As Lioli moved away, a new voice rang out across the clearing. "Monene kitoko, Lois."
Clark turned in the direction of the call. A young woman grinned at them, waving when she saw she had his attention.
Lois grasped Clark's hand. "Come on," she said. "Matymbou's waiting for us." She led him to the nearest structure - one of the smallest huts. They entered through the door, and it took a moment for Clark's eyes to adjust to the dimness.
A slightly rotund man - dressed only in a loincloth - emerged from the shadows. He didn't speak as he moved slowly towards them.
He stopped and raised his head, his dark eyes settling steadily on Clark.
Clark stared back, his breath wrung out as he faced Lois's husband.
"You kissed my wife," Matymbou said.
Part 23
The chief's words of accusation twisted Clark's heart into a knot of humiliation. Then, a tendril of protest squeezed through his shame. He hadn't kissed Lois.
But he'd wanted to.
Only the startled call of a child had saved him from betraying his marriage vows and violating hers.
"Matymbou!" Lois pushed between Clark and her husband. "That's no way to greet our guest."
Clark held his breath, expecting the chief to react to the censure in Lois's tone. But Matymbou's gaze didn't waver. "Why did you kiss my wife?" he asked evenly.
Clark squared his shoulders and looked straight at the man who, despite his short stature, cast an imposing figure. "I wanted to kiss your wife," Clark said in a low, steady voice that belied the commotion ricocheting around his chest. "It was wrong, and I'm sorry."
"You've spent days with Lois. She has been caring for -"
Lois lurched forward, standing nose to nose with her husband. "Matymbou! Stop! You're being silly."
Matymbou stared at his wife as Clark waited, his body tensed in readiness to spring to Lois's defence if the man made one threatening move towards her.
The moment stretched to breaking point, searing the air with tension. Then, Matymbou's head dropped. When he looked up, his sombre expression had softened. "You feel something for this mondele?" he asked Lois.
"He is a good man with a kind and caring heart," Lois replied, her quiet sincerity providing a balm for Clark's overwrought nerves. "I want to be with him."
"He is not sure of his feelings for you," Matymbou said. "He is sorry he kissed you."
"He knows I am married to you. He doesn't feel right about kissing another man's wife."
Matymbou grasped Lois's shoulders and eased her out from between them. Facing Clark directly, he said, "Do you want my wife?"
It had to be a trap. "I …"
"Just say what you feel," Matymbou said. "Tell me what you want."
Clark wanted Lois. Didn't he? He loved her. But he'd loved Lana. A week ago, she had been the centre of his life. That had to mean something. Didn't it? He was married. Lois was married. Marriage couldn't be reduced to a transitory arrangement of convenience. "In my culture, women are not given away," he said.
"You are no longer in your culture," Matymbou said. "You are Bangala now. Do you want my wife?"
Clark searched his heart and found it lost in a fog of confusion. He turned to Lois, desperate for her to give him the clarity he needed.
She was looking distraught. He'd upset her. He shouldn't be here. She needed to be alone with her husband.
Clark gulped down the surge of tears that stung his eyes. "I'm sorry," he muttered. Without looking at Lois, he turned and ran from the hut. Ahead, he saw the gate and sprinted through it, seeking the haven of the jungle.
~|^|~
Lois sprang after Kent, but was halted by Matymbou's grip on her arm. "Let him go," he said.
"But he's upset," Lois said, spinning around and turning on her husband. "I told him about our agreement. I told him you would -"
"I haven't broken our agreement," Matymbou said mildly.
"You tried to intimidate him," Lois stormed. "You tried to make him feel guilty. You tried -"
"Lois." The softness of Matymbou's voice felt cold against her inflamed emotions. "He's not ready. He knows he's not ready."
"He's not ready to be accused of kissing another man's wife," Lois said. "He's been hurt so badly. His heart was broken by someone he loved."
"Then you must give him time to heal." Matymbou smiled at her. "You still can't push the sun across the sky, Lois. You have to let it move at its own pace."
"Time to heal is one thing," Lois snapped. "Deliberately aggravating him is another."
"I didn't know how he would respond," Matymbou said. "I didn't know his past or the sort of man he is."
"So you figured you'd find out by asking him why he'd kissed me? That's hardly a normal question to throw at a man who is our guest."
"Romaric said he saw -"
"Romaric was spying on us?" Lois demanded. "Did you order him to do it?"
"Yes," the chief said calmly. "I told him to follow you."
"Why?" Lois cried. "Why would you do something like that? Were you hoping to catch Kent and me doing something wrong? Were you looking for an excuse to break our agreement?"
"You are my wife and a member of my tribe," Matymbou said. "I would not allow any woman to accompany an unknown man without arranging for her protection."
Lois looked at him for a long moment. "I didn't kiss Kent," she declared.
"It is not important whether you did or not."
His composure smothered her defiance like a blanket over fire. "I wanted to," Lois admitted, "but Diddi saw a hog and he shouted."
"Ooh," Matymbou said as laughter glistened in his eyes. "What terrible timing."
"You don't mind that I wanted to kiss Kent?"
"Lois," Matymbou said with a sigh. "I want you to be happy. I agreed that I would give you to any man you chose. And I trust your judgement. I do. But I wanted to know if this mondele is worthy of you. If his feelings for you are real and lasting. I don't want to give you to a man who doesn't appreciate the honour of being married to a woman like you."
Lois felt her tears rising. "I'm worried about him, Matty," she said. "I'm worried he has been so badly hurt that he'll never recover."
Matymbou brushed his fingertip across the moisture that had beaded in the corner of her eye. "You can only offer him your love, my fulele; you cannot force him to forget and move on."
"I wish I could."
"We are agreed? We will wait?" Matymbou stretched his arms towards Lois, and she fell into his embrace. "I have missed you," he said. "I miss your cheery voice and your glinting eyes when you think I am not behaving properly."
"I missed you, too, Matty," Lois said. She drew back and looked into his kindly dark eyes. "I love Kent. I want to be with him for the rest of my life."
"When he is ready, I will gladly give you to him," Matymbou said. "For now, we both need much patience."
Lois groaned. She hated that word. Matymbou chuckled.
"Why didn't you just ask him how he felt?" Lois asked. "Why attack him with a question about kissing me?"
"What is that saying you taught me? Something about faint hearts not being worthy of fair maidens?"
"You wouldn't have minded if he'd said he'd kissed me and you were just going to have to accept it?"
"That is what I was expecting," Matymbou said with a grin. He sobered. "I'm sorry if I did wrong. Forgive me?"
Lois nodded. "Of course."
"Romaric said you looked like a family today," Matymbou said softly.
Lois put her hand on his arm. "We felt like a family today, Matty. Diddi loves being with Kent."
"Special love is worth waiting for."
Lois nodded. She'd been waiting for Kent all her life. She could wait a little longer.
"You say you saw another hog?" Matymbou asked. "Close to the village?"
"Diddi said it's the same one he and Sylva saw. It was near the swimming hole."
"Tell Romaric. Tell him to track it without killing it and see if there are others."
"OK." She drew away, towards the door.
"Lois? Don't let the mondele kiss you until he wants it so much that he's willing to stand before me and declare he would do anything to be with you, even face a scary Bangala chief."
"I hope that day comes," Lois said quietly.
"Keep him in quarantine as long as he needs," Matymbou continued. "But if you want to slip into the village to see Sylva or Gislane, you can do so."
She gave him a wobbly smile. "Thanks, Matty."
"He'll be all right, Lois. He has your love. He doesn't have any choice but to recover. You will bully him into good health."
"I hope it's enough."
"It will be. No mere man is strong enough to resist you when you want something."
Lois couldn't muster a smile at his light-hearted tone. "Bye, Matty." She raised her hand in farewell, left the hut, and ran out of the village, her mind full of Kent - where he had gone, what he was doing, how he was feeling, and whether it was going to be possible to make him understand that they still had a future together.
~|^|~
"Kent!"
Lois's anguished cry echoed through the trees. She tried to calm her laboured breathing in order to listen for the sound of footsteps or an answering call.
She had raced from the village to the river, stopping under the broken branches of the corkwood tree.
This morning, Kent had run away and she had found him here.
But now, the area was deserted.
Where had he gone?
Lois moved forward to the bank of the river and looked along it.
So much of her day with Kent had been perfect.
They'd laughed. They'd played. They'd found such enjoyment in the simple fact of being together. They'd acted out the charade of being a family. It had felt so right that they had almost kissed.
She'd known Kent wasn't ready to advance their relationship beyond the simple touches of friendship. She'd known he would baulk at something as definitively romantic as a kiss.
But she'd been mesmerised by the moment, and by the time caution had come knocking on the door of her brain, it had been too late to pull back without risk of adding to the wounds of Lana's rejection.
Lois turned away from the river and moved to the exact spot where they'd sat this morning.
Where had he gone? Was he, right now, sprinting through the trees, trying to outrun Bangala land and memories of her?
She gulped down the fear churning through her stomach and heaved in a deep breath.
"KENT!"
Her tears swelled. He'd gone. She needed to find Romaric. He could track any-
"Lois?"
She spun around, and a cry of relief shot from her mouth. "Kent," she said, sprinting over to him. "Where were you? I was so worried about you."
He gestured behind him. "I was shooting hoops with Diddi," he said.
"In the quarantine area?"
"Yes."
Lois dragged in a panic-stifling breath. He was safe. He was still here. "I'm sorry about Matymbou. He didn't mean -"
"You're crying."
She swiped at her eyes. "No. Yes. I thought … I'm so glad you're OK."
His hand lifted towards her. "You missed …" His words faded; his hand dropped.
"I missed what?"
Slowly, his hand rose again, and his fingers brushed her eye with a delicate touch that pulsed shivers through her body.
"Thank you," she said when his arm had returned to his side.
"Was it me?" he asked. "Did I make you cry? Or was it him?"
"I thought you'd left."
"No."
He hadn't left physically, but emotionally … emotionally, he looked like someone who was hopelessly lost. "I'm really sorry about what happened with Matymbou," Lois said. "He didn't -"
"Is everything OK with you and him? Is he angry? Did you tell him we didn't actually kiss? Did he believe you? I'm sorry I caused problems between you and your husband."
You and your husband. Kent was retreating. "There are no problems between Matymbou and me," Lois said firmly.
"You explained? He believed you?"
"I told him we didn't actually kiss. I also told him that if it hadn't been for the hog, we would have kissed."
Kent's brow creased. "What did he say?"
"He said the hog had terrible timing," Lois said nonchalantly.
Kent's mouth fell open.
"There's nothing to worry about with Matymbou," Lois said. She tentatively placed her hand on his arm. When he didn't flinch, she left it there. "I'm a lot more worried about you. Matty didn't mean any harm. He didn't know anything about what happened before you came to the Bangala. He thought we'd kissed, and he wanted to know if it meant anything. I'm really sorry you felt cornered."
"I'm sorry about everything," Kent said. "I'm sorry about almost kissing you, and I'm sorry I felt so bad about it. I'm sorry I let you see how much I regretted it, and I'm sorry that I still want to kiss you. I'm sorry I can't just forget everything. And mostly, I'm sorry that I was so indecisive when we were with Matymbou."
A small chuckle escaped from Lois's mouth. Kent's eyes met hers. She held her breath. His anxiety cleared a little, and she breathed again. "Can we go through that one regret at a time?" she asked.
"Perhaps we can just accept that I made a terrible mess of everything and I'm really sorry."
"You didn't make a mess of anything," Lois said.
"Aw, Lois, I did," he said, wincing as if in pain. "I made it sound as if I don't know how I feel about you or what I want."
"Do you know what you want?" Lois asked gently.
"I want to be strong. I want to be able to believe in the future. I want this to be a new beginning."
"You've only known me for five days," Lois said gently. "You have as much time as you need. I'll wait for you."
"What if time isn't enough? What if some things never change?"
"Kent, you seem to think that your inability to wipe away your commitment to Lana and pretend it never happened is a flaw. I don't. The fact that you feel so guilty about almost kissing me tells me you're exactly the sort of man I can trust with my heart."
The welts of self-doubt were vivid across his face. "You don't know me."
She had no more words to attempt to convince him, so she allowed her heart to speak. "I wish I could hug you."
His instinctive apprehension softened to a small shrug of acceptance. Lois shackled her impatience and waited.
"OK," he muttered.
Lois stepped forward, enfolding him in loose arms, hoping he wouldn't sense the trickle of disappointment she hadn't quite managed to subdue.
Despite what had happened with Matymbou, Kent had made great progress today.
The berries. The swimming hole. His ability to adjust to her not-unavailable marital status.
His arms met behind her back, held stiffly distant, minimising contact. Lois snuggled in a little closer, reflecting that it was a little like hugging a tree trunk.
A big, hard, damaged tree trunk - the skeleton left when life had been sucked away.
"I'm sorry," Kent murmured. "It's … a week."
Lois hadn't caught the middle of his sentence. "Excuse me?"
"It's only been a week."
"Since we met?"
"Since Lana told me it was over."
Lois jolted back to look into his face. "A week?"
Kent nodded. "I was unconscious for some of the time, and it's difficult to know exactly because of the different time zones, but as close as I can tell, seven or eight days ago, I got up thinking it was just another day in my life as a husband and expectant father."
"Seven or eight days?" Lois gasped. "That's all?"
"Yes."
"I thought … I thought it happened months ago. I thought you came to Africa to try to forget. I figured you were working in a mine and that's how -"
Kent shook his head. "I guess I sort of knew you thought more time had passed, but there are things …" He hauled in a breath. "… there are things that are hard to tell you." His look was a plea for understanding. "Things I want to leave behind."
Lois had a lot of questions, but none that were more important than giving Kent the reassurance he needed. She slid her hands from his shoulders and connected her fingers on his neck. "You don't have to tell me anything," she said.
"Thank you."
"But … one week? Aw, Kent … I wish I'd known that."
Kent rested his head against Lois's, and their breaths intermingled.
A week.
Her heart swelled with sympathy.
One week.
He had apologised for stumbling, but she didn't know any human being who could have coped with such enormous, unexpected, and unwanted changes.
"I admire you so much," she whispered.
She felt surprise quiver through him.
"You don't believe me, do you?" she asked.
"I … I wish I were different."
"One week, Kent," she said. "One week. You're amazing. And I like you just the way you are."
Instead of pleasing him, that seemed to make him uncomfortable. His arms dropped to his sides. "How did Matymbou know we kissed?" he asked, still avoiding her eyes. "Almost kissed?"
"Romaric told him."
"Romaric?"
"Matymbou told Romaric to follow us. He's the chief, and he feels a responsibility to protect all his tribe. That includes not granting automatic trust to anyone."
"Meaning me?"
"Not just you. Everyone." She hurried on. "Romaric must have thought our almost kiss actually connected. He told Matymbou -"
"But if Romaric saw us together … saw me kiss Matymbou's wife …"
"Are you expecting he will be angry with you?"
"When I got back to the quarantine area, Romaric was there. He asked me to stay with Diddi while he went out to track the hog."
"Romaric is one of the main hunters."
"He trusted me with Diddi," Kent said. "Even though he thought I'd kissed you - a woman he loves."
"Loved," Lois corrected. "And just because things didn't work out between Romaric and me, that doesn't mean he's going to resent you."
"He won't?"
"Of course not. That's not the Bangala way."
"Oh."
The sense of being hopelessly lost shrouded him again. As strong as Kent was, he had reached the limits of his endurance. "Did you give Diddi the truck?" Lois asked brightly.
"No. I thought you might like to be there."
She grinned. "Want to go and do it now?"
"OK. That would be good."
"Let's go then." She took his hand and eagerly led them towards the quarantine area. "You are going to make Diddi the happiest boy in Africa," she said.
