The Blind Date Surprise

by Barbara Hannay

  She didn’t want to look at her watch. Oh, well, perhaps a quick glimpse. Oh, God. Damien was twenty-five minutes late.

  Maybe this was a guy thing. Damien was establishing the upper hand, making her wait. And wait…

  Around her, people’s meals were arriving. The food was served on enormous white plates. Someone was having linguini drizzled with a pale green sauce and it looked divine.

  Roberto came back and asked her if there was anything else he could bring her. Some bruschetta, perhaps? She shook her head, but she realised that other diners were casting curious glances her way. Again.

  Oh, Damien. I know you probably can’t help it, but this is so disappointing.

  How much longer would she have to wait?

  When the waiter left, Annie fingered her cute new clutch handbag and reconsidered using her phone to have a quick chat with the girls. But as she flicked the clasp she saw the man who guarded the front of the restaurant walking towards her. What now? Was he going to ask her to order some food or leave?

  ‘Miss McKinnon?’ he said as he approached.

  ‘Yes?’ Her stomach lurched. How did he know her name?

  ‘We’ve received a phone call—a message from Mr Grainger.’

  ‘Yes?’ she said again and her heart jolted painfully.

  ‘He’s had to cancel this evening’s engagement.’

  Cancel?

  Whoosh! Slam! Annie felt as if she’d been tipped through the window and was falling to the pavement twenty-seven floors below.

  Damien couldn’t cancel. Not like this. ‘No,’ she squeaked. ‘That’s not possible. There must be a mistake.’

  The man in black’s jaw clenched.

  Wrong thing to say.

  She tried again. ‘Did—did Mr Grainger say why he has cancelled?’

  She must have looked totally stricken because his face softened a fraction. ‘I’m afraid the person who rang didn’t offer an explanation. He asked me to apologise, Miss McKinnon. Apparently he’s been trying to ring for some time, but our line has been busy. He hopes you will understand.’

  Understand? Of course she didn’t understand. She couldn’t possibly understand. Annie felt so suddenly awful she wondered if she was going to be sick right there in front of everyone. ‘Didn’t he tell you anything? Are you sure he didn’t—explain—?’

  The man sighed and shook his head as if he found this situation tiresome.

  ‘What should I do?’ she asked. ‘Do—do I owe you any money?’

  ‘No. And you are still very welcome to dine here. The caller is happy to pay for your meal.’

  The caller? Nothing made sense. ‘Damien Grainger called, didn’t he?’

  ‘No, it was Mr Grainger’s uncle.’

  His uncle? This was really crazy. Where was Damien? Why hadn’t he rung? Was he sick? Oh, goodness, yes. That had to be the problem. Damien was suddenly, horribly, unavoidably, violently ill. From his sickbed he’d begged this uncle to phone her.

  ‘Shall I send for a menu?’ the man asked her.

  Annie shook her head. Her throat was so choked she couldn’t speak and there was no way she could possibly think about eating. Not in the midst of tragedy. This was the single worst moment in her life.

  Grabbing her bag, she managed to stand and then she took a deep breath and began to walk…past the other tables…conscious of the unbearable curiosity of the diners. Holding her head high and her shoulders back, she stared straight ahead, not wanting to catch anyone’s eye.

  It wasn’t until she was safely out of the restaurant and behind the closed doors of the lift that she collapsed against the wall and covered her mouth with her hand and tried to hold back the horrible sobs that swelled in her throat and burned her. Was it possible to bear this disappointment, this horrible humiliation?

  As the lift cruised downwards, she fumbled in her purse for her phone.

  ‘Mel,’ she sobbed as soon as there was an answer.

  ‘Annie, where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the lift at the Pinnacle.’

  ‘Why? Are you running away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, my God, what happened?’

  ‘Nothing! Where are you?’

  ‘Just up the road,’ Mel shouted above a blast of loud background music. ‘At The Cactus Flower. It’s in the next block from where you are—on the left.’

  ‘Stay there, please. I’m coming.’

  ‘Honey, we won’t move.’

  Theo Grainger waited in the foyer of the Pinnacle Hotel and watched the blinking lights in the panel beside the lift indicating its journey downward from the twenty-seventh floor. All too soon, those shiny lift doors would slide open and Annie McKinnon would burst out.

  A kind of dread tightened his throat muscles as he anticipated the tears streaming down her face. The kid would be a mess. A heartbroken, disillusioned mess.

  He cursed himself for handling the whole situation so badly. His cowardly, fickle nephew had caused enough trouble, but Theo had bungled his part in the evening too.

  He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to make such a hash of things. He’d come to the hotel this evening with the best of intentions. He’d planned to meet the young Internet hopeful and to apologise to her on his nephew’s behalf and to explain that the date had been cancelled. To apologise in person—before she headed up to La Piastra.

  Theo could pile on the charm when necessary and he’d been confident he could appease Damien’s date and send her on her way with her dignity intact, even if her tender young heart was broken. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to move into damage control after one of his nephew’s pranks.

  But somehow Theo hadn’t been prepared for Annie McKinnon.

  He hadn’t anticipated the blinding excitement shining in her face. She’d arrived at the Pinnacle looking so incredibly young and innocent, so unspeakably hopeful. So thrilled!

  And he certainly hadn’t anticipated her cheer squad of friends.

  The girlfriends had been his final stumbling block. One mere male couldn’t be expected to confront three overexcited, chattering females with the bad news that the big deal date was off.

  In future, he would make sure that Damien was forced to face up to the consequences of his thoughtless pranks, even if he had to drag the wretch to the scene of his crime by the scruff of his neck.

  But tonight the result of Theo’s bungling was that he’d felt a compunction to hang around for the aftermath—to make sure Annie McKinnon wasn’t too terribly heartbroken.

  The light beside the lift indicated that it had reached the ground floor and he stood to one side of the foyer with his hands plunged deep in his trouser pockets. There was a clean handkerchief in his right pocket and it would come in handy if he needed to mop her tears before he called a taxi to send her safely homewards.

  The doors opened and he held his breath and steeled himself for the sight of Annie’s flushed, tear-ravaged face.

  But no.

  Annie swept out of the lift with her golden head high, looking pale but dignified, almost haughty. No sign of tears. Her pretty blue eyes were dry and glass-clear and her mouth was composed, almost smiling.

  Almost. If Theo hadn’t been watching her very closely, he might have missed the tremor of her chin and the exceedingly careful way she walked, as if she needed all her strength to hold herself together.

  Her unexpected courage shook him. He felt a sudden lump in his throat and an absurd urge to applaud her.

  And he remained stock-still as she sailed across the foyer. Even as the huge glass doors at the hotel’s entrance parted, he didn’t move. It made absolutely no sense but this devastated young woman seemed more composed than he felt.

  She disappeared into the night before he came to his senses. By the time he dashed outside she was already hurrying along the footpath, ducking her way past pedestrians with athletic grace.

  He called, ‘Annie!’

  But she didn’t hear him and when people turned and stared at
him he felt several versions of foolish. What on earth had he thought he was going to do if she’d heard him? Offer her coffee and consolation?

  Clearly she needed neither.

  He came to a halt in the middle of the footpath. Ahead of him, he saw a flash of pink jeans and white top as Annie turned to her left. Then she hurried up a short flight of steps and vanished inside a bar.

  Theo Grainger couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so inadequate.

  ‘The guy’s a jerk!’

  ‘An A-grade jerk.’

  Mel and Victoria were vehement in their anger.

  And never had Annie been happier to see friends.

  As the three girls drowned their sorrows in strawberry daiquiris, she found it comforting to listen to their united rant.

  ‘Annie, your Damien has reached an entirely new, utterly despicable level of jerkdom.’

  ‘How dare he behave so jerkily to such a lovely, trusting country mouse?’

  But the horrible part was that in between moments of righteous anger Annie still wanted to love Damien. She couldn’t let go of her fantasy man in the blink of an eye. She needed to believe he was helpless and guiltless.

  Perhaps he really couldn’t have helped missing the date. There was still a chance that he was sick, in pain and feeling as bitterly disappointed as she was.

  ‘He might be sick,’ she said wistfully.

  Victoria sniffed. ‘Yeah, that’s about as likely as he’s fallen under a bus.’

  ‘Or he’s found an urgent need to flee the country,’ added Mel, rolling her eyes. ‘Face it, Annie. If Damien was halfway decent and he had a genuine excuse, he would have gone out of his way to make sure you understood what had kept him.’

  Annie sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right…I guess I just don’t want to believe it.’

  It was so hard to let go of her happy dreams. She wanted to crawl away and cry for a month.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Mel, stirring her icy daiquiri with a slim black straw. ‘He’s not just a base-level jerk, he’s a cowardly jerk. He had to pretend to be someone else.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I bet you any cocktail on this menu that the so-called uncle who relayed the message doesn’t exist.’

  The thought that it might have actually been Damien on the phone, pretending to be someone else, made Annie feel ten times worse.

  Victoria patted her shoulder. ‘I reckon you should forget about blind dates and concentrate on raising the cocktail drinking statistics for the Greater Brisbane Area.’

  Annie nodded miserably. It wasn’t her style, but losing herself in an alcoholic fuzz had definite appeal. The problem was that it would only take the edge off her pain momentarily. There would still be tomorrow. And the rest of the week in Brisbane. A whole week in the city. Without Damien.

  ‘I’d rather go back to your place and borrow your computer to send The Jerk a blistering email,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Mel. ‘Great idea. Besides, Victoria and I still have to go to work tomorrow morning. Let’s go home and send Damien a message he won’t forget. Let’s make sure he absolutely understands just how totally bottom-of-the-pits he’s been.’

  ‘If he’s a true jerk, it’ll be like water off a duck’s back,’ suggested Victoria gloomily.

  But Mel’s mind was made up. ‘It doesn’t matter. Annie will feel a lot better once we’ve told him off.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  TOSSING and turning on the lumpy old couch in Mel’s lounge, Annie stared into the darkness. This was the worst night of her life. She was never going to sleep.

  After helping her compose the email designed to set Damien back on his heels, Mel and Victoria had gone off to their bedrooms and were sound asleep now. Annie was left to get through the long night alone. And, to her dismay, the satisfaction she’d felt when she’d hit the button to shoot their message into cyber space was evaporating.

  Rolling on to her side, she punched her pillow and gave vent to a loud groan. It echoed through the house, but no one stirred. That was the one good thing about loneliness; she didn’t have to be brave any more. She could finally wallow in her misery.

  Now, in a cocoon of silence and darkness, she could tell herself that never in the history of dating had there been a bigger fiasco, and if there had been she didn’t want to know about it. Her experience at La Piastra was as bad as it got.

  She could admit to herself that she was truly devastated. Devastated, hurt to the marrow, disappointed to the max! And angry. Yeah, bitter too.

  Her glorious romance was over before it had begun.

  How could Damien have done this to her?

  How could he have spent so many weeks courting her in writing, just to leave her stranded at the Big Moment?

  And why? What had gone wrong? Had she been too forward when she’d suggested they should meet? Should she have waited till he’d broached the subject? The thing was, he’d shown no sign of caution or of having cold feet. Once she’d mentioned the idea of a date he had seemed very keen.

  His absence didn’t make sense and she couldn’t let go of the slim hope that something completely unavoidable had detained him. Problem was, if that was the case, he wouldn’t appreciate the savage email the girls had encouraged her to send.

  Oh, hell!

  It seemed like agonising hours later that she banged the pillow with another thump and flung herself on to her back, still too tense to sleep. Mel’s house was in the inner city, not far from a main road, and as she listened to the alien sounds of never-ending traffic, tears seeped beneath her stinging eyelids and she felt a rush of homesickness.

  At home the day started when the sun peeped over the Seaview Range and she was nudged awake by her Border collie, Lavender. She would give anything to hear the reassuring thump of Lavender’s tail on her bedroom floor. And at Southern Cross she’d be greeted by the friendly laughter of kookaburras and the warbling of magpies, or perhaps the distant soft lowing of cattle.

  But thinking about home and her twin brothers, Reid and Kane, brought an added twinge of guilt. The guys had been away mustering cattle when she’d left for her adventure in the city. She’d left them a note, but because she’d been afraid they’d jump right in and put a stop to her plans, she hadn’t told them any details.

  In her own mind she’d justified her dash to the city. Apart from the compulsion to meet her e-date, she’d felt a strong need for a holiday. But she knew that people usually planned their holidays. They didn’t dash away, leaving a note telling family members to look after themselves.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so secretive. Surely she should have been able to tell at least one of her brothers about the man she’d met over the Internet. But they were so protective of her. Which was why she’d resorted to writing a letter to the Mirrabrook Star.

  If only her mother wasn’t so far away in Scotland…

  But thinking about her family only made her feel lonelier than ever. As she waited for morning and for Damien’s reply to her email, she almost reached the point where she wished that her brothers had stopped her from coming to the city.

  ‘You got a reply.’

  At breakfast, Mel came into the kitchen waving a sheet of A4 paper at Annie. ‘Here, I printed it out.’

  Pain jabbed hard in Annie’s chest. There was no escaping the truth now. Very soon she would know Damien’s reason for avoiding her.

  ‘It’s from the uncle,’ Mel said as Annie snatched up the page.

  ‘The uncle?’ Annie clasped the paper to her chest, too disappointed to read it. ‘It’s not from Damien?’

  ‘’Fraid not.’

  Victoria turned from the microwave where she was heating coffee. ‘So there really is an uncle?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Mel, reaching for milk to pour on her cereal.

  Annie groaned. ‘You mean an uncle read that email we sent last night?’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘But we were so—’ Annie gulped.
‘So—’

  ‘Tipsy,’ supplied Mel, looking sheepish.

  ‘And rude,’ added Annie. ‘I had no idea his uncle would read it. Heck, we should have toned it down.’

  ‘Hey, don’t sweat,’ said Victoria. ‘We were relatively sober and we were merely being honest. We told it like it was.’

  ‘Yeah…but to some old uncle!’ Annie cringed at the thought of a sweet, elderly uncle reading their message. It had sounded so forceful and feminist last night. But when she thought about it now…

  Oh, crumbs…

  Fearing the worst, she looked down at the page…

  From: T. G. Grainger

  To: anniem@mymail.com

  Date: Monday, November 14th 6: 05a.m.

  Subject: Re: You’d better have a brilliant excuse,

  you jerk!

  Dear Annie M,

  I hope you don’t mind my replying to your message, but my nephew is out of town this week and he’s asked me to respond to any important emails. I consider your communication to be of the utmost importance. I regret having to intrude into such a personal exchange but I believe you deserve the courtesy of a quick response.

  Please accept my sincerest apology for the unpleasant experience you suffered last night as a consequence of my nephew’s inexcusable thoughtlessness.

  Damien was called away at short notice and I contacted La Piastra restaurant on his behalf. However, I understand your deep distress and I am saddened by my nephew’s bad manners. You’re absolutely right; you deserved an explanation from him and I will make sure that he contacts you immediately on his return.

  In the meantime, I trust that you are still able to enjoy the remainder of your stay in Brisbane.

  Yours sincerely,

  Dr Theo Grainger.

  Annie dropped the page on to the tabletop. ‘Oh, my God. Damien was called away at short notice.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ scoffed Mel. ‘And we all came down in the last shower.’

  ‘You don’t believe him?’

  This question was greeted by a significant silence while Annie watched Mel and Victoria exchange knowing glances that snuffed out her final glimmer of hope. After a bit, Victoria leaned across the table, grabbed the page and scanned the printed message.