Page 24 of Deadly Storms (Sunrise Lake #3)

During the break for lunch, she kept her distance from Bale, Edward and Sean, gratified to see they were surrounded by females asking them questions and generally being admiring.

Every few minutes, Bale would lift his head and stare at her across the distance, a malevolent look on his face.

With a sinking heart, she could see Bale was working himself up to something.

She knew the afternoon wasn’t going to be quite as easy as the morning had been.

She made her rounds, Harlow by her side, visiting with each of those on the tour and answering specific questions they had.

It took effort to approach the students from the university, but she called on the months of discipline, not allowing her hands to tremble or her facial expression to be anything but absolutely calm.

They were friendly, asking about various species and what had gotten her interested in the study of birds.

The question threw her for a moment. She’s always had a special connection to birds, even as a young child.

She tried to answer it thoughtfully without sounding as if she was out of her mind.

She just told them she’d always dreamt of flying, and watching birds and listening to them brought her a sense of peace and happiness.

Deniz Kaplan asked her if she’d lived a long time in Saudi Arabia and how she’d learned to cook such delicious food. He asked her the question not in English but in Arabic. She didn’t hesitate to answer him in the same language. She wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t understand or speak Arabic.

Her heart ached the way it always did remembering that she’d spent a little over a year and a half in Saudi Arabia and had met a wonderful woman who had treated her as a daughter.

She’d taught her to cook, bake and grill.

She knew the four men and Harlow heard the love and sorrow in her voice, but she didn’t care.

Mama Ahmad had been a huge influence on her life.

She missed her every day. She also told them her mother was from Saudi Arabia.

All four men complimented the woman who had trained her. She took that as the highest praise they could give her.

Jules Beaumont asked her where she’d learned to speak French and if she spoke other languages.

She shouldn’t have been unsettled by his question or the piercing stare he gave her, but she was.

She managed to smile and tell him she had a gift for languages and had learned at a young age.

And yes, she spoke several different languages.

She moved away from them to the relative safety of the Garner sisters. Felicity and Eve were high energy and helped to keep her fears at bay while she answered the dozens of questions they always had.

It took every ounce of courage she possessed to join the two businessmen.

They greeted her politely, both speaking in French.

She answered them in that language and then introduced Harlow.

No one ever pointed out that Harlow was the daughter of a senator, but in this case, she was tempted.

She wanted the men to know Harlow was protected.

They made her even more nervous than Jules Beaumont, but she wasn’t sure why.

She was fast becoming a wreck for no apparent reason.

Both men were polite, assuring her they were having a good time and learning about the things they were most interested in. She thought that was an odd way to phrase it. She noted that Beaumont joined them for lunch and the three men seemed easy in one another’s company.

There was no getting around facing Bale, with his flock of women hanging around him.

Edward surprised her by asking about a couple of the birds they’d seen.

He seemed genuinely interested. Bale gave a loud snort of derision, and Edward looked away.

Bale made a snide comment about Shabina’s cushy job staring at birds all day.

One of the women voiced a protest. Shabina flashed a cheerful smile and walked away.

Throughout the rest of the tour, each time she spoke, Bale had something derogatory to say, mostly implying that he doubted she had accurate information.

A few of the others objected and asked him to stop.

He glared at them, trying his best to intimidate them.

She noticed Edward walked a little ahead of him, joining the three women vacationing from Washington.

He didn’t once look back at Bale, or if he did, she didn’t catch him.

Sean didn’t follow Bale’s lead by interrupting her or making nasty comments, but he stared at her constantly. That alone gave her the creeps.

Shabina was mentally and physically exhausted as she made her way with Harlow back to her car. “That went fairly well, considering it was such a large group.”

“What do you think Bale and his buddies were up to?” Harlow asked. “I did text Raine that they had come and also sent her pictures of everyone on the tour.”

“Bale is really beginning to worry me,” Shabina confessed. “I don’t know what he’s up to, but if he’s involved in that murder, he very well could have been looking for another way to involve me, although I don’t see how.”

“You were brilliant the way you handled them. They were definitely confused,” Harlow said. “But I’ll admit, they made me so nervous, I couldn’t concentrate on anything you were saying. How did you manage to keep going all day? Especially with the way Sean kept staring at you. Did you notice?”

She had noticed. How could she have missed it?

But Bale had been worse. It was clear he was planning something.

Mostly she’d been concerned about Rhys Cormier and Ellis Boucher.

She had the bad feeling their business had something to do with her.

It was the way they both avoided looking at her.

They knew she spoke French. They had come to her café and known she had spent a great deal of time in Saudi Arabia just by the food she had on the menu.

Her name meant “eye of the storm.” She had built-in radar, and it was going off big-time.

On the other hand, she had so many triggers the flashbacks were creeping far too close.

Physically, she had all the symptoms. It was only the discipline she’d acquired during her time as a captive that allowed her to appear calm, even serene.

“I don’t understand Sean at all. If he really has a thing for me, why would he act so obnoxious?

Does he think that’s going to win him points?

If he ever once had the chance to date me, it ended the first time he threw a fit in my café insisting my food was bad.

” Shabina lifted her chin. “My food is never bad. Had he said he didn’t like what he’d ordered and asked if he could try something else, I would have gladly switched the items for him. ”

Harlow leaned against her car. “You know what I think? Bale calls the shots and the others dance to his tune. I think he told them to start harassing you. Bale’s been the ringleader since they were kids, so they follow his lead blindly.”

“Like sheep. Great. Our Fish and Wildlife ranger is a sheep.” Shabina rubbed her temples. Her headaches were coming back in force. She used to get them all the time, but after finding her way to Knightly, the headaches had slowly begun to disappear. “Worse, Sean believes he’s a predator.”

“Well, we know he’s not,” Harlow said staunchly. “If he’s so ridiculous as to be part of a scheme to try to frame you for murder, we definitely can outsmart him, and he’ll get everything he has coming to him.”

Shabina hoped she was right. “What do you think about Jason? He’s always with them, or at least he used to be.”

Harlow sighed. “I honestly don’t know what to make of him.

He went to college with them and came here and fell in love with the Sierra.

My impression is he doesn’t like the things they do.

If you notice, he rarely says anything when the others are harassing women.

Sometimes he just walks off. More and more it seems as if he is separating himself from them. ”

“Were you surprised when Bruce offered him a job at the Brewery? Because it shocked me. And I think it shocked Bale.” Shabina rubbed at her thigh. The dogs pushed closer to her, another sign that they knew she was becoming more anxious.

“I think everyone was shocked, especially Zahra. In the end, that, more than anything else, really made up her mind that she wouldn’t wait around for Bruce to man up and ask her out.

If he could become close to a man who surrounded himself with the kinds of friends Jason had, the ones who taunted her and harassed her, she wasn’t going to wait. You know Zahra, she just fades away.”

“Bruce appears to be still pining.”

“That’s on him. If he’s too dense to realize what he’s done and that he’s lost his opportunity, then it’s too bad for him,” Harlow reiterated. “At least Jason isn’t hanging around Bale so much, taking his command as absolute law like Edward and Sean.”

“No, he doesn’t seem to be.”

Shabina knew Bale wasn’t giving up his anger and whatever revenge he had planned, whether it had anything to do with the murder or not. She’d felt his eyes on her several times, and when she’d looked his way, he’d been looking at her with open malice.

“Why do you suppose men despise me so much?” She intended to ask Rainier the same question the next time he turned up. “What is it about me that causes them to hate me so much that they’re willing to do such despicable things, Harlow?”