by Jennie Adams
‘Control of the wheel?’ Though she’d stopped herself from saying it, the rest of the sentence had been written all over her. He laughed before he could consider his reaction, and then had to admit to the affinity he felt for her attitude. ‘I do some hair-raising things sometimes, but I only ever worry if I’m not the person in charge.’
Jayne laughed and some of her tension left her. ‘I hadn’t realised it, but I think you may have guessed right about me. I do prefer to have control in certain situations.’
‘The driver seems experienced and sensible.’ Alex pointed to the view out of the windows. ‘And there’s something amazing about looking down on a canopy of tree tops, don’t you think?’
‘Yes. I love the fern trees mixed amongst the gum trees and other foliage.’ Jayne smiled and the rest of her tension disappeared. ‘And I love the scent of this kind of area. I can’t wait to get off the bus and take a really deep breath. In the meanwhile, you’re right. I can trust the driver. He knows what he’s doing.’
When they arrived, the tour guide got to his feet. ‘Let’s get some fresh air.’ He got off the bus quickly, leaving the driver to wait for everyone to disembark, and was soon talking to one of the resort’s outdoor staff.
Once everyone had exited the bus and the driver had moved it away to find a parking bay, the tour guide called for their attention.
The guide did look as though he perhaps hadn’t been sleeping well, or felt a little rundown overall. Though Jayne had wondered about his sobriety briefly yesterday, she’d made sure she got a chance to speak with him after she’d discussed that with Alex and she hadn’t been able to smell even a whiff of alcohol on the man.
‘If there’s anyone in the group who is trained to abseil, the big rock is open for it today.’ The guide pointed to what, to Jayne, looked to be a quite enormous perpendicular rock face some distance to their left.
The man explained that people could do a trail walk to reach the base where the abseilers would end their descent. ‘Even as observers, you might find it interesting.’
‘I wonder—’ Jayne forgot what she’d been going to say. The thoughts disappeared as she turned to Alex.
She caught an expression of adrenalin and wistfulness on his face before he pushed both aside.
‘You’ll want to see the caves,’ he said. ‘This tour isn’t geared to extreme sport junkies so the abseil isn’t really relevant.’
‘But you like extreme sports.’ And, despite his efforts to conceal it, Jayne could see that he’d like to do this event.
She wanted to see him pit his strength and abilities against nature. It would be exciting. Again, Jayne was forced to acknowledge her attraction to Alex’s vitality.
‘There’s time for both activities.’ She took care to make sure her voice held nothing but neutral encouragement. ‘This trip doesn’t have to be entirely about work.’
‘I don’t want to abandon you for hours.’ Alex’s words were sincere, but his eyes glittered with anticipation. ‘We’re supposed to be info gathering.’
‘Technically, I’m supposed to be doing that.’ Though Jayne was enjoying his enthusiasm and interest in that research.
Was there anything she wasn’t enjoying about Alex?
Enjoying too much!
‘I’ll do the walk.’ Nice. Very ordinary. Now, keep going, Jayne. ‘I’ll be able to see your descent and I can talk to people at the same time.’
There. And, just in case he wasn’t convinced enough, she bounced a little on the balls of her feet. ‘To be honest, I miss it if I don’t get some kind of exercise most days, so that’ll be nice for me.’
Because, obviously, she would expire from lack of fitness if she missed more than a few days, as women of her age and above were bound to do because they were practically on their last legs physically. Jayne shoved back a frustrated frown. She wasn’t that old.
You’re not that young, either. Ten years, Jayne. And don’t pretend that the fact he’s younger doesn’t add excitement to being aware of him as a man, because you know it does.
It also made Jayne even more uncertain of herself and her ground with him than she would be with another George or Drew or…
But Alex wasn’t a George or a Drew. There was no comparison, was there?
And Alex is free. You heard him say that. So were George and Drew, but…irrelevant…
‘All that running up and down stairs.’ Just as Jayne had been about to start feeling depressed about her less than total youthfulness, Alex spoke. His eyes shifted over her body before they came back to rest on her face. ‘I don’t think you’re at any risk of becoming unfit, Jayne. You’re very…trim.’
‘Th…thank you.’ With just those few words, he tempted her away from her reality check, made her want to think she could be as young as she wanted, was as fit as she felt and would stay that way for ever.
With Alex’s admiring gaze on her, Jayne was way too aware of every curve, too aware of the wish to press those curves to the hard planes of his body, to press close and experience the intimacy of his touch as his lips lowered to hers. Too aware that she wouldn’t be encroaching on another woman’s territory if she explored her interest in Alex.
He wouldn’t be encroaching, either. The men in Jayne’s life knew she wouldn’t commit to them.
She wouldn’t commit to Alex either, of course.
Oh, Jayne didn’t even know what she was thinking about!
‘You should…’ She blinked and the world around them came back into focus. People from the tour deciding what activity to do first, the scent of gum trees and loamy soil and the sounds of nature around them. Jayne drew a breath. ‘You should give yourself this treat.’
‘All right. You’ve convinced me. Thanks, Jayne. It’s generous of you.’ Alex took her at her word and made his way to sign up for the abseiling group.
Jayne joined the group who would meet up with the abseilers later. Maybe some time apart from Alex would help her get her thoughts back into perspective—i.e. focused on the purpose of this trip!
Three-quarters of the way to the abseil landing destination some time later, Jayne was forced to admit that plan hadn’t exactly worked out.
‘He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just touring together for…um…for other reasons.’ Jayne considered increasing her walking pace to try to get away from this line of questioning, but she doubted it would help.
A couple of the university students on tour to practise their Japanese language skills had apparently also decided to practise their detective skills on Jayne’s relationship with her companion. And they didn’t seem to mind how blunt their questions were!
‘Oh, look ahead. There’s where the abseil will end.’ Jayne’s feeling of relief faded a little when her glance travelled upwards to the top of the mountainous area. Up and up. And up even more.
Alex was a gorgeous man. Fit and muscled and with the edge of an adrenalin-seeker that did attract Jayne. But he was going to rappel down that?
Hanging only from a flimsy bit of rope and a harness?
All the way to the bottom?
‘Will he be safe? What if something goes wrong? I hope he knows—’ She stopped herself before more words could come out.
Fortunately, the university students had moved on and were now very earnestly in discussion with several other tourists who’d also walked the trail to watch the abseiling, so at least Jayne’s concerns had gone undetected.
And at least the students had given up on nosing around into Jayne’s relationship with Alex. Jayne had found one of them in particular watching her more often than she would like, but perhaps he was just a little curious.
The group were to wait in a beautiful clearing of soft, low natural grasses surrounded by rock face on one side and lush trees and bushes on the other three sides. There were picnic tables but Jayne opted to stay on her feet. She could see movement at the top of the rock face and got out her camera and adjusted the lens to zoom onto that activity.
There
was Alex, harnessed up and looking ready to go. Jayne sucked in a breath for two reasons as he positioned himself and then went over the edge of the drop.
In those first moments, his facial muscles tightened with anticipation, the thrill of the challenge, the thrill of letting himself fall into nothing but space. He looked thrilling to Jayne.
As he began to rappel down the rock face, all of his concentration was on the task. With a glance either side of him, he noted the positions of the others and then he gave himself to enjoying his descent.
‘He needs to feel the freedom of this and the challenge of pitting himself against nature.’ Jayne murmured the words and eased her death grip on the camera.
When Alex reached ground level some distance away and started to disengage from the harnessing equipment, she made her way to his side.
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. ‘That was a rush.’
‘And you loved it.’ Jayne smiled. ‘I was a bit worried for you at first, but then I relaxed. I could see you knew what you were doing.’
‘I’ve abseiled before. Skydiving, too. Rock-climbing, trail bike riding, white water rafting.’ Alex’s face sobered. ‘I don’t have to have the kind of challenge of jumping off a sheer rock face. I just enjoy it as a leisure activity.’
He sounded almost defensive and Jayne didn’t quite know what to say.
‘It’s not wrong to need certain kinds of satisfaction out of life. There wouldn’t be anything out of place in you needing the thrill of extreme sports or other things like that, even if you did.’ She couldn’t tell him how appealing she found it. How it added to her attraction to him to know that he could pursue and conquer these kinds of activities. Jayne was struggling enough to try to control those thoughts. If they wanted to talk about what was ‘wrong’, it was more likely Jayne’s attraction to him pushing those boundaries!
For a moment he simply looked at her before his gaze softened. ‘I hadn’t really looked at it that way. Well, we promised ourselves a tour through at least one cave.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘Maybe we should head back, see what tours we can get into before the day ends.’
‘Yes. Let’s do that.’ As they stepped towards each other, both stilled. She’d been trying so hard, but now it all rushed to the surface again. Longing for this man, to be closer, to know him more deeply, welled once more inside her.
Alex’s facial muscles tightened into a different kind of expression. To a stillness that was about a man and a woman standing close together in a lush green valley, and wanting to stand even closer. To touch? Kiss?
As though she had leaped into thin air, Jayne’s breath caught in her throat. All she could do was look into his face, see every strong feature, the creases at the outsides of his eyes, the ones on either side of his mouth that deepened when he smiled.
Alex shook his head as though to try to clear it, and Jayne blinked her eyes and tried to pull her thoughts together, too, and they moved back up the trail. She remonstrated with herself along the way.
She was in the middle of work on a challenging business proposal to put to her father. Maybe a lot of people would be satisfied with the fulfilment of the job she already had, but Jayne had earned her partnership. She was being generous, working on another proposal to put to her father, considering he’d allowed Eric to undermine Jayne’s achievements on the past two.
It was time for Jayne’s father to hand her the partnership, or for Jayne to leave the family company to find career fulfilment elsewhere.
‘Two of the tours start within ten minutes of each other.’ Alex gestured to the noticeboards outside the tourist information booth. A hint of mischief laced his tone. ‘The first one has “snuggling spaces”. That could be fun.’
Jayne peered at the description while one flirty response after another paraded through her head.
Don’t say them, Jayne.
‘It says “snug” spaces.’ She tried to sound prim, and hoped she didn’t sound as willing to explore the concept of snuggling in spaces with him as she was!
Her phone rang.
‘I wasn’t sure there’d even be reception here.’ She stared at the caller ID blankly for a moment before the information registered. ‘It’s my sister.’
‘Take the call. I’ll get our tickets for the cosy tour.’ With his cheeky grin once again in place, he moved off.
‘Hi, Nickie.’ Jayne forced the words out with determined good cheer. ‘How are you? How’s Cora? Is everything all right?’
Jayne had texted her sister and told her she’d be out of town until the weekend, but not that she was touring, or why.
‘We’re both fine. Cora still thinks kitchens are made for her to pull everything out of the cupboards and play with it.’ Her sister’s voice wasn’t its usual cheerful tone, though it was clear she was trying.
Nickie was eight years younger than Jayne. Because of that age difference and the abandonment by their mother so many years ago, part of Jayne’s bond with Nickie was almost motherly.
Nickie’s tone right now worried Jayne, but Jayne tried to sound ordinary and cheerful when she replied. ‘Who needs toys when there are saucepans?’
‘Exactly.’ Nickie drew a breath. ‘Jayne, I went in to your work building today. My shift at the beauty shop started later and I’d already dropped Cora at day-care. I had some hand cream samples I wanted to give to the reception girls. I was going to say hi to Dad while I was there so I went up to his floor.’ The strain in Nickie’s voice became more apparent.
And some of Jayne’s pleasure in her surroundings, in this trip, became subjugated to a feeling of unease. ‘What happened, Nickie?’
‘Eric came along while I was waiting for Dad. He’d been out to lunch with some business people, I think, and he’d had a couple of drinks. Well, I suspect more than a couple.’ Nickie drew a breath. ‘So he was chatty. Jayne, he told me that while you’re out of the office this week and your office space is being made over, Eric’s going to be getting the larger front part of it and they’re putting you at the back.’
Jayne had known Eric was influencing her father with his flattery and so on, but this…
‘Jayne? Have I done the wrong thing, telling you?’ Nickie’s worried voice came over the line. ‘I didn’t want to bring it up but I didn’t want you to go back to work not knowing.’
‘You did the right thing.’ Jayne had talked to Nickie enough times about work. ‘And you don’t need to worry about this, Nickie. I’ll sort it out.’
‘Jayney, I’m sorry that Dad doesn’t respect all your hard work enough. I think you deserve that partnership, not to be treated like this.’ Nickie sounded as though she wanted to burst into tears.
‘Thanks, and you’re right. I do deserve the partnership. Dad knows that as well. He was supposed to give it to me after the last project.’ Jayne had to clear her throat. That stupid frog was back again, but for a different reason this time. ‘I’ll take care of this.’ And she would. That was what this week was about. She would gather information and add it to the rest of her research, and pull it all together into a package deal that her father would be completely crazy to ignore.
The work Jayne put in would get her over the line to that coveted partnership. If not, she’d be leaving the company.
Jayne reassured her sister, thanked her again for calling and said goodbye.
‘Is everything okay, Jayne?’ Alex’s words weren’t intrusive, but they did express concern.
Jayne ironed the frown from her brow. ‘A small problem at work.’
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Let’s make our way to our cave tour.’ Jayne made a start towards the entrance area of the first tour. She needed just a moment to collect herself because, ridiculously, his words and the care behind them had brought a prickle of emotion to the backs of her eyes. She didn’t want him to see it.
‘My office space is being refurbished this week. That’s why I have the week off. My sister rang to let me know that som
e of my office space is being given to another employee.’ Jayne was annoyed and more than a little offended by that fact. But she tipped up her chin and simply said, ‘It’s no big deal. I’ll sort it out. That’s a policy of mine. If some minor irritation happens at work, I try to find a way to turn the annoyance into positive forward movement of some kind.’
‘I admire you for that attitude. It shows a lot of maturity.’
Did he think of her as old? The thought crept into Jayne’s mind. She’d been trying to ignore it, but Alex was gorgeous and fit in a way only a man of his age could be.
And Jayne was conscious that certain parts of her were not twenty-five any more. She had wrinkles. And other less than completely attractive things that came with maturing.
They reached the waiting area for their tour and Alex glanced at his watch. ‘The tour won’t start for a few more minutes. Did you want to phone your office now and do something about the renovation confusion?’
‘Yes, I think I will.’ Jayne moved aside to make the call, and to try to pull her thoughts together. She’d allowed them to wander ridiculously, thinking about her age and wrinkles, for goodness’ sake.
She dialled the number for her father’s personal assistant. ‘Hi, Macey. Put me through to my father, please.’
‘Sure. One moment.’
‘Jayne.’ Her father’s voice came over the line. He was neither overtly welcoming, nor unwelcoming. Just Dad. Focused on business, and on himself, mostly. ‘What are you doing, phoning in? You have the week off.’
‘I’m phoning about my office space. I don’t want it rearranged. I worked hard for my front space and I’m not prepared to give it up to Eric. I am in a more senior position than him.’ There was no point trying to be subtle about it.
‘Well, now, Jayne—’ her father’s voice took on a blustering tone ‘—Eric has pointed out that he really could do with more space than he has currently.’
‘Regardless, I have quite a few years of seniority on him and I’m not prepared to give him that workspace, so please make sure that’s taken care of.’ Jayne sucked in one short breath of air. ‘And I’d like a meeting with you first thing Monday morning when I come back into the office. I’ll have something quite exciting to put to you.’