Reluctant Date (6 page)

Was he the serious businessman she had first met, or the
pushy stranger who had tracked her down and, seemingly without effort, taken
over her life, or was he the carefree Daniel who was so enthusiastic about the
sandy, windswept countryside surrounding her parent’s home.

“You’re very quiet.
 
Are you sure you’re okay?” He broke into her thoughts, slowing both of
them down so he could look at her again.

“I’m fine,” she lied, slanting her gray gaze upwards. For
one long moment they stood looking at one another, then Daniel’s unencumbered
arm moved up towards her face. His long golden brown eyes widened slightly as
she sucked in a breath and caught her bottom lip between her teeth.
 
As he dipped his head towards her, her lips
parted for the kiss that never came.
 
Instead he tugged her hat down onto her head, wrapped her scarf more
tightly around her neck, and started moving forward again, matching his stride
to hers.

“Come on.
 
You can’t
afford to get chilled, not when you’ve had such a shock.
 
The sooner we reach
The Lifeboat Inn
the better.”

The last thing Claire was likely to be was chilled.
 
She felt red hot, partly with need, but
mainly with embarrassment.
 
Had Daniel
seen how much she had wanted him to kiss her?
 
If he had then he couldn’t have given her a clearer message.
 
His actions spoke for themselves.
 
He had no interest in her other than as a
possible work colleague and as someone who, right at this moment, he had to
take care of, so the sooner she got that into her thick skull the better.

Chapter Five

Daniel didn’t
relax until Claire reappeared. She had washed away the dirt and sand and seemed
fine despite a large square plaster on the side of her face.

Worried
that the sight of congealed blood would make her feel faint again, he had
refused to let her deal with her injury alone and had kept her close to his
side until the barmaid was free to help. She had taken one look at Claire’s
face and produced a first aid kit from beneath the bar.

“Don’t
worry.
 
Sit there and enjoy your drink.
She’ll be as good as new in no time.” She had given him a cheerful smile as she
took Claire’s arm and led her to the women’s restroom.

He had
ordered a pint of beer and swallowed half of it in one go, not because he was
thirsty but because he needed something to settle his jangled nerves.
 

It had been
a close escape but at least he had managed not to kiss her, not even when her
face had been so close to his he could feel her breath on his cheek and see the
black circles that rimmed the clear gray of her irises.
 
Mesmerised, he had dipped his head towards
her, unable to help himself, but then he had heard her quick intake of breath,
felt the recoil as she stiffened in his arms, and had had the sense to start
walking again.
 

Whatever
had he been thinking of? He had almost blown everything. He needed to stay
focused on the fact that she didn’t want a relationship with anyone. After all
she had told him so when they first met and nothing in her behaviour since then
indicated she had changed her mind, or that she was in anyway interested in
him.
 
Just the opposite in fact! She had
also told him, fairly forcefully, that she didn’t want to work in Florida, although
something about the way she had said it had left a tiny seed of hope. And it
was that hope which was keeping him here, ungallantly ignoring the fact that
she didn’t really want him in her parent’s house.

Now, as she
approached him, solemn faced, he felt a twinge of trepidation.
 
Had she noticed how much he had wanted to
kiss her?
 
He hoped not. He didn’t want
to think about it, and he especially didn’t want to think about what her
reaction would have been if he had succeeded.
 
She might put herself down, fade into the background when she was with
her parents, but he was under no illusion that she was a pushover.
 
She was entirely her own person.
Strong-minded, determined, and very decidedly someone who would do the choosing
as far as being kissed was concerned.

He gave her
a half smile. She smiled back. And then they were laughing about her ungainly
fall, her silly reaction to the sight of her own blood, the fact she had
unknowingly taken him to one of the best nature conservancy areas in the
country, and it was fine.
 
It was a
repeat of that first meeting when, after a rocky start, they had had a
thoroughly enjoyable evening.
 
This felt
the same and they continued to talk well into the afternoon, long after the
soup and sandwiches they had ordered had been cleared away and they were the only
two people left in the bar.
 
They would
have sat there for longer if Claire hadn’t glanced out of the window and
noticed that the clear northern light was beginning to fade.

“It’s time
we made tracks before it’s too dark to see where we’re going. That is, unless
you want to walk home through the village and admire the street lamps.”

He grinned
at her.
 
“You know I don’t want to do
that, but what about you?
 
Are you up to
walking back across country?”

She snorted
indignantly. “I only scratched my face. My legs and arms are still functioning
perfectly well.”

“Not wobbly
then?”

She gave
him a haughty look as she gathered up her coat and scarf in preparation for a
renewed onslaught from the wind, but as she wrapped herself up he saw a smile
shadow the corners of her mouth.

* * *

Their
return journey was brisk. No stopping this time to watch the wildlife or look
at the scenery. Not that they needed to stop for the view. It was all around
them as they walked towards the setting sun for, in the capricious way of
English weather, most of the clouds had cleared during the afternoon leaving a
pale sky that was now streaked orange with red and purple highlights. It
provided a dramatic backdrop to the flocks of geese returning from their
marshland feeding grounds, and to the rooks shrieking and arguing above the
treetops.

For most of
the journey Daniel and Claire were silent. They had talked themselves out
during lunch and now, with the plummeting temperature promising an overnight
frost, they walked fast, anxious to escape the biting wind.

Claire
glanced surreptitiously at Daniel as he strode along beside her. Her plan to
survive the weekend in his company by walking him to a standstill while
remaining cool and distant had backfired badly.
 
He’d not only out-walked her, he’d taken care of her when she hurt
herself, teased her out of her reserve, and then turned the whole day into one
she would cherish for a long time.
 
If he
had only shown in the smallest way he found her as attractive as she found him
then, despite her earlier misgivings, she might have been tempted to take her
chances and reconsider his job offer.
 
He
hadn’t though. Not once. Not even when she fell and hurt herself.
 
Oh he had picked her up, shown real concern,
and taken care of her and her wounds, but he had done all of it without showing
a flicker of desire.
 
Not even during
that breathless moment when she had foolishly thought he
was
going to kiss her when, instead, all he had wanted to do was
check her injury and straighten her hat. No! Her first decision was the right
one.
 
At the end of the weekend she would
say goodbye to him and forget about working in Florida. That way she wouldn’t
get her heart broken all over again.

It wasn’t
until her parent’s ramshackle old house came into view that she had another
thought, one that momentarily stopped her in her tracks. Daniel hadn’t once
mentioned the job he was offering her, even though they had been together for
most of the day.
 
He hadn’t talked about
himself either. Instead he had talked about anything and everything else. He
had enthused about the undulating countryside and the wild seascape around them
and compared it to what he was used to in Florida. He had teased her about her
ignorance of the local conservation area. He had asked her more questions about
her unconventional childhood and her life in the city, but all without giving
anything personal away except for the most superficial information. Despite
spending hours in his company she still knew hardly anything about his life on
the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He seemed to have forgotten about the job
offer too.

Her eyes
darkened with unexpected pain.
 
She
scowled and asked herself what else did she expect?
 
It was entirely her own fault. She couldn’t
have it both ways.
 
She had told him
several times, and very forcibly, that she wasn’t interested in his job, so she
had no cause to complain if he took her at her word and prepared to move on.
After all, he had made it abundantly clear he only saw her as a prospective
colleague, and there must be plenty of other people out there with the right
skills and qualifications who would fit the bill.

Realizing
that she was no longer with him, Daniel stopped and turned around to look for
her.
 
She was standing stock still a few
paces behind him. Her nose and cheeks were red from the cold and the wind, the
white plaster was stark against her cheek, there were slight shadows under her
huge gray eyes, and a curl of her blue-black tumbling hair had escaped from
under her hat. She looked dishevelled and tired…and totally and utterly
desirable. As he watched her, his breath caught in his throat.
 
She saw him waiting and, giving him a wan
smile, began to move forward again.

“Are you
okay?” he asked, wondering how much longer he could keep up the pretence that
he had no interest in her other than as a casual friend and a prospective
employee.
 
“Do you need to lean on me
again?”

She stuffed
her hands into her pockets and gave a resolute shake of her head.
 
“I’m fine.
 
All I need is a warm drink and a hot bath and I’ll be as good as new.”

* * *

Much later,
cocooned in the cheerful, noisy warmth of a local restaurant, Claire sipped her
wine and let her mind wander as her mother held court.
 
She had seen and heard it all before. Charmed
by Daniel’s impeccable manners, and exhilarated by the surroundings, her mother
was retelling stories of her own bohemian childhood and enchanting him with
glimpses of the life she had lived before Claire was born.
 
And it was interesting if you were a stranger
like Daniel, not least because both her parents were born storytellers; always
ready to perform to a willing audience.

She watched
him as he smiled and nodded and asked questions in all the right places.
 
It was just like that first evening when,
against her better judgement, he had persuaded her that she would be doing him
a favour if she ate with him. Only this time he was charming her parents
instead. He couldn’t help it. The courtesy, the charm, the warm interest came
to him as naturally as breathing. He liked people. He was interested in their
lives.
 
It was how he was.
 
She had to accept that the meal she had so
enjoyed last Monday, the interest he had shown in her, had been nothing to do
with her personally at all.
 
Despite his
jet lag, he had swallowed his irritation and invited her to eat with him as a
way of apologising for his brother’s crass behaviour, not because he had been
attracted to her. And it was the same now. This evening was all about thanking
her parents for welcoming him into their home.

Another dream bites the dust
she told herself with a wry smile
at the waiter as he placed a large bowl of pasta in front of her.
I’d better not tell Jenny about this one
though. If she ever gets to know I turned down Florida I’ll never hear the last
of it.

Daniel’s
voice cut across her thoughts and brought her back to the here and now.
 
“Are you okay Claire? You seem to be miles
away.”

“Claire
spends most of her life day-dreaming,” her mother answered for her.
 
“She isn’t interested in the fact that
there’s a great big world out there.
 
She
would rather spend her days in a library reading books instead of living a
life.”
 
She gave a sharp little laugh as
she shook back her hair. It made the rows of beads around her neck and the
golden hoops dangling from her ears sparkle in the candlelight.

“I think
you’re mistaken,” surprisingly Daniel’s voice took on a slightly steely tone as
his eyes locked with Claire’s.
 
“Claire
is very much interested in the world.
 
In
fact she’s considering coming to Florida to take up a job I’ve offered her.”