Drowning Read Online Free Page B

before my eyes,” I told him. I took a sip of wine and added, jokingly, “Do you think I did something wrong?”
    It was the first time I’d seen Nicholas laugh. His teeth gleamed white in his tanned face, giving him a rakishly attractive air, and his pale eyes sparkled. Laughing along with him, I couldn’t help feeling a thrill of pleasure at having been able to tickle his humor.
    “I don’t know, Erin, but I certainly wouldn’t advise giving it another try. Getting to that car took years off our lives.” As he stretched forward to put his wineglass down, his sleeve rode back and I noticed for the first time a deep, ugly graze on his left bicep, the area surrounded by bruising.
    “I was wondering about this lodge. It looks like a very luxurious hotel, apart from the fact I seem to be the only guest. But Miriam told me it is privately owned.”
    “That’s right.” Standing up, he used tongs to test the smoldering coals, sending a shower of sparks into the air, before placing meat on the grill. “It was originally designed as an upmarket guest lodge. The previous owners intended it to be a safari destination where international tourists could pay to hunt the big five—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, buffalo, and elephant—in an enclosed area. Canned hunting, they call it.”
    He turned toward me and, lit by the flickering flames from the brazier, his face showed his disgust. “Unfortunately—or rather, fortunately, they ran out of money soon after going into business. I bought it, but I’ve never used it for its intended purpose.”
    “Neither guests nor hunting?”
    He offered a wry smile. “Neither of the two. The estate itself is in two parts. The inner section where we are now, which is fully fenced, covers about eight hundred acres. I’ve removed the predators from this area, which now contains limited game. Some zebra, warthogs and various antelope, as well as six black rhino; the only one of the Big Five I’ve allowed in here.”
    “And the other part?”
    “The outer section is ten times that in size, and it actually flanks the Kruger Park itself. That border isn’t fenced, although the roads are closed to tourists, so the big game, the elephant, the leopards, all the predators, can come and go as they please between the park and here.”
    “Oh, wow,” I gasped, and was then struck again by the unfairness of having ended up in this wildlife Mecca with all my camera equipment lost in the raging river.
    “Tell me, how did you get onto that flooded road in the first place?” he asked, as if reading my mind. “There’s a far better tar road ten miles to the west of here, which is where most visitors go.”
    “Vince chose this route,” I told him. “He thought it would be more direct, and there might be photo opportunities along the way. The weather changed all that, of course. We weren’t supposed to take the bridge at all, but Vince made a wrong turn and we spent an hour getting lost before retracing our route.”
    “These back roads are tricky, even with the help of a GPS,” Nicholas agreed. “You mentioned photos. So who’s the photographer?”
    “We both are,” I told him. “My husband’s the famous one, though.”
    “Is he now?”
    “Yes. Vince Mitchell. You’ve probably heard of him. He’s an award-winning fashion, celebrity, and advertising photographer.”
    I could see Nicholas didn’t know about him. He shook his head, smiling quizzically, which left me feeling slightly embarrassed. At any rate, everyone in photography circles had heard of Vince. He was the rock star of commercial photography, and, although still in his twenties, had already made an international name for himself. In fact, the reason why we were traveling to the Kruger Park was because Vince had been commissioned to do a fashion shoot, which would appear in the March issue of Vogue .
    “I’m still trying to make a name for myself,” I continued. “Although I won’t have much luck on this trip, since