Ranna stowed her precious package in a plastic bin on the floor of the leaky old dhow, while Sixto handed the harbor boy a riyal for watching their boat. She loosened the dock lines as Sixto started the motor, and the grumble of the outboard engine ripped into the early evening air. To the west, the sky was already tinged pink and brilliant crimson by the sun setting gently over the Omani cliffs. Ranna hoped they'd reach home before dark.

Once their dhow zoomed around the seawall from the port city of Salalah, the long beach stretched for miles to their north. Here and there, a surreal green glow from lighted fishing dhows dotted the waters close to the shore. Like small gleaming water bugs, they careened over the water in unison heading out with the tide, and would not return until morning.

However, unlike the fishing boats, Sixto and Ranna were headed westward for home. As Sixto navigated around the harbor seawall, she helped to stow the lines, and removed the sunglasses she had donned to hide her identity.

"I'm happy you were able to come with me." Ranna glanced at the leathery tanned old man, whose wrinkles belied his young spirit. His face was pointed into the wind, and his wiry white hair was slicked back by the rushing air.

"I miss having a daughter to shop with." Sixto admitted. "I enjoy our time together."

"I don't think my husband would have been as pleased to come with me."

"Do not say that, Ranna. Nadim loves you."

"He's gone to Dubai again. That's always his excuse. His work." Ranna felt no remorse in belittling her husband, even though he heard Sixto sigh at her.

"He has important work to do. His work is meant to protect you."

"If he worries so much about me, why is he never here?"

"He will be back when he can." Sixto returned to looking ahead, guiding their boat not based on a compass, but on decades of intuition. The derricks that lined Salalah's busy shipping port had already disappeared beyond the horizon. The sweltering heat of the day was replaced by a rapidly dropping temperature as the sand-filled desert behind the sun-scorched cliffs off their starboard drew the cooler winds from over the glistening Arabian Sea to their left. Orange sunlight glinted off the wave crests, and the smoky petrol exhaust was washed away by the salty air of the sea.

Upon the ocean was one of the few places outside of her home that she felt comfortable taking off her favorite blue silk hijab. She shook her long brown hair out and scratched the itches that could not be reached when she wore the headscarf in public. The fresh sea air whipped her hair about her face. It felt good to feel the wind again.

It was not seemly for a woman to be wandering the souk alone, which is why she had asked the Legalto's groundskeeper to come with her on this errand. Furthermore, in Sixto's small fishing boat, they had not needed to use the VHF to call the port authorities as they did when they docked with the yacht, which was far too conspicuous.

Having to always be chaperoned grated on Ranna. Ranna, you must not go to the souk alone. Someone might kidnap you. Ranna, you must not go out sailing alone. Someone might kidnap you. Ranna, you must not talk to men. Someone might kidnap you. She had lived twenty-five years in Oman, and no one had kidnapped her yet. She didn't see why she always had to be careful, lest someone recognize her as Nadim Legalto's wife. They had become nothing but empty threats, and she envied the way men could go about doing what they pleased.

Sixto turned to look at her. "Will you be mad at me as well, when I leave for Dubai?"

"You are going to Dubai too? Why?"

"I am getting too old for this life. It is time I retire in peace. I will join Carmen and my grandson there." It had been a few years since Sixto's only daughter had left for Dubai, and when she left Ranna cried as if she had lost a sister. When Ranna married Nadim, the Filipino-born man had become like a father to Ranna, and here he was talking of leaving?

"Is it not peaceful here?" Lulled by the rumble of the wooden boat's little engine, Ranna gazed wistfully at the surrounding clouds of swirling white, into which the fishing dhows had all disappeared. How could Dubai be more peaceful than this?

"Ah, my dear," Sixto saw her sorrowful expression. "The world is rarely peaceful anywhere, but often one can find peace with one's family."

"You are my family, Sixto." Ranna's heart was ripped. Since she and Nadim escaped to Yemen in the early years of the Somalian civil war of the 1990's, they had not gone back to Oman to see any family. If Sixto was going to Dubai to be with his "family" -- Carmen and Kris -- then what was she? She was crushed by that one word, which signified that she was not to him what he was to her. He would leave her for the family that was truly his.

"Take me with you, Sixto." She hid her pain with an attempt at a laugh that came out more strangled than she had intended. She was afraid of his reply. She wanted him to say he would take her with him. Then at least she would know he cared.

"Actually, your husband has already planned that you will join him in Dubai soon, as well. Then possibly to India from there." The familiar sight of her home dock was coming into view on the horizon.

"India?" Matters were going from horrible to worse.

"Yes," Sixto busied himself with preparing to dock. "Nadim said there will be more opportunities for you both there."

"Opportunity?" she murmured absently. "But why now?"

"That is for you to ask your husband."

Her mind flashed back to the events of the last week. After dinner, Nadim had announced that he was leaving his current job for another one in Dubai. Then, he had brought her upstairs to his study. From his safe, behind the desk, he had brought out some papers, and had shown her the numbers to different bank accounts, all in Dubai. She could not understand why he was telling her this. Being in the oil trade, he was often going to Dubai on trips. "What difference did it make to me?" she wondered.

The thought of leaving Oman made her stomach lurch a little. Would she ever stay in one place? Always leaving one home for another.

Sixto caught her worried look. "Don't worry, Ranna. You will like India!"

Ranna managed another wan smile at Sixto, and the hug he gave her in response warmed her heart. Nothing in the world comforted her as knowing Sixto cared as much about her as she did him. Since she married Nadim, she had endured the other servants' whispers they thought she could not hear, that she was spoiled and petulant, that Nadim gave her everything she wanted. They could never understand, as she did, how much Nadim wanted to return to normalcy. They'd both lost many family in the war. All the gifts in the world could never match the love that Nadim had shown her. At least in Dubai, they could be together again.

"But I won't go to India. I've never even been to India. Why India?" She mused as they reached the mouth of the bay where Nadim's sailboat was docked..

She carefully replaced her silky blue hijab, tucking the stray curls of her hair that refused to behave after the wild windy spree they'd enjoyed. She then scooped up the package she had stowed so carefully under the seats in a waterproof plastic bin. It was still dry.

"I think he will like it." Sixto smiled approvingly over her shoulder.

"You think so?" She looked out at the cliffs surrounding the secluded beach where their mansion lay high above the water.

"Yes." Sidling up to the the dock, Sixto expertly cut the motor and looped a line about a piling as they passed. The boat slowed to a halt, and Sixto, despite his age, lithely hopped off and secured the stern.

Ranna stepped off as well, and using a bow line, she secured the dhow from its front end. "Well, for four-thousand riyals, I sure hope so. Thank you for helping me. Without you there to help me, I doubt I could have bargained him down so far."

Santos chuckled. "You will learn. It takes practice. You see, my growing up, we had very little money. If you are poor, you must learn to survive."

"I know, I know." Ranna sighed. "I am a spoiled rich woman."

Santos hugged her gently. She gently removed the thick red velvet cloth with which the vendor had chosen to wrap her gift to her husband. In her hands, the beautiful gun seemed enormous. The revolver had a six-round chamber, and the shiny steel gleamed in the brilliant sunshine of a beautiful Omani midday. She laughed at the memory of the salesman behind the booth who had even added a box of bullets to his sale so Sixto could show her how to load it. She had nodded and reluctantly listened to him. "I'll never use it. So why does he bother to teach me?" she mused.

"There you go, Miss Ranna." He released her from his embrace, and her happiness over the successful adventure to the souk turned into melancholy. How many more times would they be together like this? How many more opportunities would she have to learn the things that he could teach her? She was not ready for the changes that would occur with Sixto's departure and her impending move. She sensed even he was reluctant when he finally turned to hop back onto his boat.

"Thank you, Sixto. I'll see you tomorrow." She was about to head up the stairs to the mansion with the birthday gift, and then thought better of it. "Can you hold onto it for me? I will wrap it at your house, so that Nadim doesn't see." Ranna handed him the gift, and smiled when Sixto acquiesced.

As she started up the stairs, she passed a beached fishing dhow on the sand. Occasionally fishermen stopped to fix their nets on their private beach, but this boat was strangely empty.

The stone steps she climbed led to the Legalto's back door veranda. She reached for the door knob, only to have the door flung open. Her heart jumped and her body froze.

A strange man stood in the doorway, with a gun pointed at her abdomen.