Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (15 page)

I would have felt guilty spending more time in bed with Kayla if our extracurricular activities were distracting either of us from actual work. As it was, with the Internet down, I reasoned we were simply exchanging one kind of interface time for another. Besides, the rain effectively dampened our ability to spend that time outdoors.

Lucky for us, the cows had already been milked and the guineas fed and their eggs collected. In fact, before the jeep sped off down the mountain a couple of hours later, one of the wives delivered a bucket of milk and six fresh eggs. By then, Kayla and I had untwined ourselves long enough to bottle-feed the two babies in the paddock and to leave them a couple of flakes of dry hay from the storage shed.

Aside from lunch, that left our afternoon wide open until evening chore time rolled around. What better way to occupy ourselves while Gus and Jengo napped than with another round of healthy adult play between the sheets?

In gray daylight, Kayla was as beautiful as in candle flame—her skin as soft, her lips as full, her welcome as urgent, her passion as high. She alternated between giver and taker with equal ease. My flesh was flame beneath her touch, my soul rapture itself when we kissed. And when she held me in the darkness between her legs as we labored together as one, reaching, reaching, reaching for that scintillating point of ecstasy, my heart…

My heart was in danger, clear and simple.

I was in her still, spasms shuddering through us in the aftermath, our breaths deep and rasped as they slowed, as we slowed, spent with satisfaction, when something in the room, the house, changed. At first I thought it was my imagination until I realized Kayla’s adoring stare into my eyes had shifted and she was listening intently to the drum of rain high on the roof above.

No, she was listening beyond that, not for any distant sounds of alarm, but for something closer, something wrapped in the silence of the house. Her gaze shifted to the fan above us, and I knew just when she did that it was the silence itself that was out of place.

“The electricity’s gone off.” A hint of worry crept into her eyes.

“It’s a storm. That happens. Right?”

The worry deepened. “Sure. But when militants are out blowing up data towers, how easy would it be to take out a couple of transformers along the way?”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, but what I do know is if I worked for the power company and there were militants running around out there with rifles and explosives, I wouldn’t be too keen on heading up a remote mountain to find out why the power’s off. And even when trees and storms take down a line, it’s usually a couple of days before power’s restored in the best of times.”

“So no electricity for a while.” I swore I could already feel the temperature going up even though the rain was moderating the normally hot and humid day.

“There’s a generator.”

I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when she added, “Only…” That she hesitated put me further on edge.

“Only?” I prompted.

“It takes petrol to run. There’s whatever’s left in its tank from the last time we had it on and—”

“There’s no more gas,” I finished for her.

She gave me an impatient look. “We have a 100 gallon tank that we use to refill the vehicles and petrol-powered equipment on the plantation. It should be close to full. Only…”

“I’m beginning to hate the word
only
.”

“I don’t want to leave.” Her earnest look tore through me. “But if we have to leave anytime soon, it’ll be because things out there are bad, and getting worse. I doubt we’ll be able to count on much of anything being available on the road—including petrol. If we have to take the van into South Sudan or the DRC—it’s a gas hog and the mountains don’t help. We’ll need, I don’t know, maybe 50 gallons to get out of here. And if there’s panic in Hasa and everyone’s on the road fleeing, that’ll use up all the resources between here and whatever cities are big enough to accommodate a caravan of refugees.”

For someone so bent on not leaving, she’d certainly thought through the plan for doing just that. Contingency planning. Anticipating needs ahead of time. I continued to admire that caretaker streak of hers.

“We can run the generator a couple of days. By then, we’d better know what’s going on in Hasa.”

“Will this rain be over by then?” I asked, quietly so as to upset her as little as possible since we both knew the answer to that. Dirt roads would be deteriorating soon, with no way in or out of Zahur. And with all communications cut off, how would we know anything of what was happening in Hasa?

“You know all that work we weren’t having to do?” She grimaced. “Well, we’ve got a buttload ahead of us now, whichever way we decide to use that petrol.”

We waited an hour to see if the power would miraculously kick back on before firing up the generator. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. We agreed on running the generator two days, then reassessing. If we miscalculated and waited too long in making our decision, the rain would make it for us. Washed-out roads would mean we were stuck here until things dried out, or until our gasoline or resolve ran out. We did have plenty of food and other staples—Kayla had seen to that. Another change of clothes would be welcome, I thought—the workers had only managed to bring me one shirt from town—but of course Kayla was one step ahead on that as well.

In the locked wardrobe of the guest room—my room, though I doubted I’d sleep there again—Kayla had stored a few more of her father’s clothes beyond the shirt and shorts she’d already provided me with. I was a little taller and broader all around than her dad had been, but we found a roomy pair of elastic-wasted shorts and a couple of tribal tunics. Kayla had to show me how to fit one of them over one shoulder then drape it down. I think it should have gone to my knees, but it hit me mid-thigh. Once on and adjusted, the fit was remarkably comfortable and the design remarkably cool, although going commando under a tunic was a completely different experience from going commando under scrubs or shorts. At least one part of me highly approved of the extra freedom extended it. Freedom it was going to need often so long as Kayla and I were going to be bunked so close.

Intentional or not, we were in that honeymoon phase, our hormone factories running overtime, churning out pheromones and, in my case, testosterone by the bushel load. That chemistry between two lovers so often discussed as being some sort of mysterious, indefinable force was exactly what it professed to be on the tin—a chemical response between two people that resulted in exactly what Nature’s ultimate goal for every species was—sexual attraction.

Percocet aside, I was on a chemical high and in a near-constant state of arousal, seduced not just by Kayla’s exquisite outer beauty and those maternal behavior traits that I hadn’t even realized were such strong triggers for me, but by her very smell, the hormones exuded in the delicacy of her sweat that tickled the primal receptors in my nasal cavity and wakened my lizard brain to her charms.

And once wakened, there was no putting the lizard-genie back in his bottle. Proximity kept refueling the hormone factories like gasoline refueling the generator. Kayla and I fed off one another. So much so that the moment we got out of bed, my primary urge was getting her back in it again, of getting me back into her again.

The honeymoon loop.

Recognizing what it was, however, gave me no control over it. I could no more banish it away than I could have willed myself well from the
Subs
virus. As a student doctor, I had studied chemical stimuli and its addictive properties. It was no great mystery to me why we resonated so well together.

It was all chemistry. Cold and scientific. Quantifiable.

Because if it wasn’t, if there were some other non-empirical driving force behind my craving for Kayla, my need for her body, my admiration of her soul, then I would have to admit I was falling in—

No.

It was lizard-brain sex triggered by chemical and hormonal rises in my body in turn triggered by similar rises in Kayla. That was simple, direct, uncomplicated.

The other thing was complex, messy and made for illogical decisions. Bad decisions.

And right now I needed to make a good decision about how to get out of Ushindi and back to my career—my life—in the States. What I didn’t need was that other thing complicating that.

We had agreed to two days to figure out our plans.

Doctors MD knew where I was. Even if they couldn’t get me a flight out, they wouldn’t abandon me here. They could surely get a medical helicopter in, or an army chopper if they needed firepower. America didn’t abandon their own.

Did they?

But was I prepared to abandon Kayla?

“Ready?”

Mark leaned in close and watched with fascination as I circled my thumb and forefinger around the base of the swollen appendage.

“Squeeze firmly.” A bubble of froth appeared at the tip. “Use your other fingers to stroke down. Be firm. Stay in command. Strip it dry.”

At my encouragement, a stream of white fluid arrowed out into the bucket beneath. “Release the pressure. Give it a couple of seconds to refill, then repeat. Meanwhile, your other hand is squeezing while this one's resting. An alternating rhythm. See?”

Milk streamed in to the bucket from the second teat I was holding then from the first then the second again. The cow munched on a bit of dry hay, happy to have the pressure on her swollen udder relieved.

With a look of fierce determination, Mark positioned himself beside a second cow. It took a couple of clumsy attempts to get the feel and rhythm down, but once he had it, his fingers moved with the same strength and confidence he manipulated me with.

Lucky cow
.

We were just starting on our third and last cow each when the distinctive
thwock-thwock
of a low-flying helicopter sounded over the drum of the rain. We hurried to the edge of the pole barn, each of us hiding behind one of the massive timbers holding up the tin roof as we scanned the rain-filled sky.

We didn't have to look far. The helicopter flew almost directly over the barn, no more than 30 meters as it circled the cluster of dome homes then flew a reconnaissance pass over the main house.

“It's unmarked,” Mark cautioned.

Not that I needed his warning to stay back and out of sight. There was something hostile and predatory in the pattern it flew. No search-and-rescue mission this—it was on the hunt. A glimpse of the camouflaged man in the co-pilot seat cradling a rifle as the helicopter dipped through another pass clinched it.

“Definitely an unfriendly,” I called to Mark over the rotor noise. He nodded that he'd heard.

Surely they wouldn't land—not in mud already deep enough to cake the rubber boots I'd found for us to trudge our way to the barn in. Although those ski runners might provide a defense against the mud. My heart beat wildly as I waited to see what it would do. I could picture Gus barking his head off in the house and a frightened Jengo running from room to room and window to window to see if he could find me. Even the normally sedate cows here in the barn were becoming agitated from the noise. I could only imagine how my rhino and okapi must be huddling together in fear as the copter swooped overhead.

As frightened as I was for myself and Mark, I was just as frightened for my orphans. And here I was separated from them. If the helicopter or the men threatened them in any way...

I balled my fists and prepared to run.

The helicopter swooped down in another low and menacing pass before lifting back up just under the cloud base and heading east toward the next plantation.

I didn't realize I was trembling until Mark crossed over and curled his arms around me.

“You would have run, wouldn't you have?”

I looked at him. Did he think I was trembling out of fear for myself?

“To save those strays of yours. You would've gone. Men, rifles—you would've gone.”

I relaxed. He didn't think I was a coward after all, although why that mattered so much, I didn't know. “Call me Mama Bear.”

“I'd like to call you a lot of things.
Foolish
is at the top of that list. But I think”—he placed a relieved hand under my chin and tilted my face to his—“Mama Bear suits you best.”

He lowered his lips to mine, searing them with benediction and branding them with tolerance of who and what I was. Maybe he wouldn’t jeopardize himself for my brood, but he could accept that I thought they were worth taking a risk for. That was a beginning, at least, wasn’t it?

But a beginning to what?

The gravity-flow petrol tank stood on stilts just outside one of the equipment sheds. In rubber boots thick with mud, we made our way from the cow shed to the house to deliver the heavy pails of milk, then to the petrol tank. From the equipment shed, I retrieved a 5-gallon polyethylene container and snaked the fill hose from the spigot on the overhead tank into the smaller container, filling it just over halfway.

Carrying back only three to four gallons at a time would mean double the trips through the streaming rain to keep the generator full, but lugging more down the kilometer-long mud drive, while not beyond my strength, was at the upper limit of it.

Mark’s wound hampered him still. He hadn’t complained about carrying half the milk back, but I had caught him wincing as we slipped and slid our way across the slick mud.

“Let me take that,” he offered, looking relieved I hadn’t filled the bulky container to the top. He stood there gallantly, but the Percocet was wearing off, and I saw the lines of strain on his face from the stress of our situation and the toll from slogging across the plantation through all this damn mud.

I compromised on his manhood and his pain. “Okay, but only as far as that tall tree there.” I pointed to the tree I meant that was about halfway to the house. “Then we trade off. Deal?” I waited till he nodded, then handed him the container sloshing with petrol while I shut off and secured the overhead tank.

He hefted the container. “I don’t remember four gallons being this heavy before. Or am I that weak?”

“Imperial gallons,” I reminded him. There’s about 20% more than in a U.S. gallon if I remember my conversion tables right.”

Dark clouds over the mountain threatened to turn the stream of rain into another storm squall soon. I scowled at them. “I really wish radar was up so we could time our outdoor chores to lulls in the rain. How did anybody function before technology?”

“Poorly, I’m going to bet.” Mark and I struck off down the muddied drive heading for our trail-marking tree. “They just didn’t realize it. The same way we don’t realize now how our children and grandchildren will look back at
us
and wonder how we struggled through without computer implants and hover cars.”

I shared the obligatory chuckle with him, but my mind was more on the four little words he’d thrown out so carelessly—
our children and grandchildren
. Had that word choice simply been a figure of speech, or was Mark sending a subtle message? Maybe even expressing some hidden desire? Or was I reading some sort of buried desire of my own into it?

What irony. If I didn’t have an inkling about psychology, I wouldn’t know just enough to ask the questions, and I would have happily and ignorantly gone on about my business instead of nearly missing our arrival at the marker tree. And sometimes, I reminded myself as I took the container from Mark with an insistent hand, an expression is just an expression. My fingers brushed his on the handle as he settled the weight of his burden into my hands.

He caught my smirk. “What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking about the future.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Ours.”

I nearly dropped the petrol.

He slid his hand around my waist. “Wondering how we might occupy ourselves once the sun goes down.”

I relaxed, although a part of me wondered why another part seemed vaguely disappointed, because a third part was already starting to cream at the idea of another night with Mark.

Although maybe the disappointment and the eagerness weren’t mutually exclusive after all.

It was, indeed, a complex world in which we lived.

Before we could snuggle in for a dry night, Mark and I made a hurried trip to feed Tamu and Nyota and to comfort them after the helicopter fly-by. They seemed nervous, but that could easily have been due to the rain and staying cooped up. Whatever the reason, they were happy to see Mark and me, their bottles, and another dry flake of hay to keep their tummies full.

Much could be endured on a full stomach.

We left them with fat kisses on their noses and promises of love whispered in their ears. Well, that’s what I whispered. I couldn’t be sure what Mark promised them.

As we hurried across the paddock, the storm squall rolled over us, blasting down sheets of rain in unexpected fury. By the time we flung ourselves through the kitchen door, we were drenched to the bone. Funny how more water could possibly sound good, but all I craved right then was a hot shower.

“There’s enough water?” Mark asked as we headed for the bathroom to strip off our wet things.

“The two 5000-litre collection tanks you’ve seen outside on the west side of the house are feeding in rainwater for showering, washing and general cleaning. We could boil that water for cooking and drinking, but there’s also a well for that. The collection tanks work on gravity to move the water, but for any real water pressure they and the well run off electric pumps and feed through separate electric water heaters. So they need electricity for us to be comfortable. But since it’s all private water, it can’t be cut off like the power. All this rain will keep the collection tanks full. And I’m willing to spend a gallon of petrol so we can have a hot shower or two over the next couple of days. But we’ll have to make them short. So no extracurricular fun while the water’s running.”

“Like camping. Think ahead. Conserve.”

I gave Mark the side-eye. “Just how often have you camped?”

“In theory,” he amended. “Although I did go to the Catskills once in an RV with a friend.”

“Friend?” Why should the thought of him on vacation with a woman upset me?

He must have noted my discomfort because he gave me a long, slow look before confessing, “It was just a guy I knew. Our first time.”

“A
guy
?” My voice squeaked in surprise, for which I was immediately ashamed. I always fancied myself open-minded and unbigoted. It had just been unexpected. At least that’s what I excused myself with.

Mark nodded, lost for a moment in memory. “Frank Muldoon. Blond, great at sports, came from a monied family. The things he taught me…” Mark lifted a brow my way. “We did more than drive and camp that trip, let me tell you.”

“Oh?” I tried to keep my tone noncommittal.

“Oh, yeah. Spelunking, slingshots…”

Apparently I wasn’t as up on my gay slang as I needed to be. I could make some good guesses what those terms might be euphemisms for, though.

“I had only dreamed about taking something 9 or 10 inches before that trip, but Frank and I did it a dozen times that week.”

I definitely didn’t need to be listening to these kinds of exploits from the man I was about to shower with. I didn’t care if it was Frank or Francesca. I squirmed.

“Fish.” Mark grinned.

“Huh?”

“Nine- or 10-inch
fish
. Frank and I were eleven. I went camping with his family.”

I was slow on the uptake. “So you never…?”

“Not with Frank.”

Damn that sly look. Was he still messing with me, or…

He laughed. “Not with any guy. Never tempted. Although I’ve had a few good friends put the offer on the table if I ever were. That’s flattering, and it’s nice to know the option’s always there, if other things don’t work out. But I like women. One woman right now in particular.” He stroked my wet hair.