by Lisa Harris
Alex glanced down at her darkened knee in the shadows. “Is your leg bothering you?”
“It’ll be fine. It’s just understandably sore and, yes, it’s keeping me awake.”
“You need to get it—”
“Checked out? I know. I’ve heard that before. It’s nothing, though. Really. Just a bit banged up in a lovely shade of rainbow.”
He laughed, then clicked off his flashlight. Lightning illuminated the sky. A slight drizzle had started to fall, adding to the coolness of the night. She might be ready to laugh off the incident, but he wasn’t. He’d promised her father to keep his real identity a secret, but clearly keeping Meghan in the dark regarding that identity wasn’t going to be easy.
Because he couldn’t watch her constantly, which left him unsure how to proceed. In the past when he’d been involved in guarding civilians, they had a safe house, full disclosure and backup. But this was a different situation. Meghan wasn’t the suspect in some case he was investigating or the witness getting ready to testify. She was an innocent victim caught up in a battle that wasn’t her fault. And she didn’t even know what she was up against.
The only thing in his favor right now was the upped security across the reserve due to the poachers. Tomorrow he needed to brief Ian, the manager, about the situation and get to know the guards—
“Alex?”
He looked at her. Wind blew through her hair. Her eyes were bright, though her lips curled slightly downward. “Sorry, I was thinking.”
He shifted his thoughts back to the matter at hand. Something was still bothering him. He needed more information. Needed to know what he was up against. Had someone been sent here to scare her, or was it only the poachers they had to worry about?
“Thinking about what?”
“About the poachers, for one. You said that the last person who got in the way of the poachers was murdered. What happened?”
She started up the path to her chalet, limp obvious. “You’re worrying again.”
He wanted to say it was his job. That while he’d love to be visiting his grandparents’ farmhouse or even going out on safari every morning, as he would if this was a real holiday, his responsibilities ran far deeper than being an assistant producer of a conservation documentary. Doing his job without her knowing was going to be a challenge no matter how he looked at it. And first, he had to figure out exactly what he was up against.
“It didn’t happen here,” she said.
“Where?”
“Another reserve about a two-hour drive from here.”
“And?”
“It was one of these situations when someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“What happened?”
“One of the guards stumbled across the poachers as they were trying to leave the reserve. He was killed.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“He was twenty-nine years old. Had a wife and a newborn baby. The poachers were after the rhino’s horn—”
“I’ve heard people use the ground-up horn for medicine.”
Meghan nodded. “It’s primary market is Asia. Problem is, there’s no medical proof that it does any good at all. Which means the guard was killed over a so-called medicine that doesn’t even work.”
“Did you know him?”
“No.” Compassion was clear in her voice. “But several of the workers here did.”
The rain was still holding off to nothing more than a few drops as the lightning flashed its purple tint against the open savanna, illuminating the acacia trees scattered across the landscape.
“It’s a crazy, mixed-up world we live in,” she said.
“Yes, it is.”
Her gaze dipped as she shook her head. “Which is why I’m sorry.”
Alex’s brow narrowed. “For what?”
“For taking out my frustration on you. Sometimes living here is like being in the perfect world. Beautiful, secluded, sheltered. It becomes easy to forget the pain and suffering happening right outside the perimeter. But the poachers changed that, reminding all of us that we’re vulnerable, even here. Today was another reminder of that, and I wasn’t very fair in the way I reacted.”
He was used to living outside the perimeter. He faced life-and-death situations on a daily basis, which was why sometimes he found himself forgetting there was actually any beauty left in the world.
Something brushed against his legs. Alex jumped back, jamming his calf into a thornbush. “Ouch.”
Meghan laughed as she shone her flashlight on the intruder. “I’d say we found our nighttime visitor. Alex, meet Becky.”
Becky snorted.
“Becky?”
Alex’s first instinct was to run. He looked down at two hundred pounds of wild boar with the additional eight inches of protruding tusks. He’d seen a man impaled by one back home.
Meghan didn’t seem concerned. “She’s a warthog.”
“I can see that, but is she…friendly?”
“Extremely. Tourists love her, and she loves the attention. And, if you ask me, I think she likes you.”
Her laugh deepened as Becky rubbed her coarse hair against his leg. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but the look of shock on your face…”
Meghan’s laugh was contagious. He smiled. Here he was standing on the soil of his mother’s homeland while a thunderstorm swept through, sharing a joke with a fat pig and a beautiful woman.
He laughed with her. “Why in the world is she called Becky?”
“Ian’s daughter, Rebecca, named her and it stuck. She’s quite legendary around here.”
A flash of lightning caught her smile, warming him from the inside out. What was it about this woman that had him laughing over the antics of a favored pig? What bothered him even more was the strange feeling that her laughter was soothing the ache inside he hadn’t even had time to sort out.
She cocked her head and caught his gaze. “Don’t you have wild pigs on your ranch back in Texas?”
“Yes, but when I see them, I’m usually shooting at them and they’re running in the opposite direction. My dad can make some mean barbecued ribs.”
Becky ran off, her tail twitching straight up. “Now you’ve made her mad, talking about ribs and barbecues right in front of her.”
Alex laughed again. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“It’s just been a while since I’ve laughed like that.”
She smiled up at him. “Me, too.”
Maybe his father had been right. Alex hadn’t planned on taking his vacation days at all in the near future, much less spending them on an assignment halfway around the world, but maybe getting away was the antidote he’d needed to keep from burning out.
But it wasn’t just the crisp night air, or a friendly warthog named Becky, or the lightning striking in the distance across the savanna that gave him this feeling of lightness. It was the woman standing in front of him.
She sat down on the steps leading up to her chalet, making him hope she was as interested in prolonging the moment as he was.
“It is amazing here, isn’t it?” Her question came out more like a statement. “Always changing, with so many layers of beauty.”
“Yes, it’s stunning.”
He loved the way she didn’t take what was around her for granted. How she appreciated the opportunity she’d been given to enjoy the small things. How she made him smile and laugh.
“Look out there. Straight ahead.”
A line of elephants lumbered near the water hole, their bulky outlines looking like a gray pencil sketch across the horizon.
He sat down next to her, leaving a slight space between them. “I remember sitting out on the front stoop of my grandparents’ farmhouse with them, my mother and my three sisters, watching a storm sweep across the bushveld.”
How could a memory seem so far away yet close enough he could almost grasp it? He hadn’t expected Africa to be the vehicle to dredge up so many forgotten feelings.
“Do
you miss her?”
“Yes. I was twelve when she died, so most of my memories are hazy. I miss the impressions I remember of her. The smell of jasmine while standing with her in the rain. The diamond pendant she always wore around her neck. The color of her hair in the sunlight.
“My mother died when I was fourteen.”
He picked up the tension in her voice. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago, but you know what it’s like to lose a parent.”
“I don’t think you ever completely get over it, no matter what happens.”
The light of the night sky caught her frown, making him wonder if this was a subject better left untouched.
“Sometimes I think I’ve lost all of my good memories,” she continued.
“They have to be in there somewhere.”
He was trying to piece together what little he knew about her. Tragedy tended to either shatter or strengthen people. From what he’d seen, life had made her stronger. Smart. Funny. She knew how to laugh. Knew how to enjoy life.
“My most vivid memory is the Christmas she met a man at a party she attended for work. Donald Banks. I’ll never forget his name. She had to choose between him and my father and me. In the end, she went with him.”
“Maybe there were things that as a child you couldn’t understand. Like the fact that she did love you.”
“I guess I’ve always hoped it wasn’t me—but it’s hard to truly believe that. Even if I wasn’t what drove her off, I wasn’t reason enough for her to stay.”
It gave them something in common. The void of growing up without a mother. The subtle longing for that missing maternal presence. He’d never admitted it to anyone, but he loved the mothering antics of his sisters. Who had Meghan had to fill that gap? Was it the reason there was so much distance between her and the father who clearly loved her?
“I suppose your sisters helped make up for your mother being gone?”
He smiled, pleasantly surprised that her thoughts had run along the same lines as his. “Oh, they still try to mother me with advice—especially when it comes to women.”
Her laugh floated past him. He was surprised she was opening up, but there was something intoxicating about the jasmine-scented air and the darkness, making him forget that the woman sitting beside him was hardly more than a stranger. Perhaps it was having the same effect on her.
“How often do you get to see your sisters?”
He leaned his elbows against his thighs “We all try to make it to my family ranch several times a year.”
“Tell me about them.”
He couldn’t help but wonder if she really wanted to know or if she simply didn’t want to be alone.
“Julie’s the oldest. She’s married with three girls, ages six and under, and is a stay-at-home mom. Sara is a pediatric nurse and has two boys, five and seven, and a daughter who’s fifteen. Camy is the baby—of the girls, anyway, as she’s still three years older than I am. Single. A bit wild. Completely down-to-earth.”
“Wow. Sounds like a wonderful, close-knit family.”
“We are.”
He heard the longing in her voice as she spoke and wondered what it was she was searching for. Family? Belonging? He knew firsthand from his own mother’s death that the sense of loss could be difficult to recover from. How much worse must it be for Meghan? On top of the loss, she’d also had to deal with abandonment.
A drop of water splashed against his forehead. Another slid down his check. “The storm’s moving in fast.”
“Which is why if we don’t get inside, we’re both going to get caught in this downpour.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, then. Make sure you lock your door.”
“I will.” Lightning illuminated her figure as she stood. “And don’t be late.”
Alex headed toward his chalet with a smile on his lips. He’d come to Africa to take on a job with the sole purpose of protecting Meghan. What he hadn’t expected was how much he’d enjoy her company.
Thunder rumbled above him, jolting his thoughts back to the present and reminding him why he was here. It didn’t matter how enticing her company was—he’d paid once for getting too close to someone he shouldn’t have, and he had no intention of making that same mistake again.
*
Meghan shut her chalet behind her, then locked the latch like she’d promised. If only she could lock away her thoughts that easily. No matter how deep she’d hidden her memories, their conversation had brought a scattering of them to the surface. Which left her feeling vulnerable…and fidgety.
She eyed her cell phone, her mind far too awake to sleep. Even if she had his number, talking with Alex further was definitely out. Her father would be asleep. She and Kate had become close over the past few months, but Kate would have gone to bed hours ago, as well. Kate had an estranged sister and understood the difficulties of family issues, but somehow, she knew that even if Kate was here right now, her mother wasn’t something she was ready to talk about with anyone.
What had surprised her the most was the unexpected connection with Alex. After her mother’s abandonment, trusting in love had become all but impossible, and as a result, she’d turned pushing men away into an art. All of which left her unsure as to why she felt so at ease with him. In the short time he’d been here, she’d already discovered his need to protect, along with the importance of family in his life.
And the fact that he was messing with her tranquility.
Meghan pulled open the top drawer in the nightstand and picked up the small box where she kept the locket her mother had given her on her fourteenth birthday—two months before she’d left. Four months before she’d died. It had taken Meghan a long time to accept the loss. After her family had fallen apart, she’d kept the locket as a reminder of what could have been. She’d always expected her mother to come back. For them to be a family again. But then the news of her mother’s death had come, leaving Meghan to search for closure and forgiveness on a day-to-day basis.
She looked out the darkened windows, where the rain was beating against the panes. Alex had reminded her of all that, and she was letting her heart interfere with her head. Which was why she was going to do what she should have done before she went to bed. She grabbed her cell phone off her bed, pressed Karen’s number, then began pacing the room, waiting for her contact with the film organization sponsoring the documentary to pick up. They were nine hours ahead of the West Coast, which meant while it was the middle of the night in South Africa, her friend would still be up.
She was about to hang up when Karen finally answered.
“Karen, hey…I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”
“No, not at all. It’s good to hear your voice. I was just talking to someone about you and wishing we could borrow some of your cool weather. This California heat feels hotter than the Sahara desert.”
Meghan laughed. “Maybe you need to plan a visit here, then. It’s cool and we’ve got a storm moving in right now.”
“I’ll take you up on the offer if I can ever find a few days off. How is the project going?”
“It’s going well. We should be wrapping up most of the filming by the end of the month. Just waiting on Kibibi to introduce her cubs to the pride. I think the end product will be well worth the time and effort we’ve put into it.”
“Good. I was worried there might be a problem when I saw your number pop up on my phone.”
There wasn’t a problem. At least she hoped not.
“I just have a question.” Meghan hesitated. Maybe she was jumping the gun. “It’s about Alex Markham. I was wondering where you found him.”
“Alex…he was a last-minute hire, but he came highly recommended.”
“For what?” Cattle rustler? Country line dancer? Heartbreaker? “The film industry—and wildlife, for that matter—doesn’t seem to be his forte.”
“That surprises me.” Papers rustled in the background. “I had Clint handle his hiring, so I don’t reme
mber all of the specifics, but I did glance at his résumé. It was actually quite impressive. Has experience in tracking, photography, administration, and he owns a ranch in Texas. Funny, he almost sounds like a bona fide cowboy, if you ask me.”
“That would describe him.” Meghan frowned. Karen made it sound as if he was overqualified rather than underqualified. Which was why she shouldn’t have called. Instead of giving him a chance, she’d let emotions skew her judgment. “It’s not that he isn’t capable—it’s just that I was under the impression that he was…”
That he was what? He hadn’t even been here twelve hours and she was ready to fire him because he’d made the mistake of getting between a mama rhino and her baby and was unnervingly good at getting under her skin. Which was why, if she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit she was actually calling Karen—because Mr. Cowboy had managed to dig through the protective wall around her emotions and stir up memories she wanted to avoid.
“You know, I’m sure he’ll work out fine.” Meghan tried to backpedal. “We only have a few weeks left, anyway.”
“This late in the game, I don’t see it feasible to replace him,” Karen agreed. “Besides, the production assistant’s role is critical, I know, but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to log video data and keep track of film footage.”
“You’re right.” Meghan said. “I understand, of course.”
“I know you’re under a lot of pressure to get this finished, but I have no doubt of your and Kate’s abilities.”
A few minutes later, Meghan ended the call, wondering if she was really worried he wouldn’t be able to do his job or worried that he made her heart feel again. Or maybe it was simply the string of accidents that had her feeling restless. While she still didn’t believe there was anything to be concerned about, if someone was behind the accidents, Mr. Cowboy might end up being a useful man to have around after all.
FIVE
By the time Alex reached the main lodge the next morning, the Milky Way had just begun to fade into the gray-blue-tinted African sky. He figured while he might not be able to make up for yesterday’s rhino fiasco, at least he could make a good impression and be on time like Meghan had ordered.