“My name is Ian. Dingane is a nickname, but I am African. My ancestors came to South Africa in the seventeen-hundreds from England,” he explained although he seemed annoyed to be doing so, as if I deserved no such courtesy.
His accent sounded like a mix of formal English, Australian and Dutch. That’s the only way I could describe it. I’d never heard its equal. It was so incredibly beautiful and unique. Every film I’d ever watched that featured the South African accent completely butchered it. Listening to him was like listening to velvet.
“Oh,” I spit out intelligently. “What-what does Dingane mean?” I sputtered, still unable to remove my stare from his face.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, apparently no longer humoring me and bending to pick up the luggage I’d only just realized I’d dropped.
“I can get that,” I said stupidly, reaching toward the floor. What is wrong with me? I’m the one who strikes men dumb! Not the other way ’round!
“I already have them. Follow me,” he ordered, standing to his full height.
I swallowed the embarrassing five-minute loss of sanity and began to follow him like a meek mouse. I didn’t feel like myself, didn’t feel like Sophie Price. Wake up, Sophie. I picked up my head, remembered who the hell I was and met every stride he strode. We were neck and neck and I could tell this surprised him by the way he spied me from the corner of his eye. I kept my face neutral. Eat that, Dingane.
He lead us to a white beat-up jeep and I stopped just short of visibly balking. He threw my bags with little care into the exposed back and began to strap them down.
I watched him work. “Are you expecting me to open your door for you?” he asked, his thick accent shocking once more.
“Do I look like I expect you to open my door for me?” I bit back.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Then why stand there?”
“It would be presumptuous of me to just sit inside your jeep without you, don’t you think? Possibly rude?”
His calloused hands unexpectedly rested over the now tight straps and he looked at me for longer than I considered comfortable, studying me, but just as suddenly walked to the passenger side door as if just remembering himself and opened it for me without a word. I climbed into the jeep and watched him close the door behind me before walking the front of the vehicle and hopping in.
“How old are you?” I asked, turning toward him after buckling in.
“Twenty,” he said succinctly.
He was quiet as he started the jeep and sped through the almost impossible jumble of pushy taxis waiting for passengers. I admit I white knuckled it until we met open road.
“It’ll take an hour to get to the city capital,” he yelled over the rumbling engine and whipping wind. “Kampala is a busy city, Miss Price, and I’d rather not stop, but I suspect it will be our only opportunity to eat before the long journey back to Lake Nyaguo.”
“I ate just before we landed,” I lied.
If I was being honest, I was afraid to eat anything other than what was prepared at Masego. Damn that Dr. Ford.
“If you’re game to go straight through then so am I.”
And that was the last thing Dingane said to me almost the entire journey.
The silence afforded me astonishing views of an unbelievably attractive country. It also gave me time to come to terms with how much my life was going to change and just how dramatic that change would be.
Four hours is a very long time. Long enough to ponder my very physical reaction to my driver and what it was going to mean to live and work with him. I decided it was just a tenacious chemistry, that I was not without self-control. Oh yeah, you’re the queen of restraint. I turned toward him and drank in his lean, muscular figure.
Oh. My. Word.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“That’s Lake Nyaguo,” Dingane said, startling me. “Masego Orphanage is just north of this lake. Charles owns the land we drive through now.”
“How much does he own?”
“Approximately five thousand acres. He owns the land north of the lake as well as south and his property lines go east from there.”
“Why did he buy land in Uganda?” I asked, more to myself than to Dingane.
“Why not?”
“Fair enough,” I conceded.
Dingane sighed in exasperation. “This is his life’s work. He wanted the land to accomplish it. Surprisingly, land in this part of Uganda is inexpensive.” He smirked.
Half an hour later, we’d rounded the east side of the blue lake and were on a straight red dirt road. “Masego is just five minutes up this drive,” he stated.
My throat dropped to my stomach and I tried to swallow the sinking feeling away. “What’s it like?”
“It is beautiful. It is horrifying.”
The breath I’d been holding for his response rushed out all at once.
“I feel I must prepare you,” he continued.
I gulped. “Prepare me for what?”
“For the children here.” An unexpected gleam came to his eyes and I could see how much he loved them just by speaking of them. “Some will be deformed.”
“Deformed?”
“Maimed.”
“I know what you meant but why?”
“Do you know nothing of our facility?” he asked impatiently, briefly narrowing his eyes my direction.
“I know nothing. I know only that it is an orphanage.”
He breathed out slowly. “We are too close to begin explaining now. Charles or his wife, Karina, should explain it all to you when you arrive. I don’t have time. I’ve spent the entire day driving to fetch you and I need to catch up on a mended fence at the northeastern edge of the property line.”