Chapter 1

            “Telephone, doc!” a voice called out. 

            Dr. Carina Reynolds, Cara to friends and family, looked up and grimaced.  She had no time for telephone conversations.  Gently lowering the solution-filled flask into the slot in the UV-spectrometer, she asked, “Who is it, Brian?” 

“Susan, at the main office,” the inorganic chemist replied.

Cara snapped the flask into place.  “Take a message, please.”  Her hand reached for a knob.  Squinting, she changed the light setting to the correct range for scanning the sample.

After a moment, Brian said, “She wants to know if you can call her back, doc.”

Susan Ferguson was the director’s secretary.  That meant Edna Richardson, the new director, was the one issuing the directives.  The woman had just arrived to replace the former director of International Laboratories for Research of Endangered Species (ILRES) and was already making everyone’s life a living hell.  Cara had lost count of the number of times she had been summoned to the main office in New Muthaiga, a suburb of Nairobi, for some senseless meeting.

Cara spread her fingers and gestured.  “Five minutes, Brian.  Can’t come to the phone now but I’ll call her back in five minutes.”  Her tone was calm but her jaws were clenched.  She had to finish running these samples.  And being at the beck and call of the new director wasn’t helping.

If only her immediate boss, Dave Witherspoon, weren’t sick.  Dave was always either sick or traveling.  When he started monitoring the research in the other labs across the continent, running the Nairobi lab became Cara’s responsibility.  In the last three years, everyone in the research division had come to depend on her sound judgment.   It had been a challenge.  But like most things she had encountered in her life, she had risen to the occasion.  Now the lab was running smoothly.  The three scientists and six technicians working directly under her supervision liked and respected her.   

It was going on five-thirty p.m. when Cara finished the analysis.  Picking up the printed data, she chewed her lower lip thoughtfully as she compared them.  A sigh escaped her.  The results were disappointing.  Usually Cara’s lab concentrated on field studies on endangered species and the environmental, biological, or chemical cause for their scarceness.  Presently her team was focusing on the flamingos of the Rift Valley lakes and the changes in their habitat.  Just thinking about the exotic birds depressed Cara.  The birds were plagued by high mortality rates, and the ones that survived had to deal with physical ailments impeding their flight to their mating grounds.  And as in most cases where the natural habitats changed too rapidly for the species living there to survive, man was the culprit. 

A lot of manufacturing companies in the nearby towns dumped their waste products into the Rift Valley lakes, polluting and causing irreparable damage to the ecosystems.  According to preliminary work done by Cara and her team, the pollutants were mainly heavy metals.  Her team had found deposits of mercury and lead in dead flamingos, their chicks, and eggs.  However, they were also beginning to find trace amounts of non-biodegradable hydrocarbons as well in the birds.  She had expected the sample she’d just finished testing to contain a higher concentration of the same compounds.  So far, the results were disappointing.  She couldn’t very well accuse the companies of dumping waste products into the lakes without irrefutable data.

“The message is on your desk, doc.  Don’t forget to call Susan before you leave,” Brian reminded her as he put things in his backpack.  He was getting ready to leave.

Cara glanced at her watch and smothered a curse.  “Where did the time go?”  She put down the charts and walked to the phone at Mariah Coulter’s desk.  Mariah and Brian were two of the technicians in the group.  The remaining four were with the other two research scientists, Dr. Seth Blum and Dr. Duane Johnson.  “Do you have everything set for the Lake Nakuru trip, Mariah?”

            “Yes.”

            “All the cameras are ready with film?” Cara asked as she dialed.

            “Yep.”

            “Make sure you have extra film.  How about sample bottles, storage units, tapes, thermometers.”

            “We’ve got them all set and ready, Cara,” Reuben Levy, the analytical chemist interrupted.  “Stop worrying.  I told you to give her a list, Brian.  She won’t believe we have everything set until she confirms it.  You’re too much of a perfectionist, Cara.”

            “I don’t want anything to go wrong this time.  Don’t forget, we need samples from the northern shores.  The currents are low there so we might find higher concentrations of the compounds there. For comparison, we also need more samples from the middle of the lake.  And that means no leaky boats!”

            The two men grimaced at her tone.  “We really do need a new boat, doc.  Edmund does his best but that thing is ancient,” Reuben added in frustration. 

            Cara nodded with a frown.  Edmund Eberhardt was a German employee based in Nakuru.  His job was to monitor the migratory patterns of the flamingos using high-tech gargets but boat maintenance also fell on his shoulders.  He was in his late forties, had never been married, and was as cantankerous as they came.  The leaky boat was a sore subject with him.  “We’ll see if the new director can include that in the budget.  I’m tired of being told ‘maybe next year’ every time I put in a request.”  Cara put the phone down and smothered a curse.  The office was closed.

            “That’s very unlikely, Cara.  Not after Paul depleted the accounts.  I heard Mrs. Richardson is not approving any purchases for a while,” Mariah said in her soft-spoken manner.

            Hearing the accountant’s name always filled Cara with indignation.  Paul Savage had embezzled thousands of dollars through ILRES Nairobi and left them in a financial disaster.  “That’s fine, just as long as she doesn’t cut our supply line too.  We need chemicals, our livelihood depends on them.”  An uneasy silence greeted her comment.  The new director was using every excuse to recoup their finances and as a result, a few of their colleagues had been made redundant.   No one wanted to be laid off.  “Okay, guys, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.  We’ll have a group meeting before you head off to the lake.”  There was a collective groan.  “I know, I know.  You’re leaving after lunch so quit complaining. Mariah, I hope your girls feel better tomorrow.”  She smiled at her youngest colleague.  Mariah had six-month-old twin girls who were teething.  “Out!  Out, everybody!  I’ll make sure all the machines are turned off before I leave.”

Cara walked into her office as the trio left the lab.  Grabbing a half-finished Coke, she sighed as she sat down behind her desk.   She took a swallow of the near-flat drink and looked around her office.  Doing research always made her happy, but of late, a restlessness she couldn’t explain had settled in.  She wasn’t exactly unhappy, just dissatisfied.  Was life in Nairobi becoming tedious?  Or was she feeling isolated and disconnected from her family back home in the USA? 

Her eyes settled on the family portrait on her desk.  She sighed as she picked up the gilded frame.  A gentle smile touched her lips as she stroked the cold glass surface.  How she missed them—Payton and his quiet way of doing things; Josh the opposite of Payton but just as dependable; Aida, her brilliant baby sister; her daddy with his sharp intelligent eyes and gentle manner; and her mama, the core of the Reynolds family and without whom everything would fall apart.  

Tears filled Cara’s eyes.  But by the end of the year, if not sooner, she hoped she would be in their bosom, arguing over mundane things, teasing each other, and laughing just as hard.  As Grandma Zorah used to say, the Reynolds family were quick to laugh, but were loving and as steadfast as a rock.  As soon as the headhunters found something for her, she was heading home to the good old USA.  It was time.

            Putting the picture down, Cara left her office.  She spent the next thirty minutes washing and storing the glassware she had used, then switching off the machines in the two labs and the basement. She was reaching for her car keys when she saw the note Brian had scribbled.

Doug called in sick.  We need your help.  Please pick up Mr. Hightower tonight at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.  He is arriving on an eight-thirty Swiss Air flight from Zurich.  Richardson is rolling out the red carpet for him and even wants an American to meet and welcome him.  Since Doug is unwell, you are our other alternative.  He has a reservation at the Serena Hotel.  Sorry for any inconveniences.

Susan

Hightower?  Cara frowned.  The director had mentioned in passing that a Mr. Hightower might be arriving to fix the financial disaster the former accountant, Paul Savage, had left after his embezzlement, but Cara had completely forgotten about it.  When his name hadn’t come up again, she’d assumed the head office couldn’t obtain his services.  According to a few comments Susan had made, he had a tight consulting schedule and was rarely found in his office in California.  Now Cara wished she had paid more attention. 

She cursed and reached for the telephone, and she tried Susan’s line.  No response again.  Blast it!  The secretary usually worked late, except for today when Cara desperately needed her.  Even her home number went unanswered.  Cara’s frustrations mounted as she tried the other colleagues who might answer her questions.  No one was at the office. 

How was she to find out if this Mr. Hightower was Leon?  Lord, she hoped not.  She’d had an affair with the charismatic professor four years ago, and their paths were never meant to cross again.  Surely, the two couldn’t be one and the same.  Could Leon be a consultant now?  He had loved teaching, even called it a noble profession. 

Cara looked at her watch and reached for her bag.  As she drove home, her thoughts returned to Leon and the life she’d left in the USA. 

Leon had meant everything to her.  He had been her past, her present, and her future.  Before they met, she’d fantasized about finding such love.  The reality of being with him had more than fulfilled those fantasies.  And she had hoped for a future with him as her soul mate.  But reality had a way of destroying one’s dreams, and Cara’s had turned into a nightmare.  Now Leon’s name filled her with self-disgust. 

I have no one to blame for my past mistakes but myself!  She’d stopped being angry at Leon a long time ago.  It wasn’t his fault she had been so gullible.  She ought to have known that a man that fine would have a woman tucked away somewhere.  Only in his case, the woman had turned out to be his wife. 

A sad smile touched her face as she thought of their brief relationship.  Leon had been an easy man to love.  He had been very giving, very affectionate, and full of life.  He had loved doing things with her and for her.  In the heat of the moment, she’d forgotten the golden rule—to always use some form of birth control—and had gotten pregnant. 

Leon wasn’t in her life when she’d decided to terminate her pregnancy, so she couldn’t blame him for that either.  The call had been hers to make.  In actuality her decision to terminate hadn’t mattered because the doctors discovered that her fetus wasn’t viable.  Instead of being in the uterus, her poor baby had nestled in one of her fallopian tubes, a place that couldn’t sustain life.  By the time the tubal pregnancy was diagnosed, she had changed her mind about the abortion and had wanted to keep her child.  Since then she’s wailed at fate for sending her a man she’d hoped would love her forever and having him turn out to be a liar, for making her pregnant and for taking that child away.  If only it had been viable.  If only…

Cara sighed.  Why did I have to go there?  The past could never be changed.  One either learned from the past or was doomed to repeat the same mistakes.  Unfortunately, her heart didn’t always agree with her mind.  Lately, she had caught herself thinking more than ever about the child she’d carried for seven weeks and then lost.  She had taken to wondering what her life would be like now if her pregnancy had been viable and she’d carried the child to full term.  Every time she saw a three-year old, impossible yearnings intruded on her thoughts.  Would her child be that smart?  Would she or he be that adorable?   If that wasn’t foolishness, she didn’t know what was! 

She rubbed her tired eyes and sighed.  It was pointless to relive the past, even though it was only in her mind.  But she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that at times her heart ached from those past wounds.  When she lay in her bed late at night, alone and a little lonely, she revisited those days with Leon, and bitterness swelled slowly in her, feasting on her heartache.  How could someone who had claimed to love her deceive her so?  How could he walk away from what they had?  How could he crush her heart and not once look back to see whether she’d picked up the pieces? 

Cara took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.  She repeated the same breathing pattern until her jaws relaxed, her grip on the steering wheel eased, and her heart calmed. 

Without him, she had picked up the pieces of her shattered life and moved on.  Without him, she had survived.  She had grown stronger and wiser when it came to men and relationships.  Besides, she sighed, it was all in the past.  And she absolutely refused to have a nervous breakdown because of a name.  Hightower was common enough.  And Susan had mentioned that he was from California.  Leon had been a tenured professor at Case Western Reserve Institute when they had known each other, a place he had vowed suited him perfectly.  Yet both were economists.  Was it just a coincidence? 

***

Hours later, Cara was looking at her watch again and muttering an oath.  She was late, very late.  Of all the times to have car trouble, this was the worst.  If Mrs. Richardson knew of her tardiness, she would be the next employee to lose her job.  The director laid off people for the slightest misdeed.  Because of Paul and his thieving, the New York office had sent home Dean Coon, the former director, a man who had been fun to work with.  What she would give to wring Paul’s neck.  It would be a pleasure to make him suffer just a little bit, she thought wrathfully.

And now she had to deal with this American consultant.  The possibility that he was Leon was adding to her anxiety, a trait she neither liked nor welcomed.  Butterflies danced across her stomach and her jaws hurt from too much teeth clenching.

Cara approached the airport official nodding off behind a glass window.  With a smile in place, she drew her attention.  “Excuse me, ma’am.  Would you please page a passenger for me?”

“Leaving or arriving?” the woman asked with a bored, don’t-bother-me tone.

Cara’s smile didn’t waver.  “Arriving, I hope.  He was supposed to be on the nine-thirty flight from Zurich, Swiss Air.” 

The woman stared at her disinterestedly.  “That flight was delayed, ma’am.  Check its new arrival time over there.”  She waved across the multitude of passengers milling around the JKIA terminal to a booth near the arrival gates.

Cara looked across the hordes of people of all nationalities, clutched her keys tighter, and she started across the lounge.  Lost in her thoughts and oblivious to the attention she was drawing, she glided gracefully like a swan, head lifted at a proud angle, and shoulders held up in a regal carriage.  Her skin glowed with health and vitality, and the natural brown tones brought to mind a mouthwatering chocolate.  Her outfit, though simple, boldly stated that its wearer had a body to be worshipped—from the tiny waist, gently flaring hips, long legs, and well-sized behind to the firm breasts. 

Male heads turned to admire the gentle sway of hips in tan pants, blue-black hair cascading past a maroon top, and a face so beautiful God must have grinned with wicked joy when adding the finishing touches.  Appreciative eyes watched wistfully, lingered, and then looked away.  All except for one pair of travel-weary caramel eyes.

Leon’s eyes lost some of their fatigue and sharpened at seeing her.  Cara Reynolds!  That sensual walk was unforgettable and hadn’t changed in the four-odd years since he’d last seen her.  But the way she carried herself, the proud angle of her head and the straight back, bespoke of a confidence that hadn’t been so evident in the old days.  He watched as she stopped at a window and leaned forward.  The pants that were tight to begin with screamed from the pressure of that position and against his will, his lower body tightened.

He offered an expletive and reached for his carry-on.  When he had realized she worked for the East and Central African branch of ILRES, he had decided to take the assignment, rearranged his schedule, and boarded the earliest flight for Nairobi.  He was here, first and foremost, for the job.  But if possible, he wanted to put closure to a chapter in his life, a closure that was four and a half years’ overdue. 

That was what he had told himself.  But seeing Cara, even though from afar, Leon now knew it was all a lie.  He couldn’t exactly say what it was that he wanted from her but it definitely wasn’t an ending.  The memories flashing through his head were too tantalizing and too potent to be ignored. 

He remembered everything—from the way Cara embraced life with childlike abandonment to the little things such as how much she enjoyed bacon.  Her favorite dessert was New York cheesecake, and she loved Italian food.  She preferred her eggs fried with the whites crispy, and she had no head for alcohol.  A smile crossed Leon’s lips as he recalled how a glass of wine would go straight to her head.  The smile disappeared fast as he recalled treasured personal things that were so much part of Cara’s essence.  There was the scent of her skin, so feminine and enticing.  It was also so soft and responsive to his touch and tasted like smooth caramel draped over fudge.  And the sounds she made when they touched or kissed could make him feel like the most powerful man alive.  Just being around her had made him feel he was above most men.  He couldn’t forget the joy she had found in their being together, her giving and loving nature, or how he had thrown it all away.

Leon cursed as he stood and folded the magazine he had been reading.  He had been a fool, and seeing her made the fact more painfully obvious.  How could he have let Cara go? He should have followed her to Detroit and explained his situation, instead of trying to do it over the phone.  When the calls hadn’t worked, he should have boarded the first plane out there and insisted on a face-to-face confrontation.  Instead, he had waited for a month while he fought his ex-wife’s machinations before trying to find Cara.  Unfortunately, he’d arrived too late, because she’d had left for Boston to stay with her over-protective and pig-headed brother. 

Leon rubbed his chin and grimaced.  Four years later, he still recalled the confrontation between him and Joshua Reynolds.  His ears still rang with Joshua’s words—that Cara wanted nothing to do with him, that he would call the cops on him if he didn’t leave his clinic.  Yes, Leon could now admit, he should have put up with being thrown in jail just to see Cara again, to apologize, to explain, and to see that she was okay. 

Would she ever understand that he had been trying to protect her, that he hadn’t wanted her tainted by the mess in his life?  He could never have forgiven himself if her name had been sullied in any way.  And his vindictive ex-wife, Serenity, would have guaranteed it.

A frown marred Leon’s handsome features.  All this was in the past, a past that was slowly beginning to haunt him as he watched Cara from across the room.  Would she forgive him for hurting her?  He sure wasn’t going to find an answer by procrastinating, he thought as he hoisted the travel bag onto his shoulder and started walking toward her.  And he wouldn’t blame her if she slapped him and cursed him out from across the room.  In fact, he’d welcome that.  It would be a sign that she remembered and hopefully, that she had residual feelings for him.

Cara sighed with relief.  The plane had just landed.  She would receive a signal from the customs official when Hightower handed in his passport.  Flashing the official a grateful smile, she walked away from the window and glanced past the passengers with unseeing eyes. 

She was busy looking around for an empty seat when her eyes fell on the broad-shouldered man swaggering casually toward her.  His height made him stand out like a sore thumb.  He was tall and big.  His jeans molded his legs like a second skin, showing powerful thighs and strong calves.  The well-toned legs were thrown in relief with each step he took.  Her eyes traveled upward past his hips where the pants were indecently snug to his chest.  His shoulders were broad and powerful.

He was looking down but…  No!  It couldn’t be him.  Although Leon had been masculine, four years ago he’d had the most well-kept shoulder-length dreadlocks she had ever seen.  His hairstyle had made him look indecently sexy and untamable.  No, it couldn’t be Leon! 

She was about to turn away when he looked up from his watch and stopped her with piercing eyes.  Leon!  The word popped in her head like a flash of lightning and her body tightened with tension.  Oh, how she had hoped the name was just a coincidence.