Cape Town, South Africa
3rd March 1998
While everyone talked around her, Tara took the time to look at Jamison. When she had been introduced to him, she had a feeling that she knew him, he was familiar to her in a way that was unsettling. She knew that she knew him, she just had to rake through her drug-filled brain to find where. He was so familiar …
He looked at her, and he smiled, letting her know he had seen her observing him.
And suddenly she knew.
Last time she had seen him he had been in farm overalls, not dressed like a well-off businessman in a light blue checked shirt and denims. He had opened the gate on the day her father had been shot. He had saved her.
‘I know you,’ she said looking at him, and she lifted her hand and pointed her finger at him. ‘I knew you before …’
‘Yes, Miss Tara,’ Jamison said and he got up off his chair and walked to her daybed and knelt next to it. ‘You know me, Miss Tara, from years ago.’
Wayne stared at Jamison and Tara.
‘What did you say your name was?’ she asked, a frown creasing her forehead.
‘Jamison, but you know me as Shilo. It’s been many years, Imbodla,’ Jamison said, and he dipped his head at her as a sign of respect.
‘Oh my God,’ she cried. ‘It’s you. It’s really you!’
There was silence in the room as all eyes turned to Jamison and Tara.
‘Why, Shilo—Jamison?’ she asked. ‘Why are you here? Why are you with Wayne?’
‘To protect you again,’ Jamison said. ‘And this time you have two ex-special forces men working together to keep you safe.’
Tara looked at him, taken aback.
‘Mum?’ Josha asked, moving closer to where she was in her day bed.
Wayne still sat on the bed with her, holding her hand. ‘What’s going on?’
She looked at Jamison, and then at her son. So much time had passed since that fateful day. She had been just younger than Josha was now, and yet here Shilo was, popping back into her life, and warning her of danger once again.
She looked back at Shilo – Jamison. He nodded to her, as if telling her that now it was alright to talk. It was okay to tell people the truth.
‘Josha, come, sit here with me,’ she said as she patted her bed next to her. Wayne moved futher down and Josha sat where his mum indicated.
She looked at Jamison. ‘All these years, I didn’t tell.’
‘But you need to now, Imbodla, the time has come when the truth needs to be told,’ Jamison said.
She turned back to look at Josha. There were so many things in her life she had kept from him. Tried to protect him from. But this man, and what he had done, was heroic, and so she explained simply, ‘Shilo saved my life when I was just twelve.’
‘Son-of-a-bitch,’ Gabe said. ‘After all this time, finally we might get another piece in the puzzle.’
‘Gabe!’ Tara said, glaring at him.
‘Well you have always been as tight as a duck’s arse about what happened, then suddenly there is a man in my house saying he needs to protect you again. Sorry, Tara, I’m going to go off a little!’
‘Calm down, everyone,’ Mauve said. ‘All this excitement can’t be good for Tara’s head. Josha come, we are going shopping!’
Tara shook her head. ‘No. Mauve, Josha needs to hear this. It’s just another secret that should never have been buried in my life.’
Jamison nodded, he adjusted his weight in the chair opposite Tara. ‘We cannot face what is to come in this time without the past being known.’
‘My son is old enough to hear this,’ Tara said as she took one of his hands in hers.
A pregnant silence hovered over the room. All eyes were on Jamison.
‘I swore the oath to the motto “Tiri Tose”. It means “we are together” but it also means “there is no escape”, in my native Shona. But I can help Wayne to protect you from him. The man who murdered Tara’s father and uncle is obsessed with finding her again, and he still searches for me, and for her. He is coming for you, Miss Tara. He is cunning, and even after all these years he is still penga.’
‘You know the man who killed Tara’s father?’ Gabe said.
‘Yes, I know him. But he is one of the elite, and he cannot be judged by the law,’ Jamison said.
‘He’s a diplomat?’ Gabe asked.
‘No,’ Jamison said. ‘What he is doesn’t matter. But what he is capable of, and how we can protect Tara, that is what we need to focus on, now that Wayne has found her again.’
‘Okay,’ Tara said, but her voice was unsteady, as if thinking of that day so many years before was taking her back to a time in her childhood, a difficult time. A dark hour. ‘Care to elaborate a bit on that?’
‘He found me again after many years, and Ebony, my wife, was nearly killed. We almost lost our first unborn child that day.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Tara said and she squeezed Josha’s hand.
‘Me too,’ Jamison said. ‘He is never going to give up on hunting for me. And he still looks for you, Miss Tara. I have someone who watches him – my cousin, Gibson, says he still talks about you. I met Wayne when he was finished at the Recces and he was just beginning building his farm. He became my link to you. A few years later, when the killer found me again, I moved to South Africa. I thought that if Wayne found you, then we should stand a better chance in protecting you, Tara. And now seeing the boy, perhaps the boy too.’
Tara stared, her eyes wide. ‘He’s after Josha?’
‘Why me?’ Josha asked.
Jamison tried to calm them with both his hands up in a stop-and-wait action. ‘I don’t know for sure. Josha looks a bit like Wayne, but he looks more like you when you were that age. This man, he wants you for a trophy, Tara, he needs you dead to help him put a demon to rest.’ Jamison paused. He cleared his throat. ‘Last time we saw you, Tara, you were swimming in the dam, on the day you said goodbye to Whispering Winds, and Gabe was there, too. But the man, he said you needed to mature a little, you were still too young.’
Gabe stood up.
Tara frowned.
‘Jamison, what are you talking about?’ Wayne said.
‘Wait. You were with the killer. At our dam? Watching me swim. This is about me? My father and Uncle Jacob were shot because of me?’ Tara asked, as she realised what Jamison was telling her. She took in ragged breaths.
‘It was always about you, Miss Tara. From the first time you visited his farm.’
Gabe pulled the wicker chair closer to her bed. He sat down, letting her know that he was there for her, in this time too.
Wayne still sat on the bottom of the bed next to Josha.
Mauve sat next to Jamison on the couch, but she leant forward. Listening.
‘Jamison, tell me that it wasn’t Buffel,’ Tara said quietly, rubbing her spare hand on her forehead.
‘Wayne and I can keep you safe from him, and if he finds you again, we can kill him.’
She raised her voice. ‘I had tea at his house! He lived right there next door to us!’ Tara began to hyperventilate, her breathing erratic, and she clutched at her throat. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’
Wayne was on his feet, standing in front of her, he held her shoulders. ‘Breathe with me. Breathe in. Slowly. Breathe out. Slowly. Look at me. Focus on my mouth and breathe with me.’
‘Calm down, Tara.’ Gabe reached for her hand. He patted it. ‘Come on, just breathe with Wayne.’
She took a moment, but soon she was breathing along with Wayne. The suddenly she moaned. ‘I think I’m going to be sick!’
Gabe instructed, ‘Josha, go fetch Lucretia, tell her to bring some Cyclimorph from the bathroom.’ He got the sick bowl from next to her and held it near her mouth just in case, but she only dry heaved.
Josha ran out the room, and soon returned with Lucretia, who shooed everyone out.
Wayne stood in the doorway and watched as the maid stuck a needle into Tara’s arm. Within moments, Tara’s arm relaxed, and almost dropped off the side of day bed as if she was now passed out. Lucretia lifted her arm and tucked it under the light blanket she spread over her. She wiped her eyes, and stood watching over her charge for a while.
Wayne turned away, his own head imploding from the bombshell that Jamison had just dropped on them. Now not only was Tara in danger of dying, but some madman from her past was hunting her, and perhaps Josha as well.
And Wayne had brought Jamison right to Tara.
Perhaps Tara had been right when she’d hidden herself and Josha from him.
At least then she’d been safe.
He shook his head to dislodge that thought. He didn’t believe it. Now that the threat on her life was out in the open, he and Jamison could plan to fortify the security around them.
Together they could protect her and Josha.
Because now that Tara was back in his life, there was no way that he was going to let some madman take her away. Their love had been strong enough to survive all these years apart, to beat all that they had been thrown against, and there was no way he was losing his soul mate now.