Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

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      She sighed.

      She’d just … She’d wanted him to have the experience she’d had. The discovery. Coming around that corner and seeing that beautiful animal, so misplaced and unexpected. And she’d enjoyed giving it to him. Everything had gone slow motion just then, as she’d fixed her eyes on his and stepped backward to bring him out into the giraffe’s eye line. His face had transformed in that moment, practically glowed, and she had—for precious seconds—a glimpse of the old Hayden. The young man who’d found every aspect of life a revelation. She remembered that face from when she’d hidden under the stairs and watched him through the door crack on Saturdays.

      And she’d given him that today.

      And then his eyes had refocused on their target—a blonde, the only kind of woman he ever dated—and they’d hardened back into the new Hayden. The Hayden she’d met that very first day at his cottage. The Hayden who was bored with life and out to wring its riches. He hadn’t done much else—he hadn’t needed to, really, because Caryn seemed happy to carry the burden of the flirting—but her implication was clear.

       Come back and visit …

      Yay.

      She pushed herself onto her side and sat up. Work. She’d said it to get a clean break from Hayden, but suddenly it did seem like a reasonable distraction from her unsanctioned thoughts about the kiss. First, unpacking had been a good excuse to stay in here long enough to lose him to his curiosity about how freighters worked. Then roaming the deck and the Lego-stacks of containers.

      Now work.

      Caryn’s chat had triggered a blog idea. About the unseen challenges of international livestock transactions. Zoo animals, racing horses, stud bulls. How many other unique passengers were sitting in crates on ships, planes and trucks around the world right at this moment? It was as unsung as travelling the world on passenger freighters.

      She sketched out the preliminary outline of a story and jotted down some research ideas. That neatly took care of … oh … minutes.

      ‘Ugh.’ She threw herself backwards and stared again at the offending ceiling. Had they not painted this vessel at all since it was commissioned?

      Hayden was responsible for this off-balance mental mess. His incendiary kiss. It had been as unexpected as the giraffe. Though, like the giraffe, once discovered, it was a hard thing to put out of your mind. She’d had to work hard out there on the deck not to keep staring at his mouth. Remembering.

      No doubt Caryn the zookeeper would be discovering it very soon.

      She’d never met anyone as cynical and miserable as Hayden. That he believed love was a challenge you negotiated rather than something that just struck you … And that he thought it so pathetic that she believed otherwise. That he developed plans for big businesses to better exploit the community.

      That was not the boy she’d hidden in the shadows to watch.

      The man he’d become might have a full bank account but his moral account was sadly lacking.

      Judging him made her feel vaguely better about letting him kiss her.

      She forced herself up, back to her laptop, back to the outline of the story she could feel burbling, and verbalised it to tell herself she really meant it.

      ‘Enough.’

      A knock at the door ripped her out of the concentrated place where she’d lost time.

      ‘Shirley? It’s Hayden.’

      Seriously? Could the man not amuse himself for an hour? She had that thought even as her chest tightened around the anticipation. She hit ‘save’ on her work, stood and yanked the door open. ‘Yes?’

      He stood there, casually but gorgeously dressed. A clean shirt and well-fitting trousers. Shaved, even. And smelling pretty much like ambrosia.

      ‘Are you coming up for dinner?’ he said. ‘I thought we were meeting up there?’

      She blinked. Half at his appearance and half at what him being showered and shaved meant. ‘Now?’

      ‘It’s past seven.’

      ‘Right!’ How many hours had she lost in her story? That was always a good sign for an engrossing read but not great for saving face in front of Hayden. ‘Coming.’

      Every instinct called her to put on Shiloh’s face—eyes, lips, pallor, carefully chaotic hair—because she’d be meeting strangers, but she remembered her commitment to Hayden and she was determined not to be the one to break faith. On principle. She slipped on her shoes and untwisted the elastic holding her hair back. Sea or not, if tumbling masses were good enough for Caryn …

      She raked her fingers through the waves to give it body and then smiled at Hayden. ‘Sorry. Let’s go.’

      Mistake number one.

      The wind conditions buried below deck—or even behind a wall of sea containers—and the wind conditions at the top of a freighter were not the same thing. Immediately her hair whipped like silken razors around her face in the gusts, tangling and flying. She wrangled it down as best she could and twisted it in her hold until they reached the outer door of the Paxos’s galley. Hayden held the door for her from outside and she stepped through.

      Six people turned to look at her—five crew and one zookeeper.

      Awesome. Nothing like a subtle entrance.

      She blew loose strands from her sea-whipped face and plastered on a smile. ‘Sorry I’m late, everyone. I got absorbed in my work.’

      She summed up the seating arrangement at a glance. Two empty seats on opposite sides of the table and the one next to Caryn had a half-drunk bottle of Hayden’s favourite non-alcoholic beverage in front of it.

       Okay …

      She moved towards the second vacancy, flanked by the ship’s crew.

      Introductions were brief, given most of the crew spoke only Greek, but a man she hadn’t yet met had good English and proved himself an admirable translator. He was the Paxos’s Captain. Just as Greek as the rest of them, just as old and weathered, but somehow more … striking.

      Or maybe it was just the uniform.

      Hayden sank back into his seat next to Caryn, who immediately drew him back into conversation.

      As dinners went, it wasn’t the worst she’d had. The food was unexpectedly good and the mood at the table was genial. In fact, the buzz of tension between her and Hayden was the only thing marring it. He glanced up often, inspired by the booming laugh of Captain Konstantinos or the smiles of the crew, or to frown at something one of them said to the other in Greek. And she did her best to follow along between sips of Australian wine. Caryn was outstripping her in that regard, putting away two glasses to her one.

      The wine brought immediate colour to Shirley’s cheeks in a Mrs Claus way rather than the appealing slash of colour up the jaw like it did on the vivacious blonde.

      Typical.

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