Page 68 of Sheltering Instinct

Goose and Reaper climbed out of their open vehicle, all smiles.

“Consider my mind blown,” Levi told Reaper as he shook Enrico’s hand. When Enrico moved off to talk to Kimba, Levi said softly. “That’s it, Reaper. Mojo’s my dog.”

Reaper nodded slowly. “I am right there with you. Mojo is extraordinary. Let’s sit on that decision for one more day, though. I want to chat with Enrico about his program tomorrow.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Levi

Enrico rounded the back of the safari vehicle. He’d taken Mojo back to his house since the group would be out in Etosha Park, and sunset was prime rhino time as the animals made their way to the watering holes to drink.

Upfront in a covered cab, the driver climbed under the wheel and opened the little window cut into the back glass so he could speak to his passengers.

Behind him, there was an open space with a roof and bench seating.

The air was turning chilly, and everyone was grateful when Enrico produced the winter coats, hats, and mittens they’d all brought with them from the vineyard and left in his vehicle.

Enrico’s commander, Josef, sauntered from one of the cabins with a stack of wool blankets. “Here we are. The temperatures will continue to drop as the sun goes down, and of course, we will have the wind blowing us.” He handed a blanket to each of them. “Do not worry. I’ve told our driver we must be back here before the sun slips behind the horizon. The predators won’t be prowling quite yet.”

“Thank you,” Gwen said, then slid onto the bench next to Levi, where he’d hoped Tess would sit.

Gwen slid all the way over to him until they were thigh to thigh, patting the seat next to her as she looked at her mother.

Josef settled in the front seat and Enrico climbed in next to him. “I had the opportunity to speak to Gwen while Mojo was hunting for you,” Josef told Tess as she slid in behind Levi, sitting next to Craig. “She has shared some of her story. If youdo not mind, I will pose the same question I asked Gwen. What motivated you to work with WorldCares?”

Tess pulled the wool blanket open and tucked it around her before she spoke. “When I was a child, I was a refugee of sorts. The weather had a significant impact on my family’s daily efforts to remain safe. I want to protect people as much as possible. That was my aim when I worked on my doctorate, and I was very fortunate to find like-minded people,” she held out an open palm to indicate Gwen, “with the same kinds of global interests. While it’s wonderful to partner with other scientists at the university, I wondered where the information would go and how it would be acted on. Any research I conduct needs to support people and not be sold to an organization that might exploit a situation when those people are at their most vulnerable. WorldCares saves lives. While suffering will remain—it’s the human condition—it can be mitigated to some extent.”

Tess looked to her left as she spoke. And Levi wished he could see her face and read her emotions as she explained her story. She had, on occasion, told him pieces about her years-long effort to stay safe.

A familiar theme was that Tess and the Ya family weren’t just trying to survive the civil war but were doing so through extreme weather events.

Until he went to war, Levi had to admit that he hadn’t understood.

He knew Tess was telling him things about a life that she’d lived. But it was so far from his own experience—growing up a typical Oklahoma ranch kid—that in his mind, he’d filed those stories in the same place he might put a fictional novel he’d read or a movie he’d seen.

It wasn’t that he disbelieved her. Heabsolutelybelieved her.

But without the lived experience, he simply couldn’t fathom what life had been like for her as an eight-year-old child.

Night after night, she seemed to relive the horrors to the point that Tess tried to avoid going to sleep.

One thing Levi had learned through his experience with Tess was that when she felt endangered, his remaining a calm and steady force was imperative. Her cries sent his adrenaline through the roof, and everything in his body told him to fight for her. But there was nothing to fight. All he could offer was that calm and steady harbor.

Later, when Levi was in his own battles overseas, he’d used those skills he’d honed over the years with Tess to maintain his focus and calm. He felt sure that those skills helped him to stay alive and protect his brothers.

Of course, when he had those thoughts, Levi had to push them away because they tore at the hole in his heart.

Levi reached for his water bottle and tried to swallow down those memories.

Everyone seated, the safari vehicle drove down the pale grey dirt road.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to start right away with knowing what the weather is doing here in Namibia.”

“I apologize, Josef,” Gwen said. “Because when we left this morning, I didn’t know that we would be speaking with you, and since Tess and I are on vacation, neither of us has looked at the weather modeling in over a week. The best I can tell you is that when we left the conference in Spain, there was some agitation about the wobble near the equator and how it would impact both Europe and Africa.”

Tess leaned forward to stick her head up where she could better speak to Gwen.

“Oh, here, this won’t do,” Iris said. “You girls need to sit together. Driver, could you stop for a minute?”

---