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

Hindsight told me I should have grabbed my medical bag when I’d fled the rebel camp. Had I known I’d need heavy-duty pain meds so immediately, I wouldn’t have left those behind.

“If you’re staying, we need to get you inside,” my benefactor said, her tone brisked with worry for her friend, for me, perhaps for Ushindi in general.

Trying to distract myself from the pain, I focused on the smooth lines of her heart-shaped face, the olive-tan coloring of her skin that seemed as much natural as sunbaked in, and the moody depths of her espresso-washed eyes.

When she turned away, I followed her across the planked veranda, losing myself in the soft sway of her hips. When she laid her hand on the door latch, an anxious whine and the scrabble of big claws on hard floor drew my attention instead.

“
Sawa-sawa
, Gus,” she seemed to assure the beast as she eased her way in and took its collar before gesturing me inside. I was almost through the door when a bundle of black energy swept past, bumping against me as it launched itself at my host with a screech.

“No, Jengo.” The woman’s voice was stern as she put her free hand on the shoulder of the young primate attempting to scale her legs.

She threw me an apologetic look as I eased around the three pairs of eyes tracking my progress.

“I’ve lived on a university campus most of my life,” I told her as way of excuse for my trepidation. “I don’t have much experience with dogs or”—was I really about to say it?—“monkeys.”

“Gorilla,” she corrected. “Jengo’s still a baby—a toddler—and pretty much
mvulana mama ya
—a mama’s boy.”

With a face only a mother could love, I thought as I stared at the deep folds of skin under his impossibly huge eyes and the wrinkle of his wide, flat nose. “Quite a family.”

She smiled. “This is only half of it. The boys. Wait’ll you meet the girls.”

I arched my brows her way.

“Later,” she said, releasing the collar she still held. “After we get you cleaned up.”

The big black-and-tan dog padded obediently beside her, the gorilla’s hand in hers as she led the way to the kitchen, an open, airy room dominated by two large picture windows that looked out over the planted rainforest. I collapsed in one of the chairs around a small round dining table. The gorilla swung up into the chair next to me and the dog sat in the middle of the kitchen while the woman rattled efficiently about in the cupboards and refrigerator. Just as efficiently, she dropped a treat between the dog’s expectant jaws as she walked by, handed the gorilla a mango, pressed a liter bottle of cold water into my hand, and dropped a plastic vial of pills on the table beside a bottle of… I peered at the label.

“Penicillin?”

A sterile package containing a needle and syringe fell on the table beside the bottle.

She shrugged. “We’re pretty isolated out here. I like to be prepared. It came from a veterinary supply catalog, but I’m guessing your ribs won’t know the difference.”

I checked the label on the pill vile. “Percocet?”

“That…didn’t…come from the catalog. Don’t ask. Just take.”

“Thank you.” I swigged down a couple of the pills and drew up a syringeful of penicillin while she busied herself getting a bowl of soapy water, a washcloth, a clean sheet and scissors.

Dried blood plastered my shirt to the wound. She handed me the wet washcloth and I held it to my side. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Kayla. Van den Berg.”

“German?” My eyes must have registered my surprise because she smiled.

“Dutch. Ushindi was part of the Congo until 2003. Well, the DRC—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was a Belgian colony through much of the last two centuries. The Republic of the Congo to the west was a French colony. It’s a terribly complicated—and bloody—situation. But my baba was Belgian, from a long line of Belgian aristocracy who went out of favor in the Second World War. But by then, Baba’s grandparents and great grandparents had made Zahur their home.”

From context, I figured out
baba
meant father. But, “Zahur?”

“That’s what they named this plantation. It’s Swahili for blossom. They wanted a name that fit culturally.”

“But you don’t look—” I caught myself. “I’m sorry. The Percocet must be kicking in.”

She laughed, an easy sound that held not the slightest bit of rancor at what she could have taken as an insult. “And what, it’s making you hallucinate?”

“No, I didn’t mean—what I meant —” Damn, no matter what I said to explain my intent I was screwed. She was going to think me an insensitive jerk. “You’re beautiful. Stunning even. I just didn’t expect —” I couldn’t leave well enough alone somehow, and just kept digging myself in further. I figured now was a good time to strip off my shirt, rip it off the wound. I deserved that pain right about now.

Gritting my teeth, I gripped the hem. Soft hands covered mine, moved them aside. Dark eyes stared straight into mine. With a quick tug, she jerked the shirt up, over the wound. The pain wasn’t nearly as intense as I thought it would be. Until I tried lifting my left arm so she could pull the shirt away completely. Instead, I had to shrug my right arm out awkwardly and then let her work it off my left.

Just more awkwardness to add to an already awkward situation. Maybe, though, it was enough to distract her.

We both examined the bullet trail. It’d actually gone through, slicing the intercostal space between the sixth and seventh ribs, back to front. One or both of those ribs was possibly shattered. And the cartilage was definitely a mess. Two inches in and up and my lung would have been involved too. As it was, painful though it might be, I had been very…very…lucky.

I leaned to my right, and Kayla took the needle off the syringe and dribbled the penicillin over the wound. As gently as possible, she pushed the rounded nub of the syringe into the bullet hole from the front and squirted the penicillin in as far as it would go, repeating the same from the back as well. Then she cut long strips of cloth from the sheet and wound them around my chest with warm and comfortable hands.

It occurred to me I hadn’t had to instruct her in any of this. Under the circumstances, she did exactly what I would have done, as competently as I would have done it. As competently as any medic in the field would have acted.

With a safety pin she found in a kitchen drawer, she pinned the bandaging in place, then backed off a step to eye it over. I got the feeling it wasn’t just the bandaging she was inspecting.

I responded as any red-blooded American male would. By rolling back my shoulders, lifting my chest and sucking in my gut. It was with some pride I noted I didn’t have much to suck.

Nodding her satisfaction, Kayla turned to cleaning up the table. With the sixth sense only a mother could possess, she produced a ball from who knows where and bounced it across the table just as Jengo reached an inquisitive hand toward the bottle of Percocet . Kayla swept the meds into her own hand as the little gorilla hand chased the ball instead.

Without missing a beat, she dropped another treat into the dog’s waiting jaws, sat down beside me, and snapped off a bite-sized piece of a king-sized candy bar for the gorilla before handing me the rest. Nick-of-time sugar to boost my flagging insulin levels.

“You can crash in the guestroom,” she said. “Gus will let us know if anyone comes around who shouldn’t be here.”

“Why are you doing this—for me?”

She looked at me as if she thought the meds or the pain was making me talk like a crazy man. “Why wouldn’t I?”

I could think of a dozen personal-safety reasons off the top of my head.

“Besides”—her mouth quirked in an utterly charming way—“I think you look pretty stunning too.”

As a matter of fact, the doctor did look stunning—high cheekbones, five o’clock shadow and cinnamon-dark eyes coupled with a body that was muscular but not so full of definition as to be overplayed. I wondered if he had scars or hidden tattoos, and I caught my imagination wandering toward places it had no business being. I knew nothing of this man, and in all likelihood would know little more of him before he left. His people would be missing him and arranging to bring him back.

The
breep
of my phone startled us both.

The display flashed
Sefu
, one of the plantation workers. “
Habari ya mchana
.” The customary greeting, though, somehow rang hollow today.

“
Habari, jumbe,
” he returned the greeting, dismissively but politely as most of the tribesmen were taught by their mothers. Calling me
boss
now came hard for some still. “Jamal says his wife is ill. That a doctor thinks it is the new sickness that comes from Sudan. Is it true?”

“Is Jamal given to telling untruths?”

“Of course not,
jumbe
. But I did not know there was a doctor here.”

I looked at Mark. “He’s an…unexpected…visitor.”

Sefu took a moment to absorb that. “But if it is true about Jamal’s wife—”

“Lisha,” I cut in. He knew her name and I would insist he use it.

“—Lisha,” he repeated impatiently, and I recognized perhaps now was not the best time to instruct a Bemba tribesmen on the equality of women, “then we are all at risk. There is talk, too, of civil war. Secret radio messages and secret texts. My brother is with the Congolese army. He is coming here tomorrow to take me, my wife and the
mtoto
to Bukavu in South Kivu.”

“You’re leaving?” I didn’t expect that.

“
Nydio, jumbe
. Tomorrow.”

“Will you be back?”

There was a long moment of silence. “Only if the world should change.”

“I wish it was already changed.” I sighed. “Come by if you need anything before you go. I will see you get it.”

“
Asante
,” he thanked me. “But to go south is what my family needs most right now.”

“I understand. But I still want to help if I can.”

“I will sleep on it.
Kwaheri
.”

“
Kwaheri
.” That goodbye wasn’t supposed to feel like forever.

Mark and I exchanged a look as I hung up.
The beginning of the end
, it said. But there were still practical matters at hand to attend.

“I have some of my baba’s clothes still. It looks like they might fit. Go take a shower and rest. I’ll leave some things in your room and you can try them on after you’ve napped.”

When he didn’t argue, I knew the excitement, the danger, the wound and now the Percocet were taking their toll.

Come to think of it, given my current stress level, I could use a nap as well.

But there were too many things happening all at once, and my brain was much too busy right now to slow down enough to sleep. So, while Mark napped, I sat with my laptop, mapping out all the ways things could go all sideways in a hurry.

I wondered if Mark would be something that would go sideways too.

It was early evening, with the sun falling toward the horizon, when Mark woke. A pair of Baba’s bush shorts and a tan, sleeveless, button-up shirt seemed to fit him well enough. I nodded my approval. “Feeling better?”

“Healthwise, yeah, actually. About being in Ushindi right now, still not so much.”

I couldn’t fault him there. “Up for a walk?”

“If it’s a short one and doesn’t wind me up in some rebel camp, sure.”

“We’re good on both counts.” I hefted the backpack I’d just finished loading to my shoulder.

It didn’t matter how many times we’d been through this ritual, Gus and Jengo acted like it was the first time. The Rottweiler danced and circled, his long tail whipping in excitement. Jengo clutched my hand, jumping up and down, tugging me toward the door.

“Right. Let’s go then.”

“Must be quite the walk,” Mark said as he followed Gus and Jengo out the door I held open.

I led Mark past the gardens and into the wilds of Zahur’s greenbelt, a long, narrow strip of rainforest fenced to either side that would never be cleared—a stewardship of the generations of my family who’d honored the diversity that was our mountain.

“It’s…beautiful.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for Mark’s validation of my biased view until he’d given it. Why did it matter what an outsider thought of Zahur?

“You’ll find a lot of micro-holdings—two or three acres each—out here, but plantations of this size that are still family owned are quite rare.”

“Why’s that?” Mark’s interest seemed real enough. Or maybe he simply needed the distraction.

“Economic pressure. Over the years most of the original plantation owners have been forced to sell to larger holdings—new owners who live thousands of kilometers away, from the Middle East to Europe to America. They have no love for the land, only the profits it can produce. Every year more of the mountain’s rainforests get cut and planted. And more of the mountain’s animals are driven out.”

If it were
this
mountain alone losing habitat, the world could bear its wound. But it was spreading, as fast as men’s greed could manage. Scarring mountain after mountain, nation after nation—Ushindi, Ethiopia, Uganda. Not all the animals on Mt. Stanley could flee as the machines came in to fell the forests. Those that could fled east, braving the Rwenzori range, or north toward Lake Albert, or south to Lake Edward, or west across the Great Rift that split its way through the heart of Africa.

“A Greek philosopher once saw these peaks and named them the Mountains of the Moon,” I told Mark. “For generations, even before they were rediscovered, Europeans believed they were the birthplace of the Nile, perhaps even where the race of men arose. When British explorers came, they ignored the names our tribes had given the great mountains, and instead claimed them under British rule and gave them Western names.”

Colonial rule might have been abandoned, but the subjugation of the land continued. Multi-peaked Mt. Stanley rose like a guardian dominating our eastern sky. On the other side lay Uganda. There, civilization spread more slowly, but like the
Subs
virus-bearing mosquitoes swarming down from Sudan, men would overrun Uganda’s pristine wilderness soon enough, carrying destruction like a plague with them.

Did Uganda have any more defense against that inevitability than we had defense against
Subs
?

“And what of us here in Ushindi? Will the threat of plague drive us from our homeland? How far can we run, if so? And can any of us run far enough?” It was a somber topic for a walk through paradise. I should not have followed that trail of despondency, not out here where nature still prevailed.

“Not that I could ever leave here,” I assured Jengo, who gripped tight to my hand as we walked along.

Gus’s sudden bound, accompanied by a furious wag of tail, told me welcome company was on its way. A perfect diversion from civil wars, plagues and economic woes.

With a grin, I watched Mark’s expression as two creatures crashed out of the underbrush, running full tilt toward us.