Love In The Jungle

by Ann Walker

  My hopes for sitting alone were dashed when an elderly gentleman in a suit plopped down beside me. His sigh sounded a little wet, and I shifted away from him, finding my window view infinitely more interesting all of a sudden.

  “Excuse me?” My skin prickled as Grant’s voice sounded beside me, and a quick glance to the side saw him speaking to my new traveling friend. “Would you be willing to switch seats with me?”

  I raised an eyebrow when our eyes met, but said nothing. The older gentleman sighed again and gestured to the seat. “I just got comfortable.”

  “I realize, sir, and I apologize—”

  “Go bother someone else,” he snapped, brushing Grant aside with a wave of his hand, as if he were batting away a particularly troublesome insect. I almost smiled, but then looked away when Grant pulled out his wallet and presented my neighbor with a couple of folded bills. The man hesitated briefly, but I soon felt the telltale shuffling of his seat, followed by Grant’s heavy presence in his place.

  My stomach was in knots, almost to the point where it hurt. Now, not only was I nervous about the flight and the volunteer trip overall, but I had some weird man-drama to deal with in a tiny cigarette plane.

  “Look,” I started, twisting my body so that I could face him directly. “You don’t have to—”

  “I’m sorry,” he interrupted, mirroring my pose, his laptop bag on his knees. “I think I came across as rude just now. When I saw you, I was just surprised. I didn’t mean to make a face.”

  “Well, you did,” I told him pointedly. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I didn’t want to sit next to him. I should have told him to switch his seat back, but I just couldn’t. The longer he sat there, the more the knots in my stomach started to work themselves out. “I didn’t… follow you on this flight, or whatever. This was always my original flight.”

  “Mine too,” he remarked. I watched the way his large hands gently set his bag on the ground, easing it underneath the seat in front of him. “I’m sorry. I am happy to see you again. I thought”

  “Thought what?”

  He seemed surprised by my tone, but as he settled back in his seat, an easy smile touched his lips. “I thought I might not ever see you again… It wasn’t a very pleasant thought.”

  I hummed in response, doing my best to keep my expression appropriately skeptical, despite the fact my stomach knots were slowly morphing into butterflies.

  “Last night was—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were on this flight?” I asked, cutting him off and holding his gaze. He shrugged in a way that would have seemed disrespectful on anyone else, but on him, it made my knees weak. He was casual without being a laidback slob. Business casual. That was his whole aura.

  He countered my question with, “Why didn’t you?”

  “I…” I trailed off, trying to find the right words, but unable to. Instead, I quickly licked my lips and pressed them together, a vivid sensory memory flashing through my head of running said lips over his muscular legs. He was obviously a runner. I tried very hard not to let my eyes dart down to his legs.

  “We were both strangers,” he sighed after a brief pause. I pursed my lips. We definitely weren’t strangers anymore. “Neither of us were obligated to share travel details with the other… This is just… a happy coincidence.”

  “We seem to have a lot of those,” I mused, and he nodded.

  “That we do.”

  I leaned back in my seat, my eyes darting to the flight attendant and the passenger arguing about the size of her carry-on. The attendant insisted it ought to be checked in. The passenger half-yelled that she could make it fit under the seat. Everyone around them pretend they did not see or hear the ordeal.

  “What are you doing in Togo?” I asked, speaking the question before I considered the consequences. “I mean, since we aren’t strangers anymore, I figured you could tell me that much.”

  His head bobbed up and down again. “I’m working with a rural village… They need schools built, houses updated, water lines done. My company does a lot of pro-bono work. We partner with this volunteer organization, and I’m donating six months of my time to…”

  I noticed his frown quickly matching mine, and he asked, “What is it?”

  I gave the name of the volunteer organization that I was traveling with, then the name of the village. His face blanched—as did mine. We were headed to the exact same place.

  “Wow,” he breathed, and I placed a hand on my forehead. His voice had gone very quiet. “Imagine that.”

  “Another happy coincidence,” I muttered, fiddling with the corner of my book. My eyes shot to him, hoping to catch an in-the-moment reaction to the news. He didn’t look upset by any means. Surprised, yes. We were both feeling a bit of that, I think. swallowing hard, I drew in a deep breath, ready to tell him that he didn’t need to feel like he owed me something—I could handle myself on my own—while we were at the village, but he beat me to it.

  “Do you want me to switch my seat back?” asked Grant. His eyebrows arching in a way that was oddly adorable. It was like he didn’t want to ask the question, but did so anyway. I shook my head.

  “No. Stay.” I didn’t want him to leave. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him beyond the fact that we had killer sex and his body was that of a god, but I guess we had time to figure out if there was the potential for a friendship in there. I mean, we had at least six months to be around each other anyway; a relationship of some kind, good or bad, was bound to form in that time period.

  “Is this your first time volunteering?” he asked as both of us buckled up, as per the flight attendant’s request. The plane rumbled, shifting jerkily as everything got started up. The cabin grew louder from the gears and cogs and mechanisms snapping in to place.

  “I hope the damn engine is working now,” I said, ignoring his question. He didn’t need to know I was a newbie. I didn’t want—or need—special treatment from him just because we had some awesome sexual history all of a sudden.

  “I’m sure the mechanics know what they’re doing,” he replied. I froze when his fingers touched my hand, as if to reassure me. “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not,” I lied, keeping my hand still as he patted the top of it. “I was just saying.”

  “Okay.” He pulled his hand back, maybe realizing that he was touching me for a little longer than necessary.

  Or maybe not long enough. Another hard swallow. I turned my gaze out the window, as if to watch us rumble down the tarmac. I might have been sassier than I needed to be, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know how he’d react in this situation, how he’d treat me now that we were, in a way, working together in a foreign place. I wasn’t sure if he’d feel obliged to stick by my side, but I’d hoped to express to him that he didn’t need to do anything for me. He didn’t owe me something. I didn’t need to cuddle up next to him at night.

  There was always the benefit of the doubt. I mean, he could have been a totally sweet guy who was genuinely excited that we’d be traveling together. Again, I didn’t know, and I probably wouldn’t know for a few more days at least—not until we were settled.

  But still, despite my newfound worries, I couldn’t ignore the flicker of happiness in my stomach. The knots had hatched into full-blown butterflies now, and they were making big arcs in there. Big, loopy arcs.

  Chapter Eight

  Our destination was a miniscule airport on the edge of a stunning strip of thick forest. The landing was a little questionable, and neither Grant nor I said anything about the wrist clutching incident. I’m pretty sure my nails left some permanent marks on the underside of his wrist, which I had clutched when we made a particularly sharp drop toward the ground. Our little plane cresting over pockets of air in a way that undoubtedly had everyone concerned. Once the plane leveled off, I pulled my hand away and kept it squarely in my territory, mortified.

  Grant barely reacted to the grab. He had a death grip on both armrests, ho
wever, so I guess it’s safe to assume he didn’t even notice the added pressure.

  The airport was barely bigger than a warehouse, but given the location, it made sense. Most of the planes landing or taking off were smaller than ours, and I figured it was more for local short-range trips than big, cross-country ventures.

  People were moving before the seatbelt sign was off, but I merely took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off the back of my neck with my equally clammy hands. Grant mimicked me, and I noticed a slight tremble in his hand when he brushed it through his hair.

  “That was rough,” I heard him mutter over the commotion around us. All I could do was nod. We were at the back of the plane, which meant we were last to leave—and it was going to take forever to get out of here. All I wanted to do was suck down a satisfying gulp of fresh air. I didn’t care how humid or thick it was; I just wanted to get off this tiny death trap and onto solid ground.

  With Grant, apparently.

  We kept the short flight civil. I read my book, ignoring the way reading brought a twinge of a headache out behind my eye, and he read the in-flight magazine with more focus than it deserved. The air was still a little awkward between us, but I could only hope that that would fade in time. There was no way I could spend six months feeling uncomfortable around him.

  Mind you, there was no guarantee we’d be spending all six months together. We hadn’t talked about why we volunteered or what we were doing, but I didn’t really get the teacher-vibe off him. But then again, I probably didn’t radiate said vibe either.

  I took another deep breath, my eyes briefly drifting closed.

  “Clara?” Grant’s tone was gentle, almost a delicate whisper, and my eyelashes fluttered as they opened. Most of the plane had emptied out at this point, and I wondered how long I’d been sitting with my eyes closed—not as brief as I thought, apparently—as I pressed a hand to my forehead. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I remarked, sitting up and tugging my backpack out from under the seat. He already had this laptop bag ready to go, its thick strap resting on his shoulder—a shoulder I’d clung to last night. I licked my lips and blinked the memory away. “Just a bit of a headache.”

  “It’s stuffy in here,” he offered, and I nodded. Using the seat in front of me to hoist myself up, I sidled out of the tight space after him, preferring to let him lead the way down the aisle. We were among the last to get off, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a small shuttle van waiting for us. After boarding, squished between Grant and the door, we rumbled along the tarmac to the airport.

  By now, all this passport nonsense and security checks were a breeze. One of the upsides about landing at such a small airport was the lack of fellow travelers: I was waiting at one of three baggage tracks twenty minutes after landing. Grant strolled along the oval-shaped track, his hands in his pockets and eyes peeled for his bag. I, on the other hand, couldn’t fathom moving much. My lack of sleep from last night was catching up with me fast, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the nearby metal bench and snooze the afternoon away.

  I mean, sure, I was also bursting with excitement. I was one step closer to the village that I’d call home for the next six months—of course I was amped. But also tired. The bags under my eyes probably told the whole world that I needed an extra six to eight hours before being a functional person again.

  A jolt of wakefulness shot through me when I spotted the neon green tag I’d attached to my duffel bag. It was sitting on top of an old brown suitcase on the conveyor belt, moving at a snail’s pace around the black oval. Whew. At least all my things made it the last leg of the air portion of this journey. I grinned and headed straight for it, darting around a few of my fellow travelers, eyes leaving it for only a second.

  And a second was all someone needed, apparently. Once I’d maneuvered around a rather large, loud family, I realized my bag was gone. I stopped dead in my tracks, frowning. The brown suitcase was still there, but there was no sign of the bright green tag I’d chosen specifically to help distinguish my bag from the rest.

  My eyebrows furrowed as I hurried around the crest of the belt. Gone. Grant was along the other side of the oval, his hands still in his pocket and his expression relaxed. I wanted to flag him down—two pairs of eyes were better than one—but I quickly discovered that wouldn’t be necessary. I’d found my bag: someone else had decided to make off with it.

  “Excuse me!”

  I jogged after the man clutching the familiar handles. I could see where the pointed end of my hairbrush was poking out of the fabric. The green tag was still there, along with the small lock I’d added too. The man was only a young guy, probably in his early twenties, who looked like he belonged on any American college campus—surrounded by clouds of marijuana, that is.

  “That’s my bag,” I said, keeping my tone friendly and civil as I pointed down at the duffel. He shook his head.

  “Nah, that’s mine,” was all I got as he tried to step around me, his eyes darting up to the exit sign in the distance. But I stood my ground. I hadn’t spent all these years in the corporate world without developing a brusque, thick outer layer.

  “No,” I snapped, my hand up to keep him from going anywhere. “It’s mine. That green tag will have all my information in it.”

  “Not smart to just leave your info exposed like that,” he told me, weirdly serious about it. “I got the same tag. Can you stop causing a scene?”

  “What?” I wasn’t causing a scene. I hadn’t even managed to catch the nearby security guard’s attention with my efforts to reclaim my bag. “Just open the tag and I’ll show you—”

  “Gotta catch a ride, man,” he chuckled, and then managed to sidestep me with surprising speed. “See ya around.”

  My eyes narrowed, and before he could get more than a foot from me, I reached out and grabbed the back of my bag. “Nope.”

  “Let go!” He gave a decent tug, which made me stumble forward, but I managed to keep my grasp. My nails bit in to the black fabric. He wasn’t leaving with my stuff.

  “Is there a problem here?”

  Grant’s presence should have made me relax, but for some reason, I dug in more, as if I could handle this on my own.

  “This bitch is trying to—”

  “Hey,” Grant barked, immediately blocking the guy’s escape route. He towered over the kid, those glorious shoulders completely overshadowing him. I tried to hide my smirk. I’d never had someone intimidate another person for me before. “Watch the language, pal.”

  “This is my bag,” I got out, cutting the guy before he could say anything else. “He’s trying to steal my bag.”

  I grabbed the green tag with one hand and flipped it over. Sure enough, my name was there in big, chunky letters, etched in permanent marker by dear old dad the day of my flight. Grant’s eyes widened, and he grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt. Now the security guards were looking. I noticed a few heads turn over Grant’s shoulders.

  “You have five seconds to drop her bag, or you’ll be walking out of here with no bag and no front teeth,” he hissed, the threat plain as day. The thief dropped the bag instantly, and Grant gave him a shove in the opposite direction. I didn’t bother to watch him flee. Instead, I clutched my cushy duffel bag to my chest, thankful I’d been around to catch the guy in the act. Surviving six months with no comfort from home would have been rough.

  “Thanks for that,” I offered, cradling my bag to me, my cheeks flushed. “I didn’t really want to wrestle it out of his hands, but…”

  “You look like you could use a little extra muscle.” Grant watched the guy barrel through the last security check-point with a slight clench in his jaw, and the butterflies started to do their dance again. Once he was gone for good, Grant’s shoulders relaxed a little, and he shot me a small smile before adding, “I didn’t mean to step on your toes.”

  “You were a welcome addition to the duffel rescue effort,” I assured him with a nod. Our eyes met for a few
moments, holding one another’s gaze, and I was the first to look away. Pretending to check over my bag for further infarctions, I nodded again when he told me he spotted his bag. In his absence, I let out a deep breath, one I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and hoped that this would be the last of the surprises for the day.

  Chapter Nine

  I’d placed a lot of expectations on this trip, but I could have never anticipated the natural beauty of Togo.

  “There are more marshes and lagoons the farther south you go,” Henri, our French volunteer coordinator and driver, informed us as we rumbled along a half paved road. Every so often, red dirt flew out from under the tires, dusting the glass panes and obstructing my view. “The north is mostly savanna. You can expect a little bit of rain in the next month, then it will be a dry summer.”

  “It’s amazing,” I observed, practically pressed against the window to take in every inch of the landscape. Gentle rolling hills were covered in a yellow-green long grass, and I’d already seen dozens of exotic birds nesting in the roadside trees. Palms, coconut trees, and a number of other foreign-sounding titles bounced around in my head as my eyes danced across the greenery. I wanted to learn them all. By the time I left, I wanted to be able to identify a tree or bush or flower just by looking at the leaves.

  Strange. I’d never had an eye for botany before. Grant already knew most of the plants, nodding along with Henri when he first began describing the setting. Our driver was the volunteer coordinator for the region, and after we’d loaded our things into his 70s-era white van, he told us that he liked to meet volunteers at the airport and drive them to their village—it was one of the highlights of his job.

  I was grateful. Even if he was a Frenchman, Henri was a lingering sense of familiarity for me. As eager as I was to see the kids and try the food and everything else that this adventure entailed, I wasn’t ready to be thrown up a creek without a paddle just yet. I wanted wanderlust. I wanted to be the fearless voyager. Unfortunately, I was also quickly learning that I needed to be eased into new situations, something I hadn’t realized about myself until now.