Highland Fling (37 page)

All went well until she put her foot into a snowdrift disguised as a section of path. Her foot went down and down, and, unable to stop the rest of her body from following, she tumbled, head first, into about three feet of snow, descending several yards as she did so.

Winded, she allowed herself to stay still for a few moments before struggling upright. She had just got her body and legs into a sitting position when she screamed.

A figure, dark and menacing, had suddenly appeared before her.

‘Don’t panic. It’s only me.’

Jenny closed her eyes and did her panicking silently. It was Ross. He seemed quite real, but had she just conjured him up, out of the snow, because he’d been so much part of her thoughts? Was she suffering from mountain sickness, or some special delirium that made you hear voices and see figures when none really existed? The trouble was, the Ross in her thoughts and dreams was different from the flesh and blood one, who she was still fighting with.

He was still there when she opened her eyes. She felt incredibly foolish; not only was she sitting in a snowdrift halfway up a mountain, hardly a dignified position, but the last time she had seen him she’d behaved like a madwoman. Perhaps she should try to pretend there had been nothing untoward between them.

‘Happy Christmas,’ she said. It was the first time she had spoken that day, and it came out very croakily.

‘Happy Christmas yourself. What are you doing here?’

It was no good. She couldn’t pretend he was just someone she vaguely knew. She had loved him and hated him with such fervency, she couldn’t behave normally. She couldn’t help snapping, ‘If it isn’t obvious, I’m not going to explain! I just came for a Christmas walk. What’s your excuse?’

‘Came after you. I saw you from the road.’

‘How could you possibly have known it was me?’ The thought that he had made her feel suddenly paranoid.

‘I didn’t know for sure, but I didn’t think anyone else would be so foolish as to come up this high in these conditions.’

‘I have not been foolish! All I’ve done is go for a walk! It is allowed, isn’t it?’

‘Not without a woolly hat, it’s not.’

‘I hate woolly hats. They prickle my head.’

‘You still shouldn’t go climbing mountains without one. Here.’ He pulled off his own hat, and she put it on. It was warm, and because it was fleece, didn’t prickle at all.

‘Now you’re climbing mountains without a hat.’

He shook his head and put a hand into the pocket of his coat. ‘I have a spare.’

The snow was beginning to penetrate Jenny’s clothes. She wanted to get upright, preferably without assistance, but wasn’t sure she’d make it. Sensing her predicament, he put out an imperious hand, and she took it.

‘Thank you,’ she said briskly, grudgingly, brushing herself down. ‘Now I’ll go home.’

‘No you won’t.’

‘Yes I will. They’ll be expecting me. I said I’d be back by now.’ He might almost be a member of a mountain rescue team, but she was not going to be told by him what to do.

‘Look at the weather.’

Jenny looked. What had been a bright, clear day had turned suddenly grey. Snow-filled clouds blocked out the sun and the wind had begun to freshen. ‘Well, it’s not as nice as it was earlier, but it won’t take me long to get back, I’ll probably slide half the way.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid going back isn’t an option now.’

‘What do you mean? It’s not as if staying here’s an option!’

He was maddeningly patient. ‘We won’t be able to get back safely now. We’ll have to move on.’

‘But why would moving on be safer than going back? It doesn’t make sense!’

‘Yes it does. I know a safe route upwards, to somewhere where we can get some shelter. If we went down, we’d risk falling into a hidden gully. You were extremely lucky to get this far safely.’ His brows drew together.

But Jenny wasn’t going to give him an opportunity
to lecture her. ‘Not lucky, well-organised. I knew where I was going, and I’ve got the right clothes on. And I left a note.’

‘I know. I rang Dalmain House.’

‘Oh?’

‘I spoke to Henry. I must say, he didn’t seem very concerned considering you and he are practically engaged.’

‘Not any more.’

‘Even so. People die on the mountains every year.’

‘I can do without the propaganda, thank you. Anyway, I thought that when you saw me from the road, you didn’t know it was me?’

‘I said, no one local would be so foolish.’

‘I suppose you expect me to be grateful for you coming up here to rescue me.’ Because she felt guilty, gratitude was beyond her.

‘Not at all, and please don’t be. Such a dramatic change in character would be very unsettling.’

She took a shuddering breath. ‘You are such a bastard.’

‘I know. If you haven’t actually told me in so many words, you’ve made it quite clear how you feel.’

Jenny regarded him. When she hadn’t been hating him, she’d been yearning for this man for weeks. Now he was here, in front of her. She did something very foolish. She picked up a handful of snow, formed it into a ball, and lobbed it. At such close quarters, she couldn’t miss.

When she realised it had landed on the few inches of his skin unprotected by clothes, she ran away, or rather tried to. Not even in nightmares is running so slow as it was then. She saw him take time to take off his pack
and put it somewhere safe before he came after her. He still caught up with her in seconds, and she fell, with him on top of her. Together they rolled down the mountain, over and over, until eventually they stopped, buried in snow.

Jenny was panting. Nothing hurt, so she knew she wasn’t injured, but she was totally winded, and she was being squashed by the weight of an apparently very angry Ross.

‘Now listen!’ he said, his breath hot on her face. ‘This is not the local park where you can throw snowballs all morning and then go home at lunchtime! This is serious stuff! I’ve already told you that people die on mountains, and the reason they die, mostly, is because they’ve been silly. Now either you behave yourself or –’ He paused.

Lying underneath him she could see where his breathing had formed condensation on the collar of his coat. She could see the pores of his skin, which was flushed by cold and exertion. She saw flecks of gold in his eyes, which were a sort of olive green colour, where his eyelashes were slightly paler at the ends. She could see where his beard was just beginning to make an appearance.

His body was crushing hers and she should have felt suffocated. Her instinct should have been to push him off, to get out from under the weight that was pressing her into the snow. She glanced at his mouth and then looked away, but she didn’t move. ‘Or what?’ It was hardly even a breath.

He caught his bottom lip between his teeth as his gaze flicked over her face and away. ‘Oh Christ, I really didn’t mean this to happen now.’

He felt cold at first, and then hot as he kissed her with intense concentration, paying attention to every corner of her mouth with his tongue, his teeth, with everything.

She lay beneath him with her eyes closed, almost swooning with desire. When he lifted his head she decided if dying was the penalty for kissing in the snow, it would still have been worth it. Nothing Henry had ever done to her had made her feel like that, she realised, not even in the early days. Ross had not done it, she knew, because he particularly wanted to, but to shut her up. It was, literally, a punishing kiss, so why was it so sensational? It wasn’t even the first time they’d kissed.

He got to his feet, angry, almost. ‘This is bloody stupid. Now come on.’ He dragged her upright, turned her round and then took hold of her wrist and more or less dragged her after him.

She stumbled and fell. He stopped and turned round. ‘What have you got on your feet?’

‘High-heeled stilettos, what do you expect?’ She felt so hurt by his attitude: kissing her as though there was nothing more on earth he wanted to do, or cared about doing, one minute, biting her head off the next.

He picked up a booted foot and looked at it critically. ‘They’re not evenly laced. Too tight in some places and too loose in others. And are they broken in, or is this the first time you’ve worn them?’

She declined to answer, but sat sullenly while he relaced both boots, but when he pulled them tight, tied them, and hauled her to her feet, she fell over.

‘You’re cutting off my circulation! I won’t be able to walk a step.’

He ignored her, tucked in the loose ends, and then hauled her upright again. Then he pulled the collar of her jacket up, found the hood concealed in it, and put it on, securing it tightly. ‘That’s better. If you’re ever tempted to leave the safety of the Home Counties again, make sure you’re properly equipped.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake! I didn’t set off to climb the Matterhorn! I was only going for a walk!’

‘In Scotland, in winter, particularly when you’re high up and there’s snow on the ground, you are never “only going for a walk”. Now come on!’

He took hold of her hand and pulled her along until they got to his pack. When he had put this back on he set off, expecting her to follow.

She hated him with every step she took. At first the tightness of her boots felt so strange, she wondered how she got her feet to work, but she didn’t dare not do it. The pace he set seemed impossibly fast, but eventually she became used to it, and she had to acknowledge that her ankles now felt very secure. Lashed up like that they can’t bend, poor things, she thought, angrier because he was right.

She was not going to let him see she was struggling, that it took all her breath and energy to keep up. But she did it. The sky was darkening all the time. The wind was getting stronger. The storm Ross had spoken of, which had seemed so unlikely, was on its way.

He stopped after about half an hour. She was panting, but felt warm and exhilarated. And still angry.

‘Here, have something to eat.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.’

‘And I said no! I’m not hungry! I had a bar of chocolate not long ago.’

‘Have a cereal bar now. Too much sugar can let you down later, and it’s better to eat before you get really hungry. Otherwise it’s difficult to regain your energy.’ He sighed as she stood, refusing to take the bar he offered. ‘I could make you eat it.’

He wasn’t exactly menacing, but she was suddenly aware of his physical superiority, or how, if it came to a fight, he could so easily defeat her. She snatched it from him, ripped off the wrapper and crunched into it, as viciously as if it were a part of him she was biting.

‘We’ve got a way to go,’ he said more gently. ‘And it’s important we get there before the storm comes.’

Stuffing the wrapper into her pocket, she looked around her and was aware that she had no idea where she was. The tops of the mountains were hidden by thick cloud, and beneath the cloud were hillocks and valleys, which swooped and merged, giving no clear direction.

Not wishing to give him the impression that she had become any more biddable, she said, ‘I still think we should have tried to get back.’

‘It would have been impossible even from where I met you. And they won’t be worried. I told them not to expect us back until tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow! But where are we going to spend the night?’

‘Don’t sound so horrified. You must have realised we’re committed to sitting out the storm.’

‘But where? Is there a hut, or something?’

‘Or something. Now come on. We mustn’t waste our energy chatting.’

‘Chatting! Huh!’

She stomped off after him, but in spite of her rebellious manner, for the first time, Jenny began to feel frightened. It was some small satisfaction that Ross was probably suffering as much as she was, although in a different way. It must be very irritating to have to drag a woman he obviously thought several sandwiches short of a picnic up a mountain. A thought struck her.

‘I won’t have to do any climbing, will I? I’ve never done any.’ She hadn’t done much walking lately, either.

‘I’ll be able to haul you up where necessary. I’ve got a rope.’

‘Oh. Fine.’ She had a vision of herself trussed up like a Christmas turkey, being bumped up a cliff face.

He stopped and turned round. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll look after you.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about!’

Chapter Twenty-three

The moment after she’d said it, she wished she hadn’t. However she felt about him, he had rescued her, and while she might doubt it was necessary out loud, in her heart, she knew she trusted his judgement, about the mountains, at least.

‘Sorry,’ she added. ‘I’m a bit tetchy. It’s an odd way to spend Christmas Day.’

He nodded, accepting her reluctant apology. ‘Two o’clock – people all over the country are pushing back their chairs after eating their turkey and Brussels sprouts.’

Jenny shook her head. ‘Not at two o’clock. Most people won’t have started yet. Very few people get it all together to start before two or three. Unless, of course, they got up at dawn. The gravy always takes much longer than you think.’

Ross shrugged. ‘Are you ready to move on?’

Jenny nodded. ‘Of course. I didn’t stop, you did.’