Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (16 page)

“Suck up,” I muttered. A thought struck. One I suddenly needed clarity on even more than I needed my hot shower. “I didn’t ask before and should have. Do you have a girlfriend back home? Someone you’re going back to?”

The mischief, still flirting around his eyes, disappeared in a blink. “No! You’re amazing and beautiful and you tempt the hell out of me. But if there was someone else, I could never…would never…”

“Not even if she would never know?”

“I would know.”

It could have been a well-practiced line, but the utter sincerity behind it wasn’t so easily faked.

I believed him. And that was dangerous. Too many qualities were already stacking up in his favor. And now I’d have to add
principled
to that column too. Maybe if that column weren’t so heavily offset by the fact he’d be leaving as soon as there was a way out I could have allowed myself to feel differently—feel more—about him. Until then…

I sighed, accepting this fling for what it was. And determined to enjoy every last minute of
now
, knowing everything could change tomorrow. Taking his hand, I led him to the shower.

We stripped quickly, no teasing beforehand since we couldn’t afford more than just a couple of minutes under the hot water. No hanky-panky, even if my hanky and his panky were aroused the moment both were visible to the other. Ignoring that, I fingered his damp bandage and, at his nod, unwound it from his ribs. The skin around the entry and exit wounds was red and puckered but the wound as a whole looked clean and to be healing well.

“Let’s leave it open a while,” Mark suggested. “You did a great job. Thank you.”

High praise from a doctor, but really how far wrong could I go with a few strips of cloth and some penicillin? Not that I concentrated long on his praise, deserved or not. Without the bandaging, Mark was even more naked now, and my clenched hanky was begging for some of that panky rising steadily under my fixed gaze.

“Shower. Now.” The strain in Mark’s voice couldn’t have been any sexier. Then we were in the tight cubicle, his skin glistening as first hot water then slick soap streamed over it. My hanky thrummed in anticipation.

Two minutes wasn’t nearly long enough, but I managed to soap up, shampoo and rinse off in the allotted time despite the distractions. When I cut the shower off, I allowed myself to be mesmerized by the water droplets caught by Mark’s hairs up and down his body.

He stepped out, finding his towel and handing me mine. We patted each other dry, quickly and imperfectly before dropping the towels to the floor and scurrying to the wide bed where hanky met panky without further delay.

I clutched at his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his, drawing him as close to me, into me, as possible, until my whole world dissolved into an ocean of ecstasy, wave upon wave of it crashing over me.

Long after we’d climaxed, I was holding to him still. My stanchion. My knight.

Like a stealth bomber under radar, fear had caught up to me. Fear for my strays and my friends, for Zahur and for Ushindi. For Mark, for me.

The sounds of helicopters and rifle fire battered at that fear. The buzz of mosquitoes pricked at it.

“Shh,” Mark soothed, rocking over me, holding me, protecting me. “We’ll get through this.”

My heart rejoiced at
we
. It was the
this
that terrified me.

The uniform gray of low clouds and constant rain was already having an effect on my ability to judge time. A glance at the clock when we woke told me it was almost mid-morning, far later than I’d thought. Fear was exhausting. It had kept me awake for much of the night, and when I did finally fall asleep, it served me with vivid and disturbing dreams that had kept me in their thrall, leaving me feeling no less rested than I’d been the night before when I finally struggled awake.

Once awake, I struggled to get up, Mark’s arms holding me still.

“Not yet,” he murmured.

Two hours ago—maybe even an hour—I would have conceded, happily. Now, though, we’d missed our chance. “It’s late. The cows out already going to be pissed at us.”

A cold nose planted itself over the edge of the bed into the small of my bare back. Gus whined in agreement. “Been keeping your legs crossed too long?” I asked him. His sharp yip was plain enough.

Avoiding Mark’s disappointed pout, I kissed the tip of his nose. “There’ll be time for more fun later.”

“Ohh,” he groaned. “I wish you hadn’t said that. When I was a resident working 24-hour shifts, any time anyone said something similar, an emergency would walk through the door or we’d get an obstetrics call in the middle of the night.
Later
was like the Loch Ness monster. There was evidence a
later
existed, but few of us ever saw it.”

“No puppy dog eyes,” I pleaded. “Only Gus is allowed to have those. And right now his are a little more desperate than yours.”

“Kids are way too needy. You should have thought about that before you had them.”

“Hey!” I met the tease in his eyes. “They were all accidents. It wasn’t like I planned for them.”

“Well, if you’d practiced safe adopting to begin with…”

I scrunched my nose at him. “Too late now.”

“Yeah. So I see.” He looked over my shoulder at Gus, who yipped again now that he was getting our attention. From his nearby room, Jengo added his own hoots. With a sigh of capitulation, Mark released his arms from around me. “Let’s go be responsible.”

If I’d thought for one second that scowl on his face was real, he’d have been out of my bed for good. As it was, he proved himself a fast learner by pitching in with all the chores, needing little coaching from me and remembering everything he’d been taught, from how to milk to how to refill the generator.

While my plantation family had been great and generous with their help, having a partner like Mark to share the work, break up the solitude and ease the fear brought comfort in a way no one else had ever managed. With the exception of my parents, of course, but parents were always special cases. And now that mine were gone, I didn’t even have their specialness to rely on and take comfort from any longer.

There had been no let-up in the rain, and the mud was becoming almost as treacherous as ice in places. In other places, it was a muck that sucked at our rubber boots, catching and holding them till I thought the only way forward would be to step out of them completely. It didn’t quite come to that, but I did lose a liter of milk in the battle, the liquid sloshing out of the pails as I struggled them home, fighting for my footing all the way.

The rhino and okapi were miserable in their soggy paddock, but a bit of warm milk and dry hay turned their moods around for a little while at least.

That’s what made putting ourselves out there in such conditions worth it—seeing the obvious relief the cows felt from alleviating the painful stress of their swollen udders, and hearing the sounds of the
watoto
sucking contentedly at their bottles. Knowing our efforts were making a difference, even if it was a small one, in their lives.

Mark and I were toweling off in the kitchen, miserably wet and needing to change once we got most of the rainwater out of our hair and off our skin when Gus charged the front door, barking his intruder alert at the top of his lungs. Jengo helpfully added his screeching to the cacophony, swinging along with us as Mark and I hurried to the sidelights flanking the door.

A rugged 4-wheel-drive SUV was churning the last few meters up the drive. I didn’t silence Gus until it stopped and a man emerged from the passenger side. I recognized the neighboring plantation owner who I’d met at some of the informal business meetings where the regional owners discussed production pricing and best practices for cooperating to get our coffee to the companies wanting to bring it to market.

Through the rain and glass plating, it was hard to see the man behind the wheel, but I assumed it was one of the owner’s workers or maybe a son since the gentleman crossing the veranda was older, looking almost too frail to manhandle the beast of a vehicle across half-flooded mountain roads.

Catching Gus’s collar, I gave it a sharp jerk. “
Namaza
, Gustaaf. Friends,” I told him sternly. He grumble-growled his uncertainty, but the ear-piercing barking stopped. “
Mbwa nzuri
. Good boy,” I praised him, still holding his collar with one hand as I took Jengo’s hand in my other. I nodded at Mark, who opened the door just as the neighbor reached it.

He looked a bit startled seeing the Rottweiler and gorilla, but it was his long, serious expression that concerned me most. “
Habari. Shikamoo, Bwana,
” I said, offering him the respect an elder deserved. “Mr. Aguda, isn’t it? You are most welcome. Perhaps you’ll join the doctor and me in a cup of tea or coffee?” Hospitality was expected in Ushindi, and long visits between virtual strangers were not uncommon. “Your driver is welcome, too, of course.”

“
Marahaba
. And your welcome is appreciated,” Mr. Aguda said, out of breath from the short walk and with a wheeze to each word. “But you will forgive me that I don’t stay. And neither should you. An army marches up the mountain. The same men who’ve cut our communications and our power. They’re coming in a great caravan—a dozen vehicles or more that I’ve seen with my own eyes. They are coming for our homes and our crops. You are not safe here. No woman is.” He turned to Mark. “You are a doctor?”

Mark nodded. “With the Doctors Making a Difference organization.”

“American?”

Mark nodded again.

“You too are in danger, then. Her they will capture and rape before they kill her if she does not cooperate. You they will capture and use for barter. And if they do not get what ransom they ask for you, they will execute you, on video, to punish the United Nations.”

“How can you be so sure what they’ll do?” I asked, not that I disbelieved him, but I was still trying to process that the time I thought we had we didn’t. Deep down, I had held out hope the mountain would be spared.

“This is a militia trained by the DRC. I lost my brother to them in the First Congo War in ‘97. I lost my son to them in the fighting when Ushindi was born half a dozen years later. I lost my nephew to them 4 years ago when he dared to cross the Congo border into Rwanda with a UN organization to offer developmental aid. And I lost my grandson to them today.”

My knees went weak. “Mr. Aguda—”

“Say nothing for my pain. Take your workers and flee this mountain. By tomorrow, there will be nothing left of it but death.”

With a grave nod, he turned back to the SUV, likely on his way to warn others.

“
Asante-sana
,”
I called after him, well aware how little reward my thanks was for what he’d done in coming to us, and for what he continued to do.

He didn’t look back, even as the vehicle reversed itself and churned back down the drive. In and out of our lives in under five minutes, but he had changed our lives forever.

“You believe him?” Mark asked.

“He’s a plantation owner, not a radical. What reason would he have to lie? We’ve seen the helicopters, you’ve seen one of the camps up close and personal. What do you think?”

He shut the door, and I turned Gus and Jengo loose before collapsing against the wall, my mind racing with things to be done.

“I think he’s a very brave man who knows he’s dying and wants to save as many others as he can before he does.”

“Dying?”

“He’s in congestive heart failure. The way he stands, the way he breathes, the heavy abdomen on such a thin frame, the swelling in his hands—classic symptoms. He probably doesn’t have more than a couple of weeks.”

“Why is it doctors seem to know so much more about death than how to live a life?” I muttered, more and more distracted by the overwhelming number of decisions to be made—and fast. What to take, what to leave. What— “Damn! The cows. If no one’s here to milk them…”

“They’ll dry up eventually. It might be a rough couple of weeks for them, but once they’re not being artificially stimulated to produce milk, they won’t. Like any woman.”

He was right about that, although it was heartbreaking to think of them suffering for any length of time. More heartbreaking yet was to think about what it meant if we weren’t there to protect them. “They’re big and slow and trusting. Easy prey for a pack of hyenas. Or for…” I swallowed, more and more worried that four-legged predators weren’t the main concern “…an army of hungry men.”

“They’re cows, Kayla. Milk and meat are what they do.”

I wasn’t at all pleased by the exasperation in his tone. Circumstances notwithstanding, I was legitimately horrified by the thought of those half-dozen docile cows being slaughtered because
we
weren’t there to protect them. “A little empathy wouldn’t hurt,
doctor
.”

He reeled back as if I had delivered a physical slap. “Do we really have time for niceties like empathy and bedside manner? Straight up, if it’s a decision between people and cows, people will win every time. Am I supposed to apologize for pointing that out?”

“Why? Because you’re right and I’m wrong? I’m not allowed to feel any differently from you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I’m also betting you won’t approve of what I’ve decided to do. Luckily, I don’t need your approval, although your cooperation would be nice.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it’s going to tear my heart out to leave this plantation and those cows, but I’m also not going to leave out of here alone.”

“Why wouldn’t I approve of my coming along?”

I rolled my eyes. Was he really that dense? No, it just took him a moment to comprehend that I would decide differently from what he would have done.

“Oh, you weren’t talking about me when you said not alone. You’re a crazy woman, you know that?”

I shook my head. “This Mama Bear has cubs to protect.”

“You’re talking about taking Tamu and Nyota in the van!”

“We have to take the van regardless. We’ll load the front half of the cargo hold with food, clothes, medical supplies, mementos—” I caught my breath with a sob thinking about how much I would have to leave behind. Then I thought of what little the other families had taken with them when they left, not knowing when—or if—they would return. I couldn’t be less courageous than them, could I? “Hay and Tamu and Nyota in the back. Jengo in the cab with us unless he gets fussy. Gus for sure in the cab where anyone who might think about stopping us will see—and hear—him.”

“I know how much you care for them—and I’ve got a soft spot for those little guys too—but you’re not being reasonable. They’re wild animals. They’re built to be out there in the jungle.”

“They’re babies. They’re built to be protected until they can protect themselves. I’m not arguing about this. If you don’t like it, find another ride. Otherwise, there’re a couple of coolers in the storage room. I want a gallon of milk in each, then pack them tight with whatever else fits. There should be some boxes around and a roll of trash bags to pack up the pantry. Don’t forget a can opener and paper plates. Pack in the food last, so we can get to it first. If you’ll back the van up to the veranda, I can start loading the rest of the stuff coming with us while you’re packing the kitchen. The van’s got one of those built-in ramps tucked to its undercarriage, which will take both of us to slide out and attach because it’s extra wide and heavy—”

I was rambling. Trying to organize my thoughts on the fly, but thinking of one thing led to another, and I’d soon be going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole if I continued. And we needed to act. “Van first, then kitchen.”

He nodded, but that didn’t cover the fact he still wasn’t onboard with bringing the orphans along. Food and supplies for us, though, we’d need whether we drove alone or not. For now, I’d keep him focused on our survival, not theirs.

A third hand to help position the heavy ramp on the veranda would have been welcome. Another wave of sheeting rain added more misery to our maneuvering attempts, but finally the wheels were as close to the elevated decking as I could get them, and the wide tongue of the ramp stuck out mostly under the porch roof.

Now came the more difficult decisions. Which of the generations of family belongings should I bring? If I knew what would happen to the things left behind, that would have made those decisions easier. Would the militia set fire to the contents inside the house or would they ransack it for whatever valuables they could carry with them? When things had settled down again, would I return to a gutted shell or a house full of antiques my family had lovingly collected over the past 100-plus years? Tears welled at the thought of what it must have cost my grandparents and great-grandparents in both money and labor to ship in the heavy armoires and curio cabinets. Or the china hutch and banquet table in the dining room with the thick, brocaded curtains and French doors I kept closed and locked to ensure the gorilla didn’t cause any mischief in that elegant room my forebears had created as a nod to their refined Belgian ancestry.