Rand's Redemption by Karen Van Der Zee

Author:Karen Van Der Zee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2001-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

“See the blond one?” Antonia asked, pointing at a large framed photograph on the wall. “That’s Rand’s mother.”

Party noises cheerfully danced around them—people laughing, the sounds of ice clinking against glass, music. Antonia’s house was large and airy and now full of people who’d driven and flown in for the festivities.

It had been the first time ever Shanna had flown in a tiny airplane, a Cessna, and she’d had to admit to being terrified at first, even with Rand at the controls next to her, radiating calm competence. She’d felt totally vulnerable in the tiny plane which on the inside seemed hardly bigger than a car. But once in the air, when her poor pounding heart had dropped out of her throat to its proper position in her chest, she began to feel the exhilarating sense of freedom as they floated across the magnificent landscape below.

Antonia was showing her a collection of photographs displayed along a wall in the hallway, one featuring a group of people, a dead leopard, a blond woman carrying a gun. Rand’s mother.

“Did she shoot the leopard?” Shanna asked.

Antonia nodded. “Poachers had wounded it. It had to be shot.” She sighed. “Such a waste.”

“Did you know her?”

“When I was little, yes. I’d stay with them sometimes, when my parents were away. She was fun. She’d play the piano and we’d make up silly songs. Or she’d teach us how to dance.”

Antonia’s father joined them. He had thick gray hair and the rugged, handsome face of a man who’d spent his life outdoors. He looked at the photo of Rand’s mother. “Gregarious, vivacious woman,” he acknowledged with a smile. “Loved a good party.” He shook his head regretfully. “We all missed her when she left.”

“When she left?” Shanna asked, surprised.

He frowned. “Yes, a long time ago.”

“Oh, I…I thought she had died.” Why had she assumed that? She couldn’t remember what Nick had said and Rand certainly hadn’t told her.

“What…why did she leave?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? She simply left and went back to America one day. Lots of stories, but I’m not certain anyone knows the truth.”

Shanna stared at the photo, at the smiling woman. “She was…is beautiful,” she said, her mind suddenly crowded with a hundred questions.

“Yes.” He smiled at Shanna appreciatively. “Blond, with green eyes, like you.”

Someone pressed a glass of wine in her hand, drew her attention to one of the other photographs and she was lost in other stories about safari adventures. More people—smiling, asking her questions. Was she new in the country? What was she doing here? Where was she living?

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