her stomach settle. “Is Nick okay?”
“Yes. He’s browsing some wood carvings and a few things they have for sale, souvenir-wise. They don’t really have a gift shop. When real guests are here, they put out things like T-shirt samples on the porch, but keep the inventory inside their home.”
“I didn’t give him any of the rand I converted to shillings yet.”
“Not a problem. He’s just looking.”
They both sat quietly, taking in the exquisite view of acacia trees and a herd of elephants passing them in the distance. The leaves of the pepper trees rustled overhead and the chatter of a million animal languages vibrated through the air in a lulling rhythm.
“So this is why you live here,” she said. A hint of admission was easier to take than awkward silence.
He nodded.
“It does make for nice meditating,” she allowed.
“And it’s free. Always amazes me that people will dish money out for things to help them relax, yet they never bother to try going for a walk or sitting somewhere like this.”
“Not everyone has access to a place like this. Or even a backyard. You really like prejudging and making assumptions, don’t you? For your information, group meditation classes do have their benefits. They’re motivating and supportive and they really help with anxiety. I even took Nick to one.”
“Bet he loved that.”
She pressed her lips together and turned away. No, Nick had hated it, but Mac didn’t need to know.
“I’m sorry about cutting our flight short. Obviously I’ve flown before—not in a helicopter and I avoid small planes, but big ones I can handle—and I didn’t expect to react the way I did. I was never good at going out on boats with my parents, either. Not even when I was little. At first, it was the motion sickness. Later on it was the nightmares I’d have about them out there on their own. I should have never, ever watched movies like Jaws or The Perfect Storm.” She took another sip. “This mental image of Maria and Allan crashing flashed before me after we took off and I couldn’t get rid of it.”
Mac etched the dry ground with the end of a stick.
“Don’t worry about it. It happened to me a couple of times after the funeral. I had to work a little harder at putting it out of my head and getting in my pilot’s seat. When someone calls you and needs help, it makes putting your fears aside easier. The nerves and memories do hit you in random spurts, don’t they?”
Tessa dug the heel of her sneaker into the ground and ran it back and forth forming a coffin-like trench. Any bigger and she’d be saving Mac the trouble of figuring out where to hide her body once she spilled the truth. She pulled her ponytail loose and scratched her scalp.
“I’m leaving him with you, Mac,” she said, keeping her eyes on a herd wandering so far off in the distance that she couldn’t identify them. “I’m so sorry, but I need to leave him with you. He doesn’t know yet.”
She finally braved a glance at Mac. His jaw was popping like there was no tomorrow as he stared at the dirt just beyond his boots.
“And I had just started to think you were actually coming out of your glass cocoon to enjoy the world around you. That your maternal instincts had kicked in full throttle. Yet you’ve planned all this—this trip—and failed to discuss your decision with either of us. Nice one, Tess.”
“Trust me on this,” she said.
Mac stood abruptly and turned on her.
“I do trust on a case-by-case basis.”
“Brice isn’t father material. He doesn’t have the patience and he’s so busy he’s never around. Nick deserves better than that. He needs a male role model. He’s miserable with me, Mac. And I... I have work I need some time to focus on.”
Mac narrowed his eyes.
“Are you trying to tell me Brice is mistreating him or something? And that you have more important things to do than care for Nick?”
“No! Brice is simply not present and I can’t do this alone.” It was true that Brice hadn’t exactly been an attentive husband or guardian lately, but that was a separate issue. “Nick simply doesn’t mix in well with our life. Our lifestyle is too...”
“Sterile?” Mac offered. She glared.
“If you care at all about Nick, you’ll take him in. At least for a while,” she said, trying to soften the blow but knowing full well that “a while” would turn into “until he’s a legal adult.”
Mac sat back down and scrubbed at his face.
“I’m about to take on a lot more work, Tessa. Largely, so I can continue to provide for his expenses. There’s no way I can keep an eye on him and make sure he’s not freaking out at every turn when an animal shows up. They kind of tend to around here. Plus, you saw where I live. And school. He may be on holiday right now, but you can’t rip him out of his school at this age. We agreed he needed to have his peers around him.”
“Yes, we agreed, but things have changed, okay? I tried...”
“No!” Nick appeared at the door to the cottage looking like an irate bull. Tessa and Mac both leaped off the log. “You liars! You selfish, little...” The trail of cussing that ensued had Tessa covering her face while Mac tried to get a calming word in edgewise. With the kid’s anger-fueled lungs, half the Serengeti had probably just gotten a ripe lesson in original insults.
“Nick, calm down. Let’s talk. Nothing has happened yet,” Mac said with his palms held up. “And you owe your aunt exactly nineteen apologies by this evening or I might rent you a permanent tent right here at this camp.”
“Nick, I was going to talk to you, but...” Tessa tried adding.
“Both of you need to just shut up,” Nick persisted, pacing and gripping his head as he yelled. “You make me sick! I hate you!”
“That’s it. Tessa, come with me,” Mac said, leading the way to the cottage. “You, Nick, park it on that log until you get in control. No control, no inside. No flight back. Got it?”
Tessa hurried after Mac, shocked at how he’d handled their nephew. For one thing, Brice had never ordered Nick to apologize to her. He didn’t feel comfortable reprimanding him. Nick had had plenty of outbursts before and not once had Brice intervened as Mac had. Not for her sake or Nick’s. He dealt with Nick’s outbursts by telling her to take him to see a different therapist.
She briefly greeted the owners—Mugi and Kesi, if she’d caught their names correctly. Her mind was on Nick so she wasn’t paying attention. She apologized for anything they might have overheard, then glanced out the window. Nick had actually listened to Mac and was sitting on the log, rubbing his hands along his jeans.
“Will he be okay out there alone? What if he runs off?” she asked.
“He’s surrounded by wildlife. Trust me, Tessa. He won’t move more than two feet from that log unless it’s to run toward this door.”
