CHAPTER ONE

      SIDONIE HILL was not given to indulging in tears but that was exactly what she felt like doing as she dropped her bag to the ground and sat down wearily on a bench outside an Airlie Beach store.

      Among her minor woes was the fact that she was overdressed and perspiring liberally, her major one the fact that she had just been presented with her fare home but had no home to go to, no job and no visible means of support. Not that she was entirely destitute but the disappointment of the whole situation was crushing as well as the fact that she couldn’t afford to stay out of work for too long.

      How do I get myself into these situations? she asked herself bitterly, and blinked vigorously. She was not helped in her predicament by the small inner voice that told her she was, always had been and possibly always would be, a rather impractical kind of person, nor had this been helped along by the fact that she’d been born to a brilliant but highly impractical father to whom nothing but nuclear physics had had much importance. To make matters worse, she’d lost her mother at an early age and had been reared in the rarefied atmosphere of university academic life.

      And that’s why, she thought gloomily, I’m over-qualified for this teaching job on an outback station—or was it just another way of saying they didn’t like the look and the sound of me? Quite likely, she mused with a grimace, but, be that as it may, my quest for adventure has passed me by; I’ve burnt my boats back in Melbourne—well, to be honest I’d just hate to go back, so what do I do?

      She looked around. Airlie Beach in North Queensland was possessed of that blinding kind of sunlight one associated with the tropics and thought longingly of with not the slightest understanding of how powerful and hot it was, she realised. It was also a stepping-off point from the mainland for the Whitsunday Passage and essentially a holiday town where people wore little and seemed to be a very casual, free and easy lot.

      Her eyes fell on just such a group, a man and two girls standing on the pavement a few feet away. The man, who, one had to admit, was tall and beautifully proportioned, nevertheless wore ragged shorts, no shirt to obstruct one’s view of his broad shoulders and sleek torso, or shoes, and his hair was longish and he had a red bandanna around it. The two girls had on bikinis beneath see-through shirts, and thongs, and were carrying small colourful holdalls; it appeared as if they were parting company, the girls from the man, because they were saying goodbye with a lot of hilarity and thanking him for a wonderful time. As a final gesture he embraced them in turn then waved them off and turned to go into the store.

      It’s no wonder people find the look of me strange, Sidonie reflected; I must stand out like a sore thumb. And she mused along these painful lines for a few minutes then jumped as a voice beside her said, ‘Excuse me.’

      It was the shirtless man who had just gone into the store and he was regarding her quizzically from a pair of very blue eyes set in a tanned, rather hawk-like face beneath his longish brown hair.

      ‘Are you talking to me?’ Sidonie enquired haughtily before she could stop herself.

      ‘Sure am! I believe you’re looking for a job?’

      ‘I—well, yes, but what’s it to you?’ Sidonie gazed up at him with more than a little affront expressed in her grey eyes.

      He laughed at her and his teeth were quite white and dazzling, she noted at the same time as she bristled further and stood up—causing her interrogator to frame his lips to a soundless whistle. ‘Well, strike me pink,’ he drawled.

      ‘And what does that mean?’ Sidonie asked through her teeth although she had to tilt her chin up because he was nearly a head taller, probably at least six feet to her five feet four, she guessed.

      ‘I don’t know,’ he said pensively, those blue eyes roaming up and down her slender figure, so stiflingly dressed in a wilting heavy white cotton shirt with a tight-buttoned neckline and long sleeves, a hound’s-tooth check skirt, stockings and flat black shoes. Then his eyes came back to her face, registered the total lack of make-up and he murmured, ‘Just that you look hot and bothered, I guess; you have to have the palest skin in the place—which could be a problem but not insurmountable—and I don’t think I’ve seen such lovely fair hair for a while...’ He paused and grimaced. ‘I haven’t seen such a prim bun for years either so I think it was the combination of one uptight, out-of-place lady that caused me to express some amazement.’

      Sidonie’s very pale skin burned in a comprehensive blush and, because she was inclined to be hot-headed as well as impractical, she said tartly, ‘If you think the impressions of a person such as yourself, whom one could be forgiven for confusing with a tramp—’ she allowed her gaze to roam up and down him as he had done to her ‘—mean anything to me at all, you’re much mistaken.’

      ‘Wow!’ he said softly. ‘A very uptight lady. Is it because you’re out of work?’ he queried kindly.

      Sidonie put her hands on her hips. ‘How do you know I’m out of work anyway?’

      He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘You were telling Mrs Watson in the store.’

      ‘Oh.’ It was true. She’d noticed a bulletin board in the store upon which were tacked a variety of notices such as items for sale as well as two positions vacant ones, one for a cook in a motel, one for an experienced Bobcat operator. Since she was quite sure she’d be a disaster as a cook and the wrong sex for a Bobcat operator, she’d enquired of the lady behind the counter if she knew of any other jobs available and had received the lowering information that the recession was biting so deeply that the usual flow of casual jobs such as barmaids, house maids, et cetera had quite dried up. ‘Well,’ she said loftily, his summing-up of her still rankling deeply, ‘I have to say the mind boggles at the thought of what kind of job you might be about to offer me but I suppose I could hear you out.’

      He grinned and appeared to be not one whit perturbed. ‘I’m looking for crew.’

      ‘Crew?’ She frowned.

      ‘For a boat,’ he said patiently. ‘A fifty-two-foot yacht I’m—breaking in for a friend. It’s rather a handful on its own, you see, and my last crew have just left.’

      ‘Those girls?’

      ‘Uh-huh. Do you know anything about boats and sailing?’

      ‘As a matter of fact I do,’ she said slowly, then blinked confusedly and wondered if