“I know what an impala is.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
He held up his hand. He shouldn’t have snapped, but he couldn’t take any chances if someone had just tried to kill her. Nor was he thrilled about being out in the bush unarmed, where there were predators that would be more than happy to have him for dinner. He knew enough to realize that the hunter could quickly become the hunted. And unless someone came to their rescue, they were going to have to walk back to the lodge. At this point he wasn’t even sure which direction it was.
She took a step and winced, reminding him of their other problem. They were going to have to walk, and she clearly wasn’t going to make it far. The discoloration on her knee was already beginning to show.
“From the looks of it, you’re not going anywhere, either. At least not quickly.”
So much for outrunning the next animal that decided to have some fun with them.
“I’ll be fine.” She forced a smile. “And besides, Kate and Samuel know I’m out here. They probably assumed you drove me back to the lodge, but once they realize we’re not there, they’ll come looking for us. They know the area where we are, so it shouldn’t take them long to find us.”
He wasn’t convinced. “Not to be a pessimist or anything, but what if they don’t show up? Do you really think you can walk back to the lodge?
“Do you always worry like this?”
“Yes.”
His caution tended to go hand in hand with a job of hunting down the bad guys. For the past thirteen months he’d been after Dimitri Stamos, who’d left six people dead in his latest crime spree. Being on the alert for danger came as easily as breathing and was just as necessary in his life. He knew how to track and hunt down criminals, but trekking through the bush eluding wild animals—and possibly dangerous humans, too—was different.
He glanced down at her again, in her khaki shorts and boots, looking completely at home in the middle of the African bush—and compellingly attractive despite his best intentions not to notice. What he couldn’t avoid noticing was her refusal to back down.
“There is nothing to worry about.” She didn’t seem to notice his conflicted mood. “I’ve been working out here for months, and while we typically go out with a gun, we’ve never had to use it.”
“Until today,” he reminded her.
“It was a warning shot. That rhino was more afraid of us than we would ever be of him.”
Right.
“How far to the lodge?”
“Two, maybe three miles at the most.”
Alex frowned. This wasn’t going to work. “You can barely walk.”
She took another step and forced a smile, though the pain radiating in her eyes was clear. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
He tried to formulate a plan with the little information he had. Staying in the open Jeep after dark seemed more foolish than prudent. Walking through the bush with the chance of encountering a leopard or lion seemed just as foolish. Somehow he needed to come up with a plan C.
“What do you think you’ll do when something starts chasing you and you can’t outrun it?” he asked.
“Like I said, in my experience, most animals are going to be more afraid of us than we are of them.” She glanced at the baobab the Jeep sat wrapped around. “Or there’s always the nearest tree.”
Maybe so, but he wasn’t looking forward to taking his chances. “How long until dark?”
She glanced at her watch. “Forty-five minutes...maybe a bit less.”
At a brisk pace they could make it—if they didn’t get eaten along the way. And if he helped her. He hesitated, then bridged the gap between them.
“I say we take our chances and walk, but you’re going to lean on me.”
“Really, it’s not that bad.” She took another step, then reached down to rub the bruised spot on the side of her knee that was already starting to swell.
“Right. You need to get off the leg and ice it, but since you can’t do that, you’re going to have to let me help you.”
She looked up at him with those big brown eyes of hers took another step, winced, then stopped. “Fine.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, wishing her hair didn’t smell like lavender and that her lashes didn’t go on forever when she looked up at him. He’d figured she’d be intelligent. He hadn’t planned on her being such a...distraction.
The only solution to the problem, as far as he could see, was to tell her the truth. If she knew he was here doing a favor for one of his father’s old army buddies, who happened to be her own somewhat-estranged father, she’d be furious. Attraction definitely wouldn’t be a problem, since she wouldn’t let him within five miles of her. But if he blew his cover and told her the truth, he wouldn’t be able to protect her. And with the way things were spiraling out of control in the current election, and after what he’d seen today, he tended to believe that her life really was in danger. She needed him here, whether she knew it or not. And that meant he couldn’t do anything to drive her away.
Alex shifted his gaze back to the uneven path, pushing aside his straying thoughts as he tried to focus on the situation at hand. All he needed to do right now was get them back to the lodge in one piece. “Which way?”
“That way.” She nodded toward their right, then stopped. “I forgot my bag.”
He grabbed her camera bag out of the Jeep, waited until she’d adjusted it on her shoulder, then wrapped his arm around her waist again. She looked up at him before slowly wrapping her arm around his waist. The wind blew a strand of her hair across his face. He brushed it aside, tightened his grip, then started walking.
There was something about her that intrigued him.
Okay, more than just one thing. Meghan Jordan was a filmmaker, seemingly as comfortable in the African bush as most women were at a shopping mall. She was intelligent, strong-minded and undeniably beautiful. Exactly what he wasn’t looking for.
Alex swallowed hard. He really needed a distraction.
* * *
Meghan took another step and tried to ignore the pain.
“You okay?”
She nodded at his question, avoiding his gaze. Her knee was already swelling, but while she might need a distraction from the pain, Mr. Lone Star wasn’t what she had in mind.
Today, she’d looked forward to filming some of the final scenes with Kibibi and her cubs. Instead, Alex had torpedoed into her life, bringing with him a string of disasters. He’d barely been here an hour, and he’d ticked off a rhino and gotten them stranded out in the bush.
All right, maybe it hadn’t been his fault that the Jeep had malfunctioned, but still, the vehicle they’d been driving was now wrapped around the trunk of a baobab tree. Nothing like that had happened to her before he’d shown up.
She should be mad at him, but instead, having him so close was wreaking havoc with her equilibrium. Which left her wondering what bothered her the most. The fact that she’d just been sent an assistant who more than likely didn’t know anything about the African bush, or the fact that she couldn’t ignore the feel of his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
She searched for something to say to break the awkward silence between them as they followed the narrow trail bordered by the