Free Guarding the Princess by Loreth Anne White Page B

gurgled again, and Dalilah shot him a hard look. He said nothing, kept his attention on driving. Suddenly he felt the jeep wheels levelling out. The tires found harder purchase and they shot up the other side of the pool. He kept revving until they slid onto firmer ground, then he gradually eased up on the accelerator. Slowly Brandt breathed out the air he’d been holding in his chest—they were out of the water.
    But now they were sandwiched in a V of sand between the rising flood on one side, and the high-bank cliff, and the only way was north, even farther upriver, where the bank seemed to rise even higher.
    “We’ll keep going,” he said. “Until we find a way out.”
    Ahead in their headlights the rain was silvery, and the strip of white sand between cliff and water grew narrower and narrower as the river continued to swell. Urgency bit into Brandt.
    They could be trapped.
    “If a full flood comes down,” he said, trying to keep her positive, “it’ll keep Amal and his men on the other side for at least a day or so until they find a way to cross.”
    Dalilah’s gaze flicked to the high bank on the Botswana side. “Yeah, and at least we’ll be driving head-on into the wall of water if it does come down,” she said. “Always nice to face what’s coming.”
    Brandt laughed, a great big booming release of tension. He loved that Princess had a sense of humor on top of her bravado.
    “Hold tight, Princess!” he yelled as he veered left and zoomed through more water that was closing them in. It splashed up the sides of the vehicle, higher, higher. Then something hit them with a hard thud.
    Oh, Jesus.
    “What’s that?” she hissed.
    Then he saw—the carcass of a bloated cow, floating down. For a minute he’d feared it was a croc. Relief rushed out his chest once more and he laughed again. But this time she remained wire-tense, her fist clutched with a death grip on the bar.
    Brandt drove fast, denying the first stirrings of panic licking through his gut as his headlights kept illuminating more and more cliff. The clock was ticking—they had to get out of here.
    Dalilah reached suddenly forward, grabbed the hunting spot off the dash, flicked it on. She panned up the river, farther than his lights reached. All caution about being seen was now completely overridden by a desperate urge to get out of the riverbed, away from rising water.
    “Over there!” she yelled. “A gap!”
    Sweet heaven—she was right. A break in the cliff wall, a gentle incline up onto the high bank. Sweat dripping into his eyes, Brandt raced for it, water chortling at the wheels. He swung the jeep up onto the banking incline, and the jeep stuck. He revved, hard, tires spitting out wet sand. The engine cut, and they stalled. Brandt cursed viciously as he tried to restart it, praying there was no water damage somehow. The engine coughed, turned, then died again. He tried again, slower on the gas. The jeep growled to life. He said a silent prayer as he began carefully edging the four-wheel drive up the bank, all the way up. They shot out over the top onto hard grassy ground fringed with tall fever trees.
    He hit the brakes. Put his head back and inhaled deeply.
    “Oh, God,” she said at his side.
    He shot her a fast glance, worry spurting through him.
    “I don’t believe it,” she said, tears of relief pouring down her face, and she smiled. “We made it,” she whispered. “We actually made it!”
    Her emotion made his eyes prickle, too.
    “Yeah,” he said, placing his hand on her knee, his throat going tight. “We bloody well did. We make a good team, Princess.”
    She bit her lip to stop it from trembling, and nodded.
    Brandt maneuvered the jeep a little higher onto the hard ground and into a grove of tall fever trees, where he parked under the canopy. They sat for a few minutes in silence, mentally regrouping as drops of water from the leaves plopped onto the canvas above their heads. There was a sudden shaking of the