by Cat Schield
No longer able to assume the people around her were innocuous fellow travelers, Harper regarded everyone who drew near her as a potential threat. When no one in her vicinity seemed at all interested in her, she took a seat on a nearby bench and took stock of her situation.
Her cash and passport were gone. She still had her rail pass and the credit card she’d used to purchase it tucked in her back pocket. Her phone had been in her hand at the time of the attack and she’d managed to keep ahold of it. And she had her luggage. All was not lost. She would get on the train to Pretoria and catch a cab to the American Embassy there.
All she needed was her birth certificate and the extra photo...which she kept in the luggage she’d left behind in Las Vegas. Anxiety swelled once more. Without identification how was she supposed to prove who she was?
Frozen and unable to function, Harper stared at her hands. She was far from home and quite alone. Not to mention her head ached and panic was jumbling her thoughts. The ebb and flow of train passengers caused her suspicion to spike.
By fits and starts her brain began to function again. She needed to figure out which train traveled north so she could get back on track. The Gautrain’s schedule was still in her internet browser. She located the route map and discovered she wasn’t in as bad a shape as she thought. The train to Pretoria passed through this station, as well. She just needed to find the correct track.
Fifteen minutes later, Harper collapsed into her seat on the Pretoria-bound train and patted herself on the back. With the shock of being robbed fading, she was better able to function. During the journey north she pinned the American Embassy on her map app and located the hotel, as well.
Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything since her stopover in London. She would worry about that later. She had to secure a home base where Mary could send her documents. Once she had those in hand, she could go to the embassy. Ashton had told her to ask for his friend. Perhaps that would be enough to enable her to check in without her passport. She crossed her fingers and hoped.
An hour after stepping onto the platform in Pretoria station and taking a taxi to the hotel, Harper launched into her story of being mugged for the third time. Hunger and frustration were draining what few reserves she had left.
“No, I didn’t file a report with the police. I didn’t know where to find a police station. I just wanted to get here and register.”
“But we can’t do that without you having documentation,” the manager in charge of the front desk explained. “Don’t you have a copy of your passport page to show us?”
“As I’ve already told your staff, the decision to visit Pretoria was a last-minute thing and I left all my backup documentation behind. My assistant is going to overnight it to me, but I need to have a place she can send it.”
“She can’t send it here unless you’re registered.”
Harper closed her eyes and sucked in a huge breath. “Giles.” She’d forgotten about him. “I was supposed to ask for Giles...” His last name eluded her. “I believe he’s the executive chef here?”
The manager regarded her solemnly. “He is our executive chef.”
“Would he be around? I was told to come here and to say that Ashton Croft sent me.”
“We’ll call the kitchen. Perhaps you should take a seat over there and we’ll see if he has time to speak to you.”
It wasn’t the most promising offer, but at this point Harper was ready to take what she could get. “I’m quite hungry. Tell him I’ll be in the restaurant.”
She followed the hostess toward a table on the patio and sank into the plastic chair with a grateful sigh. A smiling waitress came almost immediately to take her order. The dinner menu had so many delicious items on it she had trouble choosing. In the end she settled on game picatta because the description made her mouth water. Tender slices of game pan fried with button mushrooms, mixed peppercorns, doused with sweet Marsala and bound with cream, served on fettuccine dusted with Parmesan cheese.
It arrived at her table, delivered by a tall, handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair and a dashing goatee. She glanced from his face to his chef whites without comprehension as he set the plate before her.
“You’re Harper Fontaine?”
At his recognition tears began streaming down her face. She nodded, too overcome by relief to speak.
“My name is Giles Dumas. I understand you ran into a little trouble getting here.” He smiled gently as she nodded a second time. “Our mutual friend will be very glad to hear you’ve arrived. Now, what can I do to help?”
Nine
Gut tight with foreboding, Ashton stood with his back to the conference table and stared out over the Manhattan skyline. Behind him two of the network guys were speaking with Vince. The taping hadn’t gone as well as he would have liked. Since dropping Harper off at the airport he’d been edgy and distracted. Nor could he be certain that she’d taken his advice and booked a room at the Pretoria Capital Hotel until he heard from his buddy Giles.
He told himself just because he enjoyed venturing off the beaten track didn’t mean she would be foolish enough to go somewhere she could get into trouble. But until he knew she was safe, Ashton wouldn’t be able to shake the sensation that he’d made a mistake letting her go by herself halfway around the world to find a father she’d never met. Even after she shoved his offer of help back at him he couldn’t get her out of his head. He was worried about her emotional state and the fact that she was a woman unused to traveling alone.
Vince came to stand beside him. His manager’s lack of chatter felt as ominous as the clouds above the city.
Ashton broke the silence. “They weren’t wowed by my audition tape.”
“It wasn’t quite what they were expecting,” Vince agreed. “Some aspects of it went over great, others they’d like to work on with you.”
“And?” Ashton prompted, hearing the low note in Vince’s voice and guessing there was more bad news.
“It’s just this little thing about your image. You’ve been the bad boy of travel adventures, eating exotic cuisine, meeting the natives.”
The description was a little off-putting, but Ashton figured Vince was offering his own spin on what the producers had said.
“How do they want my image to change?”
“They’re thinking lose the jeans and leather jacket and put you into chef whites. But mostly...” Vince hesitated. “They want you to cut your hair so that you’ll look more...polished.”
It wasn’t an outrageous demand, but Ashton wasn’t sure he wanted to look like something he wasn’t. And yet, wasn’t the whole point of doing this cooking show so he could change things up in his career? “Anything else?”
Vince looked relieved that Ashton’s temper hadn’t blown up. “They’re wondering if you can stay in New York a few more days.”
He needed to get back to Las Vegas and Batouri. Even though Dae was sending him frequent updates that things were running smoothly, it was a week and a half before the restaurant opened. And as Harper had repeatedly pointed out, Batouri was his responsibility.
“Ash?” Vince prompted. “What should I tell them?”
Harper had accused him of putting his television career before Batouri, but hadn’t he also put it before her? So what if they barely knew each other? Ashton couldn’t shake the notion that she needed him and he’d let her down.
“Tell them no.”
“Have you lost your mind? You can’t say no after quitting The Culinary Wanderer. What if they find someone else? What are you going to do then?”
Vince seemed to have forgotten that with several restaurants in various countries, Ashton wasn’t dependent on the money he made doing television shows. He just enjoyed the celebrity and the experiences he’d had over the years.
“Write a cookbook.�
� With the help of a very special woman who was at a crossroads of her own.
“A cookbook? Have you lost your mind? Lifestyle Network is going to make you famous.”
“They’ve left me hanging for four months. Now they’re demanding I drop everything at a moment’s notice?” Ashton’s frustration spilled over. “They’re going to have to wait.”
“I’m not sure they’ll like that answer.” Vince’s eyes shifted toward the group of executives. “They could go with someone else.”
Ashton mentally cursed. This was his project. They’d strung him along and now they were threatening to replace him?
“Let them,” he snarled. “Whatever they do with the show, it’s not going to be a success without me.” His gaze collided with Vince’s.
“Okay.” But his manager didn’t look happy. “You’re the star. We walk away from this deal.” Vince assessed Ashton’s expression and shed his doubts with a nod. “Once word gets out you’ll be hit with a dozen offers before the week’s out.”
Ashton wasn’t sure his manager was right, but he was confident something bigger and better was just around the next curve. In the meantime he would see to Batouri’s grand opening and spend some time getting to know more about Harper Fontaine.
As his thoughts returned to her, all optimism drained away. Why couldn’t he shake the notion that he should travel to Africa to be with her? The thought was ridiculous. She’d insisted he focus his full attention on Batouri. He’d incur her fury if he did anything as idiotic as leave the country mere days before its opening.
“I need to get to the airport,” Ashton announced. “Let me know what the outcome of the meeting is.”
“Are you heading back to Las Vegas now?”
“Not yet.”
“Where then?”
“Pretoria.”
Vince looked utterly baffled. “Where?”
“South Africa.”
* * *
Harper’s second day in South Africa had gone much more smoothly than her first. Before going to bed the night before, she’d contacted Mary and arranged to have her backup documentation shipped to the hotel. Then, with nothing to do but wait, she took the opportunity to sleep late and get her bearings.
Now, bathed in early afternoon sunshine, Harper was enjoying a glass of wine in a corner of the patio. A shadow fell across her South African tour book. Thinking it was her waitress she looked up. Ashton stood beside her chair looking every inch a dashing world traveler in jeans and a pale blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose the long faint scars on his forearms. With one hand he held a black leather jacket over his shoulder and the other rested on the handle of his go bag.
Heart jumping wildly, Harper was too stunned to answer the come-and-get-me call of his lopsided grin. “What are you doing here?”
“I decided someone needed to chronicle your first adventure, so here I am.” He pulled out the chair beside hers and settled into it.
“I thought you had a meeting in New York.”
“It was over sooner than I expected so I hopped on a plane and here I am.”
He didn’t elaborate, and she wondered how things had gone.
“My trip took over twenty-six hours. How did you get here so fast?”
“Direct flights from JFK only take fifteen hours.” He settled into the chair across from hers. “What are you drinking?”
“Something local. It’s quite good.” Her brain still wasn’t functioning properly. She continued to stare at him in amazement. With his arrival, being in South Africa had taken on a whole new joy. “Shouldn’t you be in Las Vegas preparing for Batouri’s opening?”
“I spoke with Cole an hour ago. He arrived in Vegas and has everything running smoothly. Tell me about your visit so far.”
Concern for what might be going wrong with the opening buzzed in the back of her mind, but she’d made the decision to abandon her post at this critical time and had to trust that Ashton knew what he was doing, too. “You called Giles to tell him I was coming. How did you know I would?”
“Since you usually have everything planned to the second and hadn’t yet booked a hotel, I knew you’d be open to my recommendation.” He paused a beat. “And you trust me.”
The knowing glint in his gaze made her cross. Harper picked up her wine and took a sip. “Your meeting in New York must have gone your way for you to be here right now.”
“Actually, it went rather poorly.” He signaled the waitress. “They want me to cut my hair. I told them to go to hell.”
While he ordered wine for himself and a melted cheese bowl appetizer, Harper narrowed her eyes and tried to picture him without his wayward, sun-streaked locks. With his dimples and sparkling blue eyes it didn’t really matter what the producers did to try and make him look more civilized. In his heart, he was always going to be a reckless adventurer. That they were trying to change him was idiotic. Didn’t they understand that was the basis of his charm?
“And instead of returning to Las Vegas where your restaurant is opening in a week you decided to come here?” Did he expect her to be glad to see him? Which she was.
“I didn’t think you were ready to fly solo.”
“You think I need a babysitter.”
He radiated innocence. “Did I say that?”
“You’ve spoken with Giles.”
“He called me before my flight left.”
“He told you, didn’t he?”
“Told me what?”
She didn’t believe his casualness for a second. “That I was mugged on the train.” When he didn’t react with shock and concern, she knew her suspicions had been right. “I suppose you think I was foolish for coming here alone.”
“Not at all. This is a very safe country for tourists. The same thing could have happened to you in New York or Las Vegas. I’m sorry you were attacked and I’m angry with myself for not coming with you.”
His words stirred up the emotional tornado she’d been caught in all week. A tear formed in the corner of her eye. She dashed it away. “You had important things to do.”
“None of them are more important than you.”
It was a huge admission for her to hear, and she wondered how he’d react if she told him that she was falling in love with him. Better not. She was feeling too vulnerable and he’d already confessed that he didn’t want her depending on him. If she harnessed him with the burden of her growing attachment, he might turn right around and get back on a plane. And she very badly needed him. She’d just have to keep letting him think she didn’t.
“Because you aren’t free to pursue another project until Batouri is opened and I’m satisfied that your end of our arrangement is complete?” It hurt to see shadows overcome the bright blue of his gaze.
His wine arrived at the same time as the food, interrupting the silence that hung between them. Harper focused on putting the goat cheese and roasted tomato bruschetta mixture on a slice of toasted baguette.
“When are you planning on going to the embassy about getting a new passport?”
“My assistant overnighted my documents. I’ll go when they get here.”
“And in the meantime? Have you had any luck locating the man you believe is your father?”
“His name is Greg LeDay. He left this morning for Kruger National Park. The safari he’s leading was booked and I couldn’t get in. He won’t be back in town for ten days. I can’t wait around that long.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “Seems my first impulsive adventure is a complete disaster.”
“Adventure is immune to disaster.” Ashton pointed at her with the knife he’d been using to smooth cheese on his bread. “There may be setbacks and detours, but often those are what send you in a new and exciting direction.”
His optimism was contagious. “See, this is
why I’m such a fan.” She couldn’t help but be drawn in by his enthusiasm. “You have a knack for transforming the challenges into opportunities.”
“Words to put on my tombstone.”
“It’s a lot better than what they’d inscribe on mine. ‘She planned every second of her life to death.’”
Ashton coughed long and hard until tears ran from his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked him as the fit slowly abated.
“I inhaled some of my wine. That was some pretty dark humor just now,” he said. “It caught me by surprise.”
“Did it?” She considered what she’d said. “I guess I think that way fairly often, but it rarely comes out. It’s not the sort of thing my mother appreciated hearing so I learned to bottle it up.”
“There are more layers to you than anyone realizes, aren’t there?”
Harper shrugged. The admiration in his gaze was both thrilling and a touch uncomfortable. She’d concentrated on doing and saying the right thing her whole life. It was liberating to let loose, but it worried her a little how unmanageable her impulses might become.
It wasn’t until after a second round of wine, when Ashton glanced at his watch, that Harper realized the shadows had lengthened. Once again she noticed how in his entertaining company time seemed to fly.
“I’m going to shower and then take you out for a terrific dinner.”
“Have you registered?”
“Not yet.” He rose and went to where he’d stashed his go bag by a large planter.
“Why don’t you use my shower then?”
He turned and looked at her, his eyes searching her face.
“We both know how tonight will end up. Why pay for two rooms?”
“That’s rather presumptuous of you.”
Despite the cooling air, her skin heated. She got to her feet, hoping to appear more confident than she felt. “I’m just being realistic.”
Ashton wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her, his lips warm and sweetly persuasive. “Have I mentioned how much I appreciate your practical nature?”
