‘We do?’
She hit the indicator even though there were no other road-users for miles around, and turned off the asphalt onto a graded limestone track. Dozens of tyre-tracks marked its dusty white surface.
‘About time you got wet, Mr Grundy.’
BELOW THE SLIGHTLY elevated parking clearing at Five Fingers Bay, the limestone reef stretched out like the splayed digits in the beach’s name. They formed a kind of catwalk, pointing out in five directions to the outer reef beyond the lagoon. Mila led her one down to it and stood on what might have been the Fingers’ exposed rocky wrist.
‘I was expecting more Finding Nemo,’ he said, circling to look all around him and sounding as disappointed as the sag of his shoulders, ‘and less Flintstones. Where’s all the sea life?’
‘What you want is just out there, Mr Grundy.’
He followed her finger out beyond the stretch of turquoise lagoon to the place the water darkened off, marking the start of the back reef that kept most predators—and most boats—out, all the way up to those gorges that he wanted to visit.
‘Call me Richard,’ he volunteered. ‘Rich.’
Uh, no. ‘Rich’ was a bit too like friends and—given what he was up here for—even calling them acquaintances was a stretch. Besides, she wasn’t convinced by his sudden attempt at graciousness.
‘Richard...’ Mila allowed, conscious that she represented her department. She rummaged in the rucksack she’d dragged from the back seat of the SUV. ‘I have a spare mask and snorkel for you.’
He stared at them as if they were entirely foreign, but then reached out with a firm hand and took them from her. She took care not to let her fingers brush against his.
It was always awkward, taking your clothes off in front of a stranger; it was particularly uncomfortable in front of a young, handsome stranger, but Mila turned partly away, shrugged out of her work shorts and shirt and stood in her bikini, fiddling with the adjustment straps on her mask while Richard shed his designer T-shirt and cargo pants.
She kept her eyes carefully averted, not out of any prudishness but because she always approached new experiences with a moment’s care. She could never tell how something new was going to impact on her and, while she’d hung out with enough divers and surfers to give her some kind of certainty about what senses a half-naked person would trigger—apples for some random guy peeling off his wetsuit, watermelon for a woman pulling hers on—this was a new half-naked man. And a client.
She watched his benign shadow on the sand until she was sure he’d removed everything he was going to.
Only then did she turn around.
Instantly, she was back at the only carnival she’d ever visited, tucking into her first—and last—candyfloss. The light, sticky cloud dissolving into pure sugar on her tongue. The smell of it, the taste of it. That sweet, sweet rush. She craved it instantly. It was so much more intense—and so much more humiliating—than a plain old apples association. But apparently that was what her synaesthesia had decided to associate with a half-naked Richard Grundy.
The harmless innocence of that scent was totally incompatible with a man she feared was here to exploit the reef. But that was how it went; her associations rarely had any logical connection with their trigger.
Richard had come prepared with navy board shorts beneath his expensive but casual clothes. They were laced low and loose on his hips yet still managed to fit snugly all the way down his muscular thighs.
And they weren’t even wet yet.
Mila filled her lungs slowly and mastered her gaze. He might not be able to read her dazed thoughts but he might well be able to read her face and so she turned back to her rummaging. Had her snorkelling mask always been this fiddly to adjust?
‘I only have one set of fins, sorry,’ she said in a rush. ‘Five Fingers is good for drift snorkelling, though, so you can let the water do the work.’
She set off up the beach a way so that they could let the current carry them back near to their piled up things by the end of the swim. Her slog through sun-soaked sand was accompanied by the high-pitched single note that came with a warmth so everyday that she barely noticed it anymore. When they reached the old reef, she turned seaward and walked into the water without a backward glance—she didn’t need the sugary distraction and she felt certain Richard would follow her in without invitation. They were snorkelling on his dollar, after all.
‘So coral’s not a plant?’ Richard asked once they were waist-deep in the electric-blue water of the lagoon.
She paused and risked another look at him. Prepared this time. ‘It’s an animal. Thousands of tiny animals, actually, living together in the form of elk horns, branches, plates, cabbages—’
He interrupted her shopping list ramble with the understated impatience of someone whose time really was money. Only the cool water prevented her from blushing. Did she always babble this much with clients? Or did it only feel like babbling in Richard Grundy’s presence?
‘So how does a little squishy thing end up becoming rock-hard reef?’ he asked.
Good. Yes. Focusing on the science kept the candyfloss at bay. Although as soon as he’d said ‘rock-hard’ she’d become disturbingly fixated on the remembered angles of his chest and had to severely discipline her unruly gaze not to follow suit.
‘The calcium carbonate in their skeletons. In life, it provides resilience against the sea currents, and in death—’
She braced on her left leg as she slipped her right into her mono-fin. Then she straightened and tucked her left foot in with it and balanced there on the soft white seafloor. The gentle waves rocked her a little in her rooted spot, just like one of the corals she was describing.
‘In death they pile up to form limestone reef,’ he guessed.
‘Millions upon millions of them forming reef first, then limestone that weathers into sand, and finally scrubland grows on top of it. We owe a lot to coral, really.’
Mila took a breath and turned to face him, steadfastly ignoring the smell of carnival. ‘Ready to meet the reef?’
He glanced out towards the reef break and swallowed hard. It was the first time she’d seen him anything other than supremely confident, verging on arrogant.
‘How far out are we going?’
‘Not very. That’s the beauty of Coral Bay; the inside reef is right there, the moment you step offshore. The lagoon is narrow but long. We’ll be travelling parallel to the beach, mostly.’
His body lost some of its rigidity and he took a moment to fit his mask and snorkel before stepping off the sandy ridge after her.
* * *
It took no time to get out where the seafloor dropped away enough that they could glide in the cool water two metres above the reef. The moment Mila submerged,
