by Lisa Harris
“Yes. I was just expecting someone a bit more academic and less…”
“Like a cowboy?” He tugged on the edge of his silver belt buckle. Maybe he should have opted for the safari look.
“That’s one way to say it.”
She pressed her hand against the top of her head to secure the hat covering her dark blond hair as a breeze blew it back slightly, revealing the handful of freckles sprinkled across her tanned face. She wasn’t the only one surprised by appearances. He’d expected more of a bookish-looking grad student from the snapshot her father had sent him. Instead, she was surprisingly pretty. Not his type, maybe, but very pretty. Not that it mattered. Between the time he needed to deal with his father’s failing health and his ambition of being captain for the Texas Rangers one day, a relationship at the moment didn’t exactly fit into the equation.
Especially since Shannon.
Losing her had convinced him that service to God and country were all he needed in his life.
Shoving aside his thoughts, he continued searching while trying to avoid the spindly thorns covering half the vegetation. The terrain reminded him of going out into the bush with his grandfather, a memory he’d carried with him from childhood, making the landscape feel surprisingly familiar.
Something caught his eye. He took out an empty gum wrapper from his back pocket and picked up a cigarette butt, wishing he had his equipment. “This must be what you were smelling. Looks like someone was stupid enough to almost burn down half this reserve.”
“It’s still smoldering.” Meghan took the gum wrapper and cigarette from him. “This isn’t the first time they’ve been here. The authorities found the same brand of cigarette where some poachers killed a male rhino six weeks ago.”
“Could be a coincidence.”
“Could be.”
“What would they want with a small reserve like this one?”
“Forty-thousand-plus dollars a rhino horn is enough motivation for them to strike wherever they want.”
Alex let out a low whistle. “Pretty impressive. But for someone making that kind of money, standing around and smoking while they wait for the rhino to show up seems a little low-tech. I seem to remember reading that poachers have been known to sweep in using helicopters like some high-tech black-ops scenario.”
“You make it sound like a scene from some action movie. There are basically two kinds of poachers,” Meghan said as she headed back toward the Jeep. “Those who come on foot or Jeep and simply shoot the rhino. Or the ones like you mentioned who use more high-tech methods, weapons and powerful knockout drugs. They can be in and out in a matter of minutes, severing the horn and leaving the rhino to bleed to death. We’ve already lost two out of eight at this reserve in the past three months.”
“Skilled hunters driven by financial gain and greed.” He slid into the passenger seat beside her.
“This is what you get when people are willing to pay more than the price of gold for a horn on the illegal market. Estimates are that they’re killing an average of one rhino every day. And, thanks to your sudden arrival, they missed their chance to get our rhino today.” She caught his gaze as she stepped on the gas and started for the lodge. “Who knows? You might be worth having around after all.”
Alex slid his sunglasses back on, then grabbed the metal bar of the Jeep as she followed the trail around a curve through the thick bush, wondering exactly what he’d gotten into. If she was determined to track down a team of deadly poachers, then babysitting Meghan Jordan might turn out to be much harder than he’d anticipated.
Maybe he should have ignored his father’s insistence that he come. The last time he’d taken any real time off had been months ago, and Africa wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind for his next vacation. A few days on a quiet island in the Caribbean sounded more to his liking. One day soon he was going to find himself a place where there were no people, no responsibilities and no damsels in distress.
But that day wasn’t today.
“Alex…” Meghan’s frantic voice broke into his thoughts as she pumped the brake pedal beside him. “I can’t slow down.”
“Try the emergency brake.”
She lunged for the handle, but it was already too late. Alex felt a sharp jolt as the Jeep plunged forward and smashed into the thick base of a baobab tree.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then the distinct call of a bird broke through the eerie quiet of the bush. Alex tried to absorb what had just happened. The realization they weren’t going to stop…the ensuing adrenaline rush…the final impact…
He turned to Meghan, who was starting to move. “You okay?”
“I think so. I just rammed my knee into the dashboard.” She rubbed a spot on her knee. More than likely she was going to have a nasty bruise by morning. “What about you?”
“I’m okay.”
He undid his seat belt, then slowly eased out of the vehicle, alert for any signs of their rhino or any other predatory creature he’d prefer not to tangle with. At least nothing seemed broken, though he’d probably be a bit stiff in the morning. They’d been lucky. It could have been a whole lot worse. If the vehicle had flipped and they’d been thrown out… He shook his head. He wasn’t even going to go there.
He moved around to the front of the Jeep to assess the damage. The entire front end was smashed against the tree. Even if it could be fixed, it was going to be a massive repair job. Alex rubbed his temples, wishing he could erase the headache beginning to pulse. There was another, bigger issue to consider. Even though Meghan had driven out in a different Jeep, he couldn’t discount the possibility that the accident was connected to the threats against her life.
TWO
Alex kicked the side of the bumper that now sat askew. Then, pushing the frustration down, he forced himself to think logically, like the investigator he was. “Who has access to the lodge’s vehicles?”
“Access?” Meghan hobbled to the front of the vehicle to make her own assessment, her knee clearly painful. “Everyone, I suppose—or rather, the small number of people who are in the area. They’re not exactly kept under tight security. We’re in the bush, twenty minutes from the nearest town. Except for poaching, crime isn’t exactly a huge issue here.”
“And at night?”
“They’re not locked up, if that’s what you mean. They sit in the parking lot when they aren’t being used in the bush or in for maintenance. The terrain is rough on them, so it’s a lot of work to keep them running.”
“So, in other words, anyone who wanted to could have access to them.”
She rested her hands against her hips and caught his gaze. “Are you implying this wasn’t an accident? Because if you are, that’s absolutely ridiculous. Like I said, the terrain is rough. Mechanical issues with the vehicles are the norm rather than the exception.”
“I’m not implying anything. I just…”
He closed his mouth, reminding himself that he wasn’t allowed to say more to warn her about the chance of danger. It wasn’t the first time he’d questioned Ambassador Jordan’s explicit instructions. He’d prefer to simply lay out the entire truth for Meghan. By the way, your father is worried someone is trying to kill you. And while you think I’m your new assistant, the truth is that your father just convinced me to blow my vacation time by working as your bodyguard and talked your boss into playing along so you wouldn’t suspect the truth. Hope you don’t mind.
He looked to where she stood. Brow furrowed. Questioning. No matter what he would like to say, he was pretty certain her father had been right about one thing. While he might not be her choice of assistant on her documentary team, she’d definitely send him packing if she realized he was here as her personal guard detail. From what he’d already seen, the girl had just enough spunk and stubbornness to make her believe she could handle things on her own. Which put it back on his shoulders to find a way to keep her out of trouble whether she wanted him to or not.
“You know, I’m
sorry.” He tried to erase the look of worry from his expression. “It’s been one of these weeks. I missed my flight out of Amsterdam, which resulted in them losing my bag. Then there was a flat tire on the way here, and now all of this….”
She slammed her open door shut with her hip. “Today might just be your lucky day after all.”
He leaned against the side of the vehicle and shot her a surprised look. “Lucky? Right. I always consider myself lucky when I’m chased by a rhino before wrapping a vehicle around a tree.”
“Think of it this way. We were scheduled to take this vehicle out today.” Alex kept his expression neutral, not visibly reacting to the information even as he mentally stored it away. “But Samuel noticed that the radio wasn’t working, so we swapped out vehicles.” She smiled at him. He wasn’t sure if she was flirting with him or simply being sarcastic. “So if it weren’t for the rhino incident, I’d be back safe and sound at the lodge, but you’d be here by yourself with no idea how to get back and no radio. Lucky you, though, I’m here, and I know the way back to the lodge.”
“That’s a very…optimistic way of looking at it.” He had to laugh. So Meghan was one of those eternal optimists? “What now? There’s no radio, but you have to have a cell phone on you, right?”
“A cell phone? No. Even if I did, there isn’t any service out here.”
Great. He glanced back at the Jeep. “Which is why you use radios.”
“Precisely.”
“Here’s another crazy question.” He hesitated, hoping he didn’t sound as worried as he felt. “What kind of predators might show up, besides our favorite rhino and a handful of poachers? Because this wreck isn’t going anywhere.”
“Don’t you have predators back in Texas?”
“I’ve tangled with a coyote or two.”
He tried to play down his concern, but his unease went far beyond what might be hiding on the other side of the bushes. Not only did she see the cup half-full, she was unaware that they faced any problem other than getting out of the bush. He was looking at an entirely different scenario. Maybe he was reading things into the situation, but if the vehicle had been sabotaged, someone had just sent a very clear message that they could get to her.
Something rustled behind him in the bushes. Alex pressed his back against the vehicle, ready to grab Meghan and bolt the pair of them up the nearest tree if necessary.
“It’s okay.” Meghan laughed. “It’s just an impala.”
“An impala.”
“An antelope. A lot of people mistake them for deer, but they actually come from different families. An impala’s color is more reddish-brown and they have permanent horns—”
“I know what an impala is.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
He held up his hand. He shouldn’t have snapped, but he couldn’t take any chances if someone had just tried to kill her. Nor was he thrilled about being out in the bush unarmed, where there were predators that would be more than happy to have him for dinner. He knew enough to realize that the hunter could quickly become the hunted. And unless someone came to their rescue, they were going to have to walk back to the lodge. At this point he wasn’t even sure which direction it was.
She took a step and winced, reminding him of their other problem. They were going to have to walk, and she clearly wasn’t going to make it far. The discoloration on her knee was already beginning to show.
“From the looks of it, you’re not going anywhere, either. At least not quickly.”
So much for outrunning the next animal that decided to have some fun with them.
“I’ll be fine.” She forced a smile. “And besides, Kate and Samuel know I’m out here. They probably assumed you drove me back to the lodge, but once they realize we’re not there, they’ll come looking for us. They know the area where we are, so it shouldn’t take them long to find us.”
He wasn’t convinced. “Not to be a pessimist or anything, but what if they don’t show up? Do you really think you can walk back to the lodge?
“Do you always worry like this?”
“Yes.”
His caution tended to go hand in hand with a job of hunting down the bad guys. For the past thirteen months he’d been after Dimitri Stamos, who’d left six people dead in his latest crime spree. Being on the alert for danger came as easily as breathing and was just as necessary in his life. He knew how to track and hunt down criminals, but trekking through the bush eluding wild animals—and possibly dangerous humans, too—was different.
He glanced down at her again, in her khaki shorts and boots, looking completely at home in the middle of the African bush—and compellingly attractive despite his best intentions not to notice. What he couldn’t avoid noticing was her refusal to back down.
“There is nothing to worry about.” She didn’t seem to notice his conflicted mood. “I’ve been working out here for months, and while we typically go out with a gun, we’ve never had to use it.”
“Until today,” he reminded her.
“It was a warning shot. That rhino was more afraid of us than we would ever be of him.”
Right.
“How far to the lodge?”
“Two, maybe three miles at the most.”
Alex frowned. This wasn’t going to work. “You can barely walk.”
She took another step and forced a smile, though the pain radiating in her eyes was clear. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
He tried to formulate a plan with the little information he had. Staying in the open Jeep after dark seemed more foolish than prudent. Walking through the bush with the chance of encountering a leopard or lion seemed just as foolish. Somehow he needed to come up with a plan C.
“What do you think you’ll do when something starts chasing you and you can’t outrun it?” he asked.
“Like I said, in my experience, most animals are going to be more afraid of us than we are of them.” She glanced at the baobab the Jeep sat wrapped around. “Or there’s always the nearest tree.”
Maybe so, but he wasn’t looking forward to taking his chances. “How long until dark?”
She glanced at her watch. “Forty-five minutes…maybe a bit less.”
At a brisk pace they could make it—if they didn’t get eaten along the way. And if he helped her. He hesitated, then bridged the gap between them.
“I say we take our chances and walk, but you’re going to lean on me.”
“Really, it’s not that bad.” She took another step, then reached down to rub the bruised spot on the side of her knee that was already starting to swell.
“Right. You need to get off the leg and ice it, but since you can’t do that, you’re going to have to let me help you.”
She looked up at him with those big brown eyes of hers took another step, winced, then stopped. “Fine.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, wishing her hair didn’t smell like lavender and that her lashes didn’t go on forever when she looked up at him. He’d figured she’d be intelligent. He hadn’t planned on her being such a…distraction.
The only solution to the problem, as far as he could see, was to tell her the truth. If she knew he was here doing a favor for one of his father’s old army buddies, who happened to be her own somewhat-estranged father, she’d be furious. Attraction definitely wouldn’t be a problem, since she wouldn’t let him within five miles of her. But if he blew his cover and told her the truth, he wouldn’t be able to protect her. And with the way things were spiraling out of control in the current election, and after what he’d seen today, he tended to believe that her life really was in danger. She needed him here, whether she knew it or not. And that meant he couldn’t do anything to drive her away.
Alex shifted his gaze back to the uneven path, pushing aside his straying thoughts as he tried to focus on the situation at hand. All he needed to do right now was get them back to the lodge in one piece. “Which way?”
“That way.
” She nodded toward their right, then stopped. “I forgot my bag.”
He grabbed her camera bag out of the Jeep, waited until she’d adjusted it on her shoulder, then wrapped his arm around her waist again. She looked up at him before slowly wrapping her arm around his waist. The wind blew a strand of her hair across his face. He brushed it aside, tightened his grip, then started walking.
There was something about her that intrigued him.
Okay, more than just one thing. Meghan Jordan was a filmmaker, seemingly as comfortable in the African bush as most women were at a shopping mall. She was intelligent, strong-minded and undeniably beautiful. Exactly what he wasn’t looking for.
Alex swallowed hard. He really needed a distraction.
*
Meghan took another step and tried to ignore the pain.
“You okay?”
She nodded at his question, avoiding his gaze. Her knee was already swelling, but while she might need a distraction from the pain, Mr. Lone Star wasn’t what she had in mind.
Today, she’d looked forward to filming some of the final scenes with Kibibi and her cubs. Instead, Alex had torpedoed into her life, bringing with him a string of disasters. He’d barely been here an hour, and he’d ticked off a rhino and gotten them stranded out in the bush.
All right, maybe it hadn’t been his fault that the Jeep had malfunctioned, but still, the vehicle they’d been driving was now wrapped around the trunk of a baobab tree. Nothing like that had happened to her before he’d shown up.
She should be mad at him, but instead, having him so close was wreaking havoc with her equilibrium. Which left her wondering what bothered her the most. The fact that she’d just been sent an assistant who more than likely didn’t know anything about the African bush, or the fact that she couldn’t ignore the feel of his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
She searched for something to say to break the awkward silence between them as they followed the narrow trail bordered by the overgrown forest. “You do know the most important rule of the bush, don’t you?”