Reluctant Date (12 page)

Gathering up her bag and sweater, she followed him outside
to where a customized green and yellow golf cart was parked. It had the company
logo on the side panel. Daniel grinned at her stunned expression.

“Carts are mainly what everyone uses around here so the town
doesn’t get clogged up with cars and trucks. Even the police use their own
version for local patrol. It will only do twenty kilometers an hour max but
that’s not a problem in a place this size.
 
Also it doesn’t pollute, and it’s quiet, both things that are very
useful for us when we’re anywhere near a wildlife habitat.”

Claire gave a disbelieving shake of the head.
 
“This place gets more and more surreal by the
minute, but I love it.”

He handed her the keys. “I’ll talk you through it. It’s
really easy to drive but you must remember to follow all the normal traffic
rules.”

Claire gave a joyous laugh as she turned on the
ignition.
 
Memories of the summer her
father had decided to take up golf flooded back to her.
 
Memories of early mornings full of bird song,
of wild flowers growing along the edges of the greens, of rabbits, and
squirrels, and an occasional fox, and of the exhilaration of being in total
charge of her father’s golf buggy even though she was only thirteen years old.

“Come on! What are you waiting for?” She swung the buggy in
a wide arc so that it was pointing downtown, back towards the supermarket.

“You’re obviously way ahead of me on this,” Daniel said as
he jumped into the passenger seat with a smile of approval. Not to be outdone,
Scott swung in behind with a loud whoop of enthusiasm, and the three of them
drove down the road at a steady ten kilometers an hour. When they reached the
supermarket Claire parked the golf cart with a flourish to the joint applause
of her passengers.

Sending a silent thank you to her father, she grinned at
them before hurrying into the shop to collect her groceries.
 

* * *

Two beers, a tuna salad, and three pages of the book she was
reading later, and Claire was sound asleep, her bedside light still burning. It
had been a very long day!

* * *

Too tired to be seriously affected by jet lag, Claire slept
without waking until six o’clock the following morning.
 
Then, resisting the temptation with some
difficulty, she showered and dressed before she pulled back the drapes and
stepped out onto the balcony.
 
As if they
had been waiting for her, a group of dolphins immediately flipped into action
and chased one another across the bay. The water streaming from their backs
turned to iridescent silver in the early morning sun.
 
Transfixed, she watched them until they
disappeared, and then hurriedly prepared her breakfast and spent the next
thirty minutes sitting on the balcony wondering what she had done to deserve
such an idyllic start to her day.

Watching dolphins
while I eat breakfast and drink freshly squeezed orange juice
she texted to
Jenny, hoping that would be sufficiently exotic to distract her friend from her
self-imposed role as marriage broker.
 
She had already sent Claire a stream of messages, most of them asking
whether she and Daniel were an item yet.

Just as well she doesn’t know about the beautiful Scott or
I’d never get any peace at all, Claire smiled to herself as she pressed the
send button. Then she collected her belongings and set off for her second
working day.

* * *

It started with Scott suggesting they visit the local
Wildlife Refuge. “I know you’ve lots of reading to do,” he said. “But it’s not
the same as actually seeing the birds in their own habitat.
 
You need to do it several times in
succession, and at different times in the day, so that you develop a feel for
the place.”

“Does that mean I get to sail the dinghy again?” Claire
asked.

He gave her a startled look.
 
“Have you been out in it already?”

“Well yes…Daniel took me out to look at the white pelicans
yesterday morning. Didn’t he say?”

“No, but no matter.
 
At least you’ve seen them already so I can concentrate on showing you
some of the other wildlife that’s out there. And yes, you will get to sail the
dinghy again, because you need to become proficient enough to take it out on
your own.
 
This week is not too bad but
soon the place will be so overloaded with tourists we’ll be lucky to find time
enough to talk to one another, let alone spend a whole morning together at the
Refuge.”

* * *

Beth was too involved with a series of phone calls to
acknowledge the fact they were leaving the office together, so when Daniel
arrived forty minutes later she didn’t have the slightest idea where they’d
gone.

“They might have gone to the islands,” she guessed.
 
“Or maybe Scott is just showing her around
the area.”

Thwarted in his attempt to see the woman who had invaded his
dreams so badly the previous night that he had eventually given up all pretense
of sleeping and been out in his boat well before sunrise, Daniel looked for
something to do.
 
None of the hundred and
one jobs that were waiting for him held any appeal.
 
Nor did the prospect of hanging around until
Scott and Claire returned. He didn’t want to see them rosy-cheeked and full of
a joint enthusiasm for whatever adventure they had been involved in, not now
that he had started to worry about how well they seemed to be getting along.

Why hadn’t he given Scott a thought when he had moved heaven
and earth to get Claire to Dolphin Key? How could he have been that
stupid?
 
How could he have placed her in
an everyday situation with someone who, he knew from the gossip he had picked
up from Beth, was so high up there in the male attraction stakes that he was
like a walking, talking babe magnet. And as far as he could tell, Scott milked
it for all he was worth, the same as any red-blooded man would unless he was
hooked on a tall, slim woman with a cloud of blue-black hair and an enchanting dimple
at the corner of her mouth.

In the past Daniel had seen Scott work a room full of female
tourists to such effect that the organization was better off to the tune of
several hundred dollars by the time he had finished. At the time he had found
it amusing, but now that he was worried Scott might target Claire, he didn’t
feel like laughing one little bit.

“Are you okay?” Beth peered at him over the top of the
glasses she wore when she was working.

“I’m fine,” he said.
 
“Just tell Scott I’ll come back later on this afternoon so we can go
over the figures for the work we’re doing with the university.”

“But…” Beth didn’t finish what she was about to say.
 
Instead she watched his retreating back in
puzzlement. He and Scott had already been over the figures and agreed
them.
 
The bidding letter had gone to the
Marine Research Department at the university over a week ago.
 
What was to discuss!

Then she shrugged.
 
She was used to Daniel.
 
He always
had too much to do, was always trying to keep too many balls in the air, so
maybe it wasn’t surprising if he dropped one occasionally.

* * *

Claire, meanwhile, was having the time of her life.
 
Despite having the normal female appreciation
of his sensational good looks, she was completely immune to Scott’s charms thanks
to her hang-up on Daniel.
 
Consequently
she was enjoying the trip out to the cluster of islands that made up the
wildlife nature refuge far more than she had the previous day. For a start she
wasn’t self-conscious every time her eyes met Scott’s, nor did she become tense
if his hand brushed against hers, or if his long legs, clad in khaki shorts,
bumped against her as he leaned across the dinghy to correct her steering.

“Sorry!” he would tell her cheerfully, and then continue to
explain about the wildlife they were looking at, were going to see, or had
already seen.

And Claire, who had never seen so many birds in once place
in her life, would just smile at him, or ask questions, or jot down a sentence
or two in the notebook she had stuffed into her pocket as they left the office.

She liked Scott and she knew the feeling was
reciprocated.
 
She also knew there would
never be a glimmer of romance between them. The necessary zing of attraction
just wasn’t there. They were on the same wavelength as far as work was
concerned, however.
 
They were both
passionate about wildlife education; both full of ideas; and they each
recognized the other as a useful sounding board, someone to discuss things
with, make plans with. It all filled her with excitement. At last she had found
something she really wanted to do. She just needed to get her feelings for
Daniel into perspective and then life would be perfect.

Chapter Eleven

When Daniel reappeared Beth was already packing up to go
home.
 
She had passed on his message to
Scott, who had shrugged good-naturedly and then carried on talking to Claire.
Now she watched them and smiled as she wondered if there was any chance their
working relationship would eventually lead to romance.
 
They were ideally suited after all. Both of
them were passionate about their work. Both of them were focused and
intelligent, and both of them were completely unaware of the effect their looks
had on the people around them.

Admittedly Scott played the field from time to time, but
Beth knew his heart wasn’t really in it. He was too wrapped up in his precious
wildlife, and far too keen to get up before dawn to watch for migrating birds
to consider settling down with a permanent girlfriend.

It was too soon to understand Claire of course, but she would
love to know her back history. Not that she expected to learn about it anytime
soon because there was something innately private about her. Also, if Daniel
was to be believed, she wasn’t interested in dating, although why she would
have told him that Beth couldn’t begin to understand. After all they had
met via an Internet dating site, so she
must have been looking for someone. Maybe she was suffering from a recently
broken heart, or some other emotional trauma that would slowly heal around
Scott. It was obvious that she liked him, so perhaps he would be the one to
change her mind…except there didn’t seem to be any sort of a spark between
them.
 
Beth’s sensitive emotional
antennae hadn’t detected the slightest hint of flirtation so far.

True Claire’s mouth had nearly hit her chin in amazed
admiration when she first saw Scott, but the fit of giggles that had followed
hadn’t indicated any sort of romantic interest. Nor did she look as if she were
smitten now.
 
She just looked interested
in what he was saying.
 

“Why don’t you come down to the print shop tomorrow? It’s my
day to work with Carl so if you come down around lunchtime I’ll be able to
introduce you.”
 
Beth interrupted their
discussion because she wanted to be able to talk about her matchmaking theories
with Carl, and she couldn’t do that until he’d met Claire. Besides, the sooner
Claire met him and realized that he really wasn’t going to say a word about the
dating agency, the sooner she would lose that look of panic whenever his name
was mentioned.

Her eyes met Claire’s and their conspiratorial smiles were
not lost on Scott. He was still trying to find out what their secret was when
Daniel came through the door. Seeing the three of them so cheerful and relaxed
in one another’s company, he felt a twist of jealousy lodge in his heart.
 
If only he didn’t have to run the family
business then he could spend all day working with them too. All day with
Claire!

“Good day?” he asked her, trying hard to ignore the
unhappiness that was threatening to overwhelm him.

“Very good,” Claire admitted, wondering why he looked so
terrible.
 
He looked, she thought, like
someone who has just had very bad news and was still trying to come to terms
with it. The others didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, however.
 
Beth just picked up her bag and made her
usual breezy exit, while Scott started to bombard him with questions about a
project that was behind schedule.

She took advantage of their conversation to sort out her
desk. So far she seemed to have spent more time out of the office than in it,
and it was beginning to show. Beth appeared to have relocated a couple of
smooth rocks from the path outside to weigh down the growing pile of paper on
Claire’s desk, but other than that the packets of pencils and pens were still
unopened, and several notebooks were jumbled into the middle of some torn
cellophane. There were several reports too, each at least a hundred pages
thick, plus a separate pile of admin forms that she still had to complete.

Preoccupied with her own affairs, she didn’t notice that
Scott was leaving until he called out from the doorway. Raising her arm in a
belated farewell she was suddenly aware that she was alone with Daniel; a
Daniel who still looked poleaxed.

“Are you okay?” she asked before she could stop herself.

He started to say yes and then changed his mind.
 
“Not really.”