Page 6 of Finding Cory

"Spent my whole life on or near the Reef," Rosie confirmed. "I'd never want to be anywhere else."

"Hear, hear," Cory affirmed, rejoining them and collecting his own plate. "It's 'beautiful one day, perfect the next,' don't y'know." He quoted the Queensland advertising slogan at Olivia.

"I haven't been here long enough to confirm the truth of that," she pointed out, "but I'm looking forward to finding out."

"You'll see." Cory sounded utterly confident. Looking at both him and Rosie, incredibly healthy-looking, tanned, and practically glowing compared to her pasty-pale self, Olivia could quite believe it. "Although you'll need to use some pretty heavy-duty sunblock," Cory continued, "or that lovely creamy skin will be lobster-red."

"I bought a bottle in Sydney," Olivia agreed, "and I'll get more when I go into Airlie Beach to shop Rosie's been kind enough to lend me a few things, but I'll need to make a trip."

"Thought I recognized that blouse." Cory grinned at Rosie as the three of them left the buffet and headed over to a table. "Looks better on Olivia, I'm afraid."

Rosie made a face at him, but she also gave Olivia a sideways glance and a surreptitious nudge in the ribs. Olivia rolled her eyes in return.

"We are not thirteen," she hissed in Rosie's ear as another man paused by their table, distracting Cory briefly. "Stop trying to matchmake!"

Rosie laughed but turned her attention to her food, which was well worth paying attention to, Olivia conceded. The buffet had a huge variety, everything beautifully presented and perfectly fresh. She scooped up a forkful of pasta salad and hummed with pleasure at the taste.

The other man who'd stopped to speak to Cory took the fourth seat at their table then, and Olivia swallowed hastily as Cory introduced him.

"Olivia, this is Bryce, the resort's dive master. Bryce, meet Olivia."

Bryce was younger than the other two; Olivia estimated him to be about twenty-three or twenty-four. His dark hair was buzzed close to his scalp, and his deep bronze tan set off grass-green eyes.

Involuntarily, Olivia wondered whether all Australian men were this attractive. Cory, Luke, and Bryce, the three she'd met on Sunfish Island so far, were all good-looking enough to be models... though if she were completely honest, Cory was the only one who'd sparked more in her than a mere aesthetic appreciation. She smiled at Bryce's cheerful greeting.

"Nice to meet you too."

"So when are you coming out for your first dive with me?" Bryce asked. Olivia blinked, another forkful of food on her way to her mouth.

"Uh, what?"

"No way can you effectively market this place without seeing its primary attraction. The Reef. And you can't really see the Reef without diving on it."

"Technically she already made her first dive," Cory said, grinning, and Olivia had absolutely no compunctions about kicking him in the shin under the table.

Bryce frowned with confusion, and Olivia realized that news of her plunge hadn't reached him yet. Prudently moving his shins out of her reach, Cory promptly filled Bryce in. Olivia settled for glaring at him, though the way Cory described her had her inwardly glowing. Or maybe not so inwardly, considering the way Rosie was smirking at her.

"You should have seen her. She dived off the boat like an Olympic champion," Cory concluded. "I half expected her to turn a double somersault on the way in. I'd give her a 9.9 for execution. She sure was a sight for sore eyes coming out too."

A little puzzled at that remark, Olivia frowned at him; at least until Rosie murmured in her ear, "Your blouse went transparent. Cory got quite the eyeful."

Olivia hoped the two men interpreted her flaming cheeks as being caused by Bryce's laughter. Picking up her water glass, she took a deep gulp. "I daresay people will be telling stories of my arrival for years," she said, "getting more exaggerated with each telling."

"It's a good enough story that we don't need to exaggerate." Cory grinned at her. She considered the position of his shins with a tilt of her head, making him chuckle. She picked a cherry tomato off her plate and flung it with deadly accuracy at his forehead instead.

"Now, now, children." Bryce caught the tomato as it bounced off Cory's skull, "settle down. You've got to work together."

"Quite," Olivia said. "You've had your fun at my expense," she told Cory directly. "Now can you just let it go—at least when I'm in earshot?"

"Fair enough." He shrugged amiably. "God knows I make an idiot of myself regularly enough that you'll soon have plenty of ammunition for return fire, anyway."

"I can certainly attest to that," Rosie agreed. "I have a million embarrassing stories about him from our schooldays I can share if he keeps being obnoxious, anyway."

Cory's blue eyes widened comically. "I'll behave," he said hurriedly.

Olivia had to laugh at his schoolboyish dismay. "You better." She pointed her fork at him.

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted her smartly. She didn’t miss the warmth in his eyes as he looked back at her; a matching heat bloomed low in her belly. Pressing her knees together, Olivia looked away from those mesmerizing blue eyes and prodded at her lunch with her fork. Strangely enough, she no longer felt hungry.

---