But as they neared the red rift wall of rocks, she said, “When did you come to live in Botswana? How long have you actually been here?”
He blew out a breath of irritation.
“Ten years.”
“The length of your vow not to kill.”
His stomach tightened and a warning buzz started in his brain.
“Whereabouts in South Africa were you born?”
“Nelspruit,” he said crisply. “Small Afrikaans town founded by Boers along the Crocodile River. Or it was then. It was renamed Mbombela after apartheid.”
“So you grew up there?”
He grunted and bent down. More tracks. He looked up, watching the sky, birds. Listening.
“So why did you become a mercenary in the first place?” She was circling back to how he knew Omair, and how, exactly, Omair had saved him ten years ago. His head started to throb and his chest went tight. Carla was not her business. His failed marriage, his son, his farm, his old life in South Africa—not her damn business, either. Brandt had blocked that part of his history right out of his consciousness. He just didn’t go there—no point. He was no longer that man.
“Dalilah, please, do me a favor, just stop talking. Just for a while.”
Her jaw firmed and her cheeks pinked, a flare of hurt darting bright through her eyes. Then those almond eyes narrowed.
“I don’t usually have to work this hard to get people to be civil to me.”
Frustration flared across his chest.
“Then don’t. Save your breath.” And mine.
Her jaw dropped. “Look,” she snapped, “if I’m going to spend the amount of time with you that it takes to get up that cliff—” she jabbed her good arm at the red-rock wall ahead of them “—and over the plateau on top, then across another half of Botswana, we might as well be civil, get to know each other.”
“I know all I need to know about you, Dalilah,” he said quietly. “You’re Omair’s kid sister. And you’re a princess—a precious commodity to your kingdom, and you’re about to become queen of almighty Sa’ud. People want you back. A desperate man wants you dead. I’m the lackey in the middle.”
“You know nothing about me!” She spat the words at him in exasperation. “I’m more than someone else’s princess, someone’s fiancée. Someone’s commodity. I’m my own damn person, too!” She fisted her hand, and beat it against her chest. “I worked hard to get where I am, and I pay my own way, I’m a foreign investment consultant with a solid legal background. In my spare time I volunteer for ClearWater, and if I do spend my family fortune, it’s always for my volunteer work. If I do use my family name, it’s to raise funds for impoverished villages so that they can get access points to clear water. And yes, I attend a ton of glitzy charity events, but it’s to raise funds so I can come here, to Africa, to places like Zimbabwe, and do good work. Work that makes a difference in people’s lives, Brandt! And I might live in a plush Manhattan penthouse, but I paid for it, and I have friends there who like me for who I am….” Her voice hitched, and she swore, turning away, her eyes bright with tears.
She was cracking, thought Brandt. He had to go easier on her.
She spun back, calming her voice, but when she spoke it was shaky. “The only reason I’m in this position now is because my brothers weren’t open with me, and I couldn’t take adequate safety precautions because of it.” She took off her hat, shoved back her hair, damp, tendrils stiff with mud. “How do you think that makes me feel? My controlling brothers taking over my life again, and then lump me in with someone like you.” She rammed the hat back onto her head.
Surprise rippled through Brandt.
Then he said, very quietly, “Are you going to keep doing this charity work, keep your nice Manhattan apartment when you marry in nineteen months?”
She stared at him, the pulse at her neck racing, color in her cheeks high, maybe too high. Grasses rustled softly in a sudden hot breeze.
“Well, will you?”
Her hand went to her stomach, pressed, as if she suddenly felt sick. And he could see her searching for an answer.
“No,” she said after several beats of silence, her voice not sounding quite her own. “I will work, though, for the Kingdom of Sa’ud, Haroun’s diplomatic functions. I’m sure I’ll find some charities—I…I’d have to live there, of course.”
He took a step closer.
“And that makes you happy—that’s what you want?”
She met his gaze. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because you sound pretty damn passionate about the other stuff you were just yelling at me about. And you were so darn motivated to get me to take you to Harare to ink that water deal that you weren’t even thinking about the attackers on your tail.”
She swallowed, glanced away. “It’s because this was my last opportunity to do something with my ClearWater work.” She inhaled deeply. “I wanted to leave some kind of legacy, show that my freedom was worth something. Apart from…” She faded, her eyes gleaming with emotion.
“Freedom?” he said. “Versus marriage—is that how you see it?”
She moistened her lips.
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes going to her ring. “Give it all up for some dude who owns most of the world’s oil. For a moment back there in Zimbabwe, I was really impressed. But I read you wrong.”
“You’d respect me more—be impressed if I wasn’t going to marry? Marriage takes compromise.”
“And what’s Haroun giving up—what’s his compromise?”
Her eyes flickered.
He snorted. “You’re talking to the wrong man about marriage, Princess. Been there, done that, failed miserably. Sometimes compromise is not what it’s cracked up to be.”
“So you were married once?”
“That’s none of your damn business.”
She blinked, then gave him a measuring look. Brandt swallowed, his gaze locked with hers.
“What does impress you, Stryker?”
“If you’re following your passion, Dalilah,” he said quietly, “I’m impressed, whether you marry or not. And ClearWater, your job, your independence, is very obviously your passion.” He shrugged dismissively. “Trade it all off for a life behind palace walls? I’m not seeing a clear picture here.”
When she didn’t reply, he said, “It must make you happy. Or you wouldn’t do it.”
“Yeah…it makes me happy,” she snapped, though she looked anything but.
He regarded her intently, nodded his head, then turned and began to march on.
Dalilah felt sick. She couldn’t move. He’d laid it all out right there. She couldn’t do it—she couldn’t marry Haroun. Tension coiled in her gut. But she couldn’t call it off now, either. It was a binding contract, a treaty between countries. Her brother, King Zakir, was relying on it, so was his King’s Council—her whole family. Her nation.
“You coming or what?” he yelled over his shoulder.
“I didn’t ask for your approval,” she called after him. “I don’t care what you think!”
He spun around again. “So why’d you just tell me all this? Why’d you kiss me like that, Dalilah, huh? What are you not getting with Haroun Hassan?”
She swallowed. She’d fallen right into it. She’d set herself up.
She turned her back to him, looked out over the gold grass, the big sky, the route they’d traveled. Immobilized. Trapped.
“Dalilah?”
She couldn’t move. Tears filled her eyes and she wouldn’t let him see.
“Dalilah?” She felt his touch, gentle on her shoulder.
Her heart began slamming against her ribs. She felt dizzy. Confused. It was fatigue, she told herself. Critical incident stress. She waited until her vision came fully back into focus.
Then she turned. Spine stiffening, she lifted her chin, met his eyes and forced a dry laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself about that kiss. Like you said, an itch to scratch.”
He moistened his lips, nodded slowly
, eyes narrowing.
A bird flew overhead, big wings whooshing, a momentary shadow.
He swung his rifle back onto his shoulder, muzzle aimed into the air, and resumed his stride into the veldt.
“Damn you,” she muttered softly in Arabic. Then she cursed herself—why should she even care about explaining herself to this broad-chested mutt? Why did she want his approval so desperately?
But she knew why. She liked Brandt—there was something about him she respected, and there was a profoundness buried in him.
Most of all, she was trying to explain it to herself, and he was the punching bag in the way. And a catalyst.
They neared the bottom of the cliff and it loomed even higher than Dalilah had anticipated. The red rocks trapped the heat of the sun, radiating it back like an oven.
Dust devils swirled near the base, fine sand sticking to perspiration on Dalilah’s skin. The game trail to the approach petered out, and grass grew shoulder-high, scrub dense.
Brandt stopped, shaded his eyes, searching for a route up.
She heard a sneeze in the grass to her left and froze. Brandt spun around, lowered his rifle and clicked off the safety, attention trained on the grass.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He put his finger to his mouth.
Another sneeze.
“Impala,” he whispered. “Warning.”
A group of antelope suddenly flew at them from the grass. Dalilah shrieked and ducked as the buck leaped high and over her, violently kicking backward with his rear legs.
Brandt ignored the impala, aiming his gun at the vacated grass.
Her gaze shot to him in fear.
“Wild dogs,” he whispered. “That rocking-horse jump makes it harder for the dogs to grab their stomachs and disembowel them.”
The dog pack was only seconds behind the impala—small mottled black-and-tan predators with huge ears, white tail tips, snarling teeth as they gave full chase.
Dalilah heard a terrible gurgling death rasp as somewhere in the long grass the pack sank their teeth into an unlucky antelope and began ripping it apart alive. She grabbed Brandt’s arm, blood draining from her head and bile rising in her throat as she listened to the wet tearing, ripping grunts and growls.
“Nasty way to go,” he whispered. “That sound will attract bigger predators. We need to move fast.” Taking her hand, Brandt led her at a fast trot to the steaming base of the cliff, not letting her go for a minute. Dalilah was grateful because she felt she’d just hit rock bottom in every way, and was crashing hard.
At the cliff base, she slumped onto a rock, put her face in her hand. She wanted to cry, just release everything inside, but she also wanted to hold it all in. She began to shake. Brandt placed his hand, large, firm, calming, on her shoulder.
The tears welled.
He looked up at the sky, and she knew he was at a loss to know how to handle her. And he had to be tired, too.
Then, as if making a decision, he lowered himself onto the hot rock next to her and tentatively put his arm around her. Then he committed, pulling her tightly against his body.
Dalilah leaned into him, drawing comfort from his solid strength, his confidence, the steady beat of his heart, and she let the tears come.
“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay—I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She sniffed, met his eyes. “No, she said, very quietly. “I’m sure you’ll do your best. Or Omair will probably kill you.”
He smiled, a soft light entering his pale eyes, and he took her hat off, moving hair away from her dust-streaked face.
“Yeah. And if Omair doesn’t kill me,” he said softly, “Haroun will.”
She held his gaze.
“Brandt, thank you. I know I’m just a job, a package—”
“No,” he said softly. “Not just a package, not anymore.” He smiled, sadly this time, a worry entering his eyes. “You’re too stubborn for that.”
Chapter 10
“It feels as if it has a presence,” Dalilah said, looking up at the wall. “Like it’s got eyes.”
“The Batswana call it Solomon’s Wall,” Brandt said. “Sangomas—the local witch doctors—claim it’s a place where old spirits live and watch over the plains to the Tsholo.”
“Must be about seventy yards high,” she whispered.
“Around sixty meters of columnar basalt straight up, higher in other places. The wall runs for maybe forty or fifty kilometers—a rift caused by volcanic upheaval thousands of years ago.”
She studied the big blocks of rock—cubes of various sizes stacked one atop the other almost as if by a giant human hand, an ancient ruined city wall now being pried and twisted apart by the gnarled roots of crooked trees and sparse shrubs that had found sustenance in crevices.
Again the hot breeze, an almost imperceptible sensation, rustled over her skin, as if the wall itself was softly exhaling. A prickle ran over her skin.
“It feels like it doesn’t want to let us through, or over.”
“This land has a way of doing that, like something primitive whispering just beneath the veil of the surface, reflecting back your own emotions.”
She looked at him oddly, something shifting in her. Brandt handed her water. She met his eyes as she drank. He still didn’t take any, but he felt thirsty now.
“You going to be okay?” he said.
She forced a wry smile and cast another glance up the cliff face. “I’m scared of heights.”
“Because you’re afraid of falling and dying?”
She bit the corner of her lip. “I suppose that’s what it boils down to.”
“You could look at this two ways—if we stay down here, you probably will die at Amal’s hands. Or you could let me help you climb, and only stand a faint chance of dying at your own hand.”
“Oh, great. You sure have a way of making someone feel like they have some nice options—stay down here and get my head cut off, or go up there and get smashed.”
He crouched in front of her and looked up into her face, examining her, weighing how much mettle she had left, how far he could push her. “Dalilah, you can do this. You’ve shown me that you’ve got more grit than most men. You’re a survivor. You have everything it takes and then some.”
She turned her face away.
“No, look at me.” He took her hand in his. “I’m going to help you over this. Once step, one rock at a time. We’ll take it at an angle instead of straight up. It’ll be easier that way. And near the top, there’s water.” He pointed. “That dark stain on the rock? Waterfall. We’ll rest on that ledge up there by the water, then go the last short haul. We can be up on the plateau and in shelter before dark. I’ll build you a fire, we’ll eat. You can sleep. Then tomorrow, we start fresh. We’re a team, okay—got that? No man left behind. Ever.”
She gave a half laugh and her eyes flicked briefly to her finger with the ring. “After everything I’ve been through so far, this suddenly feels like the biggest, insurmountable hurdle of all.”
Brandt had a sense she wasn’t talking just about the wall, but about the argument they’d had over her marriage versus independence. He felt there was something much deeper and darker at play there, but he was not going to judge, or dig further. Right now he had to keep her focused on moving forward and up, on the positive.
“Listen here, Dalilah, I’ll make you a harness, and you’ll be tied to me with rope. I won’t let you fall. You’ve just got to keep looking up, never down, never backward.” He got to his feet, his body casting her in shadow. “Tomorrow we’ll make for a small village where we might even find transport. From there, smooth sailing and we’re home.”
“Home,” she said softly as she studied the wall. She rubbed her brow. “I’m not sure I know where that is anymore,” she muttered.
She was talking about moving to Sa’ud, the upcoming marriage, Brandt was certain of it. But he didn’t want to go there, not now. He removed the coil of rope f
rom his pack that he’d cut from the jeep canopy. “I’m going to use this to fashion a harness around your chest, and I’m going to remove your sling for now, just in case you need balance from that other hand, but go easy on it.”
He began to loop knots as he spoke. “The idea is for me to climb up a boulder or two, find a secure perch, then haul you up. You’ll help by using your good arm to pull and your legs to climb and leverage against my resistance. We go this way rock by rock, step by step. When you’re tired, tell me, and we rest. Then when your mind is clear and focused again, then—and only then—we take another step.” He paused, assessing the rock face. “And from the top, we’ll see right across this plain. We’ll see if Amal is coming.”
He removed her sling and looped the rope around her back, and under her arms above her breasts, securing it with knots. But when the side of his hand brushed against her breast, her eyes ticked up to his, and the memory of their kiss suddenly hung briefly in the heat between them.
“There.” He cleared his throat and stepped back, smiling as encouragingly as he could. “Ready?”
She inhaled deeply, nodded.
But exactly what she was ready for, Dalilah wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she had to take the first step, get up over that first rock—and she was going to have to place her full trust in Brandt.
She believed he would not let her fall, that he’d help her up over this hurdle. But the other hurdles that would come after?
Once she got “home” she was on her own. And for a brief insane instant, she didn’t want to scale this cliff. She wasn’t ready to go home.
*
Amal stared over the wide, roiling Tsholo at the Botswana bank on the other side. Rage as violent as the floodwaters seethed inside him.
It was already afternoon, and jeep tracks showed his quarry had crossed the river right here. Before the waters had come down. Who was this bastard that had taken the princess? How had this person known that he was coming for her?
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