Mango Kisses
Authors: Elisabeth Rose
Mango Kisses
Elisabeth Rose
Mango Kisses
Elisabeth Rose
A sweet, summery, beach-side romance from the author of
E for England
and
The Ripple Effect.
Sent to assess a deceased estate in a small coastal town, ambitious city girl Tiffany Holland is initially annoyed by the out-of-the-way assignment. But she soon discovers sleepy Birrigai hides a wealth of surprises: a cross-dressing motel manager, a Kissing College
and
her client Miles Frobisher, the laid back, surf-shop owning, real life sex fantasy.
Tiffany’s ambition is to become a junior partner in her financial firm, but small town life and the proximity of Miles gradually seduce her. But a shocking discovery in the estate papers leads to a dramatic change in Miles’s circumstances. Emotionally inept, Tiffany is unable to help Miles through the transition, and drives him away. With misunderstandings and secrets creating frost between them, it seems that their summer romance is destined to go cold. Can they overcome their differences and learn to accept their feelings?
Multi-published romance author, Elisabeth Rose lives in Australia’s capital, Canberra. She completed a performance degree in clarinet, travelled Europe with her musician husband, and returned to Canberra to raise their two children. In 1987, she began practising tai chi which she now teaches. She also plays and teaches clarinet. Reading has been a lifelong love, writing romance a more recent delight.
Mango Kisses
is her third book for Escape.
The Ripple Effect
and
E for England
are also available.
I heard about a kissing school in the US several years ago when the owner was interviewed on local radio. The concept begged to be used in a book. My accountant helped with some of the inheritance issues.
To Colin, Carla, Nick and Paige
Contents
Miles floated on his back with his eyes closed. Waves lapped gently at his cheeks as the limitless power of the ocean swell rose and fell beneath his splayed limbs and torso. Calm this morning, too flat for surfing, perfect for floating and daydreaming. The outside world almost ceased to exist, the heat from the rising sun warmed his face, a salt tang on his lips, the soft slap of water against his body.
The longer he stayed out here the less he’d have to think about other things such as money; business; accountants; tedious paperwork and forms, calculations and numbers marching relentlessly across acres of pages. Topics that intruded regardless of his determination to ignore them, that were tiresome, meaningless and frustratingly boring. Things that led his thoughts unerringly back to that other topic, raw and painful, the inheritance and worse still, the reason for it.
Miles jack-knifed, flipped over on his stomach and began a steady crawl towards the horizon, head down, legs and arms working in a strong rhythm churning the angry bitterness
into a foamy, white wake.
He slowed and turned, treading water as he scanned the distant beach. Still too early for most people. The swell lifted him momentarily and he glimpsed a small figure running at the far end near the rocks. It turned and headed back along the sand — too far away to see who, maybe a camper from the nearby ground. Not a local; he knew the regular beach-goers.
Miles sank his head in the salty blue and headed home, ingoing waves boosting his progress. He bodysurfed the last stretch until his feet touched sand then straightened in a rush of foam and waded ashore, panting from the exertion, water streaking from face and hair. His towel lay where he’d left it up on the white arc of dry sand, a patch of bright blue and yellow against the stark emptiness of the beach. The runner came padding by, a woman, her eyes fixed on the distant rocks.
‘Morning,’ he said.
She glanced at him, surprised by the greeting. A lot of city types were surprised by a friendly hello. Sad, really. ‘Morning,’ she called without breaking stride.
Wow!
The word exploded in his head. He watched her retreat down the beach; her slim tanned legs pumping, blonde cap of hair shining in the bright morning sunlight, shapely bottom in white shorts moving beneath a midriff length, hot-pink tank top. Light, elegant, perfect.
That girl oozed city style and class. Self-confidence and success dripped from every pore in her lovely smooth, pampered skin. She’d be spoken for, had to be, a girl who looked like that. They didn’t roam about Birrigai alone, these beauties from the other world. Young singles went to island resorts or Surfers Paradise where the action was.
He squinted at the girl’s outline further down near the southern rocks, wondered if she’d be up for a weekend dalliance but quickly dismissed the notion. That’s probably why she was here in the first place. She’d enjoy a few days of sun and surf with her equally high-powered husband or boyfriend, not a scruffy local beach bum, which was how she’d viewed him. He saw it in her face. She’d stared briefly, but only politeness dictated her response.
Who gives a stuff what she thinks, attached or single?
City women came complete with neuroses, ambitions and expectations he had no intention of either coping with or fulfilling.
Miles flapped his towel free of loose sand. The sun was rapidly heating his water-cooled skin, the salt drying hard and crisp. Time for a shower and breakfast. No time for fantasising about a jogger. After all, what would he do with a woman like that?
Women who holidayed briefly in Birrigai weren’t interested in the locals, neither the ‘real’ locals nor the New Age blow-ins who set up their ashrams, communes and artist colonies on the outskirts of town. There were plenty of them wandering about like leftovers from the sixties with hardly a functioning brain cell between them. The jogging girl wasn’t part of that crowd, she was too neat, clean and determined. She didn’t need to find herself the way he —if he was honest with himself — was studiously avoiding doing.
When Miles entered the surf shop later that morning, Boris was actually serving a customer.
‘That guy surfed in Mexico,’ he said in awestruck tones, when the tousled haired young man, Mambo t-shirt under his arm, had left the shop.
Boris leaned on the glass counter and stared at nothing. He did that often and Miles wondered what, if anything, was struggling to find its way through his brain mass. Smoked too much dope and did too many other illegal things in his misspent youth, that was his
problem. Now at 53, in retreat at Birrigai, Boris was clean but wasted, with sunken cheeks, thinning hair and a spare consumptive-looking frame from which usually hung a Hawaiian shirt and baggy grey shorts that revealed tanned, stick-like legs.
‘There’s that new shipment of swimwear to unpack,’ said Miles. No discernible response. ‘Earth to Boris. Come in, Boris.’
Boris started and blinked. ‘Right, sure thing. What?’
‘Out the back. Box. Swimwear. Unpack.’ Miles watched Boris register the information. If he hadn’t taken him on, Boris would have no income and lost what little self-respect he had. He deserved a chance. Miles sighed. Boris grinned and saluted.
Bright sunlight streamed through the open shop door, the tantalising sparkle of water beckoning shamelessly from across the road. There were things to do involving accounts and checking the stock Boris was unpacking, but who in their right mind would stay indoors on a day like this? Miles carefully stepped over the mat, to avoid alarming Boris into thinking there was a customer, and leaned on the door frame.
The take-away next door was still closed. Xanthi didn’t open until ten in the off-season but she stayed open late for her devoted clientele, making the best hamburgers in the state and cooking the freshest, tastiest fish to come ashore. Miles probably needn’t open at nine either but Boris, in some peculiar, random notion of business acumen and work ethic seemed to think he should, and if Boris cared to open up, fine. Never let it be said Miles was a domineering employer unwilling to listen to his staff.
Further down the street past a couple of weatherboard beach houses was George’s General Store which doubled as post office and trebled as bank branch. Beyond that was the pub, the hub of Birrigai’s community, apart from the aforementioned New Agers who presumably brewed up or grew their own stimulants.
Two of said New Agers, Jim and Sharon, ran the shop next door to Xanthi on the other side. They sold organically grown fruit and vegetables; home-made candles; crystals, hand-made clothing; artwork made from what looked like old bits of string and shells; bells and chimes, books on alternative lifestyles and every religion under the sun, and unidentifiable objects in pots and jars, herbal remedies, apparently. The shop smelled of patchouli oil and incense, which made Miles’s eyes water, but the middle aged couple were friendly and gentle, smiled beatifically and said ‘peace’ a lot. Who could complain?
A blue car drove slowly by and Miles watched idly as it disappeared from view. Across the road a light wind stirred the foliage of the Norfolk Island pines that were planted in a stately line along the beachfront on the grass verge between the road and the broad stretch of sand. A couple of board riders were paddling out beyond the line of breakers. More sat on the beach waxing boards or just watching the surf. Excitement plus this morning.
Miles shifted and began tidying the pile of t-shirts the early customer had manhandled. Another busy day in paradise.
Later, just before lunch, the jogger walked in. She’d changed the pink top and sexy short shorts for jeans and a navy blue t-shirt. Miles, who was deeply involved in a book and listening to his favourite Steely Dan CD, missed the chime of the bell and only realised he had a customer when a lilting voice said, ‘Excuse me, do you have this hat with a white band?’
She stood looking at him expectantly, holding a pale straw sunhat in her beautifully manicured hand.
He gulped and straightened, pushing the book aside quickly. It slid across the counter like an ice hockey puck and fell to the floor in a messy sprawl at her feet.
‘Sorry.’ He jumped off the stool behind the counter but before he could disentangle his feet from the pile of swim flippers Boris had inexplicably left on the floor, she’d picked up the book, read the title, lifted a delicate eyebrow and placed it carefully beside the sunhat in front of him.
‘Do you?’ she asked.
‘No, sorry. Just what’s there on the stand.’
She smiled and the sun seemed to leap from behind a cloud but then she turned away and the room dimmed to ordinary light again.
‘We’ll be getting more in,’ he called in desperation because she was about to step out the door and out of his life. He wanted to stop her so badly it hurt.