Rachel Brimble - A Man Like Him

“What’s a woman like you doing hiding away in a holiday park?”

Her smile faltered. “A woman like me?”

He raised his hands in surrender. “It’s not a pickup line. I was just wondering. You should be out there enjoying yourself.”

“I should, huh? What do you suggest I should be doing exactly?”

He grinned and took another sip of whiskey. “You should be an air hostess. Traveling the world, wearing one of those sexy fitted suits that show off more than a name tag and serving me a drink on a silver platter.”

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “My God, you’re not a guy ready for the twenty-first century, are you?”

Chris laughed. “Nothing wrong with fancying a bit of the old days.”

“Of course not...as long as you don’t lose a handle on reality.” She smiled. “Please tell me you don’t think girls get together and have pillow fights in their underwear, then, after a couple of drinks, can’t resist making out?”

He forced his smile into submission and covered his ears. “Don’t say it. Don’t spoil the dream.”

She shook her head. “You need help.” She turned and approached the bartender.

Chris dropped his hands and curled them around his glass.

In a different world where his heart hadn’t taken a bashing and his ego wasn’t entirely flattened, he would have asked her out. Or maybe at least asked her name. As it was, neither would be happening anytime soon.

Dragging his gaze to her butt, Chris smiled. Goddamn. Her pencil skirt clung to her perfect ass like a second skin. He drained his drink and glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of the clubhouse. The rain still came down in torrents as it had all day. It ran in rivulets down the glass, blurring the sway of the pine trees surrounding the huge swimming pool in the distance.

Before he’d arrived, “sunny” Templeton Cove had been sweltering and then this rain came from nowhere. A freak storm that hadn’t let up since ten that morning.

“I’d head back to your trailer if I were you.” Her voice turned his head.

“No, thanks. Nothing about heading back alone to a mobile home appeals to me right now.”

She looked to the window. “It’s supposed to get worse. I’d make a run for it.” She stared past his shoulder. “I’m just about to tell everyone the club is closing for the night. I don’t want to have to worry about my guests getting back to their accommodations safely.”

“You’re the girl in charge, then?”

She met his eyes, a flicker of pride making them more striking than ever. “I’m the manager.”

Of course, he already knew that. Asked a few questions of the bartender the minute she walked in. “Been here long?”

Her gaze lingered on his and two spots of color darkened her cheeks. She looked at her clipboard. “Long enough.”

Chris stared at her bowed head. The temptation to ask what he’d said wrong hovered in his whiskey-slick conscience. No. He didn’t need to know. None of his damn business. He’d only just met the woman. She didn’t need him nosing into her private life.

She lifted her head and her smile was back in place. “So, are you heading back? I don’t want anyone stranded in here.”

Chris gestured toward the rest of the room. “Worry about them, not me. I can handle myself in water.”

She met his gaze. “You can, huh?”

“Swimming instructor.”

“Ah, now it makes sense.”

He frowned. “What does?”

“I saw you swimming length after length yesterday. Thought you were going to break the world record...or you were trying to outswim something.”

Their gazes locked. Chris’s stomach knotted. Far too much sympathy shone back at him. Or was it empathy? He stared past her.

“I like to swim. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Right.”

He opened his mouth to respond but she was already walking away. He shifted uncomfortably. Was it tattooed on his head he was running away? Did she guess he was that guy? The guy who ran when things got tough. He clenched his jaw. She was the manager of a holiday park. It was her job to talk to everyone and anyone. Even the waste of space drinking at the bar. She was a nice woman. A sexy woman.

When her gaze was turned on him, nothing but goodness shone from her. Her personality screamed kindness and consideration. Chris frowned as the phrase “too good to be true” filtered through his mind.

He turned on the stool. She worked the room, talking to one guest after another. Her hand at their elbow, she subtly eased people to their feet. Men hurriedly finished their pints and mothers ushered their children from the dance floor and fought them into jackets. All of them smiled. No trouble. No arguments. Her looks and her body weren’t to be dismissed, but Chris guessed it was the soft concern in her gaze that got the guests to their feet.

Chris stood and shrugged into his jacket. He grinned as she moved to yet another young family. Definitely another time, another place. Right now, he needed to leave. His loneliness was heavier than ever and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by saying the words that battled on his tongue to her. Words like “come back with me” and “spend the night.”

Shaking his head, he walked to the double glass doors and stepped outside. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and ducked his head. The rain came down like God was trying to wash away His sorrows.

* * *

ANGELA TAYLOR LOCKED the door behind the final family and looked around the empty clubhouse. She’d sent the bartender home, too, safe in the knowledge she only had herself to worry about. People would undoubtedly be wet, but they’d be safe and warm in their beds by now. Her task for the night was done.

She walked to the bar. The guy with the dark sandy hair and gorgeously intense hazel eyes had gone, his empty glass left on its coaster. She picked it up. It was strange how his smile knotted her stomach. She’d forgotten how the first whispers of attraction felt. Not that it mattered. It didn’t change anything. Didn’t mean she could get to know him and risk everything unraveling from its tight and safe knot of survival. Angela swallowed. She needed to keep the knot intact, otherwise everything would come undone. Robert would find her. If he found her, he’d killed her.

Nausea rose bitter in her throat and Angela’s vision blurred. She marched behind the bar. Her hands shook as she loaded the glass into the dishwasher. She took a cloth hanging by the sink and wiped down the bar, tidied the lemons and limes in their glass container and swept the narrow tiled space. When she had nothing else to keep her there, she took the keys from her blazer pocket and headed for the door.

The rain was an opaque sheet in front of her, gray and relentless. Angela stared. It was so heavy and thick, she couldn’t see three feet ahead. She lifted her blazer above her head like a makeshift umbrella, took a deep breath and made a run for it. When she reached the reception building, she pushed open the door. Two members of the staff were on duty to oversee the check-in desk until morning. Inexplicable tension skittered along Angela’s nerves as she turned to stare again at the rain.

She shivered and cussed the fat drop of rain that slithered down her neck as she lowered her blazer.

“Hi, Angela.” Yvonne smiled from behind the desk. “I heard you emptied the clubhouse. I bet that didn’t go down well.”

Angela lifted her hand dismissively. “They were fine. I told people there was a chance the storm could get worse and they moved along soon enough.”

“Worse?” Yvonne glanced toward the windows. “I don’t see how it can.”

Angela followed her gaze. “I’m sure it will slow down. I just needed to know everyone was home safe and not wandering around the park.” She walked past the desk and toward the office behind it. “I’d better print off the guest list, just in case. I won’t be long and then I’m heading home.” She hesitated. “Will you be okay here tonight?”