There was sweat on his forehead too, although he wasn’t flushed with exertion like her. The cold air seemed to have bleached the outdoor tan from his cheeks. He wiped his face with a gloved hand, staring out at the surrounding countryside—bleak and brown near the mountain, mistily green further away.
Katrien subsided on the snow. ‘And you do this for fun?’
He glanced down at her and laughed shortly. ‘You’re not enjoying it?’
She gazed about them and admitted, ‘The view is pretty spectacular.’
‘Worth it?’
But she wasn’t ready to concede that. ‘How far are we going?’ She squinted at the forbidding wall of rock—in some places too steep to hold the snow—that loomed above them.
He didn’t answer immediately, but stood up and she turned to look at him, shading her eyes because the sun lay behind him, making his features dark and indistinguishable. Her heart thumped once with a quick, irrational, complicated emotion, a stirring of familiarity.
‘How far,’ he asked her, ‘do you want to go?’
‘Not all the way,’ she answered. Then quickly added, ‘We couldn’t make it to the summit in the time we’ve got, could we?’
‘No,’ he agreed, after a tiny pause. ‘Not if you don’t feel ready for it.’
When she began to get cold she pushed herself to her feet. ‘All right, MacDuff,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s move on.’
‘You’re game?’ He glanced at the unwelcoming terrain above them.
‘If you are,’ she agreed lightly.
He gave her an oddly searching look, then a faint smile. ‘Remember what I told you. Let me know if you’re in trouble.’
It was all right at first, hard work but not difficult. Perhaps she became too cocky, but as she went ahead of him across a virgin slope the snow suddenly seemed to disappear under her boots and she shrieked Zachary’s name, desperately trying to remember and follow his earlier instructions.
She slid over a hidden overhang and found herself dangling in space, witless with terror. But Zachary had stopped the fall, and when her vision cleared she could see him leaning backwards further up the slope, his boots firmly dug into the snow.
She followed his calm, succinct directions, and with his help was able to crawl back onto the snow-covered slope. He held the rope firm, reefing it in as she panted towards him.
She collapsed into his arms, her breath coming in shuddering gasps. ‘An easy beginners’ climb, you said!’
‘You’re okay.’ His breath feathered her ear as his arms tightened round her. ‘It’s all right, I won’t let you go.’
She shivered, echoes of dreams reverberating in her mind, shards of memory kaleidoscoping and, rearranging themselves into a well-known pattern.
‘You…saved my life,’ she said, her voice sounding odd in her own ears.
His arms loosened and he gripped her shoulders. ‘Nothing so dramatic. But,’ he added, frowning, ‘I should have known better than to drag you up here with me.’
‘Drag me…?’ She hadn’t needed any coercion; she could scarcely claim he’d forced her. Then, looking down at the nylon line that still joined them, she made a little grimace. ‘Well, you could say that, I suppose…’
She raised her eyes to his, willing him to laugh, and after a moment he did, in a slightly strained way, releasing his hold on her. ‘You’re a brave woman.’
Brave? Katrien shook her head. ‘Hardly.’ But now wasn’t the time to detail her fears and phobias. And Zachary Ballantine, mountaineer, wasn’t a person who would understand them. ‘Did you ever,’ she asked him carefully, her heart thudding, ‘save someone’s life?’
His eyes went dark, his mouth straight. ‘I didn’t save Ben’s.’
She felt again the wave of pain that had emanated from him the night of the charity dinner when he’d spoken of his friend. Stretching out her gloved hand, she grasped one of his. None of the usual platitudes would suffice, she knew. He’d probably heard them all dozens of times.
He didn’t look up, but his hand closed hard about hers through the layers of insulating fabric. He lifted their clasped hands and brought them down once, on his knee.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then by tacit consent got up and continued the traverse. At the next vantage point Zachary said, ‘Time to start going down.’
Katrien was surprised at her sense of disappointment, but there had never been any question that they would attempt to make the summit. She followed him obediently, and heeded his warning not to relax just because they were no longer climbing. ‘More lives are lost on the descent,’ he said, ‘when people get careless.’
A light snowfall had started before they signed in again at the foot of the mountain. When they emerged from the building dusk was falling and the snowflakes drifting across the car park had thickened, driving against the building.
They paused in the porch and Zachary said, ‘I’ll drop you off at the hotel.’
Katrien shivered, hugging herself. ‘That would be very welcome, thank you.’ She didn’t feel like waiting about for public transport.
‘Wait here.’ He strode off into the flurrying snow.
A few minutes later a four-wheel-drive vehicle drew up before the porch, and Zachary dropped to the ground and opened the other door for her. ‘Hop in.’
He had turned on the heater, and blessedly warm air curled about her feet when he restarted the motor. All the way to the hotel she formulated and discarded things to say. Zachary drove with his eyes on the road ahead, obscured by the whirling snow that platted continuously against the windscreen. The wind was increasing by the minute. She thought he’d been wise to get them down from the mountain not only before dark but before the snowstorm had begun. Surely it hadn’t been forecast.
He drew up close to the hotel’s main doorway.
‘Thank you,’ she said. How inadequate and thin it sounded. ‘And thank you for taking me on the mountain.’
‘I wanted you with me.’ With a curious air of hesitation, he looked away for a moment. ‘Have dinner with me.’
She glanced at the lighted doorway of the hotel. ‘Where?’
Zachary considered the question. ‘Would you come back to the lodge?’
‘Who else is there?’
He paused again before answering. ‘My friends are overseas. There’s just me.’ He was half turned to face her, his forearm resting on the steering wheel while he waited for Katrien’s decision.
‘With this snow,’ she said slowly, ‘we might be stranded there.’
‘Yes,’ Zachary agreed gravely. ‘We might.’ Another pause. ‘Would you object?’
She had difficulty getting the words to leave her lips. ‘Callum might.’ Reminding both of them.
Zachary nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’
She couldn’t do that to Callum. Or to herself. The strange pull this man exerted on her senses, her subconscious, didn’t justify her cheating on her fiancé, betraying her own principles and jeopardising her entire future. ‘I can’t.’
He nodded again, as though her answer was the one he’d expected. ‘I guess not.’ He shifted in his seat, his chest lifting