AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Just when I thought the longing I’d been feeling since I’d kissed him goodbye would drown me in its bottomless depths, I remembered the three little widows all sleeping right down the hall. The widows who filled up the rest of my heart not occupied by my beloved, and the ones I was here to spend time with on this incredible adventure we found ourselves on once again. With Sylvie’s words to try to remain focused here and not on my spouse, I took a deep breath and tried to let go of all the emotions surging around inside me.
As I thought about the excitement of the days to come, it eased the ache of not having Alejandro’s arms around me as I fell asleep, and the anger of the bottomless pit of need for him I wouldn’t be able to satiate until I was back with him. As much as I missed him, I was excited about my time with them.
I glanced back at the discarded pillow, and with a deep sigh, I pulled it back into my arms and curled around it as I drifted off with the soft breeze blowing against the linens dangling around me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Agiraffe! Look! Agiraffe!” Doris squealed in the back seat of the open-air safari cruiser.
“Where? Where?” Sylvie spun around, lifting the brim of her khaki hat that matched the khaki clothes we all sported on our safari.
We all spun to look in the direction Doris pointed.
“Oh! I see it! There!” Marge pressed a pair of oversized binoculars to her eyeballs. “Oh, wow! I could count every hair on its ass with these babies!”
“I would hope so since you insisted on buying the biggest pair of binoculars that resemble a NASA telescope.”
“Yeah, well my vision isn’t what it used to be. I didn’t wanna miss anything. Here, have a look,” she offered to me.
With the waft of my hand, I turned away. “I can see it just fine without those monstrosities, Mr. Magoo.”
“I want to look through them!” Sylvie took the binoculars and focused in on the tall, majestic creature. “Whoa! You reallycansee all the hairs on it! These things are sweet!”
“Me! Me! My turn!” Doris bounced up and down until Sylvie passed her the binoculars.
The engine chugged quietly while we sat for several long minutes watching the giraffe stretching its long neck while it grabbed leaves from the tall tree.
“Oh! A baby! It has a baby!” Doris nearly popped my eardrums with the pitch of her squeal.
“Shhh!” Marge scolded. “You’ll scare them!”
Even though I was excited to see the giraffes, and the frolicking baby that emerged from the foliage was quite cute, I kept scanning the plains for the creatures I was most excited to see ... the ones that I’d come here for.
The big cats. My brethren.
But once again, my scan came up empty. We’d seen baboons, gazelle, kudu, and a handful of other exotic African creatures in the hour we’d been out on our day safari, but no big cats had crossed our path. I tried not to be frustrated by the lack of showing, but Ndungu assured me we would run into plenty the closer we got to Victoria Falls.
