Zambezi Seduction

  Zambezi Seduction

  By

  Tamara Cape

  Text copyright © 2013 Tamara Cape. All Rights Reserved

  ONE

  It took a lot to distract Chad Lindsay from the sports pages, but the flare-up brewing almost under his nose between the two English stewardesses was a real attention-grabber.

  He folded the newspaper and sat back.

  Both young women were out of uniform, but they had that giveaway look: cool and attractive, their grooming faultless – the type who stood out in a crowd. Airlines used this Johannesburg hotel to rest crews after intercontinental flights, their presence a common sight in its lobby, lounge and bars.

  At present that renowned coolness was being sorely tested. With rising interest, the South African listened to their argument.

  “Oh, come on, Kerry,” challenged the blonde. “Everyone’s going.”

  The one named Kerry stood up, her back to Chad. Only a few feet separated them. He breathed in a trace of her scent while his interested glance took in her slim and shapely body. She was above average height, her hair strikingly dark, almost Asian-black.

  “Look,” Kerry said, her voice hardening, “if you want to party, no one’s stopping you. I’ve promised myself an early night.”

  Chad breathed deeply. The brunette’s perfume and figure delighted his senses. Her speech was smooth and articulate – the confidence, he guessed, gained from daily exposure to the travelling public. At that moment she turned, making a sweeping gesture with her arm.

  “None of this . . . Africa . . . means anything to you, does it?”

  Chad put down the newspaper and reached for his beer glass. Now that he had a better view of her face, he decided the wait had been worth it. He watched her surreptitiously, admiring her perfect bone structure, the pert nose and red-lipped mouth complemented by good skin and whiter-than-white teeth. She exuded an air of lively intelligence and – he checked those rose-petal lips again – devastating sex appeal.

  The blonde was silent – struggling to comprehend. The South African continued to observe the other stewardess.

  “Africa,” Kerry said, “fascinates me – its wildlife, landscape and people. I don’t need to party. Just being here gives me a buzz.”

  Chad watched the dark-haired beauty glance around. Their eyes met for a moment. Then she walked towards the lifts without looking back.

  The South African finished his drink. He could no longer concentrate on the Natal Sharks’ game tomorrow; nor was he interested in the blonde stewardess. It was the other he found impossible to put out of mind. Her refusal to go along with the rest of the gang struck a chord with his own independent nature. And her words about Africa had moved him in a strange way.

  He thought of something and found his gaze returning to the hotel lifts again and again.

  ***

  The sudden knocking on her door took Kerry Stephens by surprise. She resented the intrusion. Her orderly mind had her evening planned: bed with her book, lights out early, sleep – plenty of it.

  She wasn’t in the sweetest of moods. The onset of a stopover in the South African sunshine should have had her bubbling with joie de vivre. However, since their early morning landing and transfer to the luxurious hotel in the Johannesburg suburb, her day had been spoiled by a headache brought on by a combination of her punishing workload, PMT and the city’s six thousand feet altitude. It angered her, more than anything. She looked after herself – exercised, ate and drank sensibly – yet here she was feeling jaded.

  The other girls hadn’t helped. Crew members were changed each flight and this time Kerry had none of her close friends along. A captain with a rival European airline had organized a get-together among the various crews in town. While the others were in the mood to party, Kerry was not. The man was a notorious playboy who preyed on young stewardesses. His third marriage was rumoured to be on the rocks. She wanted nothing whatsoever to do with him.

  After her altercation with her colleague, Kerry had escaped to her room, showered and now sat before the mirror brushing her hair. It was all silky bounce and gloss, one of her best features. A few months ago she’d had it cut back into a neat pageboy which everyone praised, saying it enhanced the fine contours of her face. She had let it grow out since, but it still took only a short time to fix.

  When the knocking sounded, gentle but insistent, Kerry considered ignoring it. Her room-mate Jayne was staying overnight with a cousin in Sandton. This had to be one of the other stewardesses, probably come in a last-ditch attempt to change Kerry’s mind. With a sigh she got to her feet and discarded the towel from across her bare shoulders. Wearing only a short robe of embroidered Chinese silk – an impulse buy during a stopover in Hong Kong – Kerry opened the door.

  The man towered over her. She guessed his height as six two or three, and her surprised but interested first glance also took in his athletic build under the lightweight tan suit and open-necked maroon shirt. His face was familiar, but she had no time to dwell on this.

  “Chad Lindsay,” he said, affably. “I was downstairs in the lounge.”

  He smiled, running a hand through his hair, a dark thatch styled fashionably long and swept back at the sides. His face’s character came from the strong jawline, Kerry decided, with its slight dimple at the chin and the wide set eyes, the same grey-green colour as her own. It was a handsome head on a strong body, undeniably male. Its nearness, when she had been expecting someone of her own sex, caused an immediate reaction within her. Kerry felt her heartbeat quicken and her eyes blinked rapidly several times. Warmth spread through her body. It puzzled her: she was used to dealing with strangers – why was this one so different?

  She remembered. “At the next table . . .” About to give her name, Kerry was suddenly uncertain, glad of the door chain.

  “May I come in and talk for a moment?”

  His speech marked him as a South African of breeding and refinement – an accent she had always liked. He backed his request with a persuasive smile. Kerry hesitated. She found herself immobilised by the strength emanating from his piercing eyes, a power seemingly intensified by the narrowness of her view through the partly-opened door.

  Pulling herself together, she said coolly, “I’m not dressed to receive visitors. What’s it about?”

  The man produced a snakeskin wallet from his jacket pocket. He extracted a card and passed it through to her. “You have heard of me, perhaps?” he asked.

  Kerry read aloud from the business card. “Chad Lindsay, Wildlife Artist.” There followed a Gauteng address, e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers.

  “Are you sure you have the right room, the right person? Artists are supposed to paint their mistresses – not complete strangers.”

  Chad laughed. Perfect teeth – Kerry made a mental note. God, this guy had everything going for him.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “Well, what else am I to think?”

  Fixing her with a powerful stare, he leaned forward and rattled the chain. “This is so difficult.”

  Kerry was unmoved. She had been trained in how to handle awkward or drunk passengers.

  “It’s going to stay that way until you explain yourself. If you can’t, then you’d better leave before I call hotel security.”

  He appeared amused by her sharp rejoinder. “Something I overheard downstairs brought me here,” he told her. “I have an offer which I’m sure will interest you.” Having got her full attention, Chad cleverly stepped back, no longer a threat at the open door. The bait was left dangling enticingly – and both knew she would take it.

  They stared at one another. The lights in the corridor seemed to enhance the glint in his eyes, which moved down lustfully over her bod
y . . . and suddenly Kerry was very conscious of her nakedness under the short robe.

  “Give me a minute to dress,” she said before closing the door.

  ***

  They sat side by side on soft chairs, Chad’s long legs stretched out before him. Kerry had insisted on their returning to the lounge. She knew nothing about this man. He could be an opportunist, a thief – or worse! Until she knew to the contrary she was not prepared to invite him into her room. She sat quietly with a mineral water. He stirred sugar into his coffee. It gave her a moment to assess this stranger who had so casually and unexpectedly intruded into her life. She judged his age as early thirties, seven or eight years her senior. Handsome in the extreme, face and neck deeply tanned – the effect accentuated by the one-or-two day beard stubble – and stylishly attired. Her mother used to say a man’s shoes told a lot about him. Kerry noted that Chad wore two-tone brown Italian loafers, the perfect complement to his well-tailored suit. Remembering how a short time before his eyes had roved over her body, she marked him as a man with a strong libido which he made no effort to hide.

  So just what did he want with her? she asked herself warily.

  He got quickly to the point.

  “I paint wild animals, not women,” he said with a languid smile. “To date my efforts have met with moderate success. A few times a year I visit national parks to sketch and take photos. All the painting is done at home, which is a farm cottage outside Jo’burg.”

  Kerry nodded, paying attention. What a fascinating life – free of the constraints that bind most people to a desk or office. She now believed that he was who he said he was.

  “I’m driving to Zimbabwe in October. It’s one of the best areas to see elephant, but my main quarry is leopard.” The South African paused and fixed his eyes on hers. “Should you care to accompany me, you’d be welcome. It’ll be hot and at times uncomfortable, but you don’t see the real Africa from Five Star hotel rooms. What you will see is plenty of game and a lot more – including the most beautiful waterfall on the planet.”

  Kerry was stunned. She saw the amused gleam in his inquisitive eyes as he gauged her reaction.

  He pressed on. “You obtain discounted flights as a perk. Apart from that your expenses should be minimal. Accommodation in the parks – in lodges large enough to ensure adequate individual privacy – is already booked and paid for and I will meet all petrol costs.”

  Kerry hardly heard the last part. How unexpected and thrilling Chad Lindsay’s offer was. All at once her headache and fatigue were forgotten and she was travelling through the vastness of Africa with this man. In her mind’s eye it was all there: the untamed wilderness, the moving herds of game, the heat and the dry gritty dust.

  The South African had lapsed into silence. Finally Kerry pulled herself together.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re offering me the opportunity to travel with you to Zimbabwe?”

  “Right. Eleven nights in the Western Reserve in Matabeleland. Then three beside the Zambezi close to Vic Falls. Add six days on the road. Total time: three weeks. Interested?”

  If only he knew. Kerry’s love affair with Africa had begun in childhood. Her parents had subscribed to National Geographic and each month Kerry read it through cover to cover – thus were the seeds of travel lust sown early. The features on Africa, be they on anthropological finds, tribal customs, agriculture – but especially its wildlife – held a particular fascination for her. Even now, years later, the pull the Dark Continent exerted over her was as strong as ever, heightened each time she landed and felt its simmering heat and hard red earth beneath her feet.

  “I’d be crazy not to be, Mr –”

  “Chad will do fine. Just so we understand one another . . .” Chad Lindsay paused and finished off his coffee. “It’ll be a working trip: up at dawn, out in the car for hours at a time. You’ll help by being an extra pair of eyes.”

  “Just so we understand one another – Chad,” Kerry tossed the words back at him. “Am I correct in assuming you’re not married? I’d also like to know how you got my room number and knew I worked for an airline.”

  The South African’s mouth stretched into a thin mischievous smile. “Would I be here if I had ties?”

  “You might. Married men have been known to wander.”

  He gave a brief nod of agreement. “The only wandering I’m interested in is the trip we’re discussing. Your assumption is correct. Marriage is not a priority with me. Never has been. The rest – your room and job – was simple detective work.”

  “Chad, I . . .” Kerry’s voice faltered. “Are you looking for an immediate answer?”

  “Why not? You’ve heard enough to make up your mind.”

  After the initial high, Kerry found her enthusiasm fading, albeit reluctantly, replaced by the cold light of reality. She couldn’t do it, not with a man she knew nothing about. To accept would mean abandoning principles she had lived by over the years. Besides, her holiday was already booked – an August tour of Scotland with her father, their first together since her mother’s tragic passing. She knew how much her dad was looking forward to their companionship and the fishing.

  “Chad, I have to say no, reluctantly.” To Kerry the words seemed to be coming from someone else. “My holiday arrangements are already made. But thank you so much for asking.”

  The artist’s eyes darkened. They narrowed as the thin smile faded. He stood up abruptly.

  “You’ve wasted my time.”

  Kerry felt numbed with outraged shock. “That’s absurd! How can you –”

  “Earlier you sounded so eager to experience wild Africa. I thought you’d jump at the chance.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the outcome. “Well, it’s your loss.”

  With a muttered farewell that barely carried to her, he turned and marched to the door without a backward glance.

  ***

  Kerry returned to her room feeling hurt, disappointed and angry. It had ended so abruptly and unsatisfactorily. He might at least have stayed on to talk. But as suddenly as he had appeared in her life he had departed – rudely and without thought to her feelings. What an arrogant and headstrong man.

  The only thing left to remind her of their brief encounter was his business card. Decisions change lives, she reflected. It could so easily have turned out differently.

  Her thoughts gradually mellowed. Chad Lindsay, if he could be believed, was a successful artist. He worked on his own. Perhaps what she had thought rudeness was just that male independence asserting itself.

  What did it matter? She never would learn the truth.

  The significance of his offer played over and over in her mind. Spending time with Chad would have been invaluable experience, torn as she was over her future. Her dissatisfaction with her working life, of being a small cog in a very large wheel, had been growing for some time. Her mother’s death from Deep Vein Thrombosis the previous year – gone suddenly at the age of fifty, a week after their return from a Bali holiday – had devastated Kerry. Flying had killed her mum, leaving Kerry questioning everything she had until then taken for granted. Gradually, she had charted a new course. She needed advice, guidance and encouragement if she was to follow her heart’s desire – which was to put her experience to use and become a freelance travel writer. Words held no fear for her: she had kept a daily journal since her schooldays. Chad – a creative, self-made man who had carved out a rewarding niche for himself in a competitive field – would have been an ideal confidant.

  Sadly, it was not to be.

  Before leaving Johannesburg she sent him a note regretting that she had been unable to accept his kind offer. She wished him luck in his career, promising to look out for his paintings.

  And that, so far as she was concerned, was the end of the matter.

  ***

  And indeed it seemed to be . . . until a few weeks later after Sunday lunch with her father at their Sussex village home – their first meeting since the Johannesburg stopov
er – maps were pored over, rivers and lochs pinpointed, the whole holiday itinerary discussed, and she found her attention wavering as she remembered Chad Lindsay.

  Her dad recognised at once that something was wrong. Kerry found that she had no wish to keep it a secret a moment longer.

  “You should have told me,” he said after hearing the story. “I can go up to Scotland alone.”

  “Dad, are you serious? I hardly know the man.”

  “Perfectly serious. Oh, it would have been frowned upon in the past. But times have changed.”

  “Dad, please! Travelling all that way with a man who appears at your door out of the blue. Anyway, I’ve already turned him down and been insulted for my temerity – so it’s out of the question.”

  Her father smiled. “Yet you still cannot force closure on it. Okay, let’s hear it – in what way did he insult you?”

  “After I had said no, he claimed I’d wasted his time. Damned cheek!”

  The smile widened into a deep chuckle.

  “Ah! – a common failing in men when rebuffed by the fairer sex. His pride was wounded – so he hit back.” He paused, then added. “Heat of the moment. I think we can forgive him that, don’t you?”

  Kerry sat staring out the window. Her father got to his feet.

  “I’ll make us a cup of Earl Grey. Help smooth your ruffled feathers.”

  “Let’s get to the heart of the matter,” he said a few minutes later, placing the tea on the table. “Would you rather holiday in Scotland or Zimbabwe?” He paused briefly. “A no-brainer. You’ve always loved Africa. I must say this chap sounds reasonable to me. It’s not like he’s some drug-crazed pop star or rich-but-semi-literate sportsman. And you’re perfectly capable of looking after yourself.” He smiled at her lovingly. “The only thing to add is that the next step must come from you. He’s not going to try again from his end.”

  Kerry sat back and considered his words. Since he’d become a widower, she visited as often as possible from her flat in Kingston. At first she had worried. How would he cope alone after twenty-five years of marriage? To her relief she had found that – unlike many recently bereaved men – her dad was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. His forces background had taught him discipline, self-sufficiency and how to improvise. If he didn’t know something, he researched it and learned. In the short space of a year – starting from scratch – he had become a better, more adventurous, cook than her. He took early retirement from his job, but was never idle. He had his pals at the golf club and several times a year he disappeared on fishing trips. He and Kerry’s mum had been devoted to each other and her untimely death had been a cruel blow. He could have fallen into a downward spiral of depression, drinking and self-neglect. That he had not done so, but instead had embraced and fought the new challenges head-on, Kerry found admirable, and she loved him for it. She looked forward to their meetings and was sure it was just a question of time before he announced there was a new woman in his life.