The Rock Star's Email Order Bride

Part 3

THREE

"Hello? I need a fuck."

Xan blinked and forced her smile to stay in place. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I need a fuck." The frustrated-looking backpacker glared at her. "And a plate."

Xan repeated the man's accented English several times in her head before she decided not to kick him in the groin for one of the coarsest come-on lines she'd ever been hit with. Instead, she replied, "Ah, you want a fork? It's a ten-dollar deposit to get a crockery and cutlery pack – one of everything you need, including a plate and a fork. Here, let me show you." Xan rose and retrieved one of the drawstring bags from the office. She tipped it on the counter, sending a cascade of cutlery across the desk.

"Ten...ten dollars for a f**k?"

She had to keep a straight face. She HAD to. Xan took a deep, calming breath.

"Yes. It's a deposit. When you return this at the end of your stay, I'll give your ten dollars back." Xan watched the backpacker thinking it over. She could almost read his mind. Yes, ten dollars was cheap for what you got, but he didn't know if he could find the items cheaper in a discount store in town. If he did, he could return these and get his money back. But if he bought things, he'd never see that money back, even if he did get his ten dollars from her. He didn't have much space in his already overstuffed backpack because of all the souvenirs he wanted to take home. Maybe he'd just hand over the money and... Xan tried to hide her smile as he produced the cash. "Here you go." She bagged the cutlery and passed the pack across the counter.

Fresh off the plane, she was sure of it. If he'd stayed at any other hostels in Australia before coming to Broome, he'd know the drill by now. She watched him disappear through the swinging kitchen door, before he reappeared in a group of equally lost-looking girls by the communal refrigerator. He'd evidently been their spokesman, because the girls trooped out of the kitchen and laid siege to the reception desk.

Xan did a quick head count and retrieved enough packs for everyone. She needn't have hurried, though – the girls weren't familiar enough with Australian currency to produce a single ten-dollar-bill between them. She saw euros, ringgit and what looked like Thai baht surface, before they'd produced enough dollars to seal the deal.

By the time the crowd cleared, the airport shuttle arrived, bringing with it a group of even more lost-looking souls, panting like dogs in the unfamiliar heat as they hefted their suitcases up the steps. Everyone wanted to visit a tropical paradise, but no one wanted to stay outside in the heat for long. Especially not in wet season humidity.

"Excuse me, but where are the cups? I want to make a cup of tea, but I can't seem to find them." The wilting woman had arrived on yesterday's shuttle, but Xan had been serving in the kiosk at the time, so one of the other girls had handled check-in.

Xan explained about the packs and endured a ten-minute argument as to why the woman couldn't just pay for the cup. It was the whole pack or nothing. It took another five minutes for the woman to produce the money she grumpily acknowledged was necessary, though she tried to tell Xan she was two dollars short while hiding the stack of twenties nestled in her wallet.

A queue coughed and shuffled at the kiosk, but the two girls who took turns in the kitchen and manning the counter were nowhere to be seen. Sighing, Xan stepped up to the counter and proceeded to sell soft drinks, laundry detergent and anything that could be deep-fried to the impatient guests. When the queue cleared, she took the food orders into the kitchen, where she found her missing staff peering at one girl's phone.

"It sounds like a dream come true," the phone's owner breathed. What was the girl's name? Heather, that was it.

"I'd say it's more of a nightmare," Xan interjected as she slapped the orders on the counter. "All these people were waiting to be served, so hurry up and get the orders ready."

"No, look at it, Xan," Adele replied, pulling Heather's phone from her fingers and handing it to Xan. "Seriously, it's got to be the best job in Broome. Tours and activities coordinator for the luxury resort island the celebrities go to. They want you to be a dive master, fluent in at least two languages, and all sorts of things, though. And a degree! But you get paid to snorkel and dive and go on helicopter tours all day...and you get to live on that island all the time."

A luxury resort sure sounded better than watching backpackers count their pennies all day. Xan hadn't thought she was ready for children, but now it seemed like she had hundreds of them. All adult-sized and asking the same questions, over and over and over again. Her visa would expire at the end of the dry season, though, which meant she needed to return to the UK, her family and her fiancé. She missed Jerome like an ache in the...well, touring the world was one thing, but travelling celibate, knowing that he was counting on her coming home when he finished his studies so they could get married, get a house and do all the things newlyweds did? Sometimes it was enough to make her want to return early. Firmly stamp on what Jerome called her travel bug and settle down with him.

For a moment, she considered it.

A shrill scream broke through her reverie. Assuming the worst, Xan took the stairs two at a time to the source of the sound: the female communal bathrooms. Damn. Why couldn't it be the male ones?

"What's the problem?" she called as she strode in.

Cries of, "Kikker!" and "Katak!" echoed through the steam, followed by, "What's a f*****g frog doing in here? Aaargh!"

Xan assumed her calm-the-mob tone. "Nothing to worry about. Just a frog. It can't hurt you. I'll get someone to catch it when we close the bathroom for cleaning in an hour. Welcome to Western Australia, where the wildlife's so friendly, it joins you in the shower!"

One of the frog's friends snorted, but no one said anything else, so Xan headed back downstairs to the reception desk.

"Frog?" Adele asked as she handed a customer his change across the kiosk counter.

"Frog."

No, she couldn't go home yet. She was having too much fun. She hoped the frog appeared in the men's bathrooms next, or one of the big bush spiders. It was shift change for the oil and gas platform workers tomorrow. Some of those guys were ripped.

Maybe she should apply for that island resort job. How many dive masters with tourism degrees would there be around here? This was the trip of a lifetime: one big blast before she settled down for good with Jerome. It should include a piece of paradise. Go big or go home, she decided. And she wasn't ready to go home yet. Even if her life was all forks with no f***s.

"Hi, I'm new here and I can't find any spoons in the kitchen." The nervous-looking girl stared pitifully at Xan. "Please, can you tell me where to find them?"

"There's a ten-dollar deposit," Xan began wearily.