Chapter 10 #2
I ended up back at the mess tent without deciding to go there. The lamp was still on, the tables empty, the canvas sides open to a darkness that had no edge. I sat where I’d sat during the briefing and listened to the reserve breathe. Tried to do the same.
I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there when I saw Donovan crossing the compound toward the tent. He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. He had a mug in his hand, and he set it on the table and leaned back.
Neither of us said anything for a while. The generator ticked behind one of the buildings, and beyond the tent, the reserve was a cacophony of wildlife that seemed to protest the sound of the industrial machinery of our camp.
“Can’t sleep either?” he asked finally.
“No.”
He took a sip from the mug. “The zebra?”
“I keep seeing the wire.” I pressed my thumbs into the edge of the table. “We’ve never lost one to poaching here. Not once. And now someone’s come onto our ground and taken a zebra apart like it was nothing.”
“We’ll find them. You heard Cole. First light, we’re going back to the site to see what it tells us.”
“I know.” I pulled my hands back. “I just hate that it’s here now. That it’s reached us. Even the rangers, as useless as some of them have been, and I know that’s a terrible thing to say—”
He gave me a half smile. “It’s not terrible if it’s true.”
“—their presence alone was enough until now. I figured no poachers came here because the rangers were here. But now, someone has.” I pressed my forehead into my hands. “Poachers don’t care. They take what they can sell and they move on and they don’t care how many animals they destroy to get it.”
He didn’t say anything to that. He sat with it, his eyes on the mug.
I lifted my head. “Sorry. You didn’t come out here to listen to me spiral.”
“Believe it or not, I came out here because I can’t sleep in the quiet.” He looked out into the distance. “Twelve years of sleeping in places where any sound meant trouble. Out here, it’s too open and too still and nothing’s trying to kill me, and my body doesn’t believe it.”
“Actually, there are quite a lot of predators out there that would be quite happy to kill you.”
He chuckled. “I guess I mean nobody with guns trying to kill me.”
“That happen a lot? People with guns trying to kill you?”
“Sometimes. Occupational hazard. It’s hard to sleep when it’s too quiet. My mind won’t settle.” He took a sip of his coffee and shook his head. “I don’t know why I told you that.”
Something moved in the grass way beyond the canvas, big and unhurried. Elephants, probably. My mind briefly drifted to Daniel. About how much he hated this place, when so many vets would be delighted to be part of this fellowship.
“My family thinks I’m crazy.” I hadn’t meant to say it.
The words just came out, pulled loose by the dark and the rawness of the day and the way Donovan had offered something real without being asked.
“They love me, but none of them understands why I’m here.
None of them understands why I’d want to spend time in Africa…
No TVs, no air conditioning, wild animals roaming around. ”
I stopped. He wasn’t interested in hearing any of this.
“You love it, but they worry.”
“And they’re not wrong to worry. It’s hard and it’s dangerous and it’s hot, and I miss them all the time.
” I pressed my thumbnail into the grain of the table.
“But Kenya, this conservancy, is the first place that’s ever felt like mine.
” I took a deep breath and looked into Donovan’s eyes.
“I know that sounds ungrateful. It’s not meant to be, though. ”
“It doesn’t sound ungrateful.”
“It does if you’re my mother. My family loves me so much, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere.”
“But here is different?”
“Yes.” I looked out through the open side of the tent at the darkness that went on forever. “This is the first place that I feel like I fit. The animals, the work, the village, the children. I earned the right to be here, and I never take it for granted. This is mine alone, and I love it here.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I can see that.”
“You can?”
“Are you kidding? It’s evident in everything you do. The way you are here in camp. The way you are with the village kids. The rhino on the tracking run the other day.” He paused. “You were fucking amazing. In Paris, I thought you were—”
He stopped. Something I couldn’t place quickly flickered over his face.
“Thought I was what?”
“Brave. Walking up to my table when you were terrified. Most people don’t do the thing that scares them.”
I rolled my eyes. “I threw up on you.”
“After.” A smile crossed his face. “But everything before that was brave.”
“That is a very generous reading of events.”
“From my perspective, it’s an accurate one.”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t flattering me. He was just saying what he thought, unwavering and plain, take it or leave it.
Neither of us had moved, but the distance between us felt different. Charged.
“Donovan.” I shifted in my chair and leaned forward slightly.
“Yeah.” His voice dropped.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. His name had come out on its own, and there was nothing behind it except the fact that I wanted him to stay exactly where he was.
He leaned forward. Slowly. Met me halfway across the table. His hand came up, and his fingers touched my jaw.
He kissed me.
His mouth was warm and unhurried, and the slowness of it undid me more than urgency would have. I found the front of his shirt with my hand and held on, twisting my fingers into the fabric like I needed something solid to keep me where I was.
He traced the line of my jaw with his thumb, and I felt it everywhere—in my chest, in the base of my throat, in the place behind my ribs where I’d been carrying the weight of wanting this and pretending I didn’t.
He kissed me like he had nowhere else to be, and I kissed him back like I’d been waiting for exactly this without knowing how to ask for it.
Because that was the truth.
Then a hippo grunted somewhere past the tree line, close enough to rattle the canvas, and we broke apart.
The distance between us was only inches, but it was enough. Enough for the air to hit my skin where his hand had been, enough for every thought I’d shut out to come flooding back.
The way this would end, because it would end. I couldn’t keep the attention of a man like this. I wasn’t enough—Gregory had made that clear.
I pulled away farther.
His hand dropped. He let me go immediately, no resistance, no question.
“I, uh…” There was no way I could explain this to him. “I’m sorry. I need to—”
I stood up. The chair scraped back against the packed dirt, and the sound was too loud in the empty tent.
“Sarah. Hey—”
“Good night.”
I walked across the dark compound, past the cabins with their windows black, past the water tank leaning on its crooked stand. I wanted to run, but that would be ridiculous. Especially since last time we’d come near to kissing—right after vomiting all over him—I’d run down the hotel hallway.
Donovan had to think I was an idiot. How could he not?