Guarding the Princess

chapter 9



Brandt studied the sky, wishing for another storm that might hide their tracks. Instead, the sun hammered down relentlessly, baking their tracks into the earth. Best he could do for now was keep moving fast toward the rift wall and get up onto the plateau before nightfall.

He’d chosen this route on the map because there was an abandoned airstrip atop the plateau with a tiny old customs building. He’d landed there years ago, and even though the building was in ruins now, it would provide shelter from predators during the night. There was also a tiny village about a day’s trek from the airstrip. He might find a vehicle there.

Several hours later the sun had changed its angle and Dalilah began to lag farther and farther behind. Frustration bit into Brandt as he checked his watch—almost 1:00 p.m.

“Keep up, Dalilah! We need to get up the cliff before dark!”

“I’m trying—these boots are too big.”

He paused, waiting for her to catch up. But she was tiring, her gait shortening, and she was stumbling repeatedly in the oversize men’s boots. It was wasting her energy. The wool socks he’d given her were good, but she was going to get blisters. Still, she’d have to live with some pain if she wanted to get out of this alive.

Again he berated himself for losing the jeep, losing focus. For letting her get under his skin and pry into his life. As he waited for her to catch up, tension torqued tighter—this was not a good place to linger. The grass was long and tight here, and he worried about lions. He touched the hilt of his panga, then his knife, then his pouch with the bullets, mentally keeping track where everything was as he scanned the long grasses, watching for the slight twitch of a flattened ear, the flick of a dark tail, Brandt concentrated on the ambient sounds of the bush, listening for the sound of a gray lorie, the warning cough of an impala or the alarm whistle of a zebra.

Stay aware, Stryker. Don’t lose it again.

When Dalilah reached him she was sweating and breathing hard, and she bent over, bracing her hand on her knee.

Brandt uncapped the water pouch, held it out.

“Drink.”

“There are nicer ways to order people about,” she snapped, snatching the water and drinking thirstily before he stopped her, taking it back.

“Got to ration it,” he said, recapping the pouch.

“You’re not having any?”

“Not until we find a new source. Maybe up there. See?” He pointed to a dark line bisecting the looming cliff face. “That could be a small waterfall, especially after the rains last night.”

She squinted up, trying to catch her breath. “I need to sit for a minute.”

His jaw tightened.

“Please.”

Brandt relented. “Just for a second, okay? It’s not a good place.”

She lowered herself onto a rock, taking her hat off and dragging her hand over her hair. Despite the dust, it still gleamed rich blue-black in the sunlight. Her skin was glowing from exertion. Brandt felt he was going mad—she was more beautiful to him by the second. It was driving him to distraction—bewitched by the exotic princess.

She looked up with those big liquid black eyes fringed by long lashes.

“What are you thinking?”

He shook himself. “Nothing,” he said, unhooking the GPS from his belt, and rechecking their route, waypoints.

“If you’ve got satellite coverage for that—” she jerked her chin at his GPS “—a satellite phone could have worked out here.”

“Too bad I lost mine while saving your ass at the lodge, huh?”

Her mouth flattened. She glanced away, watched a row of red ants carrying pieces of some dead animal.

He hooked the GPS back. “Ready?”

She said nothing, but got to her feet, clearly spent.

Brandt set a slightly slower pace so she could keep up, but losing time ate at him. The sun was moving in its arc over the sky, and shadows were growing longer already—they needed to get up that cliff before darkness fell.

“What do you farm, Brandt?” Dalilah called from behind after a while. “How much land do you have?”

The question startled him. He’d hoped she’d given up poking into his personal life.

“Big enough.”

“For what? Game? Cattle? Maize?”

Brandt wanted to remain silent, keep to himself, but on another level he knew talking would keep her mind off things. “My land forms part of a privately held game conservation area,” he called over his shoulder. “It’s a block of about ten kilometers by twenty.”

“So...” She jogged a little to keep up, her voice breathless. “You offer game viewing?”

“Not in my segment.”

“But your neighbors do?”

“I never see them.”

“I mean, do your neighbors run safaris?”

Irritation sliced through him. “Yeah.”

“Do you ever plan to?”

He stopped, spun round. “No, because I don’t like people, Dalilah. Running camps for idiot tourists who ask too many stupid questions would drive me mad.”

She had the audacity to smile. “You’re already mad.”

Brandt glared at her. “I’m thinking postal.”

She met his glare. “I bet you weren’t always like this.”

“Like what?”

“Bitter and twisted.”

He wiped sweat from his brow. “And what makes you so sure?”

“I also bet that you’re trying to grow things on your land.”

“So now you’re psychic?”

“You called it a farm.”

He moistened his lips.

“So, what are you trying to farm?”

“Have you forgotten we’ve got killers on our ass? Come on, we need to move.” He resumed marching, faster now, hotter under the collar, part of him trying to escape her, even as he needed to keep her close. He thought of the whiskey in his pocket. What are you seeking alcoholic relief from, Brandt, me?

Yeah, he thought. You got that right.

But relief would not come, not even from the bottom of his whiskey flask until this was over. What unsettled him more was that he actually wanted to answer her last question, tell her what he was trying to do with his land. He never had a need to share, not this stuff. Yeah, maybe he might shoot the breeze and bounce ideas off the blokes in the pub in Gaborone, or around the safari bar while the guests slept before he flew home.

But this woman?

Maybe it was because she knew water-delivery systems, understood the complexities of farming in drought-ridden soil, understood how to deliver solar power. She came from the Sahara herself. She wasn’t just an ordinary woman.

“I put a new tank up last week.”

“What?”

“A water tank,” he said over his shoulder. “And I installed an enhanced solar system for heating the water, with extra panels for the house, and an enlarged security fence to keep wildlife out of my growing area. The solar system will be connected to provide power for lights, radio communications, battery charging, computers, VSAT, cell-phone charging. The works. Got a borehole and windmill system, too. For the fields, I tried pumping water from the river.”

She caught up again. “And what are you trying to grow in the fields?” she said, right behind him now, a fresh energy and curiosity in her voice. Brandt realized the conversation really was helpful to her. And she was truly interested, from an academic point of view.

“Maize,” he said. “I started with maize. Mangoes. Macadamia nuts. Avocados. But then I lost the irrigation from the river.”

“Why?”

“Some elephant destroyed the concrete delivery troughs. She must have enjoyed the feel of sinking her feet through the concrete because she walked along the troughs for kilometers, just punching through the trough. Wrecked the whole system.”

“Like some people enjoy popping Bubble Wrap—will pop until an entire sheet is done.”

“Bubble Wrap?” He stopped, turned around.

She tried to smile, but he could see she was beyond tired now. “You know, like that puffy plastic sheeting used to package delicate things for transport. Some people like the sensation and sound of popping the bubbles.”

Something softened in Brandt, and this time he smiled. “Perhaps it’s futile,” he said quietly, “but my goal with the farm is really just self-sufficiency. I want to hunt only for meat, and pretty much grow everything else that I need. And then trade my produce and meat for labor and other things.”

“Ah, you mean your goal is to interact with as few people as possible.” In spite of her exhaustion, a wicked, teasing light twinkled in her black eyes, and suddenly Brandt saw a glimmer of her older brother in Dalilah. He was reminded of how Omair used to joke with him, how the sheik had used his wry wit to soldier through some of the toughest situations, and Brandt felt a sudden kinship—in some strange way he felt he knew this woman better than she realized. He smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “But until I am self-sufficient I still need to fly those irritating tourists across Botswana to safari lodges all the way from the Okavango to Tuli and the Makgadikgadi in between.”

“Or take missions like this one.”

“This is different.” He handed her the water pouch as he spoke, and when she was done, he recapped the pouch. “You sure you don’t want that biltong?”

“I’m sure.”

Several more klicks into their trek, Dalilah spoke again.

“That plane that was stripped in Zimbabwe—it was your livelihood, then?”

Brandt grunted in affirmation as he crouched to examine prints he saw in the dust. He touched the soil gently with the pads of his fingers, then glanced up, squinting into the distance. A pack of wild dogs had just come through here. Uneasiness crept over him.

“Omair will pay,” she said, “for your plane.”

“Damn right he’ll pay—I’m billing him for expenses.” He turned in a slow circle, looking for movement in the grass.

“Right,” she said quietly. “I keep forgetting—I’m just a package.”

Brandt told himself not to answer. He led the way, even more watchful now. Wild dogs were not nice killers. At least a lion kill was quick, clean, quiet. But the dogs went for the stomach, ripping out intestines while the quarry was still alive. Noisy. Which tended to draw other predators to the scene fast.

But as they neared the red rift wall of rocks, she said, “When did you come to live in Botswana? How long have you actually been here?”

He blew out a breath of irritation.

“Ten years.”

“The length of your vow not to kill.”

His stomach tightened and a warning buzz started in his brain.

“Whereabouts in South Africa were you born?”

“Nelspruit,” he said crisply. “Small Afrikaans town founded by Boers along the Crocodile River. Or it was then. It was renamed Mbombela after apartheid.”

“So you grew up there?”

He grunted and bent down. More tracks. He looked up, watching the sky, birds. Listening.

“So why did you become a mercenary in the first place?” She was circling back to how he knew Omair, and how, exactly, Omair had saved him ten years ago. His head started to throb and his chest went tight. Carla was not her business. His failed marriage, his son, his farm, his old life in South Africa—not her damn business, either. Brandt had blocked that part of his history right out of his consciousness. He just didn’t go there—no point. He was no longer that man.

“Dalilah, please, do me a favor, just stop talking. Just for a while.”

Her jaw firmed and her cheeks pinked, a flare of hurt darting bright through her eyes. Then those almond eyes narrowed.

“I don’t usually have to work this hard to get people to be civil to me.”

Frustration flared across his chest.

“Then don’t. Save your breath.” And mine.

Her jaw dropped. “Look,” she snapped, “if I’m going to spend the amount of time with you that it takes to get up that cliff—” she jabbed her good arm at the red-rock wall ahead of them “—and over the plateau on top, then across another half of Botswana, we might as well be civil, get to know each other.”

“I know all I need to know about you, Dalilah,” he said quietly. “You’re Omair’s kid sister. And you’re a princess—a precious commodity to your kingdom, and you’re about to become queen of almighty Sa’ud. People want you back. A desperate man wants you dead. I’m the lackey in the middle.”

“You know nothing about me!” She spat the words at him in exasperation. “I’m more than someone else’s princess, someone’s fiancée. Someone’s commodity. I’m my own damn person, too!” She fisted her hand, and beat it against her chest. “I worked hard to get where I am, and I pay my own way, I’m a foreign investment consultant with a solid legal background. In my spare time I volunteer for ClearWater, and if I do spend my family fortune, it’s always for my volunteer work. If I do use my family name, it’s to raise funds for impoverished villages so that they can get access points to clear water. And yes, I attend a ton of glitzy charity events, but it’s to raise funds so I can come here, to Africa, to places like Zimbabwe, and do good work. Work that makes a difference in people’s lives, Brandt! And I might live in a plush Manhattan penthouse, but I paid for it, and I have friends there who like me for who I am....” Her voice hitched, and she swore, turning away, her eyes bright with tears.

She was cracking, thought Brandt. He had to go easier on her.

She spun back, calming her voice, but when she spoke it was shaky. “The only reason I’m in this position now is because my brothers weren’t open with me, and I couldn’t take adequate safety precautions because of it.” She took off her hat, shoved back her hair, damp, tendrils stiff with mud. “How do you think that makes me feel? My controlling brothers taking over my life again, and then lump me in with someone like you.” She rammed the hat back onto her head.

Surprise rippled through Brandt.

Then he said, very quietly, “Are you going to keep doing this charity work, keep your nice Manhattan apartment when you marry in nineteen months?”

She stared at him, the pulse at her neck racing, color in her cheeks high, maybe too high. Grasses rustled softly in a sudden hot breeze.

“Well, will you?”

Her hand went to her stomach, pressed, as if she suddenly felt sick. And he could see her searching for an answer.

“No,” she said after several beats of silence, her voice not sounding quite her own. “I will work, though, for the Kingdom of Sa’ud, Haroun’s diplomatic functions. I’m sure I’ll find some charities—I...I’d have to live there, of course.”

He took a step closer.

“And that makes you happy—that’s what you want?”

She met his gaze. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because you sound pretty damn passionate about the other stuff you were just yelling at me about. And you were so darn motivated to get me to take you to Harare to ink that water deal that you weren’t even thinking about the attackers on your tail.”

She swallowed, glanced away. “It’s because this was my last opportunity to do something with my ClearWater work.” She inhaled deeply. “I wanted to leave some kind of legacy, show that my freedom was worth something. Apart from...” She faded, her eyes gleaming with emotion.

“Freedom?” he said. “Versus marriage—is that how you see it?”

She moistened her lips.

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes going to her ring. “Give it all up for some dude who owns most of the world’s oil. For a moment back there in Zimbabwe, I was really impressed. But I read you wrong.”

“You’d respect me more—be impressed if I wasn’t going to marry? Marriage takes compromise.”

“And what’s Haroun giving up—what’s his compromise?”

Her eyes flickered.

He snorted. “You’re talking to the wrong man about marriage, Princess. Been there, done that, failed miserably. Sometimes compromise is not what it’s cracked up to be.”

“So you were married once?”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

She blinked, then gave him a measuring look. Brandt swallowed, his gaze locked with hers.

“What does impress you, Stryker?”

“If you’re following your passion, Dalilah,” he said quietly, “I’m impressed, whether you marry or not. And ClearWater, your job, your independence, is very obviously your passion.” He shrugged dismissively. “Trade it all off for a life behind palace walls? I’m not seeing a clear picture here.”

When she didn’t reply, he said, “It must make you happy. Or you wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah...it makes me happy,” she snapped, though she looked anything but.

He regarded her intently, nodded his head, then turned and began to march on.

Dalilah felt sick. She couldn’t move. He’d laid it all out right there. She couldn’t do it—she couldn’t marry Haroun. Tension coiled in her gut. But she couldn’t call it off now, either. It was a binding contract, a treaty between countries. Her brother, King Zakir, was relying on it, so was his King’s Council—her whole family. Her nation.

“You coming or what?” he yelled over his shoulder.

“I didn’t ask for your approval,” she called after him. “I don’t care what you think!”

He spun around again. “So why’d you just tell me all this? Why’d you kiss me like that, Dalilah, huh? What are you not getting with Haroun Hassan?”

She swallowed. She’d fallen right into it. She’d set herself up.

She turned her back to him, looked out over the gold grass, the big sky, the route they’d traveled. Immobilized. Trapped.

“Dalilah?”

She couldn’t move. Tears filled her eyes and she wouldn’t let him see.

“Dalilah?” She felt his touch, gentle on her shoulder.

Her heart began slamming against her ribs. She felt dizzy. Confused. It was fatigue, she told herself. Critical incident stress. She waited until her vision came fully back into focus.

Then she turned. Spine stiffening, she lifted her chin, met his eyes and forced a dry laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself about that kiss. Like you said, an itch to scratch.”

He moistened his lips, nodded slowly, eyes narrowing.

A bird flew overhead, big wings whooshing, a momentary shadow.

He swung his rifle back onto his shoulder, muzzle aimed into the air, and resumed his stride into the veldt.

“Damn you,” she muttered softly in Arabic. Then she cursed herself—why should she even care about explaining herself to this broad-chested mutt? Why did she want his approval so desperately?

But she knew why. She liked Brandt—there was something about him she respected, and there was a profoundness buried in him.

Most of all, she was trying to explain it to herself, and he was the punching bag in the way. And a catalyst.

They neared the bottom of the cliff and it loomed even higher than Dalilah had anticipated. The red rocks trapped the heat of the sun, radiating it back like an oven.

Dust devils swirled near the base, fine sand sticking to perspiration on Dalilah’s skin. The game trail to the approach petered out, and grass grew shoulder-high, scrub dense.

Brandt stopped, shaded his eyes, searching for a route up.

She heard a sneeze in the grass to her left and froze. Brandt spun around, lowered his rifle and clicked off the safety, attention trained on the grass.

“What is it?” she whispered.

He put his finger to his mouth.

Another sneeze.

“Impala,” he whispered. “Warning.”

A group of antelope suddenly flew at them from the grass. Dalilah shrieked and ducked as the buck leaped high and over her, violently kicking backward with his rear legs.

Brandt ignored the impala, aiming his gun at the vacated grass.

Her gaze shot to him in fear.

“Wild dogs,” he whispered. “That rocking-horse jump makes it harder for the dogs to grab their stomachs and disembowel them.”

The dog pack was only seconds behind the impala—small mottled black-and-tan predators with huge ears, white tail tips, snarling teeth as they gave full chase.

Dalilah heard a terrible gurgling death rasp as somewhere in the long grass the pack sank their teeth into an unlucky antelope and began ripping it apart alive. She grabbed Brandt’s arm, blood draining from her head and bile rising in her throat as she listened to the wet tearing, ripping grunts and growls.

“Nasty way to go,” he whispered. “That sound will attract bigger predators. We need to move fast.” Taking her hand, Brandt led her at a fast trot to the steaming base of the cliff, not letting her go for a minute. Dalilah was grateful because she felt she’d just hit rock bottom in every way, and was crashing hard.

At the cliff base, she slumped onto a rock, put her face in her hand. She wanted to cry, just release everything inside, but she also wanted to hold it all in. She began to shake. Brandt placed his hand, large, firm, calming, on her shoulder.

The tears welled.

He looked up at the sky, and she knew he was at a loss to know how to handle her. And he had to be tired, too.

Then, as if making a decision, he lowered himself onto the hot rock next to her and tentatively put his arm around her. Then he committed, pulling her tightly against his body.

Dalilah leaned into him, drawing comfort from his solid strength, his confidence, the steady beat of his heart, and she let the tears come.

“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay—I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She sniffed, met his eyes. “No, she said, very quietly. “I’m sure you’ll do your best. Or Omair will probably kill you.”

He smiled, a soft light entering his pale eyes, and he took her hat off, moving hair away from her dust-streaked face.

“Yeah. And if Omair doesn’t kill me,” he said softly, “Haroun will.”

She held his gaze.

“Brandt, thank you. I know I’m just a job, a package—”

“No,” he said softly. “Not just a package, not anymore.” He smiled, sadly this time, a worry entering his eyes. “You’re too stubborn for that.”