“He’s not home to help raise them,” Vienna said. “I’ll think about marriage and children when and if Zale retires.”
Stella sobered immediately. “Vienna, I thought you were okay with Zale working even if you were married.”
“I’m trying to be okay with it. I believe Zale should do what he loves. If he needs to work for my hideous birth father, I’ll do my best to be supportive. I want to continue doing my jobs. I wouldn’t want him to tell me what I can or can’t do. On the other hand, I don’t want to be a single mother. I don’t have the first idea about raising children. If he wants to have them, he needs to be part of their lives, not an occasional father who comes and goes.”
That made sense to Shabina. She was the youngest of the women. The man she wanted was unattainable. Not only was he out of her reach, but he was older than her by over ten years. He thought of her as a child. More, after all she’d been through, she wasn’t certain she could be in a physical relationship with a man, although she was attracted to him. Like most things in her life she had no control over, she pushed thoughts of partnerships and children from her mind.
“That’s totally understandable,” Zahra said staunchly. “I’d be the same way. I think men should participate in raising their children.” She snuggled Misty closer to her. “And I don’t mean just discipline them.”
Harlow blew her a kiss. “Different generations were taught various things. Same with other countries and cultures. Hopefully, things are changing and we’re all evolving into better human beings.”
“I certainly saw evidence of that,” Shabina said. “There were so many people good to me. As parents, Salman Ahmad’s tribeall seemed to participate in raising the children. They treated them lovingly. The boys and girls were separated for education and a few other things, but they were treated with love by both the men and women in the tribe.”
“What were their religious beliefs?” Stella asked, curious.
“They followed the basic pillars of Islam. They were Muslim. They also followed the laws of the country. Women are subject to their fathers, brothers and husbands. In that tribe, it didn’t appear to be a hardship. The elders of the tribe and the women’s fathers appeared to have their best interests at heart. I was there a year and didn’t see a single woman beaten. I didn’t see a child struck.”
She missed them. Each of them. The men and women. It was strange because she loved her parents, but hadn’t spent nearly as much time one on one with them as she had with the female members of Ahmad’s tribe. They taught her so many things. She had always been curious, her brain active, and they encouraged her questions. They taught her practical and survival skills. Crafts. They taught her to play with the children. There seemed to always be laughter and singing.
When she was at home with her parents, her father was away at work, and her mother often traveled with him. She had a nanny and tutors. She and her mother shopped together, but her extracurricular activities and classes took up a great deal of her time. She lived in a loving home and didn’t lack for anything, but once she was with Ahmad’s tribe, Shabina realized she wanted to be the kind of parent who spent time with her child.
“What a difference it must have been to go from his tribe to being a real prisoner of a man like Scorpion,” Raine said.
Not just a difference. A shock.
Chapter Three
“This is crazy, Shabina,” Vaughn Miller said. “You’re going to have to hire more help. We can’t keep up. Every table is full both inside and outside and we have a line waiting.” He grinned at her, eyes bright with happiness.
Vaughn had first come to Knightly three years earlier to climb, camping out of a beat-up van, one of the many “dirt baggers” who lived to climb boulders and hike. Like quite a few others, he’d fallen in love with the small town and wanted to stay but needed to find a way to make enough money to rent one of the few coveted vacant places. The rentals went fast, and very few gave them up once they’d moved in.
He’d jumped at the chance of working for Shabina and her business had grown fast. She was great about sharing profits. The more money she made, the more she paid him. He was completely loyal to her and determined to help her any way he could. Together, they’d interviewed and hired one dishwasher, Nellie Frost; one waiter, Tyrone Michigan; and two waitresses, Patsy Daily and Chelsey Sarten. They were still swamped. Tyrone and Patsy were quickly moved up to head waitstaff, and Nellie became a waitress out of necessity. They all pitched in to do dishes.
Shabina sent Vaughn an answering smile. “We can’t fit in more tables and chairs, and even outside we don’t have room to expand. I don’t want to get any bigger. If we did, we’d lose the personal touch. This is as big as we’re going to get.”
“I guess I’ll be okay with that.” Vaughn studied the room. “Who are the five in the corner booth? I don’t recognize them.”
“The new crew to rehabilitate the trails in Yosemite. They’ll leave straight from here and head up. The crew chief said they’ve been hired for the summer.”
“Climbers?”
Shabina laughed. “How ever did you guess?” There were three men and two women on the trail rehabilitation crew. It was a never-ending job to keep the popular trails open and in good condition.
“And the three smart-looking newbies with Sean Watson?” Vaughn didn’t bother to hide his dislike of Sean.
Sean was one of four local men who came into the café, ate the food and then often complained loudly that it was terrible and refused to pay. He harassed Shabina often at the café and at the Grill, a local restaurant where live music was played and Shabina and her friends went to dance.
“Fish and Wildlife interns. He’s mentoring them or something. If I go near their booth, they harass me. The one with the sandy-colored hair is named Deacon, and he can’t resist making childish kissy noises. Naturally, Sean encourages him. He’s asked me out three times already.”
“We should have banned Sean from ever coming back here. I know he was one of those who graffitied the crap out of the café. He did it with his little band of friends, Jason Briggs, Bale Landry and Edward Fenton. We should have banned them all.”
Shabina privately agreed with him. The four men were amenace, and they’d taken a strong dislike to her. They believed she didn’t belong in the United States, despite the fact that she’d been born there and her father was American. She did have the Saudi Arabian features of her mother. She didn’t care what set their prejudices off; they didn’t like her and went out of their way to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
“So far, they haven’t managed to get under my skin,” she said truthfully. When a woman had been tortured and abused, verbal harassment with taunts and insults about her cooking skills wasn’t going to make her fall apart. “My philosophy is to kill them with kindness.”
“The twins?” Vaughn nodded to the two women sitting at one of the prime tables beside the window where one could get a good view of the sun rising.
“They were here last year. That’s Felicity Garner in the red and Eve in the purple. They lost their sister, Freda, who made them triplets. She died of dehydration with her husband, Emilio, and her daughter, Crystal, last year in Yosemite. There was a big investigation.”
