Eventually the night and the meal drew to a close and the crew retired to their bunks or to their shifts. Shirley stood as the man next to her did and smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Captain. That was lovely.’
He murmured in Greek and then kissed her hand in a sweeping gesture and told her, in English, that the ship’s cook had something suitable for breakfast or lunch at any time they cared to visit the mess room but that everyone dined together nightly.
‘Tomorrow night, then,’ she said smiling.
Hayden stood and gave Caryn his arm to help her to her feet. ‘Tomorrow night, then,’ he echoed brightly.
Maybe if she’d had less wine under her belt Caryn wouldn’t have let the stab of confusion actually show on the outside, but Shirley saw it as Hayden turned to shake the Captain’s hand. She allowed a momentary pang of sisterhood sympathy; Hayden had given Caryn his undivided attention for over two hours now suddenly it was ‘goodnight’? She shot her a smile she hoped would be equal parts sympathetic and confederate.
Shirley moved to the door and Hayden crossed to stand behind her, reaching over her shoulder to push it open.
‘Batten down the hatches,’ he murmured as it gusted open.
The wind had picked up in the time they’d been in the warmth of the Captain’s table, so her hair immediately exploded into a tangle around her face. Hayden moved to her other side to help shield her from the worst of it, but all she could do was move as fast as possible back along the deck and down to the floor below where the cabins were, her arms curled around the billowing mess.
She practically fell through the door into the accommodation corridor and he tumbled in behind her. They occupied the few metres to their doors by exclaiming relief at the sudden drop of the elements and then they stood, facing each other, at their respective thresholds.
‘I’m coming in,’ Hayden announced.
She studied the trace of anger at the corners of his lips. But there was no point fighting it and, truth be told, nine o’clock was rather early to be going to bed, even for her. She opened her door and stood back to give him access and prepared for an onslaught.
‘Please, speak to me of something of consequence,’ he declared, tumbling like a felled tree onto the second little bed in her room.
The door hung open. It saved her mouth from having to similarly gape. She gently clicked it shut and released the handle. ‘You’ve had nothing but conversation all night.’
‘No.’ He slid his hands behind his head to replace the pillow she’d stolen to stack on top of her own. ‘I’ve had nothing but yammer all night.’
‘She was talking of her home. Her family. Things that were important to her.’
‘How could you hear through all the Greek on your side of the table?’
Because she’d been motivated to eavesdrop. And because she’d always been a good lip-reader—a skill she’d perfected under the stairs. ‘It was a small table.’
‘Longest two hours of my life.’
‘That’s not fair. If you weren’t interested you could have changed the subject.’ By the moment, her loyalty was swinging back Caryn’s way. Poor woman. She spent all day in the company of a giraffe and he begrudged her a little verbal offload. ‘Or gone wild and contributed to the discussion a little.’
He snorted. ‘You think the conversation lacked momentum? She talked for two hours solid.’
‘It wasn’t a conversation. She was doing all the work and you just sat there being enigmatic and mysterious.’
‘I wasn’t striving for enigma. I was striving for polite.’
Oh, really? ‘Was it polite to skip out immediately the food was taken away?’
‘You were about to.’
‘I didn’t have an offer so clearly on the table.’ She balled her hands at her hips and glared down at him. Suddenly the flirtatious Caryn had taken on Everywoman status. And Hayden had assumed the wrongs of every man who had ever done womankind a bad turn.
He stared at her for heartbeats. She struggled to rein in the inexplicable heaving of her lungs.
‘I wish you could see yourself right now,’ he murmured, his eyes dark and keen.
Her hands immediately went to the disaster that was her hair and she hated that they’d acted of their own free will. It shouldn’t matter what she looked like. Kiss or no kiss.
‘Don’t,’ he warned. ‘You’ll ruin it.’
Her fingers paused a breath away from contact, trembled just slightly. ‘Ruin what?’
‘All that colour. All that chaos. It’s perfect.’
She dropped her hands. ‘You think windswept shambles is the right look for me?’
‘I think anything that brings life into your eyes is a good look. But that one particularly.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’
He grinned and wriggled in more comfortably. ‘If I told you that, Shirley, you’d throw me out. So how about a new subject?’
A clamp tightened around her organs way down deep inside. ‘What if my conversation also fails to meet the rigid standards of Hayden Tennant?’
‘Impossible. You could speak of the weather and I’d find it interesting.’
She stood firm. ‘Shall we test that theory?’
The grin graduated into a full smile. ‘No. Let’s talk about the list. About how we’re going to get ourselves up to Queenstown.’
The list. That was safer, yes.
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s an adventure. Let’s just see how we go.’
She should know. Flying by the seat of her pants was not how Shiloh usually rolled. She really needed to start getting her mind around what would happen beyond the four days with Hayden.
‘And so we get there, jump, and then come back to port and these cabins? Seems rather a shame. New Zealand’s very beautiful. And romantic.’
‘We’re not going for the romance. We’re going for the adrenalin rush of leaping off a bridge.’
‘This doesn’t strike me as something Carol would have been into. Needlessly scaring herself witless.’
She sat on her own bed and tucked her legs up next to her. ‘I don’t think it’s about the fear; I think it’s about the sensation. The free fall. She might as easily have picked skydiving.’
‘I don’t see her as a sensation-seeker, either. She was so …’
Shirley lifted a brow. ‘Serious?’
He shook his head. ‘Cerebral.’
‘So bright people trade their right to feel for intelligence? You, of all people, think that?’
He looked up. ‘Why “of all people”?’
‘Because you’re the ultimate sensation-seeker. Or you were.’ The photos online showed that.
‘Are you saying you think I’m bright?’
She’d thought so once. As brilliant as a polished gem. ‘Don’t fish for compliments, Hayden. It belittles you.’
‘I’d