by Joss Wood
‘Afternoon, boys,’ she said, stepping onto the grass. ‘Been wallowing in the mud pool then?’
Nick stepped out of his vehicle and looked at his rangers with pride. ‘When the guys heard what you did to save the calf—’
‘She’s OK?’ Clem demanded.
‘Yeah, she’ll pull through. She’ll have to have a full-time nurse and feeder for a while but she’ll be fine.’
Clem shot him a broad smile. ‘Oh, that’s fabulous news.’
Nick walked around his car and leaned against the bonnet. ‘As I was saying, the boys heard about your effort to get her out and, on hearing that I was going back to the pan to look for something, they volunteered their services as well.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking—’
The words dried on Clem’s tongue as she saw the chain wrapped around Nick’s hand, the locket dangling beneath his fist. Tears welled, fell and ran down her cheeks. ‘Oh, God, that’s … You went back to look for it?’
‘Mmm.’ Nick held it out to her. ‘I washed the mud off but the photos inside are ruined.’
Clem gulped as her fingers grabbed the locket. ‘I can get copies. Nick, I—’
‘Jabu said it was important to you,’ Nick said gruffly. ‘Andy found it.’
‘But it was your idea.’ Clem walked into Nick’s arms and, not caring that she was getting muddy all over again, buried her face in his neck. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Nick said in her ear. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you. Proud of you, Red.’
More tears rolled and Clem’s smile wobbled. Knowing that if she stayed within those strong arms she’d dissolve into a wet puddle at his feet, she backed away and hopped onto the running board of the Landy, leaning forward to kiss Andy. ‘I owe you big.’
She leaned in for a hug and got half his mud on her as well.
‘You do,’ Andy agreed and his white teeth flashed in his filthy face. ‘But we all agreed that you could thank us by having Nick hose you down and then stripping down to your underwear.’
‘Does anyone not know that I did that?’ she demanded, hands on her hips, lips twitching.
Nick banded his arm around her waist and he swung her off the Landy. ‘Nope. Boys can’t help bragging when they get a free lingerie show from a supermodel.’
‘I was never a supermodel and am now ten years older than when I modelled professionally,’ Clem protested. ‘And no, as grateful as I am, that’s not going to happen.’
The rangers groaned theatrically and Clem grinned.
Andy leaned his forearms on the steering wheel and he looked at her, his face now serious. ‘You did a good thing today, Red.’
She felt Nick’s arm tighten around her waist in agreement, felt the kiss he dropped into her hair. Pride at being a part of accomplishing something that mattered, something that had an impact, rushed, hot and fast, through her.
She still didn’t know what the rest of her life looked like but she did know that whatever she did in the future, it would have meaning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Luella Dawson’s blog:
Did we ever think we would see Clem up to her ears in mud? And how thrilling was that rhino rescue—every animal counts so donate at www.baobab&buffalofoundation.com—and how romantic was the find the locket in the mud scenario?
In contrast, Cai and Kiki are boring, self-absorbed, narcissistic and annoying.
But the real question and what we all want to know is: what happens when the lights go off at Two-B? Huh?
IT WAS a full moon and for the past eighty years these special lunar nights were celebrated at Two-B with a picnic on Arthur’s Hill, where the guests could watch the moon rise and shine across the river below.
The Full Moon picnic at Two-B was now, to quote the website, an ‘experience to delight all the senses’. Tables would be draped in soft, relentlessly bleached cotton cloths, glasses polished, small bouquets of flowers arranged, comfortable chairs would be placed in the best viewing points, a fire would be built in the concrete pit that Nick’s great-grandfather had built with his own hands. There would be imported cheeses, battered prawns, snack platters and sushi. French champagne.
The guests, dressed in their most formal clothes, would be greeted with an Out of Africa experience, complete with superb views, amazing food and elegantly dressed companions.
It was Nick’s greatest wish to experience just one full moon on his own, or maybe with just Clem for company. Instead, he had to play the society host, to guests whose company he didn’t particularly always care for but whose money kept the wheels of Two-B turning.
Ducking into the foyer of the Lodge, he skirted the stairs and stumbled into Clem’s slim back. Instinctively, his hands shot out to steady her and he found himself gripping a soft, silky rose print dress and could feel softer, fragrant female flesh beneath it.
Nick held her waist but stepped back to take in the low neckline that revealed a lot of her creamy, slightly freckled chest and the edge of a shell-pink bra. Ruffles around the hemline pulled his attention to her gorgeous knees, legs and delicate feet in high, strappy heels.
His intern game ranger, who’d spent the morning mucking out the monkey enclosures at the rehab centre, was gone and Princess Red looked amazing, as if she’d just floated down the stairs from a suite above.
She confused him, Clem thought, not unhappy with the realization. There was nothing wrong, in her humble opinion, in keeping a man off balance. It did make life so much more interesting. And what a man, in his tailored soft black trousers that made his legs seem even longer and more powerful. His light cotton sweater, the colour of soft, newly churned butter, hugged his chest before falling in a straight line to just beneath the waist of his trousers.
‘Interesting combination,’ Clem said lightly.
Nick glanced down to where she pointed and grinned at his trousers, tucked into black wellington boots. ‘Glad you like my sartorial style.’
‘Um … no. Why are you spoiling that nice outfit with such revolting footwear?’
‘When I was twelve I stepped on a puff adder while watching the moon rise at Arthur’s Hill.’ Nick shrugged. ‘I was lucky, I didn’t get tagged but since then … it’s my equivalent to your fear of storms.’
Nick steered Clem to the open foyer door and down the front steps to where the guests were arranging their very expensively, sometimes elegantly clad selves and their cameras onto the pew seats of the long wheel base game viewing vehicles.
‘Clem and I will take my Landy,’ Nick told Andy.
As one, Nick and Clem angled left towards his Landy. Seeing the large wide eyes of a bushbaby peeking out from the branches of a Mopane tree, they stopped to watch the curious animal for a minute.
‘It’s so cute.’ Clem stopped again, this time looking down. She suddenly bent her legs, tucked her dress behind her knees and, crouching in her heels, watched a dung beetle roll an enormous ball of elephant dung across the road.
She made him notice the little things, Nick thought, watching her profile. While the guests were, in general, focused on seeing the predators and the big mammals, Clem was fascinated by everything. While she still couldn’t recognize a red hartebeest with a gun to her head, she was fascinated by the birds and the flowers, the history and the culture of the people of the region.
Through her eyes, he was rediscovering his land and his people. Clem stood up and stepped over the dung beetle and, when they reached the vehicle, she headed for the passenger side and glared at the broken door. ‘This car drives me nuts! I can’t get in in this dress and if I do I’ll rip it on the spring.’
Nick started to climb in behind the wheel, stopped and looked at her. ‘Then do you want to drive? Do you drive?’
‘Of course I drive!’ Clem walked around to the driver’s door and Nick waited and opened the door and helped her up.
He rested his elbow on the ridge of his half-door as she drove off. ‘Another full moon, anot
her moonlight picnic.’
‘It’s a great idea. How did it start?’
‘My great-grandfather—Arthur—was a bit of a pagan and used to come up here to dance naked. He was, apparently, quite eccentric. But so was my great-great-grandfather. Do you know that he used to go on safari with his own feather bed, copious amounts of Burgundy, but no spare ammunition or underwear?’
‘Are you being serious?’
Nick grinned. ‘Mmm. Rumour has it that he’d also insist that his mistress accompany him and my great-grandmother would love it because he’d always come home with malaria or dysentery or something ghastly.’
‘That generation seemed to be a lot more tolerant than us.’
‘You seemed pretty tolerant with Campbell,’ Nick commented.
‘Cai wasn’t stupid and he played me like a master. Right at the beginning he warned me that there would always be rumours of him cheating and that it came with the territory. I was young and stupid and, moreover, I wanted to believe him.’
The dark night encouraged conversation and confidences, Nick thought. ‘Did you mean what you said about being over him?’
‘Yes. I was over him before that stupid interview.’
‘But I heard you crying …’
‘Not over him.’ Nick had to smile at the tart note he heard in her voice. ‘I was humiliated and scared and angry that he’d deceived me about having children. And I’d arrived in the middle of nowhere, living in a house with a man who didn’t like me and really didn’t want me there.’
Fair comment. ‘So, if you’re so over him, what’s your hesitation about me … this heat we have?’
‘Let me count the reasons.’ Clem’s sigh drifted over him. ‘Because he was my first and only lover, so I’m a bit naïve about how to handle brief affairs. Because we are living and working together, because I’m leaving … and because I’m still working through why I hooked up with him in the first place.’
Huh. All good and valid reasons. ‘Any progress on the last point?’
‘Sort of. I think I was looking for love in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons,’ Clem admitted. ‘Does that sound strange to you?’
‘No, I understand exactly what you mean.’
Hadn’t he done the same thing with Terra? After a lifetime of being the peacemaker in his family, the stable influence, the port in a storm for his volatile family members, he’d vowed he’d avoid drama in his own personal life. He’d been attracted to Terra because she was quiet and self reliant and unemotional. Being young and selfish—and so busy and involved with the establishment of the Lodge—he hadn’t realized that even she needed companionship and care and when he did, in the worst way possible, it had been too late.
After he’d erupted and spewed all over his family the week after her funeral, he’d realized that his introverted, loner tendencies caused pain … to himself and to other people.
Ergo, it was better not to get involved.
They reached a fork in the road and Nick indicated that she should veer left. He looked up at Clem’s gasp of astonishment as she approached the other stationary vehicles parked off the road. The sun had set, the trees and shrubs were violet silhouettes and the river was a glistening snake in the valley below.
‘I’ve never seen anything like the African night sky. It’s like someone opened a packet of diamonds and tossed them like glitter across black velvet,’ Clem said, her voice reverent.
It did. It looked exactly like that, Nick thought. He’d grown up with this sky, had mostly ignored it and he’d forgotten how to appreciate it. Looking at it through Clem’s eyes, he felt slightly ashamed that he’d forgotten how to look.
‘You are so lucky to live here,’ Clem said as her hand reached out for his.
As he held her hand, the stars disappeared as the moon started to rise and he knew that she was right. He was lucky. And he realized that while he’d been protecting and caring for his land, he’d forgotten how to love it.
Strange that it took a society princess and city girl to remind him of that.
Clem stood in front of the full length mirror in Nick’s bedroom—the only one in the entire house—and stared at herself in the mirror, the zip of the black couture gown three quarters up her side.
It would not go any further and she was about to pass out from the lack of oxygen in her lungs. This could not, in any universe, be happening. She’d been the same size for the past fifteen years … She didn’t pick up weight. Ever.
Mdu, very wisely, kept quiet and kept filming. Clem looked at the gold and the pale pink designer gowns which Jason had couriered to Two-B’s depot in Mbombela and Jabu had picked up and brought back on the plane that afternoon. They frothed across Nick’s king size bed, mocking her.
She didn’t fit into either of them any more.
Oh, damn it.
Clem picked up the dress and held it midway up her calves and walked, barefoot, through to the lounge, where Nick was stretched out on the couch watching Sky Sports. He flicked his glance over her and sent her a smile. ‘Cool dress.’
Clem put her hand on her hips. ‘Well, it would be if I wasn’t too fat for it.’
Nick sat up and put his beer on the coffee table. He muted the sound on the TV and spun his index finger in a gesture for her to turn around. Clem obliged him and his mouth twitched when she faced him again.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she demanded.
Nick shook his head. ‘I learnt a long time ago that whatever I say in these sort of “Have I put on weight?” or “Am I fat?” situations will come back and bite me.’
‘Good policy,’ Mdu said from the kitchen counter, camera on his shoulder.
Clem laughed. ‘Well, it’s not like the women’s sumo wrestling team want to recruit me yet.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘What am I going to wear to the ball next weekend? I suppose I could go on a fruit and water diet—’
‘Don’t you dare. Are you sure the zip isn’t stuck?’ Nick asked her as he stood up. He stood behind her and Clem felt his fingers on her back. She sucked in a breath as Nick, out of the camera’s view, trailed his index finger down the knobs of her spine before grabbing the zip. ‘If the ball is next weekend, then that explains why Jessica has been driving me nuts.’
‘Who is Jessica?’
‘My younger sister. Her marketing company has the contract to do Two-B’s marketing, PR and events. The ball is her baby.’ Nick tugged the zip and tugged again. ‘Uh … Red? This isn’t going up.’
‘I know; I tried.’ Clem bit her lip. ‘I’m going to have to get to a city, to try and find an off the rack dress that fits.’
‘You’re taking this very calmly,’ Nick told her, surprised.
Clem’s eyes laughed at him. ‘Were you expecting me to act like a diva because I picked up some weight?’
‘Uh …’ Nick hedged, confused at her reaction. Where was the spoilt princess, the society girl? Who was this down-to-earth woman and what had she done with Princess Red? Never would he have thought that Clem would be blasé about the dresses not fitting or the weight she’d picked up.
Oh no, that couldn’t be pride he was feeling, could it? He didn’t do pride or affection for women any more.
Nick cursed silently. He had to pull away from her, he had to get some perspective.
Clem scratched her forehead. ‘Maybe Jason could get onto some designers in Johannesburg and see if they can dress me.’
‘I’ll call Jess and ask her.’
The words were out of Nick’s mouth before he could yank them back. He’d kept his relationship with his sister as professional as he possibly could these last couple of years and, by asking for her non-business help, he was cracking that family door wide open again.
‘Your sister? How could she help?’
‘Jess has all the designers on speed dial. She’ll make a plan.’
Clem cocked her head. ‘Would you mind doing that for me?’
He didn’t have a damned choice
now that he’d uttered the words. How could he spin this to Jess to make it sound like a business deal, to keep her curiosity down and his emotional distance intact? It wasn’t going to be easy …
Nick looked at his watch. ‘I’ll call her in the morning. I want to work out, then we’re going up to the Lodge for the wine tasting evening, remember?’
Clem wrinkled her nose as she gathered up the gold gown. ‘I forgot,’ she said, heading for her room. She tossed him a naughty smile over her shoulder. ‘I don’t drink but, now that I’m fat, I have an excuse to Hoover up Chef’s yummy hors d’oeuvres.’
Nick snapped a full round house kick at the punchbag and followed the kick with an uppercut when the bag came roaring back towards him.
Sweat snaked down his bare spine into the back of his shorts and his hair was matted to his head. Using the back of his wrist, he pushed the hair back from his face and hauled air into his lungs. Usually a good workout cleared his head but all the hour-long assault on his body had left him with was a dull headache and a tall thirst. Pulling off one glove with his teeth, then ridding himself of the other, he reached into the small fridge that stood in the corner of his gym and picked up a bottle of water. Snapping it open, he took a long sip before sinking to sit on an exercise mat.
He’d thought the other night that Clem was his fork in the road but he hadn’t realized how big a detour she was turning out to be.
She made him laugh, she made him think and just when he thought he knew how she was going to react then she did a three-sixty on him and blew all his perceptions out of the water. He’d thought she was going to go all diva on him about picking up a little weight—weight that she needed—yet she’d laughed at herself and shrugged it off. Every day she was losing more and more of the princess and the fake society girl and he was enjoying having her around.
