she said. She rose to her feet and gave the dust on her khakis a brisk swat.
Haki glanced toward the battered jeep she’d driven from Busara. It was parked in the shade of an acacia tree less than twenty-five meters east of the rhinos. Not a safe spot at the moment. He looked at her pointedly.
“They weren’t there when I parked it,” she said.
“Of course not. Now back away slowly.” The bull raised his head and snorted, as if irritated by the putrid scent of man in the air.
Pippa steadied her camera with one hand as it hung from her neck strap and backed away from the rock. Knowing Pippa, she’d take a bruise to the head any day if it meant protecting that camera from damage. It was the same camera her father, geneticist Dr. Jack Harper, had been given by his adoptive parents during his troubled teen years. It was also the same one he’d brought with him on his first trip to Kenya. Pippa had been four, and prior to that trip, Jack had been unaware that he had a daughter, let alone one being raised in the wilds of Africa.
Haki waited until Pippa was at his side, then nudged her safely behind him as they retreated toward his jeep.
“I appreciate the lift, but I would have been fine,” Pippa said, climbing onto the front passenger seat.
“Fine? You didn’t even hear me walking up. What if it hadn’t been me?” Haki secured his rifle in the back, then got behind the wheel. They’d have to return for her jeep when the situation was safer. He churned the ignition and it choked several times before the engine roared to life. Malik raised his horn in their direction, but Haki left a screen of dust in their wake.
“I knew it was you all along. I saw your reflection in my camera lens when I held it away from my face,” Pippa called out over the engine noise.
Haki’s glower was met with a cheeky grin.
“You were ignoring me.”
“You were stalking me,” Pippa countered.
“Sta— I wasn’t stalking. There were poachers in the vicinity and your mother asked me to track you down when you didn’t answer her radio call. Ignoring is not okay.”
“I wasn’t ignoring her. I was going to radio in as soon as I got the shots I needed for the Busara website. I didn’t want to miss the moment.”
The Busara Elephant Research and Rescue Camp had come a long way over the past fifteen years. Its website was run and edited by one of the Harpers’ closest family friends, Tessa Walker. Everyone in the family contributed posts and updates, and Pippa was responsible for most of the photographs.
After marrying their “uncle” Mac, Tessa had begun building the site, which was dedicated to educating the public on just how precious and fragile their wildlife and the ecosystem were. It highlighted both Camp Jamba Walker and the work done to rescue elephants at Camp Busara. Mac Walker wasn’t blood-related to anyone at Busara, but he was everyone’s uncle Mac nonetheless. He was a bush pilot who’d spent years helping KWS and wildlife research groups in tracking both animals and poachers. He’d become friends with Pippa’s mother back when she first established Busara. So Uncle Mac had known both Pippa and Haki since they were babies and, as far as anyone was concerned, was their honorary uncle. Just as Tessa was an auntie to them all and the nephew she and Mac had raised together after his parents’ death, Nick Walker, was like a cousin.
“You know our safety rules.”
Pippa squeezed fistfuls of her hair before letting the wind have its way.
“How many times do I have to tell you all that I don’t need protecting? I’m twenty-two and you only have a year on me and we both grew up here. I know how to survive here as well as you do. Being a woman doesn’t make me stupid or less prepared.”
Her cactus-colored shirt and sun-kissed hair upped the intensity of her green eyes. Pippa was anything but stupid. Sometimes a bit reckless and sensitive. Always fearless, stubborn and headstrong, but not stupid. She’d even graduated with top grades from her geology program, back when the two of them attended university together in Nairobi. He’d learned about living things and earned his veterinary degree; she’d studied the nonliving. She knew all there was to know about the earth beneath their feet. If only she’d learned how to ground all that energy of hers enough to do something with that education. He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.
“Of course it doesn’t, but it can make you more of a target or tasty morsel. I may have only a year on you, but I’m also bigger. Not to mention the intense, military-style training I endured alongside KWS. Do I need to remind you who my supervisor was?”
Pippa closed her eyes and slumped back against the seat. She tilted her chin up and let the sun warm her face. Haki put his hand back on the wheel and scanned their surroundings as he made his way toward Busara. She knew full well that, training aside, physical strength and fitness were crucial in his line of work. Even at his peak, his strength didn’t come close to the brute force some of the larger animals he treated or rescued were capable of. Plus, he’d trained under her uncle Ben.
“Fine. You win,” she said.
He glanced over at her and couldn’t resist smiling. Everyone knew that anyone training under her uncle deserved a medal. Ben Corallis had been in the US Marine Corps before losing his wife—Jack Harper’s sister—to a traumatic accident about seventeen years ago. His youngest son had been a newborn at the time—way out of Ben’s comfort zone. Plus, he’d had a hyperactive four-year-old on his hands and his only daughter, Maddie, Pippa’s then ten-year-old cousin. To make matters worse, Maddie had retreated into a shell of silence after the loss of her mother. It wasn’t until Dr. Hope Alwanga, the sister of a family friend in Nairobi, had entered their lives, that they’d begun healing. And that healing had led to Ben and Hope falling in love. Ben later began using his marine experience to help train Kenyan Wildlife Service rangers in their battle against illegal poaching.
Haki had learned from the best, even if he had only worked as a ranger for a year before quitting so that he could go to vet school. Now, working as a field vet for Busara, often in areas where poachers had been spotted, that training was priceless.
“I don’t want to win. I want you safe.” Haki leaned over, keeping one hand on the wheel, and kissed her cheek. Pippa smiled but kept her eyes closed.
She really was beautiful. Haki couldn’t ask for anyone with a kinder heart. The trumpeting of elephants reverberated through the air and he straightened in his seat as he rounded an outcropping and merged onto the worn dirt road that led into camp. Pippa sat up and took a shot of the view ahead. The same photograph she’d taken a thousand times. Busara. The one place that would always be their sanctuary and home.
“I’m sure Aunt Tessa will appreciate those photographs, but until we find whoever was involved in the killing yesterday, maybe you could help out with the orphan we rescued from the scene. I heard she hasn’t taken a bottle yet and you know if she’s too depressed to eat, she won’t make it. I’m betting a little attention from you might help.”
Pippa could never resist a baby elephant, and since her mother, Dr. Bekker, was known as Mama Tembo, or mother elephant, the keepers had nicknamed Pippa “Mini-Mama” long ago. In fact, the vast majority of photographs she took in her spare time were of baby animals. Helping their latest orphan would keep her safely at camp. At least for a little while.
“The poor thing. Of course I’ll check in on her, but don’t think I’m not onto what you’re
