by Cherry Adair
“I’ll get it,” he said at the same time as she said, “I’ll do it.”
He dropped his hand, suspecting that if he didn’t cave she’d arm wrestle him for domination of the sun visor.
He accelerated. He had more serious concerns than an unwanted sexual awareness to deal with. He hoped to hell he wouldn’t require his wizard powers for a few hours. Jesus. The simple teleportation of a 3.5-ton vehicle was nothing. He’d done it hundreds of times. Half an hour after she was supposed to pick him up outside Abi’s office, Simon had been hot on her trail. He’d floored the Range Rover just because he enjoyed driving. And driving fast, on a dirt road, kicking up a rooster tail of red dust. The Rover wasn’t a fighter jet, but the speed was still a rush.
As fast as he’d been going, his elusive guide was faster. Even with her head start, she was nowhere to be seen. And since Simon knew there was only one road, this one, due north, she was clocking in at speeds higher than what was remotely safe, even out here where the land was nothing but gently rolling hills with no traffic. Hitting a large animal at ninety miles per hour would, at best, leave a mark and, at worst, kill the animal, her, or both.
Fifty miles in, he’d decided to teleport himself and his vehicle to intercept her. Teleportation was one of the easiest powers. Something he’d never given a thought to.
Invisible, he’d teleported, unnoticed right over head, and had picked a spot under a shade tree some three miles ahead of her limping vehicle. Unfortunately, his power had sizzled like an electrical outage a hundred feet off the ground and a mile short of his target. He, and the vehicle, had suddenly materialized, dropping like a rock.
His fucking power had short-circuited. Again. Good thing he’d managed a last-minute landing alteration and come down on the grassy verge.
Shouldn’t have happened.
But it had.
In the last few weeks he’d had a fifty-fifty failure rate. The power outages were coming a hell of a lot more frequently. Scared the crap outta him. He supposed he could talk to his friends, but damn it, he was embarrassed. A kind of wizard performance anxiety, he thought. Unamused.
Worse, the malfunction of his powers endangered not only himself but fellow T-FLAC operatives and innocents alike. Hence the vacation.
This was bullshit on a grand scale.
He’d been lucky so far.
A wizard without powers was…Not a wizard, for Christ’s sake! Since it wasn’t just what he did, it was who he was, the thought chilled Simon to the bone.
If it happened again he’d put in a call to Mason Knight, the man who’d taken him under his wing. Mason was a combo father-figure, mentor, and friend. Surely to God he’d know how to repair Simon’s powers.
He rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, casting a quick glance at his passenger. Head supported by her bent arm against the window, she gave a good imitation of being asleep. She wasn’t, of course. He could practically hear her agile brain doing calisthenics, but for now he’d pretend along with her. He needed the silence, and the hypnotic visual of the long, straight dirt road ahead, to concentrate.
“I pity the poor guy you’re planning to dismember.” Her voice was low and husky. Simon had been aware of her observing him for the past several minutes.
“Maybe it’s a woman.”
She straightened up and tucked a leg under her. Her ball cap had fallen between the seat and door, and she pulled it out of the space, but didn’t put it back on. Her hair, especially in the direct sunlight streaming through her window, was fiery, and seemed to have a life of its own. Now clean and shining like liquid fire, Kess’s hair was stunningly beautiful. Simon’s fingers flexed on the hard steering wheel as he resisted reaching over to touch it.
“I don’t think so,” she said with utmost certainty, her luminous gray eyes fixed on his face. She had very long, thick dark lashes that made her eyes appear as open and guileless as a child’s. But she was no child. Her firm, round breasts pushed out the front of a clean white T-shirt very nicely.
“I imagine,” she mused, pursing her lips. Jesus. Was she deliberately trying to make him salivate? “That if you’re engaged by a woman, you treat her very well.”
Simon bit back a smile. She really was a piece of work. “What if I’m not ‘engaged’ by her. What if she’s a pain in my ass?” She was a pain all right. Right in the nuts.
“I still don’t think you’d ever physically harm a woman,” she said, looping her arms around her bent knee and cocking her head to look at him. Her hair slithered down the front of her shirt like magma. “Break her heart maybe,” she offered. “Now if a guy got on your wrong side I imagine you could handle yourself pretty well.”
Behind her head, and in the distance, Simon saw a herd of delicate gazelles leaping like butterflies through the grass. He was tempted to point them out to Kess, anything to break this inane turn in the conversation. Instead, he let his attention flicker to the road ahead, then glanced back at her. “Ya think?”
She lifted her shapely ass off the seat to fish a rubber band from her back pocket. “So, Simon Blackthorne with an e, what do you do for a living when you’re not vacationing in deepest, darkest Africa?” She put the band between her teeth and did that wholly female thing of sweeping her hair back and into a ponytail. The movement lifted her breasts and arched her back.
Simon had a clear and vivid image of Kess sitting on a bed. Just like this, arms raised, breasts bared. Waiting. “Any water in that cooler back there?”
She twisted the band into her hair, then leaned over between the seats to open the cooler on the floor in the back. Her shirt rode up, baring the unbelievably sexy small of her back. She smelled of something floral. Something tropical. Something that reminded him of sultry nights under billowing white drapes, with the scents of the ocean and woman thick in the balmy air.
At this rate he could steer the fucking car with his cock.
She righted herself and handed him one of two icy glass bottles. “Cheers.” She clinked bottles with him, then removed the cap of one, extended her hand, and switched with him.
She chugged down half the bottle in one go. “Profession? Job? Vocation?” she prodded.
Simon drank deeply before answering. “Private contractor.”
“Cool.” She ran her dewy bottle across her forehead, so sparkling droplets of water ran down her temple. He wanted to stop the car, and—Fuck. This was ludicrous. The woman wasn’t giving off even the faintest of signs that she was remotely attracted to him. She’s not my type, for God’s sake.
“I’ve always admired people who can work with their hands,” she said cheerfully, running the wet bottle down the side of her neck. First one side, then the other. “I have two left thumbs. I made a birdhouse in woodshop in third grade. I ended up with both left thumbs black and blue, and super-gluing my fingers together.” She grinned, her teeth white, one eyetooth slightly, and damn it, endearingly, crooked. “It was fun though. Homes or offices?”
He’d intentionally misdirected her, but he could say with absolute truth, “Home.”
“And you can stay away from work like this for weeks at a time? Won’t you lose business by not being there?”
Fish away, honey. I’m a professional liar. “The only house I’m working on right now is my own.” That was true. Which surprised him, because he didn’t share a lot about himself. Particularly to strangers. “There’s a fork up ahead. Left or right?”
“Right. We’ll be there in less than an hour. What kind of house is it?”
Permanent. Beautiful. Mine, Simon thought with a sense of pride and accomplishment. He was putting sweat equity into it, but the roof was on now. One day…“Ranch style on a hundred acres.” He pictured the cedar exterior, nestled as it was right now in a blanket of pristine snow, just waiting for a fire to be lit in the mammoth great room fireplace. The rocks he’d placed there, one by one, excavated from his own property.
“Are you going to run catt—Watch out!”
A ma
ssive white rhino stood four-square in the middle of the road. “I see him.” Hard to miss. Its head swiveled as the car approached, but the animal didn’t move out of the way. Its inch-thick light-colored hide was stained with red dust, making the ugly son of a bitch pink. Ridiculously small ears swiveled as Simon braked and slowed to a stop a good fifty feet away.
“We could go around him,” Kess whispered as the large beast snorted irritably at the car.
“His wife is on the left, the kids on the right. Look.”
The female wasn’t looking any too happy having the metal monster between her and the three fat little calves munching grass on the opposite side of the road.
“Now what?”
Simon could think of a dozen things they could do to pass the time. Most of them involved removing their clothes. “Now we wait until the family moves on. This is their backyard, they have right of way.”
She settled her back against the door, curving her leg up on the seat, then rested her water bottle on her booted ankle. “Are you married?”
Christ, her gaze was direct. “What makes you ask?”
“You’re building a house.” She shrugged. “Single guys don’t usually build a house unless they’re married or planning to be married soon. Are you?”
Simon shook his head, amused by her persistence. “I’ll eventually marry.” In about three years he’d start some serious searching. For the moment he was quite content to wait for that particular “want” on his list. Right now he was enjoying the planning. The anticipation.
“Anyone in mind?”
“Yeah, I have an image in my head.” So crystal clear, so specific that his future wife and mother of his future children was almost real to him. “Haven’t met her yet.” But he’d know her the second he saw her.
“You have an image of the woman you’ll marry one day?” She drank the last of her water, and he watched her throat move as she swallowed. Simon imagined what Kess would taste like if he ran his tongue down the sweet curve of her neck, then had to adjust himself by shifting in his seat.
“Really?” she arched a red brow. “That’s fascinating. Tell me about her.”
Simon leaned his shoulder against the window. The rhino family wasn’t going anywhere. He looked at Kess, at the way the brilliant sunshine backlit her hair like a fiery halo, at the way her sharp little nipples pressed against her T-shirt, at the way the khaki pants pulled tight across her mound. “You want to know about the as-yet-unidentified woman I’m going to make my wife?” He swigged the cold water to flood his dry mouth with moisture.
“Got anything better to do?” She reached into the cooler and removed a pack of cookies. She held up the bag. When he shook his head she reached in and took out three. Sharp white teeth crunched into a cookie. Crumbs fell onto her chest. He almost groaned out loud. How could someone this oblivious be this fucking sexy? The wild mane of ginger hair, her lightly tanned, freckled skin, the sassy mouth all added up to any man’s wildest fantasies.
Making herself comfortable, she reached for another cookie. “Tell me about her.”
He’d played this game, mentally, for years. But Simon hadn’t even told his best friends about the house, let alone the wife and children he intended to people it with. “Tall. I don’t want to get a crick in my neck bending down to kiss her.”
Mist-colored eyes brightened as Kess smiled and an insidious heat seeped into Simon’s blood. “She could always stand on a step stool,” she offered, eyes dancing.
“Hardly handy,” he told her dryly. “Dark hair. Black or a dark brown will work. Brown eyes. Pale skin. Not too fat, and not too thin—”
“Have you tried Stepford?” Kess asked, her words brimming with amusement. She polished off the first cookie and bit into the second, leaving a fleck of chocolate on the corner of her mouth. He was getting a hard-on watching the woman eating, for God’s sake.
It took everything in him not to lean over and lick that sweet smear off her mouth. He gritted his teeth at his own idiocy. Here he was describing the woman of his dreams, and he was literally panting like a horn dog over another woman. He actually felt guilty. As though he were cheating on his future wife. Kess Goodall was making him insane.
He dragged his gaze away from her lush mouth. “Great sense of humor—”
Her lips twitched. “I’m guessing big boobs are on the list?”
“I don’t care about the size of her breasts.”
“Well, you’ll have to consider size before you put in your order. Good God, Simon. You can’t order up a wife like—like a burger. Don’t you want to just meet a random someone and fall madly in love?”
“I’ll love my wife until the day I die.”
“But don’t you—” Kess changed her mind. He was so intense and serious that he was fun to tease. But she wasn’t going to press her luck. “Look. The rhino family is packing up and going home. Oh, my God, how cute are the babies?”
She’d peppered him with enough questions, and wanted to digest everything he’d said. She’d never heard a man speak with such obvious sincerity about a subject that should be entered into blindly and with great gusto. What an interesting guy. He made her…
She tried to analyze her physical reaction to him and bit back a smile. He made her feel intensely, gloriously…female. And aware of her own body in a way she’d never felt before. She glanced out the side window, enjoying the way her heart beat so quickly, the way her skin felt sensitized as if waiting for his touch. She brushed a finger over her lips and felt a surge of pleasure at just being alive. With him beside her and the brilliant African sunshine streaming into the car.
Life—at least now in this exact moment—was good.
Simply…good.
As soon as the last of the rhinos crossed, Simon started the car and they resumed their trip. Kess could feel that her face had gotten sunburned through the window, despite the sunblock she wore religiously. No pale skin on her. One side was red, the other a nice golden brown from spending months in the sun.
Of course she wasn’t brunette, tall, or Stepford either. “The base camp is in the middle of those trees. Eucalyptus,” she told him. “Imported, and part of a failed attempt at a cash timber industry. I’m sure the animals enjoy the bonus shade. Honk lightly three times so they know it’s us—They the camp, not they the animals.” She smiled. “The Hureni skulk around every now and then.”
Kess didn’t mention that the sound of approaching vehicles immediately signaled danger and possible attack. Most villages were along roads, so they were easy targets for bandits, rebels, and the government army who came to pursue their various agendas: stealing food and other goods, kidnapping children, attacking villagers.
The presidential guard, when not kept in check, were frequently brutal and, despite Mr. Bongani’s instructions, had burned hundreds of temporary camps of refugees fleeing just such treatment in their own countries.
Villagers had told Kess that sometimes the army parked their vehicles a few kilometers outside the villages so that they could launch a surprise attack on foot. People would leave their belongings and run off from the main dirt road or their villages into nearby fields. Many were so scared that they lived in the bush for months.
Kess bit her lip. The president’s job seemed insurmountable to her. But God, he was doing his best, and she admired the hell out of him for the inroads he was making.
Simon gave the horn a triple tap as they approached.
“That’s weird.” Kess put both feet back on the floor and leaned forward, her hand braced on the console as she tried to see the camp up ahead through the trees and shrubs. “Usually Jackson, Dr. Viljoen’s dog, comes bolting out to meet visitors. They must be upriver collecting samples…”
A dark shape in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and she lifted her eyes to the sky.
The air above the trees was filled with a swarm of circling vultures.
Three
Simon grabbed her upper arm as Kess flung open the
door and started to jump out of the car. “Stay here,” he instructed, his expression grim. In his left hand he held a small, deadly-looking black gun. Half the size of hers, but it looked twice as dangerous. Despite the intense, baking heat, she felt a frisson of icy dread watching Simon striding toward the trees. Oh, God. She hadn’t told him the seriousness of the Hureni raids this close to the border. For all she knew the camp might be full of Hureni warriors. And Simon was alone.
Without further thought, she kneeled up on the seat, hauling her pack up and over onto the armrest between the passenger’s and driver’s seats. Yanking down the zipper, she found her gun right on top of her clothes. Her fingers barely shook as she picked it up, methodically clicking off the safety.
She grabbed her camera as well, tucking it in her front pocket, then got out of the car, leaving the door ajar just in case she needed to jump back in.
She couldn’t hear herself think over the noise of the determined birds wheeling above. With their bald pink heads and dark gray bodies they looked exactly like the scavengers they were. Kess shuddered with the creepy-crawlies.
It was oddly silent once she’d filtered out the sound of the birds screeching. No talking. No Jackson barks. No Enzi singing as he started the dinner fires. No Koffi scolding the dog for getting into her clean wash.
This can’t be good. Kess ran lightly in the direction Simon had gone, slipping into the trees several yards behind him. Without turning around, Simon lifted a hand in a stopping motion. Weird. As if he had eyes in the back of his head.
Since he seemed to know what he was doing, Kess stopped. And as impulsive as her action was, leaving the car, she wasn’t stupid. He might need help, and while she wasn’t by any means a crack shot, she usually got what she was aiming at.
This was no city park. The dangers were too numerous to count. People. Animals. Insects. All were potential threats. The camp intentionally wasn’t anywhere near an animal drinking area, but it was close to the river. A mile to the south was the latest village to succumb to the virulent disease sweeping the country.
