Wild Encounter

by Nikki Logan

  “What if you’re nowhere near the signal?”

  “This is why it takes such patience and skill.” And why Musai had gone eleven hours without a single detection last year. “You could go days without a peep, but if you take your ears off the tracker for just a second you could miss the first whisper of signal and drive right past.”

  Musai sat still for the most part, listening intently. Every now and then he signaled with two fingers and Mitch altered course accordingly, keeping their pace through the low rushes of the dambo wetland. Clare flicked her eyes to the mirror to see Simon turn his vehicle, too. Gazelle darted out of their way, and a tawny head rose up from the distant grass to stare at them. A wildebeest went by, and a pair of zebra and, startlingly, a hippo munching on sweet grasses watched them bump past its watering hole, its glistening skin drying out in patches. She touched Tim’s leg and nodded in the hippo’s direction.

  “The most dangerous animal in Africa,” she said.

  “Aren’t they vegetarians?” Tim asked, practically in her ear.

  “I didn’t say they’d eat you,” Clare said with a laugh. “Just kill you.”

  About five kilometers from camp, the terrain changed slightly into the sort of open woodland wild dogs preferred. Clare’s excitement grew.

  They must be close now.

  Musai had one hand on his earphone and his head tilted in concentration, reading the subtle detail in the signal. Finally, his weathered hand rose. Mitch slowed to a stop and killed the engine. The throaty purr of Simon’s SUV ceased, too. After the noise of the wind rushing past them, the rattle of the engine, and the crack of branches under their tires, the comparative silence was eerie.

  No one spoke for a moment, tuning in to sounds of the bush. Mitch pulled the shotgun out from under the passenger seat. Simon stepped up to the side of the jeep, a much more modern and lethal weapon in a casual hold. The pump action shotgun looked totally out of place paired with his Saville Row suit, no matter how torn. But the man looked unnervingly competent. And sexy as hell.

  Damn. She tore her gaze away and concentrated on the task at hand.

  Musai lead the way with the tracker held high over his head. He swiveled it until the signal was strongest, then set off at a confident pace toward a dense copse of leafy, heavy-topped Nyala trees.

  Simon moved around to her other side. She worked hard not to stiffen her spine. And even harder not to look at him again.

  They approached the trees and stopped, adjusting to the light and temperature difference beneath the leafy canopy. Rich, damp earth wafted up from the decomposing leaf-litter and welcomed them deeper into the shadowy privacy of the shade. Suddenly, Clare’s heartbeat kicked up as she made out the distinctive yips and twitters of a group of wild dogs.

  Her dogs!

  “Mhumbi.” Musai flipped the earphones off his head and lowered the tracker, satisfied its job was done. The five of them entered the grove, crouching, barely breathing, wincing at every snapped twig and crunched leaf until they reached the far side. Clare lay down flat in the fringe of ferny bracken and raised her binoculars to her eyes, studiously ignoring Simon as he sank onto his haunches next to her.

  She scanned the pack, quickly doing a head count. Twelve. She wondered with a pang which two hadn’t made it. The dogs were at rest, playing and sleeping near a waterhole that glittered and blinked as sunlight filtered down through the canopy. Wherever they’d been dumped off by the poachers, they had managed to find this little piece of heaven all by themselves and make it home.

  Her eyes were drawn up to Simon of their own accord. As though by instinct, his flicked down and their gazes met. And held for a long moment.

  Her pulse spiked.

  She swallowed, and once again forced her gaze away from him.

  Mitch pulled out a flip-pad and started to sketch the pack’s distinctive features. Each dog was identified by the unique patterns on its coat. Some were easier to recognize than others. Evolution had provided their natural camouflage, a random pattern of black, rust, and white patches, which allowed the animals to blend into the dappled light of the African bush. Clare focused her binoculars closer in on the pack in an effort to distinguish dog from dog in the mêlée.

  On one big male a collar was clearly visible, as red as the stain around his muzzle.

  Her breath caught with recognition, and a piece of her heart healed over. Jambi. The alpha.

  “Hello, old friend,” she breathed with a smile.

  Musai gasped softly and sat bolt upright. Simon’s fingers slipped automatically to a more lethal position on his shotgun, but Clare followed Musai’s keen gaze. Two tiny, dark-furred bundles emerged from the main group and tumbled around play-fighting for a few seconds before darting back under cover.

  “My God,” she whispered joyfully. The pack had bred! That’s how much this territory suited them.

  “That explains why the pack hasn’t moved in weeks,” Mitch whispered back.

  Clare eased out a breath and rose up to sit more comfortably in the ferns. To her right, Simon let his finger fall from the trigger and lowered the barrel with a half grin, watching the pups.

  “They’re pretty cute when they’re young,” he murmured softly. “Shame they grow up to be savage mongrels that stink worse than a barrel of week-old road kill.”

  Four outraged faces swiveled to scowl at him.

  “Kidding,” he whispered on a wink.

  Clare jabbed her elbow into his arm. “Shut up, Simon.” She hadn’t yet decided if she would ever forgive him. She really didn’t want to start liking him before she made up her mind.

  It took about twenty minutes to identify all twelve of the adults and figure out who hadn’t made it—two females, Petanke and Katala. Musai tapped his watch meaningfully, and so they packed up to go then retreated carefully on their bellies or all fours. Clare’s eyes never left the pack. Rule number one. Unlikely the dogs would defend in this situation, but better safe than sorry. Her backward crawl was awkward compared to Simon’s mean reverse-commando out of the undergrowth even with his weapon in hand. He straightened up off to one side, still on high alert.

  Total super-spy.

  “How about that?” she said excitedly to the others when they were well clear. “Pups! Can you believe it?”

  “Fourteen,” Musai said in particularly pleased-with-himself Shona.

  With good reason. They would be moving fourteen dogs to new habitat, after all.

  She turned happily to Tim. “You’ll name the pups? I’d love you to have the privilege, as project sponsor.”

  He nodded, but he looked uncomfortable for the first time since she’d met him. She slid her hand over his and curled her fingers around it. She remembered how moving she’d found her first pack sighting.

  In her periphery, Simon’s focus shifted slightly in their direction, and she knew he was watching her with Tim. What was his problem? With one frown he could make her feel embarrassed, defensive—utterly high—or ashamed of doing nothing more than expressing her gratitude to a new partner.

  She dropped her hand.

  Unless he was just jealous…?

  She snorted under her breath. Right. He’d had six months to contact her and start something more personal. Or give her an explanation. Or, God forbid, an apology. She wasn’t that hard to find. Especially not with the resources of British Intelligence behind him.

  But had he? No.

  She shook loose of his stormy surveillance by helping Musai pack up the tracking gear, chatting amiably with him about the dogs and the pups. Mitch jogged on ahead and returned lugging one of three dik-dik carcasses they’d brought along. He dumped it where Jambi would find it later when entering the area to investigate the scents left by the humans. These were the first of several food lures which would hopefully draw the pack the three miles to the campsite and into the waiting pens.

  Simon cleared his throat. She started. He was standing right next to her.

  “Clare, can I have a wo
rd?”

  Everyone stopped dead and stared.

  He ignored them all. “You can drive back with me in the Nissan.” His request was more of an order.

  The flutter of her heart, so pleased at seeing the dogs again, stalled. Had she really thought she could put him off indefinitely? Obviously he wasn’t having it. Which was fine. She had quite a few things she wanted to say to him, now that her initial shock had worn off.

  “Okay. I’ll see you back at camp,” she told the others.

  They dragged their feet as they piled into the other vehicle, and only a grateful smile from Clare reassured Musai enough to get him in the jeep at all. The old rattle-trap reversed, swung around in a big circle, and drove off, insultingly loud after the tranquil silence of the past half hour.

  She waited until the noise had faded into the distance, keeping her spine ramrod straight by sheer force of will. Just standing next to Simon made her skin tingle and her knees weak. She didn’t want this kind of reaction to him, but her body didn’t listen. This close, he seemed so much bigger than her memory of him. So much more alive than the images of him she carried in her mind. His nearness, the scent of him, the heat of him… Lord, they hit her all at once.

  So much needed to be said, but she refused be the first to speak.

  She just wasn’t that brave. Or that stupid.

  “Pretty sure they’re out of earshot now,” he said with a smile.

  More humor? Really? When she was in such an agony of emotion? She rounded on him, limbs tight. “So. You’re a secret agent, Simon?”

  “Field operative, technically—”

  “Or maybe I should call you Agent deVries.”

  He raised his free hand. “Clare, stop—”

  But she couldn’t. “Do you know how hard it’s been for me to get over that week?” she demanded. To get over you? “How incredibly traumatized I was? And the whole time you were undercover? What the hell, Simon?”

  She shoved at his chest with both hands. Because pushing a man holding a high-powered shotgun was always a good idea.

  “Step back, Clare,” he warned, bracing himself on strong legs.

  “No. Hell, no.” She stalked a few paces away from him. “You do not get to tell me what to do. I am in charge here. Me. This is my world.” A world she loved and valued. And needed. Without him in it.

  He pursued her. “Look, I know you’ve had a tough year—”

  “You think?” She snorted.

  She stalked in the opposite direction from the dogs…and Simon. She needed distance. His identity may have changed—his clothes, his hair, his freaking profession—but nothing about the magnetic pull he exuded had changed one little bit. She just couldn’t think standing this close to him. She was getting high on his smell.

  Galling as that was.

  It was beyond her how he could act so casual and unaffected. Surely, he must be wound tight as a spring at seeing her again, too—the woman who drugged him and left him for dead.

  That last thought stopped her cold.

  Good lord. She’d drugged a British intelligence officer. Which was probably against at least a dozen laws. Still, if he’d planned to have her arrested, he’d have done so months ago.

  He’s a good guy, her subconscious urged. And he’s alive. This was a good thing.

  It wasn’t exactly the fantasy she’d entertained so often about him living a simple, honest life on a tropical beach, but it wasn’t too far off. Couldn’t she be even a little bit happy about that?

  All the fight sucked out of her. “What an idiot I was not to have realized.”

  And to have believed for a moment that he’d been so protective because of growing feelings for her.

  A muscle below his eye twitched, but his body relaxed. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if anyone realized.”

  He was lumping her in with everyone else?

  Sure. Why should now be any different?

  He lifted a hand to slide his sunglasses atop his head and she took in the full impact of his gray eyes—cautious, veiled, and uncompromising. They might as well have stripped her bare.

  Something dark and powerful closed around her heart. He let go of his glasses and reached out to gently trace the worst of the scratches on her face. The ones from her terrified dash through the acacia. She flinched. The unexpected gentleness threw her, but nowhere near as much as his touch.

  “You need a medic,” he said, dropping his fingers.

  “I’ve survived worse.” She meant the time she nearly sliced her leg open on barbed wire in the Appalachians, but the half wince he failed to hide told her he was thinking about the farmhouse.

  Well, that seemed only just. She’d never stopped thinking about it.

  Silence stretched between them. A yellow throated longclaw did its best to ease the tension with a treetop aria. It wasn’t working.

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? To recommend a bandage?”

  “I was on a mission, Clare. I had no choice. I had to see it through.”

  The short speech sounded just a little too rehearsed. The thought that he’d had to prepare for this moment—that all that confidence didn’t literally run in his veins—satisfied her enormously, since her own tongue was still as good as tied in knots.

  Of course he’d had to see it through, that wasn’t the question. He’d put both their lives at risk and he wouldn’t have done that lightly. If it was important enough for SIS to send him undercover, she totally understood he had to finish the mission.

  It would be like her leaving her dogs half rescued. Unthinkable.

  She nodded. Quick and tiny. “And did you? See it through?”

  Did they hurt you when I left?

  The unspoken question was the one she wanted answered more than anything. She’d so desperately needed to know he hadn’t come to any harm after she escaped. Because she’d left him unconscious and vulnerable. He appeared to be unscathed, but a shirt could hide a lot more scars than her bracelets. She unconsciously fiddled with them. His eyes followed the noise of their jangle. She slipped her hands behind her.

  “I stayed undercover for a few more weeks. Gathering what we needed to take the biggest players down.”

  So that explained the first few weeks. But what about the rest? Hadn’t he given her a single thought once it was over? Which begged the question, “Is it over?”

  His eyes shuttered. “We’re nearly there, now.”

  Nearly? “We?”

  “There’s a whole department working on this one.”

  She digested that. “Is… Your partner, she’s on the case, too?”

  He glanced away. “She is. That’s why we’re here.”

  Her gut flipped as understanding streamed in. A dull ache spread outward from her sternum. “So you’re here to finish the job, then. I thought the British embassy sent you.”

  Stupid, stupid, fool. Did she really think he’d come for her?

  She turned away and took a deep breath. She was no more special to him now than she had been in the farmhouse. He was just doing his job. Then, and now.

  “Yes, the embassy arranged an escort with MI6. Our taskforce was the obvious choice since we need to tie up some final evidence for the case.”

  Evidence. Of course.

  She ran her hands up and down her arms.

  He misunderstood the gesture. “The sun’s going down. We should get back.”

  But the goose bumps on her arms weren’t the kind a warm vehicle could do anything about. This chill was bone deep. Nonetheless, she slid in through the door he held open for her. She didn’t want to drag this out. Apologize and let it go, she told herself firmly. After all, that’s what he seemed to have done.

  But courage seemed to be hemorrhaging out of her.

  “What kind of evidence?” she stalled, hating her own weakness.

  He shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t talk about that.”

  Naturally. “As long as your orders don’t affect the project.”

/>   “They won’t,” he assured her.

  “Good.” Not that there was anything she could do about it.

  He started the SUV and they headed back through the park.

  Come on, Delaney. Man up! There was something she needed to know, could she not even ask a simple question? She turned in the luxury leather seat. “The last time I saw you—”

  Her words caught him too unaware to mask his wince, though he covered it quickly. “You did well to escape the way you did. I’m just sorry you had to…” His deep voice trailed off.

  Drug me? Leave me lying there out cold and vulnerable? Betray me right after we’d made love? Clare silently completed the litany, acutely ashamed for sticking that needle in his arm.

  “I only did it to get away. I never would have— That’s not something I would ever do under less than life-threatening circumstances.” She was babbling. “Obviously.”

  His face shut down. Like ice over a winter lake. “Obviously.”

  Clare blinked. Okay, so he wouldn’t accept her apology. Would it really change anything if he did? Even so, it hurt. And also explained why he hadn’t tried to find her before now. They drove on in silence as she wrestled feelings back to the far recesses of her heart, along with hopes she hadn’t realized she harbored.

  She swallowed. “What happened to the other men? Boots, Jo, Zimbabwe?” It seemed safer to talk about them.

  His puzzled glance reminded her he’d never heard her nicknames for her captors. But he knew who she meant. “Mbuutu and Corby got away. Dyson and Sergeant are in custody, arraigned for court at the end of the year. Refused bail. You may need to testify at their trial since your kidnapping is one of the secondary charges.”

  Her brows rose. So did her temper. “The worst week of my life only rates a ‘secondary?’ The primary charge must be a doozy.” She imagined being cross-examined about the finer details of her time in the farmhouse. Boots’ violence towards her. Simon’s contrasting concern. And that last day…

  He glanced sideways. “I can’t discuss the details with you.”