When Coffee Time Romance went looking for posts on heroes with “unusual professions’, I had to put up my hand. My romantic comedy set in a small beach town in Australia, Catch of the Day, features a hero who’s a lobster fisherman!
The blurb: After a regrettable incident at the office Christmas party, up-and-coming fashion editor, Winnie Cherry, is banished to coastal South Australia to set up a beach lifestyle magazine ““ 300km from nowhere.
Her friends joke that she’ll marry a rich cray fisherman and stay there for good, but Winnie has other ideas. Determined to get back to Sydney within two months, she gets to work and starts counting down the days. Until she meets handsome freelance photographer Alex Bass, and sparks begin to fly. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter. Hope you like it!
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Winnie Cherry gazed up at the giant crustacean looming as high as twelve stacked cars. A limitless expanse of blue sky, unmarked by clouds, provided a postcard-perfect backdrop. According to the internet, the Big Lobster was one of the most impressive of Australia’s Big Things ““ right up there with the Big Banana and Big Pineapple. To Winnie though, the critter just looked angry: its red-orange antennae were bucked up and its eyes beady, as though it knew it would be destined for the dinner plate if it weren’t, you know, oversized and made from fibreglass and steel. But maybe her first impression just reflected her mood.
Ringing in her ears were the parting words of her Sydney housemate, Bruna: “Bet you’ll marry a wealthy cray fisherman and never come back.’ Of course, the life goal of Bruna, who was Eurasian ““ and hence insanely gorgeous ““ was to marry rich and divorce happy ““ regardless of the postcode . Winnie, however, would rather stab herself in the eye with a cray claw than pull up stumps in the sleepy lobster capital she’d just been banished to.
It had taken her two days just to get to South Australia’s Kingston South East ““ or SE for short ““ by car from Sydney, all the while feeling like she was headed in the entirely wrong direction. A country stint was not part of her media career plan.
The sign behind the monstrous lobster ““ cray ““ informed her its café was closed until 5pm for dinner. She could barely imagine that happening in Sydney. Little wonder the car park was empty, though it didn’t help the fact she was dying for a drink. The drive through the desolate landscape had left her mouth drier than the Sahara , and then some. At least the sea air lifted her hair from her shoulders and fanned the sticky nape of her neck.
Winnie twisted her mouth. Now she was here, she supposed she should do the tourist thing and take a cheesy pic, try to get into the spirit of things, maybe even confuse her brain somewhat. She’d text it to Bruna, pretend she was almost having fun.
Unearthing her phone from her tan handbag, Winnie held the device out in front of her, goofily grinned and pressed the camera button. Checking the screen, she saw her image reflected back. The photo looked good ““ her strawberry blonde locks and tan seemed to glow in the late afternoon sun, her dark eyes didn’t look squinty and there was no lychee-flavoured gloss on her teeth. Score.
Pity about the remote location.
Obligatory sightseeing ““ and text ““ done, Winnie pocketed her phone and headed back to her metallic-rose Toyota Echo, sliding inside. It was already like a furnace thanks to the summer heat. Keys in the ignition, she cranked up the air-conditioner and the volume on her Fleetwood Mac CD. She blamed her hippie mum for influencing her taste in music. Besides, all the city stations had long since dropped out. It was almost like she’d fallen off the face of the earth out there.
Before taking off again, Winnie’s gaze flicked to her passenger seat and the vision board she’d fashioned from pink cardboard. Among the magazine cut-outs of things she hoped to visualise into her future life was one no-no she didn’t. Beneath a pic of George Clooney with a red cross over his handsome noggin were the words: No more losing your heart over emotionally unavailable men ““ particularly at work. Not that she figured she’d have any problems in this postage stamp-sized town, but it didn’t hurt to be reminded.
Also pasted on the cardboard was an image of the Sydney Harbour Bridge ““ the city she planned to return to ASAP ““ and a masthead of Panache magazine, the location of her next job, fingers crossed.
Shoving on tortoiseshell sunglasses, Winnie double-checked the address of her temporary new abode, which she’d scrawled on a scrap of paper. Darn. Looked like she’d gone too far on Princes Highway and would have to turn back.
Turning the steering wheel more energetically than planned, she hit the accelerator, the hatchback wheeling sideways. Gravel noisily flicked beneath the car as the tyres spun.
Then there was another noise ““ a loud expletive cutting over Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way’.
Slamming on the brakes, Winnie peeked in the rear-view mirror as the car stilled. Her heart rate zoomed. Standing in a cloud of dust behind her economical little buzz-box was a guy about her age with chin-length, sun-streaked hair. His face was obscured by a bent arm being used like a shield. Sheesh. Where the heck had he sprung from? She hadn’t noticed a single car or person pass in the last ten minutes. Unless he’d come from the tractor museum next door.
A confrontation was the last thing she needed after the long trip, but flooring it wouldn’t do. With a population of about fourteen hundred, as the sign into town said, word would travel fast. She’d easily be tracked down in a pink car ““ they didn’t exactly appear to be the norm. Besides, it wouldn’t be ideal to make waves just yet.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. The guy edged closer on the gravel, taking his sweet time when all Winnie really wanted to do was apologise for showering him in gravel and get going again. Reluctantly, she turned down the CD as he bent to lean on the sill of her opened window. He moved to push his black shades ““ more likely servo specials than Ray-Bans ““ atop his head. From his age and stained polo, which had a fishing hook emblem embroidered on its upper pocket, she picked him as a mere deckhand, not the rich variety of fisherman Bruna prattled on about, if not an amateur.
Woah. The sunnies were up and she sucked in her breath. He was actually quite dreamy looking, if you liked rugged seafaring types. Up close, he had ocean-green eyes, an aquiline nose and just the right amount of sexy stubble. His fair hair looked artfully tousled, a style that would take Sydney pretty-boys hours to perfect with texturising sea-salt spray, but was no doubt au naturel. His biceps, straining beneath the polo fabric, looked like they could bench press the Big Lobster any day.
A bright red gash glared above his right eyebrow ““ possibly the result of an errant rock. Oops. And there was a scowl on his lips. Winnie kept her sunnies firmly on; somehow it felt safer.
“Don’t you look in your rear-view?’ His question ““ in a surprisingly transatlantic accent for someone who appeared to be a bona fide local ““ was more an accusation.
But she was too busy watching his divine mouth forming the words to take in their meaning at first. Ack. She was doing it again: distracted by the first attractive male she saw. It had to stop.
“I do look “¦ usually. It’s just.’ She shrugged weakly. “The place felt abandoned.’ The car park ““ and the town in general. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you. I feel terrible.’
“What if I’d been an animal?’ he said, though there was less of a hard edge to his voice. “Or a small child?’
Winnie’s shoulders slouched. That was a low blow. “I’m really sorry,’ she repeated. Glancing up, she bit her lip. The cut on his forehead was beginning to look angrier than the mammoth lobster in the background. She should probably say something. “Um “¦’ She fumbled in her handbag, finally producing a Gucci sunglasses cleaning cloth. “You “¦’ She pointed in the direction of his forehead. “You have a cut, I’m sorry. This might help.’
“I didn’t think it was a tickle,’ he complained, his eyes cloudy again, but took the brown cloth from her hand. Raising his eyebrows at the label, he looked at her as though checking it was okay to use it. She nodded and he pressed the rag to his forehead. It looked doll-sized in his big, tanned hand.
He stepped back from her car and wasn’t shy about giving her the once-over as he attended to the wound. She followed the trail of his stare as he sized her up. Darn. Her already teeny denim shorts had ridden up ““ almost to her floral knickers, in fact ““ exposing a good deal of thigh. She pulled at each hem, shifting in her seat.
Thankfully, he averted his gaze again, peeling the cloth away to assess the damage, and shook his head. “You city slickers shouldn’t go bush if you don’t know how to drive,’ he said quietly. “The sooner you’re home, the safer it’ll be for everyone.’
Huh. She hadn’t even mentioned where she was from, but it was clear she didn’t belong there. Well, good. It hadn’t been her choice to be plucked from a perfectly good life and transported to the one-policeman town. Suddenly, all her good intentions drained away and anger, mingled with tiredness, crashed over her like a tidal wave. His rugged good looks no longer mattered.
“Give me two months and I’ll be gone,’ she retorted.
Defiantly turning up Fleetwood Mac once more, she put her pleather sandal to the metal, and the car careened forwards and sped towards the highway. She didn’t bother to check her rear-view a second time, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t driven over the guy’s foot or anything. The final look of shock on his handsome features, however, was seared into her brain.
It wasn’t the best of starts, but then, she’d expected as much.
*
For more on author Carla Caruso, visit www.carlacaruso.com.au
To check out more on CATCH OF THE DAY, go to http://www.destinyromance.com/products/9781743483824/catch-day.