Zambezi Seduction (14 page)

“Maybe we should team up,” she told him. “Hit Sun City and Vegas
.”

He appeared to have blocked out the people and action around them. He was intent on her – his look direct, unwavering.

“Anger brings out something in you, Kerry Stephens. Something I like.”

“Really?
My hot flushes turn you on?”

“Very becoming.”

“Well, if our third week turns out like the other two you’ll see plenty more.”

FIFTEEN

Kerry woke to the realization that this would be their last full day by the Zambezi River.

It was with a heavy heart that she set off with Chad on their final early morning search for leopard. They gave it everything: total vigilance –
a thoroughness in checking likely trees which after the first hour had her neck stiff and sore from the constant turning to look and look again. Once again, they saw not a whisker of a leopard.

Chad was now resigned to failure. He took photos of some of the best trees.

“Give me something to work from.”

Kerry found it galling that am
id such an abundance of wildlife the one animal they wanted had eluded them. Given the nature of the country – thick tree and bush cover, the yellow dry-season grass – the advantage lay squarely with the cats. She was elated to have seen so much, but disappointed for Chad’s sake.

At noon they returned to the lodge. It was a sweltering day and they were hot, dusty and tired – but neither wanted a siesta. Chad, determined to make the most of their last day, had a final treat lined up.

***

Together with another couple and a young child they boarded a twin-
engined Cessna at the small airfield. Kerry had spent thousands of hours in the air – yet this was a first for her. She’d never before flown in a light aircraft. Inside seemed so cramped, and take off vastly different to what she was used to: quicker, bumpier, steeper. The experience was like a sudden change to a motorbike after years of riding in a limousine.

As they rose above the treetops they saw the spray-cloud over Victoria Falls. Today a brilliant rainbow ran through it, adding to the spectacle and thrilling Kerry with its beauty. The pilot obligingly circled the
Falls at a height of a few hundred feet – first clockwise then anti-clockwise so passengers on both sides could take photographs.

Then he pointed the Cessna’s nose upriver. Kerry looked down on the vast African panorama
, sun-scorched and flat, split down the centre by the wide Zambezi – its waters smooth and reflecting images of big trees on its banks. She glimpsed the jetty with the boats awaiting that evening’s business, then the row of lodges each with its strip of cleared ground. Over the engine noise she heard the pilot shout that there was a chance of seeing jumbos in the bush. The Cessna veered to port and skimmed low over the treetops, zigzagging this way and that. They saw no elephants. Kerry, thanks to Chad’s tutelage, was by now well versed in animal behaviour. It was over a hundred degrees out there and any elephants in the vicinity would be in the thick stuff seeking shade.

Now they were back over the wide river, circling an island
. From its covering of dense bush three palms rose like the fore, main and aft masts of an old sailing ship. The pilot turned his body, pointed down and yelled, “Hippos!”

Everyone put their face to a window.

“See them?” Chad’s voice had an excited edge.

“Where?” Kerry could see the island perfectly well, but its vegetation was thick enough to hide a regiment of hippos.

“Off the eastern shore
. You can’t miss them.”

In the
water.
Kerry felt stupid for looking on land. She waited while the pilot circled once more. When the island came into view below, she saw them immediately. Seven or eight dark shapes in the sunlit shallows – distance so reducing size, she was reminded of fat tadpoles in a pond.

“Got ’
em!” she cried.

Everyone was exhilarated from the experience, no one more so than Chad. As the Cessna turned for home, he was in boisterous spirits.

“She’s a stewardess,” he told the others while pushing playfully at Kerry. “On your feet. Champagne for everyone.”

They all had a good laugh. Kerry didn’t mind the fun though she wished she and Chad were alone – like
Streep and Redford in
Out of Africa
, holding hands in the old bi-plane winging its way over the lake pink with flamingos.

“You really a stewardess?” the pilot asked after they had thanked him back on the ground. He was a grizzled
, grey-haired veteran. The African sun had left his face and neck lined and wrinkled, but when he removed his sunglasses to clean them, Kerry could see that his eyes were alert and friendly.

“Yep, on 747s – a little larger than the Cessna
.”

He was an interested listener for a few minutes as she talked about big jumbo jets. Then he asked the question heard by tourists the world over.

“Are you enjoying our country?”

“Fabulous. We’ve avoided the politi
cs and taken in the wildlife –”

“Not what it was, but there’s still plenty around.”

“Seen everything we wanted – except leopard.”

The pilot g
rinned. “If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that.” He laid a hand on the plane’s wing. “My brother used to work in the park. Game ranger. When we became Zimbabwe, he packed up his old Rhodesian flag and headed south to Cape Town.” The pilot chuckled. Some memory from the past, Kerry imagined. “Ah, I’m detaining you,” he said. “I’ll walk with you to your car.”

He fell into step beside them.

“How well do you know the park?” the pilot asked Chad.

“
Well enough. It’s my second visit.”

“We have a detailed map,” Kerry
said.

“There’s a spot by the river. Jack – my brother – used to remark on how often a leopard was seen there. Of course, that was years ago –”

“We’ll take a look,” Chad said. “There are a few hours of daylight left.”

Kerry opened the car and found the map. She spread it open on the car’s bonnet. The pilot bent his head over it.

“Take this road with the fancy name – Zambezi Drive.” He traced the road on the map with a finger. “Look out for a bunch of trees about . . . here.” He made a mark with a ballpoint pen. “Good luck to you.”

SIXTEEN

Back at the riverside lodge, while Chad washed dust off the Fiat, Kerry hurriedly made sandwiches. This would be their final game-spotting drive. Tomorrow they would pack up and begin the long homeward trip. In a few days she would be boarding the overnight flight to London. Soon all this would be but a memory.

“Why so glum?” the South African asked as they got under way.

Kerry had planned to keep her true feelings bottled up until her departure neared. That would be the time to thank him for everything. But she felt her resolve crumbling.

“Do you think I want this to end?” Despite the catch in her voice and the sudden wetness in her eyes, she pressed on. “I’ve been so happy.” It hadn’t all been a bed of roses, as he very well knew. But her overall feeling was positive, overwhelmingly so.

To her annoyance, Chad offered no comment – a quick glance her way coupled with a thoughtful frown being his only reaction. Just when she was in a mood to talk he had clammed up. She wished she
’d kept her feelings under wraps. What had she expected him to do – wave his magic wand, chant some mumbo-jumbo and they would stay together in this Eden forever?

She kept her head down and studied the map as she fought to get her feelings back on an even keel. She didn
’t speak again until they were approaching the area the pilot had pinpointed.

“This is it.”

Chad stopped the car in shade. There were trees on both sides of the road and he spent ten minutes inspecting them through the binoculars. He sighed and shook his head in frustration.

After a moment his face brightened.

“The trip hasn’t been a waste of time. We have some excellent photos: lions at a kill, elephants, buffalo, sable, hippos. Plus the beggars around camp – the banded mongooses and birds.”

Kerry wished he would drop the “we”. By including her in his thoughts, he was being unintentionally cruel. She would soon be out of his life. They had been close, shared all that a man and woman could, except the greatest gift of all – their bodies. But she had to start steeling herself for the break.

“Chad, I’d like copies of the best pics.”

“
Why don’t
you
select what you want next time you fly into Jo’burg?”

Kerry
’s mouth felt dry. He had caught her by surprise.

“You
’d like meet up again?” Heck, the shock was making her sound like an idiot.

“Why not?” he said, lightly.
“We could get together with Per and Camilla.”

They
fell quiet, which suited Kerry. She needed time to absorb this unexpected suggestion.

***

The sun was lower now, the sky still a cloudless blue. A light breeze sprang up and wafted through the car’s open windows, giving them slight respite from the heat. How free and sensual it felt, Kerry thought, to dress each day in shorts and a skimpy top. While recognising the dangers of overexposure, she liked to feel the sun’s warmth on her body. She remembered an argument with a colleague who’d begun an intensely physical relationship with an Italian. Kerry’s point had been that all the hype about the hot Latin lover was nonsense, a myth. It had nothing to do with nationality, blood or genes – but all to do with the sun. People in warm countries wore fewer clothes. More of the body was on display, so they thought about sex more. The sun probably upped their hormone levels. Its other contribution was the siesta. Latins spent more of their lives in the horizontal position.

She came out of her reverie to find Chad staring appreciatively at her legs.

“Nice tan,” he said.

So, he
had
noticed. Since his unsuccessful attempt to bed her, he had kept personal comments to a minimum.

“Yours has deepened too,” she told him. “And I swear the sun
’s lightened your hair.”

While the South African subjected the nearby trees to a second intense scrutiny, Kerry reached back to the rear seat for the sandwiches. She had lost weight during her illness, but her appetite was now as sharp as ever. She was ravenously hungry. The day had been hectic
, rushing from park to airstrip and back. They’d barely had time to eat. She unwrapped the foil from the sandwiches and placed them on a plate perched precariously between herself and Chad.

She was reaching behind her for the paper cups and bottled water when she saw it.

Or thought she had.

She froze. Not a muscle in her body moved.

Framed by the car’s rear window, two trees stood about seventy yards back. What had caught her attention was a flash of light rising from the dry yellow grass at the base of one tree, to be lost in its leafy spread. Kerry looked hard until her eyes began to feel the strain. Doubt assailed her: it had happened so fast, and her head was moving, turning. In this heat and with the confusing pattern of shade and sunlight under the trees, it was easy to imagine things.

But she was sure she had seen something.

Never taking her eyes off the tree, she told Chad, her voice a whisper.

“Where?”
He spun round, in his clumsy eagerness knocking over the plate of sandwiches. He swore. “Sorry – can’t be helped. Which tree?”

“The taller tree, on the right.”
Kerry ignored the fallen food. She felt the same breathless anticipation as when they had walked through the rainforest on their approach to Victoria Falls. “I’m not certain . . . it happened in a split second.”

Facing the Fiat
’s rear window Chad trained the Zeiss 10x50s on the tree. Both powerful forearms rested on the top of his seat. Kerry could see the pulse of life-blood pumping through his veins and smell his excited male scent. She waited, hardly daring to breathe. A fresh layer of powdery dust coated the window. It would hamper his view, but she guessed he was reluctant to expose his head and arms through the side window and risk scaring off whatever was there – if anything was.

“Well?” she demanded impatiently after a minute had passed.

Chad made no reply. He continued to stare at the tree. You can’t hurry nature, seemed to be his unspoken message.

“Nothing definite,” he said at last.

Kerry’s heart sank. She’d had such hope. Foolish.

“But,” Chad went on, eyes still glued to the lenses, “there
’s something not quite kosher. My view’s partly obscured. The yellow leaves are perfect bloody camouflage.”

Well, he
’s thinking about leopard with that camouflage talk, Kerry decided. There was something in his voice. She had a suspicion he saw more than he was letting on. What the hell? Was there or wasn’t there a leopard in the tree?

A low groan escaped Chad
’s lips. He massaged his eyes to relax the muscles. He looked again and Kerry watched a smile of delight spread across his handsome tanned face.

“Gotcha!”
It was an exclamation of triumph. “His tail moved.” The South African lowered the glasses, reached over and patted her, none too gently, on the back.

“Kerry, I humbly take back all the
Pom jokes, the fun and names I poked at you. You’re a star.”

The flood of pride and elation Kerry felt was quite staggering.

“Fair comment.” She reached for the field glasses. “My turn.”

Chad held onto the binoculars. “There are branches in the way. We must move closer.”

“That’s a risk. We may scare him off.”

“
No alternative. Let’s hope he’s an old hand – used to cars.” Chad thought for a moment. “You drive. Just a crawl, no high revving. I’ll handle the camera. Slip across on top – your body’s suppler than mine. Don’t hit the horn with your backside. ”

Kerr
y felt a moment of panic. “Chad –”

“Not now.”

“But –”

“No buts. Get over here!”

The Fiat was not over-spacious up front. It was designed as a hard-top, high-performance sports car. Chad’s six foot two frame fitted in comfortably enough, but he found it awkward to extract his long legs from under the steering wheel and get them across to the passenger side. Another body cramping his space didn’t help.

Kerry arched her body above his, hands on the seat tops supporting her weight. She felt her
sandalled foot crush one of the fallen sandwiches. Shifting her weight she lost her balance; a sweaty palm slipped and, to her acute embarrassment, she collapsed on top of Chad.

There was a brief struggle, coloured by muffled male oaths. Then she found herself raised up, the South African
’s strong hands almost circling her slim waist.

“Deep down I knew you fancied me,” he growled, his breathing heavy.
“But you picked the damnedest time to jump me.”

Kerry was outraged. She wanted to wipe that smirk off his face.

“Do you think I did it deliberately?” she raged. She began to struggle. “Let me go!”

“
Quiet!” he hissed. “The leopard’s probably done a runner.”

He made no effort to release her. Kerry was shocked when she realized how intimately their bodies were touching lower down. Chad
’s thigh was between hers. She could feel the soft hairs of his leg, the warmth of his naked flesh against her smooth inner thighs. For Kerry, the leopard was momentarily forgotten. How often had she fantasized about lying in Chad Lindsay’s arms? Now it had actually happened and her senses were reeling. Their thighs and loins were locked together in the most intimate way. Every nerve ending in her body was aware of him. She saw the tiny beads of perspiration on his brow, the stubble above his upper lip. Most of all she was aware of his hard male strength and the peace she felt at that moment.

It was not to last. “I suggest we continue this later,” the South African sai
d, his voice a husky growl.

Next second Kerry was in the driver
’s seat, unceremoniously dumped, with no apparent effort on his part. There was still time for her to back out. But Chad’s mind was set – and she should be able to pull it off. If only she could remember everything . . . it had been so long ago.

With a shaking hand she reached forward and turned the key in the Fiat
’s ignition. The car leaped forward, half scaring the life out of her. Too late she realized her mistake in not checking whether it had been left in gear. She turned helplessly to Chad who was rubbing his arm where it had banged against the front panelling. His eyes were dark and angry as thunderclouds.

“I tried to tell you,” Kerry said miserably.

“You can’t drive?”

“Difficult when work takes you away from home so much. I haven
’t passed my test.”

“I
’m not surprised,” he said with cruel humour.

Kerry
’s pride had taken a knock. She’d only done it to help secure his precious photos – and look at the thanks she got. She fought to control her emotions. She would not weep. She was determined to deny him the satisfaction of seeing how he’d hurt her.

Chad
’s anger showed no sign of abating.

“You have no idea,” he said, barely keeping control of himself, “how often I
’ve dreamt of being close to a treed leopard. And what happens? At the crucial moment we start a Laurel and Hardy act. Get back over here double quick – and will you please pick up the damned sandwiches.”

Kerry opened her mouth to protest. After all he was the one who had knocked them over. For one wicked moment, she even contemplated continuing the comedy of errors by “accidently” bumping the horn. Then reason prevailed. How could she
think
such a thing? The primary objective of the trip, all the planning and expense Chad had invested, was to photograph leopards. Now, with the moment at hand, she was acting like a spiteful clown. How could she!

This time they crossed without incident. Kerry gathered their ruined lunch into a plastic bag. Chad had the Fiat turned and moving towards the tree at a crawl, his bare foot hardly touching the accelerator. The Canon, with its long lens, lay in his lap and the binoculars hung at chest level from their strap around his neck.

“Chad, I’m sorry,” she said coolly, her mind now filled with dread that the big cat might be gone.

“For your sake as much as mine, I hope he hasn
’t skedaddled. I have a fitting punishment in mind.”

Kerry waited but the South African was in no mood to elaborate. Doggedly, he kept his eyes on the tree as the car inched forward. Only once did he break concentration, turning to her to signal complete silence.

While thoughts of possible punishments flashed through Kerry’s mind, she noticed that the road had curved, altering their viewing angle to the tree. Hopefully, whatever had impeded Chad’s view was no longer a factor.

Chad stopped the car and killed the engine. Kerry understood why he had wanted her in the driver
’s seat – the tree was on the passenger’s side. Silently, he gave her the camera to hold and motioned her to bend forward so his vision through her open side-window was unrestricted.