Just This Once Read Online Free PDF Page B

waddling back
home.”
    “No danger of that, I’d say.” He smiled at her
appreciatively.
    He had excellent table manners, she was glad to see. She
still remembered the date she’d been on where the man had held his fork in his
fist. How could you not learn how to hold a fork? she had wondered at the time.
Drew wasn’t hard to watch anyway. Maybe she would even have forgiven him the
fork thing.
    “Well,” she told him at last, “I’d better get back, and let
you get on with your fishing or whatever.”
    He didn’t rise immediately. “You’ll need to rest today. When
you have that much adrenaline in your body, it hits you like a hammer after a
bit. But would you like to come out on the water with me tomorrow? I reckon I’m
your lifesaver now. Need to keep an eye on you in case you get swimming out
into any more rips.”
    “I’d love that,” she answered in surprise.
    “I’ll pick you up at nine, then. And this time, I hope
you’ll ride in the ute with me. It’s going to be a slow trip to the marina if
you have to run alongside.”
    She laughed. “I think I can risk it. You don’t seem too bad,
so far.”
    “My mum will be glad to hear it. She hates it when I attack
women.”
    “You don’t have a mobile, do you?” he asked once they had
arrived back at the motel again. “A phone,” he explained at her questioning
look.
    “Oh! No. You could reach me through the motel office,
though, I suppose, if your plans change. Or if you decide I’m too big a risk.”
    “No chance of that. But good to know. I’ll see you tomorrow,
then. Go have a rest now.” He reached for her, kissed her gently on the cheek,
then strolled easily back to his truck.
    She opened her door, but couldn’t resist turning and
watching him walk away. It was a pleasure. He didn’t swagger, exactly. But he
walked like he owned the ground he was covering. Arms wide and swinging, body
relaxed and upright, big strides. She sighed. He looked good.
    Inside her room again, she sat on the edge of the bed and
pressed her hands to her cheeks. She had never met a man who affected her this
way. Not even close. What was it? He was nothing like the men she usually
dated. They had muscles too, some of those men. But they were gym-built
muscles. Drew looked like his muscles were there for a purpose.
    For bringing other men to the ground, she reminded herself.
She might not know much about rugby, but she knew it was brutal. He hadn’t
seemed brutal, though. He’d been kind, and considerate, and not much louder or any
more . . . boisterous than she was herself. Weren’t rugby players supposed to
be hard-drinking types, breaking up the bar every night?  
    She shook her head. She was too tired to think about it
anymore. In fact, she suddenly felt too tired even to sit up. She’d lie down
for a minute and take a rest. She was on vacation, after all.
     
    When she woke, it took her a moment to remember where she
was, before the events of the morning came flooding back. To her astonishment,
it was three o’clock, and she’d been asleep for four hours. She thought about
her plan for the day, her hike, and realized she had to write it off the list for
now. She’d lie on the beach and read a book instead.
    She looked up an hour later from her shady spot under the
trees, envying the bronzed girls lying out in the sun. They looked lovely, their
bikinis showing acres of tanned, firm skin. But a tan wasn’t healthy, she
reminded herself firmly. Anyway, she was fair-skinned, and that was all there
was to it.
    Would Drew be expecting one of those carefree girls? She
wished suddenly that she could be a bit more like Kristen. Her vivacious sister
was perfectly equipped to handle a day on a boat with a sexy rugby player.
Whereas Hannah . . . well, she’d never been a party girl.
    But he had asked her, she told herself. Because he liked her.
And she had said yes, because she liked him. Maybe she wasn’t his usual type.
Well, he wasn’t her usual type