The Unexpected Father

‘I’ll manage. The road is pretty good here.’

If Josh described this road as good, she wasn’t looking forward to the bad bits. Driving here had been like driving across a motorbike assault course.

She pulled the Jeep to a halt and got out to change places with him. It felt good to stretch her legs; she hadn’t realised just how stiff she had got behind that wheel.

The air was hot and still, and a few grazing impala nearby turned to watch them warily, ready for flight at the first sign of danger.

‘It’s so beautiful out here,’ Samantha sighed as she settled herself in the passenger seat. ‘Hard to believe that there is so much fighting.’

‘Hard to believe man’s stupidity, you mean?’ Josh eased the Jeep forward again, his voice grim.

His tone of voice startled Samantha. ‘You sound angrey. ’

‘You bet I’m bloody angry, but what good does it do?’ He was silent for a moment. ‘All I can do is report on the atrocities I see and hope that a small seed of sanity will grow.’

The words surprised Samantha. She hadn’t pegged Josh Hamilton as the type who gave a damn. Suddenly she found herself wondering if that assessment had been unjustly harsh. ‘My experience of your colleagues has led me to believe that most reporters here are only interested in getting a sensational story,’ she murmured lightly.

‘Not wishing to sound rude, but you don’t strike me as the type of person to be experienced in very much except for what goes on at Chuanga Hospital,’ he quipped tersely. For a second he took his eyes off the road to let his gaze rake over the pallor of her skin, the soft, vulnerable slant of her mouth.

‘Like life and death, you mean?’ Her eyes shimmered frostily. ‘Mr Hamilton, I’ve lived in the middle of a civil war for over two years. Take my word for it when I say that I’ve learnt a few things along the way.’

‘I’m sure you have, but it hasn’t toughened you up, has it?’

She frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand the significance of that question. Have you got to be tough to be worldlywise?’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Put it this way—you don’t look very streetwise. There’s something about you that suggests softness, vulnerability. You look as if you need looking after.’

Samantha was totally outraged at those words. ‘I can look after myself.’ Her voice shook slightly with the force of her emotion. ‘I can assure you that I’m a past master at it.’

He cast a speculative glance at her. ‘So Ben wasn’t the protective type?’

She looked away from him out towards the vast empty plains. ‘I didn’t get married to have a protector.’

‘No, of course not.’ His voice was cool and steady. ‘Why did you get married?’

Her head turned swiftly, her eyes cutting into his with furious intent. How had they managed to skate onto the thin ice of the subject of her marriage? She was damned if she was going to discuss such personal matters with a complete stranger. ‘The usual reasons.’ She bit the words out sharply. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘Of course not.’ He sounded totally unperturbed by her anger.

For a moment there was silence, and she thought that the conversation was at an end. Her heart was beating uncomfortably hard against her ribs.

‘By “usual reasons” I presume you are talking about love?’ he said after a minute or two, flicking those cool green eyes over her once more.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ she flared heatedly. ‘Of course I mean love!’ She swallowed hard, trying desperately to quell the rush of emotion flooding through her. She would rather die than admit to Josh Hamilton that Ben had never loved her, that their marriage had been a hollow sham. She had her pride. ‘You knew Ben. Do you think he would have married someone he didn’t love?’ She glared at him with the full force of her feelings.

Josh shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’ Then his voice changed and became surprisingly gentle as he met the shimmer in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Sam...I didn’t mean to upset you. That was crass of me.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Her voice was brittle as for a moment she had to fight against the tears that wanted to fall.

Conversation stopped for a while. Then Josh said kindly, ‘I put the food in the cooler unit behind you; why don’t you help yourself to something?’

The last thing she felt like doing was eating. ‘Maybe a little later.’ She leaned her head back against the car seat, trying to appear nonchalant, trying to hide the fact that her emotions were racing around in circles. ‘I’ll just rest for a while,’ she said lightly, and closed her eyes against the glare of the sun.

Inside, her mind was whirling around and around over Josh’s words. ‘Why did you get married?’ ‘Usual reasons... usual reasons...’ The words played over and over like a parody in her head. What would Josh have said if she had turned around and told him the truth—that she had married out of a desperate need for warmth and affection? He would probably have found that terribly amusing.

She opened her eyes, and to her embarrassment found her gaze colliding with his.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked gently. ‘You should really eat something.’

‘I suppose so.’ Her voice was unenthusiastic. It was only the thought of her baby that made her reach into the back to comply.

She held out some of the meagre rations to him but he shook his head. ‘You go ahead; I’ll have something later.’

Samantha ate mechanically, her eyes fixed on the far horizon. A herd of zebra caught her attention as they ran across the plains, their black and white stripes made hazy by the dancing heat so that they seemed to merge with the landscape as if they were a growing part of it. Slowly she started to relax.

She shouldn’t really have snapped at Josh the way she had, she thought with contrition. Since she had become pregnant her emotions had seemed to see-saw dramatically, making her feel things acutely. These days she was never quite sure if her feelings could be trusted or if they were merely distorted by hormones. Sometimes she wondered if this whole episode in her life was merely a bad dream...one that she would wake up from at any minute.

She glanced back at Josh. He was a tough-looking man, his features etched in a hard-boned face, his jaw square and determined. There was nothing dream-like about him; he was a rugged, vital male from the tip of his unruly dark head of hair down over his lithe, well-toned body. Dominant was the word that sprang to mind as she looked at him. Dominant and powerful—a man who was always in charge of a situation, who invariably got what he wanted.

Why had he got married? she wondered idly. Had he been wildly in love? For some reason she suspected that with Josh Hamilton there would be no half-feelings. He was the type of man to feel something totally.

‘Feel better now?’ he asked, turning to meet her eyes.

She nodded. ‘Sorry if I was a bit sharp before,’ she said huskily.

‘Don’t worry about it. It was my fault anyway. I guess asking awkward questions is one of those idiosyncrasies that a reporter never loses—even when he isn’t working.’

‘Well, let’s just forget it anyway,’ she said brightly, then changed the subject. ‘Would you like me to take over the driving again?’

‘I thought you would never ask,’ he said with a laugh.

After that they travelled in a companionable silence. The road wound higher as they reached the mountainous region of Charracana. At one point the dirt track was just wide enough for one car, and the drop on the left-hand side of the Jeep was sheer, giving dizzying glimpses of the dry river basin hundreds of feet below.

‘I’m glad this isn’t a busy thoroughfare,’ Samantha joked nervously as she negotiated the twists in the road with extreme care.

‘I’m just glad you’re a competent driver,’ Josh said with a gleam of humour in his voice. ‘Because I’m the one staring down at the drop.’

When the road dipped into the valley on the other side the sun was starting to go down in a blazing ball of violent orange. Josh suggested that they pull the car off the road and call it a night.

‘The road is worse a little further on,’ he said seriously. ‘I think we need to negotiate it in daylight.’

Samantha nodded. She had no wish to travel along roads like these in the dark. ‘Where do you think we should stop?’

He pointed ahead towards where the undergrowth was thicker. ‘Up by the trees. Pull it well off the road—that way it will be hidden if anything happens to pass in the night.’

A shiver of apprehension darted through Samantha at those words. She knew very well that he was referring to rebel guerilla forces. They were in very dangerous territory now. No man’s land.

As soon as she had pulled the Jeep to a halt, Josh got out and started to gather pieces of branches and greenery to drape over the bonnet of the vehicle.