Guarding the Princess - By Loreth Anne White Page 0,72
made it all seem so surreal.
There was a small fenced-off vegetable garden beside the school building and a tower with a water tank nearby. A windmill creaked in the hot breeze. No phone lines. No electricity. A little oasis of life separate from the rest of the world. Dalilah watched as two women with yellow plastic containers in a cart bent over a tap with a hose attached, filling the vessels. A toddler played in the sand at their feet.
It drove home suddenly the reason she was here in southern Africa. The deal in Harare.
The dead delegates. Her brother sending Brandt.
She looked at him.
Because I care. Because I’ve fallen for you, Princess. And because I can’t have you, and Sheik Hassan can...
Did her brothers care? She’d never spoken to them about her marriage doubts. Apart from that one instance of hesitation right before her parents were killed, Dalilah hadn’t even articulated her fears to herself. Until now—until the Zimbabwe trip, until she’d met Brandt, and kissed him. Until he’d abducted her—physically ripping her out from the very fabric of her life, affording her a reprieve.
How could she expect her brothers to understand or care if she hadn’t spoken to them? Dalilah wondered what her father might say if he were alive today, and she told him she wanted to marry a man for love.
Brandt felt her watching him and turned to look at her.
“What are you thinking?” he said.
“About their water. About my volunteer work and what it means to me.”
Brandt held her gaze, something softening in his eyes, then he turned back to the village. “One jeep,” he said. “Over there, parked behind what looks like some kind of communal building.”
“Can we bargain with them for the jeep, do you think?”
“I don’t want them to see us. If Amal gets wind these villagers have any information on us, he’ll slaughter them all—like he did everyone at the lodge.”
“You want to steal it?”
“Liberate it, temporarily.”
She smiled. “I’ll pay them back for it once we’re safe.”
“Your brother will.”
“No. He won’t.”
He shot her a fast glance, brow raised.
“This is not his mission. Not anymore.”
Brandt opened his mouth, but she spoke first.
“I don’t care what you say about paying him back, or owing him. That’s between you and him. This is about me. My life. My mission. I’m taking it back, taking control. My brothers don’t run my life.” Then she muttered, “As much as they might try.”
He laughed, softly, darkly. “They do control it if you marry for them and not for yourself,” he said.
She held his gaze. “If I marry, it’ll be my choice.”
His features tightened, eyes narrowing.
“If?”
Dalilah’s heart beat faster. She hadn’t intended phrasing it that way. She averted her eyes.
A woman came out of the school building and rang a handbell. The noise of the children rose as they pushed and jostled and raced to line up in front of her. The woman waited until the line fell silent, then she led the kids single file into the building. In the shade of a tree two men were talking.
“How can we get that jeep with all these people about?”
Brandt took the camera from his pack and panned the village using the telephoto lens. “We could wait until dark,” he said. “But that could cost us valuable time. The foot-and-mouth fencing makes it more difficult,” he said, adjusting the lens and focusing on the jeep. “There’s only one way in and out and that’s through the cattle gate and disinfectant troughs over there.”
“Is that fencing and trough to control the spread of hoof and mouth, then?” she asked.
He nodded. “The disease devastated Botswana some years back,” he said. “See, next to the cattle gate is a smaller trough for people to walk through so they don’t carry the disease on their shoes.”
They lay a while longer in the sun, watching for opportunity.
Brandt cursed softly. “I hate the very idea of bringing Amal close to this place. This village,” he said, “is what Botswana is about for me. This peace. This lack of outside distraction, just people living in the present with what they’ve got.”
“Is that why you came to Botswana, Brandt?”
He grunted, moved the camera, focusing in on the jeep again. “The longer we wait, the closer Amal gets. It’s becoming a toss-up between keeping this village safe, and you alive.” He swore again, set the camera down, fingered his gun, watching, thinking. She could see he was conflicted.
He turned and looked toward the western horizon. She could see him