Read Zambezi Seduction for Free Online Page B

for the lodge.
    Lizards scuttled from her path causing dead leaves to crackle. She kept a wary eye for snakes. The tree-lined ridge was fifty yards from their lodge and she made for the tree offering most shade.
    It was a long time before Kerry raised the binoculars to her eyes, a long time spent gazing out on a view she would remember for the rest of her life.
    Perhaps two hundred feet below the ridge, the plain began. First it was dotted with low scrub through which ran a dirt road that she guessed they would take at dawn tomorrow. The scrub thinned and ended at a wide band of lion-coloured grassland. The dry bed of a stream wound across the grassland, an occasional tree standing on its low banks. The impression was of heat, dust and drought. Beyond the grassland the trees thickened into Mopani forest. The virgin forest stretched as far as the eye could see across the baking wilderness to the blue horizon.
    Moving shadows on the plain caught her eye and she raised the binoculars. The shadows were zebra, a small herd of about thirty animals. Impala and warthog were down there too. The Zeiss 10x50s picked out three giraffes in the trees, so well camouflaged only a sudden movement had betrayed their presence.
    Kerry realized that she was experiencing a golden moment in her life. She felt her eyes become moist. To look from this hill down over the grassy plain with its herds of animals roaming free fulfilled a dream, a need that had been with her almost as long as she could remember. If they saw nothing else in their time remaining, the trip for her would have been worthwhile for this glimpse of Eden alone.
    Her debt to Chad Lindsay was growing. It now encompassed more than money.
    ***
    With the darkness came hyenas to scavenge about camp. They drove Kerry to laughter with their crazy whoops and cackles. She thought the ugly predators loathsome – although their presence, with the other night sounds, contributed to her state of happy awareness as she worked in the small kitchen preparing the evening meal.
    This was no place to practise one’s culinary skills. Gourmet cuisine was out. There was a basic stove fed by bottled gas, a few pots and plates and a drawer full of cutlery – and not much else. Kerry prepared rice to go with a beef stew from tins. A few sprigs of wilted parsley from the town’s supermarket added colour. She need not have worried. Together they made short work of the stew, their appetites sharpened by anticipation of what tomorrow might bring and the cool, tangy Castle lagers they’d enjoyed before dinner.
    Kerry was surprised when Chad insisted on helping with the washing up. Then she remembered he was used to looking after himself. Within the small room’s narrow confines some physical contact was inevitable. Neither shrank from the bumps and arm touching – evidence that their relationship had progressed from its stuttering beginning. It seemed to Kerry that they were like a pair of animals in the wild strengthening their bond.
    Outside, the hyena sounds intensified – weird, demented and more than a little scary. Triggered by the cooking aromas around camp, Kerry guessed. To her it was a new and exciting and wonderful experience, a world without television, radio or newspapers – yet without even a hint of boredom.
    “This is heavenly,” she said. They sat in the small lounge not saying much, content to listen to the sounds of the African night. “I’m learning to use my ears, blunted by a lifetime’s exposure to urban living.”
    Chad had been sipping Scotch. Now he put his glass aside, his face reflecting his thoughtful mood.
    “If I were offered time anywhere in the world,” he said. “I’d still choose to come here to the African bush. Its anti-stress qualities are immeasurable.”
    “So it’s not just the animals, it’s the atmosphere – the peace and isolation from the madness of modern living?”
    “It’s everything you see, feel and hear. For me the big thing is observing