Drowning (2 page)

When I woke again, it was daytime.

I sat up. Doing so was easier than it had been the previous night. A golden expanse of thatch stretched above me, and light filtered in from a large window to my right, which was covered by a white curtain. The light was muted, as if I was seeing it through a deep grey lens. The bed itself was palatial; on a scale with the room, and
the floor was tiled with large, pale gold granite slabs that echoed the warmth of the thatch.

“My camera!” I said aloud.

Oh, Jesus, my photographic equipment had all been in the car. Close to fifty thousand dollars’ worth of cameras, lenses, flashes, tripods, memory sticks. Packed so carefully on the back seat, together with the Mac Air book, my luggage, and my purse with cash, credit cards, and passport inside.

I started to get out of bed, my heart pounding—thankfully, my head was not keeping time with it this morning—but realized as I swung my feet to the floor that my legs were bare and streaked with dried mud.

I was wearing no underwear either. The only garment I had on was an oversized pale grey T-shirt, in a soft fabric, with the elegant logo of a leopard outlined in black on its front.

I heard a light tap on the door and hastily scrambled back under the covers.

“Come in,” I called, rather self-consciously.

The door swung open. A cheerful, middle-aged black woman with braided hair, wearing a smart, green-trimmed khaki pinafore and carrying a small pile of folded clothing, walked in.

“Good morning,” she said, offering me a wide smile. “I’m Miriam. How are you feeling today?” Her voice was lilting and musical, accented with the flavor of her native language.

“I… I’m fine, thanks.”

She placed the pile of clothes on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. Outside, I saw the light was darkening again. Thunder growled and the rain began lashing at the window glass. Now I understood the reason for the odd, grey light. It was still storming outside. Why was it called sunny South Africa, I wondered, when it never seemed to stop raining here?

“Welcome to Leopard Rock Lodge,” Miriam said, just as if I’d checked in like a paying guest.

“Is this a hotel?” A hotel with oxygen tanks in its store cupboard.

“It was originally planned to be. Now it is privately run.” She smiled. “I have brought some clothes for you. Your underwear is dry now.” She patted the pile. “But your jeans, not yet. If you look through here, you should find something that fits.”

A hotel with oxygen tanks in its pantry
and
a selection of ladies’ summer clothing?
“Thank you,” I said.

“Mr. Nicholas said you should eat something, if you can. Breakfast will be served in half an hour, in the dining room down the passage. Or I can bring a tray to you in bed if you like.”

Mr. Nicholas? I blinked at Miriam, wondering who he was. The man who’d held my hand last night? Then, as her words sank in, I realized that I was ravenous.

“I’ll come to the dining room. And could I possibly use a phone? I need to make some urgent calls.”

“I hope Mr. Nicholas can arrange it,” she replied. It didn’t sound like a very positive response. Perhaps the lines were still down, but in that case somebody must surely have a cell phone I could borrow.

Giving me another friendly smile, Miriam walked to the door and left the room, closing it gently behind her.

I planted my feet on the floor and stood up slowly. My long dark hair had dried in twisted clumps and I could feel grit in it, and on my scalp, as well as a few grains of sand in my mouth. Taking off the shirt, I found that moving and breathing were painful. My chest felt as if it had been pounded by a hammer and I had visible bruising on the inside of my left breast. From the seatbelt, perhaps? Surely not, if Bulewi had managed to undo it.

A khaki toiletry bag lay on top of the pile Miriam had brought. In it, I found a toothbrush and toothpaste, a small hairbrush, a mini shampoo and conditioner, and a travel pack that contained designer-brand body wash, scent, and skin care.

So, here I was, in what according to Miriam was an up-market lodge that was now in private hands. There was no phone in my room, I’d had my wet clothes removed while I was unconscious, and I was minus all my personal possessions, which were presumably
somewhere at the bottom of a flooded river. A phone did not seem to be readily available, and I would have to await the mysterious Mr. Nicholas’s pleasure if I wanted to make any calls. What was this place?
Hotel California
?

I could only hope that I would be able to call Vince first thing that morning to tell him where I was, and to stop the runaway train of disaster that had been set into motion yesterday.

Half an hour later
, I was showered, with my hair combed but still damp, because the outlet for the hairdryer was not working—more power saving, I supposed. I was dressed in my own freshly laundered underwear, a large T-shirt, and cotton shorts that were approximately my size. I put on a pair of oversized sandals and fastened the straps tightly.

Then I followed the delicious aroma of coffee down the wide, tiled passage, and into a huge dining room with enormous glass doors at the far end. Through them, I could see grey sheets of rain fading into dull green haze.

Several tables of varying sizes were set out in the room, but only one was covered with a starched white cloth. I took a seat on one of the comfortably cushioned wooden chairs just as Miriam appeared through a side door, carrying a jug of coffee.

She placed in front of me a large porcelain mug with an artistic rendition of a zebra on it before pouring.

“Hot or cold milk?” she asked.

“No milk, thanks.”

Miriam topped up my coffee before asking, “Would you like scrambled eggs? Bacon? An omelet? Or we could do you a Continental meal. Toast, fruit, cheese, preserves?”

“I’d love some toast, and some cheese and fruit, thanks. Is there any way I could quickly speak to Mr. Nicholas?”

“Of course. He’s outside, talking on the radio in the truck. Do you want me to tell him to come here when he’s finished?”

“I’d better see him now, I think.” After all, what if he was about to leave? I desperately needed to connect with reality, to sort out the disarray that was now my life. Call Vince and tell him I was okay. Contact the embassy to arrange a new passport, and the insurance company to report the loss of my equipment.

“Come this way.”

My mind whirling with all the logistical issues, I followed her into a massive, airy kitchen with endless granite surfaces and two gleaming gas stoves, and then out into a scullery. She opened the back door, letting in the coolness of the rain.

A narrow covered walkway led to the side entrance of a large triple garage a few yards away. I edged my way up the covered walk, keeping close to the wall and doing my best to avoid the chilly, gusting downpour.

Parked inside the garage was the dirtiest Toyota Land Cruiser I had ever seen. Its white paintwork—well, I presumed it was white—was almost totally obscured by dried mud. The hubcaps were caked in the stuff, with occasional tufts of grass clinging to them. Great slashes of mud streaked up the vehicle’s sides, covering the rear windows. The back of the car was a solid mass of dirt.

For a room that was home to such a filthy car, the garage itself was extremely neat. Only two broad, muddy tracks soiled its pristine floor. The strip light in the ceiling was on, although it made little difference in the general dark gloom of that rainy morning. I could hear the crackle of a radio coming from the car, and saw that the driver’s door was open.

Stepping carefully to avoid the tracked mud, I made my way toward the open door, and as I did so I recognized the voice I’d heard the previous night.

“No. The road is totally impassable. Do you copy? The bridge has been washed away.”

Strong, deep, authoritative, the words clipped but the accent impossible to place. Not quite British, but definitely not the local South African I’d heard spoken here. A blend of both, perhaps.

The radio crackled again, the speaker saying something I couldn’t make out, and he replied, “We’ll have to fly those down to them. Get a search and rescue operation under way as soon as the storm is over.”

As I reached the open door, the man in the car turned his head and looked straight at me.

I was dazzled by the blaze of his light, extraordinary blue-green eyes. The palest turquoise, burning in the sculpted gold-tanned planes of his face. Blinking, I took in his strong bone structure, a trace of stubble along the firm line of his jaw. His tousled sandy-blonde hair looked to be in need of a cut, although for some reason its disarray only added to his attractiveness.

Under his faded blue T-shirt, his shoulders looked broad and powerful.

Mr. Nicholas was astoundingly good-looking, in an utterly masculine and somewhat rugged way. God, my camera would love him, if only it weren’t at the bottom of a flooded river.

Briefly, I wondered how old he was. Crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes suggested a certain maturity. Early thirties, perhaps?

How exactly had I landed myself in a luxury game lodge owned, or managed at least, by this demi-god? For a moment, I wondered if I was unconscious in the hospital somewhere and this was all an elaborate dream.

I wasn’t dreaming, of course not. This was real. In fact, he was looking me up and down, too; his gaze traveling over me in a way that was both assessing and approving. I watched him take in my deep blue eyes and freshly washed dark hair, and saw that he noted how my borrowed shorts, too summery for this chilly rainstorm, exposed a fair amount of my legs, slender and still pale from the winter weather I’d left behind at home.

In his left hand he held the crackling radio receiver, and he lifted it to speak again into the mike, “I have to go. I’ll be back in five. You copy? Over.”

He put the radio down and turned back to me.

“You’re looking a lot better this morning. How are you feeling?”

Reaching out, he took hold of my right hand, and I tensed for just a moment as he held it in his warm, firm grasp. The fingers of his other hand pressed on the inside of my wrist in a practiced manner. His touch was just the way I remembered it. I had never imagined, though, that the stranger sitting so patiently by my bedside in the darkness last night had been this man. That fact made me feel surprisingly short of breath. If I’d known… if I’d been able to see him, I don’t know if I would have held his hand so innocently.

“I’m fine, thank you. Apart from feeling rather shaken up. And my chest is bruised.”

“Pulse is a touch faster than normal,” he observed, gently releasing my wrist. “Nothing to worry about, though. As far as the chest goes, I’m to blame for that. By the time I pulled you out, your lungs were flooded and your heart had stopped. I had to do CPR for a while before you came back.”

I stared at him, looking into those piercing, unusual eyes as his gaze burned into mine. I couldn’t help feeling astonished by what he had just said. My heart had stopped? My
heart
? No way. And he’d had to do CPR… I had a sudden vision of this man bent over me, pounding at my chest with the heels of his hands, crushing my lips with his own as he forced the life back into me. The image was shocking, but at the same time it made me feel strangely warm inside.

“Thank you,” I said, in a rather shaky voice. “I had no idea… I didn’t know my condition had been so serious.”

“It was. I’m a trained paramedic, but even so I thought I’d lost you.”

Suddenly, I wondered if his voice had been the one I’d heard in my dream; the mystery lover by the lake who had shouted ‘Don’t leave me!’ Could that have been a fragmented memory from my resuscitation? I thought it likely, but felt too shy to ask.

Seeing that I was temporarily stumped for words, he said, “I haven’t introduced myself. Nicholas de Lanoy.”

“Erin Mitchell.”

“Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“Well, Erin, all I can say is you New Yorkers are made of tough stuff.”

He put the radio receiver back in its bracket, and I stepped aside as he got out of the car and slammed the door.

“Is there anything you need right now?”

“Actually,” I said, “I came to ask you if I could use a phone—it’s urgent.”

Walking with me back down the narrow covered corridor, Nicholas kept to my left, shielding me from the spraying rain.

“Unfortunately, the answer is no. All our cellular comms went down in the storm, and as I told you last night, the landlines aren’t operational either. I only have one radio connection, which is a direct link to our local police station. I’ve already reported that you’re here, so when your husband gets in touch with the police, he’ll find out you’re safe.”

“Would I be able to get a ride to the police station?”

“Also not possible. The flood washed away the bridge, so the only road leading into this estate is now impassable. There are rough tracks going through the valley into the Kruger Park, but those lowlands are completely underwater now. So, Erin, you are my guest here until conditions change.”

“But… oh, okay, then.” If there was no way out, there was no way out. I’d just have to explain this to Vince in a way that didn’t make him angry all over again. And I certainly wasn’t going to let my husband know about Mr. de Lanoy. The way things were between us now, telling him that I was stranded on an estate belonging to such an attractive man would be completely foolhardy.

“There’s a very well-stocked library and a gym,” Nicholas said, guiding me to my seat in the dining room and pulling out my chair for me. “We have a freezer full of food, a vegetable and herb garden, fruit trees, and an excellent wine cellar. You’ll be comfortable here for now, and I’ll come and find you the minute we have cellular connectivity again.”

“Thank you,” I said, overcoming my confusion for long enough to finally remember my manners.

“It’s my privilege to be able to offer hospitality to such an attractive visitor.” He stared down at me and the hint of a smile creased his delicious mouth. I had the feeling that if he’d taken my pulse again at that moment he might have advised me to lie down immediately. But he didn’t. He turned and strode out of the dining room to carry on his radio conversation with the police, leaving me alone with my coffee and, briefly, at a loss for words.