Free The Girl in the Hard Hat by Loretta Hill

an hour late.
    The first was a rather skinny, lanky-looking individual who obviously gave very little thought to his physical appearance. The second, a freckle-faced, ginger-haired man who seemed to be the youngest of the three. And the last . . .
    The tips of Wendy’s ears grew hot and her throat went dry.
    The last was the man who had followed her up Water Tank Hill and kissed her.
    You’ve got to be kidding me!
    She was glad she was sitting down because she was sure her knees would have visibly trembled at the sight of him. Thankfully, instead, she was able to clutch them firmly under the table to stop any embarrassing wobbling as she stared at the newcomers, momentarily bereft of speech.
    They were not so incapacitated, rudely continuing their conversation as though the people seated at the table weren’t even there.
    ‘So I’m not sure which class I should go for,’ the ginger-haired young gun was saying. ‘Karate or judo. They’re holding night classes in the community hall in Wickham.’
    ‘I’d go karate,’ the skinny man announced. ‘Isn’t there more belts or something?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ The man who had kissed her looked across the room and met her eyes. A lazy smile tickled his lips as he addressed the room at large, ‘Anybody know anything about karate?’ He broke their gaze to remove his hard hat.
    Wendy could feel her face filling with colour and hastily looked down.
    Lena, obviously angry on her behalf, stood up. ‘Gavin, stop being a pig! Can’t you see we’re having a meeting here?’
    He put his hat under his arm. ‘Sorry we’re late.’
    The skinny guy with longish brown hair, currently tied in the knottiest ponytail Wendy had ever seen, finally turned around and scanned the group.
    ‘Where the hell is Neil?’
    This one tactless statement was all it took for Wendy to get her game face back on. She stiffened. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to inform you but he was let go.’
    ‘Let go? When?’
    ‘Yesterday morning,’ she responded tightly.
    ‘Didn’t you know, Fish?’ Craig, the engineer for construction of the new berthing dolphins, addressed him from across the table. The berthing dolphins were located on the sides of the jetty and assisted in the ships docking. ‘Where’ve you been the last coupla days?’
    ‘Crabbing,’ said Fish and then he turned to the group at large. ‘I’ve got a new trick. What you do, right, is you cast a net first thing in the morning before work, put pierced cans of cat food in it and after work you’ll pick up a full net. I’ve done it the last three mornings with a few checks here and there at smoko and lunch. It works a real treat.’
    ‘Seriously.’ Gavin eyed him with some interest. ‘Maybe I’ll have to try that sometime.’
    ‘I’m telling you, mate, it’s –’
    Fury swept through Wendy’s body. ‘If you don’t mind, I didn’t call a meeting here today to talk fishing.’
    Fish closed his mouth for a moment and then asked sullenly, ‘So who are you?’
    ‘I’m Wendy Hopkins, the new safety manager. And you are?’
    ‘Lance.’ He shrugged. ‘The deck engineer. But everyone calls me Fish because –’
    ‘No need to explain, it’s perfectly obvious,’ she snapped. ‘And you?’ She turned to the ginger-haired gentleman, who was now starting to look rather self-conscious.
    ‘I’m Anton.’ He shuffled from foot to foot. ‘I do a lot of odd jobs where it’s needed.’
    Before she could address the last man, he thrust his long tanned fingers into her field of vision.
    ‘I’m Gavin, the piling engineer.’
    She took his hand and nodded curtly. Perhaps it was because he knew it would embarrass her or maybe he was just fundamentally a pig as Lena had described him. But he deliberately held onto her hand a few seconds longer than necessary, forcing her to twitch her fingers out of his grasp. She could feel herself colouring up like a beetroot and wished to God she had more self-restraint.
    ‘All right.’ She