Birthday Bride

Claudia didn’t like feeling out of control, and she was uncomfortably aware that, arrogant and unpleasant as David might be, his cool, contained presence was immeasurably reassuring.

The long minutes ticked slowly by. Claudia sat and looked at a poster advertising what she guessed to be some kind of soft drink that had faded in the harsh light to a pale, washed-out blue. Flies zoomed through the oppressive heat and buzzed frantically near her ears until she waved them away in disgust, and she could feel the plastic, sticky and uncomfortable through her thin trousers.

As her impatience grew, she shifted irritably in the chair and glanced at her watch for the umpteenth time. They had been sitting there for nearly an hour. ‘What’s happening?’ she burst out at last.

David, who had just been thinking that a severe fright considerably improved her, sighed. He might have known that she wouldn’t be able to sit still and silent much longer. ‘The pilot and a couple of local ground crew are looking at the engine. We’re waiting for him to come back and tell us what’s going to happen—’ He broke off as a stir of expectation marked the entrance of the harassed-looking pilot. ‘Ah, here he is now.’

Claudia jumped to her feet. ‘Let’s go and see what’s going on!’

‘I’ll go and talk to him,’ said David firmly. ‘You wait here.’

She opened her mouth to object, but something in his face made her close it again, and subside back onto her seat.

She watched David as he walked over to the pilot. He was tall and lean, and he moved easily, with a sort of balanced, economical grace that made her think queerly of a cat, or an athlete focusing on the race ahead. The other men seemed to recognise the authority of his presence, for they parted instinctively to let him through.

Claudia could only see his back as he stood talking to the pilot, but judging by the other man’s frustrated gestures and the reactions of those listening the news was not good, and David’s expression was grim when he turned at last and made his way back to her.

‘The plane’s being taken out of service,’ he said as he came up. ‘They’re going to divert the next flight to pick us up.’

‘Oh, well, that’s something, I suppose,’ said Claudia, who had been expecting much worse. ‘When’s it arriving?’

‘Not for another two days.’

‘Two days?’ She stared at him in gathering wrath as his words sank in. ‘Two days?’

David shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed with frustration. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, anyway,’ he said.

‘But...but they can’t expect us to spend two days in this dump!’

‘There’s some kind of hotel in the town, apparently, probably left over from the boom days, so it’s likely to be a bit run-down.’

‘I don’t care if they’ve got the Ritz,’ snapped Claudia. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m not staying here! Why can’t they send another plane now?’

‘Shofrar isn’t geared up for tourism. This is just a small internal airline, and all their other planes have got scheduled flights of their own.’

‘Great!’ Claudia leapt to her feet and began pacing up and down with her arms folded. ‘There must be something we can do! What about a bus?’

‘I think it’s highly unlikely that there would be much of a service between here and Telama’an. We’ve had to divert way off course to land here.’

‘All right, a taxi, then?’

‘This isn’t Piccadilly, Claudia. You can’t just flag down a taxi and ask it to drive you off into the desert. There aren’t even any metal roads around here.’

‘What, then?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘How can you just stand there and do nothing?’

David looked down his nose. He much preferred her when she was scared. ‘I can’t see that working myself up into a frenzy, as you seem to do at the slightest provocation, would magically produce a plane,’ he said repressively.

‘You mean you’re not going to do anything?’ said Claudia in disgust. ‘What about your meeting? I thought you wanted to get to Telaa’an as much as I do!’

‘I’ve got every intention of getting there as soon as possible,’ he said with a cool look. ‘If you were prepared to shut up and just listen for a change, you would have heard me say that I was going to try and get hold of a vehicle. I doubt very much if there will be anything suitable to hire, but it might be possible to buy something.’

‘Buy a car?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘But—’

‘But what?’

‘Well...’ She hesitated. ‘You can’t just set out across the desert in a car, can you?’

‘You can if you know what you’re doing,’ said David. ‘And fortunately I do. I’ve spent some time in Shofrar, and I’m quite capable of getting myself to Telama’an.’

Had there been a stress on that ‘myself? Claudia fiddled with her ring and wished she hadn’t been quite so forthright in her opinion of him earlier on. ‘Um...I haven’t got very much money with me,’ she said awkwardly. ‘But if you would give me a lift I’m sure Patrick would give you half the cost, and then I’d be able to pay him back when I got to London. I’d be very grateful.’

She looked at him pleadingly. ‘Please,’ she added.

She really did have extraordinary eyes, David found himself thinking. They were somewhere between blue and grey, a deep, soft, smoky colour, like twilight over the hills, the kind of eyes a man could lose himself in, the kind of eyes that could make him forget to breathe.

He dragged his gaze away. Claudia was everything he disliked in a girl. She was silly and superficial. She had irritated and exasperated and deliberately provoked him, and he knew perfectly well that he would be ready to murder her long before they reached Telama’an. Just because she had beautiful eyes that played odd tricks with his breathing, it was no reason to take her with him. If he had any sense, he would just say no.

‘Oh, all right,’ he said irritably. ‘But no complaining! It’ll be a hard trip and if I have to listen to any moaning you can get out and walk!’

‘Thank you!’ Claudia’s face lit up with a smile that stopped the breath in David’s throat. He hadn’t seen her smile before and he was taken aback to discover how it illuminated her face and deepened the blue in her eyes. ‘You won’t regret it,’ she promised. ‘I won’t say a word,’ she offered generously. ‘I’ll do whatever you say.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it!’ David thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and scowled at the poster on the wall, infuriated by his own reaction. Damn it, the last thing he needed right now was to start noticing how much younger and warmer and lovelier she looked when she smiled. The meeting in Telama’an was vital to the future of the firm and it was that he should be concentrating on, not pretty eyes or unexpected smiles!

‘I’ll go and see what I can find out,’ he added in a brusque voice. ‘Stay there.’

‘All right.’ Claudia was too relieved at his agreement to object to his tone. For a nasty moment there she had thought he was going to refuse, and she couldn’t really have blamed him. They hadn’t exactly got off on the right foot. She was determined to be nice to him from now on, though.

She waited obediently until David returned, but as soon as she saw his face she knew that he hadn’t had any success. ‘I’ve had a word with a few people,’ he said. ‘It might be possible to fix something up, but I can’t do anything until we get into town. Apparently they’re trying to arrange some kind of bus, so in the meantime we’re just going to have to wait.’

‘I seem to have spent this entire trip waiting,’ sighed Claudia, and he glared at her, still resentful of the effect her smile had had on him.

‘I thought you weren’t going to complain!’

‘That wasn’t a complaint, it was a comment,’ she muttered, but lapsed into a sullen silence rather than get into an argument with him. She had promised to be nice, and she wouldn’t put it past him to leave her behind after all!

Sighing, she crossed her legs in an effort to get comfortable, then uncrossed them when it didn’t work. A few moments later, she tried crossing them the other way.

‘For God’s sake, stop fidgeting!’ hissed David.

Claudia opened her mouth to tell him she was bored and uncomfortable, but thought better of it. ‘I’ve got cramp in my leg,’ she said placatingly. ‘I’ll just walk around a bit.’

She wandered over to the window and stood for a while watching the luggage being unloaded off the plane onto a decrepit trolley. As she watched, she saw Amil, the man who had been sitting across the aisle from her, walk purposefully over and pick out a bag. He looked like a man who knew where he was going, and Claudia waved at him as he came back through the terminal.

‘Aren’t you waiting for the bus?’

‘I am fortunate in having family contacts here,’ he explained. ‘I need to be in Telama’an by tomorrow, so one of my relatives has brought me out a car. If I set out now, I think I will be able to make it in time.’

‘Oh, you are lucky!’ sighed Claudia enviously. ‘It looks as if we’re going to be here for ages yet.’