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And his eyes were an unexpected drowsy blue. She was perturbed by the way that just looking at him made her breathing quicken, dislodging the comfortable friendliness she usually shared with resort guests.
Dropping her snorkelling gear onto the sand, she reached for her towel and made a business of squeezing excess moisture from her hair. What was the matter with her? This American wasn’t the first handsome tourist she’d taken skin-diving.
She promised herself that a reaction like that wouldn’t happen again. This fellow could smile as much as he liked and she would remain immune. She’d seen one or two of her workmates get themselves into dreadful emotional pickles, breaking their hearts over resort guests. It just wasn’t worth it.
Waving to the group of German tourists, who were making their way out of the water, she decided that it must be this blue-eyed boy’s excitement about the reef that gave him an extra edge of attractiveness.
But she felt ridiculously self-conscious about unzipping the full-length Lycra bodysuit she’d worn as protection from marine stingers.
Her companion didn’t hesitate to shed his suit and Meg found herself stealing a peek at the tall, wide-shouldered and tautly muscled body that emerged clad in simple bathers. She had no alternative but to step out of her suit, too. Nevertheless, she avoided his gaze.
It was very annoying that she should suddenly feel so bothered about something she did every day.
When they both hauled on T-shirts, she felt better, but there was still a self-conscious edge to her voice when she said, ‘We’ll head back to the resort now. You’ll have time for a shower before lunch.’
The Germans, who had their own hired vehicles, were talking animatedly amongst themselves and so the American helped Meg to pile the snorkelling equipment into the back of the resort’s Mini Moke and he sent her another breath-robbing grin. ‘Thanks for a great morning.’
‘My pleasure,’ she murmured.
They both jumped into her Moke and, as she steered the little vehicle up the winding track leading out of the bay, her passenger leaned comfortably back in his seat, turned to her and asked, ‘OK Miss Recreation Officer, what’s planned for this afternoon?’
Surprised, she shot him a calculating glance, but smiled as she said, ‘You Americans are so energetic when you come on holidays, aren’t you? It’s go, go, go the whole time.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘That’s so unusual?’
‘I don’t suppose so,’ she admitted. ‘But we don’t have a huge number of guests here at the moment and most of them seem to be fairly independent, so I didn’t have anything organised for this afternoon.’
‘I was hoping you might be able to take me on a guided tour of one of the island’s walks.’
Meg pursed her lips. Was this fellow making a play for her already? When she’d come to work at the resort just three months ago, she’d discovered that far too many male visitors arrived on the island and assumed the female staff were part of the room service along with the free tea and coffee. She’d developed some pretty useful brush-off tactics.
‘If you have a look in that glove box, you’ll find a pamphlet that outlines all the walks. You’re a big boy. You don’t need a guide. Anyhow…’ she added a white lie as an extra measure of protection ‘…I’m busy all afternoon. There’s a VIP coming soon.’
‘Big deal is it?’
‘Oh, just some hotshot millionaire.’ Meg rolled her eyes.
‘You don’t think much of millionaires?’
Her scowl was automatic. Five years ago, she’d watched her father’s career and health suffer at the hands of a money-hungry tycoon and she’d developed a seriously jaundiced view of wealth. ‘I’m sure those types are so busy counting their money, or protecting it, or making it grow, they don’t have time for the important things in life.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said in a strangely flat voice that made Meg look at him sharply.
They crested the hill and in front of them stretched a magnificent vista—a string of pretty blue bays sparkling in the midday sun like sapphires on a necklace.
As the American admired the view, he said casually, ‘I heard something about a bottle being found on one of those beaches.’
‘Yes.’ A sudden sprinkling of goose bumps broke out on Meg’s arms. ‘I found it,’ she told him.
Sam’s guilty conscience gave him a bad time as he watched Meg’s face grow wistful. He should come clean and confess to her that he was the very millionaire she had been talking about. He should tell her right now.
But an equally strong instinct urged him otherwise. She was already wary of him and a confession like that would make her clam up completely. Then he would miss this heaven-sent opportunity to pick up inside information about the bottle and its message before he tackled her boss.
They reached the resort, Magnetic Rendezvous. She steered the car into a parking bay and, after turning the engine off, leaned forward, linking her arms across the top of the steering wheel. Sam got the distinct impression she was pleased to talk to someone about this bottle.
She turned to look at him and he felt the full impact of her clear grey eyes. Yes, they were definitely grey, he decided—and sweetly framed by long dark lashes. And, he noticed uncomfortably, right now they were shimmering with a suspicious sheen.
‘I don’t know what made me pick the bottle up,’ she said softly. ‘I keep asking myself that and I know it sounds fanciful, but it was almost as if I was meant to find it.’
Her face softened into a sad, dreamy smile and Sam felt a surprising constriction in his throat. In the flesh, Meg was even lovelier than her photo had suggested. The photo hadn’t shown the way she moved, light and graceful, with a sexy little sway of her hips. It couldn’t record the delightful warmth of her voice or capture the way her smile could dissolve into a sweetly serious frown when she was lost in thought.
She was looking serious now when she said, ‘That bottle spent sixty years bobbing around in the ocean. I’m only—well—it’s more than twice my age.’
‘So how old does that make you?’
‘None of your business.’
Sam grinned. At a guess, he’d put her age at around twenty-four or twenty-five. He was thirty-two, so she was a bit young for him—not that he was thinking of her in that way, of course.
Then again…
She was offering him a view of her delicate profile and, as he watched the way she nibbled at her soft bottom lip, a guy couldn’t help contemplating how nice it would be to try that himself sometime.
Meg’s voice broke into his thoughts, dragging them away from highly unsuitable fantasies. ‘I guess I’m looking at this whole bottle business in a hopelessly romantic way.’ She flashed him a sudden smile.
He couldn’t resist smiling back. ‘What’s wrong with romance?’
For a long moment their gazes held. An unspoken, highly charged exchange flashed between them. Sam only just resisted an urge to lean forward and taste her soft, startled mouth.
He couldn’t be sure who looked away first but, eventually, they both stared back out through the windscreen at the stretch of lawn dotted with coconut palms.
He forced himself to remember that his family’s business was at stake. Which was why he was relaxing on a tropical island and deliberately misleading this lovely young woman. He definitely shouldn’t be planning to add seduction to his crime of deception.
He cleared his throat. ‘So this message in the bottle, was it a love letter?’
She nodded. ‘It’s beautiful. That man sure loved the woman he was writing to.’
‘He was writing to his wife, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but you can’t read her name. There’s some damage—from exposure to light we think.’
He repressed an angry sigh. If Tom Kirby’s wife wasn’t named, sorting out this will could be really messy. It was the worst possible news.
‘You’d better not ask me any more about it,’ Meg said with sudden briskness, ‘I can’t say anything else, not when the grandson of Thomas Kirby, the man who wrote the message, is coming here soon—tomorrow, I think.’
Sam’s stomach tightened guiltily.
Meg added, ‘He’s the American VIP I was telling you about.’
‘You don’t say?’ he murmured, and he switched his attention to a rainbow lorikeet as it settled in a nearby tree. After promising himself, again, to come clean very soon, he asked, ‘So this guy is coming all the way out here just to pick up a sixty-year-old letter? Why couldn’t you have posted it to him special delivery?’
Meg sighed loudly. ‘That would be too easy. My boss wouldn’t hear of it. He wants to get as much publicity mileage as he can out of this incident.’
He stopped studying the bird and turned to frown at her. ‘What kind of publicity?’
‘He sees this as a great opportunity to get media attention for the resort. Magnetic Rendezvous isn’t doing all that well. The competition for the tourist dollar is very stiff.’
So that was what this guy was after! ‘That’s cheeky.’
‘Oh, Fred’s cheeky all right. He wants shots of me and this bachelor millionaire with the bottle plastered in newspapers and on television screens all over the country. I’m not looking forward to it,’ she said with another sigh.
‘This man—this millionaire—’
‘Yes?’
‘He might—’ Sam hesitated, uncomfortably aware that if he kept on talking about himself, he was taking this whole subterfuge thing way too far.
To his relief, Meg didn’t wait for him to finish. She jumped out of the doorless Moke and grinned at him. ‘I prefer not to think about him until I have to. Now, you’re going to miss out on lunch if you don’t get moving.’
He hopped out of the car too, and strode around to the back where she had begun to sort out the tangle of snorkels and flippers. ‘There’s something I should explain.’
‘What’s that?’
His eyes rested her. Her beauty was as fresh and natural, as untouched as the island itself. Tell her, an inner voice urged and he drew in a breath, ready to confess. ‘There’s something I should tell you…something I should get off my chest about why I’m here on the island.’
Meg stopped counting flippers and looked up abruptly to frown at him. ‘Now you really have me intrigued.’ She touched his wrist lightly. ‘You’ll have to explain…Heavens! I’ve been rattling on to you and I can’t even remember your name. What did you say your name was again?’
‘Sam.’
‘OK, Sam.’ Her grey eyes looked directly into his. ‘Get it off your chest.’
Her gaze suddenly locked with his and, just as he had earlier, Sam felt another startling sense of connection zap between them.
Her warm hand was still lying on his wrist.
Neither of them moved.
Chemistry could play sneaky tricks on a guy. Sam would have liked to feel more in control of this situation. Getting to know a woman was usually a pleasant game where he called all the shots. Many considered him to be an expert.
But right now, he had no idea where he was heading.
Especially when, out of absolutely nowhere, the unmistakable idea of kissing hovered between them in the dappled sunlight.
As if prompted by a magnetic force, he dipped his head towards Meg ever so slightly and, to his surprise, she didn’t pull back. When he leaned lower, she raised her face a breathless fraction higher.
Their mouths met.
It was a hello kind of kiss. More than friendly, but not exactly the exchange of lovers. Apart from their mouths and her hand on his, they weren’t touching. He smiled down at her and she smiled back and he felt the warmth and softness of her linger on his lips and the blood rush through his pulse points.
Meg was looking at him in dazed alarm as if she was as startled as he was. Then she jumped back, glaring at him and she said shakily, ‘I make it a rule never to kiss guests.’
The flustered, breathless way she spoke sounded so sexy Sam stepped back too, in case he gave in to any more urges. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
She grabbed a pile of flippers, as if she needed an armful of rubber to keep him at bay. ‘You said you wanted to tell me something important about why you’re here,’ she reminded him sharply. ‘What sort of work did you say you did?’
‘Er—don’t worry about my job. It’s boring,’ Sam replied hastily. ‘But my hobby is marine science. I haven’t studied it in depth, but I’d love to learn more about the life on the reef, underwater photography, salt-water aquariums—that sort of thing. We could make a great team. You could be my tutor.’
‘Bad idea.’ She scowled. And then, like a mother scolding a little boy, she added, ‘I suggest you go take a shower and have some lunch.’
She looked so mad that any thought of confessing his identity seemed ridiculous now. But it also seemed important to set things straight with Meg. For some inexplicable reason, Sam really cared what she thought of him.
A flipper dropped from the pile she was clutching and landed at his feet. He picked it up and held it for a moment, his fingers flexing the rubber. ‘Meg, what I meant to tell you was that this VIP you mentioned…’
He could sense her wariness, as if she’d pulled it on like protective armour. From beneath ash-blonde curls streaked with gold, her grey gaze darkened to a stormy charcoal. ‘Don’t tell me it’s you,’ she whispered.
‘Yeah, ‘fraid so.’
A red flush flared in her cheeks and he couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or just plain mad at him.
‘I’m sorry. I meant to tell you earlier.’
‘No one was stopping you,’ she snapped.
‘Maybe not, but I didn’t see why I should give you a perfect reason to hate me.’
‘Yes, but—’ Meg gulped.
‘And you handed me an excellent opportunity to check out the lie of the land. I don’t intend to just waltz in to your boss ready to dance to his tune. After all, there’s a lot at stake.’
‘A lot of money.’
‘More than just money. It’s complicated.’ He took a step closer and offered her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘But I have an even better excuse.’
Meg didn’t smile back. She continued to stand stiffly to attention with her arms tightly wrapped around the flippers.
‘I really appreciated being able to see the reef just the way I did this morning—just like an ordinary tourist. I had a great time. Thank you. From what you’ve said, the media will be hanging around tomorrow. Things will be different.’ He smiled again.
But it seemed the effort was wasted.
Meg’s chin lifted and she eyed him with a haughty glare. ‘Things will be very different,’ she said. ‘For starters, you won’t even think about trying to kiss me.’
He tucked the flipper into the bundle she was holding. ‘In that case, I’m sure neither of us will look forward to tomorrow.’
Ignoring her startled gasp, he turned in the direction of his bungalow. And, as he walked away, Sam reflected that he’d been wise not to add a comment about just how slim Meg’s chances were if she expected to control his thoughts.
Especially his thoughts about kissing her again.
CHAPTER TWO
