Rob Leicester folded his arms and regarded her impassively for a moment. Then his lips twisted. ‘Amazing what a pair of lavender eyes, hair like rough black silk and a very jaunty derriére can do.’
She opened her mouth on a cutting retort then decided to disengage with dignity—she walked away without a backward glance.
On her next encounter with Camp Ondine, she went out of her way to have everything under control but their four-wheel-drive bus broke down in the middle of the Daintree Forest in a tropical downpour. By the time she and the driver were able to organise a replacement vehicle, it was ten tired and very wet tourists she brought to Camp Ondine, four hours later than expected and two hours after the dining room was expecting them for dinner.
Rob Leicester was on hand to greet the party this time and the look he cast her spoke volumes. It was not until her tour was fed and bedded down for the night that Caiti was able to defend herself.
She was making her way wearily across the lounge to her cabin when she bumped into Rob.
‘You cannot blame me for a broken differential,’ she said, going immediately on the attack.
He shrugged. ‘There’s a theory that trouble attracts trouble.’ Khaki trousers and shirt had replaced the old jeans and sweatshirt tonight.
Caiti opened her mouth to refute his theories but he forestalled her by suggesting they have a drink.
She closed her mouth and said instead, ‘Why would I want a drink?’
‘Because you’re tired, you’ve had a tough day?’ he hazarded.
‘Let me rephrase.’ She regarded him coolly. ‘Why would I want to have a drink with you? We don’t like each other, remember?’
‘That could change. And I never said I didn’t like you.’
Caiti blinked and cast her mind back with an effort.
At the same time Rob reached behind a small bar and produced a chilled bottle of wine and a beer. ‘What I said,’ he opened the wine competently, ‘was that we didn’t have to like each other. Not quite the same thing.’
He poured the wine, popped the beer can and handed her the glass—he literally put it into her hand and closed her fingers around the stem at the same time as he invited her to sit down.
Caiti looked around. The lounge had a thatched roof held up by gnarled tree trunks. The floor was slate, dotted with thick, colourful rugs and there were comfortable settees with softly lit lamps on their end tables. Beyond the glass walls that looked out over the forest, rain dripped ceaselessly off the thatch but that only served to highlight how pleasant, comfortable and safe this safari lounge felt.
She sat down with a sigh. ‘How do you keep them out?’
He sprawled out opposite her. ‘Keep what out?’
‘The frogs.’ She shuddered. They were everywhere!
‘Ah. While you were broken down in the Daintree?’
‘Yes.’ She sipped her wine. ‘It’s just as well none of my tour speak much English.’
He grinned. ‘You were moved to express yourself colourfully?’
‘I was moved to use several words I have never used in my life in public,’ she said.
‘Some words are—universal.’
She glanced at him through her lashes. ‘I hope not,’ she said as his gaze drifted down her figure, now cleanly and drily dressed in slim aubergine trousers with a cream silk fitted blouse.
As it did so, it crossed Rob Leicester’s mind that although she was not technically beautiful, she was unusual and compelling. Her face was narrow and oval, her skin golden and her heavy hair, swept up into an elegant knot, was gorgeous, the perfect frame for her face and slender neck. Not only that, but her eyes were also stunning and her presentation was essentially chic.
‘How did you get this job?’ he enquired then, just as Caiti was starting to feel uneasy beneath his minute scrutiny.
‘Because I speak French.’
‘That all?’ He lifted an eyebrow.
‘I also spent three months in France once. And I’m not an idiot,’ she replied evenly.
He didn’t comment on that. ‘What’s the French connection?’
‘My mother is French, born in New Caledonia. But I was born in Port Douglas.’ Port Douglas was not that far from Camp Ondine. ‘Something else that made me suitable for this job,’ she added with a toss of her head. ‘I’m a local.’
‘So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Rob Leicester,’ he murmured.
Caiti tossed him a deadly little glance although she said smoothly enough, ‘What I would really like you to put in your pipe and smoke is this. Circumstance may have made me appear a trifle…silly and less than capable, Mr Leicester. You can go on believing that if you like but it’s far from the truth. Good night.’
She drained her glass and stood up.
He followed suit, crumpling his beer can around the middle in one strong hand. ‘Good night, Miss Galloway. By the way, we don’t always manage to keep the local wildlife out.’
Her eyes widened.
‘Would you like me to check your cabin before you retire?’
For a second she was terribly tempted. Then it occurred to her that, mysteriously, there was something more flowing between them. He was studying her assessingly again but this time he was concentrating on her figure.
And beneath that penetrating hazel gaze, her stomach lurched as the full masculine impact of the man hit her. It was a curiously devastating impact. It was as if he was paring things down between them to the fundamentals between a man and a woman. As if they were flesh on flesh, breathing each other’s essence, tantalising one another, withholding, granting, testing, fulfilling…
And so powerful was it, she glanced involuntarily down at his hands because she could almost feel them on her breasts, burning through the thin silk of her blouse.
But his expression changed and she was beset by another impression of Rob Leicester. Rugged, powerful, yes, but perhaps more complex than she’d given him credit for? The lines and angles of his face were interesting, and his eyes, as he looked down into hers, were definitely posing a worldly little question as he suddenly smiled a secret half-smile that was seriously sexy.
Her heart started to hammer, her pulses began to pound and such was her disarray, nothing in the world would have had the power at that moment to distract her from feeling undeniably stirred up by Rob Leicester.
Nor could she doubt that his presence in her cabin wouldn’t lead on to…
No, stop right there, Caiti Galloway! she commanded herself and made a desperate bid to take hold.
‘Uh, I think I’ll take my chances,’ she said with an effort. ‘Seems safer than…’ She closed her eyes and bit her lip.
‘Safer than…?’
What you have in mind for me, Rob Leicester, she longed to say, but as her lashes flew up she saw so much amused comprehension in his eyes she could have killed herself.
She tried to look nonchalant and added, as this line of reasoning, although plucked from thin air, nevertheless sounded quite sensible to her ears, ‘I’ll…manage.’ She tilted her chin.
‘So, if I hear any maidenly shrieks or unmaidenly language coming from your cabin, I should just ignore it?’ he questioned gravely.
‘Yes.’ This time her lavender gaze was dangerous.
‘So be it,’ he murmured. ‘I am right next door, however, should your…new-found bravery desert you.