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    Over dinner, Seth proved to be very knowledgeable about it his country. His love of his birthplace was evident in the pride with which he spoke of it. He spoke of a country with both bustling cities and large, open bushlands, with plentiful wildlife and beauty unique to Zimbabwe. He talked, too, of a land recently ravaged by war, of people who drew strength from each other and who had learned to roll with the blows dealt to them. Many families had buried loved ones. Seth believed that time, though, was healing old wounds and that pain and suffering had bound Zimbabwe’s different races together. Now, its countrymen lived in relative harmony; a fragile peace had descended as they all worked together for the good of their motherland. Now a new dawn was rising over Zimbabwe, Seth believed, and people were reaping the fruits of their long years of labour.
    The time passed quickly as Claire discovered more about Seth. She found his openness and willingness to talk about his land very endearing. Impunzi, he told her, had been in his family for about sixty years. His grandparents had come to Africa from America as a young couple, and fallen in love with what was then Southern Rhodesia. His grandfather, Sebastian, and grandma, Sarah, had both grown up in an orphanage in Brooklyn, New York. It was speculated that during the influx of Jewish, Irish and German immigrants they had somehow been abandoned. Their childhood friendship had blossomed into a life-long love. On leaving the orphanage aged eighteen, Sebastian had worked two factory jobs and saved their sea fare. When Sarah turned eighteen, they were married by a magistrate and left America for the shores of Africa. Seth had loved to listen to stories about their departure from New York. He pictured the two of them standing and watching the Statue of Liberty until they could no longer see it; their arrival in Cape Town; how they had worked their way up towards Southern Rhodesia. When they eventually arrived there, three years later, they had known that this was where they would make their home, and put down their roots.
    Impunzi had then remained a cattle ranch until Seth took over, three years ago. During the war years, farmers and ranchers had had to make a difficult decision: ought they to sell their land and move away from the conflict, or try to see the war through even at the cost of stolen livestock, volatile work forces and, at times, threats to their own lives? Seth spoke with pride of his parents’ decision to stay, and his own pragmatism: he described how, after the damage done to his herds, workforce and family he had transformed Impunzi from a cattle ranch to a big game viewing and fishing resort. He still even had a good enough dairy herd, he told Claire, to make the ranch practically self sufficient. Eighteen months ago, Seth said, he had branched out on his newest venture, that of fencing off a section of virgin bushland and building ten residential lodges, set in with the natural bush. The project had taken off in a big way, as people always needed places to go where they could escape the rat race and get back to nature.
    Within the hour, Claire was sold on Zimbabwe – and on Seth Henderson. A man who could love his homeland with such deep devotion and commitment must, she decided, be a good, solid type of person. Then, as they left the restaurant, Claire noticed that many a female eye followed Seth as he made his way to the door. It suddenly dawned on her what a magnificent-looking man he was. Her eyes clung to his proud head, dark hair curling onto his collar; they moved down, taking in broad, solid shoulders and strong arms. His shirt, stretched taut across his wide back, could not conceal the muscularity of his torso.
    A soft blush stained Claire’s cheeks. What are you thinking? , she scolded herself. There were countless reasons that becoming infatuated with Seth was a disastrous idea: she had come to Impunzi to commune with nature, and with God, and