African Assignment

by Carol Gregor

She let her breath out in a stifled sigh of need and longing. They were so close, their bare legs almost touching, and yet they were so far apart. She was acutely aware of his every breath and movement, and she felt sure he was of hers. And yet how could she be so sure? Nothing had been said, nothing had been spoken. All there was between them were these uncomfortable, jarring looks, the vibrations of their bodies, and the way her very blood seemed to beat for him.

  It was the fourth day of their trip. Four long, sunny days when they had risen at dawn and slept at nightfall, and had spent the hours in between driving and watching, waiting and working.

  In some ways they had been the best days of her life. She had felt alive and free, and had loved learning about the wildlife of the African bush. She had also found a new thrill, she thought, resting her hand on the hot metal of the camera, because from watching Cal and asking him questions about photography she had quickly picked up the basic technicalities of his craft and was enjoying the chance to put her new knowledge into practice. She had no idea if her pictures would be good, but Cal was a patient teacher, and she certainly enjoyed learning from him.

  But in other ways they had been by far the worst. Ever since that first night, when Cal had come to her and taken her into his arms, a whole new and distinctly uncomfortable element had entered their relationship. Sexual tension simmered and throbbed just below the surface of their every exchange, and seemed to grow more powerful by the day. Whether it was their fingers touching as she passed him a camera lens, or his eyes resting darkly on her slender legs, there was a quality to their awareness of each other that permeated every movement and made her ache with raw desire. And she was somehow sure he felt the same.

  Although it could never be the same, she thought bitterly. Because while she had never known before what a powerful and driving force desire could be, Cal, she was certain, felt only the familiar arousal of a passing interest.

  She sensed his eyes on her face and flicked her green gaze to his.

  'What is it?'

  'What are you thinking about? You're frowning like an angry polecat.'

  I was thinking about all the women you must have taken to bed in your roving life, she thought. 'I was thinking how frustrating it must be for you to have to have an assistant, when you're so used to travelling alone.'

  'Frustrating.' His mouth crooked with cool irony. 'I'd say that was the right word.' For a moment his eyes stayed on her, watching as her blush deepened beneath his gaze, then he looked down to his camera. She saw the dark fan of his eyelashes on his bronzed skin as he twisted off the camera lens and put it carefully back in his bag.

  'It has its drawbacks,' he said, in a brisker voice, 'but I'll say something for you, Frankie, you're a damn fine photographic assistant. I've never known anyone pick it up so quickly.'

  Her blush turned to a glow of pleasure. 'I'm fascinated by it. I love watching you work. You're teaching me so much.'

  'Yes, well --' He got up and bent to place his cameras in the bag. Then he stopped, one camera still weighed in his hand, and looked directly down at her. She saw his straight brown fingers on the black metal, and knew before he began to speak that he was going to break the unwritten silence that had bound them during the past few days.

  '—let's keep it to photography, shall we? Then neither of us will run into trouble.'

  There was a silence so deep that she could hear the rustle of the breeze in the grasses of the plain.

  'I don't know what you mean!'

  'Oh, yes you do. You might be young—but you're not that young.'

  Frankie looked down, unable to meet his eyes. Her gaze rested on his hands, strong and sensitive. Her cheeks felt on fire. She heard him sigh with irritation, and imagined him pushing a hand through his hair. The heat seemed to press all round them.

  'You know how things are, you know as well as I do. But I'm telling you straight, it's going no further. You're young and innocent. I'm not. You can't even begin to imagine what my life has been like --'

  'Can anyone?' Her green gaze blazed up at him. 'If I was twice as old, would it make any difference? Anyway, I don't see what all this has to do with anything!'

  'It has to do with the fact that, whatever's started to happen between us, there is no way whatsoever we're going to do anything about it! For one thing,' he added cruelly, 'convent girls have never been my style.'

  'How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not a convent girl! Although I rather thought that any and every woman was grist for your mill.''

  'On the contrary, I'm extremely selective. I've just been lucky enough to have had a rich and varied field to choose from.'

  'Oh!' she cried out with distaste. 'Anyway, I wasn't intending to do anything about anything!'

  'I know. Look. . .' He put out a conciliatory hand and touched her arm, flesh on flesh. She drew back as if he'd burned her. 'I know you can't help looking like you do, and smiling like you do, but --'

  'But you never wanted to take a girl on this trip in the first place, and now all your worst nightmares have come to pass!' She jumped up, dusting down her shorts. 'OK. Fine. You were right and I was wrong—but there's not much we can do about it now, is there, except grin and bear it?'

  'We can at least air the problem. If we don't, it'll be like a pressure-cooker building up steam. One day it— we'll—explode!'

  'OK. It's aired.'

  'You're angry now, but you'll understand when --'

  Frankie raised her eyes in exasperation. 'I know! Don't tell me! When I'm older. Well, I'm not exactly a babe in arms, you know!'

  'But you haven't exactly seen a lot of life yet, have you? Being incarcerated in a convent for ten years doesn't give you much to go on.'

  She glared at him. 'You know what? I think you need to keep casting me as a convent schoolgirl for your own protection. Otherwise you might have to start seeing me as a real person, and that would never do, would it?'

  'I do see you as a real person. Far too real. That's the problem.' Cal dashed a hand through his hair. His look was grim. 'For God's sake, Frankie, I'm trying to do the decent thing, for once in my life. I don't see why you have to get so damned angry about it!'

  'I'll tell you why! It's because I feel you're accusing me of having done something, but I don't know what it is! I've tried my utmost to do everything you've asked, to stay out of your hair, and not get in your way—I've hardly been prancing around in a basque and suspenders, holding out an apple and trying to lure you away from your cameras and into the undergrowth!'

  He looked up at her, dragging an arm across his brow to wipe away the sweat. She saw a sudden wicked glint in his eyes under the shadow of his arm. 'The trouble is that khaki shorts are far more sexy on the right woman --'

  'Well, that's your problem, not mine!' she snapped, furious. 'If you expect me to start donning a chador in this weather, then you're in for a disappointment. I'm dressing for comfort, and to hell with what effect it has on anyone else!'

  'Ah, the famous O'Shea temper. I wondered if you'd inherited that, too!'

  He looked away, then back at her. She saw his eyes straying to the way her breasts pushed out the thin white cotton of her T-shirt, and her tiny waist clinched with a brown leather belt. His look was dark with desire and his lips were parted, showing a dangerous edge of straight teeth. At the sight of him her heart seemed to somersault over, turn to water, and melt clean away. She moistened her lips, and he watched her.

  'If it were only different --' he said roughly.

  'If pigs could fly!'

  He sighed. 'Maybe this conversation wasn't such a brilliant idea, but it's too late to worry now. We both know the score. The least we can do is try and make things easy for each other. OK?'

  It might be easy for you, she thought bitterly, but it would never be easy for her, not when she only had to see the curve of his mouth or the plane of his cheek to feel almost faint with raw desire.

  'All right,' she said sullenly.

  'Good girl,' he said, a
nd walked away as if the matter had dropped instantly from his mind. Across the water-hole the elephant mother and her baby were retreating into the bush. He stopped and watched them, hands on his hips.

  'The sun's getting high now. We won't see much game for the rest of the day.'

  He glanced back, and she tore her eyes from the strong lines of his body and pretended to be studying the scene.

  'I got some good pictures of those two,' he said. 'The only thing I haven't got now is a cheetah.'

  'Are they rare?'

  'They're shy. Elusive quarry.' He looked at her and their eyes met, and it was as if his words had nothing whatsoever to do with wild animals and everything in the world to do with her. Desire, refusing to be banished, flared between them again. She caught up her lip under his gaze, and his eyes darkened.

  'Oh, hell and damnation! This is utterly impossible!' He turned abruptly. 'Did you bring breakfast?'

  'Don't I always?'

  She marched to the Land Rover, not knowing whether she was more furious with him for the way he was so coolly rejecting her, or with herself for showing him her feelings so nakedly.

  'Cheers.' He eyed her over the rim of his mug. 'You know, you make great coffee.'

  'You don't have to humour me!'

  'I wasn't. I was making a simple observation.'

  'Well, thank you. At least I'm good for something.'

  Her words snapped his temper. He turned and hit the Land Rover hard with his fist, making her jump with shock. 'For God's sake, quit this martyr act! You're good for a million things, and you know it! You're just not good for me!'

  Their eyes blazed at each other. Frankie turned, leaned her arms up against the side of the vehicle, and rested her forehead against them. 'I didn't mean it to be like this,' she said miserably.

  'Neither did I. And even if it was, I thought I could handle it.'

  'And you can.' The bitterness was still in her tone.

  There was a long silence. Then Cal said harshly. 'I have to. I have no option. But I'll tell you straight, it's one hell of a struggle.'

  She swallowed, then spoke in a muffled rush into her arms. 'Who says you have to?'

  There was a long, long silence. Her words seemed to hang shimmering in the hot air. She could hear them echoing in her ears, and she could hardly believe what she heard. Had she really said that? She, who had always been so cool and in control with the few boyfriends she had allowed to court her; she, whose experience of hot-breathed bosses had made her as wary as any wild creature of flirtatious games and light-hearted dalliances?

  But this wasn't a game, it was real, more real than anything she had ever felt before. And, driven by her wild feelings, she had allowed the raw abandon that tore at her heart to be mirrored plainly in her shameless, blurted words.

  She held her breath. She heard him sigh, and when he finally spoke it was with careful emphasis.

  'I'm not sure I heard that right,' she heard him say, 'but I can make an educated guess. And the answer is, because I just do.'

  'You mean there's someone else?' She looked up, but his eyes scowled away into the distance.

  'I didn't say that,' he said, after a moment. 'But look at you, Frankie. You're so innocent and open to the world that you make me feel a hundred. I've no right to take that from you, no intention of doing so --'

  She flung her head back, tossing her hair, and looked him straight in the eyes. 'Twenty isn't so young. And innocence can't last forever.'

  'You're a very young twenty.'

  'All the more reason to do some catching up!'

  'For God's sake, what are you saying? You want to use me to lose your virginity? You want me to give you a taste of experience?'

  'No, no! I don't mean that! I don't know what I mean!' Spelt out so baldly, the words frightened her, made her back away. 'You're twisting everything up!'

  'Exactly. You don't know what you mean. You don't know what you want. But let me tell you something. We're in a hothouse out here—together night and day, cut off from the outside world. It's not the sort of situation for a little light dalliance. You might want me to hold you, kiss you. But just suppose I did? Where do you think we would end up?'

  Frankie met his eyes and saw a ruthless honesty there that humbled her and made her ashamed of her blundering outcries.

  'In bed. Or rather in sleeping-bag.' Her lips crooked miserably.

  'And is that what you really, honestly want?'

  'I don't know.' Somewhere, out of the far corner of her eye, she seemed to see the dim outline of her aunt Jenny's worried face. 'I just can't stand things the way they are.'

  'That's a "no". And you don't have to stand things much longer. Tonight we're going to drive over to the Mana Lodge. I've got to go away for a couple of days, and I want you to stay there while I'm gone.'

  'What?' She was aghast. 'Go away? Why?'

  'There's some pictures I have to take.'

  'But you can't go alone. You can't drive.'

  'I can manage.'

  'How? Who with? Where are you going?' She felt herself go cold, bereft and spurned.

  'I can't tell you now. If everything goes well, I'll explain when I get back.'

  'Is it dangerous?'

  'Crossing a road's dangerous.'

  'That's a "yes"!'

  He dashed a hand through his hair. 'Why can't I come?'

  'Because I don't want you with me,' he said cruelly. 'I don't want anyone with me.'

  'Oh!'

  'I'm sorry, but it's how things have to be.'

  'And what about the International Wildlife budget? Can it suddenly stretch to luxury game lodges?'

  'This is not their job, it's mine. And my budget. And,' he added grimly, 'this time it extends to two rooms when we're both there together. I'm not risking those seductive pyjamas of yours any more.'

  'I haven't got them with me.' She managed a bleak smile. 'I left them in my case, back in Nairobi. It's a T-shirt or my birthday suit.'

  'Even more reason,' he said gravely. 'Come on, let's go. I've got a hundred things to do back at camp.'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  'Hold it.' Cal's voice was tense. 'We have visitors.'

  It had been a hot and silent drive back to camp, but now Cal leaned forward and spoke urgently. Frankie looked up from the bumpy track she had been guiding the Land Rover along, and saw a vehicle parked near their distant tent. He put out a hand and pressured her thigh in silent signal to stop. His fingers on her bare skin were not in the slightest bit sensual, and his eyes were glued to the scene ahead. Suddenly he was as watchful as a poised hawk, quivering and alert. She could almost feel the adrenalin beginning to pulse through his veins.

  'What is it?'

  'I don't know.'

  'It must just be game wardens or something. After all, we aren't doing anything wrong.'

  'It isn't that simple.' He glanced behind them. 'Back up. See if we can get behind those thorn bushes. But for God's sake don't roar the engine.'

  Trembling, she did as she was told, but before they could reach shelter there was a shout, and then the vehicle near their tent burst into life and drove wildly across the plain towards them, setting up a cloud of dust.

  Cal swore violently under his breath.

  'What is it? What's happening?'

  'I'm not sure, but it doesn't look good. Frankie --' His eyes snapped to hers. 'Whatever happens now, do whatever I say. Do you hear that? Whatever. And leave me to do all the talking.'

  His tone brooked no questioning. She nodded, her heart pounding.

  'Trust me,' he said, his eyes compelling hers, and then there was no more time for talking because the vehicle, which she could now see was an ancient, open-topped lorry, was bearing down on them fast, and in the back she could see a group of wild-eyed men waving their fists in the air.

  No, not fists, she realised with a sickening lurch of fear. Guns.

  Cal got out and stood in their path, his hands away from his sides as if to prove his own unarmed
status. The lorry slowed to a dusty halt. There was a lot of shouting in an African language she did not understand, then two men stepped forward, grabbed Cal, and strong-armed him into the back of the lorry.

  'Cal!'

  Her cry made the men turn. One came over and pulled her roughly down from her seat.

  'Ow!' She stumbled, regained her balance, and pulled her arm free. 'I'm coming. You don't have to do that.'

  To her astonishment, now that she was actually face to face with these hostile strangers, her fear fled and left her with an icy calm. When they shouted in her face she coolly walked to the lorry and climbed aboard next to Cal.

  'Charming friends you have,' she muttered, as she took her place next to him on the grimy floor.

  'They're no friends of mine,' he muttered back grimly, his eyes flicking everywhere at once as he tried to take in exactly what was happening.

  Then the man who seemed to be the group's leader vaulted into the back of the lorry and poked her roughly with the muzzle of his gun, shouting a single word over and over again.

  'Keys,' said Cal. 'He wants the Land Rover keys.'

  Her eyes flew to his.

  'Give them to him.'

  She stood up, felt in the pocket of her shorts, and handed them over. The man departed, and .a moment or two later she heard the jeep start up and depart.

  'Your cameras! Your films!' she gasped to Cal, but he only shushed her with his hand, and then the lorry roared into life and they were bumping so painfully across the bush that she could not think of anything but the bruising agony of the journey.

  The rattling nightmare went on and on until she thought she could bear it no longer. It threw her and Cal constantly against each other, then apart, like helpless rag-dolls, and after a time it felt as if every part of her body was on fire with pain.

  'Ouch!' she yelped as a particularly bad bump knocked her head against the iron side of the lorry. She glared at the men who were standing guard over them. 'Lousy driver you've got!'

  One of the men snarled and muttered, levelling his gun towards her. Cal instantly flung an arm across her body to hold her still.

  'Easy. Don't panic.'

  'I wasn't planning to,' she said through clenched teeth, and it was true. She felt raw with pain and cold with fury, but not in the slightest bit panicky.