‘Oh, Kelly... What have I done?’ she whispered, and then louder, ‘What time’s his flight?’
Kelly was on her feet so fast her chair almost toppled backwards. ‘He only left ten minutes before you knocked on the door. You could catch him with a fast enough driver.’ But then she pressed her lips together and shook her head again. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to get him to listen to you, though. The kind of foul mood he was in this morning won’t lift for at least another week. The idiot will probably fly the plane himself to avoid talking to you at the moment.’
‘Oh.’ Chloe felt dizzy. There were too many things to think about. ‘I don’t have a car.’
‘I do,’ Kelly said, and then she ran to the bottom of the stairs and yelled, ‘Boys! Get your coats and shoes on! We’re going on an adventure.’ Moments later a pair of dark heads appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Cool!’ Cal said, putting his wellington boots on the wrong feet. Ben didn’t say anything—he was too busy watching his brother and copying everything he did. Including the wellies.
‘Can we really get there in time?’ Chloe asked breathlessly.
‘I can outgun any cabby in London,’ Kelly replied, ‘but that still doesn’t mean he’s going to listen to you.’
For a moment her brain froze, too terrified by Kelly’s words to think of any way round it, but then she said, ‘I can think of one way to get his undivided attention for at least a couple of seconds. But I need to borrow some lipstick—the brightest and reddest you’ve got.’
Kelly looked her up and down. It was true that Chloe was not looking her best. She was wearing leggings with a ratty old pullover and her long red coat slung over the top. ‘Honey,’ Kelly said, ‘you can borrow whatever you want. But I think you’re going to need a hell of a lot more than lipstick.’
* * *
Daniel stared at Alan’s back as they queued to go through airport security. He shuffled forward, passport in hand, handing it over when required and receiving it back without even noticing if it had been a man or a woman who’d inspected it. All he could think about was the journey ahead of him. Almost twenty-four hours on two planes. That was a long time to sit and think.
And, to be honest, the sitting part didn’t worry him so much.
‘Daniel!’
The shout came from behind him. Instantly, his skin puckered into goosebumps. He turned on autopilot, even as his brain was screaming at him to keep walking forward.
He wasn’t ready for this.
Wasn’t ready to talk to her, wasn’t ready to see her.
But he was...seeing her. Just the other side of the passport check desks, behind a clump of queueing travellers. She wore a look of ragged desperation, her forehead bunched, her eyes pleading. Even with her hair a total uncombed mess she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His rib muscles spasmed, squeezing his chest cavity.
He held her gaze for a second, then turned away.
He knew she was soft-hearted under all that gloss, that she wanted to explain—or, even worse, apologise—but he just wasn’t ready.
He was one of those flies, caught in a pitcher, who’d worked it out and had given up struggling. Only one thing left to do now... Drown in that clear, sticky fluid while slowly being digested alive. None of that lovely drugging, narcotic syrup for him, though. He would feel every second of it. So, no, he couldn’t look at her again. Not because he hated her, not because he didn’t love her. Quite the reverse.
There was some kind of commotion going on behind him. He ignored it at first, but then he heard her again. ‘Daniel Bradford, don’t you dare run!’
He froze.
‘I love you!’ She yelled it so loud that everyone in the security queue stopped and he smacked into Alan’s back.
‘Flipping hell,’ Alan said, turning round, his eyes going wide.
Daniel couldn’t resist any longer. He spun round to find Chloe balanced on top of a trolley piled with cases, elevating her above the crowd. Where she’d hijacked it from, he had no idea.
Her gaze connected with his and locked. Not so much desperation in those eyes now as determination. Without looking away, she fumbled with the tie on her coat. Then she pulled both the edges wide, her chin tilted up.
Daniel’s heart stopped. Now she had his full and undivided attention.
‘Flipping hell,’ Alan mumbled again.
There wasn’t much under that coat. But not fancy knickers. Plain, functional underwear. Didn’t matter to him. She was still spectacular. But it was the bit between bra and pants that really caught his attention. Scrawled there in bright red...something...were some words.
I do! it read above her belly button in large block capitals, and beneath, Do you?
All this happened in a matter of seconds. When she’d seen he’d read and understood, the coat closed again and she knotted the tie firmly round her waist. Just as well, really. Already he could see a couple of security guards looking her way, trying to work out what all the fuss was about.
With no more distractions, his gaze was drawn back to her face. He could see it all there now—the pain, the embarrassment of what she’d just done, the apology he wouldn’t have listened to any other way and, most importantly, the truth. The love.
I do.
Do you...?
He looked over his shoulder at Alan, standing behind him open-mouthed, and then back to Chloe.
He so did.
And then he was shoving his way past the half dozen people who’d piled through the passport check after him. Alan reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
‘Hey! Where are you going? You just can’t—’
Daniel wrenched his arm free and looked his colleague in the face. ‘There’ll be another plane tomorrow,’ he said, ‘but there won’t be another woman like this one. Not for me.’
The two of them stared at each other, then Alan shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’
When he turned again the crowd had melted away. People were standing back and grinning expectantly, leaving a clear path between him and the woman in the red coat—off the trolley now—hands clasped together and a million questions in her eyes.
And, off to the side, with his nephews, was his sister. Yup. He should have guessed she’d had something to do with this.
But he didn’t care about the whys and wherefores now; he just ran to Chloe, scooped her up so her feet left the floor and delivered the kiss he’d been holding back for far too long. From the response she gave him, he’d guess she had one of her own to let loose.
‘I’m sorry...so sorry...’ she mumbled between kisses.
He pulled back, caught her face between his palms and waited for her to open her eyes. Her lids fluttered open. She focused on him and swallowed.
‘You took me by surprise,’ she said softly, her eyes glistening. ‘I do love you. I do want to be with you. It was just a lot to take in unexpectedly. I panicked...’
Daniel leaned in and kissed her, communicating his understanding the best way he knew how. Softly. Tenderly. Skin upon skin. After all, there had been more times when she’d been the brave one, had hung everything she felt on the line, and he’d been the one to back away.
There was a not-so-subtle cough beside him, disguising the phrase Get a room! in his sister’s dulcet tones. He smiled against Chloe’s lips then broke contact. Her eyes were closed and she looked blissfully happy, totally lost. Good. So was he.
But then her lids snapped open and she looked at the departures board, panic written all over her features. ‘Oh, Daniel! Your plane...’
He shook his head. ‘It can leave without me. Borneo can wait another twenty-four hours.’
She clung onto him, buried her face in his shoulder. ‘I’m going to miss you so much.’
‘Come with me,’ he whispered i
nto her ear.
She pulled away and stared at him. ‘I can’t! My job—’
He silenced her with a quick, hot kiss. ‘I started badgering the powers that be about the sudden need for an orchid expert on the team. Seven hundred species on that mountain alone...’
Chloe shook her head, her eyes full of disbelief. ‘You didn’t!’
He grinned at her. ‘I did. And they said yes. It was supposed to be a surprise. I was going to tell you last night, but things didn’t exactly go according to plan.’
She blinked at him, as if she couldn’t quite make sense of what he was saying.
‘If you want, you can join us next week,’ he added.
That was when Chloe launched herself at him and kissed him until he couldn’t remember if he was here because he was supposed to be getting on a plane or whether he’d just come off one.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ a grumpy-voiced Kelly said somewhere to his left. ‘At this rate we’re never going to make it out of the airport.’
* * *
‘Up there!’
Chloe pushed the damp hair back out of her eyes and looked where Daniel was pointing. The sun filtered through the canopy above their heads in shafts, dappling the rainforest floor with gold, lighting up the backs of leaves and adding yet more shades of green into the endless forest.
‘Where?’ She couldn’t see anything.
Daniel came in close behind her. Much closer than a colleague on a seed-collecting expedition should. Thankfully, he was much more than that. No ring as yet—no time to shop—but she didn’t care about that. And this, what he was giving her now, was so much more than metal and stones. That could come later.
She followed the line of his finger to a fallen log, its bark almost completely obscured by the ferns and mosses and creepers that clung to it.
‘Oh!’
She saw it—the distinctive yellow and brown stripes of the rare slipper orchid. Her heart lurched. She wanted to go and see it up close, but first there was something she wanted to do even more. She turned towards him, sliding round under his outstretched arm, and pressed a kiss to his chin as she wound her arms around his neck.
‘I was pretty clever proposing to you,’ she said. ‘Not many women get to marry a man who makes their long-cherished dreams come true.’
Daniel went still and stared down at her. There was a definite hint of challenge in his eyes. ‘That’s not quite right, is it?’ he replied, slipping his arms under hers around her torso. ‘I proposed to you.’
She nodded, and one eyebrow lifted a little. ‘Yes, you did, but—’
‘I asked first,’ he interjected. ‘You wouldn’t have pulled that stunt if it hadn’t been for me.’
She licked her lips and looked sideways before returning her gaze to him. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but mine’s the one that stuck.’
He opened his mouth to argue, but she stalled him with a kiss. ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘We’ve got an orchid to catalogue.’
And after that, they had the rest of their lives to argue that one out.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460306840
THE GUY TO BE SEEN WITH
Copyright © 2013 by Fiona Harper
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The Guy To Be Seen With (Valentine's Day Survival Guide) Page 18