The First Time by Bernadette Pajer

Author:Bernadette Pajer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, seattle, africa, time travel, clean romance, sweet romance, boer war, british soldier, grocery checker
Publisher: Bernadette Pajer

CHAPTER 19

An eerie series of rapid high-pitched barks jerked Ivy awake, and she nearly fell off the horse. The barks continued to echo into the faint grayness of predawn. She clutched more tightly to her filthy host, her nose numb to his scent after two full days of riding behind him.

"Baboon," the Boer explained, tossing the word over his shoulder. She'd introduced herself to him as Lady Wyndham, hoping the name would give her some protection. He'd not believed her until she showed him the ring she wore, and then his crinkled eyes had opened wide with respect and seeming recognition.

He told her to call him Oom Peter, a ridiculous sounding title, but it did soften her view of him. She recalled from her research that oom meant uncle, and tante meant aunt, and that these titles were used in the same manner as mister and miss in English. Even the Dutch leader, Paul Kruger, liked to be called Oom Paul.

She yawned noisily, stretching as best she could in her precarious position. Every bit of her backside ached.

When through her blurry, tired eyes she saw a dozen pairs of glowing eyes looking back at her through the dark outlines of deformed trees and long snake-like vines, her mouth snapped shut mid-yawn. Noticing the dark shadows of baboons running along the dark tree limbs, their tails arched over their backs, she blinked, suddenly wide awake.

Sometime in the night they'd descended from rolling rocky hills to eerie jungle, which was coming alive now with the call of yet another baboon, and another, until it seemed a hundred of them were crying at once. And then every bird in existence cried out, joining in the chorus to greet a new day. The sounds exploded in Ivy's brain.

She felt much worse than she had yesterday—no, the day before yesterday—after drinking too much at the officer’s dinner. Aching, exhausted, so thirsty she was fantasizing about water, Perrier, Calistoga, mountain spring. Distilled. Tap.

The baboons barked crazily, taunting her, bragging that they knew where water could be found and she did not. Harrison's flask was empty. Oom Peter had offered her a drink from his flask, but she hadn't yet gotten to the point where she could put her lips where his filthy mouth had been.

Soon, they should come to a river, a stream, a water hole. Please, she prayed silently. Soon.

The path through the jungle was short. Before the sun breached the horizon in a blaze of golden-red, they emerged and were riding once more across the open misty veldt.

The sky was huge, clear, and cloudless blue, already promising heat. There was still a touch of green in the grassland here under the quickly evaporating mist. She'd never seen grass in such abundance and variety. Some patches were tall and coarse, some soft and fine, rippling in the morning golden-pink glow like a sea, shifting and swaying in undulating waves. The waves made her think of the ocean, of water. Of aisle sixteen and its shelves of liquid heaven.

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