Safari Moon

by Rogue Phoenix Press

  Solo stepped farther into the room, his presence insinuating itself in every possible space. Speaking at Nyssa, he announced, “You didn’t return my calls. You weren’t on your bike all that time. There isn’t a customer in the shop. You’re avoiding me. Why?” He moved closer, his fists knotted tightly at his sides. The urgency of his voice made her wince. “My whole world has turned up-side-down. Nothing is as it’s supposed to be and now you’re acting different. I counted on you, Vanytha Harrington.”

  He was right. Something horrible must have happened. He never ever called her Vanytha. Why now? “You can, but--Solo.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  He was so close she could smell his after shave, feel the energy race through him. All his anger was directed her way. Still she wanted nothing more than to reach out and smooth the hair back that had fallen sexily across his eyes.

  Solo shuttered his features before he turned his back to her. He picked up the stacks of bicycle parts she’d toppled. When he finished, he returned his attention to her. He looked much calmer but in Solo’s case looks could be deceptive.

  “So why don’t you want to talk to me?”

  Nyssa retreated behind the counter where the cash register stood and tried to gather enough courage to answer. She was so much smaller than Solo that even standing on her tip-toes, it was impossible to straighten to a height comparable to his. But when she stepped on the footstool beneath the counter, the extra foot she gained made her feel things were a little closer to equal.

  “I’m preparing for a trip. I have to get in shape,” she told him with a hint of don’t-you-dare question my motives in her voice. “If I’m going to average seventy-five miles a day for two weeks I have to stay focused.”

  “What about manners? Or didn’t your mother ever teach you that returning messages was the polite way to proceed in a relationship.”

  “We don’t have a relationship!”

  “We do!”

  “No, we don’t.” She attempted a calming tone she didn’t feel. “We can’t.”

  “Nyssa! I need you.” Leaning on the counter, bringing them to eye level, so close she could feel the warm puffs of his breath on the tip of her nose, he looked deep into her eyes, giving her an all-knowing gaze. “My life has fallen apart at the seams. I didn’t get any sleep last night. Couldn’t get into my office this morning without being attacked and now you won’t speak to me. What the hell is going on?”

  “You exaggerate.” She turned and strode out from behind the counter, turning her back on him, pretending she could ignore him. She couldn’t but it didn’t matter. Solo was not the kind of man who would let anyone overlook him, not if he didn’t want them too. “I’m not your slave,” she murmured softly, a comment that was not meant to be overheard by Solo St. John.

  “I never thought you were.” He sounded hurt. “But this isn’t like you. You’ve always helped me out when I needed you.”

  “Not any longer. I have a life of my own and I’m not at your beck-and-call.” At twenty-nine she had known Solo an entire decade. And she’d had a hopeless, romantic crush on him for just as long. He’d never seen her in any other light than as his old buddy, Nyssa Harrington. Always available. Had she been so stupid for such a long time? She was finally happy. She’d come to accept the notion he’d never fall in love with her and she’d found someone else.

  “Okay, I didn’t mean to imply you were supposed to be there for me every time I nodded my head. But damn it Nyssa, don’t quit on me today. I’m a desperate man--not a monster. Can you forget everything we’ve shared in the past? I hope not because I need you to sort out this problem for me.”

  Something had gone awry in his life and he made her feel like a snake in the grass. She’d always been loyal to her friends. But this was the last straw.

  “Perhaps I have a business to run--clients to keep happy. Maybe you’ve asked for one favor too many. Have you ever thought past your own adventures?”

  For a few catastrophic seconds, he watched her as if she’d just slapped him in the face. She tried not to apologize. An explanation would put her back at ground zero and she couldn’t do that to herself. Solo would have to learn she would no longer be around to pick him up off the sidewalk and tend his wounds. He would have to grow up and learn how to fend for himself.

  His dreamy blue eyes, and that hopeless puppy dog expression he donned whenever he wanted her, would not sway her. If she wavered for a moment, she’d be doomed. She was strong.

  Solo St. John would never accept no for an answer.

  Chapter Three

  Everyone in the shop had gone home, Robert too. The closed sign on the front door faced out for the whole world to see. No one would come in. No one would rescue her. Left to her own devices she couldn’t think of one ploy.

  “I’m waiting.” Solo’s voice dropped several decibels which rendered it very endearing and oh so sexy.

  “Well--” She tried to act confident. The illusion didn’t last long.

  “Well--” He coaxed her.

  It was the most stilted, frustrating conversation she’d ever tried not to have.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “For you to explain yourself.” His tone so desolate and so pain-filled it broke her heart.

  Even though she knew he was sincere, the situation irritated her to the brink of her patience. Solo wasn’t acting but he was manipulating. He knew, from irrefutable experience, she would succumb to his tactics.

  “I’m not going to fall for your hound dog expression.”

  “I’m not asking you to, Vanytha.”

  “I hate that name. It’s prim and proper and...”

  “It suits you. You’ve always been proper and innocent. Sometimes gullible.” One of his lips quirked in a smile. “Prim used to be your middle name until you turned thirty.”

  “I’m not thirty.”

  “You’ll be just as beautiful when you turn the mark.”

  “Solo--”

  What kind of weak-willed woman was she? He wasn’t going to wear her down, but then he flashed those fabulous dreamy blue eyes at her, and she was in deep trouble.

  “So, Vanytha?” He made her name sound a little fanciful and too romantic. “What did I do to make you ignore me so blatantly?”

  “I’m not ignoring you. “It’s like I said. I’m preparing for a tour and I don’t have time to rush head-long into one of your little adventures.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Me too.” He shot her a sad forlorn look.

  “I mean it.” Holding her hand in a position that would catch his eye without looking brazen, she waited for a response to the diamond ring. “My fiancé won’t like it if you occupy my time.”

  That did the trick. “Fiancé? Not that stuffy banker? He lets you run all over the world on bike tours? That will tarnish his image. He always looked like the type that wants the little wife barefoot and pregnant.”

  "Senator. He's a United States senator." She refused to admit what he said had some real truth embedded in it. This wasn’t like Solo to be sarcastic or point out other people’s bad points.

  "Really?"

  “Robert wants the best for me.” She waited a moment, expecting another petulant remark. “He wants to save the world from corporate CEO's who rob the people blind. He wants me by his side.”

  “He wants a decoration not a wife.”

  “That’s not true. He loves me.”

  “Umm--”

  He had that Solo St. John stubborn look on his face. The one that said he didn’t believe anything she told him. It was blatantly obvious he didn’t like Robert. “And so your fiancé--Robert--he told you not to call me back.”

  “Well, no--”

  “He was the one that answered my phone call? You were here all the time. You had him lie for you.”

  “But.”

  “I never thought you’d refuse to see me or talk to me. That’s not like
you Nyssa.” There was a long pause and she fidgeted beneath his scrutiny. “You look different.”

  “I’m almost a married woman.”

  “I’m not sure--” His eyes roved over her. “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “It’s a shame to waste you on old Robert.”

  This was bizarre. Solo had never looked at her as a woman. He never noticed what she wore or how she did her hair. He never called her beautiful. Nyssa turned her back on Solo for a moment, hiding vulnerable emotions. She’d always wanted him to look at her that way.

  It must be the heat.

  If he’d planned this scenario, he couldn’t have done it better. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘waste me on Robert’.”

  “You’re too good for the guy.”

  “You’re wrong. He loves me--and he never asks me to bail him out of some misguided adventure. He’s stable--”

  “You gave up stable when you left New York.”

  “New York was a nightmare. I had to wake up and get out.”

  “What?” His eyebrows were up again. He questioned, probed.

  The only person she had ever confided in was Solo's grandmother. She was about to tell Solo how the greed and the dishonesty corrupted everyone and everything it touched.

  “Never mind. New York has nothing to do with you and your excursions. What about the time you were photographing whales? I had to get in the water with --him --the whale.”

  “You were never in danger. Ah, Nyssa, I know you were scared but I made sure the whale wasn’t close. With my zoom lens and all, the animal was a couple hundred yards away. You didn’t have anything to be frightened of.”

  “I wasn’t scared. I was cold.”

  “Come on, Nyssa--”

  “No, Solo. I’ve paid my dues where you’re concerned. I don’t owe you any more favors.”

  “Oh? Who caught the moths in your tent when you were in hysterics over them? Who changed the oil in your car when you couldn’t afford a mechanic? And who gave you grammar lessons when you couldn’t get through second year French?”

  Where favors were concerned, at the final tally, everything came out close to equal. That fact didn’t mean she had to grant him this one. They both had to grow up sometime and realize they were destined to live separate lives.

  “And,” he finished, with a sweeping gesture, “who got you through the computer course when you’d all but given up on the damn thing? You had to have computers 101 to graduate.”

  He always brought computers up. “I’d have figured the machine out in time.”

  “Perhaps the next year. I got you the job in New York--the start of your career.”

  One failed career and a job she hated. “Look what it got me. Firsthand knowledge of corporate giants who steal from the poor and give to themselves.”

  “But you thought you wanted the position at the time. I’m sorry New York didn’t work out. If I’d known beforehand, I never would have helped you.”

  She smiled slightly. How ironic. He still sweet talked her and manipulated her. He always knew what she wanted or needed to hear. “But one course doesn’t make up for the rhino that attacked my jeep or--”

  “Hold on. I was in the jeep too and we got away without a scratch.”

  “Come on,” she scoffed. “I went with you because you told me you were desperate. Just like today.”

  The slight hesitation was apparent. When she looked at him, his expression had changed. His boyish smile was gone and he looked all serious and a little sad. “I never thought. We were friends, helping each other out. I--”

  No. This wasn’t what she intended. She felt like a real heel. Me first. Rude wasn’t her usual style. She got more out of her association with Solo than she’d ever admit. Because she’d befriended him for one reason, she had always wanted to be close to him. Once close had satisfied her.

  “Nyssa,” he continued, in a slow, sexy voice, “I’ve known for years you’re one of a kind, a true-blue friend. I owe you. What you’ve done for me goes beyond a common friendship. If I haven’t thanked you, I’ll show my appreciation now. Thank you.”

  She inhaled deeply. “I don’t mean to be selfish. It’s just that I don’t want you to disrupt my life. Everything is perfect. I’m happy for the first time in so long.”

  “Are you really happy? Does Robert make you happy? Or are you just glad to be out of the rat race?”

  “Look at me. I’ve put on weight. I’m not all a pasty white. And I can look in the mirror in the morning and smile back at myself. I know I'm not swindling people out of their hard-earned dollars. I look forward to each new day.”

  “And Robert’s made you feel this way?”

  “He’s helped me. He understands what I went through, and he wants to change the way the rich can manipulate the laws.”

  Solo shook his head. “I don’t care if he gives you the world. Robert’s not right for you.”

  He closed the distance between them. With his hand beneath her chin, he lifted her head. She could feel his breath against her cheek and smell his aftershave. “Nyssa,” he said softly. “I’ll make this up to you. It’ll be the last time but you have to help me. I need you.”

  He tugged at her heartstrings again. But he did sound desperate, needy and he’d never sounded that sincere before. She couldn’t say no when he was so close to her. Leaning into the palm of his hand as he cupped his fingers against her cheek, she closed her eyes and tried one more time to resist him. “Tell me what happened.”

  “You might not believe me.” His voice grew hard. “My grandfather ran an ad for me. He made it sound as if I wanted a personal bed warmer, and what’s worse he implied that if my assistant pleased me, I’d marry her.”

  “Marriage?” She choked on the word.

  “The Colonel has given up on me. He knows I won’t come into the business. So he’s decided he has to have time to train an heir. Since he’d never stand for a complete scandal, he’s taken it upon himself to single-handedly find a wife for me.”

  “At least he wants you to proceed in the right order. Have you found a suitable mate?”

  “We’re not animals.”

  “Well have you?”

  “No!” Solo released her and as he whirled away he raked his hand through his hair. When he turned back, his appearance was disheveled and he looked vulnerable--needy. He jammed his hands in his pockets. “You know my grandfather wants me to join him. Ever since I left college and flew off to Africa, every letter he wrote said the same thing. I guess he finally understands but I’d prefer the letters. They were a lot easier to contend with.”

  Nyssa was suddenly able to breathe more easily, and her heart started to beat again. The words Solo and marriage in the same sentence rattled her.

  She knew him well enough to know he’d never let his grandfather run his life. Solo St. John controlled his own destiny.

  “I still don’t understand why you make this sound like it’s a matter of life or death.”

  His eyes darkened and if she didn’t know him better, she would have thought he was furious. “I’m desperate because everywhere I go I’m attacked by willing, eager, able women. They hide in my car--camp in my office--invade my cabin.”