Page 20 of Veiled Fantasies

She let out a thin smile. “Interesting.”

Erik decided he would no longer settle for one-word answers to all the questions bouncing around his mind. “Interesting.” The word was flat, begging for embellishment.

“Okay, kind of a disaster.”

How is that she always managed to hook him by saying so little?

Jill squirmed and finally gave in to his curious look. “I was supposed to do a diving and sailing course in Queensland…”

Diving and sailing? Not your typical beach babe here. “And?”

“And it rained. Poured. Flooded.” Her face slowly cracked a smile. A second later, her eyes joined in. “Actually, I think I would have had better weather if I stayed in London.” Erik smiled with her while wondering when he’d last managed to gracefully laugh a disappointment away. “In the second week, I went to visit an old college friend…”

And? “It kept raining?”

She laughed out loud. “No, but my friend…I haven’t seen her for a while, right? It turns out she’s become a complete hippy and lives on a commune. A really…um, liberal commune. As in, communal everything. Communal parenting, communal partners…” She trailed off, eyes revealing shock tinged with fascination. “I figured it would be interesting…” She considered that for a moment. “I guess I got what I asked for!”

So his roommate was not only a bit of an adventurer, but also someone who made the best of a bad situation. Maybe one was a prerequisite for the other. He considered this while watching the breeze toy with her hair. She was doing it now, here in Dubai. Making the best of things. A fine quality to have in a world filled with trouble.

“What about you?” she asked. “How was your trip to Australia?”

He should have known that his question would ricochet back. That was the problem with making conversation. The self-centered types, they were happy to go on and on about themselves and bore him to death. But Jill? Try to find out more about her and she’d find out more about you.

Keep it short, change the subject. “I think I spent…less than thirty-six hours in Australia.”

Her eyes went wide. “And before that?”

Before that? She might as well throw darts at a map of Asia. Lots of darts. “Um…Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou” Or was Guangzhou last time? “It gets to be a blur.”

Jill was looking at him intently.

I know, I know. I work a lot.

“So if you do so much business travel, what do you do for vacation?”

He searched his memory. What did he do for vacation? When had he last taken a vacation, anyway? Not since the funeral, that was for sure.

She was waiting for an answer, studying his face.

Definitely time to change the subject. Let her do the talking. A boat tooted its horn, and he seized the opportunity to point past a dhow to a cluster of low buildings in the distance.

“That’s the historic district,” Jill said.

Of course, the historic district.

“You’ve got to go there!” she said. “The old buildings have wind towers that stick up like chimneys to catch the breeze and pull it in. Like low-tech air conditioning!”

Other people went on and on about Dubai’s modern sights, like the record-setting buildings, the exclusive hotels, and the man-made islands. This woman got excited about centuries-old houses. “You’re not an architect, are you?”

Jill laughed. “Nowhere near.”

“A historian?”

“No.”

“An air-conditioning engineer?”

“Nope.”

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