Happily Ever After.... Jessica Gilmore

to tell you,’ he said as he smoothly turned the car through a pair of metal gates, the only break in a sea of barbed-wire fencing that ran along one side of the road screening off the fields beyond. ‘We’re here.’

      ‘We’re what?’ Clara twisted in her seat and looked around her, horror on her face as she took in the barbed wire. ‘You are kidnapping me. Where are we? What is this?’

      ‘This is one of the premier activity sites in the country.’ Raff flashed her a smile. ‘I hope you like mud.’

      * * *

      ‘You want me to do what?’

      Clara wasn’t sure what was worse. She ticked the offending items off on a mental list. Lists usually were soothing, bringing order and meaning.

      She wasn’t sure anything could bring meaning to her current situation.

      First, the mud. There was certainly a lot of it, all greeny-brown, glutinous and deep. Second, the outfit. All that time spent wondering what to wear, turned out she needed baggy camouflage trousers, desert boots that had been worn by who knew how many other smelly, sweaty, muddy feet and a shapeless T-shirt that was the exact colour of the mud. Yep, it all came back to mud.

      Mud that she, Clara Castleton, was supposed to be trampling, running, heck, apparently she was supposed to be crawling in it. On her belly.

      Which brought her to number three. Men. Smirking men. Okay, toned, built men, the kind that actually stretched out their T-shirts in all kinds of good ways, who filled out the baggy trousers with bulging thighs, who wore the mud on their faces with aplomb. Men who belonged here as she most definitely did not.

      The most annoying of the men, ‘Call me Spiral’, as if that were really his name, began to repeat the instructions in the same loud bark. ‘Run through that trough, climb that rope, go over that bridge, swing across the ravine, crawl under the net, slide...’

      ‘I heard all of that the first two times.’ Clara folded her arms and glared up at him, deliberately ignoring the fourth and most annoying thing of all: a palpably amused Raff Rafferty. ‘I’m still not clear why.’

      ‘Because I told you to,’ Spiral said with no hint of irony. ‘Now get your butt over to the starting line.’

      ‘Come on, Clara.’ Raff was openly grinning. ‘This is supposed to be fun. Where’s your sense of adventure?’

      Back in Australia. Left behind with her backpack, her travel journals and her well-thumbed traveller’s guide.

      ‘This is your idea of a date?’ She rounded on him. ‘What’s wrong with a walk, a picnic, doves and flowers?’

      ‘Too obvious. Besides, I had the chance to try this place out and see if I want to hire it for a staff conference. I’m multitasking. I thought you’d approve,’ he said with a self-righteous air that made Clara want to smack him—or tip him into the mud that suddenly looked a lot more tempting.

      ‘This isn’t just a lousy date, it’s a cheap date?’

      Raff leant in close, his breath sweet on her cheek. ‘It’s a fake date and you are on triple time. Enjoy it. Think about what a lovely story it makes.’

      Clara gritted her teeth. ‘One for the grandkids?’

      ‘In our case one for my grandfather. Do you want to go first or shall I show you how it’s done?’

      Eying the long trail of ropes, platforms, nets and pits, Clara felt her stomach drop. This was going to be incredibly undignified. But there was no way she was going to look weak in front of him. ‘I’ll go.’

      She refused to look back as she walked to the start line, painfully aware that all the conversation had stopped and every khaki-clad man was staring at her, lips curled with amusement. They were waiting for her to fail. To give up.

      They were in for a surprise. She hoped.

      ‘Come on,’ Clara told herself fiercely as she stood at the rope marking the beginning and stared out at what looked like miles of hell. The trail started with a long, shallow trough that Clara was supposed to run through. Correction, wade through. The trough was filled with the ubiquitous mud and led to a cargo net that she was sure was higher than her house.

      That was just the start.

      Weekly Pilates might be good for her stress levels but it hadn’t prepared her for this.

      ‘On the count of three,’ Spiral roared. ‘One, two, three!’

      Clara hesitated for less than a second and then, with a muttered curse, pushed herself forward, managing not to yell as she sank calf deep into the cold, gloopy mud.

      ‘Faster,’ Spiral yelled. ‘Are you a man or a mouse?’

      Answering him would have used up more oxygen than he was worth. Clara set her mouth mutinously and forged on. Too slow and she would prove the smirking men right, too fast and she knew she’d pitch face first into the mud. She set herself a steady trot, trying to ignore the cold, clamminess on her lower legs and the sucking noise as she pulled her leg out of the mud and put one hand onto the rope net, ready to pull herself up the impossible height.

      Her eyes were focused on each obstacle; there was no room in her mind for anything but the task. Spiral’s encouraging shouts, the cheers of the other staff were just background noise. Clara was aware of nothing but the hammering of her heart, the pounding of the blood in her ears, the burn in her thighs and her arms as she pulled, swung, jumped, waded and crawled. She had no idea how long she had been there. Minutes? Hours?

      Heck, it could have been days.

      ‘Come on, Clara.’ How on earth had Raff caught up with her? He was breathing hard, his hair damp with exertion, the dark blue eyes alight with life. She should be mad with him; she was absolutely filthy, totally exhausted, every muscle hurt and people kept yelling at her. And yet...

      Adrenaline was pumping through her so fast she was almost weightless; the whole world had contracted to this place, this task. She was alive. Really, truly alive.

      She reached out for the rope swing, and missed. Immediately Raff was there, one arm steadying her as she leant further forward off the narrow wooden platform, reaching out into thin air.

      ‘Got it!’ Giddy with triumph, she grabbed the rope and pulled it back towards her. Putting both hands firmly on it, she wrapped one leg around it and tried to jump on it, slithering back down to the platform as she missed. ‘Darn it!’

      ‘Here, let me.’

      Clara wanted to tell him no, that she had this, but he was too quick, steadying the rope and, as she jumped again, giving her a quick push up. A jolt of electricity ran through her as his hand pressed against her back but before she could react he had pushed and she was off, swinging through the air.

      Her limbs were trembling with the exertion as she reached the last obstacle, the crawl net. To conquer it successfully she had to lie down, fully face down, in the mud and wiggle her way under ten metres of tight net.

      She took a deep breath, the oxygen a welcome tonic to her tired, gasping lungs, and flung herself down into the oozing depths, pushing herself under the net and wiggling through the endless claustrophobic dark, wet mud until she reached the final rope. Once her head was through she gulped in welcome, blessed, clean air before painfully pulling the rest of her out. She lay there collapsed in the mud for five seconds, too exhausted to try and get to her feet.

      The mud didn’t seem so bad any more. She couldn’t tell where it ended and she began. She had turned into some kind of swamp monster.

      ‘That was a very good try.’ Spiral’s loud tones intruded on the muddy peace and Clara forced herself to pull onto her knees. ‘Well done, Clara.’

      A glow of pride warmed her. ‘Thanks,’ she said, drawing her hand across her face, realising too late that rather than wipe the mud off she was adding to it. Spiral held out one meaty hand