The Twin Test

* * *

PIPPA COULDN’T BELIEVE this guy. He saw a woman with kids and the first thing he assumed was that she was babysitter material. Now she knew how her Aunt Hope felt when guys who noticed her wearing scrubs assumed she was a nurse instead of a doctor. Oh, and the hair thing. Had he really compared her to Pippi Longstocking? Her hair was hard to control, but that comment had been plain low. She reached up and self-consciously tucked a lock behind her ear as she revved the engine. The corkscrew curl sprang right back out.

His wife had died. Pippa took a deep breath. Her Aunt Zoe had been killed the day her Uncle Ben had returned home from duty many years ago. Being a marine thrown into raising three young kids while mourning hadn’t been easy. Pippa had been a little girl at the time, but she remembered how much her cousin Maddie, then ten, had really suffered and struggled with coping after her mother’s death. Maddie had been close in age to this guy’s daughters, then. It had been Aunt Hope who’d helped them survive that trauma.

Pippa had also grown up around baby elephants orphaned by poachers. It didn’t matter that they weren’t human. They knew grief. They suffered the loss, too. Pippa hated witnessing that kind of pain.

Dax placed his hands on her door frame. She recalled from his handshake that his fingers were strong and calloused—nothing like the majority of men who stayed at Tabara Lodge, married or otherwise. This place catered to business types in search of an exotic getaway and spa treatments. It attracted the wealthy because one had to be rich in order to afford the rates. Guests here were looking for a safari experience without sacrificing modern conveniences, like flushable toilets and running water. The guests here could likely afford maids and chauffeurs and people to raise their kids for them. Calloused as his hands were, this man was probably no different—after all, he was wearing slacks and a polo shirt at a safari lodge. Outdoorsy people didn’t do that. But he did say he was here for work.

“Look, bottom line is that I’m in a bind and desperate enough to pay well. How long are your tours?”

Desperate. That was Pippa. The runner-up. A last resort. Just like she’d been with her childhood friend Haki. He’d considered her his girlfriend and almost married her...until his first choice—her cousin Maddie—had stepped back into his life.

Pippa pressed a hand against the twinge in her chest. She was over it. She really was. But sometimes the hurt resurfaced, like when she’d seen the happy couple who’d picked up their six kids after the tour.

A year and a half ago, she’d pictured her future like that: happily married and ready to start a family of her own. Not anymore. Her kids were all the children in the tribal villages who were counting on her for an education and more possibilities for their futures. She tapped her steering wheel.

Fine. It wouldn’t hurt to hear him out. Money was money. Still, she wasn’t going to sacrifice time in the villages to teach a rich man’s children unless it was worth it. She had not spent the last year and a half figuring out what she wanted to do with her life only to get sucked into someone else’s schedule and responsibilities.

She turned off her ignition and looked up at Dax.

“My tours are three hours. Ish. I try to be on time, but this is the wild and if that means I’m delayed because we come across something the kids should see, then we see it.”

“I assume you do two tours in a full day, then. I’ll pay you twice what you’d make taking those groups out.”

Pippa’s pulse scattered, but she bit the inside of her cheek to hide her shock. Good-looking and daft. Definitely not business minded...unless he had more money than he knew what to do with.

“But you don’t even know my price yet. Per child.”

“Come on. It’s a tour. It can’t be that much. I know what I can afford. I told you I’d pay well. Deal or no deal?”

She was so going to raise her price just because of his condescension, but heaven help her. Easy money. One week would add up to more cash than she could make in two months. She couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around all the school supplies she would be able to afford, and how much faster she’d be able to get a small school built where the tribal children could gather for lessons.

Play it cool, Pippa. She shrugged.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to watch your girls morning till night, every day, until you can get a permanent nanny.”

“Permanent...yes.”

“Because you’re here for...” She never pried when it came to the parents of her tour kids. It wasn’t professional to do so. But he wanted her watching his daughters full time and she was getting curious about what he did for work.

“I’m here on business.”

Ah. Okay. That was the polite answer for “none of your business.” Fine.

He scratched his head, and his chocolate-brown hair stuck out where his fingers had been. His eyes were the same color, and the laugh lines at the outer corners gave his eyes a serene, kind look. Too bad his personality didn’t match. He seemed too obsessed with his work to laugh enough for creases.

“Getting a replacement might take a few weeks,” he continued. “But yes, you have the idea. I have a schedule laid out for them, so you don’t have to do any prep work. Could you be here by eight tomorrow morning? I have to leave by then. All you have to do is stick to the schedule and keep them with you at all times. Trust me, it’s just easier that way. I want them safe.”

She thrummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Rich and private about his business and out here in the middle of nowhere for work. She had it. Maybe he was a silent partner for Tabara Lodge. That would explain him wanting to keep his identity under wraps and it’d also fit in with his being able to afford Tabara for a long stay. She looked at him.

“How old are they?” she asked. He made it sound like she’d need car seats and safety gates, or pens of some sort.

“Eleven.”

“And the other one?”

“Um...eleven.” His forehead creased apologetically.

“Twins?”

“Identical. Didn’t I mention that?”

“You skipped that part.”

“Does it really make a difference? Two kids is two kids.”

Then why was that expression “double trouble” so well-known? Pippa studied him, then hugged her book and water bottle to her chest and got out of the jeep.

“Are they around? Maybe I should meet them before I make any final decisions.”

Dax glanced toward the lodge and cranked his neck to one side, then the other.

“Okay. I suppose that’s a good idea.”

He didn’t sound convinced.

“After you,” Pippa said.

He led the way back through the lodge’s foyer and to the dining area.

Alim stood next to a table where two girls sat, one wearing a purple headband and the other a green one. They were otherwise identical and quite pretty. She guessed, by the fact that their eyes were hazel and their dark blond hair was lighter than Dax’s, that they looked like their mother. E-readers were on the table next to three dessert plates—one in front of each girl and one between them—all piled with a powdered-sugar-covered mandazi. A small ramekin filled with chocolate dipping sauce, typically used with fruit, sat within their reach. That was a lot of fried dough—not to mention sugar—for two kids. What was their dad thinking?

“Enjoying your desserts, girls?” Dax said. There was an edge to his tone.

Both girls immediately sat up straight. Chocolate clung to their fingers and the corners of their mouths and powdered sugar spotted their cheeks and clothes. They wiped their mouths and put their hands neatly in their laps. Well behaved enough. This was going to be easy money.

“Um, yes. They’re delicious,” the one in green said, biting her lower lip.

“He brought them to us,” the one in purple quipped, pointing at Alim.

“They ordered them,” Alim quickly said, scowling down at the girls. “When you left, you told them to look at the menu. They said you had given them permission to have dessert. You were gone much longer than five minutes.”

“Three desserts?” Dax raised a brow. “I’m guessing the third wasn’t mine, considering it’s half-gone, too.”

“They said they were ordering for their sister. The one you left to go get from your room. I was explaining something to a new waiter and when I turned around, they were eating their sister’s dessert. I will have another brought out free of charge,” Alim said.

“You didn’t mention three girls. I’m positive you said I’d be helping with twins, not triplets,” Pippa said.