so you wouldn’t suspect the truth. Hope you don’t mind.
He looked to where she stood. Brow furrowed. Questioning. No matter what he would like to say, he was pretty certain her father had been right about one thing. While he might not be her choice of assistant on her documentary team, she’d definitely send him packing if she realized he was here as her personal guard detail. From what he’d already seen, the girl had just enough spunk and stubbornness to make her believe she could handle things on her own. Which put it back on his shoulders to find a way to keep her out of trouble whether she wanted him to or not.
“You know, I’m sorry.” He tried to erase the look of worry from his expression. “It’s been one of these weeks. I missed my flight out of Amsterdam, which resulted in them losing my bag. Then there was a flat tire on the way here, and now all of this....”
She slammed her open door shut with her hip. “Today might just be your lucky day after all.”
He leaned against the side of the vehicle and shot her a surprised look. “Lucky? Right. I always consider myself lucky when I’m chased by a rhino before wrapping a vehicle around a tree.”
“Think of it this way. We were scheduled to take this vehicle out today.” Alex kept his expression neutral, not visibly reacting to the information even as he mentally stored it away. “But Samuel noticed that the radio wasn’t working, so we swapped out vehicles.” She smiled at him. He wasn’t sure if she was flirting with him or simply being sarcastic. “So if it weren’t for the rhino incident, I’d be back safe and sound at the lodge, but you’d be here by yourself with no idea how to get back and no radio. Lucky you, though, I’m here, and I know the way back to the lodge.”
“That’s a very...optimistic way of looking at it.” He had to laugh. So Meghan was one of those eternal optimists? “What now? There’s no radio, but you have to have a cell phone on you, right?”
“A cell phone? No. Even if I did, there isn’t any service out here.”
Great. He glanced back at the Jeep. “Which is why you use radios.”
“Precisely.”
“Here’s another crazy question.” He hesitated, hoping he didn’t sound as worried as he felt. “What kind of predators might show up, besides our favorite rhino and a handful of poachers? Because this wreck isn’t going anywhere.”
“Don’t you have predators back in Texas?”
“I’ve tangled with a coyote or two.”
He tried to play down his concern, but his unease went far beyond what might be hiding on the other side of the bushes. Not only did she see the cup half-full, she was unaware that they faced any problem other than getting out of the bush. He was looking at an entirely different scenario. Maybe he was reading things into the situation, but if the vehicle had been sabotaged, someone had just sent a very clear message that they could get to her.
Something rustled behind him in the bushes. Alex pressed his back against the vehicle, ready to grab Meghan and bolt the pair of them up the nearest tree if necessary.
“It’s okay.” Meghan laughed. “It’s just an impala.”
“An impala.”
“An antelope. A lot of people mistake them for deer, but they actually come from different families. An impala’s color is more reddish-brown and they have permanent horns—”
“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
