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Africa 1891She nearly missed the train.
Finnea Winslet raced across the makeshift platform of the Congo Free State Railway, her hunter's pants and cotton shirt splattered with mud because she'd had to run the last quarter mile to the train. Her father's longtime servant Janji hurried along at her side as they came to the line of antiquated railcars that waited deep in the African jungle. Only the long, metal scrape of train tracks marred the thick tangle of vines and evergreen trees. The train would take Finnea across the most impassable portions of the Congo to the Congo Free State's major port of Matadi and the steamship that would take her to America. Take her to see her mother and brother, whom she hadn't seen in nineteen of her twenty-five years.
"Tusanswalu," Janji said in Kikongo, telling her to be quick as they ran.
Janji was a powerful man both in size and respect from his tribesmen. His skin was dark against the white of his flowing African robes, his gray hair gleaming in the brutal midday sun. Though years older, he wasn't out of breath and he spoke with ease. "If we don't hurry, the train and the guide I have arranged to escort you to Matadi will leave."
Finnea wasn't particularly happy about the guide, hadn't known about him until minutes ago, when Janji informed her of the arrangement. But she was determined to make this trip, and it was no secret that Africa was not a kind place to a woman alone. And now that her father had succumbed to spotted fever, she was alone.
"The guide will be waiting for you in the second car," Janji added. "His name is MatthewHawthorne."
"How do you know he will be there?" she asked, her Kikongo as fluent as his.
"Be assured, I know. We made the arrangements just yesterday. And Matthew Hawthorne is a man of his word." Janji hesitated, his face looking distant but determined. "He is also a good man."
"But-"
"You go now," Janji stated in his blunt, forceful way, cutting her off. But then he hesitated, his wizened old face softening. "You are like a dove in the morning that must find its way home. There is nothing for you here."
He was right, deep down she understood that. But that didn't make it easier to accept.
Despite the fact that she knew he wouldn't like it, she flung her arms around him as the train lurched and sent up a great puff of steam. "I will miss you, my friend."
Refusing to let Janji see her tears, Finnea boarded the train and went in search of the guide. It was as she stepped into the second car that she found him.
Her head tilted in confusion, and her heart seemed to still.
Unlike the first car, the second was empty except for one man.
He stood like a warrior, fierce and commanding, staring out at the thick, green landscape, indifferent to the reckless way the train hurtled down the mountainside. While the rest of the passengers in the first car shook about like dice in a box, he stood erect, his body fighting the motion of the train as if he could overcome a greater power by sheer force of will.
He stood in profile, but even so she could tell he was more beautiful than any man she had ever seen.
But then he turned, just slightly, and she saw the scar. Long and angry like the slice of train track carved through the once perfect landscape.
Straightening with surprise, Finnea realized who he was. Janji had called him Matthew Hawthorne. But the natives called him
Mzungu Kichaa mwenye Kovu.The Wild White Man with the Scar.
For weeks now, stories of a scarred white man who recklessly disregarded the dangers of Africa had filtered through the Congo. There were stories of the man walking unarmed into a village of Masai warriors. Of him hiking out over the wild grasslands with little more than the shirt on his back, gone for weeks, then amazingly returning unharmed.
But the story that Finnea had never quite been able to put from her mind was of the man sleeping overnight in a native encampment, startling the Africans awake with a sudden, furiously haunted scream. Then silence. When they woke in the morning he was gone without a word, only the highly cherished gift of provisions left behind for them.
A gesture of thanks . . . or apology? The question had circled in Finnea's mind for weeks after she heard the story.
Over the years, she had learned to believe half of what the natives told her, and given the enormity of the stories that had been bandied around regarding this man, in this case she had been inclined to believe none at all. But seeing him now, standing in a train that careened madly down the mountainside, his stance rigid, his face defiant, she wondered if the stories weren't true.
"Excuse me," she said in perfect, though slightly accented, English.
The man shifted from his thoughts, neither startled by her intrusion nor interested as he turned completely to face her.
He stared at her, his eyes hard and cold, unnerving, though drawing her in.
"Are you Matthew Hawthorne?" she asked, uncertain if she wanted it to be him or not.
He didn't answer at first, only looked at her, then said, "Yes."
She stepped farther inside, and just then the train lurched, jarring her forward. Frantically, she reached out for a handhold, but her hands came up empty. So close, but nothing near enough. Except for the man.
For one startled second she thought he would let her fall. But in the next, he cursed, his arm coming around her. She would have sworn he grimaced as he caught her, but when she looked closer, his face was merely set in hard, forbidding planes.
He smelled of leather and wild grasses, wide-open spaces and sunshine. The muscles in his forearm were rigid and taut like granite. But his shirt was amazingly soft beneath her fingers, with perfect round buttons slipped through perfectly cut holes.
When she realized he was still staring at her, his eyes intense, she smiled up at him.
"I'm sorry," she said, pushing back. "I'm not usually so clumsy."
Still he only glowered.
"You must be angry because I didn't get here sooner," she offered, not understanding the need to wash away his ire. "I'm here now, and rest assured, you'll get your escort fee." She patted his arm as if he were a pet rather than a warrior. "My mistake for worrying you."
She nearly smiled when his blue eyes widened in surprise, his hair golden, his face perfect. Except for the scar.
She took in the whole of him. Even with the angry slash he was more handsome than any man she had ever seen. Rugged and dangerous, sinfully daring. Despite what the Europeans thought of her, she had never been daring; she was only different from them. She had always been careful-always trying to be safe.
But safe didn't exist.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded.
"Janji. A native who has been in my father's service for years, told me that I was to come to the second car to find Matthew Hawthorne." She raised a brow. "Unfortunately, that appears to be you."
"Hell," he cursed, his expression closed. "The little blackguard."
"I don't understand."
"No, you wouldn't." He paused for a moment, his expression growing murderous.
"Suffice it to say that I owe Janji, and as payment he asked me to see to an important cargo on the trip to Matadi. He didn't mention that cargo was a woman."
Her chin came up. "Or perhaps your Kikongo is not so fluent and you mistranslated," she shot back.
He studied her at length, bold and assessing, as if he were stripping away her clothes. Her cheeks stained red at the perusal, and she couldn't believe Janji thought highly of this man.
"Hell," he repeated, seeming to engage in some internal fight with himself.
"What's your name?"
"Finnea Winslet."
"All right, Finnea Winslet," he ground out. "I'll take you to Matadi, though not a mile farther. Do you understand?"
She regarded him with scathing animosity, that stubborn nature getting the better of her.
"What I understand is you can rot in that hell of yours before I go one inch with you, much less one mile."
He crooked a brow. "Oh, really?"
"Yes, really," she snapped, not liking the way he was looking at her.
He pushed away from the support and her eyes went wide, but before she could move he was in front of her, his hand braced over her head against the metal pole. His body was inches from hers, overpowering, intimidating. So close that she could feel the heat of him.
"I just might rot in that hell of mine," he said, his dark voice slightly amused, "but in the meantime, I pay my debts."
His face lightened, his sculpted lips pulling into a smile. The gesture made her heart beat oddly, her irritation sinking away, and she had the fleeting and unexpected thought that this man hadn't always been so fierce. What had happened to him? she wondered. How had he gotten the scar?
"What is that debt?" she asked without thinking, wanting to prolong this glimpse of a different man.
But her words had the exact opposite effect. His eyes went dark, dangerous. And she realized that indeed this was the man whom natives spoke about during long African nights.
This was
Mzungu Kichaa mwenye Kovu."I think there is much more to you than I've heard," she whispered. "Is it true you faced a tribe of Masai and came out alive?"
He cursed, turning his face just so, as if he could hide his scar. Once again he fought the sway of the train, his body tense.
After a moment, his head turned back, his eyebrow arching with anger. "Where did you hear that?"
"Word travels quickly here."
Without another word, she ducked beneath his arm, then hurried to the metal door, aware the whole time of the man's penetrating gaze on her back as she retreated. She wanted away from his darkness, away from his fury.
"Damn it," he snapped, his jaw chiseled, his eyes intense. "Where do you think you're going?"
"To America," she answered boldly.
He started for her when she slid open the door, a sharp gust of biting wind and the deafening sound of wheels over tracks rushing in around them. The wind caught in her hair, pulling it from its binding, and she looked back.
"I don't need your help, Matthew Hawthorne, or anyone else's. I never have."
He looked at her long and hard. But just when he opened his mouth to speak, the air exploded with sound, harsh and staggering, a great high-pitched screech of brakes locking on metal. And the world began to tumble.
Finnea couldn't think, couldn't make sense of the noise that filled the air. The train jerked, throwing her aside, and she grabbed a handrail. But the handhold wasn't enough when the train started to pitch.
"No!"
She screamed the word as she crashed against a metal post. She watched as he leaped toward her, the world strangely disjointed. His face was set in the fierce lines of a warrior's, and she had the fleeting thought that he could save her. But the train buckled before he could reach her, twisting off the tracks, and all Finnea saw was the painfully blue, unrelenting African sky.
Time spun in slow motion as the sound of twisting metal filled the air. Finnea felt weightless. Unencumbered. Before she hit with an agonizing crash as the train came to a shuddering halt.
Then silence.
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