The previous night's meeting, from Sergio's perspective.

Sergio got into his bed last night, after drinking the hot chocolate with Leah. Everyday here in the bush is hard and he was tired. He slept like a log, even with a beautiful lady guest in his room.

            Why? Because she is off the limits to him.

            Unavailable. Call it the Sergio Martinez policy. You don’t stick your nose. Or any other part of your anatomy into a couple’s affairs. And lo and behold, most woman he fell for so far in his life, had a little shadow willing to follow her to the end of the world. Even here in Africa.

As is the case with beautiful Leah. And luckily he found out about it in time.

Not that he haven’t thought about it, and her … and him. Yesterday.

With coffee and a rusk he walked out onto the veranda of his bachelor’s flat. In his mind he relived the whole episode, from the moment John told him that Leah his beloved daughter was on her way to the farm.

While they were speaking about her, someone triggered the beam of the road to the lions' camp and John responded with. "Oh no, it must be Leah who took the wrong turn off. She is now in the lion’s camp. Jump into my truck Sergio, Leah doesn;t know about the mating lions close to the gate."

So Sergio jumped into the pickup truck with him.

He could swear on the way there, John used the D word. Like in Divorce. And Sergio processed the information, like men always do. Divorce may mean, bed fun for a short while. It starts with, I recognise you as a woman. Do you realise that I am a man?

You as a woman have a little something I might be interested in. And I have something that might give you pleasure for a short while. But first I'm going check you out first. Together we play the game.

The chase... The hunt. The anticipation. Deferred desire. You never grab a woman on your first date. No, he didn't take ‘hunting’ classes from Valentino the king of love. He only knows that from experience.

Adult fun. Consenting adults. He is no longer a teenage boy.

Yes, that's how a man's head works and he is a man. All of that went through his mind when he saw her jump off the roof of the Suzuki Jimney there, with King the big male lion short on her heels. Across her car and over her head.

Just to turn around and come back at her.

Sergio didn't think. He jumped out, snatched her up, and jumped with her in his arms into that tiny can on wheels she was driving. Luckily she is quite small. If she was big like him, they wouldn’t fit. But they got in the car okay, even though it was close.

Then she looked up and it felt as if someone had thrown him with ice water with a good dose of desire potion in it. His heart wanted to stop as he looked into her pretty smoky blue eyes.

You did not make love to a woman for a while, Sergio’s body shouted at him. At that point, everything in and about him told him that this was what was going to happen. This woman will probably be his next lover. Rather sooner than later. It was written on her face as well.

His heart was weakened even more by the trust she placed in him while he was removing the stick from her foot. That was the first step in the right direction. While working there, his eyes followed the nice forms of her legs. He could already see the landing strip was for that piece of equipment that could make him as a man fly to the moon and back.

He waited on her bed for her to take a shower. The concerned animal doctor! While leafing through her magazine, he caught her eyes on him. She was curious about him as well. He put the magazine away and watched her apply soap to her body… from the corner of his eyes. When the steam started fogging up the glass of the shower, he could no longer tore his eyes away from there.  

If she showed the slightest sign of losing her balance he would jump up to catch her. He would wrap a towel around her naked body, and brought her back to bed. When she emerged from the bathroom he could smell the delicious soft talky smell from a woman who just came out of a bath or shower.

Her feet carried her safely to her bed and he had to leave the scene of crime.

Then late last night, Sergio found that Gato was gone. As always the cat was looking for a stranger’s bed to go and crawl into, whether he's welcome or not. And clearly he was not welcome, for she almost killed the poor grey creature then. Or what else was she trying to do with her. As he could clearly hear the words: "Please be patient with me. It wasn't quite a long time that I had one like that inside me..."

Unthinkable!

He turned on the light and freed the cat from her grasp.

For a moment he thought of telling her that he was a little more capable to help her with that little problem of hers, not the poor little cat.

Then a man spoke up behind them!

And not who? Her husband.

Or ex-husband then. Although it was clear from the word go that Ralph Whats his name, was not done with Leah Hurter. And if that’s the case, Sergio would stand down or back. Or retreat or whatever.

That’s why Sergio now avoids the diningroom from where he heard voices. People  eating breakfast. Mary probably made him a plate of food as well. But no, he was not ready to face any of them again, yet. He was going to take his microlight plane out of the hanger to fly over the lion camp to see where the cats are this morning. And if they are no longer in the area where Leah lost her cell phone, he will land and try and find it for her.