South African Escape to Heal Her
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Becky Wicks
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21
CHAPTER ONE
ARNO NKOSI KEPT one hand on the wheel of the Jeep and ran the other lovingly through the thick, coarse fur around Tande’s neck. A night drive across the expansive game reserve with all its bullfrog songs and wildlife surprises was an experience his lioness had loved, ever since he’d found her as a lost cub on a sandy roadside, four years ago. Arno assumed Tande’s mother had been shot. Or maybe she’d perished in the blade-sharp jaws of a crocodile—who could say?
In this part of the Limpopo Province, in what they called the Safari Capital of South Africa, anything could happen. Which was precisely why he was driving faster than he normally would towards his new volunteer recruit.
A certain Kaya Van der Bijl had flown in from her native Netherlands to work for him and with him, but she’d somehow managed to take the wrong bus from Cape Town. Luckily she was waiting for him right now at his friend Rai’s small guest resort, which was the closest place he could think of to send her from the bus stop in a pinch. Rai had gone to get her, being the great family friend he was, and had been for a long time, since even before the fire...
Arno let a gush of air from his nostrils, turning off all thoughts of the fire before they could burn him, as usual, and sped up towards the game reserve gates. Dutch-born doctor Kaya was out of harm’s way, but it did not sit well with Arno that a woman was waiting for him alone in a strange new place, when she should be unpacking with the other volunteers already.
He hoped the staff quarters would be comfy enough. He’d had the basic huts built at the Thabisa Game Reserve to host the steady stream of medical professionals who came to volunteer for six months, sometimes more, with the pioneering healthcare infrastructure project he’d also built—so to speak—from the ground up. He swelled with pride every time someone praised the Lindiwe Health Foundation but in no way could he take all the credit. These volunteers made it the success it had been for the last decade, and he needed them safe, comfortable, well fed and well rested, alert and ready to help people in the surrounding communities. Not stranded fifty miles away.
Arno slowed the vehicle, noting Tande’s ears flatten. If a lioness cohort was good for anything, it was for sensing people and animals way before they hit the glare of a handheld spotlight, or his headlights. He watched her long whiskers twitch, and the way she held her nose to the wind. She could be sensing a jackal. It could even be a giraffe. The Thabisa Game Reserve was more alive at night than in the day; you never knew what you might come across, chomping away on a nocturnal feast.
Arno squinted, scanned the darkness ahead for the gleaming green eyes of an impala or a skittish rhino, either of which they would do best to avoid. His mouth flickered with a smile as two snuffling bush pigs looked up in alarm, then darted out of the spotlights.
‘Hey, guys,’ he muttered at them, drawing to a stop at the gates and turning to Tande.
‘They’re lucky you’ve eaten already, huh, girl?’ he muttered, and Tande, as if on cue, excused herself from the Jeep by way of leaping gracefully over the door, and padded off into the night. Somehow, she always knew when to make her exit; when Arno was safe from all other wildlife in the reserve, and when she could remain well out of sight and reach from whatever might lurk outside.
Of course, he had a gun at hand always, plus a tranquilliser kit and enough antivenom to kill a superhero’s arch-enemy, but still. Sometimes it wasn’t even the animals you had to be afraid of, he thought ruefully, and the flames roared back into his memory, as bright and loud and ferocious as they were when they tore through the restaurant, twenty years ago.
Back when he was too busy pouring liquor down his throat with his buddies to be home, where he should have been.
He should really call Mama back, he thought suddenly.
Maybe later.
Arno bobbed his head at Mikal, who opened the gate from his protective booth, ushering him on through to the main road. His rammed schedule was just an excuse. It just made his guts squirm, knowing the conversation he’d been putting off for years was always lingering unspoken between them.
Mama never talked about the miscarriage, caused by the carbon monoxide in the smoke, but he still thought about it, every single day. A little brother for Arno she’d never seen coming! A miracle, she’d said. Mama got labelled a geriatric, because she’d had Arno at twenty-two, then fallen pregnant again aged forty. She’d even named her little miracle—Kung, short for Kungawo.
The day he learned they’d lost Kung was still one of the most vivid memories of his life so far. Mama would be a proud mother of two right now, if he’d only been there when the fire broke out, woken her up from her nap, as he had said he would...
Damn, Arno, focus.
It was twenty goddam years ago, he’d done so much since then. Started a foundation, launched a medical centre, helped to save a thousand lives in the surrounding villages. Reared a frightened little animal from a lion cub to a full-grown lioness, refused even a drop of alcohol...which most people thought strange, considering the family wine empire. But his father’s voice was still clear as day, even two whole decades later, blaming him in a moment of rage. Calling him out for not being there; which he’d had every right to. The whole thing had been stalking him like a lion all these years.
He only hoped his waiting volunteer wasn’t some frightened little animal; this wasn’t exactly work for the weak. Kaya Van der Bijl had seemed pretty tough on the voice call, he mused. She’d talked about her qualifications a lot. Her long years of studying to become a doctor, and the requisite year of training in a Dutch hospital—that was all certainly impressive. As if all that meant a damn thing if she wound up freezing in the face of a flesh wound inflicted on a human by an angry animal.
Or showed up ten minutes too late to a fire.
Arno forged ahead into the night, praying there wouldn’t be anything too dramatic to scare Kaya and the other volunteers off. At least not this week.
Kaya Van der Bijl had to do a double take. The man jumping out of the orange and black safari vehicle in a cloud of dust and striding towards her now had an air about him that she certainly hadn’t witnessed before, not least because of the military-style boots, and the off-white safari trousers tucked into them, and the black T-shirt stretched across a broad muscled chest. This was not Amsterdam attire, not by any stretch of the imagination.
This was pure South African magnificence.
He took her overstuffed suitcase in one big hand and extended the other to greet her, and she noticed the way his shaved head gleamed in the headlights below a trace of jet-black regrowth; the way his sharp cheekbones and strong jawline served to turn him into some kind of living, breathing sculpture. The moonlight just made him seem like a magical creature, born from the wild plains all around them.
‘Kaya?’ he said, interrupting her thoughts.
It wasn’t often she was thrown off her usual course of thoughts around new men—which usually went something like, Yes, brain, he’s very good-looking, but he probably can’t be trusted.
‘Hey, Kaya? Good to meet you, I’m Arno. Took the wrong bus, did you?’
Kaya stared. This was Arno Nkosi? The chief medical manager and founder of the volunteer programme at the Lindiwe Health Foundation, which was set to be her place of employment for the next six months? She’d seen a couple of photos of him on the website, but nothing up close...as he was now.
He was partly amused, partly annoyed and trying not to let it show, she observed, forcing her shoulders back and telling her eyes not to rove over his bulging forearms as she smoothed down her white linen dress. Being astute was her speciality, she’d made it that way after everything she was trying to leave far behind her in Amsterdam. Her instincts were primed, all ready to mistrust this strapping man, who was leading her towards the safari four-by-four with the name of the resort they were headed for on the side of it—Thabisa Game Reserve.
She was already late for unpacking hour in the promised ‘rustic yet scenic’ staff quarters she’d be staying at on a self-catering basis. Suddenly she thought less about not trusting him, and hoped he didn’t think less of her for missing the bus. They’d be working closely together.
Lifting her bag effortlessly over the side of the Jeep, despite the array of vacuum-sealed bags she’d stuffed inside to hide the actual bulk of her belongings, Arno nodded in the direction of the three steps she had to climb to take her seat. She was careful to jump up without letting her dress rise too high.
The leather seat felt thin and she wasn’t entirely sure it had much in the way of suspension, but hey, she was here in South Africa, the place of her mother’s birth. And where she was headed, she wasn’t exactly expecting luxury.
‘Sorry I missed the bus,’ she heard herself saying when Arno had exchanged a quick goodbye with the guy he’d apparently sent to rescue her from the bus stop. He must know everyone around here.
‘It happens,’ Arno replied in a manner that suggested it didn’t usually happen and should not have happened tonight. She cringed internally as they swung out of the quaint guest house’s driveway. His hands looked big and strong on the steering wheel.
‘Did you have to drive very far to come and get me?’ she asked, wondering how many lives he’d saved with those two big hands. ‘I know we’re surrounded by game parks so I wasn’t sure if there’s a shortcut you might have.’
‘The only shortcut is through the game park,’ he said. ‘The one where you’ll be staying. It’s gated and guarded like they all are, but you wouldn’t want to walk it. Not unless you want a face-off with a wild pig. Or a rhino.’
‘How often does that happen?’
‘More often than you’d think.’
She caught his lips curl slightly and wondered if he was joking, and also if she’d sounded naive talking about shortcuts. She had been quite distracted at the airport, noticing all the things her mother had been talking about for years—the wide welcoming smiles, the colourful clothes, the African trinkets shining from the tourist stalls. No wonder she’d taken the wrong bus. She’d finally made it to her mother’s birthplace. She’d always been curious about this side of her family but never enough to actually come here. Scrap that, had she just made herself too busy, or been too afraid? Since the attack, she hadn’t exactly been chomping at the bit to leap out of her comfort zone. She was only just now realising she’d probably wasted some of the best years of her life—well, no more!
‘So, this is your first time here?’ Arno was looking at her sideways, as if he’d read her mind.
‘To South Africa? Yes. But I’ve been dreaming about it for years,’ she replied, unable to hide the excitement in her voice, or the urge to study him closer while he was driving. The contrast between her mocha skin and his sun-kissed whiteness was striking, even in the low light. They didn’t make male specimens like Arno where she’d grown up in the Netherlands—the men were tall enough but, to her, they all looked kind of the same. Not that she’d noticed any of them with romance in mind since the attack, or since Pieter...
Nope. He was not allowed into her thoughts any more, not here, the cheater.
‘It’s not a vacation,’ Arno replied, coolly, watching the road. Kaya straightened her back in the bumpy seat and gripped the side handlebar. They were speeding down a dirt track now. The lights from the guest house were a mere glow behind them.
‘I’m not expecting a holiday. I just meant my mother is from Cape Town, and I’ve always wanted to see the country she left when she moved to the Netherlands. That’s where my dad’s from, but they met here.’
‘Do you have siblings?’ he asked, seemingly interested.
‘I have one younger brother,’ she replied. ‘Daan is three years younger than me, he’s twenty-four. He’s studying architecture.’
‘Younger brother, huh?’
She nodded. ‘We’re quite close. Do you have siblings?’
A furrow appeared between Arno’s eyebrows as he looked dead ahead over the steering wheel. ‘Nope. Just me.’
The inkling of something like anger lingering beneath his words caught her off guard. On instinct she searched the road ahead for something blocking their path, or anything that might have caused ‘that look’, but there was nothing.
Was she talking too much? Kaya smoothed her dress hoping it wasn’t sweaty, and wondered if her English was as good as everyone said it was. Everyone spoke English at home, as much as they did Dutch, but she was aware of her own accent now, as much as she was aware of Arno’s.
His South African lilt sent his words up at the ends in little sing-song flourishes. She quite enjoyed it. But now he was simply frowning at the windshield.
What was he—late thirties? He looked at least a decade older than her. He’d done some pretty incredible things in Limpopo, she thought, starting with founding and recruiting new volunteers every six months to assist with important medical rounds and much-needed treatments in the local communities. The nearest town of Hoedspruit was surrounded by game reserves, and therefore called the Safari Capital of South Africa. This position, for the next six months, could mean some difficult tasks, out in potentially dangerous places. She wondered if he was concerned that she wouldn’t be up for the task.
Usually she’d be wary of all this herself. Not because she felt she was lacking in qualifications or experience—she most certainly was not. But because...well...
Kaya glanced his way; the old nemesis of distrust flaring up against her will. Was this Arno a man she could be alone with? He might be a man of few words, but then, he was someone everyone knew, she reminded herself. He’d done more in his years as a doctor and surgeon than most people half his age—if he was indeed in his late thirties, as opposed to her twenty-seven years.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t conquered enough on her own since dragging herself up from rock bottom, she mused, watching the row of thick bushes spike towards the sky along the roadside. Her poor parents, while happy she was here doing something to help put the past behind her, were apprehensive. Close as they were, they knew she wasn’t totally over the assault, not by a long shot. The man still pounced on her in her dreams every now and then; sometimes they were back in the park where it happened three years ago. Sometimes they were in a darkened vault or, worse, her bedroom, where she’d holed up for months afterwards at her parents’ house.
Inhaling a lungful of dusty air, she reminded herself in the side mirror that this was a chance at a new start, a new beginning.
‘I noticed your name, Kaya, means restful place in Zulu,’ Arno said now, thoughtfully. ‘Interesting, considering you chose a profession that doesn’t offer much rest.’
‘What?’ His observation broke into her daydream.
‘Still, I can’t see you in a library,’ he continued, ‘or an ashram. Not if your résumé is anything to go by.’
Kaya laughed nervously. Having someone she barely knew admitting to thinking about her and her history felt a little uncomfortable. But he was her mentor and employer, so, of course, he’d have some questions. And she’d do well to try and at least seem open. Something in his eyes as he looked at her sideways had her nerves rewiring the whole way up her arms.
‘What do you do for fun?’ he asked now.
That was an interesting question she didn’t quite know how to answer. There hadn’t been much fun for her, for a while.
‘I’ve done Pilates for a while. Kickboxing too,’ she replied carefully. ‘And you know how the Dutch love a peaceful bike ride.’
Arno laughed. A nice laugh. A laugh she wanted to hear more of, even though it administered a sharp shot of self-loathing that calmed her hummingbird heartbeat in a flash. How was Arno to know she still took the bus everywhere at night, instead of hopping back on her bike, as the Dutch did by default?
The ability to go anywhere alone after dark had abandoned her long ago. What if another faceless male vulture tried to steal her dignity, along with her belongings, like that guy...the one who got away? The one who had never been caught.
She hadn’t been able to prove a thing. The assault and the injustice had ruled everything for years, ruined her relationship. Pieter wound up cheating, saying he was forced to, because she wouldn’t let him near her, but could he really blame her after having a stranger almost rape her in a park? Just the smallest touch, or brush against her arm in a crowd, by anyone, not just him, had flooded her with panic and self-loathing.
She only hoped no one else came along and tried the same thing with her. Maybe this time they’d succeed in getting further than a handful of her breasts and a feel of her...
No, God, no...
‘You OK?’ Arno was looking at her in concern now and she drew her chin to her chest. ‘I know it all probably looks a little different from what you’re used to, and getting the wrong bus might have thrown you, but no harm will come to you on my watch. I can promise you that.’
Kaya turned to look at him. His last statement...that had sounded serious. As if he knew what she’d been through to get here—as if he possibly could.
‘That’s good to know. And thanks, I’m fine,’ she replied, noting how her heart was thudding wildly again in her chest, like a satellite that for years had been floating silently in space, and was finally now picking up a signal.
