by Sky Winters
“So, we’re staying out here in the open? With the animals?” she asked, somewhat losing the cool she had tried so hard to maintain.
He sighed loudly and looked at her with a huge frown on his face, dropping his bag by his feet and taking off back down toward the shore below them. His voice rang out loudly as he called to the rangers, already well out of sight from where she still stood above him.
“Hey, come back. I don’t think the princess is going to be able to make the trip,” he yelled in their direction.
“I didn’t say that!” she protested loudly behind him.
“Then stop your whining and let’s get a move on. I don’t have time to pet you. You either want to do this or you don’t. Either way is fine with me. I’ve already gotten paid to babysit you.”
“I don’t need a fucking babysitter!” she barked at him, snatching up her bag and stalking off toward the trees in a huff.
“That’s better, but you might want to go the right damned way, Cinderella,” he said in a snarky tone.
Tabitha turned to see that he had begun walking in the opposite direction and followed him with an angry scowl on her face. She was completely frazzled within the first mile of their journey, every noise putting her on edge as she wondered what lurked in the tall weeds just beyond the path they were treading.
“Come here,” he told her. “Stand very still and look right over there.”
She did as she was told, her heart pounding loudly in her chest as she observed her first actual tigers in the wild. Prior to this, the closest she had been to one was at the zoo, secured behind large panels of plexiglass that protected her from the beasts just beyond.
“Oh, wow. They’re beautiful,” she whispered, afraid to speak much louder than a breath.
“They are and lethal. Just keep watching. See the female standing to one side that looks as if she is on alert?” he said.
“Yes,” Tabitha replied, finding being so close to him a little intoxicating despite how she perceived his personality failures.
“Keep your eye on her,” he said.
Tabitha did, continuing to watch as the tiger’s ears pricked upward as she listened to something only she could see. A moment later, something came barreling through the grass and she was immediately on it, pouncing on a large wild boar. The sounds they made were vile, her growls coupled with the boar’s squeals of pain. It took her only seconds to have it pinned down and motionless. Tabitha had to look away as she began to feed on it, several cubs bounding over to share in her victory.
“That was incredible to watch,” Tabitha said, her heart racing wildly in her chest.
“From a distance, yes. You don’t want one coming for you and this area is filled with them. Stay close and stay quiet. They are used to humans traveling through here and don’t usually bother them unless they feel threatened, but we don’t take any chances. Tigers are much like humans, with different personalities and levels of aggression. You’ll be safe with me. Just don’t wander away.”
“I don’t see that happening,” she said, still watching as the tigers surrounded their prey and enjoyed their meal.
“Alright, we’re losing daylight. Let’s go.”
Their trek through the area around the riverbed led them to a dense grove of trees and an area that was obviously well used for bedding down for the night. There was evidence of previous fires in a pit to one side and simple chicken wire fencing wrapped around the surrounding trees. It wouldn’t be enough to stop an attack if one was going to happen, but it was a deterrent and protected them somewhat on three sides. The fourth was open.
“Is this safe?” she asked.
“No. It’s not safe. If you wanted safe, you should have stayed at the hotel.”
“I didn’t expect it to be perfectly tame, but I wasn’t aware we would be sleeping out here in a tent!” she said.
Matt laughed a little and nodded toward a large building that she hadn’t seen before. It almost blended into the wild just beyond where they stood. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and dangled them in front of her.
“I was just yanking your chain, princess. There’s a jeep in that building that is shared by those of us that are registered guides with the rangers. I never intended to sleep out here in the open, though you can see that some people do. I just needed to get us here well before dark. We’re going to take that down to a juncture near the river. It’s much less populated with wildlife and there’s a small ranger station with a wooden shelter we can use.”
“You are such a jerk!” she exclaimed, glaring at him.
“I know. I love it,” he laughed. “Come on.”
They made their way to the shed and tossed their gear into the jeep. Matt checked out its fluids to make sure they had been topped off and then they pulled out, heading further down the river. Matt flipped a switch that blasted bright lights all over the area around them and Tabitha marveled at all of the animals that bounded back and forth around the vehicle as it moved along in the near darkness. They were about three miles south of where they had picked it up when there was a sudden lurch in the jeep and it stopped, going completely dead.
“That’s not good,” Matt groaned.
“This better not be another joke,” she told him.
“I’m afraid it’s not,” he told her, reaching for a large mag light on the seat behind them. “Sit tight.”
Tabitha waited anxiously as he tinkered under the hood, a healthy spew of expletives flying about as he did so. She wondered if he was even the slightest bit afraid, being out there in the darkness and drawing attention to himself, but she realized that she wasn’t exactly out of danger herself. The jeep was open topped, which was fine while they were moving, but now she had to wonder what might drop in here with her. She was terrified.
When Matt finally came around to talk to her, she didn’t like the expression on his face. He ran a hand through his hair. “We aren’t going any further in this thing tonight,” he told her.
“You’re kidding?”
He grimaced. “I’m afraid not. We’ll have to make camp here for the night.”
“In the middle of nowhere? This is worse than that last place you showed me!”
“I would have to agree with that, but there’s not much else we can do. It’s safer to hunker down here for the night than it is to try to walk out of here in the dark.”
“I don’t believe this!” she groaned.
“I don’t really care what you believe, princess. We’re stuck here and we need to make camp quickly before anything realizes we’re here. I’ll pitch the tent here by the jeep with the opening facing it. If things get too out of hand, we’ll have a bit of safety from larger animals under the jeep.”
Tabitha glared at him. She was having a hard time deciding if he’d planned this or was just doing it to scare the shit out of her.
“Listen, if you’re just screwing with me to try and scare me, you’re doing a great job. I admit that I’m out of my element and don’t belong here, but I was sent here to do a job. I didn’t have a choice.”
Much to her surprise, he put a hand on her shoulder to calm her, looking down at her with what appeared to be a hint of kindness in his eyes. Or was that just the near darkness falling around them playing tricks on her?
“Tabitha, we will be fine. I realize you haven’t been in a situation like this before, but I have, many times. In fact, I’ve been in much worse situations. If you just stay close and listen to what I tell you, you’ll be fine. I promise. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. The imprint of his hand seemed to burn against her skin, more a sexual reaction than an emotional one she realized and it caught her a bit off guard. Sure, he was gorgeous, but he was also cocky and rude. She was quickly reminded of this by his next statement.
“Besides, if you get eaten by a tiger, I have to give the ridiculous amount of money they paid me to be your guide back to them. Probably get sued for whatever I have on top of it,” he joked.
“No, of course not. Stop laughing. We have a tent to set up.”
“Wait? Tent? Singular?”
“Yes. One tent. Don’t worry. I won’t bite and I’ll sleep on my side.”
“I guess,” she said. Part of her was anxious about being in the same tent with him, but the better part of her felt safer that she would be. Then again, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that there was definitely a part of her that hoped he would take advantage of the situation.
“In the morning, we’ll get up and hike back to the shed where we got the jeep. I know what’s wrong with it, but I don’t have what I need to fix it tonight. Then, we’ll get you back down to where you need to be to take photographs before we get back on the boat to head downstream toward the sanctuary you wanted to see.”
Tabitha got out of the jeep, closing the door quietly, not wanting to attract the attention of any animals. “If I don’t get eaten by tigers.”
“Precisely,” he laughed, pulling the tent from the back of the jeep. He had it erected in a matter of moments.
Tossing their packs and bedding inside, he motioned for her to get in. Tabitha slipped into the tiny bit of space between the front of the tent and the jeep and ducked inside, gathering up a blanket and resting her head on her backpack as a pillow. It wasn’t exactly the kind of camping she was used to, but she supposed it would suffice.
To her surprise, he opened an e-book reader and began to read beside her. She wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her to bring something to read. She didn’t even have so much as a paperback book in her bag, having opted to come without one to forego the extra weight. Though several had traveled with her to India, they were sitting with the other bags he had said she wouldn’t be using in her hotel room. Tossing and turning a bit, she tried not to get too anxious about things.
“Quit squirming,” he told her, reaching over to put his hand on her arm quietly.
“I can’t. I’m wide awake,” she admitted.
“Would you like me to read to you?”
“What are you reading?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not. Sure, read to me.”
To her surprise, he began reading an older James Herbert book called “The Others.” She listened intently, enthralled as much by the sound of his voice as she was with the book itself. It was incredibly calming and she realized that no one had read to her since she was a very small girl. His voice lulled her somehow, making her feel safe and warm. After a while, he stopped, closing the kindle cover and laying it aside.
“Looks like that’s it for tonight. The battery is dying,” he told her.
“Well, it was nice while it lasted. Thank you.”
“How about I tell you a story instead? Or better yet, you tell me one. How does a city girl like you end up getting assigned to do a story on tigers in India?”
“Honestly, I just needed a break from the regular world I guess and jumped at it when my editor offered me this gig.” She hesitated before admitting, “I was supposed to get married this month and it didn’t work out.”
“That’s too bad. He broke it off before the wedding?” His voice was soft with something that sounded like kindness and she found herself warming to him.
“More like just didn’t show up for it.”
“Now it’s you that’s kidding me. He left someone as beautiful as you are standing there waiting for him to show up? What a cowardly way to back out of things.”
“It was horrible and humiliating, but I think that maybe he did me a favor.”
“A favor? I hardly see how anyone could see it that way.”
“Like you said, he was a coward. It’s better that I found out his true nature before I married him and now that it’s all in the rear view mirror, I realize that there were signs that I ignored.”
“What sort of signs?”
Tabitha was surprised that he seemed to be taking such an interest in her and her sad sob story, but she kept going. It felt good to talk about it. “I’m not sure it’s anything I can really put my finger on and make sense of to someone else. It’s like, you know, when you do lots of little things for someone just because you want them to be happy or their life to be a little easier. You notice that they don’t take the same care of you, but you chalk it up to a difference in personalities rather than not caring as much as you do.”
Matt nodded, obviously understanding. “So, you made excuses for him not giving you what you needed, what you deserved and that just made it okay for him to do it in his mind.”
“Yeah. I guess I never thought of it that way, but it’s true.”
“Love does that to you.”
“That’s just it. I don’t think I was in love with him.” She took a deep breath, looking at the ceiling of the tent in the darkness, feeling Matt’s warm body next to hers. She hadn’t admitted that to anyone before, hell she’d barely admitted it to herself. “He certainly wasn’t in love with me. I think that we had both just invested so much time in the relationship, we were just blindly going along with what we thought was the next step in our lives. It’s better that it fell apart before we lumped one more mistake on top of another.”
“I suppose that happens.”
There was a long moment of comfortable silence before Tabitha spoke again. “How about you? What’s your story? How does a Liverpudlian end up in the wilds of India tracking tigers for tourists?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been all over the world. I was in the military for a good while and then came here as a tourist myself. I fell in love with the place and decided to stay. The wild suits me.”
“Yeah, I can see how it would. You seem an awful lot like a bit of a wild creature yourself,” she said, not meaning for it to sound nearly as provocative as it came out. Or did she?
“I can be,” he said, leaning up on one arm to look at her, and the sudden change in his tone of voice made her heart thump hard in her chest.
She looked up at him, not sure how to respond. Only a short time ago she had loathed him on sight and now she was finding some odd chemistry between them. She was drawn to his dark eyes, which weren’t quite blue and weren’t quite green, but seemed to shift from one to the other depending on his mood. The light cleft in his chin granted him a chiseled, refined look that was in stark contrast to his outdoor attire. She could imagine that in a more domestic setting, he wore a tux just as well as his khakis.
“I want to kiss you,” he said suddenly.
“What?” she replied, caught off guard by his comment, but excited by it, nonetheless.
His gaze fell to her mouth. “I’ll be damned if I haven’t wanted to kiss you since I first lay eyes on you.”
“Odd, considering how little you seem to think of me.”
“Just a bit of bollocking is all it is. I like to catch people off guard, to see what they are really made of,” he replied with a grin that melted her.
“Well, I guess you should just kiss me and get it out of your system then,” she said.
“I guess I should,” he told her.
He shifted, moving closer to her and leaning down, covering her mouth with his own. His hands were rough as they trailed down her arms, but his lips were incredibly soft on hers. His tongue explored her mouth heatedly, drinking her in deeply. She found herself drawn in, unable to resist how he felt against her with his muscular chest pressing against her own, his growing excitement readily apparent as it pressed against her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly pulling away. “I’m being inappropriate. You’re a client and I should mind myself.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” she replied, pulling him back down to her and greedily resuming the kiss.
Things heated up quickly after that, their kiss taking on a life of its own as they lost themselves in one another. Tabitha forgot where she was, about any danger that might be present in the arms of such a gorgeous, capable man as Matt
. He was older, her guess was late thirties judging from the slight hint of gray beginning to creep into his dark hair near his temples. It only made her crave his experience even more. This was just what she needed, a meaningless fling in an exotic place, far from the pain that had almost crippled her not so long ago.
“Your skin is so soft,” he mumbled against her neck as his hands slipped beneath her white t-shirt and caressed her back. “It’s been a very long time since I held anyone.”
Tabitha pulled away for a moment and studied his face before speaking. She smiled gently and brought her hand up to his cheek as he looked down from where he leaned over her.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Matt. I’m a grown up. I can handle just being wanted in the moment and that being the end of it. I don’t want this to turn into some awkward thing between us for the rest of the trip.”
He smiled at her. “I’m not lying. I’ve just not been interested in anyone for quite a while. There’s something about you that is different. Even though I’ve been giving you a hard time, it was just my way of keeping you at a distance, I suppose.
“I assumed that your disappearances when I first arrived, your other plans, involved a woman or women.”
“No. That was…other business. I keep busy so that I don’t think about being lonely. Isn’t that what we all do?”
“Yes. That’s a bit how I ended up so far out of my element here in India with you. You were right. I am a city girl. I mostly report on local social causes or charitable events. My editor sent me here as a favor, to take my mind off of what happened or rather didn’t happen.”
“Has it made you feel better?” he asked, playing with the collar of her shirt, which was extremely distracting.
“In some ways, yes.”
“And in others, not so much?”
“Like I said, I’m just not in my usual setting and that unnerves me a bit.”
“Yes, I can see that you’re anxious much of the time. It’s only made me want to hold you, but I told myself that it was crossing a line, being unprofessional. I suppose that is still true, but I don’t think I care anymore. I’ll give you a refund,” he said with a laugh.
