Untamed

“Well, I’ll have this wrapped up in no time,” the attorney told the two men. “You can check back with me in a few days.”

“I’ll do that,” K.C. said.

* * *

Rourke walked out the door of his house with a suitcase and a suit bag, in which he had a dinner jacket, slacks, shirt and tie. He was going to look the best he could. He was so excited about the day to come that he hadn’t slept. Tat would be there. He’d see her again, but not in the same way he’d seen her for eight long years. Tomorrow night was going to be the best of his life. He could hardly wait.

* * *

The flight to Barrera was long and tedious. Rourke caught the plane at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. It was sixteen hours and eight minutes to the Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus. He tried to sleep for most of the flight, only fortifying himself with food and champagne in between. He was impatient. He had to conduct this like a battle campaign, he thought. Tat wasn’t going to be welcoming, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d spent years tormenting her.

Finally the plane landed. The tropical heat hit him in the face like a wet towel, and it was something he wasn’t accustomed to. Kenya was mild year-round.

He went through passport control and customs, with only the carry-on bag and his suit bag. He always traveled light. He hated the time spent waiting for luggage at baggage claim. Much easier to travel with only the essentials and buy what he needed when he arrived. He didn’t advertise it, but he was quite wealthy. The game park kept him in ready cash, from tourism. Not to mention what he’d made for years as a professional soldier, risking his life in dangerous places. It was wonderful that K.C. was his father, but Rourke didn’t need his father’s financial support. He’d made his own way in the world for a long time.

He walked through baggage claim and looked for the appropriate sign, which would be held up by a limo driver he’d hired from Nairobi on his cell phone. He could easily afford the fees and he hated cabs.

The man spotted him and grinned. Rourke, dressed in khakis, tall and blond and striking, with the long ponytail down his back could never be mistaken for anyone except who he was. He looked the part of an African game park owner.

He smiled as he approached the man.

“Senhor Rourke?” the small dark man asked with a big grin.

Rourke chuckled. “What gave me away?” he asked.

“You do not remember?” the little man asked, and seemed crushed.

Rourke had an uncanny memory. He stared at the man for a minute, closed his eye, smiled and came up with a name. “Rodrigues,” he chuckled. “You chauffeured me around the last time I was in Manaus, just after the Barrera offensive. You have two daughters.”

The man seemed to be awash in pleasure. “Oh, yes, that is me, but, please, you must call me Domingo,” he added, wringing Rourke’s hand. Imagine, a rich cosmopolitan man like this remembering his name!

“Domingo, then.” He drew in a breath. Jet lag was getting to him. “I think I need to get a hotel room for the night. I’m flying out to Barrera in the morning. General Machado is having an awards ceremony.”

“Sim.” The man nodded as he climbed in under the wheel. “Several people are to be honored for their part in overthrowing that rat, Arturo Sapara,” he added. “My cousins were tortured in Sapara’s prison. I danced with joy when he was arrested.”

“So did I, mate,” Rourke replied solemnly.

“One lady from Manaus is to be awarded a medal,” Domingo said with a smile. “Senhorita Carrington. I knew her mother. Such a saintly lady,” he added.

“Saintly,” Rourke said, almost grinding his teeth as Domingo pulled out in traffic.

“Creio que sim,” Domingo replied, nodding. “She was kind. So kind. It was a tragedy what happened to her husband and her youngest daughter, Matilda,” he added.

Rourke drew in a long breath. “That was truly a tragedy.”

“You know of it?” Domingo asked.

“Yes. I’ve known Tat...Clarisse,” he corrected, “since she was eight years old.”

“The senhorita is a good woman,” Domingo said solemnly. “When she was younger, she never missed Mass. She was so kind to other people.” His face hardened. “What that butcher did to her was unthinkable. He was killed,” he added coldly. “I was glad. To hurt someone so beautiful, so kind...”

“How do you know her?” Rourke asked.

“When my little girl was diagnosed with lymphoma, it was Senhorita Carrington who made arrangements for her to go for treatment at the Mayo Clinic. It is in the United States. She paid for everything. Everything! I thought I must bury my daughter, but she stepped in.” Tears clouded his eyes. He wiped them away, unashamed. “My wife and I, we would do anything for her.”

Rourke was touched. He knew Clarisse had a kind heart, and here was even more proof of it.

“You will see Senhorita Carrington in Barrera, yes?” Domingo asked with a wise smile.

Rourke nodded. “Yes, I will.”

“Please, you tell her that Domingo remembers her and he and his family pray for her every single day, yes?”

“I’ll tell her.”

Domingo nodded. He pulled up at the best hotel in Manaus and stopped. “What time shall I come for you tomorrow, senhor?”

“About six,” Rourke said. “I’ve got a ticket for the connecting flight to Medina.” He yawned and signed the slip Domingo handed him, retrieving his credit card and sliding it back into his expensive wallet.

“Sleep well,” Domingo said as he carried the bags to the bellboy’s station inside the luxury hotel.

“Thanks. I think I will.”

* * *

Rourke had strange dreams. He woke sweating, worried. There had been a battle. He was wounded. Tat was standing far away, crying. Tears ran down her cheeks, but not tears of joy. Her face was tormented, the way it had looked at their last meeting. She was pregnant...!

He got up and made coffee in the small pot furnished by the hotel. It was four in the morning. No sense in going back to bed. He swept back his hair, disheveled from the pillow. He took off the hair elastic and let his hair fall down his back.

Absently, while the coffee was brewing, he ran a brush through it. Probably he should have it cut completely off, he was thinking as he looked at himself in the mirror. He’d worn it that way for years, partly out of nonconformity, partly because he shared some beliefs with ancient cultures that there was good medicine in long hair. He’d been superstitious about cutting it. But he looked like a renegade, and he didn’t want to. Not tonight. He was going hunting, for lovely prey. Perhaps cutting his hair might show Tat that he was changing. That he was different.

* * *

He postponed his flight for five hours and had Domingo take him to an exclusive hair salon. He had his hair cut and styled. He was impressed with the results. It had a natural wave, which fell out when his hair was halfway down his back. The wave was prominent. The cut made him look distinguished, debonair. It also made him look amazingly like K.C., he thought, and chuckled as he studied himself in the mirror.

Domingo raised both eyebrows when he walked out of the salon.

“You look very different,” he said.

Rourke nodded.

Domingo smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. He opened the door of the limo for Rourke, and then climbed in under the wheel.

“What’s bugging you?” Rourke teased.

“It is that you have cut your hair,” he remarked. He laughed self-consciously. “I’m sorry.”

“You think I’ve damaged my ‘medicine,’” Rourke said with pursed lips and a twinkling eye.