“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 protect 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.
“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