Stolen Life (Beauty in the Stolen 2)

After a short drive, he veers off the road and crosses a field before parking a short distance from a cluster of Mopane trees.

He takes a pair of binoculars from the back and hands them to me. “There.” He points in the distance. “At the roots of that crooked tree.”

I adjust the binoculars and search where he’s pointing until I spot movement. I suck in a breath. Two lion cubs are wrestling in the grass. They’re falling over each other, making grunting sounds while a lioness watches from the shade of the tree.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper.

A third is trying to climb up the tree. After a while he gives up and joins the two that are still rolling around in a play-fight. He bites the ear of one of his siblings and gets a warning growl from his mother, who eventually grows tired of the raucous playing and grabs the third by the neck to lathe him with her tongue. A male with a flamboyant mane that ruffles in the breeze rounds the trees and flops down next to the female.

“Ready to move on?” Ian asks when I lower the binoculars.

Not by far, but I don’t want to stress the feline family out too much with our presence, so I nod.

Our next stop is on a hill from where we can watch a herd of buffalo. The tall necks of giraffes are visible from behind the trees. He shows me the black rhinos and the kudus. On the way to searching for the cheetahs, we stop for a herd of ten elephants that cross the dirt track to drink from the river. It takes a while to find the cheetahs, but eventually Ian spots them where they’re sleeping in a Blackwood tree. By the time he’s shown me the springbok and eland, the sun is already low.

Instead of heading back toward the lodge, he diverts toward the river and stops on an outcrop.

“Come,” he says, jumping from the vehicle.

“Where are you going?”

He takes a basket from the back and puts it on the hood of the Jeep. “Here.”

I take a quick look at the rifle in the back. I can easily grab it and hold him at gunpoint, but then what? Where do I go? To the airport? I can find an ATM somewhere and withdraw cash—although, from what I remember, the ATMs are often out of service in town—but I don’t have my passport. I won’t be able to cross the border. I need to work out the details first. I’ll only get one shot at escape, so I better not waste it.

When I hop from the vehicle, Ian has spread out a checkered tablecloth over the hood. He’s setting out nuts and dried fruit in silver bowls.

“What’s this?” I ask, stopping next to him.

“Sundowners. If we’re lucky, we’ll spot a hippo or two.”

I look toward the water. The river forks into a quieter branch on the left while rapids rage on the right.

He takes a bottle of gin, tonic water, lemon, and two glasses from the basket. Sitting down on the hood with my foot on the bumper to take some of the weight off my sore ankle, I watch as he slices the lemon and prepares two gin and tonics, complete with ice from a cooler box.

“Wouldn’t be sundowners without a G and T,” he says, handing me a glass.

The sun is hanging by a thread. The sky is an African red, and, despite the warped situation, peace dawns on a small part of my soul.

“There.” Ian grips my chin and moves my face toward the river.

A pair of eyes and nostrils protrude from the water. The hide is the same brown color as the river. It’s easy to mistake the lump for a floating tree stump, until the hippo opens its gigantic jaw and yawns.

I take it all in, the beauty of nature, the amazing sunset, the peace and quietness, the bitter taste of the alcohol, the chirp of the birds, and the coolness as dusk sets in. The man next to me.

“This is why,” he says.

I give him a sidelong glance, reluctant to look away from the hippo. “Why what?”

“Why it feels like home.”

My interest in the hippo vanishes. I focus all my attention on him. “Wolfe said you ran away from home at the age of fifteen.”

His smile is amused. “He did, did he?”

“He said you were sentenced to a reform school.”

“Yep.” He swirls his glass and keeps his gaze trained on the horizon as he takes a sip of his drink. “Got caught shoplifting.” He looks at me. “That shouldn’t surprise you.”

“What about that home? Didn’t you miss it?”

He props his foot on the bumper and rests his elbow on his knee. “It wasn’t much of a home.”

“What did you steal?”

“All kinds of shit—food, toys, books…”