“Probably. But think of all the happy men who won’t have to compete with me for attention. I’ll be saving marriages.”
Sheba butted her head into the hand I held out to her. It seemed she, at least, didn’t hold us responsible for the helicopter and gun play earlier. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I told her as I scratched her ears, amazed still by her show of trust in us. To Chris, I said, “About last night… I was being an ass.”
“I know. At least you were being an honest ass. And there’s a lot to be said for angry, drunk sex. It really doesn’t deserve the bad rap it usually gets.”
“I’m not apologizing.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“What do you expect?”
“More sex. Less anger. More”—his expression softened as he dialed down from snark back to sincerity—“more time with you, without the shadow of my past forever being that awkward third wheel that’s always there between us. You’re fresh. This is fresh. I expect—no, I hope—you’ll give me a fresh chance.”
That only seemed fair. It wasn’t like he could change his past, but he did have full control over his future. “As long as I don’t have to apologize, then fine, fresh it is.” I held out my free hand. A handshake, a promise, a contract.
Chris shook it like a business partner, held to it after like a lover.
Sheba nudged her head over to inspect our clasped fingers, nuzzling their union with curiosity, approval. Satisfied, she rubbed her head along Chris’ waist. Showing him the same trust and affection she’d shown me.
The handheld caught the extraordinary moment, and I took it for the final seal, her notarization, of our deal.
From the stream, Brutus whuffed, sending along his approval as well.
If Sheba and Brutus accepted Chris for what he was, then I supposed I could too.
Over the top of our lion’s head, by the stare of eyes that held all the heat and wild of the African savanna, we kissed—the voyeuristic eye of the camera, our fourth wall, capturing it all.
It was mid-afternoon when the rude thwock-thwock-thwock of the helicopter broke over the buzz of insects that was the veldtland’s constant orchestra. The lions scrambled to their feet, agitated but not frightened. Not enough to run anyway.
Chris and I pressed up against the trunk of our tree, the camera in my left hand on record, the .38 in my right feeling more and more like the pitiful toy Chis had accused it of being as the breeze from the chopper blades’ downdraft found its way under the arch of our leafy umbrella tree.
In the open hatch of the bubbled cockpit hovering only a couple of hundred feet overhead, the barrel of a shotgun snaked into view. A single shot pumped out, hitting well in front of us, between the Rover and where we stood. A hasty glance showed the lions prowling the bank of the stream, half-growls grumbling their unease. I prayed they wouldn’t break and run.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Chris whispered, “but why aren’t they shooting at the lions again? Pretty sure these guys don’t seem to care much about the law.”
“They’re hunters, not poachers. They probably want to pretend they’re squaring off on equal ground with a lion. Like real men. You know, a hundred yards away with a high-powered rifle and 3-inch bullets, shooting at an arthritic lion because they have more money than brains.”
The next shot landed behind us, but closer this time.
“They’re trying to herd us.” The snarl in Chris’ voice was unexpected. “They want us out of here.”
My heart pounded and deep inside I was shaking with terror. Outside, though, training kicked in and I was journalist-calm. Stepping away from the tree, I brandished the camera at them, hoping if they knew we were filming them, they would go find another pride to hunt. Beside me, Chris brandished his middle finger.
Whether it was the finger or the camera that affronted the hunter most, he motioned to the pilot. For one brief moment I hoped that meant they were done with us and with our lions.
The bullet that tore through the hood of the Rover as the cockpit nosed around said otherwise.
Very deliberately, with an exaggerated gesture he could be sure we saw, the hunter held out his fist and turned his thumb down.
I didn’t know what nationality the hunter was, but like Chris’ eloquent middle finger, the hunter’s thumb transcended all language. The threat was plain. If we didn’t get out now, we would never get out at all.
The hunter cradled his rifle as the helicopter dipped and turned and thwocked away.
They’d be back. And they expected to be alone with the lions when they returned.
Chris turned the camera in my hands on himself. “This time it’s personal.” His Schwarzenegger impression was all wrong, for what it mattered, as my hand holding the camera began to shake uncontrollably. We dealt with fear, it seemed, in different ways.
Chris still had the keys to the Rover and he slid behind the wheel. The engine turned over, caught with a momentary hope, then guttered out. Real fear fingered its way through me. No phone or internet was one thing. No way out of here was quite another. Chris pulled the hood latch on the inside and I lifted the heavy metal bonnet, peering into the hose-and-valve interior like I knew what I was doing.
Chris joined me. “Well?”
“I know cameras. I know lions. I know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. I know squat about engines. How about you?”
His brow crinkled as he peered under the hood. “I know bullets and engines are probably not a good mix.”
“Sorry you stayed now?”
He shook his head. “Are you sorry I did?”
“Only if we wind up murdered.”
“For a lion’s head? A legal one at that? No one’s going that far. They’re just trying to scare us. Besides, it’s not like people don’t know where we are. Well, our general area, at least. Both of us going dark on social media will raise questions. And if I miss my flight, the showrunners will find out why.”
I frowned. “Yeah, thanks for that extra week you decided to stay.”
“Only the best and brightest ideas from me.” He fixed me with those idol-blue eyes. “Assuming we’re not murdered, would being marooned with me for a few days be so bad?”
“So the choice is being dead or being with you? Give me a minute…”
He scowled.
I, however, was still trying to get past the possibility we really would be dead. “You know what would’ve helped me decide faster? If that game warden in Angola hadn’t been shot dead from a helicopter by poachers last week. A pair of ivory tusks was worth killing over.”
“But you said this guy’s a hunter not a poacher.”
“That was before he shot the Rover. That makes him a crazy. And crazies this far out in the bush—who knows what they’ll do?” My stomach knotted in horror. “Oh god.”
Chris went on immediate alert. “What?”
“What if they really do slaughter the rest of the pride too—out of spite?”
“You mean after they kill you, me and Brutus? Does it really matter then?” He wrapped his arms around me, and I leaned into the wide protection of his strong, waxed chest. “Look, we have cameras, a gun and a nice vehicle. We’re white, Westerners. They’ll know we must have connections. They won’t know who we’ve told about our whereabouts or how long we planned to be here. They’d be stupid to come back for a single lion when there are thousands more out there. What possible reason would they have to chance that?”
The same reason that drove an inordinate amount of human stupidity. The same reason Nana and Sheba had gone after the leopard. The same reason I’d lured Chris into bed last night.
“Revenge.”
CHAPTER 35
Dee
Nothing was more nerve-wracking than waiting—waiting for the reappearance of the helicopter or for a hunter to stalk up on foot. There was, of course, nothing stealthy about a helicopter—we’d know it was coming far in advance. Not far enough for any real safety, but there was something to be s
aid for at least knowing where your enemy was. For anyone coming on foot, we had the lions to warn us.
At some point that afternoon, each of the girls wandered up into the camp, making themselves at home as they explored the tents and rubbed against us.
Brutus, probably still remembering how Nana had rebuffed him, stayed by the stream, roaring his disapproval of his harem’s extracurricular activities. Caesar, keeping Brutus company, was in and out of the stream several times, looking stronger and less stiff each time.
Late afternoon, when Portia wandered up to the camp, her cub started to follow, making it only halfway before he turned back. Physically, taking it slow, I was pretty sure he could make it the short distance between tents and stream. It was, I thought, his position in the pride that was challenging him. Was he a mama’s boy, following the women around, or was Brutus his role model now? Or was that early independent streak in him going to allow him to follow a third path—that of his own heart, not what others suggested for him?
Early evening, just after the set of the sun and our hurried dinner of ready meals, the lions, restless by the stream, whuffed in warning. Chris and I froze, scanning the twilight for hunters taking up position to rush us in the coming night.
But the dark, semi-bipedal shapes working their way toward camp weren’t human.
Nana growled, half-threat, half-annoyance. One of the shapes screeched and the others chided back.
“Baboons.” I laughed nervously.
“Dangerous?” Chris asked, looking toward the air rifle on the ground close to hand.
“They can be. They do have some impressive teeth and don’t mind using them. These might even be the same troop that ransacked the tents come back to see what they might have missed. In the past, I’ve scared baboons away just by yelling and waving at them like a crazy woman.”
Chris peered closely at me through narrow eyes.
“What?”
“I was picturing you looking like a crazy woman. Suits you.”
I scrunched my nose at him.
“Seriously, I’m thinking about you out here all alone, chasing off baboons and who knows what else. Gotta admire that in a man, much less a woman.”
Praise always made me uncomfortable. “Having the lions around helps.”
“And for most normal people, that’s the crazy talk right there.”
“Says the man who lives in bear dens and shark cages for a living.”
His laugh was easy, free and sexy as hell.
There were a couple of things about last night I didn’t regret in the least. Things my body wanted to try with him again, only sober—things we couldn’t do if we were dead by hunters’ bullets.
Meanwhile, there was a troop of baboons as peeved to find us returned to camp as the hunters had been. Swooping up the handheld, wishing there was more light, I charged out into the veldt, whooping and waving my free hand and slapping it on the shot-up hood of the Rover as I ran past. Chris, about ten feet away, followed my lead, and I turned the camera on him to preserve his antics for generations.
I was swinging the lens back toward the baboons, hoping to get some good footage of them before the light faded completely when a big male with more bravado than good sense peeled away from the surprised troop on the verge of fleeing and gallumped his way toward us, screeching as he came and showing off some impressive canines.
Damn monkey.
I pulled the .38, hoping not to have to use it. Chris raised the air rifle, loaded with a red dart—that was adult lion dosage; too much tranquilizer for a baboon, but not inordinately so, and certainly a better option than a bullet.
Twenty feet away, the baboon brought up short. Had he figured out his ruse wasn’t working so he was ready to be a sensible monkey again?
I held my camera on him, the nose of the .38 also pointed his way. To my right, Chris, too, was taking careful aim. The baboon, still screeching, jumped up and down as the rest of the troop abandoned him, disappearing in the night.
Chris and I held our line.
Only it wasn’t Chris and I that had stopped the baboon.
A tawny streak bounded between us.
Sheba.
It wasn’t her hunting charge, low and flat to the ground, although baboon could easily have been on the menu for the night. And might still have been if the male hadn’t finally decided his life was worth more than his macho pride and turned tail to chase after the rest of the troop.
Sheba gave one last bound after him to assure he wasn’t going to change his mind about fleeing, then, arching her neck with pride of her own, she padded back, Chris crossing the distance between us only a moment before she did.
“Good Sheba.” I ruffled her ears in thanks.
But I couldn’t hold back the tears. Not because of her lovely, selfless, protective behavior. Not because she had chosen to treat us as part of the pride. No, her actions in that regard had touched me too deeply for tears.
I wept because the hunter in the helicopter would be back. Maybe not the same hunter, maybe not the same helicopter. But she and Brutus and the rest of the pride were targets in a country that invited more and more hunters in each year.
I wept because I’d put the pride at greater risk. Because they had a shade more trust in humans now.
I wept because the touch of Sheba’s fur under my hand was such a miraculous bond—and such a deadly one. God, the last thing I wanted to do was give up that bond, but it was the first thing I had to do.
I wept because my heart was breaking.
Because once I knew Brutus was safe—this time—I would have to leave.
They were my family, my pride.
I would do anything for them.
Why did that anything have to be to leave them?
CHAPTER 36
Chris
Tears? I’d never understand women. The lions were safe, the baboons were safe, we were safe. Win-win all around. Happy tears, sure. Tears of relief I might expect too. But that incredibly sad expression that Dee turned on me I just didn’t get.
Sheba butted her head against my thigh, rubbing her cheek along the outer muscles as she passed by on the way back to the rest of the pride. Marking me, Dee would say, as one of hers. She was back at the stream before I thought to wonder if the camera had captured the moment. Something had happened between the time I’d stepped off the plane and now. The experience of the moment itself with these big cats had become more important than sharing that experience with fans with the sole goal of bolstering my image, my brand.
When had these lions become more important than my career?
And when was Dee going to stop looking so dejected?
At a loss for what else to do but wanting to do something to ease whatever pain was in Dee’s heart, I wrapped my arms around her. Comfort was all I thought to provide her. A sense of security.
“The baboons wouldn’t have come if the hunters were near,” I whispered.
She shook her head against my chest, each strand of dark hair that fell over me a spark, each spark a part of the fire kindling within, turning my thoughts to more than just comfort and security. After last night, though, I had no idea what to expect from her, how she would react. So I treated her as I did the lionesses, respecting that unpredictability, moving slowly and with permission only before taking liberties. Knowing the fragility of our bond could be broken at any moment by the wrong word, the wrong gesture, even the wrong look.
With a careful hand, I stroked Dee’s hair, the strands electric and alive beneath my palm.
The lionesses had taught me a wild heart could not be tamed—no matter how much I needed it to be—unless it wanted to be.
Did Dee want to be?
After a moment, as night closed over us, she turned up her face, the emerging stars reflected in her eyes. She voiced no objection as I leaned down and kissed her.
Sitting impotently in the dark, pierced and wounded, the Range Rover no longer offered safe haven. My arm firmly around Dee, I led her i
nstead to the shelter of my tent. She hesitated only the briefest moment before committing herself to the narrow space barely big enough to accommodate the outspread sleeping bag between its canvas walls.
“No cameras,” I whispered, gently tugging the handheld from her fingers and depositing it safely in a dark corner, lens turned away in modesty. “This isn’t for the fans or the ratings. It’s for me, because I need you.”
How much more cliché and selfish could I sound? But what other words could express the feelings that overwhelmed me?
“No,” I amended, “that isn’t true. I need more than just you. I need parts of you I’ve never needed from a woman before. I need your heart, your soul, the very breath of you.”
Oh god, she didn’t look convinced at how sincere I was. Was I better at acting the romantic lead than actually being one? Taking a deep breath, I gave it my last effort. “Mostly I need you to need that too. Because if you don’t need me to have all of you, then none of what I need matters. Please, tell me, what do you need?”
She smiled then, a soft smile, a tremulous smile, but one so radiant to my eyes it pierced the darkness between us. “That’s exactly what I need. For you to ask what I need. To wonder what I might need. To think that I might need anything at all. Have you ever asked anyone else what they might need?”
“Of cour—” I started to respond without thinking. But that was the whole point here—for me to think. When was the last time I had put someone else’s needs before mine? As I probed deeper, the question fast became had I ever done so.
“Mary Sanders,” I said at last. “I asked her what she wanted in exchange for a kiss.”
“And did you give it to her?”
“I got my kiss, yes. My first, by the way. It cost me two weeks detention when I was caught slipping her the answers to a geography test. That’s a scar I’ve carried all my life. I’ve spent the last 20-some-odd years trying to avoid that same pain. I guess you could say Mary Sanders is why I’m the self-centered egoist I am today. Or was, until this week. Tell me what you need in exchange for my heart and I’ll get it for you—even it costs me a month’s detention this time.”
Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) Page 18