Jessica Gilmore - Happily Ever After...

‘ This is your idea of a date?’ She rounded on him. ‘What’s wrong with a walk, a picnic, doves and flowers?’

‘Too obvious. Besides, I had the chance to try this place out and see if I want to hire it for a staff conference. I’m multitasking. I thought you’d approve,’ he said with a self-righteous air that made Clara want to smack him—or tip him into the mud that suddenly looked a lot more tempting.

‘This isn’t just a lousy date, it’s a cheap date?’

Raff leant in close, his breath sweet on her cheek. ‘It’s a fake date and you are on triple time. Enjoy it. Think about what a lovely story it makes.’

Clara gritted her teeth. ‘One for the grandkids?’

‘In our case one for my grandfather. Do you want to go first or shall I show you how it’s done?’

Eying the long trail of ropes, platforms, nets and pits, Clara felt her stomach drop. This was going to be incredibly undignified. But there was no way she was going to look weak in front of him. ‘I’ll go.’

She refused to look back as she walked to the start line, painfully aware that all the conversation had stopped and every khaki-clad man was staring at her, lips curled with amusement. They were waiting for her to fail. To give up.

They were in for a surprise. She hoped.

‘Come on,’ Clara told herself fiercely as she stood at the rope marking the beginning and stared out at what looked like miles of hell. The trail started with a long, shallow trough that Clara was supposed to run through. Correction, wade through. The trough was filled with the ubiquitous mud and led to a cargo net that she was sure was higher than her house.

That was just the start.

Weekly Pilates might be good for her stress levels but it hadn’t prepared her for this.

‘On the count of three,’ Spiral roared. ‘One, two, three!’

Clara hesitated for less than a second and then, with a muttered curse, pushed herself forward, managing not to yell as she sank calf deep into the cold, gloopy mud.

‘Faster,’ Spiral yelled. ‘Are you a man or a mouse?’

Answering him would have used up more oxygen than he was worth. Clara set her mouth mutinously and forged on. Too slow and she would prove the smirking men right, too fast and she knew she’d pitch face first into the mud. She set herself a steady trot, trying to ignore the cold, clamminess on her lower legs and the sucking noise as she pulled her leg out of the mud and put one hand onto the rope net, ready to pull herself up the impossible height.

Her eyes were focused on each obstacle; there was no room in her mind for anything but the task. Spiral’s encouraging shouts, the cheers of the other staff were just background noise. Clara was aware of nothing but the hammering of her heart, the pounding of the blood in her ears, the burn in her thighs and her arms as she pulled, swung, jumped, waded and crawled. She had no idea how long she had been there. Minutes? Hours?

Heck, it could have been days.

‘Come on, Clara.’ How on earth had Raff caught up with her? He was breathing hard, his hair damp with exertion, the dark blue eyes alight with life. She should be mad with him; she was absolutely filthy, totally exhausted, every muscle hurt and people kept yelling at her. And yet...

Adrenaline was pumping through her so fast she was almost weightless; the whole world had contracted to this place, this task. She was alive. Really, truly alive.

She reached out for the rope swing, and missed. Immediately Raff was there, one arm steadying her as she leant further forward off the narrow wooden platform, reaching out into thin air.

‘Got it!’ Giddy with triumph, she grabbed the rope and pulled it back towards her. Putting both hands firmly on it, she wrapped one leg around it and tried to jump on it, slithering back down to the platform as she missed. ‘Darn it!’

‘Here, let me.’

Clara wanted to tell him no, that she had this, but he was too quick, steadying the rope and, as she jumped again, giving her a quick push up. A jolt of electricity ran through her as his hand pressed against her back but before she could react he had pushed and she was off, swinging through the air.

Her limbs were trembling with the exertion as she reached the last obstacle, the crawl net. To conquer it successfully she had to lie down, fully face down, in the mud and wiggle her way under ten metres of tight net.

She took a deep breath, the oxygen a welcome tonic to her tired, gasping lungs, and flung herself down into the oozing depths, pushing herself under the net and wiggling through the endless claustrophobic dark, wet mud until she reached the final rope. Once her head was through she gulped in welcome, blessed, clean air before painfully pulling the rest of her out. She lay there collapsed in the mud for five seconds, too exhausted to try and get to her feet.

The mud didn’t seem so bad any more. She couldn’t tell where it ended and she began. She had turned into some kind of swamp monster.

‘That was a very good try.’ Spiral’s loud tones intruded on the muddy peace and Clara forced herself to pull onto her knees. ‘Well done, Clara.’

A glow of pride warmed her. ‘Thanks,’ she said, drawing her hand across her face, realising too late that rather than wipe the mud off she was adding to it. Spiral held out one meaty hand and effortlessly pulled her to her feet, wrapping a blanket—khaki, of course, she noted—around her shoulders and, grabbing a mug from a plastic picnic table, pressed it into her hands.

Tea. Milky, sugary, the opposite of how she usually liked it. It was utterly delicious.

‘You survived.’ Raff had eschewed his blanket but was cradling his tea just as eagerly as she was. ‘What did you think?’

‘That was...’ filthy, hard, undignified, unexpected ‘...exhilarating.’

He broke into an open grin. ‘Wasn’t it? Do you think my staff will enjoy it? I thought that it could be the performance award this year. Followed by dinner, of course!’

‘That sounds good.’ As the adrenaline wore off Clara was increasingly aware of how cold she was; she suppressed a shiver. ‘I hope you’re going to let them get changed before dinner.’

‘I’m kind like that.’ He eyed her critically. ‘Talking of which, you look freezing. The showers are back in the changing room. Go, warm up, get changed and then I owe you lunch, anything you want.’

Hot water, clean clothes, food. They all sounded impossibly, improbably good. ‘You do owe me,’ she agreed, putting the mug back onto the table before taking a few steps towards the low stone building where nirvana waited. She paused, impelled by a sudden need to say something, something unexpected.

‘Raff,’ she said. ‘I had fun. Thank you.’

* * *

It was the last thing he had expected her to say. Standing there completely covered in mud, the baggy trousers plastered to her legs, the filthy T-shirt clinging to every curve. Raff had expected sulking or yelling, even downright refusal. He didn’t expect her to thank him.

He’d known the challenge would shake her up, had secretly enjoyed the thought of seeing prim and judgemental Clara Castleton pushed so far out of her comfort zone—turned out the joke was on him.

‘I’m glad,’ he said, aware of how inadequate his response was. ‘I thought you’d enjoy it.’

Clara smiled. A proper, full-on beam that lightened her eyes to a perfect sea green, emphasised the curve of her cheeks, the fullness of her mouth. She was dirty, bedraggled and utterly mesmerising. The breath left his body with an audible whoosh.

‘Liar,’ she said. ‘You thought I’d hate it. And you were this close...’ she held up her hand, her forefinger and thumb just a centimetre apart ‘...this close to being right.’