Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology

by Violet Vaughn

  Hodari spit in my face, just before three pairs of hands hauled him roughly from me.

  The sergeant’s teeth flashed white in the darkling night as he held out his arm. “A good capture, my friend.”

  I caught his forearm and he mine in a warrior’s grip of respect. Grim satisfaction coursed like fine liquor through me.

  If not for the sacrifice required, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the sergeant.

  * * *

  In the morning, I rapped respectfully on Brandon’s office door, open to the hall though it was. He glanced up from behind his laptop. “Come.”

  A sheaf of printouts in my hands, I settled easily into the chair across from him and grinned.

  “I take it last night went well?”

  “Textbook,” I assured him.

  “Good.” Folding his hands on the desk in front of him, he carefully looked me in the eye. “Because tonight you’re going back to Kulinda, and you’re going to bring me a pair of ellie tusks. Are we clear?”

  “Oh, we’re very clear.” I stressed my comfort in the chair. “Only, not going to happen.”

  “There’s no place for sentiment in this company, Mr. Lawson. If those tusks aren’t in my office tomorrow morning, I don’t want to see you here, either.”

  I couldn’t help the slight smirk. “Not a problem. In fact, I can do you one better.”

  Anger simmered in his eyes. “How’s that?”

  “You won’t be here tomorrow either.”

  Those angry eyes narrowed dangerously. “Are you threatening me?”

  “No, Mr. Briggs. I’m promising you.”

  He was halfway out of his chair when Sergeant Cheboi and his men swarmed into the room.

  “What the hell!”

  “Hodari Dimka is in custody, Mr. Briggs,” the sergeant said. “Which is where you’re heading now.”

  “On what charges?”

  Brandon needed to work on his angry indignation. There was nothing innocent about the looks he was tossing around. My hope was that he’d have plenty of prison time to perfect his acting skills.

  “Illegal animal trade and the illegal trafficking of animal parts.” The sergeant had his handcuffs out now.

  “Nonsense! I run a white market business.”

  “That you do,” I agreed. “But,” I tapped the sheaf of papers in my lap, “these say you also run a very successful black market business on top of it. Let’s see, a dozen invoice-to-bill-of-lading discrepancies just in the past month. A warehouse full of horns and ivory double what you’ve been permitted for. And live animals shipped without permits to non-certified buyers. Even if you can buy your way out of this, Mr. Briggs, which I’m going to do my best to ensure doesn’t happen, you’re going to have to find someplace else to run your operations. This port’s closed.”

  I reveled in the hate Brandon threw my way. If he did get out, I would have to watch my back, that much was certain. But the evidence the police were pulling out of his office and warehouse kept stacking up in their vehicles. I trusted it would be a long time before Brandon saw another horn or tusk, illegal or not.

  When the police finally pulled away in the early afternoon, I slid out my phone and sent a single text to Nicky: We got him. On my way back.

  The only thing marring the high I was currently on was the gut suspicion of what I might find when I got there.

  36

  Nicky

  I stared at Peter’s message. Relief and satisfaction mingled inside me. We got him. I let those emotions wash over me, purifying the sacrifices, justifying the means.

  It was the second part of the message I had to read and reread. On my way back. Back, not home. A subtle difference, but the more I stared at the screen, the more important that difference became.

  I’d lost him, just like I’d lost Jasiri and Hope. They weren’t actually gone yet—not like the bush baby or the honey badger or the tribesman’s three cows with Brucellosis or a brother and sister’s little black pup—but the inevitability that they soon would be ripped through me like a hot knife.

  Pocketing the phone, I shored up the walls I’d been building around me. Block by block, higher and thicker. Those walls would be impenetrable soon. Then my heart would be safe and cold behind them.

  * * *

  I waited for Peter by the boma. No, that wasn’t correct. I was at the boma when Peter returned and found me there. That was an important distinction. One act put Peter at the center of my world, the other didn’t.

  “Any change?”

  I shook my head as he settled by me. “I’ll have to dart her later this afternoon regardless.” There wasn’t a lot of later left but I’d had to wait till either he or Steve was back, and Steve was still in town on a supply run.

  “And then?” His voice was gentle but tense.

  It was the last question I wanted to face right now. “What do you do when you’re out of second chances? Because that’s where we’re at.”

  “Have you talked to Rasheda?”

  Our font of knowledge and experience. “She basically agrees we’ve run out of chances too.” That was yesterday.

  “Did she mean Jasiri and Hope, or you and me?”

  I both loved and loathed Peter’s directness. “I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am for what you did at WildLot.”

  “But…?”

  God, he was gorgeous. Outside and—after what he’d done today, I knew just how much so—inside too. I looked out at Jasiri and Hope. How many more heartaches could I withstand?

  “But the risk is just too great,” I said at last.

  He nodded silently and slid closer to me. I leaned against him, the solid strength of him a pillar at my back.

  “If I were ready for that risk, it would have been with you,” I whispered.

  He folded his arms around me—comfort, shelter and solace. If he’d said the next words in anger or hate or disgust, they wouldn’t have hurt nearly so much. But to say them with so much understanding, they shattered my carefully built wall and tore a hole right through my heart.

  “I’ll leave in the morning.”

  37

  Nicky

  “Barney!”

  Melea’s sharp cry pierced the quiet of the late afternoon.

  “Barney, come back here!”

  Melea sounded too close to be at the barn. That meant the hound had either slipped his leash or slipped outside the corral. Either way, he was loose—and he was my responsibility.

  Quickly, if reluctantly, I pushed away from the comfort of Peter’s shoulder, and we were both on our feet in a heartbeat. From behind, a black-and-tan bundle of energy bounded our way. Farther behind, Melea came running after, leash and collar in hand.

  “Barney! Barney, come!” I called with all the sweetness I could muster as I patted my thighs.

  He paused, casting about to be sure he knew our scent. When I called, “Barney!” again, his tail whipped back and forth with utter delight, ecstatic to have found us.

  Stooping down, I called one more time. Like a rocket, he arrowed toward me, ears flying and sloppy grin getting sloppier yet as he closed in. He was almost in my arms when something in the boma caught his attention. It could have been something as innocent as Jasiri flapping her ears in the heat to fan them. Whatever it was triggered an instinct in Barney far stronger than my call.

  Chase!

  Peter and I both lunged for him as he veered out of our reach, heading for the fence. The bottom strands of the fence weren’t hot. They didn’t need to be to hold an elephant. Not at dog height, at least, as Barney wriggled through the wires below, oblivious to the electric current carried in the wires above.

  It might have been Jasiri who originally caught his attention, but it was Hope he came to first in this whole new world of trees and weeds to explore. His abrupt stop when he saw the little bull spun him around, landing him on his haunches. At another time, I would have laughed. I wasn’t worried that Barney would do more than what he’d alre
ady started—that obnoxiously deep baying that announced to anyone a mile around that he’d either treed something or brought his prey to ground. If Hope had been a squirrel or a badger or one of the small monkeys that occasionally played through the trees, I could see Barney’s instincts kicking in even if he’d never hunted before and going in for the kill.

  But Hope was too big to be natural prey. And although Hope stirred a bit as Barney continued to abuse his sensitive ears, Barney only danced in front of the ellie, occasionally dropping his forequarters to the ground, an aggressive action if he were a trained hunter, but being Barney more likely an invitation to play.

  Without further stimulus, Barney would either make further overtures to Hope to get him to play or else give up on him altogether and be off exploring again.

  It wasn’t Hope, then, that I had the most concern for. It was Barney.

  Just beyond him, Jasiri was acting agitated, ears flapping in short, quick snaps, trunk up and body swaying. She trumpeted, the sound out-shouting Barney. Everything prelude to a charge if Barney didn’t take the hint soon and shut up and get out of Jasiri’s territory.

  Jasiri was weak, which meant she wouldn’t be as fast. But Barney was a friendly, stupid hound as likely to challenge her right back, thinking she was playing. When I saw Jasiri’s ears go back, I knew play was the last thing on her mind.

  As did Peter.

  “Cut the power!” He threw out the order even as he dove for the fence, rolling under it right where Barney had gone through.

  I ran for the switch. Melea, panting, her eyes big with panic, was at the fence now too, watching.

  “Unbolt the gate!” I shouted.

  Even as she moved, my eyes were drawn to the drama in the boma.

  Barney was still baying his head off, his attention locked on Hope. Peter was halfway to him when Jasiri, her rage doubled now with Peter’s presence, began her charge.

  Peter reached the hound first, Barney yelping when Peter scooped up all 70 pounds of him.

  No way they were going to make it back to the fence before Jasiri reached them.

  “Behind the tree!” I yelled. “Then let Barney go. He can outrun her!” The hound just had to be shown he was in real trouble first, which it appeared he’d finally caught on to.

  Peter sprinted behind Hope’s tree seconds before Jasiri charged into the space where Barney had been.

  Hope’s front legs shuffled in front of him as the now thoroughly terrified baby, sitting up on his haunches, struggled to find the strength to stand. All his efforts accomplished, however, were to push him back up against the narrow tree.

  Jasiri’s trunk went up, trying to locate Peter on the other side of the acacia.

  He dropped Barney, slapping the hound on the butt with a sharp, “Git!” that brought Jasiri’s head up in rage.

  “Barney, come!” Melea and I both shouted.

  Having decided maybe these humans knew more about the perils of being free than him, Barney dropped low and barrel-raced his way to the gate and Melea without a backward glance.

  Jasiri swung her trunk toward the fleeing hound.

  Come after him, I fervently prayed. Give Peter a chance to get out of the boma another way.

  Instead, Jasiri swung her attention back toward the tree.

  With Barney finally quiet, Hope’s terrified bleating as he fought to stand and get away was heartwrenching in the setting sun.

  Jasiri took a step toward the tree. At full strength, it would take her only a couple of pushes to topple even a deeply rooted acacia. The next tree was 50 feet away. The copse of tambotie another 100 beyond that.

  She lowered her head and, with choked breath, I waited for the impact.

  She froze.

  Hope was in her way.

  I saw a new horror waiting to be sprung, the baby trampled beneath Jasiri’s enraged feet. That the baby was going to die regardless didn’t mean a brutal death like this one in the making was what I’d imagined for him.

  The Land Rover with its rifles was parked at the clinic, where the tranq gun was too. They may as well have been on the moon. There was nothing I could do but watch, already falling to my knees under the weight of defeat.

  Jasiri’s trunk snaked out toward the baby, bleating still, and wrapped around him. She would crush him then, not trample. Either way…

  Hope’s bleats died away.

  I felt the tears threaten then. Hope was suffocating in Jasiri’s bruising embrace. Jasiri, who had just sealed her own fate as well.

  Peter backed slowly away from the protection of the tree, moving obliquely toward the near fence where we were. Didn’t he know the danger he was in? That when Jasiri tossed aside the baby she’d be after him again?

  Only…

  She wasn’t tossing Hope aside. She was…

  Dear God.

  She was helping him to stand.

  Peter didn’t run, he just angled steadily toward the fence, keeping his eye on the elephants as he came.

  Melea stood at the gate, Barney beside her, his collar back on, securely tightened by an extra notch.

  We were all safe.

  All watching the small miracle unfold before us.

  Balancing the unsteady baby in the curve of her strong trunk, Jasiri stepped beside him, presenting her painfully full teats to his questing nose. So much could still go wrong. Hope might no longer know how and where to find her milk. And even if he did latch on, if his ability to suckle was gone…

  Twenty feet away, Peter rolled under the fence to safety. Not that the current would be needed immediately, I absently turned the electricity back on. Only then did I remember the binoculars leashed around my neck. As I raised them up, Peter’s arm circled my shoulders.

  Hope had found Jasiri’s milk. And through my binoculars I saw the tiny movements of his throat.

  “He’s nursing,” I said, half-stunned at what I was watching. “He’s nursing!” I cried, louder, swinging around in Peter’s arm because he was the nearest thing to hug.

  Melea jumped up and down in excitement, then fell over Barney, hugging him hard while his tail whipped in glee over just what a good dog he must be. She let go of Barney after a moment, but I didn’t let go of Peter, or he of me.

  “Don’t go,” I said, holding tight to the man who could face down elephants and crocodiles and venomous snakes to save the lives of creatures he barely knew. Was love such a fiercer thing for us to face? “Maybe we haven’t used up all our chances after all.”

  “I don’t need another chance,” Peter whispered as he crushed me close. “I just need you.”

  “Come on, Barney,” Melea said, loudly enough for us to hear. “Let’s go feed the zebra.”

  I shared the binoculars with Peter, watching Hope and Jasiri bond, becoming a family in those few minutes they’d spent together. So much change in so little time. The calm in Jasiri’s eye. The strength visibly flowing into Hope. The decision of a moment that would last their lifetime. The decision to love and be loved.

  We watched our beautiful ellies until Melea and Barney disappeared over the top of the hill.

  Then we sank down before the setting sun, Peter and I, making our decision too.

  It wasn’t a decision of the flesh, although that’s how we expressed it best, with touches and sighs and the joining of our bodies in a fit so perfect nothing but our own ecstasy could break it. And even then he left in me seeds of himself, so we would never be parted.

  No, it was a decision of the heart.

  For only in our hearts could we find again the courage to love.

  * * *

  Proud Hearts

  Lose your heart to Wild Romance!

  With the grant money needed to continue her videojournalism work with a pride of Zambian lions fast running out, Deidre (Dee) Young reluctantly signs a contract to help create a "Living With Lions" episode for the popular Living With... reality TV show.

  Star and Hollywood idol Chris Corsair is just as arrogant and self-absorbed
as Dee feared he would be. That is, until an accident forces Dee and Chris to rescue one of the pride's cubs, and Chris proves to be more than just a pretty face with a rock-hard body play-acting the hero.

  But even as Chris and Dee burn up the hot nights with their new-found passion, a hunter arrives on scene determined to stop at nothing—even murder in the isolated African bush—to take home the head of Brutus, the alpha lion of Dee's beloved pride.

  To save Brutus and themselves, they'll have to trust to their lions, each other, and the strength of a love that threatens to tame them all.

  MORE BOOKS BY PHOENIX SULLIVAN

  PROUD HEARTS (A Wild Romance) Book 2

  NOBLE HEARTS (A Wild Romance) Book 3 - Coming Summer 2016

  SECTOR C (Medical Thriller)

  * * *

  Know the minute Book 3 in the WILD HEARTS ROMANCE series is available! Sign up for my mailing list today. You’ll ONLY receive a newsletter when I have something new on offer, and your email will never be sold or spammed.

  http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com

  About Phoenix Sullivan

  In the corporate world, Phoenix was a professional writer and editor for 23 years. Before that, she was a registered veterinary technician, working with small animal clinics and wildlife rehab centers. Today she lives on a 27-acre farm with a handful of ponies, dogs, cats, chickens and goats, and is Managing Director of Steel Magnolia Press (Jennifer Blake, President).

  Find Phoenix and her Regina Wolfe pen name (writing steamy ménage historical romance based in Arthurian legend and spiced with a dash of the paranormal) at:

  http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com

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