Laura's Big Break (7 page)

“You got a bottle of water?” she said as she pulled the towel away.

She had to hold his shorts up; with the string tied tight they were still in danger of falling down.

“And a belt, maybe?”

He yanked the leather belt from the jeans he was wearing and thrust it at her before rooting around for a bottle of water. He sat on his bike as she cleaned herself up as best she could.

“Well, I can’t put these back in my eyes,” she said in disgust. “We need to find a chemist so I can get them cleaned up, or an optician and I’ll get glasses. Without these I’m blind.”

She zipped open the water logged bum bag that had survived her swim and emptied the contents onto the grass. It held her now dead phone, her credit cards, passport and sodden cash. Laura dried everything off, put it back in the bag, along with her contact lenses, and stood in front of him.

“Well, at least there is some small mercy. Without my contacts I can’t see you ogling me.”

“I can do more than ogle if you like.”

Whoa, wait a minute, where did that come from?

Things stilled between them. The air felt charged. Charlie didn’t know what had happened. The Iron Maiden was standing in front of him, wet, dirty and drowning in his old clothes and he was coming on to her?

She shook her head then pursed her lips as though deciding on something.

“That’s hilarious. I guess you do feel a little guilty about telling me how fine I am in bed, huh? I don’t know whether you are trying to make me feel better in your own sick little way, or if you are ironically telling me how unattractive I am. Either way, I’m not interested. I might be the only girl for miles around,” she waved around her to illustrate the lack of people in their landscape, “but even I know that isn’t excuse enough for you to want me. I know that I come a serious last on your list. And after seeing the women you date, I can only say that knowledge makes me proud.”

She bent over and picked up her wet clothes. Charlie bit his lip to stop from telling her that she was wrong. She was wrong, right? There was nothing wrong with her, he could see that, but she wasn’t for him. Right? Then why was he suddenly so desperate to make her think otherwise?

“Now what?” she said.

Charlie took a deep breath and focused on the situation in hand. Yeah, now what?

“Well,” he said. “You’re going to need a new bike and some new kit.”

She mumbled something under her breath, it sounded like, no kidding Einstein. He pulled himself up to his full six foot and stared down at her.

“At least this time I can supervise and make sure you don’t buy loads of garbage that you don’t need.”

She clenched her jaw and he felt some of the tension leave him.

“Town is that way.” He pointed down the long path in front of him. “Hop on; it looks like I’ll be doing all the work.”

Her cartoon sized eyes grew wider.

“Hop on?”

He looked towards heaven for some strength in dealing with the most infuriating woman he had ever met.

“You’ve seen other people pass us doing this. I ride the bike and you perch on the pannier carrier at the back. Hold on tight and you won’t fall off.”

She looked at him and then at the bike.

“Hold on to you?”

“Get on the bike,” he ordered as he climbed on. “I’m done talking. You’ve ruined enough of my holiday. Sooner we get to town and get you sorted the better.”

Laura wrapped her wet things in his towel and looked for somewhere to put them. With a frustrated growl he pulled a plastic carrier bag out of his pannier and thrust it at her. She filled it and stuffed the whole thing back in his bags. He held the bike steady as she sat on the back-rack, side saddle. He took more than a little joy in the fact she looked terrified.

“Hold on tight,” he ordered.

Her arms snaked around his waist. Every movement she made felt uncertain. Good. It was about time she was the one on the back foot. With a push of his pedal, he set them rolling. Laura grasped on tighter. He could feel the heat coming from her against his back. Her tiny hand knotted into his t-shirt at his stomach. Just concentrate on the journey, he told himself. And look on the bright side, tonight instead of a head full of missiles and blood you can think about Laura sailing into the canal. Now that brought a smile to his face.

Laura didn’t know what to berate herself about first. The list was too long. Should she choose the fact she just lost hundreds of pounds worth of new gear at the bottom of a Dutch waterway? Or should she go with the fact that there were now two pictures of her bum on the Internet? As the bike jerked over a stone and she pulled herself even closer to Charlie, she squeezed her eyes tight. Nope, the winner in all things humiliating was the fact that she was clinging to The Neanderthal and it was making her heart pound out a salsa rhythm.

She wanted to scream at the frustration of it all. Here she was with a lifetime of experience and knowledge of the man in front of her, a man who frustrated and disappointed her at every turn, and what was she doing? She wasn’t thinking about all that, that was for sure. Nope, she was thinking about how he’d looked in the river during his swim. And that led to thinking about how it had felt when he’d trapped her in his arms to talk to her. He’d felt so good. Soft. Strong. Oh, oh. The words from that TV commercial for toilet paper floated into her head. Soft, strong and very, very long. She started to giggle, which made her hold on even tighter. The harder she tried to stop laughing, the more she laughed. It erupted out of her. Charlie, the canal, the whole disastrous camping trip. And now her libido had chosen this moment to wake from hibernation. With Charlie of all people. It was all so very funny.

She felt Charlie let out a heavy sigh.

“Are you losing your mind back there?” His tone was resigned, like he had already decided it was a possibility and that made her giggle all the more. “Because I’m not a psych specialist. You break something I’m your man, but anything to do with your head, we’ll need to find you a professional.”

Laura rubbed her face on the back of his t-shirt to wipe her eyes and felt him stiffen. Her grin widened. Was it possible that Charlie was reacting to her too?

“Sorry,” she said.

“You’re making me nervous, short stuff.”

She was making him nervous? There were so many possibilities for fun. Laura waited until he was relaxed and focused on his cycling to make her move. She pressed herself into him as she splayed her hand flat across his stomach. Yep, he tensed again. She rubbed his stomach as though she was trying to shift her grip, to get more comfortable. His pace slowed. Laura grinned wickedly. She ran her other hand up to his chest as she pressed her cheek to his back. The bike wobbled. The hand she’s placed on his stomach moved lower to grab the waistband of his jeans as an anchor.

“Laura,” his deep rumbling voice vibrated through her cheek. “What are you doing?”

“Just trying to get comfortable,” she said as innocently as possible.

She rubbed her face on his back as she tightened her grip on his jeans. She couldn’t resist pressing a little kiss against his spine. The bike screeched to a halt. Laura let out a yelp as she landed on her back on the grass. She shielded her eyes against the sun as he towered over her.

“I know you’re amusing yourself,” he said as he folded his arms across his chest, “but it isn’t funny.”

Laura grinned. It was kind of funny. He scowled and pointed at her.

“Stop trying to turn me on.”

She looked down at his jeans.

“Trying?” she said sweetly.

He shifted uncomfortably.

“Any more funny business and you’ll be the one doing the cycling. Got it?”

“Aye, aye captain,” she saluted before struggling to her feet.

As she climbed back onto the bike she couldn’t stop grinning. There was something about Charlie that made her behave like a reckless girl. She’d forgotten how good that felt.

“I hear mum jeans are all the rage,” Charlie said, imitating
Tim Gunn
from
Project Runway
, a programme he insisted Maddie
made
him watch when he was home on leave. Yeah, right.

Laura wriggled in her seat.

“I’m glad you’re amused.”

“Hey, you were lucky they let you raid the second hand clothes at the church, otherwise you’d be wearing my t-shirt as a dress.”

Lucky. Yep, that was the word. She looked down at her ‘new’ outfit. Her jeans were stone washed, high waisted and straight legged. Exactly the kind of thing
Wham!
would have worn in the eighties. They were almost up to her bra line. To complete the eighties pop theme she was wearing a faded white t-shirt with a bright pink ‘relax’ printed on it. The whole thing made her regret that her contacts were back in her eyes; it would have been better if her clothing was a blur.

“My stuff will be dry tomorrow,” she told him again.

“Oh no, I think you should keep that on. I like it. It’s entertaining. Plus, if anybody needs a reminder to relax, there it is.”

They were eating in the town’s only
eetcafe
- a cross between a restaurant and a pub. It consisted mainly of one large open room, filled with modern oak furniture. Laura didn’t like the old style oak furniture that she’d seen, it was all so solid and heavy looking, but this stuff was different. It was bright and contemporary. It made her relax. The walls were painted a pale lemon and dotted here and there, as though someone had arranged the displays while drunk, were several Delft blue tiles and plates. The overall affect was charming. She understood why it was busy; if she’d lived nearby she would have loved to hang out there. Laura ate breaded chicken with boiled potatoes and spinach, while Charlie ate everything else. She reserved comment because she’d seen how much energy he’d used during the day, most of it just for thinking.

“Seriously,” he said. “Wear that tomorrow, it cheers me right up.”

Laura narrowed her eyes at him and imagined his head popping like a squished grape.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he said through a mouthful of chunky chips. “The thing where you imagine evil things and think none of us know.”

She grunted. Obviously her face wasn’t as deadpan as she thought it was. Charlie chuckled.

“How about I wear this tomorrow if you let me ask you one interview question?”

She tried to smile sweetly, innocently, but even she knew she wasn’t pulling it off.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll wear any of those ugly clothes in the Church for the day, for one question.”

Nothing was worse than the stuff she had on.

“How about naked?” His eyes twinkled.

“Bra-less and any clothes you pick.”

He almost choked on his steak.

“It’s a deal.”

Laura grinned widely. At last she would have something, anything to report to her boss.

“Okay,” she said eagerly. “Let me get a pen.”

She borrowed paper and a pen from the waitress. When she got back to the wide oak table Charlie had relaxed back into his chair and was sipping a tall thin glass of
Leffe
, a blond Belgian beer.

“One question,” he reminded her.

His face had closed up. Getting her interview was going to be like pulling teeth from a crocodile. She’d thought long and hard about what she might ask, but now that she had a chance she wasn’t sure where to start. She didn’t want to scare him off for the rest of her interview. In the end she picked a question she thought would be easy to answer.

“So, the little girl you rescued. Did you know her beforehand?"

She held her breath as he studied his beer.

“That’s your question?”

She nodded.

“I thought you were going to start somewhere else.”

“Quit stalling and answer my question.”

His luminous blue eyes looked into hers as his honey coloured hair flopped over onto his forehead. He brushed it away, but he never broke her gaze.

“Yes,” he said at last.

“How did you know her?”

“That’s two questions. You only get one.”

Laura desperately searched around for another bargaining chip.

“I’ll go without any underwear tomorrow.”

She didn’t consider being underwear free a great sacrifice. The only lingerie she had left came from the local supermarket. It scratched and pinched her with every move she made. Charlie’s mouth twitched as though he was trying not to smile. Laura felt a pang of insecurity. She looked down at her body. It wasn’t exactly
Playboy
material. Offering to go underwear free probably wasn’t much of a bargaining chip.

“Or, I can cook dinner?” she offered instead.

It was as though he could read her mind. Her face flushed under the scrutiny of his gaze.

“No, I think I’ll go with the first offer. No underwear for the whole day and I get to pick the clothes.”

“Fine.”

Was that relief she felt that she wasn’t repellent? Laura ignored it and concentrated on the question.