Sidra watched him ride off, her eyes sad because she suspected she’d never see that man again.
Laura watched Sidra carefully, seeing the look in her eyes and her smile grew wider. “I think you have some explaining to do,” she said and pulled Sidra into the building, understanding her friend’s reluctance but since they couldn’t see the horse and rider any longer, there was no reason to stand out in the open like this.
Sidra walked up the stairs of Laura’s building, wishing she’d had just a few more moments with Rashid. Or maybe a few more hours. Days perhaps? Anything but the short time they’d spent together. She glanced down at her watch and realized that they’d known each other less than twenty minutes and she felt sad that she’d never see the man again.
All that day, Sidra fought the jet lag that was pushing against her. She and Laura took the train into London, all the while, dodging questions about how she’d met the man on the horse. They dined that night with some of Laura’s colleagues, but by eight o’clock that night, Sidra couldn’t stay awake any longer. When Laura finally brought her back to her flat, Sidra washed her face, brushed her teeth and fell into bed exhausted.
Chapter 2
Sidra looked around the thick area of trees, feeling the cold, damp grass below her feet and wondered what time the man usually woke up. She knew that she wouldn’t see him this morning, but it was nice to fantasize about him and remember what it felt like to have his arms around her waist, his strong chest against her back. She shivered at the memory of those crystal, blue eyes looking down at her, smiling at her.
She continued walking along the dirt path she and Laura had walked the previous day while they talked about her flight and catching up on what they hadn’t been able to say over e-mail or via phone. The morning felt good and the cool air was nice on her face. As she walked, her feet were silent with the spring growth padding her feet, letting the moist, morning air swirl around her, grateful for the lower number of bugs that were usually present in the evenings. That didn’t mean the absence of tiny critters she thought as she avoided putting her hand on a damp leaf, a small spider perched precariously on the tip as it prepared to move across to the next branch while weaving its web for the day. Moving around the web, she followed the stream, jumping over the rocks and eventually finding a large rock to perch upon.
The stone beneath her was cold but it felt good to have something solid beneath her. It helped her feel something. Helped her look around and notice things that she wouldn’t have seen two days ago.
Sidra thought back to the arguments she and Laura had laughed about over the past three months. Laura had been adamant that Sidra was going to visit and Sidra had been just as firm that she didn’t have time.
“You don’t have time for anything! You work twelve and fourteen hours a day and when you aren’t working, you just go out browsing the furniture and design stores so that you can do your work better! You need a break. You haven’t stopped since we graduated and you’re going to burn out if you don’t stop soon!”
Sidra had disagreed with Laura on all arguments. She worked hard, but she felt energized when she was on a project. “I’m not going to burn out, Laura. I love my job and I’ve just been promoted. There’s no way I can take the time to come visit now. Things are really picking up.”
“Sidra, there’s so much more to life that designing someone else’s rooms,” Laura argued. Sidra was an interior designer and had been hired right out of design school by one of the top designers in the industry for her area. She loved her job, was very good at it and was just starting to be asked for specifically within the firm. She’d designed so many bedrooms and living rooms and just recently, one had been featured in a magazine. It was a small magazine, but she’d been so proud of the end result. No matter how many times it happened, a designer always loved to have her work featured in any publication.
“Laura, I just can’t. Not right now.”
Laura had kept on nagging until Sidra had finally given in. She’d only taken a four day weekend, but sitting here in the middle of the woods, she realized that she really was missing a great deal of life. She smiled as she remembered the previous morning when she’d arrived on Laura’s doorstep, Rashid helping her off of his horse, his hands firm around her waist and looking so incredibly handsome in a dangerous, mean, yet oh-so-gentle kind of way. And those eyes! They were the kinds of eyes a woman could fall into and never want to come out of. They looked on her like she was some sort of delicious dessert and she wouldn’t mind, at least theoretically, if she were eaten up. That man had sex appeal coming out of his eye brows!
She leaned back and looked at the lightening sky through the trees. Her rental car had been delivered to Laura’s house about an hour after she’d been dropped off by Rashid. She had no idea if he’d fixed it or if one of his friends had done so, but the alternator belt had been replaced and the radiator repaired. She still hadn’t tried to drive it, but she felt a warm glow inside of her thinking that he’d taken so much time to help her out. And it couldn’t have been easy, she thought. Rashid’s horse was magnificent, but she didn’t think he had a lot of money. The riding pants he’d been wearing had been covered in mud and his boots, at one point had probably been owned by a great man, but they were now beaten up and well worn. The man was exceptionally built so she assumed he probably worked with horses a great deal.
Goodness, was she fantasizing about having an affair with a man who was poor? Laura would get a real laugh out of that!
Sidra wasn’t a snob, but Laura teased her about all the men she was around, men who could take care of her and dress her in the most beautiful clothes if she would only flirt a little more openly, be friendlier and take those advances the men were offering.
Sidra wasn’t like that. She didn’t want to win a husband, she wanted to win respect. She’d lived too long in the shadow of her brother, a successful stock broker who had always teased her that she’d never make it in the world with her soft, creative heart.
Maybe he’d been right. She loved her brother Ryan, but he was cold, calculating and at only two years older than she was, had made a great deal of money. That wasn’t the path she wanted to take though. She didn’t want to make a lot of money. She wanted to make beauty. She wanted the world to be a better place to live in and she knew she could use the creative gifts God had given her to make things nicer.