—The Perfect Wedding by Serafina
March
JOSIE, despite her many misgivings, was impressed.
Leopard Tree Lodge had been all but invisible from the air as the small aircraft had circled over the river, skimming the trees to announce their arrival.
And the dirt runway on which they’d landed, leaving a plume of dust behind them, hadn’t exactly inspired confidence either. By the time they’d taxied to a halt, however, a muscular four-wheel drive was waiting to pick up both her and the cartons of wedding paraphernalia she’d brought with her. ‘Just a few extras…’ Marji had assured her. All the linens and paper goods had been sent on by Serafina before she had been taken ill.
The manager was waiting to greet her at the impressive main building. Circular, thatched, open-sided, it contained a lounge with a central fireplace that overlooked the river on one side. On the other, a lavish buffet where guests—kitted uniformly in safari gear and hung with cameras—helped themselves to breakfast that they carried out onto a shady, flower-decked terrace set above a swimming pool.
‘David Kebalakile, Miss Fowler. Welcome to Leopard Tree Lodge. I hope you had a good journey.’
‘Yes, thank you, Mr Kebalakile.’
It had felt endless, and she was exhausted, but she’d arrived in one piece. In her book that was as good as twenty-four hours and three planes, the last with only four seats and one engine, was going to get.
‘David, please. Let’s get these boxes into the office,’ he said, summoning a couple of staff members to deal with all the excess baggage that Marji had dumped on her, ‘and then I’ll show you to your tree house.’
Tree house?
Was that better than a tent? Or worse?
If you fell out of a tent at least you were at ground level, she thought, trying not to look down as she followed him across a sturdy timber walkway that wound through the trees a good ten feet from the ground.
Worse…
‘We’ve never held a wedding at the Lodge before,’ he said, ‘so this is a very special new venture for us. And we’re all very excited at the prospect of meeting Tal Newman. We love our football in Botswana.’
Oh, terrific.
This wasn’t the slick and well practised routine for the staff that it would have been in most places and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it was the groom, rather than the bride, who was going to be the centre of attention.
The fact that the colour scheme for the wedding had been taken from the orange and pale blue strip of his football club should have warned her.
Presumably Crystal was used to it, but this was her big day and Josie vowed she’d be the star of this particular show even if it killed her.
‘Here we are,’ David said, stopping at a set of steps that led to a deck built among the tree tops, inviting her to go ahead of him.
Wow.
Double wow.
The deck was perched high above the promised oxbow lake but the only thing her substantial tree house—with its thatched roof and wide double doors—had in common with the tent she’d been dreading were canvas sidings which, as David enthusiastically demonstrated, could be looped up so that you could lie in the huge, romantically gauze-draped four-poster bed and watch the sun rising. If you were into that sort of thing.
‘Early mornings and evenings are the best times to watch the animals,’ he said. ‘They come to drink then, although there’s usually something to see whatever time of day or night it is.’ He crossed the deck and looked down. ‘There are still a few elephants, a family of warthogs.’
He turned, clearly expecting her to join him and exclaim with delight.
‘How lovely,’ she said, doing her best to be enthusiastic when all she really wanted to look at was the plumbing.
‘There are always birds. They are…’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry. You’ve had a long journey and you must be very tired.’
It seemed that she was going to have to work on that one.
‘I’ll be fine when I’ve had a wake-up shower,’ she assured him. ‘Something to eat.’
‘Of course. I do hope you will find time to go out in a canoe, though. Or on one of our guided bush walks?’ He just couldn’t keep his enthusiasm in check.
‘I hope so, too,’ she said politely. Not.
She was a city girl. Dressing up in a silly hat and a jacket with every spare inch covered with pockets to go toddling off into the bush, where goodness knew what creepy-crawlies were lurking held absolutely no appeal.
‘Right, well, breakfast is being served in the dining area at the moment, or I can have something brought to you on a tray if you prefer? Our visitors usually choose to relax, soak up the peace, after such a long journey.’
‘A tray would be perfect, thank you.’
The peace would have to wait. She needed to take a close look at the facilities, see how they measured up to the plans in the file and check that everything on Serafina’s very long list of linens and accessories of every kind had arrived safely. But not before she’d sluiced twenty-four hours of travel out of her hair.
‘Just coffee and toast,’ she said, ‘and then, if you could spare me some time, I’d like to take a look around. Familiarise myself with the layout.’
‘Of course. I’m at your command. Come to the desk when you’re ready and if I’m not in my office someone will find me. In the meantime, just ring if you need anything.’
The minute he was gone, she took a closer look at her surroundings.
So far, they’d done more than live up to Marji’s billing. The bed was a huge wooden-framed super king with two individual mattresses, presumably for comfort in the heat. It still left plenty of room for a sofa, coffee tables and the desk on which she laid her briefcase beside a folder that no doubt contained all the details of what was on offer.
Those bush walks and canoe trips.
No, thanks.
Outside, there was the promised plunge pool with a couple of sturdy wooden deck loungers and a small thatched gazebo shading a day bed big enough for two. Somewhere to lie down when the excitement got too much? Or maybe make your own excitement when the peace needed shaking up—that was if you had someone to get excited with.
The final touch was a second shower that was open to the sky.
‘Oh, very “you Tarzan, me Jane”,’ she muttered.
To the front there were a couple of director’s chairs where you could sit and gaze across the oxbow lagoon where the family of elephants had the same idea about taking a shower.
All she needed now was the bubbly, she thought, smiling as a very small elephant rolled in the mud, while the adults used their trunks to fling water over their backs. Kids. They were all the same…
Looking around, she could see why Celebrity was so keen. People were crazy about animals and the photographs were going to be amazing. But, while the place had ‘honeymoon’ stamped all over it, she wasn’t so sure about the wedding.
It had required three aircraft to get her here and the possibilities for disaster were legion.
She shook her head, stretched out cramped limbs in the early morning sunshine. She’d worry about that when it happened and, after one last look around, took herself inside to shower away the effects of the endless journey, choosing the exquisitely fitted bathroom over the temptations of the louche outdoor shower.
She was here to work, not play.
Ten