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‘Believe me, if anything was wrong with the plane you’d be getting a far more extroverted performance than a dreamy stare out of the window ! I’m a stage actress, remember ? I’m trained to dramatise events and exaggerate emotions. You can’t judge me by ordinary standards of behaviour...’
He frowned, replacing his spectacles. Rosalind could see disagreement seeping into his expression and another question forming on his stern lips. For goodness’ sake, couldn’t he take the hint and lighten up? She wasn’t in the mood for serious conversation. She was having a holiday from deep and meaningful discussions!
Determined to thwart him, she steamrollered on in a relentlessly light and frivolous vein until she saw his eyes begin to glaze over and his jaw stiffen against a yawn. Only when she was certain that she had successfully bored him to distraction did she lapse into silence. She turned back to the window to hide a small smile of satisfaction as he quickly opened his laptop on his knee and buried his nose safely in his own business again.
She took a crumpled flight magazine out of the seat pocket in front of her and pretended to read, but as the plane angled out across the South China Sea she found herself. seduced by the hypnotic flash and leap of the sun, dancing dimples of silver brilliance across the restless blue mantle. An occasional small fishing vessel and, as they neared Tioman, a sprinkling of raw, windswept rocks and tiny green-tipped islands jutting out of the sea provided the only visual interruptions.
The plane banked for its approach and Rosalind caught her first glimpse of their destination. The narrow tongue of land widened as the plane continued to turn, revealing the full vista—tow, rock-strewn cliffs rising to steep, jungle-clad slopes which marched upwards and onwards into the hazy, mountainous interior.
She pressed her nose against the window so that she could watch as the tumbled boulders and stony cliffs gave way to long, wide streaks of smooth, pale sand. The exotic greenery grew thickly to the very edge of the beaches, and was broken only here and there by clearings for human habitation.
They descended further, flying across a bay where a long white jetty jutted out across the water. In the space of a few minutes the sea had changed dramatically, from a solid, opaque blue of fathomless depths to an exquisite, translucent cobalt as it skimmed over the sandy shallows to melt with scarcely a ripple onto the silky beaches.
Exactly like the brochures! Rosalind thought with a rush of pleasure, sending out a mental apology to her mother for doubting that her enthusiasm would bear comparison with reality.
The airport, when it hove into view, was tiny—a couple of alarmingly short concrete runways nestling at the base of the forested hills. A quicksilver thrill of exhilaration threaded through her veins. She couldn’t help a quick glance over at Luke James to check how he was coping with the idea of landing in a patch of cleared jungle the size of a postage stamp.
He wasn’t. Instead, he was watching her, his back turned to the solid wall of greenery now whipping past the window. She was surprised by his cool composure until she realised that his fixed fascination was more likely to be a state of controlled panic. By focusing his concentration on Rosalind he was blocking out his awareness of what was happening outside the plane.
Her own eyes were vividly bright, betraying the love of excitement that was intrinsic to her impulsive nature.
By the time they had bumped down onto the uneven rummy and shuddered to a smooth halt beside the small, open-sided wooden building which served as a terminal Rosalind’s earlier annoyance with Luke was forgotten in her eagerness to explore her new environment.
‘It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?’ She grinned at him as they carried their bags the few metres from the shady terminal to the narrow, dusty road just outside the chain-link gates. ‘I thought that landing was going to be a hair-raising roller-coaster ride, but it was actually quite smooth and easy.’
‘Yes, I could see you were disappointed,’ murmured Luke acidly as he set his suitcase down under the shade of a leafy palm and watched most of their fellow passengers board a small blue
and white resort bus parked outside the wire gates.
‘well, maybe a little bit,’ she confessed, looking around for their own transport. ‘I happen to love roller coasters.’
‘That figures.’
A typical accountant’s reply, thought Rosalind in amusement. Everything reduced to numbers. He’d probably never even been on one himself. Roller coasters definitely came under the heading of entertainment !
She strolled over to where a snazzy-looking red motor scooter was leaning against one of the fence posts and ran her fingers wistfully over the white seat. ‘You don’t suppose...?’
‘No, I do not!’ He gave her hopeful suggestion short shrift.
‘Pity,’ she said, imagining how good the breeze would feed as they zipped along in the open. The air around them was very sultry and still, and she could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down her spine. She fanned herself with her hat. She couldn’t wait to get into her bikini and fall into that azure sea.
They didn’t have long to wait. Just as the resort bus pulled away a large green and silver open-topped Jeep with a palm-tree logo embossed on the door tooled up in a cloud of dust and a slim young Malaysian man dressed in cool whites vaulted out with profuse apologies for his lateness. He had had to stop to assist a tourist who had had an accident with his bicycle.
‘I am Razak,’ he said, his dark, almond-shaped eyes widening at the sight of Rosalind’s hair glowing like molten lava in the full glare of the sun. ‘From the Tioman Palms...and you are Mr and Mrs...?’ He paused to look at the clipboard he had tucked under his arm.
‘He’s definitely a Mr but I’m still a Miss,’ Rosalind laughed. ‘We’re not married.’ The idea was deliciously absurd.
‘Oh!’ Razak’s curious gaze darted from Rosalind’s irrepressible grin to Luke’s smooth, unrevealing visage. He looked down at his list and frowned. ‘But—’
‘We merely travelled on the same flight’ Luke cut him off abruptly. ‘We aren’t together. We’re total strangers to each other.’
His attempt to distance himself from her provoked Rosalind into pure mischief.
‘Yes, Luke and I have never seen each other before in our lives,’ she purred, with an innocent flutter of her lashes that was more telling than any number of torrid looks.
A faint flush rose on Luke’s neck as Razak regarded him with a brief flare of masculine envy before hurriedly consulting his list and ticking off their names.
‘If you’d like to get into the Jeep, I’ll just go and find the other two people I have come to meet,’ he said as he loaded their bags and directed them to the open back seat. ‘Please enjoy the ride. There is very beautiful scenery all the way to the hotel...’
