“I’ll take that chance. This rock pool has been baked dry and clean by the sun all winter—it’s only flowing again now since the fresh rains.”
“Animal feces could be upstream.”
“Spoken like someone who understands water risks in Africa,” he said, pooling more water in his hands and drinking deeply, regardless. It was the first time Dalilah had seen him drink anything since the whiskey this morning. He’d saved their supply for her, and now he was slaking what was clearly a deep and desperate thirst.
He filled the water canteen, capped it, then stuck his whole head into the cool pool, rinsing his face. He got up, flicked his head back and raked his hands through his short hair, biceps flexing, and Dalilah was struck by a thought—she could love this man.
It turned her mood suddenly dark and heavy.
“Drink, Dalilah. And wash off—we’ll rest here a bit. We have enough light to get to the top before sunset. He dropped to his haunches again and opened his pack, removing two small airplane-size bottles. “Shampoo and lotion,” he said with a flourish of his hand. “You could take a full shower under this waterfall. Nature’s spa.”
Dalilah stared at the bottles. Her eyes flashed to his. “You brought those?”
A wicked tilt lifted one side of his mouth. “Traveling with royalty, aren’t I? Gotta keep a princess in the style to which she’s accustomed.”
“And there I was thinking you were going out of your way to make me feel uncomfortable.”
“Well, just enough to keep you focused.”
“See, I was right.”
“The princess is intuitive.”
She touched his hand. “Brandt.”
His body went stone-still.
“Call me Princess one more time,” she whispered, close to his mouth, “and I swear I will use that panga of yours to kill you.”
Energy shimmered between them for a beat, then abruptly Brandt averted his eyes and unsmilingly yanked the sarong out of the pack.
“Get undressed, take a full bath. I’ll go over there, behind that jutting-out rock. Out of sight, but within earshot. You’ll be safe. Use this to dry off.” He thrust the sarong at her. “If you want to wash any clothes, lay them out on those hot rocks once you’re done. Stuff will dry in minutes. You can get that splint wet—I have more bandages and another splint if we need one.”
He hooked up his backpack, made for the jut of rock, went round it and disappeared from sight.
Dalilah stood there, sarong in hand, staring after him.
A few yards away, screened by the rock, Brandt settled back onto the hot ledge.
From his backpack he dug out the high-tech digital camera with zoom lens. One thing he hadn’t found in the jeep, or in the pack, was a pair of binoculars, so the camera zoom lens would have to suffice.
Using the powerful lens, he scanned the landscape below, but he was unable to cut thoughts of Dalilah from his mind. Somehow—he wasn’t exactly sure how or when—she’d gone from being a principal to someone he actually cared about, so help him God. Yeah, it was shades of Carla all over again, but Brandt couldn’t undo what had changed within him, so he was just going to have to soldier through this now.
He panned over to an area of thorny trees. A small herd of zebra rested in shade. Not far from them buffalo moved slowly in a group. He swept the camera slowly to the east, saw dust rising. His heart kicked. Zooming in closer, he realized the dust was being raised by elephants, not Amal’s jeeps.
In the sky, above the bushy area near the elephants, five vultures wheeled. One dropped suddenly, like a bomb into the long grass, then another. Probably after the remains of the dog kill, he thought. If it was a fresh lion kill the birds would drop only as far as the trees, fearing retaliation from the lions.
There was nothing else that caught his eye. No glint of metal or flash of glass, no other telltale line of dust rising into the air. Most of the animals were resting in the heat, waiting for the cool of night, when the real cycle of violence and activity would begin.
Brandt leaned back, rifle on his knee, camera in his hand, and rested his head against the rock, listening to sounds of the place—the clicking of insects, birdcall, rustling feathers as smaller raptors rode the cliff thermals above him in search of mice and other small prey, water splashing into the pool.
The sound of the waterfall changed as Dalilah presumably moved under it. Brandt’s pulse worked a little faster, his chest tightening as he thought of her buck naked in the pool. He heard another splash, and before he could stop himself, Brandt eased forward, copped a peek.
Everything in his body stilled.
Apart from her blue SAM splint, the princess was naked, standing under the waterfall, head back as she rinsed shampoo out of her hair, her eyes closed in pure, unaffected pleasure at the sensation of the cool water drumming over her body.