A Moment in Time

by Yvonne Whittal

  Christie shrugged off her thoughts and walked briskly towards the truck where Dennis de Villiers was seated behind the wheel. She climbed up into the cab beside him and, still smarting from Lyle's insults, she slammed the door with unnecessary force.

  'Hey!' Dennis looked startled to see her there and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'The girls are supposed to travel in the Microbus.'

  'I was told to come here, and that arrangement suits me fine.'

  'The professor must be going loony!' Dennis exploded. 'You can't ride in this shuddering contraption.'

  'Leave it!' The sharpness in her voice prevented him from getting out of the truck to confront Lyle. 'I shall be quite comfortable here with you.'

  She had a nasty, growing suspicion that Lyle had planned to make life difficult and uncomfortable for her during the coming weeks, and instructing her to travel in this truck was merely the beginning. She forced a smile to her unwilling lips, but the uncertainty in Dennis's green gaze did not waver.

  'I'll leave it if you say so, but—' The roar of a red Triumph interrupted him as it shot past the truck, and they both turned their heads to see the car come to a screeching halt in front of Lyle's Jeep. 'It looks as if we're going to be held up a while longer,' Dennis observed with a hint of impatience in his voice.

  The woman who stepped out of the Triumph was tall, fair, and strikingly beautiful, even at a distance. She walked swiftly towards the Jeep, and Lyle turned to greet her with a smile that softened his features miraculously. The woman drew down his head to kiss him on his cheek, and Christie felt a stab of something she did not wish to analyse at that moment.

  'Is she joining us?' Christie asked, holding her breath for some unaccountable reason.

  'Not that lady!' Dennis laughed derisively. 'She wouldn't soil her lily-white hands to do anything for herself, let alone for someone else.'

  Christie could not take her eyes off the elegantly dressed young woman who was involved in what appeared to be a serious and involved discussion with Lyle. 'Who is she?'

  'Sonia Deacon,' Dennis answered abruptly. 'Her old man is some big shot in the mines, and she latched on to the professor almost as soon as he set foot in this country six months ago.'

  Dennis had unknowingly given Christie more information than she had asked for, but it was not Lyle she was concerned with at that moment. Sonia Deacon seemed to be pleading with Lyle, but his expression was unrelenting and resolute as he shook his head.

  'She appears to be upset about something,' Christie remarked almost to herself.

  'She's a very possessive lady, and my guess is she doesn't like the idea of the professor going away for a month and leaving her behind.'

  Christie stared at Lyle's impassive features. He was listening, but he was not contributing to the conversation at that moment, and Sonia Deacon finally spun on her heel and stormed towards her car. The Triumph pulled away from the curb and Sonia made a U-turn on screeching tyres before she shot off in the direction she had come a few minutes earlier.

  Christie and Dennis exchanged glances briefly without saying anything, and the next moment they saw Lyle striding towards their truck with his dark brows drawn together in an angry frown.

  'Let's go!' he barked up at Dennis. 'We've been delayed long enough!'

  Lyle did not wait for Dennis to reply, but stepped back in the road and gestured with his arms to the vehicles behind them that they were preparing to leave, and a few minutes later they were turning on to the freeway to Pretoria.

  Dennis had not been joking when he had called the truck a 'shuddering contraption'. The seat was hard, every bump in the road jolting her, and the heat in the cab became almost unbearable as they travelled farther north. Lyle led the convoy at a steady, even pace, and it seemed to Christie as if they had travelled for days instead of a few hours when they stopped at Potgietersrus for lunch. She deliberately sought out the company of the three young women in the group in her attempt to avoid Lyle, and she found that her initial fears about Erica subsided swiftly. She was a bright, pleasant girl, and Christie could say the same for Sandra and Valerie.

  The restaurant was a cool haven after the hours of travelling in the heat, but all too soon they had to continue on their journey, and Christie reluctantly stepped out into the blazing sunlight.

  'Mike will change places with you,' Valerie told Christie, tossing her red head in the direction of a sandy-haired young man leaning against the Microbus while smoking a cigarette. 'He will travel the rest of the way in the truck, and that means there will be room for you with us.'

  Christie was on the point of agreeing to Valerie's suggestion when her glance collided with Lyle's, and the look on his face told her that he had heard every word Valerie had said. Derision twisted his mouth and a challenge glittered in his eyes as he waited for her to reply, and Christie had to clamp down on her temper yet again.

  'Thanks for the offer,' she said to Valerie without lowering her voice, 'but I don't think we should alter the arrangements. Professor Venniker doesn't appear to be in a very good mood, and I'm quite sure he is capable of breathing the devil's own fire at us.'

  Sandra was the most timid of the three female students, and she looked visibly distressed when she glanced beyond Christie and whispered, 'The professor heard you, I'm sure.'

  Christie felt like saying, 'So what!', but instead she adopted a casual stance and said, 'Do you think so?'

  Sandra nodded her dark head, and the next instant Lyle's deep voice barked an instruction directly behind Christie.

  'Everyone in their places, we're leaving!' Christie turned towards the first truck, but fingers of steel bit briefly into her arm and forced her to face the man who stood glowering down at her. 'Any more derogatory remarks about me to the students, and I send you packing back to Johannesburg,' he instructed, his voice lowered and gratingly harsh.

  The antagonism was rife between them, and for one brief moment Christie thought, This is my chance to get away, but for some inexplicable reason she heard herself murmuring an apology.

  Those familiar dark eyes burned down into hers for a moment before he turned on his heel and walked on ahead towards the Jeep. Christie had no desire to draw attention to herself, and she followed him hastily. She climbed up into the truck beside Dennis, but she was fuming inwardly, and she was glaring at Lyle without realising it when he eased his lean length into the Jeep.

  The truck shuddered to life beneath Christie when Dennis turned the key in the ignition and when the Jeep pulled away from the curb, Dennis followed suit.

  'The professor's not such a bad guy once you get to know him,' Dennis remarked without taking his eyes off the road, and Christie realised with a start that he must have overheard the remark she had passed earlier.

  'I'm sure you're right,' she answered stiffly, but she warned herself silently that she would have to exercise more care in future if she did not want the students to suspect that she had known Lyle before their meeting that morning. 'I've never been a good traveller, and the heat has made me snappish,' she excused her behaviour, and she was not being altogether untruthful.

  'It's been a tough day.' Dennis acknowledged her explanation, and after that they lapsed into a silence which Christie welcomed.

  They left the national road and took a secondary road in a north-westerly direction. Christie had never travelled this far north before, and she was amazed at how the vegetation changed. They had left the mountains behind them, but the road they travelled seemed to rise over hills and dip down into valleys where the vegetation was green and fertile along the banks of the rivers and their tributaries.

  It was becoming stiflingly hot. Her throat felt parched, and her clothes were beginning to cling uncomfortably to her damp body. One glance at Dennis told her that he was feeling the heat as much as she. The perspiration was running freely down her face and neck, and his shirt was damp with sweat under the armpits.

  'How far do we still have to go?' Christie questioned him, pushing her dark
glasses up into her hair and wiping her face with a handkerchief.

  'Another fifty kilometres, I think.'

  Christie sighed inwardly, and wondered if her tortured spine would ever be the same again. Fifty kilometres was nothing on a decent highway, but they had turned on to a gravel road some time ago to travel in a cloud of dust kicked up by the Jeep in front of them. One glance through the rear window told Christie that the truck was kicking up an even bigger cloud of dust, and she felt a great deal more sympathy for those in the vehicles behind them.

  It was mid-afternoon before they reached Dialsdrif. It was a small town with no more than a half-dozen shops, and a smattering of quaint little houses nestling amongst honeysuckle hedges and shady trees. The Jeep slowed down when they entered the town, and Dennis put his foot on the brake pedal to do the same. Christie had thought that they would travel through the town without stopping, but Lyle signalled them all to a halt near the shops.

  No one needed a second invitation to ease their aching bodies out of the dusty vehicles to stretch their legs. Christie had never before seen such a travel-weary group of people huddled together on a pavement, but when she glanced at Lyle she found him to be the exception. She had always admired him for that surplus amount of energy and vitality he seemed to possess, and she could not help but admire him now as he leapt out of the Jeep to come striding towards them. Everyone else had wilted hours ago, but Lyle still looked almost as fresh as when they had left the campus grounds early that morning.

  'This is the last town before we leave civilization behind us, and after this someone will be coming in to Dialsdrif once a week only to replenish supplies and to get whatever else we may need.' His dark gaze swept over them, rested for one brief, impersonal moment on Christie, and then darted away again. 'If any of you have thought of something you might need and didn't bring with you, then I suggest you get it now. You have thirty minutes, no more.' he added, glancing at his wrist-watch.

  'I could do with something cold to drink,' Dennis said beside Christie. 'How about you?'

  'I've been almost dying of thirst for simply ages,' she admitted, turning towards the trading store which appeared to sell everything from a safety pin to large farming implements.

  'Christina!' Christie froze, and it took a moment before she could control her features sufficiently to turn and face Lyle. He had never called, her Christina, not even during moments of anger, and the sound of her baptismal name on his lips made her feel oddly as if she had been thrust out into the cold. She shivered despite the heat of the scorching sun, and forced herself to meet his piercing glance. 'Did you bring a hat with you?'

  She was not certain what she had expected, but his query surprised her into a state of confusion. 'No, I—I—'

  'I suggest you buy one.' He interrupted her faltering reply in a brusque voice. 'The sun can get dangerously hot in this part of the country.'

  It felt as if the dust on the pavement had settled in her throat, and the brief touch of his hand against the hollow of her back seemed to burn her through her shirt when he ushered her into the store. He did not linger at her side, as she had feared he might, but strode towards the windowed refrigerator to help himself to a canned fruit drink.

  Invaded by the students, the store shrank considerably in size, but Christie was conscious only of Lyle at that moment, and the burning touch of his hand which still seemed to linger against her back. Did he actually care that she might get sunstroke, or was he merely attempting to avoid the possibility of being inconvenienced? She shrugged slightly as she selected at random a wide-brimmed straw hat and a fruit drink for which she paid the lean, grey-haired man behind the counter. She could feel Lyle's dark eyes following every movement she made, and she walked out of the shop to escape his disquieting observation of her, but he followed her after a brief interval to where she stood leaning against the stem of a tree which cast shade on to the pavement.

  Christie tried to ignore him. She snapped open the can and drank her fruit drink thirstily, but Lyle was not the type of man one could simply ignore. He made his presence acutely felt as he stood directly in front of her with his hands resting casually on his lean hips, but there was nothing casual about the way he was looking at her. His eyes were systematically stripping her down to her skin in a deliberate attempt to insult and humiliate her… and he succeeded. An embarrassing warmth surged from her throat into her face, and for some ridiculous reason she wanted to cry, but anger came quickly to her rescue. It was years since Lyle had caused her to shed tears, and she was not going to start again now simply because he had succeeded in making her feel like a disgusting little insect which had dared to crawl out from under a stone at his feet.

  'What happened to your fabulous career?' His smile stressed the sarcasm in his query, and Christie bit back an equally sarcastic reply when she glimpsed a party of students emerging from the door.

  'My contract expired three years ago,' she heard herself confiding in him without actually intending to. 'I had lost interest in a career as a singer, so I enrolled at a secretarial college, and finally found myself a job that didn't require being in the limelight.'

  'I seem to recall that you thrived on being the centre of attraction.'

  'That remark proves that you didn't know me at all.'

  They glared at each other not for the first time that day, and she saw again that little muscle jerking along the side of his jaw to indicate that he was furious.

  'Why the devil did you have to apply for this job?' he demanded in a low, frightening growl.

  Christie shrugged with a casualness she did not feel. 'It's different to anything I have ever done before, and it sounded adventurous.'

  'The students are not here for the adventure,' he warned in a harsh undertone, and he was standing so close that she could detect the familiar and tantalising odour of his masculine cologne. 'This expedition is a vital and enriching part of their studies, and you would do well to remember that.'

  Christie was surprised to discover that she was shaking when he strode away from her. She had never before had cause to fear Lyle, but she feared him now. She sensed an unfamiliar violence in him which she had not encountered during their brief marriage, and she actually found herself dreading the four weeks ahead of her as his secretary. He was going to be an extremely difficult employer, and exactly how difficult she was yet to find out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The camp site was midway between a rugged, sloping mountain with a rocky ridge running along its crest, and the Mogalakwena River. It was ideal, for both were situated within five minutes' walking distance from the camp, and their first day was spent acquainting themselves with their new environment. Erica, Sandra, and Valerie shared a tent, and the men shared three tents between them. Christie had a tent to herself, and she could not decide whether it was intended for her to feel privileged, or isolated from the rest of the group. Lyle also had a large tent to himself which was partitioned off to serve as an office as well as sleeping quarters.

  A sharp bend in the Mogalakwena River, aided by a natural outcrop of rocks, created a shallow pool in which it was safe for them to bathe, and they had brought sufficient water for drinking and cooking purposes to last them a week. Perishable food was kept in a gas refrigerator in the supply tent, and their meals were cooked on a gas stove and an open fire. It was all very organised and considerably more civilised than Christie had imagined it would be, but she nevertheless found it strange eating out under the stars with the unfamiliar night sounds providing a primitive and rather frightening atmosphere. Exhaustion had driven everyone to bed early that first night, but it had taken Christie quite a time to fall asleep. The sleeping bag and stretcher were poor substitutes for the comfortable bed in her Johannesburg flat, and in the silent darkness of her small tent it felt as if she was the only living soul left on earth. She had been afraid that she might lie awake most of the night, but she had finally drifted into a dreamless sleep from which she had been awakened at first light the
following morning.

  Excavations began on the second day beneath the rocky face of the mountain, where a natural cave bore indications that it might once have been inhabited by one of the many ancient African tribes. The equipment was carried laboriously up the steep slope of the mountain. The site was marked off in squares, and a precise diagram was made for the purpose of marking the exact spot where a specimen was found. If anything was ever found, Christie added sceptically to herself.

  Armed with a notebook and pencil, and dressed in comfortable canvas shoes, denims and a cotton shirt, Christie had followed the group up the mountain. If she had expected that she would simply be taking down notes, then she was mistaken. Lyle issued cryptic instructions to everyone, and Christie found herself working alongside him to assist with the rigging of some of the equipment before the excavations could begin.

  As the morning progressed the heat and the humidity shot up several discomforting degrees, and they all were made to realise why Lyle had worn shorts instead of slacks, and a T-shirt which he stripped off eventually to leave his muscled torso exposed to the sun. The male students followed his example, and stripped off their shirts, but the girls had to suffer in silence.

  'I'm wearing shorts tomorrow and my bikini top,' Erica declared emphatically when they returned to the camp for lunch, and Christie and the other two girls agreed with her.

  They did not return to the excavation site in the afternoon. They gathered together in the shade of a weeping wattle, discussing the morning's activities, and this, in itself, took the form of a lecture. The students asked questions and made frequent notes of what they considered important, and afterwards they dispersed, leaving Christie alone with Lyle.

  She felt nervous and edgy, and not quite certain what was expected of her. She fiddled with her notebook and pencil, and tried not to look at him, but her glance was irrevocably drawn to his naked torso where the dark hair on his wide chest tapered down to his navel. His maleness was as potent now as it had been five years ago, and her response to it was unexpected and alarming. Her insides trembled and her palms felt clammy when she rose jerkily to her feet. Memories flooded her mind, memories of her cheek resting against his hair-roughened chest, and her heart pounded wildly in her breast at the intimate trend of her thoughts. She wondered if he could recall as much about her as she could about him, but his dark eyes were devoid of any emotion except that biting displeasure that made her cringe inwardly.