He handed her a parcel wrapped in newspaper and a strip of dull grey gaffer tape. ‘Um.’ He grinned. ‘I’m a wrapping legend, I know. Should probably start a YouTube channel.’
He’d brought her a present. She peeled back the tape and unfolded the paper. Inside, only slightly turning to crumble in a nest of baking paper, was a massive, oozy square of chocolate caramel slice. She took a deep breath. ‘That looks amazing. Thank you.’
His hand wrapped around hers and he hauled her to her feet. She distracted herself from the warmth of his palm against hers by thinking of something to say.
‘I didn’t know if you’d be back.’ That was too serious, wasn’t it? Other women would have made a casual joke. Smiled or something. Sounded less intense. No wonder the last guy she’d dated had called her a bunny boiler.
His grin came easily and his eyes twinkled—like, seriously, they twinkled. There ought to be a rule about that; it was unfair to unleash all that smiley charm on a single, dust-stained woman who had nothing but work to keep her company in her lonely, lonely tent.
‘Thought I’d come and deliver on that promise I made you to take you for a spin.’
‘Really?’
His smile dimmed a little. ‘Er … yeah. If you have time, of course.’
She blinked. He was being friendly; she had to relax.
‘I do have time.’ She tried a smile, and what do you know, her face didn’t fall off, an alarm didn’t start ringing—it even felt nice. Smiling at this handsome guy felt nice.
‘I can clock off,’ she said, checking her watch. It wasn’t like she was being paid to be here; she was a volunteer. A broke volunteer. ‘If you’ve got time, that is.’ Crap. He’d just said he did, hadn’t he? She was so not adept at this.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve got plenty, as it happens. Jack flew out with me. He brought a side of beef with him and he’s planning on cooking for the crew. We fly back in the morning.’
‘Jack—who owns this property?’
‘Yeah.’
This time, the smile came naturally. A cookout? A fire under the stars and a handsome guy to sit beside and—hopefully, if she wasn’t a tongue-tied idiot—to chat with? Well. At three o’clock this morning, awake and stressing over the intern applications she’d sent out to every palaeontology department she could think of, from Argentina to Victoria to as far away as Siberia, which had so far resulted in a big fat zero of offers, her day had been looking bleak and bothersome. How quickly things could change.
Hux looked at his watch. ‘That cranky boss of yours going to blow a gasket if you disappear for a bit?’
She frowned. ‘No. Our time is our own once the tools are put away.’
‘Great. Why have you gone pale? You scared of flying in something so small?’
‘Um.’ She didn’t know how to answer that. Her anxiety had just spiked. Or was it anticipation? Sometimes it was hard to tell.
‘You’ll love it,’ he said. ‘And you’ll love where we’re going even more. There’s a gorge not far from here, but we’ll have to be quick to catch the last of the afternoon light. Are you in?’
She hesitated. She didn’t want to be a bunny boiler. She wanted to be someone who could say yes to impromptu adventures and who could toss their hair about and laugh and be fun. This was her chance to prove it. ‘Yeah. I’m in.’
‘Cool.’ He picked up the parcel of caramel slice and reattached its gaffer tape. ‘I’ve got a cooler in the chopper where we can stash this.’
And two minutes later, she was strapped into a crazy-looking machine with Hux beside her, earphones clamped to her head and the roar of a motor spinning to life above her. The rush in her chest built into something even wilder than the blades spinning frantically overhead. She watched Hux as he flicked switches and pulled levers and did a visual check of the ground around them and the air above them.
Dusk was falling when they returned, and Hux helped unclick her seatbelt.
‘So, what did you think?’ He had a smile on his face warmer than a Queensland summer.
She grinned. ‘I loved it.’ And—what the hell; maybe all that sugar in the caramel had altered her brain chemistry—she leant across the gap and pressed her lips to his cheek. ‘Thank you. For the flight and for the caramel slice.’
He’d lifted his hand to her head, and when she would have leant back, he wrapped his hand around her ponytail. ‘If I’d known I was getting a kiss out of it I’d have brought more slice.’
And there it was again, the anxiety/anticipation flutter that was so hard to decode. ‘I suppose, if I’m honest … kissing you seemed like a way to let you know I’ve been thinking about you, without actually having to say it.’
He was an inch away from her. Chambray blue eyes. Freckles across his nose. Dark reddish hair just curling out from under his hat. His eyebrows raised slightly. ‘What’s the problem with actually saying it?’
She shrugged. ‘Words. Emotions. They’re not really my thing.’ Facts were. Isotopes in mineral deposits were. Late nights peering into microscopes were. She could have carried on listing reasons until the moon was up, but Hux had other ideas.
