‘Sounds terrific.’
It was. The setting was perfect. The sky to the west was a riot of red and orange, gilding the surface of the billabong while purple shadows crept across it from the trees at its edge. The food was delicious and the wine mellow. And, to Alice’s surprise and delight, Liam opened up. She wondered why she’d ever worried that they might not find things to talk about.
They talked easily. They talked about Liam’s vision for the company, about the places they’d travelled to and their favourite animals, music, food. They delved more deeply into things they had in common, too, like a fondness for the outback. They discovered that they shared an impatience with having to line up in queues, and, of course, there was their shared birthday.
When Alice raised that topic she fancied she saw a flash of pain in Liam’s eyes and she tried to remember if it was the same emotion she’d glimpsed briefly at the Hippo Bar when they’d first discovered that their birthdays were on the same day.
But like that other time the fleeting sadness came and went so quickly she might have been imagining things, especially when Liam seemed as keen to talk about their birthday as she was.
‘It blows me away,’ she said. ‘Just think. When we were kids, whenever I woke up, all excited on my birthday morning, you were waking up, too. You were looking forward to your presents the same as I was.’ She shook her head, smiling. ‘Back then I was always so proud of being another year older, but I’m afraid that’s going to change from now on.’
‘Now you’ve turned oops,’ he said, remembering.
‘Yes.’ They shared a smile. ‘So, tell me…’ she said. ‘Which was your happiest birthday?’
His eyes held hers. ‘This year’s would take some beating.’
‘Apart from that.’
Hooking an elbow over the back of his chair, he looked out at the thin slice of red-gold sun that glowed like the embers of a fire above the dark hills on the horizon. ‘I’d have to say my eighteenth was the best. I was on holiday at Kirra on the Gold Coast.’
‘Your eighteenth,’ said Alice. ‘I would have been twelve.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Hey! That’s amazing. I was at Kirra then, too. My family went down to the Gold Coast for the September holidays and we rented a beach house at Kirra.’
They stared at each other for a long moment, smiling as they thought about the possibilities.
‘We might have both been on the beach at the same time,’ she said. ‘We might have seen each other.’
She was totally caught up with the romance of it. She could picture Liam on the beach—a tall, dark, bronzed and handsome surfer boy. If he’d seen her then, would he have fallen for her?
Get real. She was twelve. She sighed. ‘You wouldn’t have noticed me, of course.’
‘I’m sure I would have. I bet you were an exceptionally cute twelve-year-old.’
She shook her head. ‘You would have been too busy chasing after the older girls in their bikinis.’
‘I’m noticing you now.’ His blue eyes gently teased her.
Oh, man. Her intense response to the way Liam looked at her knocked the questions she still wanted to ask clear out of her head. Minutes earlier she’d been wondering how the son of a struggling orchard farmer had become the owner of a huge multimilliondollar business, and why, at the age of thirty-six, such a charming, attractive man was still unmarried. And suddenly none of that mattered.
What mattered was the way Liam was looking at her. Todd had never, ever looked at her with that hungry heat, had never made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world.
And Liam’s touch really mattered. Just thinking about the magic of his hands on her body made her skin flame and tingle all over. Liam turned her into a love goddess with his very first caress. Right now, all that mattered was that tonight, all night, she would be sharing his bed.
The sound of Bob King calling to his dogs woke Liam next morning. This was followed by unnecessarily loud banging sounds and then stomping footsteps approaching the cabins.
‘I think our host wants to let us know we have company,’ Liam told Alice as he swung out of bed.
He was dressed and at the door by the time Bob knocked.
Bob grinned at him. ‘I came down to warn you that a pack of journalists are on their way to interview the big hero.’
Liam groaned. ‘They’re not trying to make out I’m a hero, are they?’
‘Of course they are, mate. A charter plane and a helicopter left Cairns five minutes ago, so there must be a mob of them coming. Looks like you’re going to be splashed all over the papers and the telly.’ Bob rubbed his hands as if he couldn’t believe his luck that he was hosting a celebrity.
Liam let out his breath on a noisy sigh. He’d been planning for him and Alice to continue their tour of the outback today but it sounded as if they were going to be delayed. ‘All I did was follow a few instructions over the radio.’
‘You can tell them that, but I reckon they’ll still want to make something special out of you.’ Bob chuckled. ‘Crikey, mate, it’s the truth. You are a hero. It’s not every day that someone lands a plane without even a few basic lessons.’
When Liam came back into the cabin he wagged a finger at Alice. ‘This is your fault,’ he said. ‘Whenever I’m with you I become a media magnet. First the Cairns Post, now national coverage.’
‘Oh, no, you’ve caught me out.’ Alice pouted in mock-dismay. ‘I’ll come quietly, officer. Yes, I poisoned poor Joe the pilot’s food simply so Liam Conway could pull a hero stunt and wind up on the seven o’clock news.’
Liam grinned and then ploughed a hand through his hair as he considered his options. ‘I suppose I could always turn this to the company’s advantage.’
‘Why not?’ Alice nodded as she considered this. ‘You may as well get some free publicity.’
‘During the interviews I could mention the company name whenever possible and I can talk about our plans to revive Kanga Tours’ services in this region.’
‘Why don’t you get them to do the interviews down here by the billabong? That setting would make a great backdrop.’
‘Good idea.’ He crossed the room to look again at the view and the wide expanse of bright morning sky. The lake wore the pink water lilies like a decorative shawl and the encircling trees with their tapering blue-green leaves and characteristic peeling papery bark were stunning.
It was a classic Australian bush setting. The kind of scene that tugged at the heartstrings of city-bound Australians, reminding them of their nostalgia for the outback, luring them away from their theatres and coffee shops to reconnect with this unique, almost primal landscape. The perfect tourism poster backdrop.
‘You’ll have to be prepared for the journalists to beat up the dangers of flying in small aeroplanes,’ Alice reminded him.
Liam turned back from the window. She was sitting in the middle of the bed and she looked adorably, sensationally sexy with her dark curls tumbling about her shoulders while wearing nothing but a sheet. For a crazy moment, he wondered if there was time for him to climb back in there with her before the journalists arrived.
Get your brain into gear. Concentrate on the business at hand.
‘I’ll try to steer the talk away from the emergency and on to why we were flying in this amazing part of the country,’ he said.
‘But you won’t be able