by Reina Torres
She was, quite simply, out of her depth with Donal.
And then there was the sudden rush of questions that tumbled in her mind and tangled in her throat, but she needed time to think and coming up the road was a vehicle marked as the South African Police.
Tamsin certainly knew there wasn’t anything good to come if the police were involved in this situation. Whatever this was.
She certainly didn’t know.
“Stop! Please!” She sucked in a breath. “Both of you!”
Both men turned to look at her and she suddenly felt so very alone. And lost.
Tamsin backed up a few steps and nearly tripped over her own two feet.
Nomusa dropped her clipboard and darted to her side to take hold of her arm. “They’ll stop.” She turned her sharp gaze toward the two men and lowered her chin in a challenge. “Now. Both of you walk away. Take a breath. Come back when you can act like men and not children.”
Zenzile narrowed her glance in the direction of the men. “Children are better behaved.”
Magheli was the first to break away, holding his hands up in surrender even though he kept his gaze focused on Donal. “I’ll take a walk. After all, we spent a few hours in the jeep together.” He gave Tamsin a smile, but she couldn’t muster one up to return the look.
Donal’s breath huffed from his nose and Tamsin shook herself when she thought she saw his eyes darken, but the color bled away, leaving her struggling to breathe. “Fine, I’ll walk too.”
He started off in the direction he’d come from, and Tamsin started to follow him. It was purely instinct, but her mind warred with that need. She just didn’t know what to do.
Thankfully, the woman beside her had a good head on her shoulders. Nomusa held gently onto her arm. “Stay with me for a moment. Let your mind and heart come to an understanding.”
Blinking, Tamsin saw the wisdom in the woman’s eyes and smiled at her in gratitude. “I think I will. Thank you.”
Gesturing at the table, Nomusa gave her a smile and released her arm to give her a soft pat on her shoulder. “Take a seat. We’ve plenty of umqombothi.”
Thabisa tapped her cup on the table. “You know it’s good because it’s the women who make it.”
Tamsin joined the other woman, but it didn’t take her long to realize that they were one woman short. Amahle explained it easily. Zenzile went with her man to talk to the police. They’ll explain about the poacher and then we’ll have to see how long it takes her to talk some sense into him.”
Looking over at her, Tamsin felt a tiny bit of a smile tug at her lips. “I thought they weren’t… together.”
Nomusa finished pouring another round of beer into their cups. “You should know. That what’s between a man and a woman can be more complicated than ‘together.’”
Tamsin lifted her cup in a salute to the other woman. “Absolutely.”
The call that reached Harold Graystoke had him strangling the Diamante Fountain Pen in his hand. “Arrested for poaching? Are your men forgetting what I told them?”
He listened as the man stammered out some kind of an answer, but Harold didn’t let him go on too long.
“Were any of our clients with them?”
“No... no, sir. The men were… scouting some new locations to take the clients on their hunts. Only one of the men was captured, sir. The others got away clean.”
Harold felt a vein pop out of his temple. “You say the word ‘clean,’ but I’m not sure you really understand what it means. Now that he’s been arrested, the police have his name. The other men, they are associated with him. They’ll be found if anyone decides to investigate.” He tapped the tip of his pen on his desk and hit it so hard that it broke, staining the polished wood with ink. “I’m going to have to throw some money at this. A lot of money. So, don’t think you’re free and clear.
“I’m going to expect your men to be extremely careful, and if people come close enough to engage them again, they better not run.”
“Sir? What are you saying?”
“If someone tries to engage them on a hunt, they have guns, they know what to do.”
“Mister Gray-”
“Don’t you dare say my name.”
The other end remained quiet.
“You tell them to make sure no one can say a word against them.”
Silence still.
“Do. You. Hear. Me?”
“Yes, sir. I hear you.”
“Good.” Harold tossed the pen into his trash. “Make sure that you don’t make a mess of this. I pay you enough to make sure of that.”
The phone call ended with a soft click.
Even though they had more time on their patrol, the group remained in camp and the next group started out early.
Tamsin rallied before Donal returned to the camp. She helped the cook prepare the evening meal. The older man had a sly grin and the most endearing singing voice. He moved around the kitchen like every moment was a joy and Tamsin found his mood lifting her own. By the time they were nearly ready to serve, he’d let her have a few grilled pieces of amadumbe and she was hoping that there might be a few pieces left over when the group had been fed. When he had her cut the root into mid-sized slices to put on the grill, he’d told her she’d like it. And he’d been right. The taste and consistency reminded her of sweet potatoes, and she really loved sweet potatoes.
Footfalls behind her didn’t set her nerves on edge, but when she felt her skin prickle with awareness, she knew that Donal had returned to camp.
The scent of soap was fresh on his skin, and he looked better in what she assumed was his own clothes.
His presence felt like electricity surrounding her body and she couldn’t believe how much she wanted to lean against him and feel that electricity crawl all over her from head to toe. With that tickling her senses she could easily forget all the years and miles that had come between them, but there were still so many questions.
So many questions she wanted to ask.
So many questions she didn’t want to ask, but desperately needed to know.
“Is there any bread?”
Is that all he had to say to her?
She felt her jaw tighten up and she rushed through the rest of her preparation. When she’d put all of the grilled root on the platter, she picked it up and headed out of the kitchen.
“Hey!”
Donal jogged after her and she heard the cook’s laughter, but it didn’t stop her from reaching the main table and setting down her platter and covering it with a cloth.
“Tam, talk to me.”
“Tamsin,” she corrected him. “That’s my name.”
She felt his hand on her shoulder and his breath on the back of her neck.
“I’m sorry, Tam. Please give me some time to explain.”
“Time? I need time.” She shook off his hand. “Let’s get through dinner first.”
Donal stepped back and gave her room. When she was able to breathe again without the tightness in her chest, she let out a sigh and turned around.
“Thank you.”
His smile sent chills through her body again.
“And just so you know…”
His eyes opened wider and he waited for her to speak.
“We have bread.”
“Good.” Donal tilted his head toward the kitchen with Tamsin following behind him.
Yes, things were good.
For now.
Chapter Seven
There was something to be said for the crackle of a fire on a dark night, the flames tasting the air as if the wood that fed it from below was the meal and they were searching for something more.
But Donal was happy. Well, he was satisfied to be sitting beside Tamsin, making quiet talk with the others until they all said their goodbyes and goodnights and went to their tents, or if they lived close enough, to their homes. The last to leave the firelight were Zenzile and the man who’d brought Tamsin to the camp.
Donal had made what he cou
ld call his ‘peace’ with the other man’s presence, but his beast within had not.
Once Magheli had left the fire, walking quietly beside Zenzile, Donal felt some of the tension in his body begin to work loose, starting at the back of his neck and then across his shoulders.
It was a relief.
“You don’t have to worry about him.”
He turned his head to look at Tamsin and saw a hint of a smile touch her lips even though her gaze was directed at the fire. “What makes you say that?”
Her smile deepened, and he was sure then that it wasn’t a trick of the firelight. “I’m pretty sure someone would have to be struck dumb not to feel the tension between the two of you.” She picked up a stick and snapped it in half before tossing it into the flames at the edge of the pit. “Do you want to explain what happened when he went to get you?”
“You mean, when you sent him to lend me some clothes?”
Her chin dropped a little, and he could have sworn she was fighting off a laugh.
Good. He’d rather make her laugh than upset her again.
“I didn’t see how you were going to return to camp without anything to wear.”
He took a chance when he reached out a hand and set it over hers, gently folding his fingers around it. “You always worried about me.”
He felt her breathe.
He didn’t know how exactly, but holding her hand, sitting there at her side, it felt like he was taking in the same air that she was. Breathing her into himself.
“Like you worried about me too.”
Tamsin sounded like she used to. Her voice had softened and taken on the qualities that he remembered.
It was a beautiful reminder of what they had once been to each other, but he also heard a hesitation in her voice that hadn’t been there before.
A wounded pain that he’d put there.
Something he needed to atone for.
“I’ve always worried about you, Tam. Since the day your father brought you to the estate for the Board Meeting.” At the mention of her father, he felt the muscles in her hand twitch. He felt the slight pull of her hand as she leaned away from him.
“Your uncle was so mad at him.”
Donal could almost see her emotions play across her face as if the firelight was a movie projector, showing washed out old films of the distant past on her delicate skin.
“But my father wasn’t. You remember what he did?”
Her hand softened within his hold, and her smile fought back against the memories of his uncle. He’d given her something to hold onto like he was holding onto her hand.
“Your father took one look at me and pronounced me ‘Princess of the House.’” She turned her head and looked at him, her dark eyes almost amber in the light from the fire. “And you, Donal. You took my hand and said you were going to be my prince.”
“My father was only too happy to agree. He told me later that a prince has a duty to be a man of his word. To follow through with the words that he says. My father was dedicated to the family, but he was dedicated to his father’s duty and his father before him.”
“And you’re continuing that duty here, Donal. I knew when you stayed here that it was because you were doing what you knew was right.” She sighed, and the wood in the pile snapped and broke into a shower of sparks. “It worried me when you stopped communicating with us, but I knew you were alive. Somewhere. Doing something that was important.”
He could see the courage in her. The way she squared her shoulders and fought to keep a smile on her lips, but he was sad that it took so much of an effort… around him.
“That’s where I went wrong years ago,” he confessed, “I thought I was taking care of you by going away. I told myself that over and over, but-”
“What did you mean by that?” She shook herself as if she had to clear her thoughts. “How did you think it was better if you went away?”
Afraid that she might walk away at any moment, Donal drew the hand he held closer. He moved along the bench to bring himself closer to her before he set their joined hands down on his thigh.
“I was fighting for control back then. I was fighting myself at the same time that I was fighting my uncle.”
Donal could see the effort it took her to remain quiet and let him speak. It was one of the things that she’d learned over the years and one of the things he wished that she hadn’t.
“I wanted to come to Africa to find out if I could be saved, Tam.” His gaze traveled over her beautiful face, realizing again how much time he’d lost with her. “When I was twenty, I started to have… episodes. I’d have trouble controlling my emotions mostly. Anger was the easiest to manifest itself. I found myself having fits of rage. You can’t even begin to understand how many lamps and chairs and windows that I managed to destroy while I was fighting a growing panic inside.”
He saw her concern displayed across her face, and he felt her squeeze his hand as if she was afraid that he’d slip away.
“I don’t understand.” Her thumb smoothed over the back of his hand. “I was helping with the books by then, the household accounts. If you were breaking furniture, how was it that I didn’t see receipts for new things or repairs?”
Donal heard the hope in her tone, but it bled away when he answered her.
“My father knew how much I cared for you, and he knew how much you worried over me so he made someone forge receipts for plants and flowers for the gardens on some of the remote properties. He knew you didn’t go to any of them with any frequency so he didn’t think you’d notice.
“It was a plan that worked while we were figuring things out.”
“What did your doctors say?”
It was his turn to hide a smile. “They laughed about it mostly. Hypochondriac was a favorite one. Another said I was eccentric and then that was it, they could never find any evidence of the symptoms that I was reporting.
“Even when I told them I heard voices in my head, the only thing they did was prescribe anti-psychotics and that only made the voice coalesce in my thoughts. Instead of dimming the sound of it, it felt like they’d managed to shake out the dust or cobwebs in the attic, and suddenly I heard the voice.
“His voice, in my head.”
Donal could see her expression had unique personalities of its own. The deep line between her brows and the wide-eyed shock, but it was the tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes that threatened to rend him in two.
“I thought I was going to become like his grandfather.”
“No one ever told me what happened to your great grandfather. I certainly didn’t want to ask.”
When he didn’t immediately answer, she startled and backed off.
“You don’t have to say-”
“The family rumor mill said that he went stark raving mad, and that he ran away to Africa to live like an ape. Naked and scratching at himself in the dust.”
Tamsin didn’t move away from him, instead she leaned closer, silently offering him her support. He’d missed her so much.
“He heard voices, and the doctors had told him the same things that they had told me. Only back then they didn’t have all of the fancy equipment that mine did, but that didn’t matter. No one told me that I was a shapeshifter.”
“And you think,” she seemed to measure out the words like a baker measured out their ingredients, “that your great grandfather might have been one too.”
“I know he was.” Donal struggled for a moment to decide how much to share with her, but he knew he had to tell her. Tell her everything.
She deserved that from him.
“Mzamo’s family has known mine that long. His family shares stories much more than mine. For him and his ancestors the stories of my great grandfather were the thing of legends. For my family they were a dirty secret that could make us all seem deranged.” He felt Tamsin’s hand relax in his. “He was the one who found me when I was sure I was about to die. He’s the one that took me to my great grandfather’s house
and told me the stories. He’s the one who was there to remind me that I was human. Or at least that I’d become human again if I let myself go.”
“I still,” Tamsin had blurted out the words and then pressed her lips together to stop herself from speaking.
“No,” he nodded. “Say what you want to say.”
It took her just a moment to open up, and he smiled hoping that they were connecting again, bridging the gap that he’d put between them.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t bring me with you. Why you thought you had to leave me behind. If you thought you were… thought you were dying, I would have been there for you in a heartbeat.”
He heard the passion in her voice and the surety. There was no doubt in his mind at that moment and really, even back then there hadn’t been one either.
How could he tell her? Even though she deserved the truth, the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her away.
“The feelings I was having,” he let out a slow exhale, “the voice in my head, so much of what it said was about you.”
“About me?”
He gripped her hand a little tighter, but she didn’t pull away. Not yet.
“My great grandfather, when he came back to Africa, when he accepted what he was… who he was, he came back because of a woman.”
“But-”
“He knew who he belonged with. Not with his wife who his family had forced him to marry and carry on the line. My great grandfather came to Africa and found the woman who held his heart. His true love. His mate.”
“Mate?” Tamsin lifted her hand to her temple and rubbed it a little.
Letting her hand go, he turned on the bench, straddled it, and turned her to face him. With her leg tucked up between them, he could still reach out and massage her temples with his fingertips.
When she sighed from his tender touch, he continued on. “I didn’t understand it when I left. I heard the voice in my head. He told me that you were ours. That you needed to be ours forever. That I had to take you and make you my mate.”
