A Delicious Mistake Read Online Free

them off about a location where
they could catch poachers who were removing tusks from the carcass of an
African elephant they had just killed. But such events were rare. Locals didn’t
want to expose themselves to reprisals or arrest, and so would only give out
vague information, and sometimes Benjamin didn’t really know what to make of
the clues they had been given.
    “I
hope we get something,” Luke said. “ Someone ,” he said correcting himself
with a frustrated breath. “They’re decimating our wildlife and the government
is doing nothing to help us.”
    It
was true. They were on their own. They didn’t necessarily have all the
resources or the expertise to fight this threat alone. But that did not mean
they wouldn’t try. Benjamin was glad in a way that Sarah, Luke’s sister, had
stayed in London and had not returned to Africa. This was not the Serengeti she
had known as a girl. But sometimes he thought of her— she with her burnished
red hair which seemed as warm as the earth and her pale skin that took on a
golden hue from the sun. He thought of her often and wondered if she had
married—had she found herself a man? What did she look like now that she was
fully grown? He had known when she was a girl that she would be beautiful. But
as the daughter of the Huttons, she had been as far above him as the sun in the
sky—or so his father and his mother had told him. And so he had become a
brother to Luke, and a guardian to Sarah. At least until her and her family had
left. But Luke had returned, and Benjamin had again settled into his spot at
the side of the man who was closer to him than any blood relative.
    As
they drove on, they passed a group of excited tourists being treated to a view
of the wildlife in the northern regions of the Serengeti—the regions Benjamin
and Luke tried so hard to watch over. Zebras, dik diks, lions, and of course,
the buckling wildebeests—the animals brought these vast plains to life. They were the plains. Benjamin never waned to imagine a world where these animals and
landscapes simply didn’t exist anymore. The Serengeti was a part of him, and he
was a creature of the Serengeti. He would do anything to save it, despite the
government’s lack of assistance, and he wouldn’t be alone.
    He
knew that Luke felt exactly the same way and was hell bent in fighting as
fiercely and tenaciously as he was. After all, wasn’t that the reason why Luke
had come back to the family estate? Wasn’t that the reason why he was back for
good? Yes, the Game Lodge had been in need of attention, too, but they all knew
it could almost run itself.
    No,
Luke hadn’t returned just to take care of his father’s business. He had come
back because he had felt the pull of the wild. He had it in his veins as much
and Benjamin did, and it didn’t matter one bit that he was a white man. The
savannah didn’t distinguish the color of a man’s skin—just his heart. Luke’s
heart belonged to Africa, as it had since the very first day he had set foot on
it as a very small child. Luke might not have been born in Tanzania—not like
his little sister Sarah who had been born here, a child of Africa. But Luke had
a love of the land burning inside him. Anyone could see that.
    As
their drive progressed, Benjamin watched as Luke gradually began to relax. The
wildlife and plains always had that calming effect on him, and Benjamin had to
smile fondly. Not for the first time he thanked whatever powers may be above to
have blessed him with such a man in his life that he could call a friend. More
than that, one he could call a brother. It was impossible for him to forget
that the man driving next to him had been a best friend all his life. Over
time, their bond had grown stronger, so much so that even Luke’s forced and
prolonged absence from Tanzania after his father’s stroke and subsequent
permanent relocation of the family in their native England had really changed
anything. When Luke returned, Benjamin had