Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (2 page)

Civil unrest, my ass. There was nothing civil going on here in Ushindi, no matter what sugar-coated spin Doctors MD—Doctors Making a Difference—put on it. Getting shanghaied right out of their substandard charity clinic hadn’t been on the itinerary in any of their propaganda brochures filled with smiling faces and hope. That was the Africa I was willing to come to; those were the people I was willing to treat.

Not desperate, gun-wielding men fighting a political battle where neither side was less corrupt than the other. Proof of which had just been handed me in the blood from my bullet-grazed ribs.

The armbands made from strips of red cloth tied around the upper arms of the six men who’d burst into the clinic that morning pronounced them members of the Democrats for Freedom opposition party.  An innocuous name, especially when coupled with who they were opposing—the incumbent Republicans for Peace. Parliamentary elections in a couple of weeks were escalating tensions, I knew, but until those six men showed up I had no clue how any of that could involve an American doctor in an off-grid clinic in the middle of a rainforest, who’d only been in Ushindi for a week.

I had no background or touch point for what was happening. I felt no fear as they came through the bit of screen that passed itself off as a door. Even when they insisted I go with them in a convincing mix of French, English, Swahili and rifle-speak, I was more annoyed than afraid. Their unit leader, Shomar, I was informed, was sick and needed assistance.

“Bring him here,” I told the men. “I’m better set up here to diagnose and treat.”

That suggestion was met with adamant headshakes. Impatiently, they waited for me to pack a medical bag that I mostly filled with guesses based on the high fever and pain symptoms they provided.

Even when I clambered into the crowded jeep with them, close enough to smell their sweat and see the weary determination in their eyes, fear hadn’t caught up with me yet. I’d treat Shomar’s fever, give him some fluids, an electrolyte boost, and some pain meds, and I’d be back in the clinic before lunch. These were Democrats for Freedom, after all. And I was an American—completely apathetic to either way the elections fell.

Only once I’d examined Shomar, a stocky man by Ushindi standards with a fringe of dark beard framing a squared jaw, I was pretty sure the standard treatments I brought along wouldn’t be enough. What I had back in the clinic wouldn’t be enough. What any hospital in Cape Town, London or New York could do wouldn’t be enough. Not today anyway.

Crap
.

“I think it’s the
Subs
virus,” I told the men who’d brought me to the camp, out of earshot of Shomar. “He’s got the telangiectasia that’s typical for it.” It was a unique pattern of bursting capillaries that spread across the face then neck then chest like a growing spider’s web. While it wasn’t 100% reliable as a diagnosis, the chances it wasn’t
Subs
with that symptom were too slim to even consider out here.

Fear flared in their eyes, even though I was pretty sure they had no idea what telangiectasia meant.
Subs
, however, needed no translation or pantomime.

It was the same reaction malaria would have gotten 30 years earlier, or AIDS would still have gotten today. Phones and laptops kept these men connected not just to the rest of the organized military to which they belonged, but to the world at large. A killer plague sweeping down from Sudan and other points north would be no secret, even to men as remote as they were.

What I hadn’t reckoned on was how that diagnosis impacted my current situation as the word
Subs
was uttered through the camp of about two dozen men.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly was. Sorry Shomar was suffering, sorry there was no cure—yet. Sorry the disease was spreading inexorably across a continent and to the rest of the world. “I can make him more comfortable for now and leave him with drugs for the pain, but it’s hospice-only care now, nothing more I can do.”

I didn’t like the way they looked at me then, but I thought they were simply disappointed in Western medicine.

“Drugs?” one of the men asked. “Morphine?”

I nodded. “I have only a small supply, though.”

“Cocaine?”

My eyes narrowed. I shook my head. “I don’t have any cocaine.”

The man nudged one of his brothers-in-arms , who disappeared into a tent and came back a moment later with a baggie of white powder he brandished at me in an obvious question.

I shrugged. To my limited knowledge, there had been no published studies yet on the efficacy of cocaine in the management of pain for victims of the Sub-Saharan virus. The amount of their cocaine stock trumped my stock of morphine, though. And at this point, no matter what we gave him, Shomar would be dead within the week, regardless. “It won’t hurt. Use whatever you need to keep him comfortable.” I dug through my bag and dropped a couple of handfuls of sterile syringes and needles on a nearby camp table. If Shomar didn’t need them, the other men could use them instead. I certainly wasn’t endorsing drug use, but I also wasn’t so naïve to be unaware that cocaine was unofficially high on Ushindi’s list of major exports, and trafficking contributed a large percentage to the country’s gross domestic income—rivaling even its coffee industry, I was pretty sure.

“If you need more needles, come by the clinic anytime.” Boxes of needles were cheap, lightweight to ship, and easy to store. It was the medicinal drug supply the clinic was low on, not the method of their transport into the body. “If someone would drive me back now, please.”

It was at the look they passed around then that a tingle of fear began to niggle at me.

A man in a purple-and-white striped cloth tied around his waist and legs in traditional tribal fashion with a red T-shirt and black-framed glasses peered at me over the thick rims. “We will need more medics,” he said, in better English than I’d heard yet. I assumed he had an issue with tenses, using the future
will need
instead of the simple present tense
need
.

I was wrong.

The other men nodded. “We’ll take him to Hasa tomorrow.”

The tingle of fear became a jolt. “Guys, I have a clinic here to run.” I tried hard for a reasonable tone, willing still to believe in a misunderstanding due to miscommunications.

“And we have a war to fight.”

“A war—? Wha—”

The sudden
thwock thwock
of a helicopter cut my questions short as the camp of men grabbed their weapons and dove for cover. Taking my cue, I crouched behind a tree as the chopper circled the camp. Sharp
cracks
of rifle fire exploded both from above and from the ground.

Leaving valor for another day, I waited for another fierce round of gunfire, then sprinted through the rainforest, paralleling the dirt road but unwilling to chance exposure on it.

I ignored the shouts behind me as I ran, till in the midst of the gunfire I thought was only between the camp and the helicopter, I heard the
zing
of a bullet flying past and the
thock
as it buried itself in the trunk of a tree not six feet ahead. Only then did I feel the burn of it through my side, scoring the ribs as it burrowed through below them.

Damn
.

Nothing vital had been hit, but already it was starting to bleed. A lot.

I had a choice—surrender or run.

I ran, knowing I couldn’t go back to the clinic. Hasa was at least 15 miles away, through thick jungle since I couldn’t dare the road, but it was my only choice. The camp sat perched on a mountain ridge, so luck laid my path across and down.

A mile or so on, however, I realized I was losing too much blood to keep up my pace for long. When the rude forest abruptly gave way to more civilized plantings, I knew I’d chanced onto one of the dozen or so coffee plantations that had been carved from the mountainside.

I pushed forward, panting with the stress and growing pain as the initial numbing shock wore off. When the rows of trees opened up onto a clearing with a large and modern-looking house on its far side, I breathed silent thanks as I stumbled to the door.

I don’t know what I expected, drained as I was, but the barks of an angry dog here on a coffee plantation in the middle of Africa somehow wasn’t it.

Less expected still was the exquisite face of the woman who opened the door and seduced me into her life.

The  bright orange collar Gus wore was foremost to identify him as a claimed pet so no one would shoot him when he wandered the wild mountain slopes. I put it to its secondary use when I grabbed it before opening the door. Not that I could hold Gus back if he was determined to attack—he very nearly outweighed me, and he for sure out-muscled me.

Luckily for the stranger slouched against the wall, Gus allowed me to control him, ratcheting down the deep challenge of his barking to a guttural whimper when he could at last see the intruder. I could have added a “stand down” command to further reassure him, but I wasn’t reassured enough myself yet to take any further edge off my protector.

Eyes on the bristled back and bared fangs of my 50-kilo companion, the stranger pushed away from the crutch of the wall to where I could clearly see two important points: He was in pain and unarmed. When his eyes followed from my arm up from where my hand gripped Gus’s collar to my shoulder and then to my face, I could also clearly see the firm chisel of his jaw and cheekbones framing features both rugged and striking. My breath seized in my chest. We got few enough white visitors out here, and certainly none who looked like him.

When I caught myself staring, heat stung my cheeks, although I was pretty sure the healthy tan on top of my normally deep olive tones wouldn’t show a blush easily. Besides, the mothering instinct kicked in strong when I forced my eyes from his face to points lower where sticky blood covered the front and side of his blue cotton shirt.

Whatever his other circumstances, he was in pain and needed help. “Who are you?”

“Mark—Mark LeSabre. I’m a doctor, an American. Do you know you have hidden militia units out here and helicopters and men with rifles? I thought I left that kind of gang and drug warfare behind in the States. What the hell?”

I frowned at the mention of helicopters, remembering the one I’d seen earlier, but my ears perked at the word
doctor
. I’d also been keeping up with the news. The fresh start promised by the upcoming elections had a dark and growing shadow over them, and suspicion pricked at me. I must have communicated my unease to Gus because his anxious whine turned into a chest-deep growl. “The incumbent regime doesn’t want to be ousted and the opposition party wants to be sure they are. But it’s internal, political. A foreigner shouldn’t concern either party unless he’s here to abet one or the other. Is that why you’re here, Dr. LeSabre?”

The surprise in his eyes looked genuine. “Abet? No! I didn’t even know where the Doctors Making a Difference folk were even sending me until two weeks ago.”

“So that”—I nodded toward his blood-stained shirt—“was what, a hunting accident?”

“Look, all I know is a team of guys in red armbands—the Democrats, right?—came to the clinic and kidnapped me off to their camp where they threatened to force me to go to Hasa with them. That’s when the Republican dudes in a helicopter came charging in. I took the opportunity to escape, but apparently my hosts weren’t as distracted as I thought.” He glanced briefly down to his lower chest where he’d folded a hand over his ribs.

I scanned the hill above. “Are they following you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But they could be?”

“I didn’t hang around long enough to find out what any of them were doing next.”

“Is there anyone else at your clinic?”

“Just me. I signed on for a month. My replacement won’t be here for another two-and-a-half weeks.”

“You’re awfully free with your information, Dr. LeSabre. Did it never occur to you I might be sympathetic to the men who shot you?”

He blinked. “I don’t even know for sure which side did shoot me. Does it matter—to you?”

I shrugged, deliberately non-committal. “Whose side are you really on?” I stared the question into his heart.

“Yours.”

I almost smiled at that. My coloring, hair and features were decidedly not African, nor were they white either. Maybe he thought my feelings were as mixed as my heritage, but he’d be wrong. My allegiance was strong—to Zahur. Whatever became of Ushindi was mere fortune in the wind, so long as my plantation and all who worked it endured.

In the end, I nodded my answer to his unspoken plea.

He was wounded and displaced, a stray like any number of others who’d found their way to me—gorillas, chimps, bush babies and more. I couldn’t turn him away any more than I could walk away from any stray in need that came my way. Not that I went out looking for strays—it seemed Fate threw more than enough in my path as it was. I had a choice: ignore them or shoulder the responsibility. I chose to be one of the ones on the other side of the balance scale from those who hunted, poached and exploited Africa’s resources. To be a caretaker of its land, its animals and its people—all people.

Caretaker didn’t mean pacifist and pushover, though. Caretaking often meant making the hard choices.

I kept that in mind as I gestured him inside. This man, with the jaw-dropping build and eyes as deep with mystery as the very heart of Africa was just another stray.

The only difference was this one was a skilled stray. A fact I remembered as the jeep horn beeped just as I was closing the door.

My newest stray stabbed a startled and accusing glare at me.

“My foreman,” I quickly explained. “His wife is sick. We were—” A strangled half-laugh escaped despite my best efforts to smother it. The coincidence was
mambo
, just too crazy. “We’re supposed to be on our way to your clinic. Come on, we’ll go down together.”

The doctor shook his head. “I deliberately didn’t head back there. If the militia still wants me, that’s the first place they’ll go.”

“All right. Then we’ll go to Hasa.”

“On the road? In an open jeep?”

I exhaled sharply in frustration. “What do you suggest then?”

He winced, and I recognized it was from pain not my retort.

“Let me take a look at your foreman’s wife before we make any rash decisions.”

Jamal was halfway up the wide veranda when the doctor and I stepped out. With a stern, “Stand down,” thrown at Gus, I lifted a knee to stop him following as I shut the door. Immediately his nose was against the sidelight, keeping watch on me, ever my guardian.

Jamal was obviously feeling protective himself. His hand curled over the butt of the revolver he wore always at his hip.

“
Sawa-sawa
,” I assured him. “This is Dr. LeSabre. The clinic doctor.”

Jamal eyed the stain of blood on the doctor’s scrubs with suspicion. It only occurred to me I had no proof of the story the stranger told nor anything to validate his claim of being a doctor other than my own intuition. And it was telling me there was nothing false about him. But even if I believed he was a doctor, did I have cause to believe he was a competent one?

>
In the jeep, Lisha stretched out in the back seat where Jamal had made her comfortable on a pile of blankets and with a pillow tucked under her tightly braided hair. She tried to return my smile, but couldn’t quite manage as a wave of pain crashed over her.

When I moved aside to let the doctor get a better look, my smile faltered altogether. Maybe it was his own wound keeping his bruised emotions so visible in his dark eyes, but the deep sadness in his expression slammed right into my heart.

I caught one muttered word, “telangiectasia,” before he turned away without so much as touching her.

Jamal and I both crowded him, his profound sadness becoming our gathering fear.

“I just saw this,” he said at last. “In the camp over the ridge.” He laid a hand on Jamal’s shoulder and the look of compassion that overcame him was almost as heartbreaking as the tears that sprang to my foreman’s eyes when the doctor softly confirmed what Jamal already knew deep down. “It could be
Subs
.”

“You can’t be sure,” I whispered.

“You’re right,” he agreed, “but the odds of finding the same unique symptom in two people in the same locale on the same day for it to be anything else are pretty astronomical. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Then there is nothing to be done?” Jamal’s hollow voice sent shivers of helplessness through me.

“Take her to Hasa. They can make her comfortable. Maybe even try new drugs that might make a difference. We’re still learning about this disease, and it’s possible she can help doctors learn how to fight it. She can still do good, and you can do good for her. Take her to Hasa.”

“It will cost—”

I slid a 10,000-franc note into his thin and shaking hand, then closed my fingers briefly over his. “Give them this to start. I’ll bring more later, once she’s settled.”

“You’ll come soon?”

I nodded toward the doctor. “Once he’s cleaned up and settled here, yes, of course.” I crossed to the back of the jeep, leaned over the half-door, and kissed Lisha gently on her forehead, dismayed at the fever gathered there. “
Wana nguvu
,” I told her.
Have strength
. Where I was going to find that strength myself I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure Jamal would ever find it again, if his utterly blasted look was any indication. What was it like to love and revere another human being so much, I wondered.

“Are you okay to drive?”

Jamal nodded, absently as though he might not have understood the words, just the tone. I placed my fingers under his chin and turned his head so we were looking directly into each other’s eyes, and repeated the question.

He took a shuddering breath and nodded again. This time at least I knew it was a conscious response.

On a whim, I stood on tiptoe and placed a kiss on Jamal’s forehead in the exact same spot I had kissed Lisha. “
For strength
,” I echoed. “For you both.”

Nodding over and over, as though the gesture provided him courage only as long as he didn’t stop, Jamal slid behind the wheel and sped away.

“She’s going to die,” I said.

“Probably,” came Dr. LeSabre’s gentle agreement.

But he had misunderstood me.

“Going off to the city. To a strange hospital. Away from her children. Away from her home. The decision made
for
her.” I turned wide eyes on the man beside me. “Why is
going
to die better than
staying
to die?”

He opened his mouth as though to say something.

He earned my respect when he closed it with a thoughtful shake of his head just before his own pain and stress and blood loss caught up to him and he swayed dangerously under the heat of the sun.