Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (25 page)

We sheltered in Uganda that night, although neither of us slept well. I wish it had been the excitement knowing we’d soon be within communication range with the rest of the world again that made us restless, but for my part, at least, I saw the helicopter going down and heard the automatic fire from the outpost attack whenever I closed my eyes. Had the pilot or passenger survived? Had they radioed their position in before crashing? Had Mark and I been part of those communications? Were more soldiers already on their way? Would they dare cross the border to find us?

The optimism of the day fled away in the terrors brought by night.

In my arms, Mark rolled and pitched with nightmares of his own until we both gave up the attempt at sleep a couple of hours before dawn. Gus’s soft snores and the gorilla’s butt in the air beside us told us they weren’t plagued by the same memories or fears Mark and I were.

I punched at the buttons on my phone, futilely trying to bring the weak signal to life. A few more kilometers closer to the data tower would probably do it, but for now there just wasn’t enough there. I switched it off before I over-drained the battery.

“What if the men in that helicopter are still alive? What if they need medical attention?” Mark kept his voice low so as not to disturb our sleeping companions. “I keep thinking how I didn’t even check on them. And it was me who…who…” The distress in his voice pained my heart.

“My mother used to say that guilt is like a snake eating its tail. There is no start or stop to it, just an endless loop of consumption. If you hadn’t fired on them and they’d killed our
watoto
and captured us, you’d feel guilt over that. If you’d gone back to them and they were alive enough to shoot you and leave the rest of us abandoned, your spirit would feel eternal guilt over that. There was no right choice or wrong choice, only the choice you made. We’re safe. All of us. I cannot—will not—wish the choice you’d made was any different. The same with the hyenas you killed. I can wish the circumstances had not been so dire as to lead to the loss of such magnificent animals who were only doing what they had to for their pack to survive. But the choice you made then ensured Tamu and Nyota and Gus are with us today. And the choice you made yesterday ensures they’ll be with us tomorrow. Feel sadness, certainly. Anger even. But for giving us our lives, don’t give in to guilt.”

“Your mother was a very wise woman.” Mark laid a hand along my cheek—a strong and capable hand, a skilled and sensitive hand that carried in it the power of life and death. It was a hand I had come to love. “
You’re
a very wise woman.” He was quiet then for a long moment as the hand on my cheek found its way to the top button of my shirt, unfastened it and slid its way inside to cup my breast. “I bet your children will be wise as well,” he whispered.

Desire flushed me. Not sexual—although I was only a heartbeat away from that—but maternal. A sudden overwhelming
need
to have those children who would grow up wise. How crazy was that when I didn’t even have a home any longer for the wild orphans I already had?

I covered his hand on my breast with mine. “Only if their father helps teach them to be wise…and caring…and good.”

Settling into the spoon of his hips and the cup of his hand, all my anxieties fled. I closed my eyes and fell asleep, waking again only when the sun rose over our Uganda.

Eyes closed in wise and guiltless peace, Mark slumbered beside me.

By early afternoon we had covered another 10 kilometers and were already stumbling over dirt roads carved through the checkerboard of wide savanna and thinning rainforest. The first bar on the phone was strong now, and persistent, and a second bar flickered off and on. Attempts to contact my friends in Hasa, however, were met with silence. It would take a long time before the data towers there were functional again. Meanwhile, we were still just outside range of internet connectivity from the towers here. It wouldn’t be long, though, before we’d be able to bring up the information we needed to contact…who?

“Maybe the American consulate in Uganda,” Mark suggested.

“Yes, yes, for you. But what about us?” I gestured toward the rest of our ragtag group.

Mark shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? We’re all
us
.”

My heart warmed with his assertion. But, “The governments won’t see it that way—not yours, mine or Uganda’s.”

“Then screw them. We’ll appeal to Doctors MD…or the UN, if we have to.”

“Appeal? To do what?”

“To help relocate us.”

“To where?”

“To— Isn’t Ethiopia where you wanted to go?”

“It’s the only place I thought I could go under the circumstances. But circumstances changed. What about you? Where do you want to go?”

“Me?” He looked genuinely surprised. “I don’t really care. As long as I’m with you.” His expression fell. “That is— If you want— Hell, we need to talk about this, don’t we?”

Biting my lower lip, I shook my head. It seemed he had made his choice. My heart sung in silent ecstasy. “Just be sure it’s the choice you want.”

“It isn’t.”

Mid-song, my heart stopped beating.

“Because it isn’t a choice at all. Just like falling in love with you isn’t a choice. It just…
is
.”

  Had he just admitted the “L” word? I wasn’t sure my heart could survive the rollercoaster ride it was on. Why did saying something out loud make it feel more concrete than what the heart already knew? “In…love?” There was barely enough oxygen in all the jungle for me to get the words out.

“Oh god. You don’t feel the same.” The stricken look in his eyes cut deep.

“No.” I had only one desire—to kiss that hurt away. “I do. I really,
really
do.” My lips on his swore the truth of it.

The long arms that hugged our thighs and the cold nose that nudged its approval was as much a part of that truth as the rhino and okapi who circled close.

From the northeast, above the trees, came the drone of an engine. We both started, whirling toward the intruder, expecting to see a flock of enemy helicopters intent on running down their prey.

I don’t know which of us snorted out a nervous laugh first. It was a prop plane, the cycling whine of its single engine sounding nothing like the distinctive
thwocking
of a helicopter once we listened with less-panicked ears. As we watched, it swooped low over the valley, trailing a faint yellow smoke behind it.

No, not smoke. “Crop dusting,” I supposed, although I saw no sign of farms or crops where it flew.

“Mosquitocide,” Mark guessed. “It’s laying down a barrier outside the city. Uganda’s fighting back.” He grinned.

In a single moment, I realized my world revolved around that grin. I would still mourn the loss of Zahur, my plantation—that was needed, that was right—just as it was needed and right that I mourn Ushindi. But in that grin I saw what Mark saw—that, like us, Uganda was looking for a future too.

It felt like a good match, Uganda and us.

I nodded in silent agreement, the heart once again needing no words.

Arm-in-arm, hip-to-hip we watched the plane dip and turn, dip and turn while our babies browsed and played, safe beside us.

“Won’t you miss your home?” I asked. “Your family?”

He gave me a ‘Kayla’s crazy but I love her anyway’ look. “Home is where my family is. And you’re my family now. Although, wonderful as it already is, I wouldn’t mind creating a couple of wise little humans with a Mama Bear like you.”

Not every woman needed children to be fulfilled, but I had never envisioned my life without them. If not my own, then a host of human orphans to complement my wild ones.

I smiled, a coy and secret Mona Lisa curve, thinking back to the afternoon at the waterfall when Mark had filled me with his essence.  

“That day may be here sooner than you know.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “What—?”

I covered his lips with my fingers. “Call it ‘woman’s intuition’.”

“You can’t possibly know.”

“No.”

“But it
is
possible?”

“Yes.” I watched him carefully for any sign of regret or indecision. There was only joy.

In a flash, he lifted up my shirt and bent to kiss the hollow of my stomach. Gripping the back of his neck, I held him there as a mix of hormones and desire tingled up and down my legs and electrified me to the core.

Not willing to be left out, the other strays gathered close. I stood above them, feeling like First Woman, Eve, the All-Mother. Then I lifted my consort, my protector, my lover to his feet.

There in the shadow of the Mountains of the Moon, in the cradle of civilization, we kissed. Long and sweet and deep under the Ugandan sun, our kiss went on and on, echoing back to our ancestors and forward to the generations to come.

We were home.

We were family.

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Did you miss any of the other books in the WILD HEARTS ROMANCE SERIES?

BRAVE HEARTS
(Book 1 in the Wild Hearts Romance Series)

Lose your heart to Wild Romance!

Running from the memories of his devastated heart, ex-special ops veteran Peter Lawson hires on as a ranger at a Tanzanian animal sanctuary owned by Nicky Tarentino, a disillusioned Illinois veterinarian recently relocated to Africa.

The physical attraction is instant, the sex easy, but it will take the grief of a ‘problem’ elephant—who, shattered by the loss of her family, is as broken and wounded on the inside as Peter—along with the heartbreak of an orphaned elephant calf before Nicky and Peter will be able face the sorrow of their pasts and, just maybe, learn to trust and love again.