African Assignment

by Carol Gregor

  Frankie looked at him, not knowing what to say. He met her eyes. 'And, to put it bluntly, deflowering his only daughter didn't make me feel any better.'

  'Mike was a realist. If he'd lived to see me grow up, he would have known I had to start living my own life. And you hardly seduced me against my will.'

  'Even so ‑'

  'Don't you think he might have been glad it was you?'

  'No, I don't. I think he would have wanted someone better for you. Someone who wasn't about to hop on the next plane to Timbuktu.'

  'There is no one better for me! Don't ask me how I know it, I just know!' She glared at him, loving him and hating him so much that she thought her heart would break. 'You're better for me, even if you are in Timbuktu!'

  Her words drove the worst of the bleakness from his eyes. He looked at her for a long time, and his expression slowly changed until smile-lines softened his eyes.

  'I'm not sure there'll be so much Timbuktu from now on,' he said quietly. 'I've done a lot of thinking these past few months, and it seems it might be time to stop catching so many planes and trains.'

  Frankie scanned his face, not knowing what he meant.

  'When I started to fall in love with you, all I could think of was how much you would despise me when you knew about Mike! And that was another very good reason for sending you packing. I couldn't bear to see the pain in your eyes.'

  'Love?' she echoed, wonderingly. She held his look. 'What you just told me isn't a shock to me. I think I knew anyway, or half knew. First of all it was something those drunken journalists in Nairobi said, that night you pretended I was your girlfriend. Then, when you were delirious, and were shouting in your sleep, you said things that made me wonder—but I blocked it all out of my mind. If you didn't want to tell me, I guess I didn't want to know.'

  Slowly he reached for her hand, holding it as if it were the most precious object on earth. 'Do you know when I first started to fall in love with you?'

  She shook her head, dumb with the happiness that was starting to burgeon inside her.

  'I think it was when you came into the hotel in Nairobi and coolly announced you'd changed that Land Rover tyre. Then later, when we were in the bush together, I could hardly think straight because of the way you were at my side all the time in those skimpy T-shirts and provocative shorts. Have you any idea what you look like, crawling backwards out of a thorn brake?'

  'Only because you made it so plain you didn't like it.'

  'Like it!' He rolled his eyes. 'I had the devil's own job to maintain any sort of decorum.'

  'I was frightened of you at first,' she confessed. 'You seemed so cold and hard, and I told myself I didn't like you. But I was attracted to you as well—as you well know.' She blushed. 'Then later, when we were kidnapped, and afterwards, when you were ill, I knew I was falling in love with you. And then I just felt so desperate, thinking you only saw me as some sort of convent schoolgirl.'

  'I tried to, I really tried; but it didn't last. You got under my skin in a way no other woman ever has. Sometimes you drove me half crazy with exasperation. Sometimes you told me home truths I certainly didn't want to hear. But all the time I was falling more and more in love with you.' He drew her into his arms. 'I didn't want to take you on the trip, I didn't want to take you to bed, I didn't want to fall in love with you— you've been nothing but trouble since I first set eyes on you!' He was talking against her mouth, her hair, her ear, pulling her closer. 'I might even have made it, except for that drunken young sailor in Mombasa. When I saw him pawing you, I just saw red! That's my woman, I thought! I felt so fiercely possessive I could have killed him on the spot! Even then, though, I tried to kid myself. I thought a quick, torrid affair would get you out of my system.'

  'I thought it did!'

  'Oh, no! The more I had, the more I wanted of you. Not just your body, but your mind and spirit, too. It was hell to send you away.'

  'Oh! So much needless pain!'

  He set her back from him to look at her.

  'No, not needless. You needed time away from me— to find your own feet and be sure of your own mind. And I needed time to know I had to find you, and time to find the courage to tell you about Mike.'

  Frankie pushed closer into his arms. 'Mike would have said, "It's just one of those things", or "The past is the past". He would probably have wanted to knock our heads together. He always said happiness was fleeting and you had to grab the moment.'

  'But I want more than a moment,' he said roughly. 'I want all the moments there are. I used to hate the thought of permanence and commitment, but now I couldn't stand to settle for anything less. I want you for always, Frankie, to make you mine.'

  'There's nothing I want more.'

  He groaned and kissed her deeply. 'How about getting married? Tonight? Tomorrow?'

  'I'll have to break the news to Aunt Jenny --'

  'Then next week?'

  She pulled back, frowning. 'Oh! I've promised to go to Egypt, to do a job for Doug. But I'll cancel --'

  'Nonsense. I'll wait for you. Just come back to me, and don't you dare look at any other men while you're there!'

  'There aren't any other men, as far as I'm concerned. I'd resigned myself to lifelong celibacy, before tonight!'

  Cal kissed her again, long and sensuously, his hands roaming her shoulders. 'You weren't born to be celibate.'

  'Or to live without you.' Her hands reached up to hold the broad strength of his shoulders, and they fell back together on the bed.

  'Oh, Frankie, my love,' Cal groaned. 'I've ached for this moment. I'll love you in all the ways possible, for the rest of my life. I give you my solemn word.'

  And that was quite enough for her, Frankie thought, pulling him down to her again, because there was nothing more solid and steadfast in the whole world, and she lifted her lips with love to feel the sealing joy of his kiss.