A Kiss of Adventure Read Online Free PDF

leaned back, knocking the flashlight from her hand and extinguishing its beam. They both bent to grope for it. As Tillie found it, his hand closed around hers.
    “Look . . . what’s your name?” he whispered, taking the flashlight from her. “That guy in the market—did he call you Matilda ?”
    “No, please. I’m Tillie. Tillie Thornton.”
    “Look, Tillie. I think you’d better listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. You’re in for some rough days.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I’m talking about the journal. I’m talking about Mungo Park and the legend and the curse. I’m talking about you, Tillie Thornton. You’re the tree-planting woman. So now, whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to go in search of the treasure of Timbuktu.”

    Graeme explained that he didn’t understand the meaning of Mungo Park’s wording on the ancient document any more than Tillie did. Nor did he know the significance of the legend that had become so important to the Tuareg. But he did know one thing. For some reason the Tuareg believed the document was cursed—and so was the treasure.
    “No one can handle it but the tree-planting woman,” he said. He refolded the paper and slipped it into the locket. Then he opened Tillie’s palm and placed the necklace in it.
    She felt the hair rise on the nape of her neck. “Me. I’m the tree-planting woman in the legend.”
    “At least the Tuareg think you are.”
    “Great.”
    “So, are you hungry? I’ve got a few bananas in my bag.”
    “Hungry! Who can think about food? What about the curse and that Targui who’s after me? What does all that mean? And the message in the amulet? Mungo Park couldn’t possibly have known about me. He wrote this almost two hundred years ago.”
    Graeme tapped the flashlight against the fallen log. “My guess is that our friend on the camel—he’s an amenoukal , by the way, the chieftain of a federation of Tuareg drum groups—brought the document to light because of you, the first tree-planting woman the Tuareg ever heard about.”
    Tillie felt sick. In the past three weeks, she’d sent a flurry of letters to various agencies in the Sahel asking if any of the tribes living there would be willing to donate a large plot of arid land for her first tree-planting experiment outside the capital. The Tuareg were nomadic, but no doubt the officials had spoken to them about her project.
    “The Tuareg probably think they can get to the treasure through you,” Graeme said. “I imagine the amenoukal ’s looking for us—you—right now.”
    “But I don’t know where it is!”
    “He thinks you do. And now that you have the document, you’ll find him the treasure. At least, that’s how he sees it.”
    Tillie looked out toward the Land Rover. A half-moon was rising over the banana grove. Tillie frowned. Graeme had told her it wouldn’t come up for hours. He had lied to her. Maybe he was lying about this, too. Maybe he wanted the treasure for himself. Or, more likely, maybe he was involved in some kind of illegal business and was trying to use this fantastic story about Mungo Park as a cover.
    She studied the amulet in her hand. Brilliant in the silver moonlight, it fascinated her in spite of herself. What would Hannah be thinking? and Arthur? They needed her. Even her neem trees needed her. She couldn’t go off on some wild treasure hunt. It didn’t fit with her plans.
    Your plans? She heard the echo of Hannah’s voice. Maybe she did put too much faith in her own plans, but surely God had no purpose in sending her into the desert . . . with a black-haired stranger who couldn’t be trusted. . . .
    Tillie stiffened. What had she been telling Hannah that very afternoon in the marketplace? She wanted desperately to go into the desert. She longed to be with the Africans and learn their languages. She ached to touch lives for Christ. But . . . but not like this! It wasn’t sensible.
    My ways are not