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Maybe.
She’d think about that later. In the meantime...
‘And this has what to do with my hair?’
‘Let it hang loose,’ he suggested, producing the gentle smile that melted her bones. ‘Let it hang loose and we’ll find a flower to put behind your ear.’
There was a longish pause, during which she actually let go of her hair, running her fingers through it so it fell without tangles, wanting to tell him she wasn’t a flower behind the ear kind of person, but before she could say anything he spoke again.
‘Of course it will be up to you to decide which ear,’ he said, leaving Fran so bemused she fled to her bedroom, muttering something about fetching her handbag while her mind searched for the source of the little ping it had given when he’d spoken of flowers and ears.
It did mean something, but in her befuddled state she had no idea what. She’d just have to hope they didn’t find a flower so she wouldn’t have to make a fool of herself doing the wrong thing.
* * *
She was stunning.
Steve watched her beat a hasty retreat into her bedroom, the long, silky dress clinging to the curves of her body, her hair, darkish but shot with light, bouncing on her shoulders.
This was the second time he’d seen her in the bathroom doorway with a brush in her hand, yet this time...
Maybe it was the dress. This time, with her arms raised to hold her hair, she’d reminded him of a painting he’d once seen, or a statue, something of spectacular beauty that had stuck in his mind, yet she seemed totally unaware of her allure.
Which made her all the more attractive...
There had to be at least a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t get involved with this woman. At the top of the list was the probability that she wasn’t interested in him, then the fact that they worked together, and he wasn’t in the market for a serious relationship just yet, and he was fairly certain she was a serious relationship kind of person.
Although...
Experience told him that it was rare to be drawn to a woman who wasn’t interested in him—attraction as strong as he was feeling was almost always mutual and although Francesca Hawthorne had given no hint of interest in him, he could put that down to the fact that women were more reluctant to reveal how they felt, as if being physically attracted to a man was somehow shameful.
Particularly, he guessed, women like Francesca.
Or was he kidding himself?
There was only one way to find out. He headed into the garden in search of a flower...
‘Which ear?’ he asked when he returned, brandishing the bright red hibiscus in front of Francesca.
‘What do you mean, which ear?’ she demanded, causing him to wonder if she would be bossy in bed?
The thought was so irrelevant—so irrational—he shocked even himself, yet he couldn’t help a surge of anticipation as well.
‘Availability,’ he explained, coming closer to her, breathing in the scent of woman beneath a light, flowery fragrance that might be nothing more than hair shampoo. ‘It’s an age-old custom—right ear for available women, left ear if you’re taken. Left because it’s closer to the heart, and in truth it’s probably a tourist legend, not a local custom at all.’
He was too close. Fran’s nerves were skirmishing with her brain, urging her to move closer, while her brain yelled for restraint.
Restraint!
It was practically a byword in her life, preached by her mother, confirmed by her husband, restraint in everything.
Not that her ex-husband had shown any restraint when it came to Clarissa...
Did that explain this sudden urge to fling it all away? To move out of the confining bounds of the life she’d always led? To forget the stupid guilt she’d felt when her father had left her and her mother, and the restraint she’d imposed on herself since that day.
Don’t rock the boat had become her motto.
Foolishly?
‘Definitely not taken,’ she muttered, disturbed as much by the memories and the fight within her as the closeness of the attractive man.
‘Good,’ he said quietly as he slid the flower’s delicate stem behind her right ear, letting his fingers brush against her jaw as he withdrew his hand, his eyes holding hers, sending messages she didn’t want to understand.
Or didn’t want to acknowledge?
‘Now, should we drive or walk? It’s up to you. The walk down is beautiful because you look out over the town and the sea, but coming back up the hill isn’t fun if you’re tired after your flight.’
Fran took his words as a challenge. Tired after her flight indeed!
‘I hope I’m not so feeble I can’t manage a flight and a walk up a hill all in one day,’ she retorted, trying in vain to remember just how high the hill they’d driven up earlier might be.
Ha! So she’s got some spirit, this sophisticated beauty, Steve thought, though all he said was, ‘That’s great.’
They set off, up past the hospital, along the ridge that looked out over a peaceful lagoon with small islands dotted about it.
‘I love this view,’ he said. ‘You’re looking down at the centre of Port Vila, and out over a few of the smaller islands. Some of the other islands in the group are much larger than this one, but Vila, or Port Vila, the proper name, is the capital.’
He continued his tourist guide talk as they walked, pointing out the smart parliament building, telling her of the cyclone that had hit just east of the town a few years back, and the earthquakes the island group had suffered recently.
‘Yet people still live here—they rebuild and life goes on?’
She turned towards him as she spoke, obviously intrigued.
‘It is their home,’ he reminded her, and she nodded.
‘Of course it is.’
‘And your home? Has it always been in Sydney?’
Normal, getting to know you talk, yet it felt more than that. Something inside him wanted to know more of this woman who’d come into his life.
‘Always Sydney,’ she replied.
They were heading downhill now, traffic thickening on the road as they came closer to the waterfront.
‘And you?’ she asked, moving closer to him as they passed a group of riotous holiday makers.
‘Sydney, then a little town on the coast, Wetherby, then Sydney again. It’s complicated.’
She smiled at him.
‘Like the pelican?’ she teased. ‘Seems you’ll have a lot to tell me over dinner.’
Was she interested or just being polite?
Not that it mattered. He might be attracted to this woman but everything about her told him she wasn’t a candidate for a mutually enjoyable affair and anything more than that was still a little way down his ‘to-do’ list.
Not far down but still...
He returned to tour guide mode, pointing out various buildings, and soon they were down at the waterfront, and she stopped, looking out over the shining water.
‘It’s a beautiful setting for a town, isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed,’ he agreed. ‘It’s one of the reasons I never mind coming back here.’
‘The people being another?’ she said, and he turned towards her and smiled.
‘Of course!’
He led the way along the boardwalk built out over the water’s edge towards the restaurant in a quieter part of the harbour. But a cry made them both turn. A group of Japanese tourists was talking excitedly and pointing down into the water, crowding so closely to the edge they were in danger of falling in.
Steve ran back, Fran following more slowly, arriving in time to catch Steve’s shirt as he threw it off and stepped out of his sandals, before diving into the inky depths beneath them.
‘Ambulance!’ he yelled when he resurfaced, before diving back down out of sight.
Fran turned to one of the locals who’d joined the group, and said, ‘Ambulance?’
He nodded, holding up his cell phone to show he was already on it.
Which left Fran free to push back the excited onlookers and beckon the burly local who’d phoned the ambulance to come and join her.
Steve’s head reappeared, a very dark head beside it.
‘If you can lean over, I think I can pass him up.’
The breathless words weren’t quite as clear as they might have been, but Fran understood and she and the local man lay down so they could lean forward towards the water.
With what seemed like superhuman strength, Steve thrust the slight form of a young man upwards, to be grabbed by the stranger next to Fran, then Fran herself.
Together they hauled him up, with a couple from the tourist party helping to lift him clear. Fran waved the crowd away again and rested their patient in the recovery position, while Steve swam towards some steps fifty yards away.
Fran cleared the young man’s airway and felt for a pulse. Not even a faint one!
Rolling him onto his back, she pinched his nose and gave five quick breaths, then changed position to begin chest compressions.
Steve arrived as she reached the count of thirty, so she let him take over the compressions while she counted and did the breaths. The ambulance siren was growing louder and louder as it neared them but they kept pumping and breathing until, finally, the young man gave a convulsive jerk, and Steve rolled him back into the recovery position before he brought up what seemed like a gallon of sea water.
He was breathing on his own, though still coughing and spluttering, when the ambos arrived to take over.
Fran and Steve stood together as the lad was strapped onto a gurney and loaded into the ambulance, and it was only when his shorts brushed against her that she realised he was still wet.
And somewhere in the chaos she’d lost his shirt.
Fortunately a backpacker appeared, holding the shirt and Steve’s sandals.
‘You two made a good team,’ he said. ‘No panic and straight into action. Done it before?’
Steve shook his head.
‘Instinct,’ he explained.
‘And a bit of medical knowledge,’ Fran added, feeling unaccountably pleased by the young man’s words.
After handing over the shirt and sandals, the backpacker offered Steve a pair of board shorts.
‘Might not be your style, mate, but better dry than wet,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You can keep them. I’m heading home and I could use a bit more space in my backpack.’
Obviously pleased by the offer, Steve stripped off his wet shorts, revealing a pair of lurid boxer shorts.
‘Staff joke,’ he explained as he pulled the dry shorts over them, then finished dressing with his shirt and sandals.
He turned to Fran, his arms out held.
‘So, teammate, I might not be quite the picture of sartorial excellence you expected to be dining with, but will I do?’
‘Definitely!’ she said, then wondered why she felt there’d been a double meaning in her answer.
They finished the walk to the restaurant in companionable silence as if their brief response to the young man’s drowning had somehow drawn them together.
‘This is wonderful,’ she said, as the waiter seated them at an outside table. ‘And across there?’
She pointed to a small island with a row of thatched huts along the water’s edge.
What she’d really wanted to know was how the young man might be faring, but common sense told her to leave that little interlude alone and not to make too much of it.
‘One of many resorts,’ he explained. ‘Vanuatu’s a tourist destination now. But that island over there, tiny as it is, has been settled for a long time. One of the colonial governors had a house there, and bits of it remain.’
‘And it’s only accessed by boat?’
Steve nodded. ‘Look, the little boat is crossing now. It’s about a five-minute trip but it does make that resort seem a bit special.’
A waiter interrupted them with menus and offers of drinks.
‘Light beer for me,’ Steve said. ‘Fran?’
‘I’d like a white wine, just a glass,’ she told the waiter, who then rattled off a list of choices.
‘Pinot Gris,’ she said, getting lost after that in the list. And by the time their drinks arrived, they’d settled on their meals—steak for Steve and swordfish for Fran.
‘Cheers,’ he said, lifting his glass. ‘And here’s to a pleasant stay for you in Vanuatu. Hopefully you won’t be called upon to save any more lives, although I must say you handled the situation enormously well.’
‘Anyone would have done the same,’ she said, ever so casually, although the compliment pleased her.
She touched her glass to his bottle, and echoed his ‘Cheers’ then took a sip of the wine, and nodded appreciation.
It was all Fran could do not to gulp at the wine.
Somehow, it seemed, the simple act of working together to save the young man had formed a bond between them.
Or maybe that was just her imagination! Running riot because the walk to the restaurant had set her nerves on fire?
The walk had certainly been fascinating, Steve pointing out special places, telling stories of the early European settlement, but it had been his presence—the nearness of him as they’d walked side by side—that had unsettled nerves she’d forgotten she had.
Oh, she’d been out with other men since her divorce, but none of them had made something—excitement—thrum along her nerves.
Maybe there was something in the richly perfumed tropical air—a drug of some kind—that heightened all the senses.
Or maybe seeing his broad, tanned chest, water nestling among the sparse hairs on his sternum, had stirred long-forgotten lust!
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