Loving Our Heroes. Jessica Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ by an intriguing tartness and a stubbornness that had kept her climbing all day. No wonder she was tired!

      Without quite realising what he was doing, Campbell reached out to smooth the tumbled hair from Tilly’s cheek. The silkiness of her curls and the smoothness of her skin were like a physical shock, and he withdrew his hand sharply.

      Better have that stew, he told himself.

      He took the video camera with him as he backed out of the tent. God only knew what Tilly had been saying to the camera before she had fallen asleep. Knowing her, it might have been anything! He had better make sure there was something sensible on there.

      Campbell finished the stew, cleaned out the pot and his plate, and turned his attention to the camera. Clicking it on, he cleared his throat.

       ‘This is Campbell Sanderson. We’re camped on the shoulder of Ben Nuarrh, so if we leave at zero six hundred tomorrow morning we should be in a position to make it to the summit in good time. It’s been a successful day, after a slow start. I didn’t feel that Tilly was taking things very seriously to start with, but she’s done well this afternoon. Very well, in fact.’

      There, that ought to do it. Campbell decided that he had been concise, accurate and generous. He hadn’t said anything about how long it had taken to coax her down the abseil, or about the stupid fuss she had made about jumping over a few stones to cross the river. He had carefully refrained from commenting on her lipstick or on how unfit she was. He had said nothing about her bizarre flights of imagination.

      And nothing about her smile, nothing about the teasing humour in her dark blue eyes, or her infectious laugh.

      Nothing about her enticing softness as she’d pressed up against him on one of those boulders.

      No, he wouldn’t be saying any of that. Campbell switched off the camera with a sharp click.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘OLIVIER?’ Tilly struggled out of a deep sleep to find herself pressed up against a solid male body.

      It was pitch dark. Disorientated, she tried to prop herself up on one elbow and her stiff muscles screamed in protest, jerking her properly awake with a gasp.

      Campbell was instantly alert. ‘What’s the matter?’

      That wasn’t Olivier’s voice. Tilly blinked at the darkness for a moment until her brain kicked in and she remembered where she was, and just who she was cuddled up against.

      Campbell Sanderson.

      ‘Ouch!’ Her sore muscles pinched again as she moved hastily away from him. Between her stiffness and the sleeping bag, it was hard to move at all.

      ‘It’s you,’ she said, dismayed.

      ‘I’m afraid so.’

      Tilly was attempting to disentangle herself from her sleeping bag. The wind was howling and shrieking around the tent and she could hear an ominous drumming on the canvas. Rain. Just what you wanted when you were camping.

      ‘What time is it?’ she asked blearily.

      ‘Two-fifteen.’

      ‘How on earth do you know that?’ She had seen no tell-tale luminous watch face and there was no way he could have seen the time without a light.

      ‘I just do.’

      Her silence was obviously eloquent with disbelief, for he sighed and switched on a pencil torch, pointing it at his watch. ‘Satisfied?’

      Tilly peered at the watch face. ‘Two-sixteen,’ she read.

      ‘It was two fifteen when you asked me.’

      His calm certainty riled her. ‘I bet you were checking your watch under the sleeping bag just before I woke up.’

      ‘Of course. I’ve spent all night awake in the hope that you would wake up and ask the time so that I could trick you.’

      Her lips tightened at his tone. ‘Well, how did you do it, then?’

      He shrugged. ‘I’ve got a clock in my head. It’s years of training. There are times when you need to know the time but can’t afford to switch on a light.’

      Tilly tried to imagine what it would be like to be in a situation where you couldn’t risk putting on a light. She would never be able to cope. She was a terrible coward.

      ‘Presumably nobody is going to ambush us up here, so can I have the torch again?’ she asked as she wriggled awkwardly out of her sleeping bag at last.

      ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘I thought I’d pop out and get a DVD.’

       ‘What?’

      She sighed. ‘Where do you think I’m going?’

      ‘Oh.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘Can’t you hang on until morning?’

      ‘No, I can’t. My bladder hasn’t had years of training. I’ll never be able to get back to sleep until I’ve been.’ She groped around for her boots. ‘Can you point the torch while I put these on?’

      With a long-suffering sigh, Campbell directed the beam of light. ‘You’ll need a jacket, too. It’s raining.’

      ‘What did I do with it?’ wondered Tilly, patting the end of her sleeping bag. It was hard to see anything with just a fine pencil beam of light. ‘I was so tired I can’t remember taking it off.’

      ‘You didn’t. I undressed you last night.’

      It was Tilly’s turn to do a double take. ‘You did what?’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ said Campbell dryly. ‘I didn’t even enjoy it. You were dead to the world and I’m not into necrophilia. I stopped at your dungarees. I thought they might be a bit tricky to take off without some cooperation from you.’

      Tilly flushed in the darkness, imagining him grunting with effort as he manhandled her out of her clothes. No wonder he had stopped! The poor man had probably been exhausted.

      That was the story of her life, she thought glumly. An attractive man undressed her and she wasn’t even awake to appreciate it.

      She didn’t bother to lace her boots. It sounded like a wild night out there and she wasn’t planning on being very long.

      Yelping at her sore muscles, she took the torch and struggled out of the tent only to find herself staggering against a gust of wind that slashed rain across her face. Straightening as best she could, she saw that it was very dark, and she began to wish that she had hung on after all. There might not be enemy soldiers lurking behind the outcrops, but it took her imagination no time at all to sketch out the beginning of a horror story. The sooner she got back into the tent, the better.

      Tilly did her business as quickly as she could, which wasn’t very fast, given that her fingers were numb with cold. The skiing dungarees might be warm, but she had forgotten СКАЧАТЬ