“Kat, I want you to pack a bag with enough clothes to last a few days.”
“A few days?” She straightened her clothes and slid off the Formica countertop. “Hunter, when I said I’d go to Africa with you, I didn’t mean for a brief holiday. I meant for the duration. I won’t be treated like a helpless child.”
“Who said anything about Africa?”
“I did. That’s the plan. We go to Africa to see if this man is your father.”
“Not yet. There’s a promise I have to keep before we go.”
Before it’s too late. The afterthought, coming to him so suddenly in the kitchen where they’d just made sweet, desperate love was a cold wind blowing down his spine.
Hunter was a self-made man, not one to pay attention to superstition; but what he felt was stronger than superstition, stronger than the notion that history was bound to repeat itself. He felt a dark power flowing across the ocean, waiting to suck them all under.
“Hunter?” Kathleen reached out and clutched his lapels, bringing his face close to hers. “What is this darkness that’s sweeping over my soul?”
He wanted to rip the black thoughts from his mind and cast them into the river. But even then, Kat would find them. He could hide nothing from her.
“Shhh.” He caught her fiercely to his chest. “There’s no darkness, Kat. There’s just you and me.
And a man called Tokolosh.
Africa loomed in his mind once more, dark and forbidding. His sense of foreboding swept through Kathleen like storm winds, and she trembled in his arms. There was only one way to hold back the fear.
Her lips were sweet and hot, and she tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him down to her, pulled him down to the floor.
“Don’t be gentle,” she whispered.
o0o
Every instinct he had told him that he no longer needed to chase after an elusive father, that everything he needed and wanted was lying beside him on the kitchen floor tenderly pushing his wild hair back from his damp face. But he was committed. Africa waited, and soon he’d make the journey.
Soon. Until then, there was Kathleen in this special secret place beside the river.
“Hunter?”
“What, love?”
“What is the promise you have to keep before we go?”
He kissed the beautiful eyes that could no longer see.
“To set you free.”
o0o
“Mr. La Farge has explained your need for anonymity.”
Kathleen felt like a thief in her boy’s clothes and her scratchy mustache, as if she were taking something under false pretenses. But the man speaking to her allayed her fears.
“I can assure you we respect your privacy. There’s no need for us to know your real name. Certainly you qualify. After you meet Jake and we’re satisfied that the two of you can work effectively as a team, then you’re all set.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Mr. James Johnson of Rochester, Michigan, extended his arm. He’d been specific about the terms of their agreement. At her initial meeting with Jake, there would be just the two of them. They were to be a team, and the presence of someone else would merely be confusing.
“I think it’s only fair to tell you that Jake has earned himself a reputation for being difficult. He’s intelligent and knows this job as well as anyone here, but he’s rejected everyone we’ve tried to pair him with. He has a mind of his own.”
“So do I,” Kathleen said.
“That’s what Mr. La Farge tells me.”
“Exactly what did Mr. La Farge tell you?”
“He said that you’re headstrong and high spirited.”
“I might just kill him when I see him.”
Mr. Johnson laughed. “He said you’d say that. I think you and Jake will make a great team. He needs a strong hand.”
They were in a concrete corridor. Their shoes sounded hollow on the floor, and the coolness of the thick walls permeated her skin.
“Here we are.” Mr. Johnson released her, and she heard the click of a latch. “Jake, come and meet your new mistress.”
There was barely a sound as Jake approached her. She felt him stop a few inches away. What if he didn’t like her? What if she didn’t meet his rigid standards?
With one hand on her locket, she tried to still her panic. She mustn’t let it show.
“Hello, Jake,” she said.
Silence. Her heart thumped against her ribs and sweat beaded her upper lip.
“They say you’re difficult,” she said. “I’ve been called the same thing.”
Difficult. Demanding. A perfectionist.
She’d heard some of the world’s greatest choreographers speak of her in those terms... but always with respect, for they understood that her demands were not for herself but for ballet. The dance was everything, and she’d use every resource at her command to make it transcendent for the people who paid to watch.
“I think we can work together well, Jake. I’ll give you a chance if you’ll give me one.”
There were the soft, almost silent steps as he moved closer. Then she felt his cold nose against her palm. He paused, sniffing, judging, making his decision. Suddenly the tail wagged, brushing against her leg.
“Well,” Mr. Johnson said, obviously pleased. “It looks as if you’ve got yourself a guide dog.”
o0o
There was no reason for Hunter to be terrified. But he was. Standing in his backyard watching Kathleen prepare to take her first outing with her guide dog simply terrified him.
Not that he didn’t trust Jake. He was a smart gutsy German shepherd with an intense loyalty to his new mistress. The days they’d spent training together in Rochester had solidified a bond that Kat said had been almost instant between them.
“We’re both mavericks,” she’d told Hunter, laughing. “Headstrong and high-spirited. Together we’ll scare the hell out of anybody who dares to get smart with us. And that includes you, Hunter La Farge.”
Now, standing in his harness waiting for Kathleen’s command, Jake gave every indication that what she’d said was true. He had that don’t-tread-on-me look about him that should have set Hunter’s heart at ease.
But it didn’t. He supposed nothing would ever set his heart at ease where Kathleen was concerned. Somewhere deep inside him was the fear that at any moment she would be snatched from him once more, and he’d never find her again.
“Be careful, Kathleen.”
“I’m only going to the French Quarter. You act as if I’m going to the moon.” She reached up to adjust her mustache. “How do I look?”
“Like a cocky young man with one hell of a mean dog.”
“Good.” She leaned down and gave Jake a quick hug. “It’s just you and me, boy.” Then she thrust out her chin and got a good grip on the harness. “Jake. Forward.”
They were off. Hunter resisted the urge to follow them. He’d promised Kat freedom, and he could not go back on his word.
He shaded his eyes against the sun and watched until they were out of sight; then he looked at his watch and began to count the minutes.
It was going to be a very long day.
o0o
Did her terror show? Kathleen tamped it down. It wouldn’t do to communicate fear to Jake. He was the guide dog, but she was the one in charge.
Freedom, Hunter had said. Where was the freedom of striking off in the darkness hanging on to a harness and feeling the pull of an eighty-pound dog?
The pavement seemed to fly beneath her feet. All her senses had deserted her. She could feel neither buildings nor telephone poles. For all she knew, she could have been in Russia or China instead of walking down the streets of her neighborhood in Jefferson Parish.
Suddenly Jake stopped. They were at a curb, and he was waiting for her command. Oh, God, what if she sent him off against the light in the middle of traffic? All her weeks of dance training would be meaningless if she had two broken legs.
Jake nudged her leg. The decision is yours, he was saying.
Kathleen drew a deep breath and listened. The traffic assaulted her ears. Was the flow in front of her or to the side? She felt Jake’s cold nose nudging against her hand.
“Everything’s going to be all right, boy,” she said. And suddenly she believed it. The traffic was clearly to her side.
“Forward,” she said, and felt the pull of the harness as Jake stepped off the curb.
Other people were walking with her. She could hear their footsteps. The harness tugged upward, and she was across the street, standing safely on the other side.
Exhilaration filled her.
“Good boy,” she said, bending down to hug her dog. “We did it, Jake. We did it!”
Jake licked the salty tears off her face, then Kathleen stood up and gave the command to go forward. A mockingbird in a nearby tree sang his summer song and a small dog in a nearby yard yapped a greeting to Jake. An old man with a quavery voice called out, “How you doing, pal?”
“Great,” she said in her best manly voice.
“It’s a fine day, ain’t it?”
“It’s a wonderful day!”
Quite suddenly she knew that it was. With a jaunty step she walked down the street, free at last.
o0o
Hunter paced his kitchen floor, and when he thought he might wear holes in the already worn linoleum, he went into the backyard and made a new path in the grass. By two o’clock in the afternoon, he was certain Kathleen had been kidnapped. By three, he was ready to go after her. By four, he came close to calling the police.
“Hunter. Are you there?”
He spun around, and there she was, her face aglow with excitement and her eyes filled with laughter.
“I’m here. Under the tree. How was your day, Kathleen?” Any fool could see.
“Magnificent. Perfect. And yours?”
“Great.”
“You didn’t worry about me?”
“Not for a minute.”
Smiling, Kathleen unhooked Jake’s harness then walked toward Hunter, stripping off her mustache as she went. He met her in the middle of the yard and guided her the last few steps to the tree. Softly she touched his face.
“Liar,” she whispered.
“You know me too well.”
She wound herself around him. “I’m going to know you better.”
“In front of Jake?”
“He can close his eyes.”
When her lips touched his, Hunter forgot everything except joy.