they come close?” she asked softly.
“Right up to the house sometimes—you can see their prints in the morning. They’re the top predator on my land. They ousted the lions.”
“Tautona has no lion pride?”
He laughed softly. “No. There apparently was a pride here before I bought the place. But some really dominant hyenas challenged them. There was a huge bloody battle. The lions were defeated and moved out of the territory. The hyenas control the place now.”
Silent, the two of them lay naked, side by side, time stretching out before them.
“Do you ever think of starting your own safari business out here, Brandt?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
“I told you. I don’t like people.”
“I do.”
He was silent for a long time and when she said no more, Brandt thought she might have fallen asleep, but she said suddenly, “We do make a good team, you know.”
“You say that like you were having doubts.”
“I was just thinking, I could handle the people side of things.”
He grinned, found her hand, twined his fingers through hers. Truth was, Brandt had started thinking about a way to keep her busy out here. Because then he might find a way to keep her.
“I love you, Princess,” he whispered.
Dalilah smiled in the dark, squeezed his hand. Then she heard his breathing change. She propped herself up on her elbow, hair falling over her breast, and she watched his face in the shadows.
Finally, she thought, Brandt sleeps. Now that he’s secure, when the job is done.
She watched him for a long while, his chest rising and falling, naked. So strong, yet so darn tender it cut right through her heart. She breathed in the scent of him, the scent of their sex, and mingled with it was a fragrance of wild honeysuckle that grew below the window.
“I love you, too, Tautona,” she whispered, and kissed him softly in his sleep.
Epilogue
They married eighteen months later—the mercenary and his princess—under a baobab tree over a thousand years old. The base of the tree was wide enough to hide an elephant, and its top tapered to form a perfect bottle shape, branches clawing up to a clear blue, infinite sky.
The tree had a magic about it—it had become a favorite spiritual place of Dalilah’s. She liked to sit under it and imagine what the baobab might have witnessed roaming these plains over all those thousands of years—herds of elephant, now-extinct rhinos, humans moving in as cattle herders, great prides of lions.
It was the perfect place for an informal church, and informal was what Dalilah wanted, as far removed from her long-planned royal wedding with Haroun as possible.
And seeing that they were defying convention, Brandt had decided he wanted two best men—Omair and Jacob.
Omair stood to his right now, Jacob proudly at his left. Jock sat obediently at Jacob’s heels, as always, but today the dog sported a special wedding bandanna around his neck.
Jacob had been officially hired by Brandt as his tracker, and Tautona Safari Expeditions was into its second season as a fledging safari outfit. This was all a result of Dalilah’s prodding—she’d insisted she wanted to run a business, and she’d insisted on providing substantial seed financing. She’d also set up an arm of ClearWater in Gaborone, and Brandt flew her to the city once a month to check up on staff and the office. He also flew clients in and out of the new bush camp they’d established not far from this baobab. The camp was constructed around a giant old nyala tree and consisted of Meru-style tents with en suite bathrooms open to the sky. The camp could accommodate a maximum of forty guests—a boutique safari outfit Dalilah had called it. He’d raised his brows, but she’d soldiered on.
Brandt had meanwhile bought and outfitted new jeeps, hired two guides, brought Jacob and Jock on as full-time trackers and game spotters, and he’d hired staff from the tiny village nearby as cooks and other help. He’d also built a pool and an outside bar and lapa near the main house.
Brandt couldn’t be happier. He loved seeing Dalilah energized whenever a new group was due to fly in. He’d sometimes even do some guiding himself, and he liked to sit back at the end of the day, by the outdoor fire, and watch Dalilah laugh and tell stories around the bar.
She’d never be bored, Brandt had thought when both the business and ClearWater Botswana really started to flourish. Their camps were booking out well over a year in advance now,