Trapped in His ocean

Chapter 2

After that, she had seen even more in the eyes of a stranger, and she ran away.

Even more foolish of her.

Damn.

And not for the first time, she wished that she were that strong, independent woman that she wanted to be; the way that her great grandmother must have been, to venture as a young woman of twenty so far from her home among the rolling fields of Hertfordshire, in search of adventure in the Middle East all those years ago. "And not for the first time, she wished that she was that strong, independent woman that she wanted to be.

So courageous.

However, as she zipped up her jacket once more, she realized why her namesake Nicole had been so adamant about coming. She found that Tehran lived up to her expectations in every way. Colourful. Historic. Exotic. Even though she wasn't nearly as brave as he was, she could already tell that she was going to adore the time she spent in Iran.

The rumbling in her stomach served as a reminder that she had gotten up and left the hostel before breakfast because she was fed up with the slamming doors and the fact that her body was refusing to sleep even though it was aware that it should be daylight. And there it was, just across the plaza from where she was standing, one of the carts she'd seen selling bread shaped like bagels and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It was sufficient to hold her over until she discovered something more substantial.

While she was waiting for the bread to be bagged, an elderly man with a cane approached her. He appeared to be hunched over. ‘English?’ he asked, with a gappy smile in a nut-brown face, with skin that looked as if it were made from leather. ‘American?’

‘Swedish,’ she said, getting used to the drill, knowing she stood out as a foreigner with her colouring and dress and that she was an easy target for every street vendor going.

‘Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!’ he said and his smile became a grin, as if they now shared a common bond. She just nodded and turned her attention to the man with the cart, accepting her bread. ‘I have some coins,’ the man whispered conspiratorially, as if bestowing upon her a favour. ‘Good price. Cheap.’

She barely glanced his way. Sam had a coin collection and she’d promised to bring home her change to add to the few overseas coins her younger brother already had. But she had no wish to buy more. ‘No, thanks. I’m not interested.’

‘Ancient coins,’ he persisted, unmoved, ‘from Troy.’

That got her interest. ‘From Troy? Really?’ That would make a pretty cool souvenir to take home for Fred.

‘Very old. Very cheap.’ He drew her away from the bread cart and pulled something from his pocket, slowly unwinding his nuggety fingers so she could see the grubby coins resting on his palm. ‘For you, special price.’

He named that price as she peered at the two small discs, wondering how she could tell if they really were coins from that ancient city, wondering if Fred would care if they were fake because they looked as if they could almost be real. But they were way out of her price range anyway. ‘Too much,’ she said, almost regretfully, knowing that her meagre budget would never stretch if she started impulse buying on her first day, only for the man to immediately halve what he was asking.

‘Very special price. You buy?’

Wariness warred with temptation. Converted to Swedish dollars, what he was asking for now in Iranian lire was a fraction of the spending money she’d allowed herself. She could afford them—just—if she didn’t splash out on too many other souvenirs. Still...

She flicked her eyes up to his face. ‘How do I know they’re genuine?’

His free hand crossed his chest, as if she had offended him. ‘I plough them myself from the ground. In my field.’

She could believe he had. His hands certainly looked as if they had endured a half-century or more of hard manual work, and his grizzled face seemed honest enough. But still... ‘And nobody minds if you dig up coins at an archaeological site? Especially like somewhere famous like Troy?’

He shrugged. ‘There are too many coins. Too many for the museums.’ He shoved his hand still closer, his brow more creased, and halved the price again. ‘Please, I need medicine for my wife. You buy?’

So the rabbit had been snared by a different kind of hunter.

Nabil had imagined her long gone, the way she’d all but fled from their brief encounter, but there she was, talking to an old man across the plaza, those red jeans like a flag and her blond hair gleaming even in winter’s thin sunlight, and he once again felt that familiar spike of heat to his groin. He’d bet that if she looked his way, he’d see a matching flare of heat in her blue eyes.

A shame she was so skittish.

He phoned his driver and told him he was ready, while he casually watched the interplay between the old man and the woman, the old man holding out his hand, the girl peering closely, asking questions.

He watched as the elderly man shook that hand, causing whatever was in it to fall to the ground. He also watched as she quickly bent over and dove down to retrieve whatever had fallen to the ground, and he watched how those red jeans stretched lovingly over her behind during this entire process. He guessed coins and furrowed his brow. In that case, she would be wise to exercise caution. Before making an attempt to give them back to the elderly gentleman, she regarded them almost with reverence while she held them in her hand.

He did not make any moves to accept, demonstrating that he was clearly determined to complete the sale. A deeper frown formed on Nabil's face as the woman shrugged, juggled coins and a paper bag, and rummaged around in her satchel looking for her wallet.

You are so naive.

He noticed his car trying to make its way through the congestion towards him.

Just before he saw the two men in uniform pounce on the elderly man and the young girl, he had a thought.

Nicole yelled as someone grabbed her arm, and as she looked up, she realized that the person who had her arm was a younger man, and that he was dressed in the dark blue uniform of the police. She realized that he was one of two officers because the other officer was holding the elderly man's arm. The elderly man had a small smile on his face, but his eyes were filled with terror.

Fear that seeped into her bones and caused her blood to become ice cold as the coins were taken from her hand and examined, followed by a nod of approval, before the coins were placed in a little plastic bag.

What the devil was taking place in the room?

The police yelled something in Iranian at the elderly guy, and in his haste to respond, he pointed at the officer's female colleague while stumbling over his words.

"Is that the case?" The officer abruptly jerked his head around to face her, his tone of voice matching the severity of his facial expression; however, at least he was able to speak to her in English. "Did you ask this man where you could buy more coins like these?" "No, I didn't ask him," you replied.

What? ‘No...’

"Then what were you doing while you had them in your possession?"

‘No. I wasn't at all. I was approached by him—'

The elderly man interrupted her speech. 'She lies!' he yelled before following it up with a torrent of Iranian, angry now and stuttering out his words, while pointing furiously some more at her with his free hand, which caused the police to frown at her once more.

And despite the fact that she was unable to comprehend the language, she had sufficient knowledge to realize that the situation was not favorable. She pleaded with them, "You have to believe me," while her eyes darted from one officer to the other. She was aware of the crowd that was gathering around them, and she had never felt more exposed than she did at that moment. Fear was tightening its grip on her gut as she spent less than twenty-four hours in a foreign country where she did not speak the language. She was very far from home, and she had been there for a very long time. She was the outsider in this place. What if nobody had faith in her story? They were compelled to have faith in her.

When one of the officers asked to see her passport, she frantically searched through her purse with her hands clenched into fists and her heart pounding wildly in her chest until she was finally able to unzip the pocket in which the document was concealed. Do you understand that it is against the law to possess antiquities from Iran? It is a very serious offence,’ he stated, inspecting the passport.

Illegal.

Antiquities.

Serious offence.

The words collided and mashed in her brain. Why was he telling her this? She’d only picked them up because it was easier for her than for the old man with his walking stick. ‘But they weren’t mine.’

‘Likewise it is illegal to buy and sell them.’

Oh, God. She felt the blood drain from her face. She’d had the coins in her hand. She had been about to buy them.

I didn’t know, she wanted to say. I didn’t even know they were real. And while she struggled for the words to answer, words that might not implicate her further, a new voice emerged from the crowd and joined the fray, a deep and authoritative voice.

No, not just someone, she realised with a jolt as she looked around. Not just a voice.

Him. The man who had been watching her across the market.

He put a hand to her shoulder as he talked, and, breathless and blindsided all over again, she stood there, under the warm weight of his hand, feeling almost— insanely—as if the man had laid claim to her.

The old man interrupted at one stage, arguing with him in words she couldn’t understand, but the stranger answered back with a blistering attack of his own that had the old man visibly shrinking, eyes fearful as the polis scowled.

And even with her heart beating like a drum, even in the depths of panic, it was impossible not to notice how perfectly the stranger’s voice fitted him. She hadn’t imagined his power before. His voice was rich and deep and spoke of an authority that needed no uniform or weapon to give it weight. He wore authority as easily as he wore his black cashmere coat. And now his thumb was stroking her shoulder. Did he even realise, she wondered, as he continued to make his case, how much her skin tingled at this stranger’s touch?

Now, when she shivered, it was not because she was cold; rather, it was because tendrils of heat were dancing down to dark places where a pulse beat out a slow, blossoming need.

Even though she was in trouble and in danger of being charged with some kind of crime in a language she didn't understand, she felt strangely reassured by the presence of this man beside her — the very same man she had fled from minutes earlier. The voices around her were calming down, and the crowd was losing interest and filtering away. And regardless of the predicament she was in, he had transformed her state of mind so that longing rather than dread was the dominant emotion she was experiencing.

It was decided upon something. Before the elderly man was led away between the two of them, an officer returned her passport to her and gave a friendly nod to both of them.

He told her, after removing his hand from her shoulder to retrieve his phone and make a short, sharp call as the disappointed crowd around them shrugged and wandered away, that they needed to go to the station so that she could make a statement. "We must go to the station," he said, "so you can make a statement."