bugs snuck inside, but not before she felt the balmy kiss of summer’s night air on her face and the soles of her bare feet. Having arrived earlier than he had with their sons, she’d kicked off her shoes, the floor of the tent covered by a handwoven, vividly dyed and patterned Persian rug. Before her was a low wooden table adorned with a colorful hand-sewn runner, although they could hardly see it under the crush of dinner plates. Two divans draped in the same decorative and delicate handmade tapestry as the table runner faced each other and provided more than enough room for their family of four. She shared one of those floor sofas with AJ and Zaire. Bashir grabbed the sofa opposite them.
“Sorry I’m late. I hadn’t expected to be tied up for as long as I was, but construction is in progress, so I’m on alert more than I’d usually be.” He had been right behind her on their way to dinner in this cozy, well-lit tent when his phone had rung and he’d taken a call from his aide Nadim. He’d sent her along with the boys with a promise to catch up. But it had been a while since then, and she hadn’t wanted to eat without him, so she had asked the resort’s staff to bring plate warmers for everything.
As they uncovered the plates now, and began to eat, Yusra ventured, “A new hotel?”
“No, a nonprofit organization for migrants and refugees. It’s called Project Halcyone.”
That warranted her washing down the tenderized and well-seasoned chicken in her luwombo dish with freshly made passion fruit juice to clear her mouth and congratulate him. Though she was confused. This was the first she was hearing about his altruistic project.
Reading her thoughts, he said, “I didn’t tell you because construction started three weeks ago, and I’m still waiting for it to feel real. I’ve been envisioning this project for some time now. I can only hope it will help as many people who need its services as possible once it’s up and running.” His stare grew hard and distant, and she recognized it from earlier. When they’d been in the river and he had told her about his perilous tahriib and the deadly consequences for some of his other travel companions.
She hugged their sons, their warm, small bodies staving off the chill brought on by her darkening thoughts. Holding them always did the trick in righting her mood. And she’d missed them for much of the day. AJ and Zaire had spent the time apart from her and Bashir with nanny Alcina. They’d been too young to go white water rafting with them, and given how the day had gone, Yusra was relieved for their absence. By the end of it, Bashir had gotten real with her. And some of that realness had taken them to a darker, grittier point of his past.
“It seems ambitious, but it always helps if your heart is in the right place. And yours is.” She sensed Bashir needed this almost as much as the people he would be helping with his generosity. Still, it didn’t take the sting of surprise away at discovering he was undertaking such important work. And she wondered whether this was the real reason why he’d proposed marriage to her. It wouldn’t be the first time she had married a man who hadn’t been completely forthcoming with her. With her ex-husband, it had taken her years to discern his little barbed comments about her job and salary, her homemaking skills and even her modest outfits. Yusra hadn’t been enough for him in so many ways, and instead of telling her he was discontented with her and their marriage, he’d strung her along and wasted her hope, efforts and time on him. She’d tried to save their marriage by satisfying him, and only made herself unhappy along the way. She wouldn’t do it all over again with Bashir.
She’d been about to resign herself to quietly worrying when Bashir shocked her again—this time with an apology.
“I should have told you earlier. Truthfully, I was concerned about the problem with the hospital.” He looked from her to their oblivious sons. AJ and Zaire were busy playing with their food, their fists caked in deep-fried bread. Yusra had showed them how to eat the mandazi, but to no avail. Almost as much of the fluffy crumbs ended up on their faces as on their hands. Giving up, she allowed them to explore, barely flinching when their sticky hands pressed onto her belted maxi dress and shimmery abaya.
A testament to how focused she was on Bashir. She didn’t want to miss what he had to say.
“I didn’t know you, and therefore I wasn’t sure what kind of person you’d be. I couldn’t expose the nonprofit to any scandal.”
“I can’t fault you for that.” She masked her hurt behind a false serenity, censuring herself for being so weak. Everything he said made sense. If she, too, had a big project underway, she’d want to do anything to protect it. And to be fair, she hadn’t trusted him all that much at first either.
I don’t even have complete faith in him now.
She of all people understood trust was forged through incontestable actions, the louder the better. That was why she asked, “Do you view me as a threat now?”
Bashir rolled his shoulders, his large muscles flexing under his collared shirt and stylish seersucker blazer. The tension coming from him didn’t inspire confidence that she’d like what was coming. “I’m not yet sure. For that I’d have to know you better. Before today, I didn’t take you for the adventure-seeking type. White water rafting?” He shook his head with a pleasing tilt to those thickly rounded lips of his. “Should I be glad I didn’t let you talk me into bungee jumping?”
She flung him a grin full of her relief and humor. “Then that’s our problem. We still haven’t gotten to know each other.” And she knew one surefire way to remedy that. “When we head back to Kampala, we should go out, just the two of us.”
“Are you suggesting we date?”
“No more than this holiday of ours can be construed as a honeymoon.”
Bashir laughed briskly. “I can’t argue with that logic.”
Yusra’s laughter came easily at that. This was a much better start to their marriage than those first few days she’d spent sequestered in their hotel suite, waiting, and wondering if marrying him had been an error of judgement on her part. It wouldn’t have been her first mistake when it came to choosing a life partner. But now she felt less of that pressing concern for their still so new relationship. She told herself that it was for the good of Zaire and AJ for their parents to get along. This dating business was merely a sacrifice, one of countless she’d have made to safeguard their family. Meanwhile she pretended not to feel Bashir’s smile and sparklingly dark eyes warming her from head to toe, and inside and out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS FAR AS first dates went, this was the most unusual one Bashir had been on, and for more reasons than how he’d come to find himself on the back of a motorbike, clinging to Yusra while she navigated her city’s traffic like a pro.
But he was also dating his wife.
Most of what they’d done so far had been out of order. Their family existed before their marriage, thanks to the baby swap ordeal. And they had barely known each other before agreeing to marry. Why did this have to be any different?
At least the honeymoon came after the marriage.
Honeymoon? When had he begun to see their holiday the way Yusra had, as a honeymoon rather than a simple vacation?
Bashir had obviously underestimated her influence on him. It likely wasn’t any help that they’d spent the last week together in close quarters. Recognizing that she was sensitive to him working late away from her and their sons and wanting her to remain happy with her decision of marrying him, he had set up a second office from their hotel suite. In a short time, Yusra’s satisfaction became as vital as Project Halcyone was to him. He told himself that he needed her cooperation for their convenient relationship, and though he knew that was partly true, it wasn’t the whole truth. But he was resisting exploring what that meant. It’d be a danger to court any emotion around her. Affection for Yusra was a thing he couldn’t risk. Because then he would grow to care for her, and that he wouldn’t chance for the entire world.
