Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (24 page)

“Nyota!” I raced toward her, coming in second to Tamu, whose tail wagged frantically back and forth as she greeted her long-lost friend.

I threw my arms around her shoulders and felt the slither of that impossibly long blue tongue tickle the back of my neck.

Jengo hugged an available hind leg, then started doing somersaults that ended with him slapping his chest in joy. Gus barked his welcome.

“I don’t see the other okapis she was with,” Mark said, confirming what I’d known the moment I saw her.

“You won’t. She
did
make her choice.”

“She chose us.” There was more than a touch of wonder in Mark’s tone.

I nodded, relieved beyond measure. “She chose
family
.”

Family
.

Starting one wasn’t even on my radar except as some amorphous future blip. I felt about the whole family business the way I imagined women felt about menopause—they knew it was coming, just not when. Most women didn’t even think about menopause until they’d skipped a period or two and endured a round of hot flashes. Only when it was about to steamroll over them did they admit it was no longer some future issue but one demanding to be dealt with now.

Kayla was my steamroller. Sure, every pore of my body responded to her sexually. I had only to look at her, to inhale her, in order to feel the twitch of desire expanding in me. But it was the core of me she touched with her patience and efficiency, the way she smiled encouragement and bestowed confidence, and how she offered quick correction and generous praise.

With me, with the animals, with everyone around her, she was the epitome of
mother
.

Not
my
mother. Of course. Ours was no Oedipus complex in the making. My own mother had been competent enough, but it had been clear from the first that children were not the bedrock of her life. If we were in a famine and there was only one slice of bread to be had, my mother would probably share it grudgingly where Kayla would not only sacrifice her own share, but somehow figure a way to make that slice feed not just one or two hungry children but provide sustenance for a village.

My mother didn’t even believe in miracles, yet Kayla made them happen.

And she attracted them.

In our shelter that night, with the rain at last pattering to its welcome end, I traced the line of Kayla’s exquisite jaw. I spooned around her, as always on the edge of arousal whenever I was near her. “I think I figured it out.”

“What’s that?” she answered sleepily. “The meaning of life? The cure for
Subs
?”

“Pfft. Nothing so simple,” I assured her. “What it is that I’ve been missing.”

“You mean that hollow spot that echoes when I rap on your chest, Tin Man?”

How did she do that, pegging my fears so precisely when I was still trying to figure them out myself? “Yeah. Actually I do mean that.”

“Oh?” She slipped around in my arms as easily as a snake in a rabbit hole till she was facing me in the darkling night.

“I’m missing a miracle. I’m missing you.”

She propped herself on an elbow. “I’m…beyond flattered. But you must realize by now I don’t come alone. I have…baggage.”

Part of which lay snoring in one corner and was smacking its big gorilla lips in the middle of a dream in another.

“No. What you have is family. Irritating and inconvenient at times, yes. But as indelibly a part of you—of us—as rain is to these mountains.”

“I’m not leaving them.”

It was a quiet statement of fact that she’d proven over and over.

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then how—?”

“Let me solve this mystery of life thing first and figure out how to get rid of
Subs
right quick and then I’ll focus on working that bit out. All I need to know is if there is a way, are you willing to walk it with me?”

“I’ve climbed the Mountains of the Moon with you. How much harder can our next journey be?”

My heart soared to the moon itself.

In other circumstances, such a declaration between us would have ended in a physical consummation of our sincerity and commitment that would have engulfed our flesh and flamed our passion. For tonight, though, with our kids sleeping by us, her lips on mine was consummation enough.  

The last of the storm clouds gave way in the late morning as we dropped further down toward the distant valley.

Uganda.

It didn’t look much different from where we were now, with the lush jungle forest directly below us easing into a broad swath of savanna, but it screamed safety in a way our hiding from the latest helicopter fly-by never could. Far to our east and to our south, two of the bluest lakes I’d ever seen sparkled on the horizon.

By late afternoon we were more than halfway down the mountain and almost into the first valley when the sun, which had been teasing us all day, broke out in earnest to warm our way. 

And when we paused for water and to share a snack so small it only made me realize how hungry I was, Kayla pulled another miracle from her pocket.

“A bar!” Her face beamed as she turned her phone display my way and a single signal bar flickered on the screen.

“What I wouldn’t give for GPS right now. Any clue how far we are from Kasese or which way it is?”

“I’m going to assume you got your A’s in anatomy and not geography,” Kayla teased. “We just came over Turaco Pass. It’s not like we’re lost.”

“Speak for yourself. I like my maps nicely gridded with well-marked streets and some woman robot telling me where to turn.” I flashed a smile her way. “I guess
you
telling me where to go will do in a pinch. But only if you do it in a really sexy robot voice and lead me up a tree or off a cliff every once in a while.”

Kayla rolled her warm chocolate eyes. “Kasese is almost due east, about 40, maybe 45 kilometers.”

“Damn metric system.” I had to mentally convert every measure.

“Kilembe is even closer. But it’s just a small mining town.”

“Miners have to eat too.”

“Look.” Her finger traced a barely discernible line in the swale of trees below. “A railroad track.”

“Signal bars. Trains. Oh, god, I miss civilization.” Could Kayla and I be any different—jungle mouse and city mouse? She was so at home here in the wild. If we were going to make this
us
thing work, one of us was going to have to do a lot of compromising.

Somehow, I knew it wouldn’t be her.

We walked in the direction of the strengthening bars. If Uganda didn’t want us, I was ready to march across Africa until we found a country that did.

My only stipulation was that I didn’t have to march alone.

We pressed on, muscles that had just gotten used to the continual upward slog now twinging half in protest, half in relief at the steady downhill climb through the thinning jungle that opened to the sweeping valley below.

Thwock. Thwock
.

Twin rotors beat in the distance. A helicopter on border patrol—heading our way. Too late to scramble back up the slope to thicker cover. I remembered the automatic fire when the outpost was attacked and cursed the simple double-barreled rifles we carried.

“It isn’t how much you have,” Mark recited grimly as he unslung his Winchester. “It’s how you use it.”

I recognized the reference. “A nice platitude if you’re on the slighted end. What if they’re well-endowed
and
know how to use it too?”

“Like me?” He let a tiny smile creep into his otherwise dark expression.

“Well…yeah. But we’re not talking bedroom here. Their rifles are bigger than yours. Those men from the outpost seemed pretty competent in the use of their weapons and look what happened to them.”

“I remember.” His hint of smile disappeared completely.

As I unslung my rifle, we headed for a grove of mahogany trees and slid behind their trunks.

Like a falcon on a sparrow, the copter bore down on us. “I don’t think we’ve been spotted yet!” Mark shouted. Likely the pilot was responding to some movement from the rhino or okapi. 

“Come
watoto
,” I called to them over the strengthening beat of the rotors as I held fast to Jengo’s hand. If I could just get Tamu and Nyota into the shade where it would be harder to spot them… The okapi’s natural camouflage only protected her to a point. The helicopter at least didn’t taunt Gus the way a man on the ground would. Grudgingly, he stayed beside Mark and me, pacing anxiously between us, understanding something was up, just not sure what.

Tamu and Nyota slunk into the shadows with us where they cowered under the now-deafening roar above us.

That left only one of my strays to worry about. Wild animals I knew how to control. Mark, however, was a different beast altogether.

The helicopter circled our small grove, and Mark and I circled the trunk of our tree, keeping it between us and the soldiers in the cockpit with binocular eyes. One circle I was willing to put down to curiosity—a check of what they thought might be here. When it started a second circle, dread knotted my stomach and shot to my knees. The rough tree bark pressed into my back as I used it to hold myself upright as the dread grew. What if they were the type of men who’d kill babies for sport?

My fear only deepened when the copter stopped, hovering not 30 meters above. A rifle barrel snaked out, pointing toward my rhino.

I was far from an expert shot, but my father had taught me how to aim and not be afraid to shoot. That confidence would have to be enough. Dropping the gorilla’s hand, I raised the rifle and whirled—

—right into Mark’s broad chest.

“No,” was all he said. I couldn’t even hear the word over the sound of the blades and engine’s roar, just saw those sensuous lips mouth the word right before he batted me behind him. Then he stepped out from behind the tree, making himself a target even as he shouldered the gun and took aim.

I rushed at the rhino, waving my arms. “Move!” I shouted at her. Just enough to spoil the soldier’s aim was all I needed from her.

Mark’s rifle popped twice. The terrified rhino lurched away from me. The dog barked and the gorilla screeched. I took a step forward, toward the rhino, when Mark’s hand around my waist pulled me back with him to the comparative safety of the tree. I struggled against him.

“Stop it!” he shouted. “Look!”

I followed the point of his finger. A ribbon of black wove around the base of the copter’s tail even as the great metal bird began to rock in place. Then its tail whipped around and it was spiraling down. I caught glimpses of the pilot frantic at the controls, the second man holding tight to the open frame, and the orange flick of flames just behind the bubble of the cockpit as the machine spun.

They were going down. Hard.

Mark scooped up the little gorilla and shoved my attention away from the impending crash. “Go, go, go!”

Would my rhino even trust me now?
“Watoto!”
Mark and I ran down the slope, Mark’s hand on my arm keeping me from stumbling as I craned my neck around to see if Nyota and Tamu were following. Tamu was too young, too terrified. Nyota stood over her—a big sister doing the only thing she knew to protect her sibling. I was about to turn back when Gus broke away and streaked back to them.

That’s when the helicopter spiraled into a distant tree and cracked apart, the flickering flames bursting into a halo of fire. Only the rain-soaked bark and ground kept the tree and long-leafed ferns from burning too.

The engine growled a moment more before grinding to a stop. I didn’t know if the pilot had switched it off or if he was dead and the engine had given out on its own. I didn’t immediately care. My eyes and ears were for Gus circling the rhino and okapi and, with firm barks and a couple of insistent nudges with his muzzle, herded them toward me in the eerie silence broken only by the distant popping of the fire.

“
Watoto-wazuri!
Good!” I encouraged as Mark and I broke back into a run, with Gus and the babies—all built for running in a way Mark and I and the gorilla weren’t—easily catching up to us.

Together, we fled down the mountain, the railroad tracks in the valley below our goal.

“That’s Uganda,” I panted.

Crossing the border, of course, was no guarantee of safety, certainly not this far from any Ugandan habitation, but it gave us a focus and a possibility that we’d soon be free of pursuit and reprisal. It didn’t even matter that, when we at last reached them, sweating and out of breath and every muscle aching, we saw the tracks lay abandoned, unused for maybe a generation.

We were in Uganda. That’s what mattered.

Political refugees seeking asylum.

Well, I was at least. Mark was a foreign visitor from a rich and powerful country, not subject to African law.

Me they might detain. I had no idea what my future might hold, how my orphans might fare.

In Uganda, however, Mark was assured of finding a way back to the States, back to his practice, back to his home.

Everything I’d known and loved was gone, save for the strays with me now. I didn’t want Mark to go any more than I’d wanted Nyota to leave. But I couldn’t force him to stay any more than I could force Nyota to.

She had made her choice.

I would have to give Mark the same freedom to make his.