Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (8 page)

“I’d like to do more.” I left it open-ended because I wasn’t sure how welcome an insertion of myself into all her everyday—and everynight—activities might be. But when she hesitated, I panicked, afraid to lose the bond I felt building between us. “I
need
to do more.
For
you.” I leaned in close, my nose against the honeyed shine of her dark hair where each breath could lift its strands in gentle waves. “
To
you,” I whispered.

She went still, her body language unreadable.

Every muscle in my body contracted uncomfortably as I waited for her response—any response.

Had I confessed too much too early?

Had I dared too far?

I bit my lower lip, not from any doubt as every muscle in my body made me feel quite sure I needed him as much as he professed he needed me—physically. Watching him help funnel milk into the bottles and screw on the nippled lids also triggered emotions from deep within that had nothing to do with simple sex, though, and all to do with something he didn’t have right now to give, at least not here with me—time to build any sort of a future.

A week, two weeks maximum, and he’d be gone. Eleven thousand kilometers away. Despite my body’s best efforts to assure me otherwise, sex without intimacy and the promise of greater possibilities would be hollow and ultimately unfulfilling. Disappointing even. At least it would be, with a partner like Mark—someone with whom my hormones seemed to connect. Someone who made more than just my skin tingle when he breathed over it through full and sensual lips.

There was no question the pleasure we could have together. But I feared its cost. The greater the pleasure short-term, the deeper and longer the pain when he left. An inverse proportionality that was as cold and rational as any equation. Or like drugs, I thought, to any addict. The higher the high, the worse the withdrawal. The only way to prevent the plunge on the other side was to say
no
to the ride up in the first place.

But where did the strength to say
no
over and over when my body was demanding
yes
come from?

When his lips were so near mine? When his dark eyes were bright with invitation? When long fingers promised intimate caresses? When that broad chest offered a personal playground to explore? And when the shadowed, hidden length of him twitched with the vow of profound passion?

All it would take to start us on a path of blinding, insatiable hunger would be a single, whispered word. A word begged from me by the depths of my own desires. A word that was perfect, simple, sublime…

“No.” I whispered that other word as gently as I could.

The hurt that sprang into his eyes deserved an explanation no matter how difficult putting my reasoning into words might be. And this man deserved more than an
it’s not you, it’s me
. “What you’re asking me—”

“Is too much too soon?” He was trying to be helpful, but he so didn’t get it.

“Is not enough.”

His eyes darkened as the pain in them smoldered away to be replaced by stung pride.

“You haven’t seen how much— Oh, that’s not what you mean, is it?”

I handed him the rhino’s bottle, scooped up the other two bottles along with a handful of dog treats and the gorilla’s squeaky banana, held my hand out to Jengo, and motioned Mark out the door. He held it open while Gus, Jengo and I trooped out.

Baby rhino and okapi bleats greeted us from the paddock fence.

“You,” I told him as we walked down to the gate, “are a gorgeous man. I’m beginning to suspect you have an equally gorgeous heart and soul, as well. I’m also pretty sure how much of
that
you have,” I threw a quick look and smile in the direction of his
that
, “is more than adequate.”

“But—?”

I opened the gate and the okapi charged past us in a dazzle of stripes, coming to an inpatient halt a few dozen kilometers out by the edge of the forest. Tamu trotted through, flicking her tail with excitement.

“But you’ll be leaving soon. When I do the math, short-term fun doesn’t stack up against long-term disappointment.”

“Even without strings?”

“In my world, there are always strings. And every string leads to a loss. My mother. My father. Lisha soon. These orphans.” We settled in the clearing, and I handed Jengo his bottle before Tamu and Nyota came crowding in. I held up the remaining two bottles for Mark to choose from. Unsurprisingly he chose the larger. It was clear he’d developed a special affinity for the little rhino.

“I thought losing these babies to the wild was why you were raising them in the first place.”

“That doesn’t make it easy. They’ll take a piece of my heart when they go. I do know some people don’t attach like I do. I can think about being like them, strive to be them, but in the end, I know I’ll never be them. I’m not wired that way.” I watched the way Mark settled beside the little rhino and tipped the bottle to her eager mouth—all ease and confidence and delight, chuckling at the way she squeezed her tiny eyes shut as soon as the milk began to flow.

“It’s a compliment to you really,” I added as Nyota suckled at the bottle I held.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Me already knowing I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

“I think,” he said, very distinctly, “I’ll be sorry to be going. I might even wish—” He shook his head, apparently realizing too late what he was saying out loud.

“If wishes were zebras,” I finished for him.

“I’m guessing that’s one of those traditional Dutch-African sayings?”

On top of those admirable physical qualities, why did he have to be smart and funny too? I wondered how often Fate missed the mark—right person, wrong place, wrong time. Couldn’t she have tried a little harder?

It could have been awkward between us after that, but it wasn’t. Not even for the 30 minutes after all our charges had finished their milk and treats and were napping and we had only each other to talk to.

“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Take them in when you know it will break your heart to release them?”

I shrugged. “How could I not? Isn’t a broken heart better than a dead heart?”

What nerve I struck, I didn’t know, but he went very still at that. “Isn’t it better to not feel so deeply?”

“Better? It would mean making different choices, interacting with people and animals—even the rainforest and the plantation—differently. But then that would make me a different person. I don’t know whether that different person would be better or not. Do you think she would be?”

He thought about the answer, deeply and sincerely, as though it were a personal demon of his he struggled with. “No,” he said at last. “I think not feeling would give you a hard edge, and there are too many hard-edged people—male and female—already in the world.” He took a deep, confessional breath. “Like me.”

“You?”

My surprise caught him off guard. “I don’t connect with people—my patients—on the level I should.”

“Are you saying you don’t care about them?”

“Of course I care!” That sounded defensive. “I just force myself to care intellectually not emotionally.”

“Don’t you need that separation as a doctor? I would think that’s what gives you the ability to help your patients make the hard choices.”

“I think a good doctor needs a healthy marriage between the two—heart and intellect. I’m told I could do with a little more heart at the bedside.”

“You seem to be connecting pretty well with Tamu. Lots of genuine smiles and laughter and patience there.”

His mouth quirked, and I couldn’t stop the flash of memory of just how kissable those quirking lips could be. “It’s different out here. None of this is my job.”

“My father once told me it takes three things to run a plantation: mind, heart and intuition. A mind to manage all the business of negotiations and logistics; intuition to time the seasons, plantings and harvesting and to ensure the balance of wild and tame on our mountain; and heart to deal with all the people we rely on to make our business a success.”

“I’m sorry I never got to meet your father. He sounds like an amazing man.”

“He was also a very warm and principled man. A man who was the same on the job as he was off. Intellect didn’t make him any harsher as a husband and father, and emotion didn’t make him any less effective as a businessman. Tell me something—why are you here? In Ushindi?”

“Because it’s where I was sent. I told Doctors MD I had no preference as to location.”

“Were you required to sign up with them?”

“No. They’re a volunteer organization.”

“And you volunteered, why?”

“The timing was right. I don’t have my own practice yet. Although it’s been recommended that I might be better suited for research. I was planning on coming to a decision about that while I was here.”

“That tells me why you volunteered
now
, but not why you volunteered in the first place.”

“I agree with the work they’re doing and wanted to be a part of that.”

“Why?”

“Because…” It finally dawned on him what I was trying to get him to say. He sighed. “Because I care.”

“Spoken like a true Tin Man.” I smiled. “It’s not that you don’t have a heart. I think it’s that you’re too afraid for some reason to admit that you do. Maybe because you’re afraid of it being broken.”

“’Better a broken heart than a dead one.’” He repeated my words back to me, slowly and thoughtfully. He didn’t sound convinced, but at least he seemed to be giving them genuine consideration.

My own heart lurched. Mark had already weaseled his way into it. Sex or no, when he left next week, he was going to be taking a chunk of it with him.

How much breaking, I wondered, could any heart endure?

We stayed in the clearing with Tamu and Nyota until mid-morning when they became more interested in grazing than in being with us.

“How long before they’re weaned?” Mark asked.

“In the wild, it’s usually however long a mother will tolerate them for or until the next baby comes along.”

“Not unlike humans,” Mark observed. “The only difference is a human mom who can’t bear another minute of her nursing child will blame the decision to wean them on information from the Internet or books.”

“I’ve seen zebra mothers with no other offspring nurse their babies along for two or three years when eight or nine months is the usual. Nyota could probably survive weaning now. Tamu in another three months, although that’s going to be pushing it. Certainly by mid-October I’ll start them on it in earnest. For my own schedule, I need them weaned before harvest. Come November, I won’t have time to sleep much less look after them. One toddler gorilla will be my limit then.”

We picked up the empties, and Mark held out his hand to Jengo, who took it very gravely, like a child trusting his hand to an adult who isn’t family.

“So are you telling me you actually work?” Mark grinned away what could have been an insult as we started back to the house.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “Growing season’s quiet. It’s mainly making sure we don’t lose too much of the crop to birds or bushbucks or okapis. I also keep up with suppliers and producers and market prices, which takes up about an hour a day. Come harvest, though, I’ll have to find and hire and house a couple of dozen migrant workers and coordinate transport to the washing plant. Then there’s ongoing price negotiations, security and supplies to stay on top of. And this year”—I sniffed back the sudden gush of tears that threatened, remembering my deep loss—“will be the first year I’ll have to do it all on my own.”

“Are you ready?” There was genuine concern in the question.

I shook myself. “Sorry. That was some self-pity melodrama. I’ll actually have my foreman, Jamal, and permanent staff like Mosi and Nuru to help manage the temporary workers and the housing. That’s assuming they all come back after…” Another round of tears had to be pushed back. “Baba was pretty much absent last year trying to cope with Mama’s death. I could really only rely on him for advice, not the day-to-day engagement. So, yeah, I’m prepared. The work ahead just always feels so overwhelming in the summer. Then somehow the madness all goes smoothly and it’s time to start planning for next year. But that’s the nature of seasonal business. It’s not like I’m a—special snowflake, is that the term?—having to deal with it.”

“Well, special snowflake or no, it does take a special person in my book to run any business successfully. You have my admiration.”

He sounded sincere, but I couldn’t trust that he didn’t also mean to caveat his admiration by adding
any woman
or
in Ushindi
to his definition of business success. I’d been in the minority in too many business classes at Cape Town University to not know there was still a sharp bias in the world between what men could be expected to do and what women managed to do. Or what could be accomplished in a First World country compared to a Third World one. The funny thing was, the skills needed didn’t change much between gender and location. Bias was always a reflection of the one judging, not the one being judged. And I really wanted to think the best of Mark, but my own bias against First World men was showing.

I sighed. Sometimes education got in the way of good sense. I was also prone to overthinking. Couldn’t a compliment be just a compliment and not be spurred by any socially engineered motivation? And couldn’t even First World men be sincere? Did life always have to be one big conspiracy?

Before I could thank Mark, Gus whined, perked his ears, then dashed ahead. The huddle of men and women we found waiting for us on what passed for the front lawn didn’t look to have come for a social visit.

“
Habari ya asubuhi
.” I greeted Mosi, Nuru and the heads of another five families who were part of the plantation cooperative.

“
Habari ya asubuhi
,
jumbe,
” Mosi returned, no less genial than he had been last night. But that they were all here en masse and somber-looking meant something else was up—and I had a feeling they knew it was something I wasn’t going to like. “May we speak our minds this beautiful morning?”

“Of course.” I nodded, even though it wasn’t permission he was asking; he was simply framing his intent in the overly polite way Lentu tribesmen often had.

“We each have family in Hasa— we are concerned about them and they about us. We are concerned that if Lisha can fall sick to the
Subs
virus here, that staying on Zahur isn’t safe for our children. There is little work that needs doing now. The fences are up, the coffee grows, our other crops grow, the rains come. While the danger from
Subs
is here and before harvest, we will go into the city and live there with our families.”

The breath went out of my body and pressure filled my chest, squeezing my heart as I fought to stay composed. Seven families leaving, along with Jamal’s—that left only two, one a young childless couple and the other a couple whose grown children had gone off in years past to start families of their own. Only four adults. Not that more were needed right now to run the plantation. It was just the idea of losing the community, the children, the activity that gave life to Zahur.

“Do you really think Hasa is safer right now?” Mark’s challenging tone took me by surprise. I’d almost forgotten he was there. “Have you seen the news? The
Subs
epidemic has already hit there too, not to mention the rioting over the elections. Trust me, none of that’s going to be over anytime soon. Why would you willingly go to Hasa now?”

“Precisely because of the troubles,” Mosi said with the patience of a teacher instructing a student. “It is time for families to come together, not be separated.”

“Then bring your families here!”

“And where would we get the resources to provide for them? From the city. Where would we go if they get sick with
Subs
? To the city. Why not then be
in
the city?”

“Wait here,” I told him. If they insisted on leaving, I had an obligation to help them with the transition. I returned to them with a handful of Congolese francs, which I handed to Mosi, who seemed comfortable acting as the deputy leader in the foreman’s absence. “Divide it up.” I left it to him to determine the equitable division, whether by family or per person. “You can use the van to move your things.” The van was a hard-paneled cargo truck with side ventilation windows that we used to haul sacks of the harvested arabica cherries to the washing station. It was probably 40 years old—certainly a lot older than me—but the men of the cooperative somehow kept it in top working order.

“
Marahaba, jumbe
,” Mosi said, adding a grateful half-bow to his blessing that was echoed by the other workers.

“
Assalamu alaykum
,” I replied.
Peace be with you
. The words were rote, but I truly meant them, even though it broke my heart to utter them, knowing they meant goodbye.

“All troubles pass,” Mosi assured me. “We will be back before harvest.”

Watching them hurry off to pack up for the city, I fought down tears in the shadows of intuition that fluttered ominously around me. I trusted that if they could return they would.

It was the long, dark cold between
could
and
would
that held that trust like a hostage in my heart.