then, the loneliness she’d suffered when her parents had gone their separate ways had come as quite a shock.
To counter it, she’d given up her teaching job after a while and applied for something more challenging. She’d applied for a job as a tour guide and interpreter with a company that specialised in bringing French tourists on conducted trips to Cairns and the tropical delights of Queensland.
She’d got the job despite no previous experience and that was how she’d come to meet Rob.
One segment of the package tour on offer had been a two-night stay at a luxury rainforest camp run by Leicester Camps, a company with a growing reputation for developing eco-camps in remote and beautiful spots.
Camp Ondine had been under Rob’s management at the time. North of Cairns on the mouth of a river, it offered not only an unparalleled rainforest experience but also fishing and island-hopping trips offshore to the adjacent Great Barrier Reef. Its maximum capacity was thirty, so it was intimate, and the emphasis was on service and a wonderful cuisine.
Caiti had been most impressed. Then she’d met the man in charge and it had been a bit like receiving a high-voltage charge of electricity.
At thirty then, Rob Leicester was nine years her senior. Not only that, but he’d also first viewed her as a disaster—and told her so.
Her mind took wings as she sat beside Marion’s bath, right back to that first encounter…
Caiti regarded the man who had just accused her of being a walking disaster.
He was tall and rugged with thick, dark, slightly shaggy hair and blue shadows on his jaw. He wore jeans and a blue sweatshirt as if, despite owning and running Camp Ondine, he bucked in with his staff and was more a behind-the-scenes operator than a front man.
On the other hand, the jeans and sweatshirt moulded to broad shoulders and a rock-hard body heightened a dynamically masculine presence. The unexpected impact this had on Caiti made her draw an excited little breath, annoyingly.
Above all, he had light hazel eyes that were boring right through her in a singularly insolent and unimpressed manner.
Big, tough, mean and nasty—it shot through her mind.
She was nothing if not resilient, however. ‘And you may go to hell, Mr Leicester,’ she told him with all the hauteur she could muster.
A spark of interest lit Rob Leicester’s hazel eyes. ‘I see. A rebel without a cause as well.’
‘This is my first week on the job,’ she replied. ‘All I require is a little time to hone my skills.’
‘What you require is a qualified tour guide as an assistant, someone to co-ordinate your clients’ baggage, their dietary requirements and all the nuts and bolts of the job. So you can just be,’ he subjected her person and her long dark hair to a thorough inspection, ‘decorative and dazzle us with your French,’ he drawled.
‘I don’t like you,’ Caiti stated through her teeth.
A flicker of a grin revealed white teeth in Rob Leicester’s tanned face. ‘You don’t have to and I don’t have to like you, Ms Galloway. The fact remains we prepared twelve non-vegetarian dinners last night for twelve subjects of vive la France! who are all vegetarians because you ticked the wrong box.’
Caiti coloured.
‘Can you imagine, when the error was discovered, the kind of chaos it caused in the kitchen?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was in a rush. May I say that your kitchen coped brilliantly? I’ve received nothing but compliments from the guests this morning.’
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
