Harris looked slightly startled, as if most clients tended to ignore the African staff. “Gideon,” he said. “Gideon Mkaba. We’ll be in good hands with him.”
“Hujambo, Gideon.” Megan extended her hand over the back of the seat.
“Sijambo.” The driver smiled and shook her hand.
“So where are we going, Harris?” Cal broke the beat of awkward silence.
The guide grinned. “Thought you’d never ask! Elephant! Whole bloody herd of ’em down by the riverbed. We were scouting ’em when we saw your plane.”
As the engine coughed to a rumbling start, lightning cracked across the sky with a deafening boom. The roiling clouds let loose a gush of water that deluged down on the vehicle’s canvas top. Wind blew the rain sideways, dousing the passengers.
“Move it, Gideon!” Harris shouted above the storm. “They won’t be there forever!”
“But it’s raining!” Megan protested, shivering in her wet clothes.
Twisting in the front seat, Harris shot her a devilish grin. “Excuse me, miss, but the elephants don’t bloody care!”
Four
By the time they came within sight of the riverbed, Cal had managed to clamber into the back of the jouncing Land Rover and find Megan’s duffel among the gear. Pulling out her rain poncho, he reached over the seat, tugged it past her head and worked it down around her shivering body. It was too late to keep her dry, but at least the plastic sheeting would act as a windbreaker and help keep her warm.
As he moved back to the seat, she looked up at him. Her lips moved in silent thanks. A freshet of tenderness welled inside him. Even a strong woman like Megan needed someone to care about her. Something told him she hadn’t had anyone like that in a long time.
But he hadn’t come on this trip to feel sorry for her. He couldn’t let sympathy—or any other emotion—divert him from his purpose.
“There.” On a slight rise above the riverbank, Harris motioned for the driver to stop. The growl of the engine dropped to a low idle. Glancing back at Cal and Megan, the guide touched a finger to his lips and pointed.
At first Cal saw nothing. Then, not fifty yards ahead, a huge, gray silhouette emerged through the sheeting rain. Then another and another.
Cal could feel Megan’s hand gripping his arm as the herd ambled toward them on silent feet. Did the tension in her come from awe or worry? He wasn’t quite sure what to feel, himself. He knew that most animals in the game parks were accustomed to vehicles. But these elephants were close, and the open Land Rover offered little in the way of protection. He could only hope that Harris knew what he was doing.
Somewhere below them, hidden by the high bank, was the rain-swollen river. Over the rush of water, Cal could hear the elephants. They were vocalizing in low-pitched rumbles, their tone relaxed, almost conversational. Gideon slipped the gearshift into Reverse, ready to back away at the first sign of trouble. Surely, by now, the herd was aware of them. But the elephants continued on, undisturbed.
The leader, most likely an older cow, was within a stone’s throw of the vehicle’s front grille when she turned aside and disappeared through an opening in the riverbank. The others followed her—adult females, half-grown teenagers and tiny newborn calves trailing like gray ghosts through the rain, down the slope toward the river. Megan’s grip tightened. Cal could sense the emotion in her, the fear and the wonder. He resisted the impulse to take her hand. They had just shared an unforgettable moment. He didn’t want to risk spoiling it.
The last elephant had made it down the bank to the water. The contented sounds of drinking and splashing drifted up from below. Harris nodded to the driver, who backed up the Land Rover, turned it around and headed back the way they’d come.
“You had me worried, there,” Cal admitted. “Any one of those elephants could have charged us.”
Harris chuckled. “No need to fret. I know that herd, and I knew they’d be thirsty. They always take the same path down to the river. As long as we didn’t bother them, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t pay us much heed.”
Megan hadn’t spoken. “Are you all right?” Cal asked her.
Her voice emerged as a nervous laugh. “Unbelievable,” she breathed. “And we forgot to take pictures.”
Cal could feel her trembling beneath the poncho, whether from cold or excitement, he couldn’t be sure. But her green-flecked caramel eyes were glowing beneath the hood. It had been a good moment with Megan, the elephants and the rain, he mused; maybe the best moment he’d known in a long time. But he couldn’t forget what he’d come to do.
* * *
Megan had expected that being on safari would involve roughing it in a tent. In her cold, wet condition, the luxury lodge on the outer slope of the Ngorongoro Crater came as a welcome surprise. Less welcome was the discovery that Harris had clearly misread her relationship with Cal. He had reserved just one bungalow for the two of them. With one bed.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.” Cal stood beside her in the open doorway surveying the elegantly rustic quarters, decorated in native rugs, baskets and tapestries. “While you shower and change for dinner, I’ll go talk to the manager. They’re bound to have an extra room somewhere.”
With the door locked behind him, Megan stripped down and luxuriated in the hot, tiled shower stocked with lavender-scented soap and shampoo. It wouldn’t be a good idea to get used to this, she lectured herself. In the camps, a bucket of cold water was often as good as she could get. Much of the time she’d had to make do with sponge baths, reminding herself that even that was better than most refugees had.
If she could move beyond the panic attacks and the nightmares, Cal had promised to send her back to Darfur. Ten days wasn’t much time. But if she could relax and focus on getting well, it might make a difference.
She wanted to go back, needed to. Working among the poor and dispossessed had given her the only real sense of worth she had ever known—something she had craved after her world had collapsed under her feet.
In her naïveté, she hadn’t learned about Nick’s embezzlement of the charity funds until days before he’d shot himself. Between his death and his funeral, she’d done a world of soul-searching. For years, she’d taken it for granted that her husband was rich, and she’d spent accordingly. But how much of the stolen money had gone to support her extravagant lifestyle? Megan had no way of knowing. She had known, though, that while she couldn’t return the money, she could at least make some restitution through her own service.
Cal’s cold anger at the funeral and his threat to make her pay had startled her. Until then she hadn’t realized that he blamed her for the theft and for his friend’s suicide. Knowing that he would find some way to go after her legally and that she had no power to fight him had pushed her decision—she’d had no choice except to run far and fast, where Cal would never think to look for her.
Using her political connections and her knowledge of the J-COR Foundation, she’d managed to expedite the paperwork and lose herself in the ranks of volunteers. What surprised her was the fulfillment she’d found in working with the refugees. They had needed her—and in that need she’d found the hope of redemption.
She was proud of the work she’d done in Arusha, but she could do so much more in Darfur. She had to go back; and she couldn’t let Cal stop her.
Megan had put on fresh clothes and was fluffing her short damp hair when she heard a knock on the door. She opened it to find Cal standing on the threshold with his duffel bag.
“No luck,” he said. “They’ve got a big tour group coming in tonight, and everything will be full-up. I even asked about