Читать книгу Last-Minute Proposal - Jessica Hart - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

TEN minutes later, Tilly was standing at the bottom, watching Campbell do his SAS act. Sliding down the cliff in one fluid action, he made it look so easy, she thought resentfully.

‘There, that wasn’t that bad, was it?’ he said to her as he unclipped himself and began briskly coiling ropes.

‘Yes, it was,’ Tilly contradicted him sulkily, although it hadn’t, in fact, been quite as bad as the first time. ‘I’m going to be having nightmares about today for years,’ she told him, unwilling to let him get away with his unashamed bullying that easily. ‘I can’t believe I was glad when I heard Greg wouldn’t be able to take part! He would have been much nicer to me. I’m sure he would never have told me to stop being so wet or made me throw myself off the edge of a cliff,’ she grumbled.

‘I’m sure he’d have been perfect,’ Campbell agreed. ‘But he wouldn’t have got you to the river ahead of everyone else.’

‘He’d probably think there were more important things than winning,’ said Tilly loftily.

Campbell looked at her as if she had suddenly started talking in Polish. Clearly it had never occurred to him that not coming first might occasionally be an option.

‘Then why would he have been participating?’

‘Perhaps he was the victim of emotional blackmail, like me. This might come as news to you, but some of us think that it’s enough to take part.’

‘Tell that to the people hoping for a bed in the new hospice wing,’ said Campbell brutally.

Tilly winced. He was right. She mustn’t forget about why she was doing this, but if only there was some other way of raising money that didn’t involve her being stuck in these freezing hills with the ultra-competitive Campbell Sanderson!

‘Your company’s sponsoring this whole show,’ she said a little sulkily. ‘Why don’t you just hand out a few cheques instead of making everyone jump through all these hoops?’

‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ he said, to her surprise. She would have bet money on the fact that they would never agree about anything. ‘I would much rather write cheques than spend a weekend messing around like this, but PR isn’t my forte.’

‘No?’ said Tilly, feigning astonishment. ‘You amaze me!’

Campbell shot her a look. ‘Keith tells me programmes like this one are the way forward, viewers want to be engaged in the process of giving money, blah, blah, blah. The long and short of it is that I pay him a good salary as PR Director to know about these things and he assures me this is what will work best for Manning Securities.

‘If it’s the best thing for Manning, it’s what I’m going to do,’ he told her, ‘and if I’m going to do it, I’m going to win it. In order for me to win, you’ve got to win, so you might as well get used to the idea. Any more questions?’ he finished with one of his acerbic looks.

Tilly sighed and gave up. ‘Did they say anything about lunch?’

For a moment Campbell stared at her, then the corner of his mouth quivered.

‘No, but I imagine there’ll be something to eat at the checkpoint across the river.’

Tilly looked away, thrown by the effect that quiver had had on her. For a moment there, he had looked quite human.

Quite attractive, too, her hormones insisted on pointing out, in spite of her best efforts to ignore them. That body combined with the undeniable frisson of a mysterious and possibly dangerous background was tempting enough, but if you threw in a glint of humour as well it made for a lethal combination.

She could do without finding Campbell Sanderson the slightest bit attractive. This whole weekend looked set to be humiliating enough without lusting after a man who would never in a million years lust back. That whole hard, couldn’t-give-a-damn air gave him a kind of glamour, and Tilly was prepared to bet that there would be some lithe, beautiful, stylish woman lurking in the background.

Tilly could picture her easily, pouting when she heard that Campbell would be spending the entire weekend with another woman. Don’t go, she would have said, tossing back her mane of silken hair and stretching her impossibly long, slender body invitingly. Stay and make love to me instead.

Of course it would take more than a sultry temptress to deflect Campbell’s competitive spirit, but it would have been easy for him to reassure her. There’s no danger of me fancying the woman they’ve paired me with, he would have said dismissively when she’d threatened to be jealous. The television people have deliberately picked someone fat and dowdy to give the viewers a good laugh.

Tilly could practically hear him saying it, and she scowled. No, she wouldn’t be gratifying Seb and Harry by finding Campbell Sanderson attractive.

Well, not very attractive, anyway.

‘Let’s go, then,’ she said. Campbell wasn’t the only one who could do a good impression of don’t-give-a-damn. ‘I’m starving.’

She followed him down to the river’s edge, where he walked up and down for a while, sussing out the situation while she eyed the river with some misgiving. It was wider than she had imagined, and the water was a deep, brackish brown and fast-flowing. It looked freezing.

If Campbell hadn’t trailed the possibility of lunch on the other side, she would have been tempted to have given up there and then.

‘Now what?’ she asked as he prowled back. ‘Surely they’re not expecting us to throw up a pontoon bridge?’

She was joking, but Campbell seemed to think it was a serious suggestion. ‘That’ll take too long,’ he said. ‘Let’s try further up.’

Still boggling at the idea that anyone would know how to build a pontoon bridge, let alone how long it would take, Tilly trotted after him.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To find a better crossing place.’

Perhaps lunch might not be such a distant possibility after all. Tilly brightened. ‘Do you think there might be a bridge?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Campbell. He stopped abruptly as they skirted a bend and his eyes narrowed. ‘Ah…that’s more like it,’ he said with satisfaction.

Tilly stared at the river. ‘What is?’

‘There,’ he said. ‘We can cross here.’

She stared harder. All she could see were a few boulders just peeking out of the rushing water. ‘How?’

‘Stepping stones,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t be better.’ He jumped lightly out on to the first boulder. ‘We don’t even need to get our feet wet.’

Leaping nimbly on to the next stone, he stopped and looked back to where Tilly was still standing on the bank. ‘Aren’t you coming? The sooner you get across, the sooner you get lunch.’

Did he think she couldn’t work that out for herself?

‘I’m terribly sorry.’ She offered a sarcastic apology. ‘Didn’t they tell you I can’t actually walk on water? I’ve been practising and practising, but I just can’t get the hang of it somehow!’

‘Look, it’s just a step,’ he said, impatience seeping into his voice once more.

‘It’s a step if you’ve got legs that are six feet long, which I haven’t, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘OK, it’s a jump, but you can do it easily.’

‘I can’t.’

‘That’s what you said about the abseil, and you did that.’

‘Well, I really can’t do this,’ said Tilly crossly. ‘I’ll fall in.’

Muttering under his breath, Campbell stepped back on to the bank. ‘Look, it’s really not that far between each stone. Why don’t I take your pack? You’ll find it easier to balance without that.’

Tilly had to watch him stepping easily from stone to stone with an ease your average mountain goat would have envied before dumping both packs on the far bank and making his way back to her while she was still trying to formulate an excuse.

‘Now it’s your turn,’ he said, waiting on the first boulder and stretching out a hand. ‘All you need is a little jump and I’ll pull you the rest of the way.’

‘Oh, yes, I can see that working!’ scoffed Tilly, with visions of her taking his hand and promptly pulling him into the water with her.

‘Or shall I come and carry you across?’

‘Don’t even think about it!’

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a cameraman approaching on the far bank. The crew had obviously spotted their approach from an unexpected angle and were hurrying to catch some entertaining moments on film. What a terrific shot it would make: Campbell trying to lift her, staggering under her weight, collapsing into the water with her. Ho, ho, ho. How everyone would laugh!

Over Tilly’s dead body.

‘All right,’ she said quickly, seeing Campbell getting ready to come and fetch her if necessary. ‘I’ll jump.’

Without giving herself time to change her mind, she launched herself off the bank and Campbell only just managed to grab her and haul her on to the boulder with him. Tilly teetered wildly, only seconds from toppling backwards into the icy water before his arm clamped round her and pulled her hard against him.

He was steady as a rock and incredibly reassuring. Throwing pride to the chilly Scottish wind, Tilly clung to him.

‘We must stop meeting like this,’ he said dryly over the top of her head as she burrowed into him.

Aware of how ridiculous she must look but not daring to let go, Tilly did her best to play it cool. She kept her voice casual, as if she hadn’t even noticed how strong and solid he was, or how good it felt to be held against a male body like his. Given that she was stranded in the middle of a freezing Scottish river, it was amazing that she was noticing anything about him at all.

‘I usually like to get to know a man before I start hugging him,’ she said, teeth chattering with a mixture of cold and nerves. ‘You know, have a cup of coffee together or something first.’

‘Our relationship does seem to have progressed quite quickly,’ Campbell agreed over the top of her head. ‘We’d hardly met before you were flinging your arms around my neck, and now this. I feel I should at least have sent you roses.’

There was a thread of amusement in his voice that only succeeded in flustering Tilly more.

‘Roses will be the least I deserve if I survive today,’ she said.

‘Well, if we win, you can have a dozen,’ said Campbell, looking for a way to get her to move on. Not that he wasn’t appreciating having a soft feminine body squashed up against him, but the minutes were ticking by.

‘Make that bars of chocolate and you’re on,’ said Tilly.

It would be too much to say that she was hot, stuck as she was on a rock in the middle of a freezing river with a chill wind whipping round her, but that was definitely warmth tingling in the pit of her stomach. This was one hell of a time for her hormones to start acting up.

‘Do you think you’re ready to try the next one then?’

She groaned a little. ‘God, must I?’

‘There’s a camera trained on us right now,’ Campbell pointed out. ‘It must be getting a little boring for the cameraman, just the two of us entwined on a rock.’

If her hormones had their way it wouldn’t be at all boring, Tilly thought. It could be extremely interesting, but knowing that a camera was pointing straight at her rather took the edge off any piquant little fantasies. Everyone knew that a camera added at least two sizes, and she didn’t want to look any more ridiculous than she did already.

‘OK, let’s do it, then.’

Boulder by boulder, Campbell helped her across the river until there was just one last jump on to the bank. He went first and, the moment she let him go, Tilly started teetering. Her arms windmilled wildly and she took a wild leap for the bank before she fell back into the water.

Unprepared for her sudden jump, Campbell had no time to turn and catch her, and she missed her footing as she landed flat on her face, half on top of the bank, half down it. For a moment she lay stunned and splattered with mud before realising that she had provided the cameraman with his perfect action shot.

Excellent. She was so glad she was going to provide so much light entertainment for the viewers tucked up in their nice warm houses.

Tilly lifted her face from the mud. ‘I want to go home,’ she announced.

‘You can’t go home now. You’re in the lead,’ said Campbell, putting a hard hand under her arm and lifting her to her feet as easily as if she were a size six. It wasn’t often that Tilly got to feel like thistledown, and she would have appreciated it more if she hadn’t been spitting out mud. ‘You’re doing fine,’ he told her.

‘I am not doing fine. I’m making a prize prat of myself,’ said Tilly bitterly, even as she bared her teeth in a smile for the camera which was zooming in on her.

‘The viewers will love you,’ soothed Campbell, helping her on with her backpack.

‘Do you want to try that one again?’ she enquired with a touch of acid. ‘I think you’ll find that the correct reply there was, No, of course you’re not making a prat of yourself, Tilly.’

The corner of his mouth quirked. ‘Would you believe me if I said that now?’

‘Obviously not,’ said Tilly crisply as she tried to quell her fickle senses, which were fizzing at the mere hint of a proper smile.

‘Then I’ll save my breath. Come on, we’re nearly at the end of the first section. You’ll feel better when you’ve had some lunch.’

Lunch wasn’t very exciting, but at least it was provided. As she plodded after Campbell to the checkpoint, a horrible thought occurred to Tilly. What if they were expected to take survival skills to the extreme? She wouldn’t put it past the television crew to make them catch their own rabbit or dig up worms for a quick snack.

In the event, the flaccid cheese and tomato sandwiches were a huge relief and Tilly devoured all of hers before Campbell, who had been in discussion with the producer, came over.

‘What happens now?’ she asked, her heart sinking at the sight of the map under his arm.

‘We were first across, so we’re definitely through to the next round.’

‘Fabulous.’ Tilly sighed.

Why couldn’t she have been paired with a loser? He would have been much more her style, after all, and she could have been waiting for the bus home right now, which would have suited her fine.

Then she remembered the hospice, and what it had meant to her mother, to all of them, and immediately felt guilty. She shouldn’t be wishing they could lose just so she could go home and get warm and comfortable.

‘What do we have to do now?’ she asked Campbell to make up for it.

‘We have to get ourselves to the top of Ben Nuarrh.’

‘Where’s that?’ Already Tilly knew that she wasn’t going to like the answer.

It was even worse than she had feared. Campbell squinted into the distance and pointed at a jagged hill just visible in the purplish grey haze on the horizon. ‘That’s Ben Nuarrh.’

‘But that’s miles!’ she said, aghast.

‘It’s a fair trek,’ he agreed.

‘We’ll never do that this afternoon!’

‘No, we’ll have to camp. They’ve given us a tent and supplies.’

‘A tent?’ This was getting worse and worse. ‘Nobody said anything to me about camping!’

‘You must have been told you’d be away all weekend, weren’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but I thought we’d be staying in some lovely hotel. A baronial hall or something, with antlers in the library and a fire and deep baths and clean sheets…’ Tilly trailed off. ‘I should have known.’ She sighed. ‘My fantasies never turn into reality.’

Campbell lifted an eyebrow. ‘What, never?’

Well, there had been Olivier. He had been a dream come true, at least at first, Tilly remembered, but the rest of her fantasy hadn’t come to anything, had it? It had been so lovely, too. Olivier would look at her one day and the scales would fall from his eyes. You’re beautiful, Tilly, he would say. Marry me and share my life for ever.

No, that fantasy hadn’t lasted, she thought a little sadly. Not that there was any need to tell Campbell Sanderson that. A girl had to have some pride.

She lifted her chin. ‘Hardly ever,’ she said.

‘Maybe you need to have more realistic fantasies,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

‘Like a tent that doesn’t leak, or a dry sleeping bag…or a bar of chocolate to have halfway there.’

Tilly was unimpressed. ‘The chocolate sounds OK,’ she conceded, ‘but otherwise that’s not really the stuff my fantasies are made of.’

‘What about the fantasy of winning this challenge?’

‘That’s your fantasy, not mine,’ Tilly objected, but she got to her feet, brushing the crumbs from her lap. ‘Still, may as well try and make your fantasy come true at least.’

‘That’s not an offer a man gets every day.’

His mouth was doing that infuriating, tantalizing half-smile again. Tilly averted her gaze firmly and tried not to think about what other fantasies he might have that would be a lot more fun to help him with than traipsing up and down bloody mountains.

However, winning seemed to be all Campbell was interested in right then. ‘We’ve got a good forty-five minutes on the others,’ he told her with satisfaction as they went to collect the extra equipment. ‘We’ll be well ahead by the end of the day.’

He put the tent and most of the food in his own rucksack, deftly packing everything away.

‘I’ll take the chocolate,’ Tilly offered generously, but Campbell only sent her an ironic glance.

‘I think I’d better keep it,’ he said. ‘I may need it to get you up that mountain.’

‘It’ll take more than chocolate.’ She sighed, thinking of the long afternoon ahead of her.

‘It’s a challenge,’ he reminded her, handing her the lighter rucksack.

‘I’ve been challenged enough today,’ she grumbled, but she put the pack on. ‘I’ve abseiled—twice!—and forded a river, and walked for miles… It’s only lunchtime and I’m exhausted! I don’t need any more challenges.’

Campbell tsk-tsked. ‘That’s not the right attitude, Jenkins. You’re supposed to be thinking positive.’

‘Don’t call me Jenkins,’ said Tilly crossly as she jerked the straps into place. ‘It makes me feel as if I should be doing press ups and shouting sir!’

Ignoring her, Campbell turned to the producer, Suzy, who had come over to give them their final instructions before they set off.

‘You know where you’re going, and where the final checkpoint is?’ she asked.

‘All under control,’ Campbell told her.

‘Have you got everything you need?’

‘A lift home would be nice,’ muttered Tilly before Campbell frowned her down.

‘We’re fine.’

‘Roger and Leanne were second across, so they’ll be racing you to the top and back,’ said Suzy. ‘Roger’s got GPS,’ she added. ‘That’ll give them an advantage, but we’ve got it here, and I can give it to you, too, if you like.’

‘What’s GPS?’ asked Tilly.

‘It’s a satellite navigation gizmo,’ said Campbell dismissively. ‘Some people can’t get from A to B without them.’

‘Is that what Roger had on his watch?’

Tilly remembered Roger showing Leanne his watch and explaining loudly how it would not only tell him where he was but could measure altitude, barometric pressure, temperature and even his heart rate.

It wasn’t just his watch that was top of the range either. Roger’s jacket was apparently a wonder of technology, his boots were cutting edge and his thermal underwear had been tested under polar conditions. He had the gear for every eventuality.

Next to Roger, Campbell had cut an unimpressive figure. He had no fancy watch, no smart jacket, not even a plastic cover to stop his map getting wet. His trousers were tucked into thick socks and old leather boots, and he wore a thick blue Guernsey—oh, and a contemptuous expression, although Tilly couldn’t see why he was sneering at Roger. Roger was younger than Campbell and much better looking.

He smiled a lot, too, unlike some people who couldn’t manage much more than a twitch at the corner of their mouths, she remembered with a darkling glance at Campbell.

If GPS told you where you were, it sounded a very good thing to Tilly. ‘I think we should take one, just in case,’ she said, but was overruled by Campbell.

‘We’ve got a map,’ he said with finality. ‘That’s all we need.’

‘I’m surprised you’re even deigning to take a map,’ Tilly grumbled. ‘I’d got you down as one of those men who refuses to even look at a map. I bet you think you can get wherever you’re going by some kind of primeval instinct, as if you’ve got some universal A to Z encoded in your genes. I’m right, aren’t I? How many times have you driven round and round for hours rather than give in to the woman sitting beside you who’s bleating, “Why don’t we stop and ask for directions?”’

Campbell opened his mouth to make a cutting reply, but Suzy got in first. ‘That’s great!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘There’s real chemistry between you two. The viewers will love it!’

‘What viewers?’ said Tilly blankly.

‘This is a television programme,’ Suzy reminded her. ‘That’s why we’ve been filming you.’

‘What, just now?’ Tilly cast a hunted look around. Sure enough, one of the cameramen was filming them from a few feet away. ‘I thought it would be just when we were doing stuff,’ she whispered, hurriedly turning her back on him.

‘The interaction between you is just as interesting as how you get down a cliff or across a river,’ Suzy explained patiently. ‘The winners won’t necessarily be the ones who get to the end first. They’ll be the ones the viewers vote for, the ones they like and feel they can identify with. That reminds me,’ she said and dug in her bag. ‘You’ll need this.’

She produced a smart little video camera and handed it to Campbell.

‘What’s this for?’

‘You’ll have to film yourselves at the top of Ben Nuarrh, and then of course you’ll have to keep a video diary.’

‘What?’ Campbell’s brows snapped together and Tilly stared, united for once in their consternation.

‘The viewers aren’t just interested in whether you can rise to these challenges or not,’ said Suzy. ‘They want to know your reactions, too. Video diaries are a great way to get insight into what people really feel, and of course they’re very visual, too. People tend to treat them like a confessional. There’s nobody asking questions. It’s just you talking to the camera on your own, and it’s much harder to pretend somehow when you’re alone. People say things they wouldn’t dream of admitting in front of anyone else.’

Campbell was appalled at the very idea. He had got through life perfectly well without ever talking about his feelings and he had no intention of starting now. They could whistle if they wanted anything interesting out of him!

‘We don’t both have to do them, surely?’

‘Of course you do.’ Suzy was firm. ‘We’re interested in how you react to each other. For this part of the challenge, you’re the one who knows what he’s doing, but for the next part, it’ll be Tilly who’s in charge.’

‘What next part?’ asked Campbell with foreboding.

‘When Tilly teaches you how to make and decorate a wedding cake.’ Suzy’s smile faltered as she saw his expression. ‘Didn’t Keith tell you?’

‘No.’ His voice was grim. ‘He omitted that part.’

No doubt because Keith had known exactly how Campbell would react! He’d thought it would just be a question of getting Tilly to the last checkpoint before anyone else. Physical challenges, he could deal with. A race was no problem, but making a cake? What a ridiculous waste of time!

‘I’m not sure I can do that,’ he said.

‘Oh, come now,’ said Tilly, who had been watching his expression and reading it without any difficulty. ‘That’s not the right attitude, Sanderson,’ she quoted his words back at him wickedly. ‘You’re supposed to be thinking positive.’

The look he shot her promised vengeance but, with the camera still trained on them, he had to refrain from the murder that was clearly on his mind.

Tilly didn’t care. This was the first time she had enjoyed herself all day. Let Campbell Sanderson see what it was like to be made to do something completely alien! Suddenly she could see the point of the programme. She would be able to get her own back when he was in her kitchen. All she had to do was survive Ben Nuarrh.

‘I’m thinking about timing.’ Campbell frowned at her before turning to Suzy to explain. ‘I’m leaving Manning very soon and moving to a new job in the States. Obviously, I’ve got a lot to do before then.’

Suzy was dismayed. ‘If you can’t do the second part of the challenge, we’ll have to cut you,’ she said. ‘That would be such a shame! We’ve got some great footage of you two already. Roger and Leanne are doing well, too. If you drop out, it’ll probably mean a walkover for them, and then the competition would lose any tension. You know, it could be worse than a wedding cake,’ she added in a wheedling voice. ‘Roger’s got to learn to do a pedicure.’

‘Plus, they’ll all think we dropped out because we were losing,’ said Tilly, knowing Campbell would hate the very thought. It wasn’t that she cared about winning, but she wanted her revenge for today’s humiliations.

Campbell sucked in an irritable breath. He had a fairly clear idea of why Tilly was so keen for them to continue. She might look sweet with that rosy, heart-shaped face but there was an intriguing tartness to her, too. She would no doubt be hoping that it would be his turn to make a fool of himself next.

Let her hope. Campbell had no intention of indulging her. If he pulled out now, there would be no question of winning and, having got this far, he was loath to give up. How hard could it be to make a cake, after all? It wouldn’t take long, and if he needed to make more time, he would just delegate a few things to Keith. Serve him right for getting him into this mess in the first place.

‘But if we’re carrying on with the competition, we’re going to win,’ he warned Tilly as they said goodbye to Suzy and set off towards Ben Nuarrh. ‘That means no more dawdling!’

He set a punishing pace and Tilly was soon struggling. ‘Can’t we stop for five minutes so I can get my breath back?’ she pleaded at last.

‘You can have a rest when we get to the top.’

When she finally clambered up to where Campbell was waiting, Tilly was wheezing and bright red in the face.

‘God, this is killing me!’ She collapsed on to a rock while she struggled for breath. ‘If this is just a hill, I’m never going to get to the top of that mountain.’

‘You’re very unfit,’ he said disapprovingly.

Tilly scowled. ‘Why not come right out and say I’m fat?’

‘I would if that’s what I thought,’ he retorted. ‘You’re screwed up about your weight, clearly, but you don’t look fat to me. You do seem unfit. Don’t you take any exercise?’

‘Not if I can help it,’ said Tilly, only slightly mollified. didn’t bother

‘Makingcakes?’ Campbell didn’t bother to hide his disbelief.

‘Yes, making cakes,’ she said evenly. She was used to men pooh-poohing what she did for a living. ‘It’s my business.’

Campbell unscrewed a water bottle and passed it over to her. ‘Doesn’t that get boring?’

She shook her head as she drank gratefully. ‘I love it. And every cake I make is different. It’s not just piping endless icing roses for traditional wedding cakes. Every one I make is unique. I spend a lot of time talking to my clients so that I can come up with an individual design for their special occasion.’

‘Like what?’

‘It was some guy’s fortieth birthday the other day, and he’d always dreamt of having a Porsche. His wife couldn’t afford one of those, obviously, but she got me to make a cake in the shape of a Porsche 911, down to the last detail. Or I quite often make shoes or bags for girls’ twenty-first birthdays—they’re always fun.’

Campbell’s eyes rested on her face. She was recovering from her breathlessness and her colour was fading, but she still glowed pinkly. Her eyes were a dark and rather beautiful blue, he found himself noticing, and the lush mouth curved in remembered enthusiasm.

He wished he hadn’t noticed quite how warm and soft and inviting it looked.

He looked away.

‘I’ve never thought of cakes as fun before,’ he said.

‘I’ve never thought of climbing hills as fun either,’ said Tilly frankly. She blew out a breath and pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I suppose they put us together because we’re so incompatible.’

‘That was the general idea,’ said Campbell.

‘I wonder if Roger and Leanne found anything in common?’

Campbell snorted. ‘Roger could always use his GPS. He says he can find anything with that.’

They glanced at each other, then suddenly both began to laugh, although Tilly was so startled by the effect a smile had on Campbell’s expression that she almost stopped. Who would have thought a laugh could make such a difference? A mere crease of the cheeks, a simple curve of the mouth, a brief glimpse of strong white teeth? That was all it was, really.

The cool green eyes were lit with amusement as they met hers, and Tilly felt her heart give an odd little skip that left her almost breathless. It was as if a switch had been flipped, brightening the light so that she could see him in extraordinary detail—the pores of his skin, the dark ring around his pale irises, every hair in the thick brows—and she was abruptly aware of him as a powerful male animal, all muscle and leashed strength.

The image made Tilly blink and sent heat flooding through her, reaching places that hadn’t tingled in quite that way for a very long time. Jerking her gaze away from his, she took a long glug from the water bottle, aware that her cheeks were burning.

Well, she would be hot, wouldn’t she? She had just climbed a huge hill.