Chapter 25
Force Majeure
NICK
Fear lasted until the first missed flight. After that, the complaints got louder.
I stood in the service corridor just off the main lobby, the radio at my hip a constant, crackling weight. Through the slatted wood of the partition, the lodge had shifted from the hushed tension of the morning into something sharper.
“We’ve already checked out,” a man was saying, his voice rising in that specific, nasal pitch that signaled a looming demand for a manager.
Vaguely familiar. Vanderwaal. Private suite near the drainage.
Three complaints before dinner. “Our bags are loaded. You said the road was clear. Who is paying for the rebooking to Johannesburg?”
Sarah’s voice stayed level. “I understand the frustration, Mr. Vanderwaal,” she said. “But we are responding conservatively because that is the safest option. No one leaves until the Head Ranger clears the route.”
“Is this normal?” his wife asked. “Are we in danger?”
“This is not a typical Mara Khaya departure day,” Sarah replied, her voice cooling by several degrees. “Wildlife movement is part of the reserve, but the decision to pause transfers is precautionary. We are prioritizing your safety over the schedule.”
I stepped back from the partition. Precautionary was the polite version.
The reserve had stopped behaving like a place guests were meant to understand.
Most of them spent three days seeing elephants from a vehicle, drinking too much Chenin, and calling it transformative.
They stayed on the marked routes, with filtered stories and enough distance to keep the wildness beautiful.
Juliette had spent longer than she should have beside me in the seams. She’d seen the parts they weren’t supposed to carry home.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out, leaning against the cool plaster of the service wall.
Sofia: did u look at flights?
The screen stayed bright in my hand. Sofia’s text sat there, small and ordinary, while the cow’s ears snapped through my head again. Juliette’s hand on the door handle.
I began to type.
ME: I’m booking it today. I’ll send your mom the options before dinner your time.
The bubbles appeared almost instantly.
SOFIA: actually?
My thumb stopped over the screen. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, the grit of the road still under my skin.
ME: Actually. I’m sorry I made you ask twice. Situation here. All good now.
SOFIA: ok
ME: Not okay. Confirmed.
SOFIA: bossy
ME: Genetic issue. Nothing to be done.
The brief, sharp connection to a world of flight times and school breaks felt like a different language, one I was only half-fluent in.
I opened the airline app before I could turn the promise into another thing I meant to do later. Three flights. Two workable connections. One ugly layover I knew she would hate. I sent the options to her mother, then forwarded them to Sofia.
A reply came back before I reached the lobby.
SOFIA: ugly layover
ME: Best option on short notice
SOFIA: suspiciously adult answer
ME: Accurate answer
SOFIA: fine
I put the phone away and rolled my shoulders once before stepping into the lobby.
Guests clustered near the long table. Luggage blocked the center of the floor. Staff threaded through the gaps with tablets, radios, water glasses, and voices stretched thin.
Juliette stood near the reception desk, arms crossed, watching Sarah. Her posture was clean. Too clean. The kind that cost effort.
She looked up as I approached. She didn't look at me like a guest looks at a ranger. She looked at me like someone already inside the problem.
“Take me off whatever departure list you’re rebuilding,” Juliette said.
Sarah paused, a stack of manifests in her hand. “Juliette, I can’t ask you to—”
“You didn’t. I’m telling you.” Juliette shifted her gaze to the Brussels couple. “Move the Brussels couple into whatever transfer clears first. They have a connection. I don’t.”
“That would help,” Sarah admitted, the fatigue finally visible in the corners of her mouth. “But we’re over-leveraged on rooms, Juliette. We’ve had three arrivals hold at the gate, and the guests who checked out are currently occupying the lounge.”
“Put me wherever you have an extra bed at the main lodge,” Juliette said. “I’m staying until the tent route is safe.”
“Not the tent suites,” I intervened. My voice carried farther than it needed to.
Juliette cut her eyes to mine. “That was implied.”
“I’m making it explicit,” I said. I looked at Sarah. “The western access is not cleared. The eastern drainage pushed animals into the road, and I haven't found the trigger yet. Until I know why they moved, no one sleeps in the bush tents. All of them.”
“I have one small interior room,” Sarah said tentatively. “Behind the library. It was a staff overflow room. It’s... utilitarian.”
“Does it have a lock, a shower, and a surface large enough for a laptop?” Juliette asked.
“Yes.”
“Perfect.”
“It’s not perfect,” I said, the words coming out as a growl.
Juliette turned fully toward me. “I’m adapting, Nick. Try to keep up.”
The man from Brussels, Vanderwaal, stepped forward, his face flushed. “So she gets a room, and we get what? Chairs?”
Juliette didn't even blink. She turned the full weight of her executive stare on him. “You get priority on the next safe transfer out. I’m removing myself from the queue so you can have it. I’m sure you’ll survive the injustice of a slightly more comfortable departure.”
The man sputtered and retreated.
Juliette had found the pressure point in the room and removed herself from it, reducing Sarah’s burden while doubling mine. As long as she was here, I couldn’t file her under departed and move on.
“Sarah, update the manifest,” I said. “I’ll secure the interior room.”
I grabbed the small kit Sarah held out and gestured for Juliette to follow.
The room was behind the library, tucked into a quiet wing of the original stone structure.
It was small. The walls were thick plaster, the floor polished concrete.
There was a narrow bed, a single lamp, and a small wooden desk.
The window was high and fitted with iron shutters. It was defensible.
I went in first. The window latch held. The interior lock caught clean. The office handset gave me two bars and a clear channel.
Juliette stood in the center of the small space, watching me.
“Is this the official Mara Khaya turndown service?” she asked. Her voice was dry, but there was a tremor in it.
“No.”
“Shame. The menace is memorable.”
I stopped at the foot of the bed. The room was so small that my presence seemed to displace the air. Her scent had nowhere to go in a room that size.
“You took yourself off the list,” I said.
“I solved a problem,” she countered.
“You became one.”
Juliette stepped toward me. “Then stop pretending I’m only a guest.”
“You are a guest.”
“No,” she said. “I’m the woman who stayed.”
“I can’t do my job if one part of me keeps listening for you.” My hand tightened on the radio. “I know where every vehicle is, every ranger, every guest waiting for transfer. And I still keep checking where you are.”
“That sounds like your job,” she said.
“Not like this.” Her shoulders stayed squared. Chin up. No retreat. “I can’t afford to want you safer than everyone else.”
My hand locked on the edge of the desk, the wood grain rough enough to snag the skin.
“Then stop pretending,” she said again. She reached out, her fingers brushing the back of my hand. “I’m here because I chose to be.”
I set the radio down on the small desk. The sound of the plastic hitting wood was final.
“If I touch you right now,” I said, my voice rough, “I’m not going to be polite enough to make it look casual.”
“Good.”
“That isn't an answer, Juliette.”
“Yes.” She stepped into my space, close enough that her breath hit my mouth. “Yes.”
That was the answer. I caught the back of her neck and pulled her in.
The kiss had no goodbye in it. No careful edge. This was the pressure after the road, after the rhino, after watching her sit still in a vehicle while every instinct in me cataloged distance and impact. She was here. Under my hands. Breathing.
I backed her against the door, the wood taking her weight as the lock clicked beside us. One window. Clear line to the hall. Safe. Not enough.
“Don’t make yourself another blind spot,” I said against her skin.
“Then look at me.”
So I did. Shirt over her head. Bra under my hand. Trousers down her legs. Her eyes stayed on mine the whole time. Juliette Wilder did not surrender. She chose, and that was worse.
The bed frame gave a low protest when I put her on it. I was over her, control already in pieces. She reached for me, fingers closing around my cock, and I had to shut my eyes for half a second. I caught her wrist and pinned it beside her head. Not hard. Final. “Hands there.”
Her eyes flashed. She tested the hold once. I didn’t move. Her arm went slack.
“Good girl.”
Her breath caught. I pressed in with one long stroke and felt her body take me, tight and slick and alive. No slow build. My hips drove into hers, hard enough to shift the bed against the wall. She wrapped her legs around me and pulled me deeper, nails biting into my back.
When my hand moved over her ribs, I caught myself checking. No bruising. No damage.
“If you treat me like a post-incident report,” she gasped, “I’m going to start editing.”
“You would.”
“With comments.”
I changed the angle, deeper, and her voice broke on my name. I slid my hand between us and found her clit, rubbing tight circles in time with every thrust. Her whole body seized.
“Come on,” I said against her ear. “I want to feel you come around me.”
She came hard, nails biting into my shoulders, her body body clamping down until I had nothing left to manage. I buried myself deep and came with my forehead pressed to hers, holding her hip like I could keep her there by force of will alone.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. The room held. The door stayed locked.
Afterward, I sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on my shirt. Juliette was wrapped in the thin lodge blanket, watching me. On the desk, the radio barked.
“Mercer, come in.” It was Daniel.
I grabbed the handset. “Mercer. Go.”
“We found where they pushed the crash, Nick. Western access, near the old salt lick. We’ve got fresh tracks. Human. They’re still inside the line.”
The reserve reclaimed the room in a single sentence. My feet were on the floor before the static cleared.
“Copy. I’m on my way. Tell Elias to meet me at the staging area.”
I stood up, reaching for my belt. I looked at Juliette. She was already sitting up, her expression steady. She didn't ask me to stay. She didn't ask if it was dangerous.
“Lock the door,” I said.
She looked at the door, then back at me. Her voice was calm, too steady for a woman sitting in a staff overflow room while men with rifles moved through the scrub.
“I’m inside the line, Nick.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
Then I went back to work.