Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3)

by Phoenix Sullivan

“Your turn,” I murmured, and the Rottweiler looked at me with skeptical eyes. Deserved, because it wasn’t a kiss I had for him. I slipped my hand around his neck as gently as I could, feeling the heat gathered under the bruised and swollen skin.

  “Those hyena bites are wanting to abscess,” I told Kayla.

  She frowned. “The penicillin and Percocet are in my pack.”

  “Perfect. We’ll get the wounds cleaned up by the stream while there’s a bit of lull in the rain. No infections or fever allowed on my watch.”

  Gus gave my nose a solemn, dignified lick before crawling out of the shelter to join the others in the misty dawn, leaving Kayla and me alone together.

  “How’s yours?” Kayla nodded toward my ribs.

  I lifted my shirt and, heads close together, we inspected my bullet wound front and back. It was looking remarkably clean from the outside. “Just some pulling and twinging still on the inside,” I said. “Likely from scar tissue that’s forming.”

  “Meaning it’s healing.”

  I nodded. “All because I have a very excellent doctor.”

  “Maybe, but you haven’t seen my bill yet.”

  I patted my pockets, then spread my hands. “I seem to be all out of francs. Can I take it out in trade later?”

  “And what would a handsome American doctor possibly have that I might want?”

  “I’m betting we can find something of mine that’ll satisfy…the bill.”

  That something twitched in agreement. All the more reason to get the coming trek behind us—I had a mighty hefty debt to pay.

  “I’m looking forward to…bartering…with you.”

  If we weren’t surrounded by rain and mud and hungry kids, I thought, I’d be bartering hard with her right now. A sharp memory of her on me, in me and around me focused my senses. I groaned with the sudden ache and need for her.

  She covered my lips with her long, skillful fingers. “Later.” It was both an order and a promise.

  “Depending on how soon later is, I’m thinking about adding in a tip.”

  “I can assure you,” she breathed into my ear, “it isn’t just the tip I’ll be expecting.”

  With a parting blow of breath that made my whole body shiver, she retreated the three feet into the corner of the shelter, picked up her backpack and unloaded baby bottles and formula. She tossed the bottles of penicillin and Percocet my way, and it was time to take care of responsibilities.

  No, not responsibilities. They weren’t that any longer. Not when I slept with them, woke up with them and worried about them.

  They were family.

  Aside from the occasional helicopter fly-by as one militia or the other patrolled the area, the day’s trek was uneventful. We found handfuls of wild nuts and pulpy stalks to take the edge off our hunger in a landscape that was becoming even more amazing the higher we climbed. Giant heather, red-tipped flame trees and thickets of bamboo both startled us with their beauty and impeded our way. Oversized leaves and brilliant, shade-loving flowers danced around us in a gardener’s wet dream. The rain, finally, came to an end in the late afternoon, although lingering clouds promised the storm system was far from gone.

  “If it’s going to rain again anyway, it needs to be soon,” I told Kayla as we labored over our shelter for the evening, stacking freshly hacked branches again the vine-lashed A-frame core and thatching it over with tropical fronds, adding several layers in preparation for another round of storms and chilly night. It took an hour to build, but we had to give Tamu and Nyota time to browse and rest anyway.

  “You’re hoping for more rain?”

  “Crazy, isn’t it?” I laid the final fronds over the roof and we wove the long leaves in with the others already in place, hoping the finished shelter would survive any wind and water thrown at it overnight.

  “It’s the old ‘blessing and a curse’ situation. Mosquitoes don’t swarm in the rain, so we’ve got that going for us. But they’ll be laying millions of eggs in rain puddles once the rain does stop. I really would hate to still be in this forest when all those mosquito larvae turn into adults.”

  “You’re looking at it way too narrowly,” Kayla assured me. “Mosquitoes are just our most deadly insects right now. The Subs virus is new and so it’s getting all the attention. But don’t forget malaria and yellow fever. Plus we have plenty more bugs here that can either kill you slow or make your life miserable while they’re around. Like sand flies and tsetse flies. Plus, just wait till the rain stops and the heat turns all that ground moisture to steam and humidity and everything’s still too wet to burn so you can’t even chase those pests away with smoke.”

  “How does anything thrive out here? Well, other than the rhinos and elephants with their thick skins.”

  “And even they’ll cover themselves in mud to avoid insect bites and keep the larvae from burrowing in.”

  “Even knowing what I do about how the human body works, I’m amazed how much we’ve endured over how many thousands of years to get where we are today. How did any of our ancestors survive?”

  The question, rhetorical though it was, hung in the air as Kayla and I sipped water from the small pools of it collected in the curve of clean leaves around our camp, rationing our chemdrops where we could. When we sat on mats of frond leaves to keep as much out of the mud and wet forest mulch as possible, Tamu and Nyota trooped over, fully expecting their regular evening feeding.

  “One bottle a day only, sweetlings,” Kayla told them. They answered her with pathetic bleats. “Poor watoto. Weaning is hard in the best of times.” Those sad, soulful eyes, though, were beyond even Kayla’s resolve to ignore.

  We filled their bottles with plain water from a nearby rain puddle to settle them down. After a first glare at not finding either mild or sweetened formula in their bottles, they sucked peacefully away at the water, tails flicking contentedly. It was the ritual that mattered, and the way we came together as a herd and family. It wasn’t milk they craved, but the feelings of safety and knowing, for those few moments, they were the center of Kayla’s universe and mine. There was stress enough, marching them through the jungle, upsetting the only routine they’d ever known. It didn’t so much matter whether their bodies were ready for weaning, their hearts surely weren’t. Emotionally, they were babies yet. And so we indulged them, not only because they needed that tangible show of our love and concern, but because we needed to provide it to them.

  I had a long evening to think about that need, to examine it and to dissect it, even after the two orphans finished their bottles and went back to browsing. Even after gray twilight turned into clouded night and Kayla and I curled around each other in the tight shelter with the gorilla and Rottweiler wedged firmly in between us. Filling that emotional need once the physical one had been met—that was what bedside manners were all about, that was parenting, that was partnering and marriage. That was the value-add of being human, although Kayla’s four strays also demonstrated it wasn’t the privilege of men and women alone.

  It was this need, this act, genuine and authentic, that my mentors had encouraged in me and that most had decided I didn’t possess.

  No, that wasn’t right. I knew it was a vital part of me, but I’d convinced myself it was a weakness not a strength, that it was enough to satisfy the physical needs of those around me. That anything more would erode my own emotional state and make me less than the man I wanted to be, less than the man I needed to be.

  Could I have been so wrong?

  I was drowsily contemplating the ramifications of that as night deepened and the jungle, for the moment rain-free, awakened around us.

  First it was the frogs, full-throated with voices that ran the gamut from typical croaking to gurgled wails that, had I not known better, I would have sworn were a human baby’s cries. In the distance, hyenas yipped and katydids and other insects filled the night with their irritating chirps. Gus growled low, his ears pitched toward the shelter’s opening. Whatever it was must have moved on without
threat as the big dog settled back down. Once again, I was grateful for his nose and ears protecting us.

  With my head buried in the crook of my arm, I was almost asleep when Gus barked, sharp and insistent. An alarm.

  My first reflex was to reach for his collar. I found Kayla’s hand there already.

  “What—?”

  “Don’t know.” I could feel Kayla’s head shaking in the night.

  Then we both heard Nyota bleat.

  Gus’s barks escalated as he scrabbled for leverage beneath my weight and Kayla’s, determined to tear after whatever was threatening his pack.

  I heard the clang of Kayla’s rifle hitting the cookpot as she fumbled for the weapon in the dark. My hand was already closing over the sling of my own rifle.

  “Stay here,” I ordered them both, thankful the gorilla seemed content to cower in the corner and chatter nonsense.

  “No! I’m—” The protest in her voice came strong, Mama Bear roaring to the front, but I was already halfway out of the shelter. “Right. Go!” she relented, but only because Mama Bear still had her den to protect.

  I raced toward the now-terrified bleating, pulling a palm-sized halogen flashlight from my pocket. Heart hammering, I swung the light around. The okapi’s striped rump flashed bright as her strong legs propelled her into a run. Had the sudden light scared her? Or had I?

  The bright stab of light didn’t follow her fast enough. In the trail of darkness behind her it picked out movement, a faint impression of spots and a tawny eye. No hyena this, the creature was too long and lithe.

  Jerking the rifle butt to my shoulder, I aimed, using the halogen beam as my nightscope. The creature was fast, faster than the okapi, and it had almost closed the distance to her when I fired.

  The first bullet went intentionally high, giving the predator a chance to turn. Startled, it stumbled, losing a moment of precious ground as the beam from the flashlight better caught its shape—a big cat, dark, lank and lean, and lunging again for its okapi prey.

  I had only two choices—shoot to kill, for a wounded animal in the wild was most often a dead animal, or fire another warning shot, knowing I’d have to reload before I could fire again, and that if the cat didn’t stop, Nyota would be dead.

  I had only a split second to decide.

  Then the okapi skidded into a hard turn to her left, a daring move that lost the cat another moment in the sloppy mud. Nyota bore hard left again, and now she was racing straight for me, for my rifle, for my protection.

  With no other hope, she turned to me.

  If the cat turned with her, I’d have little chance at a target with the okapi’s body directly between. But the split second Nyota had bought opened up one more choice for me. I ran past Nyota and toward the cat, yelling at the top of my lungs, rifle brandished high in case the cat took my charge as a challenge instead of a threat.

  Mid-turn, the cat made its own decision. Scrabbling to gather its feet under it on the slick ground, it sprang, catapulting—

  Away.

  Away, my brain echoed as the okapi’s frantic hooves slung mud in my face as she raced by then skidded around behind my position to peer over my shoulder as we watched the big cat lope fast away at the edge of the flashlight’s beam.

  Letting the rifle fall to the end of the shoulder sling, I wrapped my trigger hand around Nyota’s muzzle. Her freakishly long tongue swiped my knuckles as she leaned her nose into my palm. We stood like that, the two of us, while our hearts, kicked into overdrive, geared down and our breathing slowed.

  “Mark?” Kayla’s cry came from the direction of the shelter. That I could hear it meant Gus had stopped barking. He knew the danger was gone.

  “We’re OK!”

  Together, Nyota and I traipsed our way back to Kayla. The little rhino had shown her own mettle by not running off in panicked flight but by taking cover behind Kayla and the shelter where she waited for the okapi to join her. They bumped noses in happy reunion while Jengo crawled out of the shelter and took Kayla’s arm in his as she and Gus waited just outside for my return.

  The lump in my throat grew the closer I came to them. I couldn’t help but feel like a warrior returning home.

  And Kayla’s kiss—long and sweet and hard in the night—was my reward.

  CHAPTER 31

  KAYLA

  “Leopard,” I told Mark from the description he gave. “They’re common enough in the rainforest, although here they tend to be darker and not so spotted. Usually they’re more interested in smaller prey. Easier to catch. As this one found out in spades.” I flashed a grateful smile his way. “Asante-sana. Thank you. For keeping us safe. For keeping the leopard safe.” All around a much happier outcome than the hyena encounter had been. “Now will you tell me where a rich city boy picks up such wicked rifle skills?”

  I only meant to compliment him; instead, I hurt him somehow, dredging up memories it was quickly clear he didn’t want to be reminded of. “Pole-sana. Sawa-sawa. I’m sorry. It’s OK.” I held his upper arm between my hands, the rock-hard bulge of muscle an anchor, a stanchion I hadn’t realized I needed until I had it. “I don’t need to know.”

  “No. I need for you to. Otherwise, you’ll be imagining way worse things about me. I was in ROTC as an undergrad. No real chance of being called up and deployed, so it was a way to play army without any of the consequences. We had weapons competitions that I trained for. No different from any other competitive drill exercises—with the exception of live ammo.”

  I closed my eyes. It was too painfully clear to see where this was heading.

  “It was an accident, of course. A group of us firing on the range. A group of drunk kids acting out in the wrong place at the wrong time. The investigators never released the name of which of us fired the rifle that put one of those freshmen in a wheelchair for life. They didn’t want to scar the one of us that pulled the trigger for life too, so we all walk around now with a different kind of scar, wondering. It’ll be another 10 years before they unseal the records. I never picked up another rifle after that. Until I came here.”

  I caught my breath, realizing how much about this man I didn’t know.

  The accident was a horrific, painful thing that he’d kept sheltered in his heart, and I was incredibly touched he’d shared it with me. I washed myself in his remembered grief, not daring to touch any more wounds tonight. But there were 30 years of mystery buried in him, and I wanted to know it all. To celebrate every victory anew with him, to mourn every loss, to absolve him of all his guilts.

  A shiver jolted through me. What was I thinking?

  If I had thought sex with this man was dangerous, what I was contemplating now—knowing him more intimately than sex could ever bring us—was doubly so.

  I couldn’t allow that any more than I could allow myself to get so attached to my orphans that when it came time to let them go, I wouldn’t be able to. Every release into the wild was painful; I loved them that much. But by loving them more than that, I risked their welfare if I clung to them and never let them free, and risked my heart not just breaking cleanly to where it could still be mended, but shattering beyond repair.

  It was such a thin line between loving enough and loving too much. I feared the day I would cross that line, whether by choice or accident. That day, however, was not now.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t sit with Mark, pull his head to my breast and stroke his pain away.

  Not that he and I were alone, of course. Jengo sat beside us, a long, thin arm wrapped tight about us both, and Gus laid his chin on Mark’s crossed knee. The okapi folded her legs and rested against me, back to back, while the rhino settled herself at Mark’s side.

  A hundred thousand acres of rainforest surrounded us, yet we crowded into less than five square meters of it, finding comfort in each other’s touch. Another might have begrudged the intrusion of my fur kids, but Mark, never lifting his head from my breast, draped his arm across Tamu’s neck while a troop of vervet monkeys chatter
ed nonsense at us from the trees above.

  The rain held off through mid-afternoon. While the idea of a bit of sun to dry us out was a nice fantasy, the continued overcast was actually marginally better for our uphill trek. Not that much sun would have reached us anyway beneath the thick canopy above, but adding heat to the saturated ground would have shot the humidity to an unbearable level. It was only barely tolerable as it was, and in some hollows, a warm fog shrouded the undergrowth.

  Worse yet were parts of the forest floor. We stuck as much as possible to where there were thick layers of peat that absorbed the rainwater before siphoning it to the ground below so we walked on what felt like sponges that gave us good traction as we went. The occasional long flats of mud slicks, however, were unavoidable, exhibiting the most irritating property of mud—that it became its slurpy, suckiest worst hours and days after the rain had long since stopped.

  We were skirting the massive mountain rather than intentionally climbing it, sticking to the warmer elevations with plenty of cover. Above us, just a few degrees off the equator, the last remnants of great glaciers could be found. And above that, the rocky peaks, covered with snow and ice, promised below-freezing nights none of us could tolerate. Here, though, 1000 meters below the treeline, it was still warm enough to break a sweat.

  When the jungle opened up to a rushing stream and a cliff waterfall, Mark and I were more than ready to wash off that sweat and the mud and be clean even if just for a few minutes.

  “Back in the States,” Mark said, “people pay good money to visit pristine falls like these. They’re gorgeous.”

  Leaving our safari boots on the bank, we waded into the cool stream, clear and swollen with rainwater. Tamu and Nyota plunged in a few meters downstream, and the Rottweiler joined them, paddling happily in circles between the banks. Only Jengo refused to come in, sitting streamside with his arms clasped around his knees, content it seemed, to keep watch for us.

  I quickly gave up trying to wring the mud from my shorts while they were on me. “Well, this isn’t working. I’m going to have to strip.”