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All their efforts last week had been concentrated on the outside clean-up. Apart from a cursory examination of the rooms that had been thankfully largely untouched, they hadn’t worried about them at all. But they were going to need to be electrically checked at the very least.
‘We’ll have to discount them,’ Luke said. ‘This place isn’t exactly paradise any more.’
Claudia nodded automatically at Luke’s shrewd business assessment, ignoring her emotional response to his words. If she thought too hard about their paradise lost it would break her heart, and they needed to be practical.
‘And before anyone comes we’ll have to put in all new landscaping,’ she said. ‘The resort may be a long way off its established old self but I’d like to make a good impression when we welcome back our first guests.’
‘We can pitch in and help you with that stuff,’ Lena said.
‘Harry and I can help with the landscaping,’ Brian said.
‘And your mother and I can contact all cancelled and future guests and see who might still be interested in a basic cheapy holiday,’ Gloria confirmed.
Lena nodded. ‘We’re here, we might as well put ourselves to good use, if you’ll have us. And then when the guests start to arrive we can push off again and let you kids get on with it.’
‘Of course we’ll have you,’ Claudia said reassuringly. ‘This is your place—you don’t need to ask permission to stay. There will always be rooms here for you.’
‘Good to know,’ Brian said gruffly. ‘But we’ve got at least a year left on our trip so don’t keep them blocked for us.’
‘You’ll come back for the opening of the spa, though?’ Claudia insisted.
Brian patted her hand. ‘Try keeping us away, love.’
Claudia smiled at Luke’s father—she’d always had a soft spot for him. ‘Thank you.’
‘So it could be a while before we get to check out spas,’ Avery said wistfully.
‘Not necessarily,’ Jonah said. ‘The best time to go will be before the paying customers come back. You and Claude might be able to squeeze something in.’
‘Cairns is the best place,’ Isis added.
Claudia doubted they’d have time to scratch but she nodded anyway. ‘We’ll see how we’re tracking.’
* * *
An hour later Luke had made a list of things he was going to need to set up a makeshift office in the Mai Tai. Jonah was taking the chopper into Cairns for business and had offered him a ride. He was coming down the stairs as Claudia was heading up, her clipboard clutched to her chest.
They slowed as they neared, her on the step below him. ‘I’m off to Cairns with Jonah for a quick trip. Anything you need?’ he asked, waving his list in front of her.
Claudia shook her head as she looked up at him. Way up. ‘Thanks. I’ve given him a list already.’
Luke nodded. ‘You off to assess the rooms?’ he asked
‘Yes. I’m tackling the suites. Isis is doing the first floor. Avery the second.’
‘And the ground-floor rooms?’
‘I’ll do them after I’ve done the suites.’
Claudia shifted her feet nervously. Her gaze was level with his chest, the T-shirt he was wearing gracing its lean musculature like a velvet glove. She remembered how hard that chest had felt behind her the other day. Then she remembered what had happened today.
It was hard to believe on this grand staircase in this voluminous foyer that she could suddenly feel claustrophobic.
She looked down at her clipboard, confused by the skip in her pulse. She dropped it slightly away from her body, relieved to have something else to look at even if it was just pages and pages of pristine maintenance reports awaiting her neat handwriting.
‘We’re just taking notes today,’ she said for something to say in case his head was where her head was at. ‘Don, he’s a local electrician, is coming in two days for the electrical checks. He’s crazy busy but we did him a good deal on his daughter’s wedding here a few years back so he’s squeezing us in.’
‘Yay for Don.’ Luke smiled. The clipboard movement had pulled down her blouse slightly revealing her usually well-covered décolletage. From his vantage point he could see some swell rising out of a soft-looking emerald-green fabric edged with black ribbon.
Was that satin?
It looked like satin, soft and shiny.
And then he was thinking about her brea**sts again. When, true to his word, he had been trying hard not to.
Crap.
Who knew Claudia favoured sexy lingerie beneath her awful uniform? He’d never look at her polyester blouse the same again.
