Page 17 of Duty Preserved

These men did not carry clipboards.

I looked at them again, all three, and whatever they were, it wasn’t wildlife management. They stood differently from anyone else in this camp. Shoulders pulled back, weight balanced on their clearly athletic legs, and they had a level of attention that felt like it could bore a hole straight through you. While Donovan talked, the redhead’s eyes tracked someone passing behind the serving area without his head turning. The third man had shifted his weight to face the open side of the tent, and I didn’t think he’d done it consciously.

“We work for Citadel Solutions,” Donovan said. “Private security and training. Ethan Cross, our boss, has a relationship with the conservancy. He sent us to help get the ranger program on its feet.”

“Private security,” I repeated.

The redhead extended his hand. “Andrew Volante.” His grip was warm and brief, his smile was relaxed and immediate. “Don’t worry about the shirt thing. Donovan’s been through worse.”

The third man stepped forward and shook my hand too. “Cole Braddock. I’ve been on the ground here for a couple of weeks.”

“I’ve seen you around camp.” I was pretty sure I had. I just hadn’t spoken to him beyond a passing nod. He kept to the operations side, and I kept to the animals.

“I’m Sarah Calloway,” I finally volunteered. “The other two fellowship vets should be here shortly. Alyson Goodwin and Daniel Henderson. We’re mostly around the vet facility if we’re not out on the reserve with the animals.”

I turned back to Donovan. He was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t decode. The stew was still dripping down his chest, and I was still holding the empty tray like it was the only thing keeping me vertical.

“I am so sorry about the—” I gestured at the mess.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s really not. That’s the second time I’ve⁠—”

I stopped. I had been about to say the second time I’ve destroyed one of your shirts, which would have required explaining the first time, which would have required everyone in this tent to know that I’d vomited on this man in a hotel hallway in Paris. And I would rather have been trampled by the entire southern white rhino population than let that sentence finish.

“Second time you’ve what?” Andrew said.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

Donovan’s eyes held mine for a beat. He didn’t fill in the blank audibly for everyone. I was grateful enough for that.

“I’ll get you a towel,” I said and turned away before anyone could ask me anything else.

I was three steps toward the serving area when Alyson walked into the dining tent.

She was mid-sentence before she cleared the entrance. This was standard. Alyson’s voice arrived a full second before the rest of her did, and the rest of her was not quiet either.

“Sarah, Daniel is useless. I asked him to check on the impala and he forgot, and now I have to go out there myself after dinner, which means⁠—”

She stopped.

She was looking past me. At Donovan.

I watched the recognition land. Alyson’s eyes went wide, then wider, and her mouth fell open in a way that would have been comical had I not been experiencing the beginning of what I was fairly sure was a cardiac event.

“Oh my God.” Her hand came up to her chest. “Oh my God. That’s— Sarah. That’s—is that⁠—”

“Alyson.”

“That is the guy from the club.” She said it at a volume that carried across every open side of the tent and probably out to the nearest outpost. “That is the guy from Paris. The one you⁠—”

“Aly.”

She looked at me. Looked at Donovan. Looked at the stew on both of our shirts. Then she looked at me again, and her face contorted into something between joy and disbelief that I wanted to physically remove from her features.

“What is he doing here?”

“Working.” My voice came out tight. “He’s with the team Zayn was telling us about.”