Drowning

by Jassy Mackenzie

  Tomorrow? So soon?

  He glanced at me and I hastily arranged my features into a smile. “That’s great news. Let’s hope it all goes well.”

  Inside, though, I couldn’t help feeling a stab of disappointment.

  “And I had a message from another farmer that your hired car was washed up near a ravine twenty miles south of here. I’ve notified the police. If they can get to it safely—which is doubtful—they’ll be able to see if there is any salvageable equipment inside. If not, they’ll at least be able to take photos.”

  “That will be helpful. The insurance company has been asking for proof of the accident.”

  Thinking again of that rainy afternoon, I couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened if I had been trapped inside… if Nicholas had not been in time to save me before the powerful force of the water had sent the car bobbing into the center, pulled downstream by the rushing water.

  They would have been looking for my body now. Unsalvageable for sure.

  I shivered, staring ahead at the rolling hills, and perhaps Nicholas sensed my discomfort, because he said, “So, if the bridge hadn’t been washed away, what would you be doing now?”

  Grateful for the distraction, I told him, “I’d be staying in the Royal Africa Hotel. Which, I think, is an hour’s drive from here.”

  “The Royal Africa? That’s a premium place. The owner, Hennie Pretorius, is an acquaintance of mine. It’s more like an hour and a half away, though. Much further south.”

  “An acquaintance of yours?” Fear stabbed me again. “Nicholas, in case Vince asks, would you mind…”

  He sighed. “Would I mind phoning Hennie and asking him not to mention me to your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  Without further argument, he took out his phone and dialed.

  “Hey, Hennie, Nick here,” he said. “Yes, all’s good. I’m phoning about a guest who’s staying with you now. Vince Mitchell, a photographer from New York.”

  He waited, listened, smiled. “Difficult customer? That doesn’t surprise me. Listen, I’ve got his wife staying at my lodge. She was stranded here when the river flooded.” There was another pause, and then he laughed. “Very lucky?” he said. “Yes, yes, as always. Do me a favor. Don’t mention me to Vince Mitchell. And if he asks you, tell him I’m married.”

  I could hear Hennie laughing, too, before Nicholas disconnected.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Nicholas put his phone away.

  “So, back to my original question. What would you be doing now if you hadn’t been stranded here?” he asked.

  “Since it’s just before dawn, I’d more than likely be out shooting.”

  “Hoping to photograph the Big Five?”

  “Some shots of them would be great,” I agreed, “but that’s not what we traveled here to do. Vince was booked for a Vogue fashion shoot in a safari setting. And, to be honest, although I’ve done whatever pays the bills in the past, my forte is more on the creative side than on larger wildlife. Colors, shapes. An unusual flower. An insect going about his business. Cloud formations just before a storm.”

  Nicholas nodded. “I like the sound of that. That’s seeing nature as it really is… that’s what it’s all about. More so than just capturing the biggest and the fiercest.”

  “What would you be doing now?” I asked him. “Out in the bush, shooting? Just like me except with a gun instead of a camera?”

  “No. I’m not a hunter.”

  “You’re not?”

  “I can shoot, but I don’t hunt for fun. I’ve used this gun a few times in the past here, each time to put an injured animal out of its pain. So, no, Erin, I wouldn’t be in the bush. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here. Yesterday I had three meetings lined up in Nelspruit, followed by a flight to Johannesburg and another four meetings there. And after that I was going to fly to Somalia.”

  “To Somalia?” I stared at him, incredulous. “Isn’t that very dangerous right now?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “I was going to do a two week shift with Doctors without Borders, running an emergency medical center there while the resident medic took leave. I used to work for Doctors without Borders full time at one stage. I still like to do the occasional shift.”

  “And all the meetings?”

  “Those were business meetings.”

  Business? Why didn’t he want to give me any other details?

  “You’re a puzzling man, Nicholas,” I remarked after a short pause.

  “I don’t try to be.”

  “Is that another wildebeest beyond that bush?”

  He leaned across. “I can’t see one. Oh, wait. Yes, I can. There he is. You really are incredibly sharp-eyed, Erin.”

  Through a gap in the branches of the bushes beyond where the wildebeest grazed I caught sight of the rising sun—a crimson orb laced with filigree clouds. Oh, for a camera; to try and capture this suffusion of color, and the twisted, unique silhouettes of the trees that framed it.

  “I’m interested to know where you come from,” I told Nicholas, tearing my eyes away from the incredible sight. “What made you who you are. And—it’s a personal question, I know—but how did you end up here, after being a paramedic?”

  He glanced at me, amusement in his eyes. “You mean how I could afford to buy the place?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Family money,” he said, and in his words I heard distaste. “And as for where I come from and what has made me who I am… that’s not something I like to talk about.”

  “Oh,” I said, nonplussed.

  “Tell me about yourself, rather. How you came to be a photographer.” He slowed the car to ease it over a deep rut in the road.

  “I’ve always been artistic,” I admitted. “I’m a creative person. Ask me to do math and I couldn’t to save my life. But ask me to describe this sunset—to capture it with my camera and try to produce an image which holds the essence of these colors… these pinks and ochers and mauves and reds, how perfectly they blend, the wildness of them, this incredible quality of clearness to the air—well, I could be here all day talking to you.”

  “I can relate to that.” Nicholas’s voice was soft.

  “I grew up in Florida—my mother still lives there. I had a little brother, but he died when I was a teenager.” I let out a long breath and turned my face away.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Nicholas said gently.

  “I studied photography. Then I traveled all over the States, working wherever I went. Sometimes in my profession, other times doing whatever came along.”

  “Interesting,” he observed. “Where did you go?”

  “I’ve lived in—let me think, now—Port Saint Lucie, Charlotte, Detroit, Kansas City, Dayton, a few places in California, a couple of places in New Jersey, and most recently New York City. Usually for a few months before moving on. Never more than a year or so in any one place.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s not something I talk about,” I shot back.

  The car crested a hill and on the steep downhill on the other side, the bush thinned out, with trees becoming taller and interspersed with green-gold grassland. Ahead of us ran the silvery stretch of the fence line. This fence would have done justice to a high-security prison. It was about ten feet high, and made not only of fine wire but also of thick steel cabling strung tightly between tall and sturdy metal posts which were embedded in a solid-looking concrete base.

  “The fine wires are usually electrified,” Nicholas said, “either by mains or generator. It’s only in the past two days this fence had been without power.”

  But now, looking more carefully, I noticed a stretch of wires near the base of the fence hung loosely. There was definitely damage, and I found my stomach tensing at the likelihood that criminals had tampered with the fence.

  “Have you had poachers gain access before?” I asked him.

  He nodded grimly. “Once. Last year.”

  “And what ha
ppened?”

  His lips tightened. “They shot two of my rhino. Killed one, injured the other, dehorned both of them. We tracked them through the park and the police arrested them before they managed to escape with the horns.”

  “Oh, no, that is terrible.”

  “Since then, the fence has been kept electrified. Even if they try to breach it, the alarm should sound, but there’s always the danger they know how to bypass it.”

  We climbed out of the car and walked slowly toward the boundary. Birds were twittering all around me and the trill of the cicadas rang in my ears. The day was already warm and from somewhere nearby I could hear the rippling of water. Looking more closely, I saw a small stream flowed through the fence, and that the grasses and bush surrounding it looked flattened as if they had been swept by floodwater. An area in front of the concrete had been severely eroded by the water, although it looked as if the concrete base itself, which must be more than a yard deep, had not been damaged.

  “That’s what caused the break,” Nicholas observed, pointing.

  A little further on, a fallen tree had been swept into the fence. Its tough, gnarled branches had caught and pulled the finer wires, the force causing them to snap. The cables had held it, though, and now it lay, pinned against the fence, its branches tangled in the wires.

  “The tree broke the fence. But there have been people around here since then. Look.”

  I shivered as I saw the evidence in the muddy soil. These were not animal tracks, they were human footprints, and to my untrained eye it looked like more than one person had climbed through the gap.

  “They might have gone back again,” Nicholas muttered, bending to examine the prints closely. “If they’re on this side, they won’t be showing themselves now; they’ll be hiding out somewhere safe until dark. Either way, we need to fix this damage. How are your woodworking skills, Erin? We’ll have to cut this up to get it out, and while I’m here, I want to fill in that eroded area as well.”

  “I’m handy with a saw,” I told him. “And a shovel. When I was living in Detroit in winter, I shared a house with three other girls, and I was always the designated snow shoveler.”

  “You can start with that, then.”

  Returning to the car, he opened the boot, and took out a shiny yellow steel shovel, which he handed to me along with a brand new pair of gardening gloves. He then removed an axe and a saw.

  “Oh, for battery-operated power tools,” I quipped.

  “I have plenty, but they’re all in use down at the river,” Nicholas told me with a grin.

  Two hard-working hours later, the job was done. The tree had been chopped up and its branches removed by Nicholas, who’d then repaired the wires. Finally, he’d grabbed another spade and helped me with the job of filling in the last of the eroded section.

  The sun was higher in the sky now. My throat felt parched and I was streaming with sweat. My dark hair was sodden and I wished I hadn’t worn a white top, because it was so wet that my breasts were clearly visible. My muscles were burning. This had been hard physical work and I knew I would sleep well tonight.

  “Well done.” Nicholas wiped sweat from his own forehead. His gaze roamed over me, taking in my nearly-transparent T-shirt, before he bent to pick up the tools and take them back to the car.

  The water he’d brought with him was still cold. I drank gratefully from the bottle and then Nicholas handed me the cup from the thermos flask, which I was delighted to discover was brimming with more of the icy, sweet lemonade we’d had last night.

  “I need a shower,” I told him when we’d both drunk our fill.

  “I can help you there,” he said. “Come this way.”

  He leaned into the back of the car, picked up his rifle, and removed two towels before heading in the direction of the steep hill we’d driven down when we arrived. Curious, I followed him. He walked round the side of the hill towards a high rocky outcrop which formed a cliff. The sound of the water was even louder here, and as we rounded the corner, I saw that the stream flowed over the cliff itself, creating a miniature waterfall, before disappearing into the grasses below.

  The rock where I was standing was smooth and cool. I kicked off my shoes and stepped under the falling stream. The water was crystal clear and surprisingly chilly, as if it came from deep underground—the coldness took my breath away for a moment before it became exhilarating. The water drummed down on my head and shoulders, soaked my hair, sluiced through the light clothing I wore. I turned my face up to it, spread my arms and let it splash over my aching muscles, cooling and soothing them.

  Another minute and the cold became too much to bear. I stepped away, shivering, as Nicholas took my place. He’d propped his rifle against the base of the cliff and laid the towels out on a flat ledge of rock in the sun, which right then didn’t feel very warm at all. My clothing was streaming with water and for a moment I considered taking it off and squeezing it out—but then prudence won over.

  Even so, as I sat down on the towel, shivering, with my arms wrapped around me, I was filled with a sudden sense of unreality. Here I was, alive and well, but trapped in an alternate existence. It was as if the accident had pulled me out of my old life, and plunged me into a new one.

  “And whose fault had the accident been?” a tiny voice whispered inside me.

  Of course, nobody could have known that the floods would destroy the bridge. But it was Vince who’d decreed that the two of us should travel apart. Riding high himself in the terrain-appropriate Land Rover, he’d ordered me to climb inside a far less suitable car, to drive in terrible weather conditions and with a driver whom we barely knew, who’d taken the job only the day before.

  And all because of what? His own delusional and illogical jealousy. It was strange how when I was with Vince, I’d gone to such lengths to try and defuse this. Insisting I loved him, managing my own behavior, trying to avoid situations where this might occur. I’d been so stubbornly focused on keeping things from going wrong that I’d never allowed myself to feel the anger I was starting to feel now.

  How could he object to me being friendly with a happily married homosexual man, but then order me to get in a car with a young and unknown stranger? Or was that something that, at some stage in the future, he would have used against me, too?

  And then, when the accident occurred, he’d been driving too far ahead of us to realize the fact. Angry at the wrong road he’d taken, his ego bruised by our pointless journey through the rainy bushveld, he’d crossed the bridge at least twenty minutes ahead of us… and although it had been starting to flood at that stage, Vince hadn’t stopped.

  He hadn’t waited.

  At that crucial time, he had not cared.

  One thing was for sure—although fate had played a role, the fact that I’d ended up here had been in no way my own fault. And, with a sudden hardening of my resolve, I decided I was going to refuse to feel guilty about anything that I did while I was here.

  These few days were the beginning of the rest of my life—a life that I would not have been living now if Nicholas had not rescued me. They could be regarded as a blessing—a magical time that I would never, ever enjoy again.

  And, right then, I decided I was going to spend them in whatever way made me happy.

  CHAPTER 12

  A splashy thud startled me from my reverie. It was Nicholas’s shirt, soaking wet from the waterfall, which he’d tossed onto the warm rock nearby. I couldn’t help but stare at the sight of him, clad only in his khaki shorts, the water cascading down over his broad shoulders and those muscular, defined arms.

  God, he was beautiful, and I felt a pang of jealousy as I thought of Angela the Australian journalist, and of all the other women with whom he’d consorted over the years.

  He stepped out from under the waterfall and came to sit beside me.

  “It’s refreshing, isn’t it?”

  “It’s freezing,” I laughed. His proximity to me was doing it again. I was aware of every inch of m
y body, and of his. The droplets of water trickled down his tanned skin, sparkling in the sun. His arm was so close to mine that we almost brushed. I remembered how he’d touched me, pleasured me, so intimately the previous day. Now the intensity of my desire for him made me feel ill.

  My own angry thoughts earlier had made me rebellious, and the hard physical work had tired me, broken down the barriers I’d been working so hard to keep in place. Now all that was left was honesty—the raw truth of my own shameful longing.

  The heat had already ratcheted up again. The sun was beating down onto my shirt, now warmer but still damp. It was reflecting off every brilliant drop from the waterfall. I half turned to him as I spoke. Then I did what I had been longing to do. I lifted my arm and stroked my fingers over his shoulder, feeling the skin, smooth and still cool, and the ripped definition beneath. I ran my fingertips down his back, over the ridges of muscle on either side of his spine.

  His eyes widened at the touch. His pale blue gaze burned mine, his face just inches away from my own. In his expression I saw the same helpless lust that had me in its grip.

  “I’ve reconsidered your offer,” I whispered.

  His kiss stopped my words.

  His lips parted to taste my own as he let out an audible groan. My lips softened, yielding to his. Warm and slick, his tongue found mine, sliding against my own in a way that had my pulse suddenly racing. His hands roamed over my back, trailing lower to slip under the waistband of my pants and caress my buttocks.

  In that moment I was lost in eternity. God, I could have kissed him forever; it was the purest, most erotic sensory bliss—but it was triggering a need that was driving me wild—and him, too.

  With hungry fingers he tugged at my pants, pulling them down, easing them off, his touch warm against my own flesh. And I helped him, kicking my discarded clothing to one side even as he yanked his own shorts down to free his substantial erection.

  He grasped me around my waist, pulled me onto his thighs so that we were sitting, my legs straddling his. His breathing was rapid, matching my own. With a groan he cupped his hands around my buttocks, pulling me closer so that our bodies were tight against each other. He kissed me again, slowly and lusciously, and I kissed him back, my body welded to his.