Saved By You (Wilder Horizons #5)

1. The Retreat, Allegedly

The Retreat, Allegedly

JULIETTE

The air was dry and warm, spiced with dust and something green underneath—not floral or sweet, but sharp enough to strip everything down to its essentials.

My breath caught, shallow and involuntary, as I stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac. With my blazer folded over one arm and Saint Laurent sunglasses already in place, the sun pressed against my neck—a persistent, localized assault.

September in South Africa had missed the memo about seasonal transitions.

The transfer was as seamless as I expected.

Wilder Horizons didn't partner with operations that missed details, especially when I was technically appearing as a guest. A black Land Rover waited nearby while cold water appeared in my hand and my bag was lifted away before I could even reach for the strap.

I didn't look for my bag; it was already gone. I didn’t reach for water; it was already in my hand.

The vehicle pulled forward, smooth and unhurried, as the city began to thin and roads narrowed.

Asphalt eventually gave way to packed earth, the landscape stretching wide and unbothered under a pale sky reached for by scrubby, flat-topped trees.

The farther we drove, the quieter it became, until the hum of the tires intruded on the silence.

If I vanished out here, at least the setting would earn five stars.

I lowered the window, letting the scents deepen into red dirt and warm stone and a trace of old smoke. Animals shifted in the brush beyond the road, moving with a purpose that had nothing to do with my itinerary.

My phone vibrated. My older sister’s name flashed across the screen, thumb hovering for a fraction too long before I swiped. The call connected without a hitch in my breathing. “I’m here.”

“I know,” Summer said. “I watched your dot stop moving.”

“Yes. That is generally how arrivals work.”

She exhaled, a familiar sound that collapsed the miles between us. “Your ‘calm’ voice is usually followed by a site audit.”

“I’m here to rest, Summer. This trip was practically forced upon me.”

“You're on a retreat for CEOs, Juliette. Not a scouting mission for our next acquisition. You promised you wouldn’t turn this into reconnaissance.”

“I promised not to disrupt anyone else’s experience,” I said. “If something inefficient happens to exist in my line of sight, that’s between them and God.”

“Juliette.”

My thumb pressed against my pen, clicking it twice before I stilled it. “I am capable of sitting still, Summer.”

“Precedent disagrees. In multiple jurisdictions.”

The landscape blurred past the window, scrub and sky stretching wide. “I’ll check in every couple of days. If something catches fire—figuratively—text me.”

“Nothing is on fire.”

“Good.”

A pause.

“You deserve a week where no one needs you,” she said.

The pen stayed still this time. “We’ll see.”

Summer’s silence through the speaker carried the same steady energy she’d used since we were kids—contain first, react later.

It’s an instinct that made her an excellent COO.

It also meant she felt the strain before anyone else did.

Here in Africa, the red dust felt like an antidote to the Florida coast—and to the high-stakes friction of our family business.

Keeping my five sisters, all of them brilliant and none of them quiet, moving in the same direction was a constant calculation.

The road curved, and the main lodge finally rose out of the bush like it belonged there—a series of low, wide structures built from stone and wood, designed to let the landscape swallow them whole. There were no fences or walls, just the vastness of space and the subtle suggestion of boundaries.

This was what my family specialized in at Wilder Horizons: the illusion of untouched.

The SUV stopped and the doors fell open. The manager greeted me with a chilled towel and a tablet already loaded with my itinerary at Mara Khaya Private Reserve. My private tented safari suite wasn’t here. This was only the threshold.

Off to the side, a man stood apart from the welcome line.

Khaki field shirt, sleeves rolled to the exact same height on both forearms. Well-fitted field trousers, close through the hips, reinforced where it mattered.

A faded cap pulled low enough to shadow his eyes.

A holster rested clean and unadorned at his hip, matte black against dust-toned fabric.

He said nothing. Just watched.

The quiet stretched, expectant. Someone else might have filled it. I didn’t.

When I looked his way, he stepped forward. Lean through the waist. No excess anywhere. His attention didn’t settle on my face. It tracked lower—my phone, the pen between my fingers, the exact second my hand tightened before I stilled it.

All right, then.

I straightened, lifting my chin until his steady, unreadable blue eyes met mine.

The silence stretched as our eyes locked. He didn’t blink.

“Ms. Wilder.”

“Juliette,” I said, because I always did.

“Nick Mercer,” he replied.

I waited for the rest—the welcome, the handshake, the professional smile. None came.

“I’ll be responsible for your safety while you’re here.”

His voice carried an accent I couldn’t neatly categorize—a trace of British that refused to settle long enough to confirm.

Controlled. Polished. Annoyingly neutral.

His gaze dropped to my boots—structured leather, low heel, tread built for the environment.

For a moment, he looked almost disappointed he couldn’t send me back to the tarmac.

“Thank you, but I don’t require special treatment.”

He held the look without softening, the silence stretching long enough to turn the surrounding bird calls into a roar. My spine straightened. I didn’t look away.

“That’s not how this works,” he said.

The lodge manager cleared her throat, hovering on the edge of intervention. He didn’t acknowledge her.

“This is a private reserve,” he continued evenly. “Most weeks, guests never see the protocols. This week, you will. We’ve had increased poaching activity along the eastern boundary. Every retreat guest is assigned a ranger.”

“I’m here as part of a group,” I said. “I'm not a fragile princess.”

“You’re still my responsibility.”

The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it. "Then fair warning, Mr. Mercer. I've been told I'm a delight to supervise."

Nothing in his face moved. Usually, this was where the polite laughter happened.

Tough room.

I tucked my phone into my bag and gave him a sharp nod.

“Understood.”

He studied me, as if revising an initial verdict, and then he turned away. “Vehicle’s ready. Your bush suite is three miles out. We're clear to go.”

There was no request and no wait. I followed.

The safari jeep smelled like leather and sun—open frame, mounted radio, suspension tuned for uneven ground.

Immaculate despite the dust. I took the front seat he gestured toward as the bush swallowed the vehicle, the lodge fading behind us while we rolled into the scrub along a path barely visible, its surface hardened by repetition rather than design.

He drove with a relaxed, terrifying efficiency, and up close he was a study in economy.

His forearms were corded, sun-browned. A cleanly trimmed beard traced a sharp jawline. Matte-black Oakleys shielded his eyes. Nick Mercer was efficient to look at, devoid of the vanity that usually came with a face like that.

No tour-guide commentary followed. No rehearsed explanations about the terrain or the lodge’s sustainability metrics. Silence suited him. One hand stayed steady on the wheel while the other rested loose and ready, like he trusted his reflexes more than conversation.

My shoulders dropped, and my breath evened. My fingers settled in my lap.

At least no one expected me to clap at the wildlife. Small mercies.

We stopped near a shallow waterhole and the engine cut, allowing a thick, alert silence to settle over us. Something moved at the edge of the clearing—a shape, a flick of motion—and Nick raised a hand. I went still, holding my breath until his hand finally dropped.

A pair of antelope stepped into view. Then more. They drank without relaxing their ears or the taut line of their muscles. They were alive in a way that sharpened the air, making the stillness feel earned.

I recognized the current. I’d been wound that tight since the tarmac. The difference was they were scanning for leopards, and I was scanning for a Wi-Fi signal.

At least they wouldn’t be asked to justify their existence in a twelve-slide PowerPoint presentation before being eaten.

Nick watched the antelope like someone counting, not like a tourist. His gaze moved across the herd in slow increments, marking position, spacing, distance to the tree line. Mine dropped to the useless signal bars on my phone for the fourth time in two minutes.

Minutes passed before he spoke, his voice quiet and steady. “You’re still working.”

I glanced at him. “So are you. You’ve counted the herd twice, checked the tree line every few seconds, and adjusted your grip on the wheel every time one of them moves.”

He looked at me then, not casually. Not politely. Directly.

“I’m still on the clock.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

His attention returned to the antelope, but the corner of his mouth shifted. Not a smile. Barely an acknowledgment. More like a private note filed beside the things he hadn’t expected from me.

“Fair enough,” he said.

Irritatingly, he wasn’t wrong. Worse, he hadn’t been careless about it.

I looked out at the scrub, feeling the weight of the observation. “I’m here to learn.”

“About safaris?”

“No. About why everyone thinks I need this retreat.”

He shifted his weight, glancing back at me. “People usually have reasons for sending someone this far from home,” he said. “Doesn’t mean the bush is here to accommodate them.”

“Everything flexes,” I said. “Even when it pretends not to.”

His mouth twitched in the closest thing to a laugh I expected to see before sunset.

We drove on.