The Twin Test Read online

  Pippa settled behind the wheel of her jeep and looked one more time at her watch. Talk about addictive. No wonder people succumbed so easily to the power of clocks and schedules...and stress and anti-anxiety drugs. How would someone like Adia adjust to that world? Would she lose her bond with and appreciation of her culture? Was Pippa causing more harm than good?

  She took a deep breath, and her stomach rumbled as she started the ignition. Her home in the Busara Elephant Research and Rescue Camp was along the way, but she didn’t have time to swing by for a bite.

  She had six kids booked for the hike, and she couldn’t risk being late. There weren’t a lot of opportunities out here for her to save up. As much as she hated the outside world leaving its footprints on this majestic land, being near the Maasai Mara meant tourists hungry for a glimpse of Kenya’s Serengeti and its wonders—and that meant money.

  Funny how the things that annoyed her were the very things that she relied on to achieve her goals. Balance rarely happened without sacrifice. Everything from relationships, marriage and the circle of life that surrounded her proved it. The balance and beauty of the savanna relied on both predator and prey. Death was a necessary evil, but it provided for new beginnings. It, paradoxically, gave hope. She floored the pedal and held her breath till the dust she roused was nothing but a dissipating cloud in her rearview mirror.

  She was making it to Tabara Lodge on time if it killed her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE FOOD AT the lodge was better than fantastic and the atmosphere was incredible. Nothing came between them and the outdoors except canvas curtains that Dax was told were only drawn in bad weather. Natural wood covered the ceiling and walls and African art adorned the place. The restaurant opened onto a breezeway that overlooked grasslands dappled with acacia trees and boulders. The view from their table was breathtaking. Dax had been too rushed earlier to really appreciate it. He set his napkin down and looked at the barely touched dishes in front of Ivy and Fern. They’d eaten the chapati flat bread, but the stew hadn’t been much more than picked at.

  “You have to at least try it.”

  “I can’t identify all the ingredients,” Fern said.

  “The waiter told you how it’s made. Three times.”

  “Smells...different.” Ivy crinkled her nose.

  “It’s called spices and the stew is delicious, so if you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.” He reached over for their plates, hoping they’d stop him. They didn’t. Fine. Their choice.

  Living outside of the United States was going to be good for them. They obviously needed to learn to try new things. Houston was full of great, authentic, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, but come to think of it, he couldn’t recall taking them to any. When he ate out, it was usually with a colleague at lunch. He added their stew to his empty bowl and took a bite. “You can’t live on bread forever. If you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat.”

  “Yes, we know. There are starving children in Africa.”

  “You’re in Africa.”

  “We know that, too.”

  “Have it your way,” Dax said, spooning more food into his mouth. Man, the spinach, potatoes and lamb were good.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” Ivy said. Fern stilled for a fraction of a second, then pursed her lips and nodded in agreement. Dax set his spoon down and rested his elbows on the table.

  “A vegetarian. You, too, Fern? Or did you become one a second ago?”

  “We’re definitely vegetarians,” Fern said.

  “You both begged me for hamburgers before our flight here. I recall you eating every last bite, too.”

  There was no comment. Dax sighed. As if they weren’t picky eaters already.

  “You do know that even vegetarians don’t live on bread? That you’ll have to eat more vegetables and beans?” They hated beans, unless they were baked beans that came out of a can and were loaded with sugar. Neither twin made a comment. Stubborn times two. “Okay, then. We can order you vegetarian meals. They had plenty of options that weren’t on the dessert menu.” He gave them a knowing look. No doubt they were hoping he’d give up on real food and let them order anything they wanted, so long as they didn’t starve.

  “We’re not really hungry anyway,” Ivy said. Fern shot her a frown.

  “I am,” Dax said. “So you’ll have to sit and wait while I finish this delicious, savory dish.” He took another bite. “Man, this hits the spot. Really good.”

  Ivy and Fern rolled their eyes and pulled out their e-readers. Their grandmother had bought the gadgets for them last Christmas and got them both international charging kits for this trip. He didn’t condone reading during a meal, but right now, if it kept them busy and cut the smart-mouthing he had to listen to so that he could actually enjoy his food, he’d let it slide. Besides, between virtual schooling, e-readers and the occasional movie or game, any pediatric recommendations on limiting screen time were null, void and completely archaic. It had taken him a while, after becoming a single father, to finally figure that out. Nutrition, however, wasn’t. Sooner or later, they’d need to eat something. He hated it when they challenged him like this. It was as if they were in a staring contest, waiting to see who’d give in and blink first.

  A laugh broke through the monotonous buzz of lounge conversations and clinking of flatware. That laugh. He recognized it immediately and glanced toward the lodge foyer. The wild-haired lady with the six kids, who were all trailing after her again. A person had to have patience to be happy with that many kids to keep in line. He shoved another bite in his mouth and raised a brow. Maybe it wasn’t a blissful laugh. Maybe it was a delirious, I’m-going-to-lose-my-mind-someone-give-me-a-kid-break-or-bottle-of-Prozac laugh. He couldn’t help but glance back in her direction. Something about her was hard to ignore.

  She pushed her hair to the side after giving the youngest kid a hug. She had a clean, natural look about her. Down-to-earth, like Sandy had been. She didn’t seem old enough to have six kids, though. Midtwenties maybe? A couple hurried over to her and began apologizing for being late. Something about the massage they’d been getting. It hit him. Those weren’t her kids. Those weren’t her—he grabbed his napkin and wiped his mouth, then signaled over to the nearest waiter.

  “Ivy, Fern, stay here a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”

  The older fellow approached and started to refill his drink. Dax waved his hand to decline.

  “No, thank you. But would you mind standing here just for a few minutes? If you could just watch over my daughters a moment—” he glanced at the man’s name tag “—Alim. I’d really appreciate it. And I won’t be long.” He didn’t dare trust the twins alone again. At least not today.

  Alim looked a little nervous when Ivy and Fern smiled at him. He raised a brow.

  “Sir, I don’t watch children. I have other tables to wait on.”

  “I’ll tip you extra. Just give me five minutes.”

  Alim hesitated, rubbed a hand over his short, salt-and-pepper hair, then nodded.

  Dax narrowed his eyes at the twins.

  “Stay put. Read the menu and find yourselves something to eat.” That would occupy them. Maybe. Alim grimaced and gave the girls a stern look. Clearly, kids weren’t his thing, but Dax didn’t have time to worry about the poor guy. He needed to catch Miss Curly Q. He ran out to the foyer, but there was no sign of her. The reception desk. Yes. It was near the wide-open archway that served as the lodge’s entrance. She couldn’t have left without their noting it. He reached the desk in two strides.

  “Excuse me. That lady who was just in here. Reddish-brown, curly hair? Does she work here? I noticed she was watching a group of kids, and I’m hoping to hire a baby—a child sitter.”

  “No, sir.” The concierge straightened his uniform and cocked his head politely. “She’s not a Tabara employee. She has an arrangement with us to offer the occasional nature hike and mi
ni safari to the young children who visit. It’s part of a package we offer to parents who wish to take advantage of our spa.”

  Dax drummed his fingers on the sleek wood counter. He needed to think. Occasional wasn’t going to cut it. He had to catch her before she left.

  “Thank you.” He ran outside the lodge and stopped to get his bearings. She wasn’t hard to spot. She was headed toward a grungy, mud-coated jeep with a bounce in her step. He jogged up behind her. “Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  She spun around and slapped a hand to her chest. Dax held up his hands.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you would’ve heard me coming.”

  “No. No, it’s fine. I was thinking about something and...never mind.” She looked up at him with glistening, green eyes and cleared her throat. “Can I help you?”

  He wasn’t so sure anymore. The scare he’d given her wasn’t enough to make anyone teary-eyed. Whatever she’d been thinking about was none of his business, but when he saw a person’s mood shift so drastically—from laughing and bubbly when they were surrounded by people, to down and withdrawn when they thought they were alone—it pinched at him. Sandy had done that when she was sick. She used to put on a happy face for everyone, not wanting to cause worry, but then he’d catch her alone, depressed and concerned about what would happen to her children after she was gone. He knew pain. He’d masked it plenty of times himself.

  “Is everything all right?” He hadn’t meant to ask. Asking meant getting involved and trying to help—in short it meant opening a can of worms. He’d learned that lesson with Nanny Number Two. He shifted his stance and practically held his breath.

  “I’m completely fine. This is nothing,” she said, wiping the corner of one eye. “I got some bad news, but it’s taken care of and everything is fine.” She smiled, but there was something cloudy and faraway in her eyes.

  “Okay.” He scratched the back of his neck. No can of worms.

  “Okay.” She hooked her thumbs on the belt loop of her khakis and waited. “You wanted something?”

  “Ah, yes. Yes. I’m hoping you can help me out. I saw back there that you work with kids. I have two girls and—”

  “You’d like to book a kid safari. Excellent.”

  Her face lit up and her smile warmed. She was unassumingly pretty. Just a fact he registered. He was a scientist. He was simply making an observation.

  The twins had had one sitter who’d been more concerned with her layers of makeup than with tending to the kids. She didn’t last long, not because she’d quit like the rest, but because he’d let her go. He didn’t want his girls to become makeup obsessed. At least not for as long as he could help it.

  “Would after tomorrow work? Noon-ish? If I could get their names...?” She pulled a mini notebook out from her back pocket, but couldn’t seem to find something to write with. “I’m sorry, I had a pencil here somewhere. Oh. I gave it to someone to use.”

  Noon-ish? Just when he thought he’d found someone...a reality check. He had a schedule to keep. Ish didn’t cut it in his life. She seemed disorganized, too. Great.

  Maybe if he went back and spoke to the concierge, the man could help Dax find someone else. Then again, Dax needed to be at work in the morning. There wasn’t time to waffle or get picky. He really was desperate for help. Not just any help, either. He needed someone who could deal with the twins and, from what he’d seen, this woman had a healthy dose of patience. Ivy and Fern required an endless supply of that.

  “I was thinking more like eight. Sharp.”

  “In the morning?” She stopped her pencil search.

  “Of course, in the morning,” he said. Eight at night didn’t even make sense. “Look, I should have introduced myself first. Then I’ll explain everything. I’m Dax. Dax Calder.” He held out his hand and, after a brief hesitation, she shook it.

  “Pippa.”

  “Pippa. That’s easy enough to remember. Like that book my daughters used to read. Pippa Longstocking. Or something like that.”

  Pippa’s smile flattened and she raised her brows.

  “It’s Pippa Harper. If you were referring to the book character with braids sticking out at right angles to her head, that would be Pippi. Not Pippa.”

  “Oh. Right.” Dax swiped a hand across the back of his neck. It was the little things that always reminded him that Sandy had been a far better parent than he could ever be.

  The girls used to read to him. Not the other way around. And they used to accuse him of not paying attention to the story. Clearly, he hadn’t. He closed his eyes briefly. “Miss Harper, I’m here on business—long-term-ish—and I thought that maybe you would be interested in...” What would she more likely say yes to? Homeschooling them? Babysitting them? Nanny sounded like a career position, and she obviously already had work. “I need help with my two daughters. The nanny I had arranged to come stay with us here in Kenya couldn’t make it over from the US, and so I really have to find—”

  “A babysitter. I’m sorry. I’m not a babysitter. Good luck in your search and have a nice day.” The sparkle in her eyes had dimmed and the softness of her features tightened. She turned on her heel and took long, quick strides toward her jeep. She grabbed a bottle of water and a book from the back seat and hurriedly climbed behind the wheel as he approached.

  “Wait. Just give me a second. Please. They’re not babies.” They’d be a lot easier to handle if they were. “There wouldn’t be diaper changes or anything like that. The girls are very smart and they don’t bite. Their names are Ivy and Fern.”

  “Did you name them after characters in a novel? Or search through a gardening book?” She flashed him a fake, close-lipped smile.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded.

  “I get it. If I insulted you, I apologize. It wasn’t intentional.” He looked down the red dirt road that stretched, tired and dry, across the savanna until the tall grasses devoured it. “My wife named them.”

  “If you and your wife want time alone, then sign up for the spa treatment package and your kids can enjoy a safari hike with me.”

  “She’s dead. Their mother...she died three years ago.”

  Something shifted in Pippa’s face. She blinked and rested her hands in her lap.

  “I’m sorry. I just assumed. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

  “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

  “It’s just that it wouldn’t be the first time I wasn’t taken seriously, and it has been a long day. I was being a tad defensive. But the truth is, I don’t babysit and I’m not a nanny. I have other things on my schedule and a long drive to get out here. I’m sorry I can’t help. Maybe check with the lodge staff.”

  “I have to go to work tomorrow and I can’t leave them alone, nor can I take them with me. I’m begging you to just hear me out.”

  “You’re here for work? Not a family holiday?”

  “Yes. And I’ll pay well. I need someone to make sure they’re safe and keeping up with their schoolwork while I’m gone.”

  “Schoolwork?”

  “I travel for months at a time and don’t want to leave them behind, so they’re homeschooled. We do some of the classes virtually and some are sent in.”

  “I know how that works. I was schooled the same way. I grew up a couple of hours from here. An orphaned-elephant research and rescue camp. My mother is a wildlife veterinarian. There aren’t traditional schools out here.”

  This was good. They were connecting. He was getting her on the same page.

  “Great. Then you’d know exactly what to do.”

  “But, as I said, Mr. Calder, I don’t babysit.”

  “But earlier I saw you handle that group of kids like a pro.”

  “I was teaching them about the natural environment here and why it’s so important to prot
ect the land as well as the animals from being destroyed by human ignorance and man’s greedy actions. Not babysitting.”

  It did make sense that she’d be involved in environmental awareness, her mother being a vet and all. Mental note: Tell the twins not to mention his contract with Erebus Oil.

  “I understand, but I would pay you double whatever you’re making for tours. And it’d be just until I find a nanny replacement.”

  “I’m not a nanny, either. I told you, I teach.”

  “But isn’t a nanny like a...a hybrid between a teacher and a sitter?”

  She gave him a dirty look and started the ignition.

  * * *

  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.