Dove's Way (2 page)

And saw him.

Her head tilted in confusion, and her heart seemed to still.

Unlike the first car, the second was empty except for one man.

He stood like a warrior, fierce and commanding, staring out at the thick, green landscape, indifferent to the reckless way the train hurtled down the mountainside. While the rest of the passengers in the first car shook about like dice in a box, he stood erect, his body fighting the motion of the train as if he could overcome a greater power by sheer force of will.

He stood in profile, but even so she could tell he was more beautiful than any man she had ever seen.

Tall with broad shoulders, a taut waist that tapered down into hard thighs encased in the tightly fitting pants of a hunter. His hair was blond, streaked lighter by the sun, swept back, brushing the collar of his white shirt. He had a chiseled jaw, strong cheekbones, and eyes as blue as the wide-open sky above the African plains. She had never seen a man so perfect.

But then he turned, just slightly, and she saw the scar. Long and angry like the slice of train track carved through the once perfect landscape.

Straightening with surprise, Finnea realized who he was. Janji had called him Matthew Hawthorne. But the natives called him Mzungu Kichaa mwenye Kovu.

The Wild White Man with the Scar.

For weeks now, stories of a scarred white man who recklessly disregarded the dangers of Africa had filtered through the Congo. There were stories of the man walking unarmed into a village of Masai warriors. Of him hiking out over the wild grasslands with little more than the shirt on his back, gone for weeks, then amazingly returning unharmed.

But the story that Finnea had never quite been able to put from her mind was of the man sleeping overnight in a native encampment, startling the Africans awake with a sudden, furiously haunted scream. Then silence. When they woke in the morning he was gone without a word, only the highly cherished gift of provisions left behind for them.

A gesture of thanks … or apology? The question had circled in Finnea’s mind for weeks after she heard the story.

Over the years, she had learned to believe half of what the natives told her, and given the enormity of the stories that had been bandied around regarding this man, in this case she had been inclined to believe none at all. But seeing him now, standing in a train that careened madly down the mountainside, his stance rigid, his face defiant, she wondered if the stories weren’t true.

“Excuse me,” she said in perfect, though slightly accented, English.

The man shifted from his thoughts, neither startled by her intrusion nor interested as he turned completely to face her.

Finnea could see even more of his scar—an angry slash through his golden brow, miraculously missing his eye, then down to his cheek, giving him a permanently wry expression.

But the scar didn’t bother Finnea. A man’s fine, smooth face was far more of an unfamiliar sight in Africa. What made him stand apart in this brutal land was the enormity of his escapades—if indeed they were true.

He stared at her, his eyes hard and cold, unnerving, though drawing her in.

“Are you Matthew Hawthorne?” she asked, uncertain if she wanted it to be him or not.

He didn’t answer at first, only looked at her, then said, “Yes.”

Just that, his voice deep and low, and very unfriendly. She had the fleeting thought that Janji must have been wrong. This wasn’t her guide. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and return to the first car. Pride. Stubbornness. She nearly smiled at her own folly.

She stepped farther inside, and just then the train lurched, jarring her forward. Frantically, she reached out for a handhold, but her hands came up empty. So close, but nothing near enough. Except for the man.

For one startled second she thought he would let her fall. But in the next, he cursed, his arm coming around her. She would have sworn he grimaced as he caught her, but when she looked closer, his face was merely set in hard, forbidding planes.

He smelled of leather and wild grasses, wide-open spaces and sunshine. The muscles in his forearm were rigid and taut like granite. But his shirt was amazingly soft beneath her fingers, with perfect round buttons slipped through perfectly cut holes.

When she realized he was still staring at her, his eyes intense, she smiled up at him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing back. “I’m not usually so clumsy.”

Still he only glowered.

“You must be angry because I didn’t get here sooner,” she offered, not understanding the need to wash away his ire. “I’m here now, and rest assured, you’ll get your escort fee.” She patted his arm as if he were a pet rather than a warrior. “My mistake for worrying you.”

“Your mistake was coming into this car in the first place. Didn’t you see everyone else flee?”

She blinked. “You ran those poor Europeans off on purpose?”

His face darkened, a flash of an unexpected little-boy emptiness sparking in his eyes.

“On purpose?” he asked finally. Then he shrugged as if shrugging away the emptiness, the gesture cold and indifferent. “I’m not much for company.” He looked at her directly. “Theirs or yours.”

Magnificent or not, he was sorely lacking as a guide.

She started to say just that, but the words died away when he stepped toward her, those hard eyes never wavering, and the truth finally sank in that she didn’t really know this man. But he only passed her by, walking with what she assumed was the stiff formality of the Europeans she had seen in coastal towns, his riding pants molding to his muscular legs and thighs as he strode to a long bench.

He reached for a thick canvas bag, flipped back the brass buckles, and pulled out a hand-rolled cigar. Moving with military precision, he clipped the end, put it in his mouth without lighting it, leaned his shoulder against a metal support, then returned his attention to the passing landscape.

She had been dismissed. It was clear he was used to being obeyed, his words a command.

Annoyance flared, and whatever fascination she had felt was forgotten. “I wouldn’t have come into this car and sought you out,” she stated coolly, holding tight to a rusted pole, “had I not been instructed by my father’s servant to do so.”

That got his attention, and she nearly smiled when his gaze shot over to her, his blue eyes surprised, his hair golden, his face perfect. Except for the scar.

She took in the whole of him. Even with the angry slash he was more handsome than any man she had ever seen. Rugged and dangerous, sinfully daring. Despite what the Europeans thought of her, she had never been daring; she was only different from them. She had always been careful—always trying to be safe.

But safe didn’t exist.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Janji. A native who has been in my father’s service for years, told me that I was to come to the second car to find Matthew Hawthorne.” She raised a brow. “Unfortunately, that appears to be you.”

His cool, pale eyes narrowed; then he tossed the unlit cigar onto his bag. “Hell,” he cursed, his expression closed. “The little blackguard.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He paused for a moment, his expression growing murderous. “Suffice it to say that I owe Janji, and as payment he asked me to see to an important cargo on the trip to Matadi. He didn’t mention that cargo was a woman.”

Her chin came up. “Or perhaps your Kikongo is not so fluent and you mistranslated,” she shot back.

He studied her at length, bold and assessing, as if he were stripping away her clothes. Her cheeks stained red at the perusal, and she couldn’t believe Janji thought highly of this man.

“Hell,” he repeated, seeming to engage in some internal fight with himself. “What’s your name?”

“Finnea Winslet.”

“All right, Finnea Winslet,” he ground out. “I’ll take you to Matadi, though not a mile farther. Do you understand?”

She regarded him with scathing animosity, that stubborn nature getting the better of her.

“What I understand is you can rot in that hell of yours before I go one inch with you, much less one mile.”

He crooked a brow, the flicker of a half-smile pulling at his lips. “Oh, really?”

“Yes, really,” she snapped, not liking the way he was looking at her.

He pushed away from the support and her eyes went wide, but before she could move he was in front of her, his hand braced over her head against the metal pole. His body was inches from hers, overpowering, intimidating. So close that she could feel the heat of him.

“I just might rot in that hell of mine,” he said, his dark voice slightly amused, “but in the meantime, I pay my debts.”

His face lightened, his sculpted lips pulling into a smile. The gesture made her heart beat oddly, her irritation sinking away, and she had the fleeting and unexpected thought that this man hadn’t always been so fierce. What had happened to him? she wondered. How had he gotten the scar?

“What is that debt?” she asked without thinking, wanting to prolong this glimpse of a different man.

But her words had the exact opposite effect. His eyes went dark, dangerous. And she realized that indeed this was the man whom natives spoke about during long African nights.

This was Mzungu Kichaa mwenye Kovu.

“I think there is much more to you than I’ve heard,” she whispered. “Is it true you faced a tribe of Masai and came out alive?”

He cursed, turning his face just so, as if he could hide his scar. Once again he fought the sway of the train, his body tense.

After a moment, his head turned back, his eyebrow arching with anger. “Where did you hear that?”

But she wasn’t deterred. “Tell me, is it true?”

“I traded with a Masai gentleman. It was nothing more than that.”

Finnea couldn’t help her answering scoff. “You use ‘Masai’ and ‘gentleman’ in the same sentence? They are fierce warriors, and no doubt they would be insulted to be called anything less. Clearly you haven’t been in Africa very long.” She studied him closely, considering. “I’m amazed I’ve heard so much about you in what is so obviously a short period of time.”

His gaze grew sharp. “What else have you heard?”

“Many things.” She raised a challenging brow. “Like in addition to your run-in with the Masai, you saved a native from a leopard.”

“Forget it.”

“I won’t forget it. Neither will the man you rescued. It is said that once you save a person’s life you are bound together forever.”

“That’s ridiculous. What would you expect me to do?”

“Most white men wouldn’t have done anything for a native.”

“Hell,” he said, raking his hand through his hair. “How in the world did you hear about it, anyway?”

“Word travels quickly here.”

“And to think I believed I got away from gossips,” he grumbled.

Finnea leaned forward, intense. “My guess is that the natives are wrong. They should call you The Brave Man, not The Wild Man.” She said it before she could think, and as soon as she saw the ravaged emptiness that came over his face, she wished the words back.

“Is that what they call me?” he asked quietly, his face etched by more than the scar. “The Wild Man?”

Uneasy, Finnea started to move away. But he caught her arm in a painful grip and wouldn’t let her go. She stared at the hand that bit into her flesh before she slowly glanced up into eyes whose innocence was lost forever. “Yes,” she whispered. “Mzungu Kichaa. That is what they call a white man who they think is crazy. Are they right? Are you crazy rather than brave? Is that why the Europeans hurry from this car?”

He laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound. “Because I’m crazy?” He shook his head as he let her go, his fingers seeming to linger. “Perhaps I am.”

His acceptance surprised her. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy. My guess is that you are simply a man who courts danger— arrogantly and with little regard for the price you will have to pay.”

Without another word, she ducked beneath his arm, then hurried to the metal door, aware the whole time of the man’s penetrating gaze on her back as she retreated. She wanted away from his darkness, away from his fury.

“Damn it,” he snapped, his jaw chiseled, his eyes intense. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To America,” she answered boldly.

He started for her when she slid open the door, a sharp gust of biting wind and the deafening sound of wheels over tracks rushing in around them. The wind caught in her hair, pulling it from its binding, and she looked back.

“I don’t need your help, Matthew Hawthorne, or anyone else’s. I never have.”

He looked at her long and hard. But just when he opened his mouth to speak, the air exploded with sound, harsh and staggering, a great high-pitched screech of brakes locking on metal. And the world began to tumble.

Finnea couldn’t think, couldn’t make sense of the noise that filled the air. The train jerked, throwing her aside, and she grabbed a handrail. But the handhold wasn’t enough when the train started to pitch.

“No!”

She screamed the word as she crashed against a metal post. She watched as he leaped toward her, the world strangely disjointed. His face was set in the fierce lines of a warrior’s, and she had the fleeting thought that he could save her. But the train buckled before he could reach her, twisting off the tracks, and all Finnea saw was the painfully blue, unrelenting African sky.

Time spun in slow motion as the sound of twisting metal filled the air. Finnea felt weightless. Unencumbered. Before she hit with an agonizing crash as the train came to a shuddering halt.

Then silence.

PART TWO

Escape—it is the basket

In which the Heart is caught

When down some awful Battlement

The rest of Life is dropt.

Emily Dickinson

From the Journal of Matthew Hawthorne

After that day in Africa, and the long night that followed, I didn’t see the woman again for months. Didn’t want to see her. I cherished each day that slipped by without seeing her face or hearing her name. Cherished time slipping away like sand sliding through fingers. Quickly, painlessly. That is why I had traveled to Africa in the first place — to deaden the pain. And my plan succeeded, at least for a while. The gruesome sights and brutal life on the Dark Continent deadened emotion, made it possible to forget that there had been a time when people didn’t look away when they saw my face.