Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology

by Violet Vaughn

  Herself. I smiled ruefully to remember the dressing down Nicky had given me for referring to the ellie as an it. It was more than just the subtle brain switch, though, that had me looking at Jasiri in a new way. It was learning her backstory. It was recognizing her response to grief and loss was no different from my own. It was taking the dangerous step of empathizing with Jasiri. Of forming a connection, a bond. Because the minute I’d done that, the minute I’d accepted that she was a creature capable of higher thought, higher feeling, I had opened a vulnerability in myself. And Jasiri had become another soul I was responsible for, another innocent who needed my protection.

  I recognized the courage it had taken for her to conquer her rage, knew first-hand the soul-searing agony of choosing to continue on when everyone and everything around had gone to hell. Without Nicky’s demonstration of care and trust at that exact and crucial point, Jasiri might have been lost to all of us, herself most of all.

  Brave indeed, the both of them. My heart had filled with pride. My girls. Though I knew better than to voice that endearment within earshot of either of them. Slow I might be in catching on to some things but I was no idiot to engage the wrath of any woman—no matter what her size.

  Then to go from the brave miracle that was Jasiri to the stunning miracle that was Kulinda in the same day… Where had this Africa been when I’d traveled south from Tunisia to Tanzania? I’d seen deserts, savannas, mountain ranges, distant herds grazing in the shadows of time—even a lioness once, pacing the van I was riding in for several hundred yards—but when Nicky and I came up on the shores of that little lake, the enormity of what I’d stepped into nearly choked me. Eden couldn’t have been more beautiful, more peaceful.

  I reached for my phone, snapping pictures like any tourist, desperate to capture the feel in my soul in the pixels on the screen. An impossible feat, I knew, even as I kept snapping.

  “You can’t do it,” Nicky said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Translate this to that.” She nodded at the phone.

  Not for the first time I marveled at the eerie intuition of women.

  “Believe me, I’ve tried. After the first couple of thousand pictures, you learn to leave the camera alone.”

  I grinned. “That means just 1950 more to go.”

  We ate a quiet lunch of cold meat sandwiches accompanied by the seemingly ubiquitous ugali, watching the rhythm of Eden dance slowly by.

  The only thing to mar the idyllic time was what felt to be a subtle shift in Nicky’s mood. A distancing. Even as I was feeling closer to her, she seemed to be drifting away. In an attempt to draw her back, I tried a topic close to both of us.

  “How do you think Jasiri will feel when she’s released out here with them?” I asked.

  “Lonely.”

  That wasn’t quite the direction I’d planned to go with this. “Even with her baby?”

  Nicky’s eyes saddened. “Especially with her baby.”

  “Then we need another elephant for her, right?”

  “It’s finding one, acclimating one, and not knowing whether Jasiri will accept just any other ellie once she’s calved. Maybe if I knew more…about her, about elephant psychology in general.” Nicky’s sigh seemed to come from somewhere deep inside. “It’s just another way I feel I’m failing her.”

  “Failing her?” I was about to protest that Nicky wasn’t failing her charge in any way when it hit me that maybe Nicky’s perception was different from mine because we were looking at different goals. I was the short-term guy, seeing that the elephant was safe and alive and calling that a victory. She was looking at the long-term, wondering if life and safety were even enough.

  “You’re building her a new life,” I pointed out. “That takes time, maybe even some false starts. Don’t think you can put the roof up without laying the foundation first. Taking it one step at a time and not simply twitching your nose and poof there’s a new life without the work to make it right isn’t failing. It’s adapting the process. It’s doing the best with what you’ve been given at the time. It’s the very definition of building. If not for what you’ve done for her so far, where would she be?”

  “She’s so…devastated. I just want her to be okay—like, yesterday.”

  “Broken hearts don’t heal overnight. You’re a doctor”—I tried to tease her out of her mood—“you should know that.”

  She gave me a wan smile. “It’s just hard, you know.”

  For all her assertiveness, Nicky was just as vulnerable as Jasiri.

  Just as vulnerable as me.

  Vulnerability came from experience. “I know.”

  I wondered when Nicky had learned to hide that vulnerability of hers so well.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon when we returned to the compound, stopping off first at the clinic so Nicky could check on a dog and pig—tribe pets—she’d been treating. Abasi was there still to Melea’s great irritation, as was the kudu calf. While Melea looked to continue to be firmly imprinted as the calf’s mother, Zuri, it seemed, had found a new role model in Abasi. Splinted and casted, they hobbled in unison about the clinic as Abasi made busy work for himself. It was impossible not to laugh at the sight of them throwing out their hobbled legs in tandem. Add to that Melea’s grimacing, and Nicky and I both escaped the clinic walls as fast as we could, releasing our smothered laughter against the hood of the Land Rover.

  We went down to the boma next to find Jasiri lying in the shade of a copse of tambotie trees. For a moment both Nicky and I went still until we saw her trunk twitch as the smell of us wafted downwind to where she lay. She rocked two, three times to gain the momentum needed to push up to her feet. Even I could see how her belly swelled with the impending birth.

  “She looks ready to drop.” I watched to see what her mood might be. So far she stood calm, ears out, trunk cast our way.”

  “Hey, sweetie!” Nicky greeted her, with a bright tone that convinced me all was right with the world. Only the expression on her face didn’t match her voice.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She gave her head a shake. “Probably nothing. She’s dropped weight, which is why her belly looks so big in comparison. It’s just”—the furrow in her brow spoke to something nagging at her thoughts—“I don’t think she’s gotten any bigger. You could be right—the baby could be fully developed and simply be waiting for the go word. I’m probably just being a worried mama. And more worried because I can’t get in there with monitors or ultrasound equipment to check on her progress. You know, the way God intended.”

  Her mouth quirked, and I couldn’t tell whether it was a failed laugh or true despair. “The trap of technology. I wonder how babies were ever born before we had pediatrics.”

  “Healthily,” I tried to assure her.

  “I think I’m going to sleep out here tonight.”

  “Alone?”

  “Well, no. Jasiri will be here.”

  “You know that isn’t what I mean.”

  “I’ll bring the Land Rover down.”

  “That still isn’t what I mean.”

  “I’m quite capable of spending the night alone, with an elephant.”

  “Of course you are. Nothing to prove to me there. I just thought maybe I’d spend the night alone with you, with an elephant.”

  Why she hesitated I didn’t know. Something had happened at the lake. Some snake of a thing that had disturbed Eden, hiding quietly in the grass. Something I’d said? Something I’d done? I didn’t want it to matter, but it did. I watched Jasiri’s ears, already recognizing they were the early warning indicators of any change in her mood, while I waited for Nicky’s answer.

  Although I already knew if Nicky was going to be out here, I’d find a way to sleep out with my girls regardless.

  14

  Nicky

  Why was I so resistant to spending time under the wide stars with the man who made me shiver every time he brushed up against me, whether by accident or not? And not
shiver in the creepy way tipsy Uncle Phil used to make me shiver at all those awkward holiday parties, but in that delicious way that starts with that involuntary roll of the shoulders and ends with the hard curling of the toes.

  Maybe he put me on guard not because I was afraid he was the one getting too close but because I was. If that were the case, and I was reading more into his words and actions than what was actually there, then surely I could trust myself not to let things get out of hand. Besides, today hadn’t sucked. Peter was an easy man to be around when we interacted at the most superficial and physical levels, when I wasn’t trying so hard to second-guess him or read the dark secrets of his soul.

  Casual friends with benefits. Surely we could swing that without any cloying clinginess or baggage.

  “Sure,” I agreed at last to his camping with me. “Just remember tomorrow’s a work day—for both of us. You’ll be helping Steve finish shoring up the roads around the bridges, and I’ve got a tribesman’s donkey to castrate and a herd of cattle to vaccinate.”

  “No worries. I’m better with sleeping outside than inside anyway. I don’t like the complacency I always seem to fall into when I’m inside. Like starting to believe wallboard or even tent canvas can hide you from all the evil in the night. The stars, the ground—it’s all just more…honest.”

  Honest. That was the word I’d been searching for myself anytime I pulled my bedroll out, even if it was to go only as far as the veranda.

  There was no denying the attraction I felt for Peter on the physical side. That was good and fun. What worried me still was just how much we resonated beyond the physical. That dangerous territory that could connect us spiritually and emotionally. That was territory where I had to tread lightly—very lightly—indeed.

  * * *

  “To honesty.”

  Peter and I toasted with plastic cups filled with cheap champagne as we leaned against the tire of the Land Rover watching Jasiri alternate between drowsing, browsing and nonchalantly moving our way a footfall or two at a time. In the two hours we’d been there watching, she’d crossed half the distance between the cover of the thicket where she’d been half-hiding and the fence line by where we camped.

  Somehow, mine and Peter’s safari boots and socks had fallen off and our bare feet were playing footsie in the starlight.

  Somewhere a hyena yapped and a nearby tree rustled with the flutter of wings. Farther beyond, either a monkey or a careless bush baby snapped a branch high in a tambotie.

  Jasiri slid another foot our way as Peter inched his shoulder closer to mine.

  It was my third large cup of champagne, and the tingle of alcohol had started to give way to a pleasant numbness. When Peter advanced another inch, I reciprocated till I was leaning into him and he crossed an arm around me. Another sip and I snuggled against him, enjoying the feel of the firm, broad plane of his chest behind me and the strong arm wrapped around me, working its way up to my breasts as slowly and nonchalantly as Jasiri working her way toward us.

  It was a sweet dance, reminding me of high school and stolen touches behind the bleachers. I slid into him even further as breasts and arm met, the swell of my flesh buoyed on the hard ridge of his forearm. From there it was only a twist of his wrist before he was cupping my far breast through the linen blouse, his thumb only naturally beginning long, lazy strokes over it.

  “Mmm,” I murmured. If I were as honest with myself as my toast to honesty claimed, then I would have to acknowledge the presence of champagne tonight was no accident. Nor were the condoms in my pocket. My body craved him. I embraced that. So long as we were both clear on the boundary of separation between heart and sex, I was more than eager to indulge my libido.

  And I was pretty sure he was more than eager to indulge his.

  Tonight, though, the rhythm was slow and easy, instructed by the unhurried swirl of stars overhead and Jasiri’s cautious dance our way. We took fifteen minutes to slip the buttons from each other’s shirts. Another fifteen to slide off our shorts and lie stomach-to-stomach, leg-to-leg on the coarse blanket, our empty champagne cups stacked neatly together beside the emptied plastic platters that had held our dinner of cheese and crackers and slices of juicy mango.

  Even then we caressed one another with languid touches, our kisses soft and sensual, time as endless as the starry heavens above. We made no move that would frighten Jasiri as we held and stroked and worshiped one another. And when I let my legs fall open and Peter entered me, it was as if time itself expanded and held us in the cusp of endless night. Never had I felt the heat build as slow. Never had I imagined such a slow burn could make me feel more satisfied than any frenzied act of desire I’d ever had. He filled me and filled me, and went on filling me till there was nowhere else to fill, and time itself had stretched its bounds.

  I shook and panted beneath him, my moans a counterpoint to his as we serenaded the night with a harmony as old as the Serengeti itself.

  When I could open my eyes and see again, with the half-moon smiling high above, I froze beneath the length of Peter that covered me still.

  “What?” he whispered, immediately on guard.

  “Shh.”

  He followed my eyes…and froze too, both of us as still as the wildebeests in Peter’s camera, caught forever in its unflinching diorama.

  If not for the thumping of my heart, I would have sworn time itself held breath with us.

  15

  Nicky

  Right at the fence, trunk held high out of harm’s way above the hot wires, Jasiri stood at regal attention, her gaze firmly on Peter and me.

  Very deliberately I kissed Peter, then whispered, “Roll off me. Slowly.”

  Hand-in-hand, legs slowly unfolding, we stood.

  Jasiri was only a few yards away from us, trunk still questing, eyes keen on our every move, ears strained forward to catch our every sound. She rocked gently from foot to foot. In agitation or contentment?

  “It’s all right, Jasiri,” I crooned.

  When I pictured ellies, had I ever thought I’d be standing naked in front of one, assuring her everything was okay? I wanted so hard right now to peer inside her brain. To know whether she had been drawn by the closeness Peter and I were sharing out of her own desperate needs or if we had distressed her. Had she maybe thought we were harming one another?

  I leaned up and brushed my lips across Peter’s cheek. “See? All good.”

  Peter circled me with his arms, reminding me once again how very naked I was. “All very good,” Peter echoed.

  It was silly psychology, of course. I wasn’t ashamed to be naked in front of Jasiri. It just made me feel more vulnerable. As if somehow a few pieces of thin cotton could ever be protection against something like Jasiri.

  Then suddenly I felt a deep rumbling. Or perhaps I heard it. Earthquake? I’d never been in one, but my body braced instinctually. Peter’s arms tightened protectively around me. Whatever was coming, whatever this was the precursor of, we would face it together.

  But the deep rumbling didn’t get worse. Just on the edge of earshot it continued, a rather pleasant sound as we became accustomed to it, with cadence much like the purr of a cat. It seemed to flow all around us, but it soon became clear where and what its source was.

  “Jasiri!” I half-whispered, half-laughed with relief.

  No, that laugh was half-relief, half-embarrassment at not figuring it out sooner. Book learning was all well and good, but give me practical experience for the win each time. “She’s communicating. That sound’s coming from her core. Her stomach maybe. It’s how ellies can produce big enough soundwaves to travel for miles, like sending bass chords through the ground.”

  “Humpbacks. Whale song.”

  I blinked my surprise at him. Which doubled-down on the things that were embarrassing me tonight. Why wouldn’t Peter know something like that and make a connection? “The same principle, sure.”

  “The Peter principle.” He nodded sagely.

  I groaned at the pun.
Realizing then I’d only been teaching him all this time because he was the fish out of water here. Not because I was smarter in general. My experiences weren’t better than his, just different.

  Reverse chauvinism?

  I was better than that.

  Wasn’t I?

  Well, I’d have to make that up to Peter another time. Right now it was Jasiri’s moment.

  Maybe even a breakthrough moment.

  “Yes, Jasiri. We’re here. We’ll be your company until your baby’s born.” I continued to croon whatever nonsense entered my head. The words didn’t matter, just their feeling. Strength. Family. Safety. That’s all Jasiri needed to understand. More, though, of course, it was what she needed to believe. It was the only way she could begin to heal.

  After a few minutes, Jasiri dropped her trunk and the rumblings stopped. There was grief yet in her starlit eyes, but for the moment, at least, it was quiet grief. If our being here had taken even the slightest edge off her rage, we had won something precious this night.

  “Same time tomorrow?” Peter whispered.

  “You couldn’t drag me away with an elephant.”

  Naked still we sank back down to our blanket. Naked, we were no less vulnerable now than we were before. But having stood naked before an elephant my perception had been altered.

  Sometimes being naked and admitting your vulnerability could make you strong.

  16

  Nicky

  For two more nights Peter and I slept beside the boma, waking to the rumblings of Jasiri and enjoying the few moments she spent with us just on the other side of the fence before retreating away again. Her ‘people fix,’ I came to think of it.