His confusion touched her. ‘Don’t apologise. I’m battered and broken and feeling pretty average. It made me smile.’
‘I’m glad I could make you smile, then.’
‘Do they train you for that?’ she asked pertly.
‘For what?’
‘Keeping up people’s spirits with a sexy smile.’
The hint of colour high in his jaw brought her back to her senses. The man was just trying to keep her alive. He would say just about anything. Flirting included. It probably was in his training manual. Which meant it had to end. One of them had to put things back on a more real footing.
She took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, Sam. I think that was the ant juice talking. I apologise.’
He brushed it off with a shake of his head. ‘It’s not generally known for its truth serum properties.’
A blush stole up her cheeks, but this time he was staring straight at her. There was no hiding it. ‘A crazy side-effect?’
‘It’s probably written on the bottle somewhere. “May cause outbursts of inappropriate confession.”’
A gentleman, too. Handing her as dignified an exit as she was going to get. ‘Thank you. For keeping me sane.’ For keeping things light.
‘That’s how this works. You’re the victim. Whatever you need …’
Victim. The word put an early end to the golden glow of promise that had filled her from the inside out at his gentle teasing. Wasn’t that exactly what Danielle had accused her of being? By letting her father and Wayne run her life and others control her career? That hadn’t been a fun conversation. But it had been necessary. It had triggered the rapid departure of Wayne from her life and this journey of self-discovery. ‘Is that what I am?’
He stared at her—hard. ‘No. You’re brave and open and the least victim-like victim I’ve ever met.’
‘It’s because you’re with me. I’d be a basket case without you here.’
Two tiny lines appeared between his brows. ‘Sometimes we only find out what we’re capable of when we’re tested.’
‘Well, I think I’ve failed this test. Maybe I’ll do better next time.’
‘No.’ Immediate and fervent. ‘No next times. You don’t get this kind of luck twice.’
‘Luck?’ Was he crazy?
His face grew serious. He glanced at his watch. ‘You’ll see in a couple of hours. But I’ll be right here with you.’
A couple of hours felt like for ever. ‘Will the … what do you call it … getting me out …?’
‘Extraction.’
‘Will the extraction start as soon as the sun comes up?’
‘As soon as the sun crests the mountaintops, and assuming there’s no fog, yes.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘Hard to know. We have to stabilise your leg properly and make sure your shoulder is back in its socket before we shift you.’
She swallowed. Both those things sounded very unpleasant.
‘And then we’ll be pulling you out the back of the car.’
Her face must have paled, because he leaned forward and took her hand. ‘I’ll be with you every step of the way, Aimee. We’ll be tethered to each other at all times.’
‘The whole way?’
‘Until the top. Until the ambulance.’
She frowned at the finality of that statement. ‘Then what?’
He frowned. ‘Then that’s it. You go to hospital, then home where you belong.’
What if she didn’t belong anywhere? And why did she suddenly have the urge never to leave this shattered vehicle and the foil blanket and Sam’s gentle touch. ‘That’s it? I won’t see you again?’
He stared at her long and hard. ‘I’ll see how I go. Maybe I’ll drop your luggage back to you when the car’s towed up. You’ll have plenty to keep you busy before then.’
It was utterly insane how anxious she felt at the thought of that. A man she’d known less than a day. ‘I’d like to speak to you again. Under less extraordinary circumstances.’ When I’m showered and groomed and looking pretty. ‘To thank you.’
He nodded even more cautiously. ‘I’ll see how we go.’
That sounded very much like Wayne’s kind of I’ll see. Her father’s kind.
Translation: no.
‘HOW many siblings do you have in total?’ Aimee asked after a while, when her inexplicable and irrational umbrage at his apparent brush off had subsided sufficiently. It wouldn’t hurt her to remember that this was business to Sam, no matter how chatty they got waiting for the sun to rise. Maybe rapport development was a whole semester unit over at Search and Rescue School. And maybe the two of them just had more rapport than most.
But it didn’t mean he’d want to take his work home with him—even metaphorically.
It just meant he was good at his job.
‘Seven,’ he murmured, leaning forward and blowing hot air into the cupped circle of her hand, still inside his. He pressed his lips against her fingertips for a tantalising, accidental moment. They were as soft and full as they looked. But warmer. And the sensation branded itself inside her sad, deluded mind.
Wayne had kissed her fingers many a time—and lots of other places besides—but while his lips had felt pleasant, even lovely at the beginning, they’d never snared her focus and dragged it by the throat the way the slightest touch from Sam did. She’d even started to wonder whether she was physically capable of a teeth-gnashing level of arousal, or whether ‘lovely’ was going to be her life-long personal best.
Please don’t let this be the drugs talking. Please. She wanted to think she was capable of a gut-curling attraction at least once in her life.
‘I’d definitely want more than one child,’ she said, then snapped herself to more attention when she heard her own dreamy tone. ‘Speaking as an only child, I mean. I’d want more.’
‘Your parents never did?’
‘Mum did, I think.’ But Lisbet Leigh hadn’t been the pants-wearer in their family. ‘Dad was content with just me.’
‘Why “just” you? I’m sure they are very proud of their only daughter.’
She let her head loll sideways on its neck brace. His way. ‘You really are an idealist, aren’t you?’
Was his total lack of offence at her ant-induced candour symbolic of his easygoing nature or of something more? Was Sam as engaged in her company as she was in his? Or was she just chasing rainbows? Maybe even painting them?
‘I’m sure my father will be eternally disappointed that his one-and-only progeny wasn’t really up to par,’ she continued.
‘Define par.’
She shrugged, and snuggled in tighter into her foil blanket. ‘You know … Grades. Sports. Achievements.’
‘You work for the country’s leading science and culture body. That’s quite an achievement.’
‘Right. And I had good grades.