by Jane Porter
“I’m going to try to get a signal.”
For nearly twenty minutes he worked with the radio, and Alexandra sat next to him, periodically holding her breath, hoping against hope that something miraculous would happen.
Unfortunately they seemed to have run out of miracles for the rest of the day.
Not knowing how long it would be before they were found, Alexandra and Wolf agreed to eat only a fraction of the generous lunch packed. They were already rationing water.
“Where were we going?” Alexandra finally thought to ask as she finished the corner of her meat pie.
“A village north of here.” Wolf returned the water canteen to the plane, where it’d stay cooler in the shade. “It’s one of the villages I adopted several years ago.”
She perched on the red leather bench seat Wolf had taken out of the back of the plane. “How did you adopt a village?”
“Well, some people help sponsor a child in a developing country. I chose to sponsor a village.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees, fascinated. “What do you do?”
He shrugged as he dropped onto the ground near her. It was blistering hot out, but they were both trying to take refuge in the shade adjacent to the plane. “Build schools, wells, dig irrigation ditches, develop sanitation facilities, establish medical clinics, provide vaccines, educate about AIDS.” He sighed, shook his head. “I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I had no idea.” She felt a wave of tenderness. “That’s wonderful. How long have you been doing this?”
“Almost ten years.”
“How many villages do you sponsor?”
Uncomfortable, he looked away, dark lashes dropping, concealing his expression. “Not enough,” he said at last.
“Tell me—you have to have an idea. Three? Five? Seven?”
“More than twenty. Not quite thirty.”
“Thirty villages,” she repeated in awe.
His features tightened. He looked pained. “A little money goes a long way out here. There’s so much more I want to do, so much more we need to do.”
“I think people try, but Africa’s a big continent,” she said softly. “It’s far away, too, and people at home or abroad probably don’t know what you know. They haven’t seen what you’ve seen.”
“They’ve an idea,” he flashed roughly. “It’s all over Time and Newsweek magazines. The news is always doing segments on children starving and dying—” He broke off, got to his feet. “I’m going to take a short walk. Don’t worry, I won’t go far.”
She watched him set off, his stride long, impatient, angry.
He was gone maybe a half hour, and during the time he was away she sat close to the plane, just in case. But as she sat there, her nervousness gave way to calm.
It was peaceful here, beautiful and golden and serene.
The African savannah was more like Montana than anything she’d ever seen, and it wasn’t necessarily the trees and climate as much as the sense of size and openness, the feeling that land and sky stretched endlessly.
She was glad when Wolf returned. His shirt clung wetly to his skin and his hat was damp and dark on his brow. “You look hot,” she said.
“I am,” he answered, peeling off his shirt and tossing it onto one of the plane’s damaged wheels. “Were you scared while I was gone?”
“Not very,” she answered, admiring the planes of his chest and his tight, hard abs. He had a gorgeous body, and it was hers. Her husband. She smiled on the inside, happy despite everything. “I like it here.”
“In the middle of nowhere?”
“It’s not nowhere. It’s Africa. Zambia.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re a funny girl.” He reached into the tail of the plane, muscles rippling and contracting as he rummaged around the back before finding what he was looking for—a battered wood box.
“What’s that for?”
“Kindling for tonight’s fire,” he said, back to rummaging in the tail.
“Wolf, if you quit acting, would you want to direct? Write? Produce?”
“None of the above. I’d be done.”
“For a while? A vacation?”
“Forever.” He turned from the plane, shot her a dry glance. “I’m sick of L.A., sick of Hollywood, sick of the fake people and fake talk. I want out.”
“Where would you go? Dublin?”
“I have a house on the west coast of Ireland. Galway. But I don’t know if I’d move there. Maybe I won’t move anywhere. Maybe I’ll just bum around, village to village, doing what I can to help.”
“You’d sell your house? Your cars—that huge collection?”
“The cars will soon be sold anyway. I buy them, fix them up, sell them at a profit and all proceeds go to one of my charities.”
“You’ve charities, too?”
He nodded yes.
She looked at him for a long time. “Are you really going to leave Los Angeles?”
“Soon. I have to,” he said. “It’s time. Time to become a real person again. Time to leave the craziness behind.”
She leaned forward on the red bench seat, hands balled together. “Wouldn’t you miss Hollywood?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
Alexandra struggled to think of something to say but nothing came. She couldn’t imagine Wolf walking away from Hollywood completely, couldn’t imagine him never making another film, never starring in another role. He was too good. Too talented. People enjoyed him so much. “Hollywood would miss you,” she said softly.
His laugh was low, cynical. “Only because I make them money.”
She shook her head, not thinking about the money or the business but of his talent. He had the rare ability to bring the most complex and disparate characters to life. There were times she used to tell herself Wolf was famous because of his face—his eyes, his mouth, his sex appeal—but not even the most beautiful man could achieve what Wolf had without that rare ability to become another, to become the character, sliding into the skin, feeling the emotions, thinking the thoughts and making even the most vile mortal compelling, fascinating, even sympathetic.
Alex felt a strange tug inside her. Sorrow. Gratitude. Even if he never acted in another film, she’d always be a huge fan. “People will miss you.”
He made a rough sound before dragging his hands through his thick black hair, rifling it on end. “Nothing lasts forever. No one lives forever. All things—even good things—end.”
Tears started to her eyes, and Alex turned her head, closed her eyes, willing the tears not to fall. And yet it was a battle, a battle when her chest burned hot, thick with bittersweet emotion. She suddenly pictured the ranch and where she’d been the moment she’d learned her mother had cancer. “So why haven’t you walked before?”
Wolf lifted his hands. “I’ve tried. But the studios …”
He didn’t have to finish the explanation. She knew already. The studios wouldn’t let him. The studios had too much invested in him.
There would be his agent who wanted his twenty percent. The manager who took another hefty chunk. The publicist and the personal assistants.
The directors who’d already cast him in future films.
The studios themselves who paid bills on the backs of their superstars.
“How long have you felt this way?” she asked, struggling to take it all in, struggling to believe that Wolf really meant what he said.
“Four years. Five.”
Five? She swallowed. “And they know this?”
He made a hoarse sound even as the corner of his mouth lifted. “Oh, they know.”
“And what do they say?”
His mouth twisted yet again. “What do you think?”
“One more film,” she answered softly.
His head inclined. “One more film, just one more, just help us with this, don’t let us down, we need you, we need you now, our careers, our lives depend on you.”
He snorted, his dark eyes flashing w
ith scorn. “Their lives. Talk about greed. People all over the world are dying of hunger, dying for lack of medicine, shelter, lack of the most essential things, and then you have the fat cats in Hollywood talking about their lives. It blows me away.”
“Not everyone in the industry is loaded. Lots of people—most of those that actually work on your films—struggle to get by just like everyone else,” she said gently.
Some of the tension at his mouth eased. “I know. And that’s one of the reasons I continue to work. I know I support a lot of people. But I also know if I stopped acting, they’d find other films, other jobs.”
She leaned forward. “If you stopped acting tomorrow, what would you do?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “What I’m doing now. I’d help the villages. I’d work with UNICEF, raise more money, raise awareness, become an activist and help anywhere I could.”
The sun was just beginning to set when Wolf took a crowbar to the wooden crate, splintering it into medium pieces. Together they gathered some twigs and small branches from a tree near the rocky outcropping.
They put off starting the fire until it was late, eating a half sandwich each and a little of the fruit. And just as Wolf was about to strike the match to light the fire, he looked up and saw Alexandra crouched right next to him, calm, trusting, and he felt as though someone had reached into his chest and ripped his heart out with a violent yank.
What if they couldn’t get out of here? What if they ran out of water? Food?
His gaze searched her face, and yet there was no panic in her eyes, no anger or resentment anywhere in her beautiful face. She was more than a good sport. He loved her adventurous attitude almost as much as he loved how genuine she was. How real. She was, he thought, reaching for her, that girl he’d been looking for, the one that reminded him of home.
Wolf cupped her cheek and Alexandra closed her eyes. Just that one touch melted her. Just that one touch made her want incredible things.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. His eyes were just as endless as the sky above them and even darker.
He wanted her. She felt his desire, felt the need. It was basic and raw. And yet she waited, waiting for him to make the first move.
He touched her mouth with the tip of his finger, gently, lightly stroking down so that her lips burned and tingled, now so sensitive.
Down his fingertip went, over her lower lip to trail down her chin. He traced her jaw and then up to her right earlobe and back across the flushed curve of her cheek.
She was trembling as she stood there, trembling beneath his slow, unhurried touch. She wanted to be caught in his arms, dragged close and kissed until her head spun but he had a different script in mind.
“Kiss me,” she breathed, unable to stand it.
“So impatient,” he mocked, lowering his head and dropping a brief kiss against her mouth, catching the corner of her lips and the swell of her upper lip.
The brush of his mouth against hers made her belly flip, sending rivulets of fire and ice through her veins.
Shivering, she took a step toward him. “Kiss me again,” she urged.
Lifting her up, he carried her to the door of the plane, where he stripped off her clothes and then his and made love to her on what was left of the plane.
Afterward, they stayed inside the plane, and Wolf used some of the blankets from the stash he’d been taking to the village—one for a bed, another for a pillow and the last to cover them.
She lay sleepily against his chest, thinking his body fit hers perfectly. He was hard and strong where she was soft. Stifling a yawn, she thought there’d be no one else, no one that would ever make her feel like this.
Alexandra woke to the feel of Wolf’s lips and beard-roughened jaw kissing the back of her neck.
“Good morning,” he said.
Sighing contentedly, she scooted closer. “Good morning.”
But he wasn’t staying in bed. He was getting up. “I’m going to try the radio again. Somebody’s got to find us soon.”
It was harder to pass the time the second day, at least until Wolf remembered the books, paper, small chalkboards and chalk in the supplies he’d been flying to the village.
With the chalkboards and chalk they began their own version of Twenty Questions. They took turns writing questions down for each other and then they’d turn their chalkboard over and the other would have to answer. Some of the questions were random—what’s your favorite color, what’s your Chinese zodiac sign, what size shoe do you wear—while others were far more revealing.
“How did you get the name Wolf?” she asked, flashing him her chalkboard. “It’s not Spanish or Irish.”
“If you were a true fan, you’d know the answer.”
She rolled her eyes. “Members of your fan club get the details in a newsletter?”
He laughed appreciatively. “It’s a shortened version of my name. I was christened Tynan Wolfe Kerrick. A casting director convinced me to drop Tynan and then the e off Wolfe.”
“What did your dad call you, then?”
“Tynan.”
“And your mom?” she persisted.
The corners of his mouth tilted, and he smiled mockingly up at her from beneath his dense black lashes. “Trouble.”
They both laughed and then he held up his board. Why Hollywood? it read.
“I’ve always loved movies,” she said. “I was crazy about them as a kid. And not just a little bit but wildly, passionately. It’s one of the ways my family helped me cope with losing Mom. They took me to movies every weekend in Bozeman. We didn’t have a lot of theatres, so sometimes we’d see the same movie four or five times.”
“You have a good family,” he said gently.
She nodded thoughtfully. “I do.”
“Do you remember your first movie?”
“Disney’s The Little Mermaid.” She smiled shyly. “I remember I cried for Ariel when she lost her voice. And then I cried again at the end, when she and Prince Eric got married—” She broke off, remembering not just that day but all the movies, all the trips to the theater. The way you crunched popcorn and stepped in sticky soda on the way to your seat. The dramatic darkening of the theater as the lights went out. The swish of the curtains opening. The clicking sound the projector made as the movie ended.
She lifted her eyebrows. “I even remember the first movie I saw you in. I was fifteen. You were playing a soldier and you died—” she took a quick breath “—and I cried then, too. And now look at us, stranded here in the middle of nowhere!”
“It’s not nowhere,” he answered gravely, mimicking her response from yesterday. “It’s Zambia. Africa.”
She sat nestled in his arms as the sun set, the savannah painted a stunning blood-red, and then the sun disappeared and the horizon turned dark. Not long after, a lion roared in the distance.
Alexandra scrambled to her feet. “I think it’s time to light that fire.”
“I agree.”
Later, as the fire burned, they played their Twenty Questions again, this time without chalkboards since it would be too hard to see. “How old were you when your mom died?” he asked.
Alex leaned forward, pressed her chest against her knees. “Five.”
“Are you like her?”
She shook her head. “My brothers say no. They said Mom was sweet—” She broke off, laughed and then took a quick, sharp breath. “I miss her. Being the only girl in my family was hard.”
Wolf leaned against one of the red seats from the cockpit and watched her face as she talked. Her face was so expressive in the firelight. Her eyes shone and her mouth curved, twitched, moved, and he thought she just might be the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
“Mothers are special, aren’t they?” he said, grabbing a stalk of dry grass and breaking it off. He rubbed the tall brittle grass between his thumb and finger, twirling it around as though it’d soon take flight.
“I wish I’d been older. Wish I knew her better. Sometimes I�
��m angry with my brothers because they had so much more time with her. Brock was a senior in high school. Practically an adult.” Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked and quickly pushed away the tear. “I was just starting kindergarten. And—” she pushed away another tear “—I don’t really remember her. I remember The Little Mermaid, but I don’t remember her. How’s that fair?”
“It’s not,” he said gently.
“Sometimes I think everything would be so different if my mom were alive today.”
He heard the wistfulness in her voice. “How?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I’d be a different person.”
“But why would you want to be different? You wouldn’t be you—and you’re perfect as you are.”
Her head ducked and she stared at the fire and then she lifted her head, smiled shyly. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” His gaze held hers, and as the tears dried in her eyes, he knew he hated seeing her cry. He’d do anything to keep her from crying. “So what makes you happy?”
She wrinkled her nose, laughed. “Snow,” she whispered. “It reminds me of the movies. It changes everything. Makes simple things beautiful.”
And maybe that was her magic, Wolf thought, standing up and holding a hand out to her. She made simple things beautiful, too.
Alexandra was so hungry that night she had a hard time falling asleep. Every time she’d start to doze off, her stomach growled. It was a relief when she did fall into a proper sleep, a deep sleep with a good dream, and she was still in that dream, a place of muted color and muffled sound, when she felt a gust of cold air blow over her.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty, time to wake up.”
Slowly, sleepily she opened her eyes, struggling to focus. “Wolf?”
He was standing outside the plane and he was smiling broadly. “Help has finally arrived.”
She sat up so fast she banged her head on the side of the plane. “Seriously?” she demanded, moving to her knees to peek around Wolf. And there was help. A Luangwa park warden in a dusty Land Rover.
She let out a cheer. “We’re saved!”
The Luangwa warden had been authorized to drive them to Lusaka, where a massive search-and-rescue party was being organized. They stopped at one of the lodges en route, where they both showered and had a quick meal before continuing on to the capital city.