Vain (10 page)

“Welcome to Africa,
miss,” he greeted me with cheer. “I understand this is your first visit?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He smiled the largest smile I’d ever seen and I wondered what had made this guy so happy. “Follow me, miss.”

I fished around in my pouch for a
ten-dollar bill. A guy in Dubai had told me they prefer American currency so I never exchanged the hundreds Pembrook had given me. We approached the airport itself and all I could think when I looked upon it was the nineteen-seventies had died and gone to heaven on this little inlet. My skin went cold when I thought on that. Before I’d left, I’d read up on Uganda and discovered the very airport I’d flown into was also the site of a most dangerous hostage situation involving terrorists in that same era. I shivered thinking on the details and the very close call it was. It reminded me
where
I was and what my real purpose for visiting entailed.

When the enthusiastic porter set my bags down inside, he beamed at me and I almost laughed at his optimism.

I couldn’t help myself. “You’re quite animated, and why are you so happy today?”

“I am happy
every day, Miss. I am alive and working. I have a roof. I can feed my brothers and sisters. I am very, very happy.”

My heart clenched and I dug in my pouch for another ten, thought twice, and grabbed a fifty before settling the cash in his hand. His eyes blew to impossible proportions and I shook my head at him, silencing the protest forming on his lips.

“Think nothing of it,” I snapped and cleared my throat. “Excuse me,” I told him and grabbed my bags hurriedly before walking with purpose down the corridor toward what I assumed was the front entrance.

I tried not to think of what fifty dollars meant to that boy and his family. I also tried not to think about the silly bracelet tied around my wrist that cost five hundred. I stopped where I was and gathered myself, remembering my notebook and sliding it out of my pack. I flipped through the pages and looked for the name
Pembrook told me not to forget but did anyway because it was such an unusual name.

“
Dingane,” I repeated out loud. “What kind of name is that?”

“It’s Din-John-E,” a deep voice interrupted and my head shot up.

Struck. Speechless.
 

A deep, punching sensation washed over my entire body and I almost fell to my knees at the powerful impression. My breaths became labored and I fought for a clear head. A balmy, scorching but unbelievably ecstasy-ridden awareness swam through my body. An exhilarating, pleasant haze settled over me and it...Burned.
So. Good. This was a feeling of realization. I stood there, relishing the effects.
 

I remember Sarah Pringle telling me once about a boy she had met while on holiday in Europe. The way she painte
d him made me doubt her sanity.

“I can’t describe him, Sophie,” she’d said, her hands covering her cheeks in desperation. “It was like my body knew instantly that h
e was mine and that I was his.”

“Awfully
primitive
of you to admit that, Sarah,” I’d mocked, making everyone around us laugh.
But
now
I knew what she meant.
Now
I understood what she was trying to convey to me.
 

The boy who stood before me was on the cusp of becoming a man.
All taut, lean muscle, narrow where a boy needed to be and broad where a man should always be. I’d never known a person could be this drawn to another human being, especially a complete stranger. His face captivated me without the ability to speak. I felt my chest grasp for air but was unable to accommodate its feverish demand, so I stupidly sat panting there like a dog after a brisk run. He leaned over me, hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, pulling the fabric of his shirt stiff against the muscles of his arms and shoulders and sending me deeper into immediate obsession.

I gulped down my lack of breath and studied him. He was the complete opposite of what I’d always imagined I’d be the most attracted to. Straight black hair met his chin but was tucked behind his ears, cerulean blue eyes stared at me strangely, his full bottom lip separated from his upper lip in question. He was looking down a straight
Roman nose at me and his square jaw was clenched.

“Are you the one they call Sophie?” he asked stiffly, already exasperated with me it seemed.

“I am.”

“I am
Dingane,” his thick accent repeated.

When he spoke, my eyes involuntarily rolled to the back of my head. His deep silky voice washed over me like warm water on a cold afternoon and I willingly leaned closer to him. The proximity was like fuel to my already out of control flame. I bent away from him to gain rational thought and shook my head.

“But you’re white,” I stupidly blurted, making me want to crawl underneath something.

“You are incredibly astute,” he said tightly.

“I’m sorry, I was-I was just expecting an African,” I stammered.

“My name is Ian.
Dingane is a nickname, but I
am
African. My ancestors came to South Africa in the seventeen-hundreds from England,” he explained although he seemed annoyed to be doing so, as if I deserved no such courtesy.

His accent sounded like a mix of formal English, Australian and Dutch. That’s the only way I could describe it. I’d never heard
its equal. It was so incredibly beautiful and unique. Every film I’d ever watched that featured the South African accent completely butchered it. Listening to him was like listening to velvet.

“Oh,” I spit out intelligently. “What-what does
Dingane mean?” I sputtered, still unable to remove my stare from his face.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, apparently no longer humoring me and bending to pick up the luggage I’d only just realized I’d dropped.

“I can get that,” I said stupidly, reaching toward the floor.
What is wrong with me?
I’m
the one who strikes men dumb! Not the other way ’round!

“I already have them. Follow me,” he ordered, standing to his full height.

I swallowed the embarrassing five-minute loss of sanity and began to follow him like a meek mouse. I didn’t feel like myself, didn’t feel like Sophie Price.
Wake up, Sophie.
I picked up my head, remembered who the hell I was and met every stride he strode. We were neck and neck and I could tell this surprised him by the way he spied me from the corner of his eye. I kept my face neutral. Eat that,
Dingane
.

He
lead us to a white beat-up jeep and I stopped just short of visibly balking. He threw my bags with little care into the exposed back and began to strap them down.

I watched him work. “Are you expecting me to open your door for you?” he asked, his thick accent shocking once more.

“Do I look like I expect you to open my door for me?” I bit back.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Then why stand there?”

“It would be presumptuous of me to just sit inside your jeep without you, don’t you think? Possibly rude?”

His calloused hands unexpectedly rested over the now tight straps and he looked
at me for longer than I considered comfortable, studying me, but just as suddenly walked to the passenger side door as if just remembering himself and opened it for me without a word. I climbed into the jeep and watched him close the door behind me before walking the front of the vehicle and hopping in.

“How old are you?” I asked, turning toward him after buckling in.

“Twenty,” he said succinctly.

He was quiet as he started the jeep and sped through the almost impossible jumble of pushy taxis waiting for passengers. I admit I white knuckled it until we met open road.

“It’ll take an hour to get to the city capital,” he yelled over the rumbling engine and whipping wind. “Kampala is a busy city, Miss Price, and I’d rather not stop, but I suspect it will be our only opportunity to eat before the long journey back to Lake Nyaguo.”

“I ate just before we landed,” I lied.

If I was being honest, I was afraid to eat anything other than what was prepared at Masego.
Damn that Dr. Ford.
“If you’re game to go straight through then so am I.”
And that was the last thing Dingane said to me almost the entire journey.
The silence afforded me astonishing views of an unbelievably attractive country. It also gave me time to come to terms with how much my life was going to change and just how dramatic that change would be.

Four hours is a very long time. Long enough to ponder my very physical reaction to my driver and what it was going to mean to live and work with him. I decided it was just a tenacious
chemistry, that I was not without self-control.
Oh yeah, you’re the queen of restraint.
I turned toward him and drank in his lean, muscular figure.

Oh. My. Word.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN
 

“That’s Lake Nyaguo,” Dingane said, startling me. “Masego Orphanage is just north of this lake. Charles owns the land we drive through now.”

“How much does
he own?”

“Approximately five thousand acres.
He owns the land north of the lake as well as south and his property lines go east from there.”

“Why did he buy land in Uganda?” I asked,
more to myself than to Dingane.

“Why not?”

“Fair enough,” I conceded.

Dingane
sighed in exasperation. “This is his life’s work. He wanted the land to accomplish it. Surprisingly, land in this part of Uganda is inexpensive.” He smirked.

Half an hour later, we’d rounded the east side of the blue lake and
were on a straight red dirt road. “Masego is just five minutes up this drive,” he stated.

My throat dropped to my stomach and I tried to swallow the sinking
feeling away. “What’s it like?”

“It is beautiful. It is horrifying.”
The breath I’d been holding for his response rushed out all at once.

“I feel I must prepare you,” he co
ntinued.

I
gulped. “Prepare me for what?”

“For the children here.”
An unexpected gleam came to his eyes and I could see how much he loved them just by speaking of them. “Some will be deformed.”

“
Deformed?
”

“Maimed.”

“I know what you meant but
why
?”

“Do you know nothing of our facility?” he asked impatiently, briefly n
arrowing his eyes my direction.

“I know nothing. I know
only that it is an orphanage.”

He breathed out slowly. “We are too close to
begin explaining now. Charles or his wife, Karina, should explain it all to you when you arrive. I don’t have time. I’ve spent the entire day driving to fetch you and I need to catch up on a mended fence at the northeastern edge of the property line.”

“Thank you...for
fetching
me,” I oozed out.

He squirmed in his seat and I could tell I’d made him uncomfortable.
Very uncomfortable. He wanted as far away from me as he could possibly get and that confused the hell out of me. He didn’t know me at all.

In the distance I spied a long, tall fence surrounding what I assumed was Masego. As we approached a very sturdy, heavy
-looking gate, I recognized the word Masego on a shabby, falling sign.

“W
hat does Masego mean?” I asked.

“Blessings.”

I studied him. “You’re a man of few words, Dingane of South Africa.”

This surprisingly made him fight a smile and it shocked me. He quickly shook it and mumbled under his breath and out of the jeep to open the gate. His muscles flexed beneath his shirt as he
dragged the heavy wooden barrier and I sat up a bit in my seat to watch him. Night was quickly coming and the jeep’s headlights magnified just how beautiful he was. He was surprisingly tall for an African. Six-foot one, maybe two. Then again, what the hell did I know of Africans?